How do the game and game world notably change if money and EXP are the same resource?

[Endarire]

As the title says, "How do the game and game world notably change if money and EXP are the same resource?"

This means money doesn't exist in the traditional sense, and 1 EXP = 5 G; or it means that EXP doesn't exist in the traditional sense and characters spend G to level, and 1 EXP = 5G.

Yes, Dark Souls was an inspiration for this.

[Particle_Man]

Less fighting, more thievery. So a little more like Original D&D.

[Bad Wolf]

The second option is horribly broken if you invest in like a salt mine. First one doesn't sound too bad.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you have to burn WBL to gain levels, then only T2s, T1s, and a few T3s will be able to survive into later levels. Everyone else will be so underequipped AND underleveled that death is practically a guarantee.

With that said, guess which tiers can survive without much equipment?

Also, this makes Vow of Poverty complete suicide. Even worse than it already is.

[frogglesmash]

You'd end up with societies of normal low level people ruled over by ultra wealthy demigods.

[Malphegor]

I imagine races known for mining would be the secret powerhouses of the world, with dwarven clans having so much personal power in their members because gold=a route to infinite cosmic powaaah.

I imagine thieving would both be more common and also more taboo.

Dragons being powerful whilst having their hoards suddenly makes a lot more sense than just lol greed.

Maybe you end up in a cold war amongst wizards who are constantly watching over their valuables whilst looking to magically steal others' valuables.

[Particle_Man]

Maybe you end up in a cold war amongst wizards who are constantly watching over their valuables whilst looking to magically steal others' valuables.

That reminds me of the board game Wiz-War.

[Ursus Spelaeus]

As the title says, "How do the game and game world notably change if money and EXP are the same resource?"

This means money doesn't exist in the traditional sense, and 1 EXP = 5 G; or it means that EXP doesn't exist in the traditional sense and characters spend G to level, and 1 EXP = 5G.

Yes, Dark Souls was an inspiration for this.

GP as XP is a feature of oldschool D&D.

It's simple, really. For every 1 GP acquired while adventuring and successfully returned to town, you gain 1 XP. Note that GP acquired in town (by picking pockets, etc.) does not count towards this XP gain.

The additional 'orgy' rules found in an old issue of Dragon magazine let you spend XP on drinking, debauchery, and gambling to gain XP for each GP spent.

[heavyfuel]

If you have to burn WBL to gain levels, then only T2s, T1s, and a few T3s will be able to survive into later levels. Everyone else will be so underequipped AND underleveled that death is practically a guarantee.

This was my first thought as well. A lot of houserules benefit casters while screwing martials, but this houserule just takes martials and knocks them into uselessness.

If your choice of reward for completing a quest is either "a +5 weapon" or "an extra HD with the perks like, skill points, better saves, maybe a feat or ASI, and a freaking new spell level" guess which one is better choice.

Casters, who don't care about gear as much as mundanes, will reach higher levels faster, making them less reliant on gear, making them reach higher levels faster. It's a cycle.

It wouldn't surprise me if you got to the point where Casters were level 17 with access to 9th level spells and everyone else was lagging behind at lv 11 because they absolutely need their gear.

Now, this is not to say the idea isn't good. But you definitely need to work out how to deal with classes that don't rely on gear

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The Ancestral Relic and Landlord feats would get you into epic pretty damned quick.

[Quertus]

As the title says, "How do the game and game world notably change if money and EXP are the same resource?"

This means money doesn't exist in the traditional sense, and 1 EXP = 5 G; or it means that EXP doesn't exist in the traditional sense and characters spend G to level, and 1 EXP = 5G.

Yes, Dark Souls was an inspiration for this.


You'd end up with societies of normal low level people ruled over by ultra wealthy demigods.

This was my first thought.

Taxes are the way that the nobility maintains their epic lead on the populous, and to ensure only "their" people can get ahead.

Personally, I'm liking the idea of separating "wealth" and "items" - of removing magic item shops, and returning to random treasure. Then "wealth" can be spent on strongholds, soldiers, ale & hookers, or leveling. Although the mechanics of "spend money to level" could themselves be a campaign - are you buying exotic potions to consume? Are these "rare ingredients" actually souls bought from fiends, planar essence, divine ichor, ambrosia, or distilled source code of the universe? Does this technique transition to ascension? Do you get lots of literal "god-emperors"?

The idea of removing money, and commoners paying one another with pieces of their souls... is intriguing, but quite the deviation from standard fantasy.

[Jay R]

Back up. We can't analyze whether it will help you reach your goal until we know what your goal is.

What is the purpose for this? What problem are you trying to solve, or what advantage are you trying to get?

There is a basic principle in mathematical optimization that you cannot optimize without an objective function -- a clear definition of what you are trying to optimize. So what is your goal?

This rule change will make the simulation less accurate. It will set up many examples in which the rules get wonky because they were written on different assumptions. We can see the potential issues, but what are the potential advantages?

Don't ever change a rule without knowing exactly what goal the new rule has, and why this particular rule change is expected to help reach that goal.

Without that, we can see disadvantages but won't be able to guess whether they are worth it to achieve your goal.

[Quarian Rex]

You'd end up with societies of normal low level people ruled over by ultra wealthy demigods.

That is usually the default anyway. I've never seen a kingdom ruled by commoners and the default DM move is to make all rulers personally powerful to justify their secular power. It doesn't have to be this way but unless there is a specific plot reason for a weak ruler this just seems to be the default. At least with xp tied to wealth you now have a reason why lazy nobles can be so powerful without actually adventuring.

In that regard it actually plugs a decent sized 'plot hole' in standard D&D.




Back up. We can't analyze whether it will help you reach your goal until we know what your goal is.

What is the purpose for this? What problem are you trying to solve, or what advantage are you trying to get?

There is a basic principle in mathematical optimization that you cannot optimize without an objective function -- a clear definition of what you are trying to optimize. So what is your goal?

I think you may be slightly missing the point of the OP. He isn't trying to come up with mechanics to achieve a specific goal, he found some interesting mechanics in another medium and is wondering what the consequences of something similar would be in D&D.



Don't ever change a rule without knowing exactly what goal the new rule has, and why this particular rule change is expected to help reach that goal.

Without that, we can see disadvantages but won't be able to guess whether they are worth it to achieve your goal.

This would be why OP is brainstorming this here and not implementing the change in an actual game. Determining the consequences of a change to the game and then deciding if it would be a worthy addition is a perfectly fine way to go about it. You don't always have to start with the goal and work backwards.



This rule change will make the simulation less accurate. It will set up many examples in which the rules get wonky because they were written on different assumptions. We can see the potential issues, but what are the potential advantages?

This is one of those situations where the devil truly is in the details. Figuring out how this would actually be implemented in a game would drastically alter the viability of the concept. If you are allowing gold to be used as xp then I think that you are screwed. There are so very many tricks and exploits for wealth generation in the game that allowing that to be applied to xp would be pure chaos. A single person with the capability of easy wealth tricks will be able to instantly level up any ally, henchman, follower, or common street beggar, to give them the ability to perform the same tricks. You are now reaching for excuses as to why every creature on the planet isn't leveled into an arbitrarily epic level. Like I said, being able to level with normal material wealth is unplayable in most games.

Now, xp -> gp is much more interesting. You are essentially dealing with tangible xp, something that I have toyed with a lot. This allows a lot of interesting things to happen. Things like allowing a two tiered economy, one with standard wealth (to purchase castles, fund armies, buy ale, tip wenches, etc.), and one where xp is required, at least partially (things like leveling, magic item creation, spellcasting, etc.). This would require some minor changes to other things, like adjusting xp costs for magic items (or adding them back on to Pathfinder magic item creation), requiring xp to be spent for expensive material components, and adjusting xp required to level. This means that DMs can stop caring about WBL. A dragon having an arbitrarily large horde is no longer a problem, all that gold can't really be used to increase the characters personal power (the thing that actually impacts gameplay), the souls/old blood/etc. taken from the dead dragon is what is used for leveling, magic items, etc.

This would also allow xp to be shared as the players see fit, meaning that traditional permanent penalties (level loss, xp costs for item creation and spells, etc.) can be used (reinforcing meaningful costs for the PCs) without forcing a single player to bear all of the burden in the normally un-fun way. This also nicely balances followers/replacement characters since their added power to the group can be paid directly from the groups pool of potential advancement.

This sort of thing requires a bit of tweaking till it feels right but the potential benefit to a campaign is pretty huge.