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Xuincherguixe
2008-02-05, 10:55 PM
So, I got to thinking about wands and scrolls. The idea here is that you can only use them a certain number of times, and poof, they're gone.

However, there's also this wealth by level thing. If those wands are used up, that wealth is gone.

Now, this may not make a lot of sense. But what if i after the party completes their objective, it's assumed that expended materials of this sort are replaced? Finding a way to have it make sense can come later.

Similarly, ammunition (magical or otherwise)


The rules obviously aren't built for this, so to prevent someone from grabbing 20 wands so that they constantly spam death, maybe there could be some kind of limit. I think the best way to cover most cases, is to base it on wealth by level. Such as say, you may recover 5% of wealth by level of expendable resources when you have a week of downtime. If you used up much more, you can replace that during another downtime session.

At the very least, maybe this is a good idea for a feat?

Thoughts?

zaei
2008-02-05, 11:08 PM
So, I got to thinking about wands and scrolls. The idea here is that you can only use them a certain number of times, and poof, they're gone.

However, there's also this wealth by level thing. If those wands are used up, that wealth is gone.

Now, this may not make a lot of sense. But what if i after the party completes their objective, it's assumed that expended materials of this sort are replaced? Finding a way to have it make sense can come later.

Similarly, ammunition (magical or otherwise)


The rules obviously aren't built for this, so to prevent someone from grabbing 20 wands so that they constantly spam death, maybe there could be some kind of limit. I think the best way to cover most cases, is to base it on wealth by level. Such as say, you may recover 5% of wealth by level of expendable resources when you have a week of downtime. If you used up much more, you can replace that during another downtime session.

At the very least, maybe this is a good idea for a feat?

Thoughts?
This would have to be SERIOUSLY DM limited. My first thought was "Candle of Invocation".

You might just be better off coming up with a couple of effects you want your party to have access to, and then give them the option to take a feat to use that effect X/(day|encounter), or just give it to the character for nothing.

The big thing to watch out for here is that parties that would normally be very item dependent for things like healing would be significantly more powerful if they aren't spending so much gold on expendable healing items because they would instead be spending it on killy-stabby things. Best bet would be to simply reduce the amount of gold that they get, but then you basically end up with the same result as when they had to buy the items.

RTGoodman
2008-02-05, 11:16 PM
You should check out the Magic Item Compendium - it has Eternal Wands, which work like regular wands but never run out of charges (though they can only be used 3/day). They're actually pretty good price-wise also.

Otherwise, if you want expendable items to be less so, maybe have a recharge mechanic rather than a straight "they come back when the module is over" system or whatever. Maybe they can "recharge" a wand by spending 1/100 of the price of the wand per charge recovered (i.e., half the cost of a regular charge).

sikyon
2008-02-05, 11:28 PM
This is what happens when you mix real life with CR:

Party level determines CR. Normally in real life expendable resource use is fine because you would level faster and be where you otherwise might not. D&D doesn't see it that way, however. If you level faster your challenges become more difficult at the same speed, which doesn't make sense in real life.

I propose just having the DM throw in some more loot to cover expendables. It's the eaisierst way. That way you are balancing expendability with real life...

Xuincherguixe
2008-02-05, 11:28 PM
I don't really have a lot of the books, so I can't check wealth by level. but a Candle of Invocation is 8,400. *20 is 168,000. What would be the effective level at which one would should have more than that amount of wealth? And at that point, they'd only get one. Would having them be replaced be THAT big of an impact at that point?

Not only that, but they'd have to wait until after they've cleared the dungeon to get it back.

As far as healing goes, part of the idea was that it would remove the need for a "healer bot".

Originally, I was thinking this would just be for wands and such, and one would only be able to have about 5 or so. But I realized that D&D has a lot of "expendables".


This way, one still needs to worry about resource conservation. But, not to the point where they're afraid to use them at all.

edit: (I knew more replies would come...)
I thought that Eternal wands were 1/day or 2/day. Either way, this is also about being able to reuse other sorts of equipment. Even of the non magical variety. Sure, you could have things that more or less "spawn" equipment. But this doesn't really sit too well with me either. Also, to the best of my knowledge these kinds of items are very expensive.

zaei
2008-02-05, 11:47 PM
I don't really have a lot of the books, so I can't check wealth by level. but a Candle of Invocation is 8,400. *20 is 168,000. What would be the effective level at which one would should have more than that amount of wealth? And at that point, they'd only get one. Would having them be replaced be THAT big of an impact at that point?

Not only that, but they'd have to wait until after they've cleared the dungeon to get it back.

As far as healing goes, part of the idea was that it would remove the need for a "healer bot".

Originally, I was thinking this would just be for wands and such, and one would only be able to have about 5 or so. But I realized that D&D has a lot of "expendables".


This way, one still needs to worry about resource conservation. But, not to the point where they're afraid to use them at all.

edit: (I knew more replies would come...)
I thought that Eternal wands were 1/day or 2/day. Either way, this is also about being able to reuse other sorts of equipment. Even of the non magical variety. Sure, you could have things that more or less "spawn" equipment. But this doesn't really sit too well with me either. Also, to the best of my knowledge these kinds of items are very expensive.
Candles of Invocation are 8,400gp, not 8,400gp*20.

You could probably remove the need for a healer-type character by simply spreading potions around more/giving out additional healing items. No need to go ripping out the guts of the WBL system =]

Xuincherguixe
2008-02-05, 11:58 PM
Candles of Invocation are 8,400gp, not 8,400gp*20.

You could probably remove the need for a healer-type character by simply spreading potions around more/giving out additional healing items. No need to go ripping out the guts of the WBL system =]

You may well be right. But I like ripping the guts out of things! It's a trait that serves me while in programming and why the police keep stopping by with all those questions... ahem.

As far as the Candle of Invocation thing goes. You would need to have earned that much wealth before you can replace them for free.

I figured approximate wealth was one way to keep things under control.

horseboy
2008-02-06, 12:20 AM
Hmm, well, you could take the LG concept of Lifestyle, which already includes mundane ammo, and bump it up a bit so they "automatically" get so many potions per month. Combine that with "Scribe Scroll" would just let you have so many scrolls a month to represent the player working on them in his off time.

Talic
2008-02-06, 12:38 AM
rewards for encounters give more than needed for strict WBL. That factors in some expendable items.

Curmudgeon
2008-02-06, 05:32 AM
Amplifying on what Talic posted, you should check out the table on page 54 of the DMG. You'll see the difference between the expected wealth gain and the treasure per character -- that difference is the portion used by consumables. At level 19 the consumables portion is 23,283 gp.