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Sparky McDibben
2019-05-22, 03:09 PM
Hey all,

I need some help critiquing this system. So I have a player who recently founded a noble house and negotiated like 4M gp in damages from a bad guy group. She's not going to get even a quarter of that personally, but she's still founding her house. Ergo, I suddenly needed a way to track wealth without a lot of book keeping. The Wealth Die System is my result:

The Wealth Die is an abstraction of the faction’s total wealth at your disposal. Depending on what level the Wealth Die is at, your faction has greater resources. Each level doesn’t equate to a set number of gold pieces. Whenever you need to buy something beyond the means of a typical adventurer, you can use the Wealth Die.

Depending on what you’re trying to buy, you may have to make a test. Roll 1d20 with a DC equal to 10 + the current level of the Wealth Die. You may add a bonus equal to your faction rank, and you roll with advantage if you have ranks in multiple factions. If you fail, you still get what you want, but the Wealth Die decrements. If you succeed, the Wealth Die stays the same.

Large purchases don’t happen overnight. These actions will take time to accomplish – usually at least three to six months, if not longer. Examples of what might be accomplished with each level of the die are listed below:




1d6
No Test Required
Test Required


1
Staff a small noble household, contract a hit
Buy a small noble estate


2
Outfit your stronghold with siege weapons
Buy a galley, craft very rare magic items


3
All units get heavy armor and weapons
Outfit a trade fleet, craft legendary magic items


4
Outfit a war fleet, found a small city
All units get super-heavy armor and weapons


5
Found an arcane college or divine temple
Craft an artifact, outfit a full-scale invasion


6
Found a medium-sized city
Buy a large island (like Jamaica)

MrSandman
2019-05-22, 04:07 PM
I like the idea very much. I'm not so sure about the implementation, though.

But first things first, what game and edition is it for? What is a faction rank? How high can it be?

Also, how do you decide someone's wealth level? How does it increase?

Cicciograna
2019-05-22, 04:17 PM
Reminds me of the Resources trait (https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Resources) from Vampire: the Masquerade (possibly in general from various White Wolf rulesets).

The roll mechanics seems too lenient as it is right now, I'll echo MrSandman comment about the founding of the medium-sized city.

Sparky McDibben
2019-05-22, 04:23 PM
Sorry - probably should have led with that! This is a D&D 5e game. Faction rank is from Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and goes from 1 to 5. DM usually sets this as between 1 to 3 for starters, and the PC's actions will affect it from there.

theVoidWatches
2019-05-22, 04:32 PM
This is very similar to a wealth rank system I'm planning on using my next campaign, which will be in StaRS (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/268061/STaRS-The-Simple-Tabletop-Roleplaying-System)! My system is intended to increment in two ways - rank (broke, poor, average, well-off, wealthy) and number (from 3-7, as all abilities in STaRS go). Items then get sorted into one of the ranks as things readily available for those in that category. To buy something from a category below yours you can just buy it, and within your category you can make a roll - if you match you can afford it, if you fail you can either not afford it or you can buy it but go down by a number (with haggling giving you a bonus or penalty). For one category higher you can roll at a hefty penalty, with success letting you go down a rank and buy it and failure not letting you afford it.

Sparky McDibben
2019-05-22, 05:16 PM
My system is intended to increment in two ways - rank (broke, poor, average, well-off, wealthy) and number (from 3-7, as all abilities in STaRS go). Items then get sorted into one of the ranks as things readily available for those in that category. To buy something from a category below yours you can just buy it, and within your category you can make a roll - if you match you can afford it, if you fail you can either not afford it or you can buy it but go down by a number (with haggling giving you a bonus or penalty). For one category higher you can roll at a hefty penalty, with success letting you go down a rank and buy it and failure not letting you afford it.

This is a really cool idea, but I wanted to use a much more slimmed down system that was specifically divorced from the character's stats, because she's actually leading a faction. It therefore needs to be the faction's resources that matter, not hers. This is divorced from the party's activities.