[3.5] At what level does wealth become too easy to gain?

[Alleran]

As the title, basically, but largely related more to using magic and ability combinations to get it rather than things like cornering the market on poles by buying ladders. When does "Wealth By Level" become something that can be easily shattered into a million tiny pieces should a player decide that he/she wants something regardless of cost?

For example, using an Efreet to get three wishes, and using those wishes to obtain 25,000 gp of wealth each time, will garner 75,000 gp worth of stuff each day, and that's only if you summon/bind/gate a single one. Once a day for ten days, and you have 3/4 of a million gold pieces in valuables.

A Phaerimm sorcerer can have access to 9th level spells at 9th level (thanks to the double-stacking), which means that it can use Wish 4/day as basically a spell-like ability (so no XP cost, thus that's a cool 100,000 gp per day if it doesn't use the slots for anything else - and one more Sorc level double-stacks to 6/day Wish usage).

Those are obviously just Wish abuse, but I'm sure there are others. Getting True Creation as a SLA somehow (Heir of Siberys?) and then using it to create whatever you want, casting Genesis (although it's a 9th level spell, like Wish) and deciding that your plane will be pure platinum (or something extremely valuable), plane shifting to the Elemental Plane of Earth and going diamond/valuable-jewel hunting, basically stuff along those lines. When does a spellcaster/psionic character/whatever (just character in general, if somebody knows of a non-spellcaster who can do something similar without using spellcasting of some stripe) reach the point where wealth is no longer of any concern to them?

[Sir_Elderberry]

When the DM lets them. Seriously, if players start harassing Efreets for money, someone's going to come for them after a day or two. And teleporting yourself to the Elemental Plane of Earth, well, that's an adventure hook waiting to happen--oh, look, you've been intercepted by...

That's without just pulling out the "you have infinite platinum? Guess what: economics" type stuff.

[FishAreWet]

Flesh to Salt and Wall of Salt break the game the second you can afford a Scroll of either.

[Coidzor]

Well, Wall of Iron is Wizard 6th, Fabricate is Wizard 5th, and the spells that buff one's ability to fabricate objects of value are lower level than that.

Planeshift is a 5th level cleric spell.

So an 11th level Wizard with a 9th level Cleric cohort/partner/spouse could make a handsome living selling large quantities of iron or sword blanks or iron weaponry/objects d'arte across the planes. The things that are dangerous to such a pair are fairly rare, especially if their concerns are primarily running away rather than killing and looting any random encounters. If the wizard is 13th level, this can be done solo.

[Tvtyrant]

Mate a party of level 20s have a consolidated wealth that is higher then what likely exists in the entire planet they live on. Seriously, a Warship costs a mere 25,000 GP. A single level 20 character has about 1,000,000 GP. A Metropolis is supposed to have a maximum GP level of 100,000 GP. It would take 10 massive cities to match one character, and 40 to match a normal party. The chances of there being 40 massive cities are rather low.

I can't find the castle buying prices at the moment, but chances are you could buy enough castles and estates and hire/enslave enough people that you could effectively own the entire worlds economy using a single party. It gets worse when you realize that a Great Wyrm has 2,500,000 GP. The economic scale of D&D is broken; accept it and live by it!

[OracleofWuffing]

If you want to be really inefficient about it, a Druid can release its Animal Companion from service, sell it, and obtain a new animal companion for releasing and selling starting at level one.

Takes a while, though. Good thing that Big Bad Evil Necromancer will wait until we're at the Legendary Hidden Temple to begin the ritual to destroy the world!

[Godskook]

Mate a party of level 20s have a consolidated wealth that is higher then what likely exists in the entire planet they live on. Seriously, a Warship costs a mere 25,000 GP. A single level 20 character has about 1,000,000 GP. A Metropolis is supposed to have a maximum GP level of 100,000 GP. It would take 10 massive cities to match one character, and 40 to match a normal party. The chances of there being 40 massive cities are rather low.

I can't find the castle buying prices at the moment, but chances are you could buy enough castles and estates and hire/enslave enough people that you could effectively own the entire worlds economy using a single party. It gets worse when you realize that a Great Wyrm has 2,500,000 GP. The economic scale of D&D is broken; accept it and live by it!

You should probably read through the relevant section you're quoting, since the number listed is not "total wealth". It is a listing of how expensive an item in that community can get(People in a metropolis can, on occasion, afford 100k items, or might be selling them), and half that number times 1/10th the population is the amount of ready cash the community has at any given moment(1,250,000,000 in a min-pop metropolis)

[Alleran]

Seriously, a Warship costs a mere 25,000 GP. A single level 20 character has about 1,000,000 GP.

About 760,000 gp going by WBL tables, with at least some of it tied up in favours and the like.

However, what I'm asking is at what point does this "recommended" table become effectively useless as a result of the abilities that the player will have at his/her disposal. The note on Efreeti I included in the first post outlines an easy way to double a 20th level character's WBL in a little over a week at little cost to the player.

[DaragosKitsune]

The minute you can make any permanent object of value, as mentioned above.
Correction, the minute you start selling spellcasting.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

1.) Be a rogue. any level to get money is too easy.

2.) get a ladder. turn it into poles. repeat until rich.

3.) Be a spellcasting whore. sell your daily slots. get rich quick. spell level x caster level x 50 gp, if I remember correctly.
this is without any Flesh to Salt cheese or anything like that.

[Xiander]

have a rouge and a sorceror in your level one party. Sorceror casts mount as many times as possible. The rouge disguises himself and sells the horses. Profit.

This gets better at a slightly higher level.

[tyckspoon]

There are ways to completely explode the expected wealth values from level 1 all the way to 20. The only real differences are how much magic you have available to do it- as with many things in D&D, the more magic you have, the more efficiently you can do it and the greater effect it has when you do it.

At level 1, your route is mostly mundane: pick a long-lived race (Warforged or Elan are favorite, Elves are the best option in PHB), put ranks in a money-making skill (Craft, Profession, Perform) and spend a few years/decades working your trade before you actually start adventuring. Or get Handle Animal and turn dogs into Magebred Warbeast Dogs to sell to those people who want really kick-ass animal companions.

[Tvtyrant]

Corrections

Woops, my mistake. Please ignore all earlier comments.

[grimbold]

Mate a party of level 20s have a consolidated wealth that is higher then what likely exists in the entire planet they live on. Seriously, a Warship costs a mere 25,000 GP. A single level 20 character has about 1,000,000 GP. A Metropolis is supposed to have a maximum GP level of 100,000 GP. It would take 10 massive cities to match one character, and 40 to match a normal party. The chances of there being 40 massive cities are rather low.

I can't find the castle buying prices at the moment, but chances are you could buy enough castles and estates and hire/enslave enough people that you could effectively own the entire worlds economy using a single party. It gets worse when you realize that a Great Wyrm has 2,500,000 GP. The economic scale of D&D is broken; accept it and live by it!

the main way to fix that is to have 1 epic trading city with billionaire merchants, or at least it works in my world

[Gnoman]

No level, if the GM can handle economics well enough, not to mention possess the ability to patch obvious rula abuse. (For example, someone trying the bind efreeti trick would find themselves at war with the Elemental Plane of Fire, as well as every other outsider.)