PDA

View Full Version : Wealth of Nations



TheStranger
2021-02-23, 10:05 AM
This is inspired by the “Taxes” thread and mostly about D&D 3.P or similar systems with high-magic settings where mid to high level PCs typically have personal wealth (mostly in the form of magical gear) that’s orders of magnitude more than what the average person would see in their lifetime. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what assets rulers, powerful nobles, or other elites in the setting have on hand.

Certainly any setting will have some number of nobles who are land-rich and cash-poor. They’ll have a modest castle and everything that goes with it, but not enormous piles of gold or magic items. I’m not talking about those guys. I’m talking about the kings, dukes, or merchant families who are implied by the setting fluff to have been accumulating wealth and power for generations. So, what does that wealth look like? And how does it compare to the level of wealth high-level PCs have available?

Option 1: It’s mostly an informed attribute. Elites have all the trappings of wealth, maybe a few magic items, and as much cash on hand as the plot requires. But if the PCs were to loot the ducal palace they’d find that it doesn’t add up to all that much compared to the gear they’re hauling around. High-level PCs, by any measure, are among the wealthiest people in the setting.

Option 2: They’re ridiculously wealthy, but most of that wealth is consists mostly of land, artwork, business investments, and other stuff that the average PC isn’t concerned with. The net worth of a truly wealthy individual is many times that of even a high-level PC, but it’s mostly “mundane” wealth.

Option 3: They’re ridiculously wealthy, and a lot of that wealth takes forms that PCs are familiar with (in addition to the mundane stuff). The ruling family has accumulated a Scrooge McDuck-style money bin full of cash and a large number of magical items (which may be on semi-permanent loan to loyal vassals). The royal palace has magical architecture from the Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook. The king can easily kit himself out like a high-level PC when he goes to war. The elites of the setting are many times wealthier than the PCs, and they spend it like a PC would.

Personally, I’ve always conceived of the average D&D setting as something like my second option. The PCs are “new money” wealthy, spending it all on flashy stuff. The setting’s elites are the “old money,” quietly sitting on enormous wealth in serious assets rather than personal gear. That mostly reflects the standard faux-medieval setting, I think.

That said, if war is something that happens semi-regularly in the setting, the duke would be foolish to ignore the obvious benefits of being fully decked out in magical gear. And if it’s readily available, why wouldn’t they keep some in the armory for the next campaign? So maybe the more I think about it the more I’m leaning towards something like the third option.

Anyway, what do other people think? I’m not really looking for a RAW answer, I’m just curious what makes sense to people.

hamishspence
2021-02-23, 10:23 AM
That said, if war is something that happens semi-regularly in the setting, the duke would be foolish to ignore the obvious benefits of being fully decked out in magical gear. And if it’s readily available, why wouldn’t they keep some in the armory for the next campaign? So maybe the more I think about it the more I’m leaning towards something like the third option.

In a world where magic items can be upgraded bit by bit (Magic Item Compendium) I can believe that, rather than replacing the sword +1 that a noble family might have begun with, they upgraded it over the centuries.

So a noble family might have better magic loot than might be expected.

MoiMagnus
2021-02-23, 10:46 AM
Option 4: The main wealth noble have, which dwarf land and magical objects, is relations and influence. In a world filled with exceptional individuals, there is no greater possession than the favour of the great Archmage, and the possibility to summon them to repay this favour. Magical contracts and debts, passed from generation to generation through blood, when not linked to an immortal being or sentient magical object (the king might only remain king as long as the magical sword recognises him as legitimate), are what shape power and allegiance.

The difference with Option 3 is that while the elite of Option 4 are immensely powerful, they are very restricted in the way they can use this power, which justify the use need for heroes, which are powerful peoples that are not yet entangled in the huge web of politics.

Also, in Option 3, nobles have huge piles of magical objects, which mean there is a LOT of magical object in the universe. While in Option 4, noble have access to many magical objects, but might not own them, just borrow them when needed, which mean those magical objects can still be rare.

I quite like Option 3 for magical kingdoms (the elf king is probably at this level of wealth), but for a mundane kingdom I prefer Option 2 or 4. Option 1 is fine when I don't want to think too much about worldbuilding.

jjordan
2021-02-23, 10:57 AM
Wealth is mostly going to be reflected in goods/items rather than in coin. Images from the Middle Ages which depict looting show people stealing goblets/chalices, plate, and even ornate belts. Money is much, much more common in the modern world because it's not tied to physical reserves (i.e. the gold standard) or made of actual valuable materials. There simply wasn't all that much coinage out there and the coinage that was available was largely created to allow commerce to take place (where a lot of that commerce was trading in the coins themselves) and to enrich the realm. But they always had issues with the precious metals being more in demand for making objects.

I like MoiMagnus's fantasy world additions to this metric.

Anonymouswizard
2021-02-23, 11:24 AM
The wealth the nobility have is generally invested in land and organisations, in order to generate more wealth. While they do have golden dinner plates and fabulous art, any noble who doesn't have the majority of their wealth invested in practical things is not going to stay wealthy.

Nobles also do have magic items, but the number and power varies based on connections. Nobles don't but items from adventurers, they recieve then as gifts from wizards and temples, as well as the occasional adventurer, in exchange for favours. They're also very well guarded, by the time you can reasonably get the Duke's +3 sword you probably have a +4 keen sword. They'll also loan these items if necessary, especially ones that can be used in the castle, but not the absolute best ones they have.

In general a noble house probably has a magic sword or three, a crystal ball, some other utility items, and a few more bits and pieces if they're high ranking. If they made a deal with a wizard they may get a new item every year or two, but at least some of those are traded for valuable services and commodities. Although your average Baron may just have a +1 sword and nothing else.

High level adventurers have more magical gear, but I'm practice when they retire they have to shift some of that to pay bills, so they probably end up roughly as wealthy as a count/earl.

VoxRationis
2021-02-23, 11:40 AM
The answers to these questions depend on the answers to yet more questions about the nature of the setting. One way or the other, however, it would seem unlikely that the rich have a large amount of their money just sitting around in vaults; they'll have put it to some use somewhere (or at least spent it on luxuries).

How anomalous are the experiences of the PCs? If the setting is populated with loot-filled ruins which, for one reason or another, have been heretofore inaccessible to the broader population, then the PCs' acquisition of wealth might be akin to the first few European trans-continental voyages, providing them with unheard-of amounts of highly concentrated valuables. On the other hand, if the PCs are far from the first adventurers around, it might be expected that origins of many centers of power lie in previous generations of successful adventurers; the PCs' wealth will therefore be typical of the wealthy, and quite possibly a mere fraction of it.

How available are the PCs' tools to authorities in the world? Player characters very quickly amass the sorts of tools which can allow them to challenge or supplant existing power structures. If these tools are available more broadly, it stands to reason that authorities in the setting will have them; either existing authorities will have acquired some using their power, or the possessors of these tools will have become the new authorities. Therefore, these authorities will have invested more of their wealth into magical items, griffon mounts, et cetera and less into sawmills and signal towers.* On the other hand, there are settings where those tools aren't reliably available to authorities: magic items aren't common enough for acquisition by sale, barter, or robbery; fantastic creatures are rare and/or impractical to train; training in the absence of active adventuring doesn't provide level increase, and so forth. If this is the case, the wealthy will then not have those tools and will have invested their wealth into other things.

This leads into a concept I've been thinking of for a while, which is that most D&D settings need to be more medieval than they are because they exist in a universe where the prowess of a smaller number of individuals tends to have outsized effects. In D&D (and many other games), sufficient investment in equipment and training can make a single combatant 20 times as effective as a lesser individual in an open field, to say nothing of more specific situations where the difference is even more significant because the circumstances reward concentration of force more than total cost-efficacy. Powerful individuals also are less taxing logistically than large armies or other institutions, freeing up resources and allowing more individuals to be doing productive labor. In addition, the threats facing civilization tend to be sporadic, mobile, and highly concentrated, difficult to engage with mass levies. All this rewards investment in individuals and the relationships those individuals have with each other more than it does investment in institutions, which makes all those modern state structures in a lot of D&D settings all the stranger.

And that's just for fighter-types and +X magic weapons. When you take into account magic users, who attain qualitative increases in capability with greater personal power, and various non-stat-increase magical items, that just skews it even more effectively in the direction of personal power structures. A mid- to high-level wizard who either is the ruler or assists the ruler can monitor and communicate over absurdly long distances, reinforce a structure faster than it can be torn down by enemies, keep a spare heir in a jar on standby so as to avoid both vacant successions and sibling rivalries, and quickly evacuate the royal family hundreds of miles away in case of attack.

It may therefore be surmised that in a D&D-type setting where personal power scales upward as it does and where the means to achieve that power can be found by authorities that power structures will tend to favor hierarchies of powerful individuals overseeing fiefs rather than bureaucratic institutions.

Tvtyrant
2021-02-23, 12:34 PM
Wealth is going to be in permanent magic items, because you accrue their benefits forever. A decanter of endless water instantly solves the dirty water problem for a wealthy household forever, an eternal torch is a permanent source of lighting, etc. I would expect those kinds of items to be the foundation of wealth; a Duke is going to have hundreds of years of slowly acquired low level magic items.

In a 3.5 setting this becomes a massive labor saving device on par with the industrial revolution: Every eternal wand of Remove Disease cures 730 people a year. Buying one is extremely expensive, but once you have them they become a net source of wealth for the community even if you don't charge for it.

In less magic item centered games it would be less drastic, but even in 5E a cleansing stone would be tremendous for a community.

BRC
2021-02-23, 04:18 PM
I feel like a lot of it will come down to the inherent biases of the game mechanics (This is a game built for Adventurers, not Land Management), and what sort of magic items are available for purchase, as well as how reliable magic items can be created.

Consider a +1 Flaming Sword. That's a very powerful, expensive magic item (8000 GP by 3.5 rules), but it only really helps out if you are actively out fighting things.

Your average noble, even in a monster-filled D&D Style setting, is going to spend a lot more time on administration and land management than killing monsters.

So if you happen to possess a +1 Flaming Longsword. You could keep it around in your castle, pulling it out whenever you go to war, or you could sell it for 8000 GP, which is a lot of money in exchange for a sword that isn't that useful in your day-to-day activities. Sure, it's great if you need to fight, but how often do you need to do that, and how often is the scale such that one extra +1 flaming longsword on the battlefield is worth it, compared to the small army you could hire with 8000 GP.



The second thing to ask is how reliable/customizable are magic items? 3.5 kind of operated under the assumption of the "Magic Item Mart", where PC's could convert Gold to specific (Or even custom) Magic items pretty easily, but that's not a guarantee. it isn't necessarily the case that a noble could convert 8000 GP to a specific, helpful magic item, and a lot of the magic items in the DMG are more useful for adventurers than nobles.

If By-order Magic Item creation isn't a thing in your setting, what might be more common, and a reason for nobles to keep piles of cash on hand, is hiring spellcasters. While there are some magic items (Such as a decanter of endless water, lyre of construction, or folding boat) that could see regular use, I feel like hiring a spellcaster to cast the specific spells you need might be a common practice, assuming you can't just turn money into magic items.



Another thing that I could see happening is a certain "Mercantile" class of people who, by skill or fortune, happen to posses one of the more generally useful magic items, and can charge elaborate fees for their use.

Somebody who inherited some Boots of Teleportation from an adventuring ancestor could probably make a killing teleporting people around, cutting weeks if not months off travel time.

Perhaps noble families who acquire such magic items use them as a revenue source, renting them out to other nobles (Probably under heavy guard). Rather than each noble family having a wand of remove disease, the King, or a single noble house might control such an item, loaning it out to other families, potentially under the guise of charity, but with the expectation of a hefty "Gift" in return.

Mechalich
2021-02-23, 06:06 PM
This is inspired by the “Taxes” thread and mostly about D&D 3.P or similar systems with high-magic settings where mid to high level PCs typically have personal wealth (mostly in the form of magical gear) that’s orders of magnitude more than what the average person would see in their lifetime. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what assets rulers, powerful nobles, or other elites in the setting have on hand.

Okay, so the essential problem here is that answering this question depends on finding a high-magic setting of this type that actually possesses sufficiently robust world-building where this question is even meaningful.

As far as I know, no such setting actually exists.

Quertus
2021-02-23, 06:43 PM
So, the problem is, this conversation starts off in the middle. Let's back up a few paces.

For example, the Forgotten Realms wasn't 3e for long. Before that, it was 2e, which was very different in many ways - ways that affect the answer to this question.

But ignoring that… D&D is generally and historically about post-apocalyptic worlds. There haven't been generations upon generations to build up - most magic items are those randomly found from the *last* civilization that built up.

So, if you're playing D&D? *Most* countries should be… "poorly optimized", and send the Determinator into convolutions.

But, if you've got a (homebrew) world that had historically had 3e kingdoms for millennia? Then the nobles probably have numerous powerful artifacts, keyed to their bloodlines. That's… likely no small part of house they stay in power.

Nifft
2021-02-23, 07:07 PM
This is inspired by the “Taxes” thread and mostly about D&D 3.P or similar systems with high-magic settings where mid to high level PCs typically have personal wealth (mostly in the form of magical gear) that’s orders of magnitude more than what the average person would see in their lifetime. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about what assets rulers, powerful nobles, or other elites in the setting have on hand.

Certainly any setting will have some number of nobles who are land-rich and cash-poor. They’ll have a modest castle and everything that goes with it, but not enormous piles of gold or magic items. I’m not talking about those guys. I’m talking about the kings, dukes, or merchant families who are implied by the setting fluff to have been accumulating wealth and power for generations. So, what does that wealth look like? And how does it compare to the level of wealth high-level PCs have available?
Why does your setting have nobles at all? Answer that, and you'll know what sort of wealth or gear they'd need to accomplish and maintain their roles.

As an example, in one game I had the setting basically feudal -- except it wasn't human feudal, it was supernatural feudal.

The royalty of the starter "good" kingdom was half-Celestial. They ruled by literal divine blood, and this was important because that blood gave them sufficient standing among the supernatural entities (a Fey robber-baron, a Dragons, a Hag-queen, and so on) which claimed neighboring lands.

Nobles below the royalty needed enough gear to compete with the vassals of the neighboring powers. A particular Duke might need be able to fight -- indirectly through a retainer or directly in person -- on par with an Ogre-Mage, for example. That means hiring and equipping an appropriately leveled retainer, or adventuring in person to level up, which is what many of the noble non-heirs did.

Since the ruling class needed to be able to defend against concerted attacks by the exact same things which the PCs would go out and stab, they ended up looking a lot like PCs with Leadership. This dovetailed into a nice story about what happens to PCs who choose retirement at any point in a campaign -- yeah, there's a place for them, and probably some people quite like them in that place already.


Consider a +1 Flaming Sword. That's a very powerful, expensive magic item (8000 GP by 3.5 rules), but it only really helps out if you are actively out fighting things.
- It slices.
- It dices.
- It sears the steak.
- One-stop kebab pole, no firepit needed.

Clearly all the old starter-weapon flaming rapiers have been re-purposed as food cart tools.

Palanan
2021-02-23, 11:52 PM
Originally Posted by jjordan
There simply wasn't all that much coinage out there and the coinage that was available was largely created to allow commerce to take place (where a lot of that commerce was trading in the coins themselves) and to enrich the realm. But they always had issues with the precious metals being more in demand for making objects.

Not sure where you’re getting this from. Coins were widespread in the Roman Republic and Empire, since that’s how most soldiers were paid, and coins continued to be produced throughout former Roman territories, by kings of every stripe as well as local mints.

And coins flowed into Europe from well beyond, such as the silver dirhams minted in Baghdad, which found their way to Vikings at Staraya Ladoga and thence to Scandinavia, which is how silver coins from Baghdad ended up in Iceland.


Originally Posted by jjordan
Images from the Middle Ages which depict looting show people stealing goblets/chalices, plate, and even ornate belts.

I have an image on my wall of four women in flight suits in front of a B-17, but that doesn’t mean women were flying B-17s into combat.

If these images you mention show looting of golden chalices, then the images may have been commissioned by the owners of those chalices to make a specific point, rather than being reflective of general circumstances. An image of a single activity doesn’t necessarily mean that was the whole story.

Destro2119
2021-02-24, 09:09 AM
Frankly, under the highly adventure focused economy of 3.X, I think the book Orconomics* where there is a whole economy based around adventuring is the best summary of the situation.

The problem is, this whole wealth issue inevitably spirals off into how the "average" DnD world that has been around for "thousands of years" simply can't support itself logically under the game mechanics. Logically, the world should have attained at least Eberron/1880s level of advancements becasue the whole "post apocalyptic" thing is really only a few hundred years at most.

Again, it is a misnomer that the entirety of medieval times in Europe is just one huge brainfart. It is an even bigger misnomer to think that Europe's "Dark Ages" were the norm for the whole world.

*As it demonstrates, you don't even need crazy tech innovation if you don't want it. You just need to take the "adventuring economy/magic mart" base assumptions of 3.X into account; ie cities based on investment in adventuring groups, etc.

GloatingSwine
2021-02-24, 11:12 AM
Not sure where you’re getting this from. Coins were widespread in the Roman Republic and Empire, since that’s how most soldiers were paid, and coins continued to be produced throughout former Roman territories, by kings of every stripe as well as local mints.

Depends when you're talking about. The Republic went about 400-500 years without any widely recognised coinage and they mostly started using it because the cool kids (Greeks) were doing it and they didn't really get standardised or catch on until later.

Segev
2021-02-24, 11:33 AM
There is narrative and world-validating value to "the King can kit himself like a high-level adventurer when he goes to war:" Maybe this is because he is high-level, and possibly a retired adventurer.

Remember that the old-school notion was that high-level (read: 6+) PCs would be building strongholds, thieves' guilds, monasteries, churches, or personal wizard's towers with surrounding lands/cities that they influenced or directly controlled. This comes not just from the wargaming history of the game, but from the classic story trope of the wandering knight (the adventurer) marrying the princess and becoming the king. The "standard hero reward (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StandardHeroReward)."

In this light, having the king be the previous-generation Hero Who Married the Princess and gained "half the kingdom" (maybe all of it, now, if his father-in-law passed on or retired) would mean being a high-level adventurer makes sense.

Why doesn't he go beat up the latest dragon? Well, he's busy running the kingdom. Also, there are, like, a half-dozen dragons running around the periphery of his kingdom, and while he could take any one of them down, what about the other five? Best to let up-and-coming heroic adventurers do it. Maybe he has six kids he needs to marry off, too, and making sure a powerful adventurer is each one's suitor (by testing them on the dragons) is just good parenting, looking out for his kids' futures. (Of course, if one or more of his kids IS an adventurer, so much the better!)

BRC
2021-02-24, 11:39 AM
The issue there is one of Succession, if every Monarch is a high level adventurer, where do heirs come from?

I could see it being a Thing that Monarchs reaching the end of their reign either training and equipping their children, before sending them out to go Adventuring in hopes of becoming storied/high level enough to take over the reins of the Kingdom.

Either that, or similar to how a lot of Roman Emperors worked. It was very common however for the Emperor to either marry one of his daughters off to a well respected General, or simply Adopt the general directly to be the heir.

High-level adventurers unassociated with a kingdom might spend a lot of time dodging marriage proposals and/or Adoptions from monarchs looking to secure a good Heir.

King of Nowhere
2021-02-24, 11:43 AM
Option 5: all of the above

it mostly depends on the specific setting, but i expect all those options to coexhist on some level. Some nobles are administrators, their only magic is for mundane purposes. Some nobles are adventurers; i expect they will either mostly stay adventuring/traning, and have someone trusty to deal with administration, or they will administrate, and have someone trusty whom they loaned their magic gear.
The most powerful nobles will have at least some protection against adventurers; not even much against assassination, but more against being dominated or replaced by a clone or other similar stuff that's potentially much more damaging than a status condition that can be removed by a 5th level spell. Most mansions will have at least a "panic room" that can withstand high level assault for a while, and perhaps a scroll of teleport inside in case they need to run from an adventurer's raid.
type 4, wealth in connection, is my favourite for the most powerful individuals or organization, for the power dynamics it creates: sure, those organizations are much more powerful than any adventuring group. but their "power" grows slowly and is expensive to use. so they are reluctant to use it, to ask favors, because it will weaken them. They can defeat any adventuring group that goes into direct conflict with them, but they try to avoid conflict, because it would leave them greatly weakened. It creates an environment where the players are encouraged to engage with the world and its politics, while they are discouraged from going murderhobo.


Okay, so the essential problem here is that answering this question depends on finding a high-magic setting of this type that actually possesses sufficiently robust world-building where this question is even meaningful.

As far as I know, no such setting actually exists.
hey, i take offence with that:smalltongue:. i spent a lot of effort in my homebrew world to answer exactly those kind of questions, and i can't be the only crazy dude to have done so

Telok
2021-02-24, 11:43 AM
There's also the old AD&D assumption that ass kicking equals authority, thus all great leaders are therefor higher level and blinged out with gear. The magic item cycle in that setup is that when something nasty shows up the leaders literally lead from the front and if they fail it's in epic style where all/most of their stuff is lost. The stuff ends up unidentified (AD&D item identification wasn't the simple, easy, auto-success like later editions) and in a ruin, monster lair, or just falls down a rabbit hole somewhere until more adventurers recover it again.

The higher success rates of noble offspring in adventuring is down to easier potion/healing access, a truely secure home base, and better info networks that let them grind "safer" threats closer to home. That also explains why the PCs, low class hobos that they are, are out on the wild frontiers looking at high risk & high reward threats. The PCs will end up higher level faster, but the nobility back in civilized lands is still recycling magic loot and gaining xp to be the authorities.

Of course this doesn't work with post-AD&D xp rates, power scales, and easy magic item creation.

Segev
2021-02-24, 12:25 PM
The issue there is one of Succession, if every Monarch is a high level adventurer, where do heirs come from?

I could see it being a Thing that Monarchs reaching the end of their reign either training and equipping their children, before sending them out to go Adventuring in hopes of becoming storied/high level enough to take over the reins of the Kingdom.

Either that, or similar to how a lot of Roman Emperors worked. It was very common however for the Emperor to either marry one of his daughters off to a well respected General, or simply Adopt the general directly to be the heir.

High-level adventurers unassociated with a kingdom might spend a lot of time dodging marriage proposals and/or Adoptions from monarchs looking to secure a good Heir.

Yeah, I imagine would-be blood heirs seriously consider being adventurers, or look to date adventurers and woo them, with the intent to be the "man behind the man" when it comes to being the bureaucratic and political maven of the power couple.

Zombimode
2021-02-24, 01:37 PM
The second thing to ask is how reliable/customizable are magic items? 3.5 kind of operated under the assumption of the "Magic Item Mart", where PC's could convert Gold to specific (Or even custom) Magic items pretty easily, but that's not a guarantee. it isn't necessarily the case that a noble could convert 8000 GP to a specific, helpful magic item, and a lot of the magic items in the DMG are more useful for adventurers than nobles.

If By-order Magic Item creation isn't a thing in your setting, what might be more common, and a reason for nobles to keep piles of cash on hand, is hiring spellcasters. While there are some magic items (Such as a decanter of endless water, lyre of construction, or folding boat) that could see regular use, I feel like hiring a spellcaster to cast the specific spells you need might be a common practice, assuming you can't just turn money into magic items.

I never had the impression that the "Magic Marts" were intended to be an actual thing. Instead I see it as a metagame construct to empower players to have an influence over the gear of their characters.

That is to say: on the meta level the player makes the choice to convert some of their characters treasure to an item of their choice, and then the narrative bends arround that and makes it possible that the character can aquire the item by whatever means and that this will cost them for whatever reason the listed price in treasure. Only if you generalize the players choice to be the characters choice actual in-world "marts" and subsequently and magic item economy will appear.

Now you might say "but what about the Forgotten Realms? It canocically has actual magic marts in form of Thayan Enclaves!"
Well, not really.

First, compared to the number of large cities in the FR, there are actually very, very few Enclaves. There are less then 2 dozen enclaves, which is less then the number of large cities in the North&Savage Frontier alone.
Having a Thayan Enclave is a Special Feature of a city, not the norm. The "Magic Mart" on the other hand is only and directly tied to the cities GP limit.
Thus, Thayan Enclaves can't be the realization of the general Magic Mart.

Second, if you read what the Enclaves actualy provide in services and goods it is a very long shot from the "Crack up the Magic Item Compendium, everything you find in there is available" that is usualy the norm for the generalized Magic Mart.


Eberron on the other tried to integrate both magic items and the availability and economy arround them more into the setting.
Two design decision worked very well towards that goal: first enabling magic item creation for a dedicated NPC class and second generally lowering the settings power level* so that a Magic Mart doesn't have to put ridicoulsly expensive items on the shelf.

But in my view it ultimately fails in grounding magic items into the setting. It fails by not tieing the settings MacGuffin ressource strongly enough to magic items and magic item creation.
My euphemism for Dragon Shard really demonstrates the problem: Dragon Shards are just a MacGuffin because their usefulness is not really backed up by mechanics.
It is simply not enough to list a couple of shard items and then making the nebulous and very weak statement that you can if you want use Dragon Shards for creating other magic items.
But you don't have to and there is no benefit of doing so, which really raises the question: why even bother?

For all my love of the setting, I would have much prefered if Eberron took the firm stance and simply stated that for Eberron "magic item" actually means "Dragon Shard enhanced item", with rules on the implications for magic item creation.

* well, actually Eberron cuts on both ends: it limits the number of high level (read: double digit) NPCs with levels north of 14 being almost unheard of. On the other hand it also makes 2-4 HD npcs the norm instead of the execption. Published adventures have long followed this (by my completely non-scientific gut-feeling the average for non-champion NPCs is about level 3 in published adventures), but rule and setting books tried to sell the idea that almost everyone is level 1. Not so in Eberron.

jjordan
2021-02-24, 03:05 PM
Not sure where you’re getting this from. Coins were widespread in the Roman Republic and Empire, since that’s how most soldiers were paid, and coins continued to be produced throughout former Roman territories, by kings of every stripe as well as local mints.

And coins flowed into Europe from well beyond, such as the silver dirhams minted in Baghdad, which found their way to Vikings at Staraya Ladoga and thence to Scandinavia, which is how silver coins from Baghdad ended up in Iceland. But not in the post-Roman Dark Ages and Medieval timeframes D&D tends to be set in. A lot of silver flowed out of Europe and into the coffers of the Mamluk Sultanate and various Mongol states. And the foreign currencies that were used as currency tended to be used in the areas bordering those foreign states, so the South of Europe.




I have an image on my wall of four women in flight suits in front of a B-17, but that doesn’t mean women were flying B-17s into combat.

If these images you mention show looting of golden chalices, then the images may have been commissioned by the owners of those chalices to make a specific point, rather than being reflective of general circumstances. An image of a single activity doesn’t necessarily mean that was the whole story. No, it doesn't. But taken in conjunction with accounts of extortion (where coins were produced) and looting (where coin was not) from a roughly 300 year timespan it's fairly trustworthy. And I should have said "Portable wealth".

icefractal
2021-02-24, 03:15 PM
I never had the impression that the "Magic Marts" were intended to be an actual thing. Instead I see it as a metagame construct to empower players to have an influence over the gear of their characters.I think buying magic items is an actual thing, but it doesn't imply a convenience store type of deal where they're all just sitting there on shelves.

You're an adventurer, you want to get Boots of Flying. You talk to a broker, who has a catalog of what-all magic items they have access to. Meaning that they know the seller and it's still available, not that they personally possess it, usually. They answer questions, make sure you're actually able to afford it and not trying to pay with illusory gold, and then go off to arrange it. The broker buys the item at somewhat less than "market price", sells it to you for market price, and the difference is their pay.

Once you're talking to people who can hook you up with something like a Cubic Gate, they have access to teleportation and world-spanning networks of connections. So it's not that every major city has a Cubic Gate for sale, it's that at least one person in the world does, and big-time item brokers know about that person.

As a minor house-rule, I consider the 50% selling price to be for a "rush sale" where the broker is buying it on spec. If you have a way for the broker to contact you and are willing to wait a few days/weeks/months for a buyer to be found, you can get 75%. And if you do the legwork of finding an end-user buyer (and vetting them) yourself, you can get 100%. Usually people still go for the first option since they have more valuable things to do with their time, but the latter two can be a useful downtime activity.

Destro2119
2021-02-24, 06:40 PM
I think buying magic items is an actual thing, but it doesn't imply a convenience store type of deal where they're all just sitting there on shelves.

You're an adventurer, you want to get Boots of Flying. You talk to a broker, who has a catalog of what-all magic items they have access to. Meaning that they know the seller and it's still available, not that they personally possess it, usually. They answer questions, make sure you're actually able to afford it and not trying to pay with illusory gold, and then go off to arrange it. The broker buys the item at somewhat less than "market price", sells it to you for market price, and the difference is their pay.

Once you're talking to people who can hook you up with something like a Cubic Gate, they have access to teleportation and world-spanning networks of connections. So it's not that every major city has a Cubic Gate for sale, it's that at least one person in the world does, and big-time item brokers know about that person.

As a minor house-rule, I consider the 50% selling price to be for a "rush sale" where the broker is buying it on spec. If you have a way for the broker to contact you and are willing to wait a few days/weeks/months for a buyer to be found, you can get 75%. And if you do the legwork of finding an end-user buyer (and vetting them) yourself, you can get 100%. Usually people still go for the first option since they have more valuable things to do with their time, but the latter two can be a useful downtime activity.

That may be true*, but the gp limit represents things on hand in a single area, not things like teleports et al which would be additional price.

In any case, the fact that the city's base limit allows as many as it does just begs the question of why there isn't a push towards civic improvements on even the basic scale. Or why all those items seem to be for adventurers only and not available for public/state use.

*the "magic item" issue is even more egregious of a problem in 3.5, where you have to pay xp (your personal spirit essence, basically) as well. In PF/3.X, you no longer have to pay xp and it's HEAVILY implied that magic items are no more difficult to make than technological items (ie the lack of xp means that the manufacturing process is more "natural" than "supernatural" anymore), but the availability is still the same due to contrived reasons/legacy bogging it down.

TheStranger
2021-02-24, 08:38 PM
That may be true*, but the gp limit represents things on hand in a single area, not things like teleports et al which would be additional price.

In any case, the fact that the city's base limit allows as many as it does just begs the question of why there isn't a push towards civic improvements on even the basic scale. Or why all those items seem to be for adventurers only and not available for public/state use.

*the "magic item" issue is even more egregious of a problem in 3.5, where you have to pay xp (your personal spirit essence, basically) as well. In PF/3.X, you no longer have to pay xp and it's HEAVILY implied that magic items are no more difficult to make than technological items (ie the lack of xp means that the manufacturing process is more "natural" than "supernatural" anymore), but the availability is still the same due to contrived reasons/legacy bogging it down.

The thing that gets me, and part of what inspired this thread, is that unless the PCs AND their opponents AND the places they explore are all unique in the setting (i.e., the setting exists solely for the benefit of the PCs, like a CRPG), there must be a lot of magic items floating around. They're bought and sold, as evidenced by the fact that the PCs are able to buy and sell them. Whether that's a "magic mart," a commissioned broker, or something else, there almost has to be some kind of trade taking place.

Which, yeah, does beg the question of why magic isn't used regularly for civic improvements and other purposes that are useful to the population at large instead of the minority that kills things for a living. Even if you say that combat magic is more advanced than practical magic (military technology is generally pretty cutting-edge), you'd still think some of it would be used for the obvious civilian applications (as military technology generally is).

Here's a thought experiment - what would happen if every spell and item that has a semi-obvious use that goes beyond the tech level of a pseudo-medieval setting just didn't exist? So something like Teleport is out, but most combat magic is probably fine. Is there enough left that the game still works? Does that actually solve anything, or would we just be here complaining that it makes no sense for mages not to have developed relatively simple but world-changing magic when combat magic is both powerful and widely available?

Mechalich
2021-02-24, 09:03 PM
Here's a thought experiment - what would happen if every spell and item that has a semi-obvious use that goes beyond the tech level of a pseudo-medieval setting just didn't exist? So something like Teleport is out, but most combat magic is probably fine. Is there enough left that the game still works? Does that actually solve anything, or would we just be here complaining that it makes no sense for mages not to have developed relatively simple but world-changing magic when combat magic is both powerful and widely available?

Large swathes of explicitly combat oriented magic items have obvious civilian applications, including basic essentials like stat-increasing items - which make life better for everyone pretty much no matter what you do. Ex. in the video game version of Pathfinder Kingmaker, the crown you get for becoming a king gives +6 to all mental stats. If such an item is available it is an obligate need for rulers just to keep pace with their rivals. Even fairly basic combat-oriented items like flaming swords have non-combat applications.

Generally items - or any permanent effect - are far more destabilizing to settings than temporary ones like spellcasting. At its most basic this happens becomes temporary effects are inherently limited in at least one component of scale, time, by nature. Consequently banning all magic items is one way to make high-magic settings significantly more viable.

Palanan
2021-02-24, 11:50 PM
Originally Posted by jjordan
But not in the post-Roman Dark Ages and Medieval timeframes D&D tends to be set in.

In seventh-century Francia there were hundreds of towns that each had their own mint, part of a “great proliferation of mints, especially in the Merovingian and Visigothic kingdoms,” as described here (https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/coinage-early-middle-ages). That sounds like a lot of coins being produced in the post-Roman Dark Ages.

Also, the silver dirhams were flowing into Northern Europe through Staraya Ladoga by 800 or a little earlier, which is right in that same timeframe.

Stattick
2021-02-25, 05:44 AM
Now I want to run a game where circumstances throw the early level PCs together with a king and his advisors. The PCs are refugees or low ranking conscripts. The king has just been routed from the battlefield by The Dark Lord's forces, and they're hiding, trying to figure out their next move. That's when the wraiths or shadows find the king and his men, and slaughter them, but leave the bodies. The PCs, probably looking to evacuate the area, realize that the gold crown, the king's chain of office, and so forth, would be worth a lot of money. You know how PCs are, they loot everything. And a lot of that gear is magical. Moreover, I'd use Mercer's Vestiges rules, so those magic items would grow with the PCs. Planned culmination of the campaign would be the PCs turning the tide against The Dark Lord and defeating him, taking back their nation. End it like a Shakespearian comedy - marriages for everyone, as the PCs get married into the surviving noble and royal families to preserve power and mollify the surviving nobles to make them less likely to attempt to usurp the PCs.

TheStranger
2021-02-25, 07:32 AM
Large swathes of explicitly combat oriented magic items have obvious civilian applications, including basic essentials like stat-increasing items - which make life better for everyone pretty much no matter what you do. Ex. in the video game version of Pathfinder Kingmaker, the crown you get for becoming a king gives +6 to all mental stats. If such an item is available it is an obligate need for rulers just to keep pace with their rivals. Even fairly basic combat-oriented items like flaming swords have non-combat applications.

Generally items - or any permanent effect - are far more destabilizing to settings than temporary ones like spellcasting. At its most basic this happens becomes temporary effects are inherently limited in at least one component of scale, time, by nature. Consequently banning all magic items is one way to make high-magic settings significantly more viable.

Items and permanent effects being more problematic was my thought as well. I don’t agree that just because an item has civilian applications it’s a problem, though. To use your example, even if every king has boosted stats, it doesn’t make the “medieval Europe with magic” setting fall apart. Kings are just moderately smarter than they would be otherwise. But IMO, a few individuals having greater capability doesn’t move the needle all that much on society at large.

To me, the problematic magic from a worldbuilding perspective is the stuff that should logically be in widespread use to raise the standard of living, replace large amounts of labor, or otherwise raise the effective tech level well beyond medieval. Especially if it’s low-level magic that doesn’t require a 17-level wizard to set up.

I’ll bite: what, other than looking cool and killing things, can a flaming sword do that you couldn’t do cheaper with a mundane fire source?

King of Nowhere
2021-02-25, 10:07 AM
this has to be handled with worldbuilding, if you don't want the world to run on too much handwavium.

you can find ways to nerf those things that have civilian use. wall of iron/salt/whatever are no more permanent but last one day/level. create food lacks all kinds of nutrients so that it will sustain you for a while, but cannot replace real food. magic items listed as permanent will still eventually break with repeated use, so they can't be accumulated by society.
Personally, i have a general policy of "if a spell would render a worldbuilding point moot, then assume either the spell does not exhist, or it does not work that way"

the other way is to incorporate magic in society. figure out ways that the magic could be used, and implement them, and actually show their effect. nobody would just try to assassinate the king, because the priest can just fix him for 5000 gp in diamonds. well-to-do people would never take a long trip when they could teleport. faraway nations that would have been mostly oblivious of each other in a medieval fantasy keep strong ties because there is instant communication.
i try to think on that kind of stuff on a setting. i either incorporate the various magic into society, or i make it nonfunctional.

there is a long tradition of introducing flashy magic for fighting/adventures, without considering how that would affect the world otherwise. perhaps in the past it was assumed that nobody would care enough about a story to start asking questions. or perhaps it was assumed that readers would be morons. either way, there's no reason to keep the tradition running. one always has to give some thought on the effect of magic on a plot

gijoemike
2021-02-25, 11:06 AM
Adventurers have the largest amount of liquid assets. Kings/Queens/other noble families have invested that cold hard cash into permanent boons like magic items and investments. They aren't rich because they have 1 billion gold pieces hidden in the castle tower. They are rich because they gave the seed money to what is now the merchant guild. They take a profit as a business partner. Nobles have many steady sources of income with a good amount on hand.

They own hundreds of acres of land. They allow people to farm this land and they take only a portion of the crop/livestock. They own magical wards, safe houses, sources of clean water and a wand that can end famine. They form alliances with other powerful family and intermarry. The kind doesn't need a +5 Flaming Keen longsword. He only needs a magical status symbol that his grandfather also used. It can be a +1 Flaming longsword and accomplish the same effect.

Adventurers on the other hand have tens of thousands of gold pieces at the ready and will use that all on a single sword. There would be many times an adventurer would have more liquid assets on there physical person than the entire noble family in the region. They rarely have personal land, alliances, power, or servants.

GloatingSwine
2021-02-25, 11:33 AM
The issue there is one of Succession, if every Monarch is a high level adventurer, where do heirs come from?


Imagine dealing with succession in a world where resurrection exists...

asda fasda
2021-02-25, 11:41 AM
I would said the your campaign will have what you like it to have : ) Especially it depends how available those magic items are for common people.

I think most classic settings were prepared in myth-like structure, magic items are known but rarely who sees one and are old. The value comes from the fact that they usually are in places hard to get, and with dragons as a guards. People who have magic items rarely want to give it or sell it. As such nobles usually would have some trinkets maybe some magic armor or sword that's in family for generations and potions for dark hour. Moreover magic attracts evil and kingdoms with lots of magic items are often ruined either by mages/nobles fighting with magic or dark creatures interfering. For me it's the most sensible setting.

On the other hand you can have magic that is "common", which means that it's hard to make magic item but with enough cash someone will do it, then its only how useful that item is and nobles would usually have equipment of lets say 4-lvl party on hand, with few warlords and kings probably with equipment of 10-lvl and group of captains with 4-6 level equipment

Satinavian
2021-02-25, 12:18 PM
The issue there is one of Succession, if every Monarch is a high level adventurer, where do heirs come from? What would a high-level PC ruler do to ensure their children inherit ?

Probably have them level up in a controlled environment and give them twink equippment.

And now the question is how seriously you take the rules.

On the more serious side you will get adventurer academies full of noble children raising level and skill in a safe way or maybe adventurers guild providing vetted, carefully selected jobs of just the right difficulty. Lots of fantasy animes do take that route.

On the less rules at face value side you just handwave that giving your children the best teachers money can buy and training them in the duties of a ruler personally would provide them with better opportunities to raise their education and abilities than having them climb through ruins.

Either way, the average heir should be pretty high level as well. If not, you get the trope of the incompetent unfit heir and all that that entails.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-25, 12:19 PM
The economic scale presented for adventures in D&D is entirely out of sync with the economic scale of times and places that supposedly inform the typical D&D setting.

Adventurers of the typical D&D ilk are very likely to distort local economies every time they drag more wealth out of a dungeon than the nearest town generates in a year or more.

Xervous
2021-02-25, 12:30 PM
What would a high-level PC ruler do to ensure their children inherit ?

Probably have them level up in a controlled environment and give them twink equippment.


But twink gear was for level 19 chara- oh.

BRC
2021-02-25, 12:45 PM
What would a high-level PC ruler do to ensure their children inherit ?

Probably have them level up in a controlled environment and give them twink equippment.

And now the question is how seriously you take the rules.

On the more serious side you will get adventurer academies full of noble children raising level and skill in a safe way or maybe adventurers guild providing vetted, carefully selected jobs of just the right difficulty. Lots of fantasy animes do take that route.

On the less rules at face value side you just handwave that giving your children the best teachers money can buy and training them in the duties of a ruler personally would provide them with better opportunities to raise their education and abilities than having them climb through ruins.

Either way, the average heir should be pretty high level as well. If not, you get the trope of the incompetent unfit heir and all that that entails.

I mean, that just gets us back to the circle of Monarchs as a martial ruling class. Maybe a given noble house traces its lineage to a specific adventurer whose skill and treasure got the house started, but a given noble is just a descendent with the family's wealth worth of equipment and training.

It also bypasses the issue of sending your heir to tramp through some ruins wearing a substantial portion of your family's wealth in the form of Magic Items and hoping that, if they die, you can at least recover their body.

But that's not quite "All Nobles are ex-adventurers".


Although that CAN lead to something interesting in of itself. The type of magic items and adventurer would want are different from the ones a noble would want. If noble houses get started by Adventurers, who use their wealth and skill to carve out some territory and get a dynasty started, then it's likely that a good portion of the "Adventurer" style magic items (Swords, armor, and such) that the Noble family owns might be the equipment of their original ancestor, since buying other magic items (or hiring spellcasters for infrastructure projects) is a better use of money than buying magic swords.


So you might have a noble house where all the heirs are trained to use Greatswords, regardless of other inclinations, because their founding ancestor used a Greatsword, and so the magic weapon the Ruler of the House uses is a Greatsword. If it's a cultural thing that the Ruler of the House uses your House Arms (The magic items of the adventurer who founded your House) that could lead to all sorts of things.

A truly destitute house might be forced to sell off their House Arms. House Arms lost in battle would be recovered at great expense.

Nifft
2021-02-25, 12:56 PM
It also bypasses the issue of sending your heir to tramp through some ruins wearing a substantial portion of your family's wealth in the form of Magic Items and hoping that, if they die, you can at least recover their body.

What you do is send the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs off to adventure, so if conditions arise where anti-noble violence were to occur, the next-in-line would tend to be very ready to survive and retaliate.

You'd get one peaceful, friendly, well-trained administrator / negotiator as your face, with a succession line looking like a bench of nasty murder-hobos.

The bench of murder-hobos are insurance -- both that the line will succeed through trouble, and as a trouble deterrent.

TheStranger
2021-02-25, 01:44 PM
What you do is send the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs off to adventure, so if conditions arise where anti-noble violence were to occur, the next-in-line would tend to be very ready to survive and retaliate.

You'd get one peaceful, friendly, well-trained administrator / negotiator as your face, with a succession line looking like a bench of nasty murder-hobos.

The bench of murder-hobos are insurance -- both that the line will succeed through trouble, and as a trouble deterrent.

That only works as long as your murder-hobos are content being on the bench. Once one of them decides they want to be in charge, you have a problem.

Not that every ruler needs to be a high-level adventurer with a pile of magic items, but they certainly need to have access to some, whether they’re family, friends, or vassals. In a setting where powerful individuals can dominate entire battlefields, not having some around is like not having an army.

Of course, if your military commanders can wipe out an army singlehandedly, keeping them loyal is even more important than it is in the real world. I could imagine a D&D world having much less stable power structures than the real world (which is saying something, given the chaos that has proliferated in various times and places). In the real world, an effective rebellion/coup generally requires leadership, numbers, money, etc. In D&D, you just need a small number of people who are very good at killing things and taking their stuff.

BRC
2021-02-25, 02:37 PM
That only works as long as your murder-hobos are content being on the bench. Once one of them decides they want to be in charge, you have a problem.

Not that every ruler needs to be a high-level adventurer with a pile of magic items, but they certainly need to have access to some, whether they’re family, friends, or vassals. In a setting where powerful individuals can dominate entire battlefields, not having some around is like not having an army.

Of course, if your military commanders can wipe out an army singlehandedly, keeping them loyal is even more important than it is in the real world. I could imagine a D&D world having much less stable power structures than the real world (which is saying something, given the chaos that has proliferated in various times and places). In the real world, an effective rebellion/coup generally requires leadership, numbers, money, etc. In D&D, you just need a small number of people who are very good at killing things and taking their stuff.

Clearly, what you do is that you pick your line of succession by class, and make it an immutable rule that the line of succession cannot be changed within the first year of a king's reign.

Your 1st Heir is your groomed diplomat and administrator.
Your 2nd Heir is the battle scarred badass, so when your first heir (the new king) gets assassinated by your enemies, they would have to deal with the 2nd.
Your 3rd Heir is a wily rogue with expert knowledge of poisons and murder, so that if the Badass gets ideas about chopping off the Diplomat's head, the Rogue would vanish, and the new king would have to spend a year sleeping with one eye open to avoid a dagger in the throat.

Nifft
2021-02-25, 03:23 PM
That only works as long as your murder-hobos are content being on the bench. Once one of them decides they want to be in charge, you have a problem.

The problem of #2 wanting to bump off #1 is a thing you get even without the people on the bench being adventurers.

But if the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th are not in agreement that #2 should be on top, then #2 has just created a problem for which the bench can provide a solution.

(If the whole bench agrees that #1 needs to go and they don't particularly mind #2 taking over, then I'd argue you're in a situation where the actual problem was created by #1, and the removal of #1 isn't creating an issue but rather solving one.)

TheStranger
2021-02-25, 03:33 PM
The problem of #2 wanting to bump off #1 is a thing you get even without the people on the bench being adventurers.

But if the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th are not in agreement that #2 should be on top, then #2 has just created a problem for which the bench can provide a solution.

(If the whole bench agrees that #1 needs to go and they don't particularly mind #2 taking over, then I'd argue you're in a situation where the actual problem was created by #1, and the removal of #1 isn't creating an issue but rather solving one.)

Right, my point was that if you’ve intentionally made #2 a killing machine and #1 not, you’ve exacerbated the problem. Which is further exacerbated by the second half of my post, that if #2 is high enough level he doesn’t really need the support of the vassals/knights/retainers like he would in the real world. Unless they’re also high-level adventurers, of course. And yes, #3 through #6 can help keep #2 in line.

Obviously, the best solution is to train #1 up as a high-level diplomancer to ensure loyalty. Actually, I could see magically-binding oaths of fealty being a thing.

Nifft
2021-02-25, 04:38 PM
Right, my point was that if you’ve intentionally made #2 a killing machine and #1 not, you’ve exacerbated the problem. Which is further exacerbated by the second half of my post, that if #2 is high enough level he doesn’t really need the support of the vassals/knights/retainers like he would in the real world. Unless they’re also high-level adventurers, of course. And yes, #3 through #6 can help keep #2 in line.

Obviously, the best solution is to train #1 up as a high-level diplomancer to ensure loyalty. Actually, I could see magically-binding oaths of fealty being a thing.
IMHO the succession crisis is mostly a problem when the kids who don't directly inherit lack attractive options.

The thing about being high level is you might have equivalently attractive options compared to running a fief, like starting a mage college or running a trade empire -- from within your family's fief, probably, since you know they've got your back.

One of the reasons #1 is not also made into a killing machine is that #2 was actually #4, but adventuring is dangerous and you don't want to risk all of your eggs, but yeah making a Diplomancer the default top choice looks good for your neighbors ("hey that guy's not warlike or invasion-oriented") and helps you come out on top of peaceful negotiations.

King of Nowhere
2021-02-25, 05:04 PM
don't forget that you need a skilled administrator. the ability to kill monsters may make you fit to take the throne, but it does not make one fit to rule. and if the murderhobos have some brain, they should not want to take the diplomat's place. even if they decide to take the power, they'd still want to leave that guy as a figurehead and administrator.

Nifft
2021-02-25, 05:12 PM
don't forget that you need a skilled administrator. the ability to kill monsters may make you fit to take the throne, but it does not make one fit to rule. and if the murderhobos have some brain, they should not want to take the diplomat's place. even if they decide to take the power, they'd still want to leave that guy as a figurehead and administrator.

Yeah.

With the diplomat kid as heir, you have an administrator with a right-hand murderhobo (who might be a power behind the throne).

With an adventurer as heir, you'd have a murderhobo who hires a right-hand administrator (who might be corrupt and deceptive).

Both are plausible and can be stable, if the people are acting in good faith; neither is without flaw or risk.

BRC
2021-02-25, 05:14 PM
I feel like the Resident Adventurer isn't that much more capable of taking the throne than, say, the General or whoever was in charge of the armed forces.
In a classic Coup situation, the new leader starts with the support of the military, since that very support is what let them take power in the first place, so they have loyal guards to watch their back from assassins, plus there really isn't a martial force that stands to oppose them.


In the situation of the lone Resident Adventurer killing the monarch and taking the throne, assuming that some sort of other military exists, it will be pretty hard for the Adventurer to hold onto power without their support.
Like, first this is assuming the scale of the system is such that the power levels are not totally mismatched. An 18th level fighter isn't going to be working as Champion Of The Realm for a kingdom with a handful of 1st level Guards as it's "Standing Army".

Secondly, it can be very difficult for one person, no matter how personally capable, to handle the job of an entire military. If you murder the King and take the throne, but you don't have any backing among the troops and they desert en-masse, you can't patrol the roads, collect taxes, or stand outside your own door in case of assassins.

Of course, the traditional solution of "Murder the King, seize the throne, bribe the troops into loyalty" will still work just fine, just as it did historically. (although you can run into a Praetorian Guard situation, once it becomes tradition for the new Ruler to begin his reign with a hefty round of bribes, there's a bit of a perverse incentive for the bodyguards to change regimes as frequently as possible)

maybe that's a reason to not keep a lot of cash on hand. If you don't have a lot of liquid capital, its harder for somebody to kill you, seize the treasury, and use the treasury to bribe the people who should have avenged/protected you into obedience.

Like, once you're trusted and part of the court, it's not hard to kill the Monarch. Having an Adventurer on-hand who could overpower the guards is just another method that can be used.

Max_Killjoy
2021-02-25, 08:14 PM
Interesting dichotomy, between those who would seek personal power as a means to group power, and those who would seek personal power to insulate themselves from group power.

Segev
2021-02-26, 12:34 AM
Imagine dealing with succession in a world where resurrection exists...Actually, I don't think it is that hard to make work. The key would be that the expectation is for the heir apparent (and maybe the spare apparent) to work closely with the ruler whose position they'll get. They may not be the ultimate authority, but they are the right hand, and the prime delegate, and also the chief advisors. Not that they're called "chief advisors," because their advising is more collaboration over ruling policy with the current title-holder being the one with final decision-making; the people TERMED "advisors" (chief or otherwise) are subject-matter experts who advise the ruler and his heir(s).

When the ruler dies, it is actually VERY smooth in transition because the heir has been doing the same thing at his predecessor's side forever. It's just that the one making the final call is him, not his father (or grandfather, or whomever). If dear old dad is brought back from the dead, little (again) changes, especially if it's within a relatively short time, because dear old dad isn't ousting his heir from power by very much. The pseudo-oligarchy just regains a member.


What would a high-level PC ruler do to ensure their children inherit ?

Probably have them level up in a controlled environment and give them twink equippment.

And now the question is how seriously you take the rules.

On the more serious side you will get adventurer academies full of noble children raising level and skill in a safe way or maybe adventurers guild providing vetted, carefully selected jobs of just the right difficulty. Lots of fantasy animes do take that route.

On the less rules at face value side you just handwave that giving your children the best teachers money can buy and training them in the duties of a ruler personally would provide them with better opportunities to raise their education and abilities than having them climb through ruins.

Either way, the average heir should be pretty high level as well. If not, you get the trope of the incompetent unfit heir and all that that entails.In a world with resurrection magic, the high-level noble parent can be fairly fearless about sending his offspring off to adventure. Just ensure that the required means of bringing them back from death is available. This doesn't mean skimping on pre-adventuring training; they probably get to at least level 2, maybe 3, before mom and dad kick them out of the house to toughen them up on the dungeon-crawling circuit. But it does mean that they're not worried about making it "safe." Sure, they want their kids to do well, and don't want them being reckless or unprepared or taking on challenges whose ratings grossly exceed their level, but the knowledge that they can just have their old buddy the cleric bring Junior back, help him recuperate, and then send him back out is all for the better.

And, since adventurers are always tackling problems that need solving, Noble Parents can be quest-givers. They dispatch their children and their children's parties on quests, and they also do a sort of fosterage with allied nobles where their allies' children get quests from them, too.


What you do is send the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs off to adventure, so if conditions arise where anti-noble violence were to occur, the next-in-line would tend to be very ready to survive and retaliate.

You'd get one peaceful, friendly, well-trained administrator / negotiator as your face, with a succession line looking like a bench of nasty murder-hobos.

The bench of murder-hobos are insurance -- both that the line will succeed through trouble, and as a trouble deterrent.
I like this. I like this a lot. :smallcool:

Zombimode
2021-02-26, 01:29 AM
What you do is send the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs off to adventure, so if conditions arise where anti-noble violence were to occur, the next-in-line would tend to be very ready to survive and retaliate.

You'd get one peaceful, friendly, well-trained administrator / negotiator as your face, with a succession line looking like a bench of nasty murder-hobos.

The bench of murder-hobos are insurance -- both that the line will succeed through trouble, and as a trouble deterrent.

No, you wound up with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs being dead.

Remember, in-universe there are no such things as leveled encounters.


Especially for worlds like Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms "going off to adventure!" with no pressing need, no crisis to solve, in short: without being forced by the circumstances, is the most insane and suicidal thing to do.

Mechalich
2021-02-26, 01:30 AM
I'm not sure succession is a question worth bothering with much. Assuming rulers control a polity of any meaningful size at all, then they have access to sufficient magic either personally or via proxy to live to forever unless killed. And since resurrection magic of various kinds takes care of that particular problem the only reason to step down is because the ruler doesn't feel like ruling any more.

So most high magic states will be ruled by an immortal oligarchy.

Nifft
2021-02-26, 01:34 AM
One of the reasons #1 is not also made into a killing machine is that #2 was actually #4, but adventuring is dangerous and you don't want to risk all of your eggs


No, you wound up with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. heirs being dead.

Why are you repeating something I said as if it were a counter-argument to ... that same thing? "Adventuring is dangerous" is specifically a point I've been making.


Or are you saying ~EVERY~ noble adventurer would die? That would be wrong. These characters are going to be over-equipped by their rich noble family. They still get full XP despite being far over WBL, since WBL is not factored into ECL calculations.

Zombimode
2021-02-26, 02:57 AM
Why are you repeating something I said as if it were a counter-argument to ... that same thing? "Adventuring is dangerous" is specifically a point I've been making.

Hm, I will re-read that part of the discussion. I may have taken your statement out of context.



Or are you saying ~EVERY~ noble adventurer would die? That would be wrong. These characters are going to be over-equipped by their rich noble family. They still get full XP despite being far over WBL, since WBL is not factored into ECL calculations.

My point is: "adventurer" is not a sensible career option for anyone but the most desperate. It's like playing Russian Roulette but instead of having empty chambers save one all chambers are loaded save one.
Beeing overequiped doesn't matter. That APL+6 encounter will tear you appart no matter your gear.
Also, I think you are incorect in saying that equipment has no influence on experience. The experience calculation is meant to model the actual hardship the party is experiencing. This intent is very clear (even if the exectution is not the most precise). The calculations assumes that the party is on WBL just as it assumes that the terrain is not overly favourable for either side. And just like you're supposed to modify the ECL for favourable terrain it follows the intent to modify the ECL if the party is over- or underequiped.
If you want to ignore the intent of the encounter and experience rules you would have to argue that these rules are part of the settings metaphysics.

Satinavian
2021-02-26, 06:24 AM
Remember, in-universe there are no such things as leveled encounters.
Then make them. Organized hunts, exams and the always popular tournament arc would be easy ways to set up appropriate challanges for those adolescents.

Tobtor
2021-02-26, 06:44 AM
What would a high-level PC ruler do to ensure their children inherit ?

Probably have them level up in a controlled environment and give them twink equippment.

....

On the less rules at face value side you just handwave that giving your children the best teachers money can buy and training them in the duties of a ruler personally would provide them with better opportunities to raise their education and abilities than having them climb through ruins.

Say the king/duke etc, lets their children train under another (possibly lower ranking) noble "adventurer" slightly older than the kid but younger than the king/duke? Sound awfully like how medieval nobles used to send of their children to other courts as pages/squires/handmaidens etc. to train to be a nobleman/lady?

Also, you could invent a series mock combats that rewards nobles rewards for winning combats. You know a lot like medieval jousting and other tournaments? I am sure wining a tournament would grant you XP in DnD.

The real medieval world ALSO had entire mock battles as part of the tournaments to give younger nobles a change to prove themselves (with less than real battles of dying, though some did die of course).

It does seem that would be the very appropriate way to deal with inheritance in both the (real) medieval world and a pseudo medieval world like DnD.In a DnD setting with healing etc. I would think it was even more so. Also encounters do not have to be to the death to get you XP.


I mean, that just gets us back to the circle of Monarchs as a martial ruling class. Maybe a given noble house traces its lineage to a specific adventurer whose skill and treasure got the house started, but a given noble is just a descendent with the family's wealth worth of equipment and training.

That seem very likely, yes. That is actual just how most mediaeval dynasties where formed!

In the early medieval period (when countries got created) being a powerful and experienced "fighter" was the absolute BEST qualification for "rulership". Mos mediveal kings DID send ther kids out into the world as kno9ghts and commanders and had them face various very dangerous situations. Later it was was partly changed to tournaments etc, but being a capable warrior was still very much a VERY important qualification.

In a fantasy world some magic would probably also be counted, at least in some countires (as wizards are somewhat more dangerous and flexible than fighters).

MoiMagnus
2021-02-26, 06:46 AM
Remember, in-universe there are no such things as leveled encounters.

Why not?
I agree that this is a significant decision in worldbuilding which has a wide range of consequences, but if PCs get leveled encounters, rather than saying that this is a special exception for PCs, this might be part of the rules of the universe (fate or whatever) as much as magic.
Especially if one decide that NPCs also progress with XP like PCs (rather than having XP from defeating monster be a rule exclusive to PCs), one could have "the hero's journey" be something commonly enabled by the universe.

Quertus
2021-02-26, 11:03 AM
Interesting dichotomy, between those who would seek personal power as a means to group power, and those who would seek personal power to insulate themselves from group power.

Older editions of D&D were much more the former, with the expectation of transitioning to running kingdoms and fielding armies; 3e runs more on the latter.

5e gives voice to the fact that this is a false dichotomy, as it cleaves to neither. Personal power neither grants you group power, not insulates you from such.

(What pattern did 4e take here?)

EDIT:
Why not?
I agree that this is a significant decision in worldbuilding which has a wide range of consequences, but if PCs get leveled encounters, rather than saying that this is a special exception for PCs, this might be part of the rules of the universe (fate or whatever) as much as magic.
Especially if one decide that NPCs also progress with XP like PCs (rather than having XP from defeating monster be a rule exclusive to PCs), one could have "the hero's journey" be something commonly enabled by the universe.

The ones who *Happen* to get level-appropriate challenges are more entertaining?

It's tough, trying to balance "realism" (or versimilitude, or whatever) with "fun". Most of my worlds at least have large areas with very few creatures both innately hostile and capable of instantly murdering a level 3 party.

Tobtor
2021-02-26, 12:25 PM
Why not?
I agree that this is a significant decision in worldbuilding which has a wide range of consequences, but if PCs get leveled encounters, rather than saying that this is a special exception for PCs, this might be part of the rules of the universe (fate or whatever) as much as magic.
Especially if one decide that NPCs also progress with XP like PCs (rather than having XP from defeating monster be a rule exclusive to PCs), one could have "the hero's journey" be something commonly enabled by the universe.

Yes, I see the picture of that. Imagine a small isolated valley. Complete with a local leader (knight or mayor or whatever) and a few villages and outlying farms. Sure there is a dragon in the mountains, but none worries about that since everyone knows that none of the NPCs villagers are level appropriate level encounters.

Now enters a group of adventurers. All the villagers flee in terror since NOW there is a level appropriate encounter and they might be killed as collateral damage!

If EVERYONE only meets leveled encounters, can you also actively avoid them? Let us assume it is also true of NPC races like goblins. A group of adventurers is rumoured to be in the area - will the goblins actively disperse into groups small enough not to be level appropriate?

Does it also mean that you are safe from monsters more dangerous than a house cat is you are a lvl 1 commoner?

TheStranger
2021-02-26, 12:57 PM
Yes, I see the picture of that. Imagine a small isolated valley. Complete with a local leader (knight or mayor or whatever) and a few villages and outlying farms. Sure there is a dragon in the mountains, but none worries about that since everyone knows that none of the NPCs villagers are level appropriate level encounters.

Now enters a group of adventurers. All the villagers flee in terror since NOW there is a level appropriate encounter and they might be killed as collateral damage!

If EVERYONE only meets leveled encounters, can you also actively avoid them? Let us assume it is also true of NPC races like goblins. A group of adventurers is rumoured to be in the area - will the goblins actively disperse into groups small enough not to be level appropriate?

Does it also mean that you are safe from monsters more dangerous than a house cat is you are a lvl 1 commoner?

What you have to worry about as a level 1 commoner is becoming a plot hook for somebody else’s level appropriate encounter. You’re always at risk of having your farm raided by ogres so that 4-6 murderhobos in the next city over can hear a rumor in the tavern.

King of Nowhere
2021-02-26, 02:59 PM
while in most worlds you won't have level appropriate encounters, you gen generally guesstimate the encounter levels you are gonna find. a bit of information gathering should make clear that this way are the goblins, and that way is the dragon lair. or that in the swamp there are hydras, but in the forest there is nothing larger than owlbears.
and a bit of level-headedness should make it clear when the party should just run. most encounters can be avoided.
people in world don't have levels and challenge ratings, but you don't need those to know your encounters. in the real world we have no levels and challenge ratings, but we know what objectives can be achieved by an infantry platoon and which ones require an armored division.

KineticDiplomat
2021-02-28, 12:08 AM
Your issue with using literally any printed D&D numbers is that they are not designed to be an economy. They are designed to ensure players scale in power at a suitable rate. +1 Things don’t cost 10,000 GP because the wider market is willing to pay it, or there’s a marginal cost that prevents cheaper ones, or because it is the price Ye Olde Magic Shoppe needs to be able to hold them in inventory long enough for a buyer.

They are 10 grand because someone figured at level X PCs should be able to splurge that based on level appropriate looting. That’s it. The moment +1 Whatevers got dropped into a “real” economy, the only thing we know for sure is that the price would almost certainly change.

But, let’s imagine that the vast wealth of the nation-state (which doesn’t exist because pre-Westphalian feudalism, but hey, why not) was in magic items. Very quickly the ability to produce and trade magic items, not the rest of what made the classic rich type rich, would be the key driver. Because as you just said, magic items are somehow making up the bulk of the wealth (which raises the question of how they’re being bought to a degree that outstrips the other sectors of the economy and their ability to generate the wealth to actually buy them...) You would break the social structures, the system of governance, and on and on

MoiMagnus
2021-02-28, 03:40 AM
Your issue with using literally any printed D&D numbers is that they are not designed to be an economy. They are designed to ensure players scale in power at a suitable rate. +1 Things don’t cost 10,000 GP because the wider market is willing to pay it, or there’s a marginal cost that prevents cheaper ones, or because it is the price Ye Olde Magic Shoppe needs to be able to hold them in inventory long enough for a buyer.

They are 10 grand because someone figured at level X PCs should be able to splurge that based on level appropriate looting. That’s it. The moment +1 Whatevers got dropped into a “real” economy, the only thing we know for sure is that the price would almost certainly change.

But, let’s imagine that the vast wealth of the nation-state (which doesn’t exist because pre-Westphalian feudalism, but hey, why not) was in magic items. Very quickly the ability to produce and trade magic items, not the rest of what made the classic rich type rich, would be the key driver. Because as you just said, magic items are somehow making up the bulk of the wealth (which raises the question of how they’re being bought to a degree that outstrips the other sectors of the economy and their ability to generate the wealth to actually buy them...) You would break the social structures, the system of governance, and on and on

I'd note that 4e "solved" this issue, admittedly and unsurprisingly in a very gamey way: Residuum

To create any magical object, you needed someone able to craft magical object (talent assumed to be common in the universe), you needed common materials of negligible cost, and a given amount of Residuum. When destroying such magical object, you recovered this Residuum (or maybe a fraction of it, not sure about the details).
So magical object had an objective cost in Residuum, so as long as the Residuum had a stable cost in gold pieces, every standard magical object had a stable price.

In general in a high magic D&D universe, cost of materials are likely indexed on how easy it is for Transmuters to transform a component into another (or created out of nothing), and fluctuation of price mostly comes from logistics and new spell discovery, but not that much from demands/supply of the specific material as every material can be transformed into one another.

Satinavian
2021-02-28, 05:18 AM
I'd note that 4e "solved" this issue, admittedly and unsurprisingly in a very gamey way: Residuum

To create any magical object, you needed someone able to craft magical object (talent assumed to be common in the universe), you needed common materials of negligible cost, and a given amount of Residuum. When destroying such magical object, you recovered this Residuum (or maybe a fraction of it, not sure about the details).
So magical object had an objective cost in Residuum, so as long as the Residuum had a stable cost in gold pieces, every standard magical object had a stable price.

In general in a high magic D&D universe, cost of materials are likely indexed on how easy it is for Transmuters to transform a component into another (or created out of nothing), and fluctuation of price mostly comes from logistics and new spell discovery, but not that much from demands/supply of the specific material as every material can be transformed into one another.
I tried something like that once but it inevitably makes residuum just another currency that will be used for most high-volume transactions because it is so stable and in demand.

It is nearly impossible to establish some parallel economy revolving around magic items as long as people handling magic items might be willing to give some up for a luxury lifestyle and people getting rich by the mundane economy being willing to spend a portion of their wealth to get personal permanent magical convenienc/buffs/protections as well.

KineticDiplomat
2021-02-28, 07:34 AM
And who determines the fixed cost in Residuum or its alleged stable price? I’m guessing the same people who want to make sure PC power scales. Let’s look at a handful of ways that system would break down:

Resources don’t have stable universal costs IRL. Whether we’re talking about iron ore, tall oaks for ship building, or modern day oil. We could go into the many reasons a price can change, but I suspect you know them all.

Supply and demand for given items would change even if their cost of production somehow remained stable.

Item arbitrage would no doubt be rife.

Residuum is either around in such quantities that the magic item trade becomes the wealth as the post supposes with the attendant changes in from of society, or it becomes a comparatively rare thing that cannot reliably be the source of all wealth and OPs initial supposition ends up wrong after all.

And on and on. The tying of a resource to production certainly hasn’t lead to even and stable prices for...anything. Can’t imagine it’d work differently for Residuum