Epic WBL past 40th level (options)

[AvatarVecna]

WBL can be increased beyond 40 in a myriad of weird ways depending on how you extend some patterns. Here's a spreadsheet I've made to track things. The names are an approximation of how much you'd have at level 100, and the tables extend out to lvl 1000.

1. 277 Million: Increase^2 increases by 200000 every two levels after 37th.
2. 450 Million: NPC WBL, as per RAW.
3. 633 Million: This option assumes that the Increase^2 at level 31 was a designer mistake. Order of operations:
   1. Starting at 24th level, Increase^2 is 100000 once every three levels, three times.
   2. Starting at 33rd level, Increase^2 is 200000 once every two levels, three times.
   3. Starting at 39th level, Increase^2 is +100000 from the last one every two levels, three times.
   4. Repeat step 3 as necessary.
4. 866 Million: Increase^3 increases by 75000 every nine levels after 32nd.
5. 4 Billion (aka "the Biggus"): Every level, WBL is 110% the previous level's WBL.
6. 12 Billion: Starting at 39th level, Increase^2 is double whatever it was 6 levels prior.
7. 34 Billion: Increase^3 quadruples every nine levels after 32nd.
8. 230 Sextillion (aka "the Bel Gareth"): This option assumes that that Increase^2 at level 31 was a designer mistake. Order of operations:
   1. Starting at 24th level, Increase^2 is 100000 once every three levels, three times.
   2. Starting at 33rd level, Increase^2 is 200000 once every two levels, three times.
   3. Starting at 39th level, Increase^2 is 400000 once every level, three times.
   4. Starting at 42th level, Increase^2 is double what it was the previous level.

If the "mistake" isn't removed from the options that mention it, they increase by ~6 million. This matters for one, and doesn't for the other.

If you can think of a possible way of extending the data that isn't here, lmk and I'll get it added if I think it's worthwhile.

...oh, and the point of this is just having something you can point to if the DM doesn't just wanna make crap up for epic WBL and wants to follow a pattern from the existing stuff. Now there's tons of patterns to choose from depending on the level of absurd wealth desired! And none of it's official so it's "but RAW" proof.

[Biggus]

While I can't absolutely prove my version is the correct one, some of the others clearly don't fit. NPC WBL does have a defined pattern after level 40, which comes out to 450 million at level 100, so unless you think high-epic NPCs are meant to have more wealth than PCs, option 1 is clearly wrong.

Option 7 goes directly against the stated intent of the designers: the sidebar at the bottom of page 122 of the ELH says that wealth accumulates more slowly after level 20, to prevent high-epic players "having (their) own moon-sized chunk of platinum". If the +30%/level formula that the higher nonepic levels follow were extrapolated to level 100, it would come out at just under 1 quintillion, and the figure you have for option 7 is over 230,000 times higher than that.

[AvatarVecna]

I've updated the tables to lvl 1000 and added the RAW NPC WBL to the list of options.

While I can't absolutely prove my version is the correct one, some of the others clearly don't fit. NPC WBL does have a defined pattern after level 40, which comes out to 450 million at level 100, so unless you think high-epic NPCs are meant to have more wealth than PCs, option 1 is clearly wrong.

There's no rule requiring that PCs be better off than NPCs, it's just how it always works out. One could just as easily say that past a certain point far into epic, large-scale capitalism is just better at accumulating wealth than stealing money and magic items from rich monsters. So unless you'd like to make the argument that 3.5 is 100% consistent with itself on all issues...

But also, holding up lvl 100 as if it's a problem inherent to the method is more or less arbitrary. Method 2 (NPC WBL) bypasses Method 1 at lvl 93, Method 3 at lvl 106, and Method 4 at lvl 113. 99% of epic games take place between 21 and 40, where the method you use doesn't matter and NPCs have less money than PCs regardless.

These rules only matter for what happens at the table. To all those NPCs, the difference between billions and quintillions and googols is how many employees they have, how many mansions they have, and how diversified their stock portfolios are; they don't measure wealth in personal magic items, except maybe as a high-value currency that aids in its own asset defense. The kind of buffs they need in their day-to-day life is very different from what adventurers need. And what amount of absurd wealth is, at your table, balanced to just hand to new players joining the game...isn't really relevant to anybody not at that table. This thread is about providing guidelines to DMs so they can select what they feel fits their group, and handing them a built-in "this is how I arrived at these numbers" excuse.

The numbers are more or less arbitrary anyway. Heck, you could just as easily argue that past a certain point, the most effective way to assume wealth gain is that a lvl N PC has double the wealth they did at lvl N-1 because they found another lvl N-1 PC/NPC and stole all their stuff. That's at least one fairly verisimilitudinous explanation for Method 8.

Option 7 goes directly against the stated intent of the designers: the sidebar at the bottom of page 122 of the ELH says that wealth accumulates more slowly after level 20, to prevent high-epic players "having (their) own moon-sized chunk of platinum". If the +30%/level formula that the higher nonepic levels follow were extrapolated to level 100, it would come out at just under 1 quintillion, and the figure you have for option 7 is over 230,000 times higher than that.

On the one hand, you're wrong about this being an issue. A moon the same mass as our IRL moon would require 8.10199 x 10²⁴ coins. Here's what that coinage would be worth depending on the coin type:

Coin Type	Worth
pp	81 septillion
gp	8.1 septillion
sp	810 sextillion
cp	81 sextillion

Even the absolutely absurd Method 8 could only afford such a moon if it were made of copper at lvl 100. They'd have to be lvl 109 to afford the platinum moon, and even then it's taking up most of their wealth. But that's also kinda beside the point: The exact amount of wealth a particular method has acquired at lvl 100 is irrelevant to the bit you're quoting, because as long as the method involves continuous wealth increase, it will eventually bypass the 81 septillion mark that the designers don't want you to. RAW NPC WBL bypasses that point at lvl 517, for example, and your proposed PC WBL does so at lvl 494. It's all a matter of how far into epic you go - and the vast majority of even epic players rarely stray past 40th, it's almost incidental. At lvl 100, your build is at least debatably on par with deities by pure ECL. Who cares if you can afford a platinum moon or not?

But even as I say all that, I also kinda agree with you? I don't think the +10% method should be used necessarily (although it is fairly simple and has some support), but I think "in the billions" is a good place to be at lvl 100. I did not include Method 8 because I think it's extending the pattern fairly, I included it because prior to this thread it's the only one bothering to extend any kind of pattern that exists in the raw data, and its existence is a big part of what inspired me to make this thread in the first place. After all, the easiest way to get the correct answer on the internet is to answer a question badly and wait for an even bigger dork to correct you.

[Biggus]

There's no rule requiring that PCs be better off than NPCs, it's just how it always works out. One could just as easily say that past a certain point far into epic, large-scale capitalism is just better at accumulating wealth than stealing money and magic items from rich monsters. So unless you'd like to make the argument that 3.5 is 100% consistent with itself on all issues...

But also, holding up lvl 100 as if it's a problem inherent to the method is more or less arbitrary. Method 2 (NPC WBL) bypasses Method 1 at lvl 93, Method 3 at lvl 106, and Method 4 at lvl 113. 99% of epic games take place between 21 and 40, where the method you use doesn't matter and NPCs have less money than PCs regardless.

NPCs start off at level 1-2 with more money than PCs, are overtaken by them at level 3, and then from levels 4-40 get further behind every single level. I think that's a consistent enough trend to conclude that they're not meant to overtake PCs again at any point; at most they should stay the same amount behind them they are at level 40. I'm not arguing that what happens at level 100 should be held up as a benchmark, I'm arguing that any system which causes NPC wealth to exceed PC wealth at any point is obviously not what the designers intended, so we can discount methods 3 and 4 as well.

On the one hand, you're wrong about this being an issue. A moon the same mass as our IRL moon would require 8.10199 x 10²⁴ coins. Here's what that coinage would be worth depending on the coin type

LOL. I should have known you'd work it out...

But that isn't the point I was making. The point was that because the designers specifically stated that +30%/level is too fast after level 20, that provides an upper limit to our advancement: any method which eventually exceeds what we would get using that method is clearly not what they intended.

As far as I know, you're right that the game is rarely played past level 40, but it is explicitly designed to be playable up to level 100 (there's a sidebar on page 31 of Deities and Demigods which mentions it, and a couple of the epic spells have such high DCs they're not practical to cast until around that level) so if something not designed to happen happens by that point, we must be using the wrong method.