Ravenloft: Wealth Feat

[Yogibear41]

There is a feat called "Wealth" in Heroes of light Ravenloft Book that can give a character a monthly amount of gold if they succeed on a check. The particular check is worded thusly:

"make a d20 roll against your character level. if this check succeeds,...."

I realize its 3rd party but this doesn't seem particularly well worded to me, and depending on how you might interpret it could mean that the check gets HARDER as you reach a higher level (which shouldn't be the case IMO). Or should I consider it that the check succeeds if I roll Under my character level (making it easier as I level up?) or am I just reading this terribly wrong.

[ciopo]

I don't know how much wealth it gives, but if the wealth amount scales up / is proportional to the character level, then it makes some sort of sense to me that the DC would be higher when you're higher level.

can you paraphrase the whole feat here? I don't have that book

[Yogibear41]

You get to roll starting wealth for one of your character classes, so at best if you took a Level of Aristocrat you get 6d8x10 gold a month(assuming you make the check). You might could argue getting more if you used one of the feats that modifiers your starting wealth somehow.

[Beni-Kujaku]

There is a feat called "Wealth" in Heroes of light Ravenloft Book that can give a character a monthly amount of gold if they succeed on a check. The particular check is worded thusly:

"make a d20 roll against your character level. if this check succeeds,...."

I realize its 3rd party but this doesn't seem particularly well worded to me, and depending on how you might interpret it could mean that the check gets HARDER as you reach a higher level (which shouldn't be the case IMO). Or should I consider it that the check succeeds if I roll Under my character level (making it easier as I level up?) or am I just reading this terribly wrong.

Well, as written, the check gets harder as you level up.


Wealth [General]
Benefit: Once a month make a d20 roll against you character level. If the check succeeds you can roll starting wealth for one of you character classes. The money arrives within a week.

That is incredibly badly worded, and super weak anyway. But that reminds me a lot of 2e. There, the wording "roll against something", with no mention of the words "DC equal to ..." was pretty common, and all checks were successful if they were under the corresponding score.



Ability check--a 1d20 roll against one of your character's ability scores (modifiers maybe added to or subtracted from the die roll). A result that is equal to or less than yourcharacter's ability score indicates that the attempted action succeeds


I personally believe this is a mistake when going from 2nd to 3rd edition, since it has both the wording and the logical effect that remind of 2nd edition, and would rule it as "You must roll under your character level". A way to word that for 3.0 would be "1/month, you can roll a character level check with a DC of 21. On a success, choose one of your base classes (any class that is not a prestige class is a base class) and roll its starting wealth. You receive this amount of money by [insert lore on how you could receive that money, for example a messenger] within one week". And with that, we can really see that this feat is incredibly sucky, considering that the amount of money you have in 3.0 is far from what you had in 2e (where money was almost only useful at low level, and magical items just couldn't be bought, only gained as treasure), and the starting money becomes negligible as soon as you can succeed on the roll.

I think I would give "level^2*10 gp" instead of "starting money of one of your classes", and have as a prerequisite "possession of a thriving business, or relations with a rich person willing to sustain you financially" for the feat.

[redking]

Psychic reformation once you've milked this pathetic feat for whatever it's worth. This should never have been made into a feat in the first place, and Heroes of Light is rightly criticized for this reason and others. Ask your DM if they would consider giving a 'wealthy' background trait or something instead.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Take the Mercantile Background feat to add +300 gp to what you get from this feat? Also the Noble Birth feat, from Dungeon #92, to double it.

[Beni-Kujaku]

Take the Mercantile Background feat to add +300 gp to what you get from this feat? Also the Noble Birth feat, from Dungeon #92, to double it.

Mercantile Background doesn't work. You don't gain "what you got during character creation"‚ you get "the starting wealth of one of your classes".