what is the ECL of a character without RAW expected wealth by level?

[arch-fiend]

so i've been playing 3.5 with a friend of mine for 2 years now with a few other friends, and he is a miser when it comes to providing wealth to the players. one of the players cant handle this (or literally any homebrew that doesn't go in that players favor) while the rest of us don't mind quite as much.

but i know being behind on wealth by level can be a problem for encounter balance, generally the party has always been able to manage, but i figured giving the guy some help wouldn't be a bad idea, so that's my question for the forum, what would your general consensus be for the ECL of characters who are drastically behind the expected wealth by level?

i know this question will really depend on just what players encounter, for instance damage reduction and incorporeal subtype.

[Evoker]

I think that even more than what the players encounter, it depends on what classes/builds the players have. A wizard probably isn't going to be hurting nearly as much than a fighter would be, but an Artificer might be hurting even worse than a fighter without any/much wealth.
I think that's part of the reason why people hate when GMs don't provide expected WBL, because it's just another mechanic that shafts martials more than it does most casters.

[Zanos]

By the book I believe PC WBL adds +1 CR to NPCs. So probably ECL - 1 for a party of PCs without PC WBL.

That's by the book though. Some classes are significantly more impacted by a lack of gear than others, and it's usually the classes that are already weaker.

[arch-fiend]

seeing the first replies brings to mind that i should actually mention something. it still stands to reason that some classes are still more negatively effected by being behind on wealth by level than others, however we also have a homebrew rule that wizards (and archivists for that matter) do not add spells to their spellbooks from leveling up and have to find or purchase or spend gp to research every spell they get after first level. still doesn't effect most other spellcasters ill admit.

current party is
human fighter
human fighter
kobold rogue
aasimmar favored soul
human archivist.

[denthor]

Remind the player of this....

In D&D the premise is we are under powered. We go into places where others that had more power and wealth than we do now. We expect to win and take the things to make us more powerful but that was not enough to keep those that were stronger alive in the first place.

Wealth by levels is a sham. Here is a reason why...

1st level character acquires a luck stone 20,000 gp piece item. So that character never gets another item till when? Why a luck stone is fun it is hardly worth multiple levels.

At 7th level WBL is 19,000 gp would a player be happy with just that? From 1st to 8th then another 8,000 gp item?

[Menzath]

If using 0 wbl I guess it would be something like Ecl - class tier with a minimum of one.
Although for mundanes it may actually be worse
So maybe Ecl -(ct X cr X .075) with a min of 1.
Ct = class tier and Cr = is expected fight challenge rating.
So a lvl 20 tier 4 in a cr 20 fight with no wealth has a Ecl close to 14 . Same scenario for a tier 2 puts the Ecl to 17. And a tier 1 at 19.5
And of course adding in any wbl would change how much you would multiply by. So 50% wbl multiply by maybe .04 or something.

(Note these numbers where made on a whim in a few minutes little/no testing besides brain maths)

[Evoker]

Remind the player of this....

In D&D the premise is we are under powered. We go into places where others that had more power and wealth than we do now. We expect to win and take the things to make us more powerful but that was not enough to keep those that were stronger alive in the first place.

Wealth by levels is a sham. Here is a reason why...

1st level character acquires a luck stone 20,000 gp piece item. So that character never gets another item till when? Why a luck stone is fun it is hardly worth multiple levels.

At 7th level WBL is 19,000 gp would a player be happy with just that? From 1st to 8th then another 8,000 gp item?

If that player is one of the many non-spellcasters, they have an extremely valid reason to be upset over not receiving magic gear. And if they're receiving very little wealth and playing the archivist, they have an even more valid reason to be angry.
Wealth by level isn't a "sham". It's an important part of the game balance, and the fact that magic gear that is useful to the player is guaranteed to every player in a purely "original rules" game is a big part of what keeps the low tier classes from being even lower. Your facetious example of a very expensive item that provides a flat, uninteresting boost doesn't change that, because no GM would give a luckstone to a low level character.
And taking gear from others seems to be precisely what is not happening, if wealth by level is not being observed and the characters are "significantly below" wealth by level.

[Rhyltran]

If that player is one of the many non-spellcasters, they have an extremely valid reason to be upset over not receiving magic gear. And if they're receiving very little wealth and playing the archivist, they have an even more valid reason to be angry.
Wealth by level isn't a "sham". It's an important part of the game balance, and the fact that magic gear that is useful to the player is guaranteed to every player in a purely "original rules" game is a big part of what keeps the low tier classes from being even lower. Your facetious example of a very expensive item that provides a flat, uninteresting boost doesn't change that, because no GM would give a luckstone to a low level character.
And taking gear from others seems to be precisely what is not happening, if wealth by level is not being observed and the characters are "significantly below" wealth by level.

I had a DM that had a penchant for giving a minor but useful rare item worth a lot of gold early in the campaign but then it became known and very obvious that he also had a penchant to have that item get stolen as part of the plot while keeping us up to WBL. So the trick he employed was if we found something that was above WBL chances are the plot would have it removed somehow. This gave (early on before it was overused) a "Wow this is an amazing find for this low maybe we can even sell it to use the profit for what we do want it for? Something to benefit the group?" but that would never happen.

Aside from such a specific example.. yeah I'll reiterate that WBL is very important. If I was in a game where a DM was going to be extremely stingy about wealth I'd likely consider not playing.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Wealth by levels is a sham. Here is a reason why...

1st level character acquires a luck stone 20,000 gp piece item. So that character never gets another item till when? Why a luck stone is fun it is hardly worth multiple levels.

At 7th level WBL is 19,000 gp would a player be happy with just that? From 1st to 8th then another 8,000 gp item?

Why is this always said by people that don't understand what they're talking about?

If you got a luckstone at level 1, one of two things happened: the GM put it there deliberately and it serves some plot point and he shouldn't be weighing it against your WBL or he put it there because he thought it was cool treasure and you should just liquidate it ASAP and split the 10k with your party and expect whatever you buy with it to last you until level 3 or so, depending on party size.

What did -not- happen is that a luckstone was generated by the treasure tables for anything you could reasonably have survived at level 1 without DM intervention.

The same guidelines that describe the values for WBL also suggest that you shouldn't have more than 1/3 of that value tied up in any one item. The magic item compendium took that a step further and assigned levels to ranges of GP value to more tightly guide the type of magic items a character should have at a given level. By those guidelines a luckstone isn't something you should reasonably expect to see before level 13 at the earliest. Tying up that 20k in that single effect before then would likely do you more harm than good and the guidelines steer you away from that for precisely that reason.

[denthor]

Why is this always said by people that don't understand what they're talking about?

If you got a luckstone at level 1, one of two things happened: the GM put it there deliberately and it serves some plot point and he shouldn't be weighing it against your WBL or he put it there because he thought it was cool treasure and you should just liquidate it ASAP and split the 10k with your party and expect whatever you buy with it to last you until level 3 or so, depending on party size.

What did -not- happen is that a luckstone was generated by the treasure tables for anything you could reasonably have survived at level 1 without DM intervention.

The same guidelines that describe the values for WBL also suggest that you shouldn't have more than 1/3 of that value tied up in any one item. The magic item compendium took that a step further and assigned levels to ranges of GP value to more tightly guide the type of magic items a character should have at a given level. By those guidelines a luckstone isn't something you should reasonably expect to see before level 13 at the earliest. Tying up that 20k in that single effect before then would likely do you more harm than good and the guidelines steer you away from that for precisely that reason.


So 2nd level wealth is 900 gp a full wand is 750 gp plus 6 potions.

You get a wand of say detect secret doors 50 charges. 3 potions of say detect poison and 3 more of detect magic. Are you happy at 1,000 experience points?

[icefractal]

I think strict WBL works fine when the game isn't about acquisition of wealth / magic items, but falls pretty flat when it is.

Like, the PCs are on a quest to save dragons from a Lich princess who's trying to eat their souls? Or to become the most famous dancers in the kingdom? Or just to roam around doing good/bad/other deeds? Then sure, stick to WBL, or even make it an inherent thing rather than external items.

But if the campaign is actually about going into dungeons to try and strike it rich, then "doesn't really matter what you find, it'll end up the same either way" seems pretty pointless.

[Evoker]

So 2nd level wealth is 900 gp a full wand is 750 gp plus 6 potions.

You get a wand of say detect secret doors 50 charges. 3 potions of say detect poison and 3 more of detect magic. Are you happy at 1,000 experience points?

No, because again, what the person you quoted said, IN THE QUOTE YOU QUOTED: "The same guidelines that describe the values for WBL also suggest that you shouldn't have more than 1/3 of that value tied up in any one item."

WBL is not "a sham" if you understand how it works. Further, wealth by level is EXPECTED TO BE USEFUL AND APPROPRIATE ITEMS, or currency that can be easily traded for useful and appropriate items. Your comparison is just as facetious as if you said that WBL was a sham because what if a level twenty fighter got nothing but ~350 plus one quarterstaves over the course of their adventuring.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So 2nd level wealth is 900 gp a full wand is 750 gp plus 6 potions.

You get a wand of say detect secret doors 50 charges. 3 potions of say detect poison and 3 more of detect magic. Are you happy at 1,000 experience points?

No. At 900 gp, you're looking at masterwork versions of arms and armor, maybe some alchemical items, and a tool kit or three. You -can- afford a wand at that level but for the same reason you wouldn't get a luckstone at level 6, you wouldn't get a wand at level 2; it represents too much investiture in one item. See also; still not coming out of the treasure tables.

You can't blame the tool for your misuse of it. If you grab a screwdriver and use it to take a golf-swing at the screw, it's not the screwdriver's fault the screw didn't go in.

WBL isn't just the table in the DMG. It's the guidelines that surround it and the related treasure tables that give the PCs the loot to sell and wealth to buy up to about the listed values on the WBL table.

[Biggus]

1st level character acquires a luck stone 20,000 gp piece item. So that character never gets another item till when? Why a luck stone is fun it is hardly worth multiple levels.


In addition to what other have said, a luckstone costs double what you'd expect it to based on the magic item creation guidelines and comparisons to similar items such as the Circlet of Persuasion, for no reason I can see.

[Kelb_Panthera]

In addition to what other have said, a luckstone costs double what you'd expect it to based on the magic item creation guidelines and comparisons to similar items such as the Circlet of Persuasion, for no reason I can see.

Did you include doubling for being slotless?

[el minster]

Did you include doubling for being slotless?

good point

[Fizban]

By the book I believe PC WBL adds +1 CR to NPCs. So probably ECL - 1 for a party of PCs without PC WBL.

That's by the book though. Some classes are significantly more impacted by a lack of gear than others, and it's usually the classes that are already weaker.
By the Pathfinder books- no such rule exists in 3.5 (unless you've got a page number which would have won some people a lot of arguments).


As for the OP, I give you:

-but if the PCs don't get enough magic items, they won't be powerful enough to deal with the challenges that have been balanced for characters of their level.
There is no adjustment to ECL for being under WBL. There is only the question of whether or not you have sufficient magic items meet your challenges. You can actually be glutted on overpriced garbage beyond WBL, and still have not enough magic items because they're garbage (which is why you're allowed to sell them to buy stuff you actually need). You can have next to no magic items, and yet if the DM has built the encounters based on your characters without magic items, then you have sufficient magic items- standard CRs won't apply unless you're optimized or boosted in other ways enough to compensate (and Ao help you if you're using PC classed humanoids for a significant number of fights, 'cause CR=level isn't actually true), but if the DM is trying to run with no magic items then they should have expected that.

There is no official table of what items are expected at what level, and the way people build characters can massively change that anyway, there is no official set of X item expected to counter Y threat, etc.

[Biggus]

Did you include doubling for being slotless?

Yes. The calculation as I did it is:

+1 luck bonus to saves 2,000GP (from the estimating magic item gold piece values table in the DMG)

+1 luck bonus to skill and ability checks 3,000GPs (nothing in the table for this, so based it on the Circlet of Persuasion, which gives +3 to Charisma-based checks for 4,500GPs. Assuming it increases as the square of the bonus as skill-boosting items do, that comes to 500GPs for a +1 bonus, which would mean 3,000GPs for a +1 bonus to all six ability scores).

2,000 + 3,000 = 5,000GPs, doubled for being slotless is 10,000GPs.

[JNAProductions]

By the books? No clue.

By what actually matters? It'll vary immensely party-to-party. A bunch of Druids and Wizards, provided they have the bare minimum of a spellbook and component pouch, aren't likely to be that far behind. Well-built, they can still tackle threats above their APL. A bunch of Fighters and Monks, though, are gonna be hurting hard, unless they're REALLY cheesed out.

[Zanos]

By the Pathfinder books- no such rule exists in 3.5 (unless you've got a page number which would have won some people a lot of arguments).
Nah, good call. I think I was misremembering the PF rules about wealth and CR.

[Epic Legand]

I am going to support what others have said. Less wealth then expected hurts martials far more then casters. No so much at 1-4, but on a slidding scale as you climb levels. In a 14th level game, a well build sorcerer could be at 95%, and a Fighter with no wealth, might be 50%....of the fighter ( tier4 already). Knowing this about the game upfront might be a big influence on builds, and also further push casters higher. If the game is from 1-6th level, this will likely not be a game breaker, but any higher and it will highlight the power difference on an ever growing scale.

[newguydude1]

I think that even more than what the players encounter, it depends on what classes/builds the players have. A wizard probably isn't going to be hurting nearly as much than a fighter would be, but an Artificer might be hurting even worse than a fighter without any/much wealth.
I think that's part of the reason why people hate when GMs don't provide expected WBL, because it's just another mechanic that shafts martials more than it does most casters.

my artificer has 0 gold and he kicks more ass than anyone else
persona weapon augmentation to animate medium objects with flying enchantment
grab monkey grip at 3 to animate large objects
at 6 use spell storing item to cast lesser planar binding from demonologist spell list to get a ravid for a gargantuan animated object or a mirror mephit for free simulacrum.
at level 8 use concurrent infusions to planar bind a 12hd creature
then when you can cast minor creation 3 times use minor creation to create scroll materials and craft prc spell lists to get access to scrolls of greater planar binding and simulacrum


If using 0 wbl I guess it would be something like Ecl - class tier with a minimum of one.

no. my no wealth psion, cleric, and artificers are tier 1 without wealth. with wealth they break the game. psion gets quori power link shards and gets too crazy. cleric gets nightsticks for dmm persistent spell and also gets too crazy. my artificer can just buy those +1 stat books for craft xp so he never expends anything when making his scrolls of simulacrum and stuff.

[Tiktakkat]

There are numerous problems with WBL, starting with the flaw of designing the system predicated on specific amounts of magical enhancements.

That leads directly to the primary problem - that not all wealth is equal. Some items are simply absurdly more useful than others, and so get a disproportionate priority, even in the face of the "no item worth more than half your WBL" guideline.
Compounding that is WotC realizing, as demonstrated by the "Item Level" in the MIC, that you new items should not be more than half the wealth gained at a particular level.
Which results in a +1 weapon being an 6th level item, yet every adventure assumes multiple +1 weapons in novice (1st-3rd) level adventures.
Which reveals the absurdity of most item pricing, as too many items are priced at a point where they are useless when you are at an "appropriate" level to own them, either by direct (strict half) or indirect (half of per level increase) WBL.
The annoying thing is, being insanely strict about the MIC item levels can keep the game system (rocket tag and CODzilla) stable to around name (9th-12th) level, rather than spiraling out of control at mid (5th-8th) level.
So the guideline is right, but thoroughly unsatisfying, especially with 90% of items that are not stat boosts or magic weapons.

As for the ECL of a character without RAW WBL, I would say it depends on whether or not they have improved unarmed strike and are either a spontaneous caster or know rope trick and can safely rest to memorize spells.

[lylsyly]

Talk to th DM. If they can't approach a reasonable wealth by level then ask to retrain the PCs into classes that are wealth independant. If they agree to this then run 4 druids and 1 wizard and break his game!! Maybe then he will get the point.

[Evoker]

Talk to th DM. If they can't approach a reasonable wealth by level then ask to retrain the PCs into classes that are wealth independant. If they agree to this then run 4 druids and 1 wizard and break his game!! Maybe then he will get the point.

He did mention that wizards don't get "free" spells upon leveling up, so wizards are more dependent on buying scrolls to scribe into their spellbooks.
He's also not the one concerned about being underpowered, it's a separate player who's worrying. The OP just wanted to make it easier on the DM in the future by providing a guideline.

[lylsyly]

Druids played right have little need for wealth, they can give their share to the wizard. There is a reason why druid is the only class that is really friendly with Vow of Poverty. but whatever ... 3.5 is a game of TOO MANY OPTIONS. Pick and choose your own.

[Quertus]

So 2nd level wealth is 900 gp a full wand is 750 gp plus 6 potions.

You get a wand of say detect secret doors 50 charges. 3 potions of say detect poison and 3 more of detect magic. Are you happy at 1,000 experience points?

Sigh. IIRC, expected WBL comes out to "if you take random rolls, you get *twice this much*, so, if you sell for half, this is how much money you would get to spend on *exactly what you want*”.

So, if you only have WBL worth of treasure, then, for balance purposes, it should be exactly what you want, at which point, yes, you should be happy with it.

The purpose of WBL is for creating a "balanced" character above level 1, without having to roll on random treasure table, or argue with the GM about which share your character gets to keep - because *real* characters should be *above* WBL, for when they found cool items that they actually *want to keep* instead of selling for half.

[Zarrgon]

WBL and ECL and CR and all that really does not mean all that much.

See, 3E just needed a rule system. So they came up with a vague system with lots of numbers to make the Roll Players happy and printed the books.

Unfortunately all the numbers are so vague as to be meaningless as in no way does a WBL/ECL/CR of "5" equal another of "5". And on top of that is all the assumptions built into the system. And it does not take into account a great many things.

So, in the end, just don't worry about it.