Author Topic: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?  (Read 9679 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

PhaedrusXY

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 8022
  • Advanced Spambot
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #40 on: October 02, 2010, 12:24:55 AM »
You're missing the point. Those are just made up things that have never been referenced in any other D&D source. They're abstract enough that the DM can rightly claim that you can't make them using any magic, including Wish (and if you're using those rules, that's what you're supposed to do).

Exhibit A- souls and their harvesting have been covered in several places in D&D.
And if you look at what you can actually get out of souls using their pricing (CR squared or something), you'll quickly realize that they're basically worthless. You can't use more than one to craft an item, and their value is terrible, unless you're slaying deities or something. And if you are, you deserve that much wealth as a reward.
Quote
Exhibit B-anti-matter and atomic physics aren't referenced in any D&D source, but that doesn't stop people from going wild with magic to create them.
So tell me how to make solid Concentration, or Hope, using D&D rules?
Quote
Again, their intention, just as I'm sure the D&D designers didn't intend for infinite wealth combo. But their system is just as full of holes if you just try poking at it.
No, it's not, actually. Just tell me how you make those things, and I might start to agree.

Or show me how to actually get a powerful magic item using souls and their rules.
Quote
See, that's the kind of cheesy reading that truly breaks games. You cannot use a ring of three wishes to wish for another ring of three wishes, because items that replicate spells that cost exp must have said exp cost already paid on their construction. The efreeti can do it, but it's just a matter of saying "Efreetis don't exist on this seting, as well as any monster with a Wish SLA". Was it that hard?
And what about Wall of Iron? Flesh to Salt? Or just casting the damned Mount spell and selling it over and over? Or Wall of Stone + Fabricate to make castles, and selling those? The thing about the standard D&D economy is that you can buy Wishes, and you can buy powerful magic items, so if you find any infinite wealth combo at all, it totally breaks the game. And there are A LOT of them. You don't have to call efreets when you can just buy scrolls of Wish.

So no, their system isn't nearly as full of holes. Not even close. If you say it is, I suspect you're being dishonest.
[spoiler]
A couple of water benders, a dike, a flaming arrow, and a few barrels of blasting jelly?

Sounds like the makings of a gay porn film.
...thanks
[/spoiler]

raith0

  • Bi-Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 442
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #41 on: October 02, 2010, 12:02:49 PM »
.
[/quote]

or 2) Agree to not use those things (via gentleman's agreement, DM threat, or whatever). But does that make for a believable world that exists within the given rules set? No. It's a huge, gaping hole that you have to just conveniently ignore, like a pink elephant in the room.

Many people find both of those approaches to be unsatisfactory. Hence Frank and K's attempt to create a third alternative. And I fully suspect that you know all of that, and are just trolling because you dislike Frank, K, and/or the gaming den.
[/quote]

I have problems with part of this, i dont see why its a giant elephant in the room when you agree as a group not to use/abuse infinite wealth combos and the wish spell.  yes they are there but a little common sense tells us that though yes they didnt see the problems with these combos and probably should of better tested/written wish that it wasnt there intent.  I know we are Leaving RAW and moving into a RAI area here, but really i just dont see how these type of things can be fun for a group to play.  maybe thats me but i think its more fun to actually have to work to accomplish something in the game. than it is to just try to find ways circumvent all challanges with a wish or a new shiney magic toy.

RobbyPants

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 7139
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #42 on: October 02, 2010, 12:14:49 PM »
You don't have to have access to Wish at low levels, but if you don't, and you don't come up with some way to handle magical items and wealth, then 3E is forever going to be tied to that model.  Because wealth = power, then suddenly you can't do stuff like give dragons treasure hoards big enough to sleep on.  Seriously, a dragon's hoard of gold coins could fit in your backpack.  That sucks.

The game shouldn't fall apart if the PCs come across an entire cave full of coins.
My balancing 3.5 compendium
Elemental mage test game

Quotes
[spoiler]
Quote from: Cafiend
It is a shame stupidity isn't painful.
Quote from: StormKnight
Totally true.  Historians believe that most past civilizations would have endured for centuries longer if they had successfully determined Batman's alignment.
Quote from: Grand Theft Otto
Why are so many posts on the board the equivalent of " Dear Dr. Crotch, I keep punching myself in the crotch, and my groin hurts... what should I do? How can I make my groin stop hurting?"
Quote from: CryoSilver
I suggest carving "Don't be a dick" into him with a knife.  A dull, rusty knife.  A dull, rusty, bent, flaming knife.
Quote from: Seerow
Fluffy: It's over Steve! I've got the high ground!
Steve: You underestimate my power!
Fluffy: Don't try it, Steve!
Steve: *charges*
Fluffy: *three critical strikes*
Steve: ****
Quote from: claypigeons
I don't even stat out commoners. Commoner = corpse that just isn't a zombie. Yet.
Quote from: CryoSilver
When I think "Old Testament Boots of Peace" I think of a paladin curb-stomping an orc and screaming "Your death brings peace to this land!"
Quote from: Orville_Oaksong
Buy a small country. Or Pelor. Both are good investments.
[/spoiler]

archangel.arcanis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2938
    • Email
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #43 on: October 02, 2010, 12:48:34 PM »
.


or 2) Agree to not use those things (via gentleman's agreement, DM threat, or whatever). But does that make for a believable world that exists within the given rules set? No. It's a huge, gaping hole that you have to just conveniently ignore, like a pink elephant in the room.

Many people find both of those approaches to be unsatisfactory. Hence Frank and K's attempt to create a third alternative. And I fully suspect that you know all of that, and are just trolling because you dislike Frank, K, and/or the gaming den.
[/quote]

I have problems with part of this, i dont see why its a giant elephant in the room when you agree as a group not to use/abuse infinite wealth combos and the wish spell.  yes they are there but a little common sense tells us that though yes they didnt see the problems with these combos and probably should of better tested/written wish that it wasnt there intent.  I know we are Leaving RAW and moving into a RAI area here, but really i just dont see how these type of things can be fun for a group to play.  maybe thats me but i think its more fun to actually have to work to accomplish something in the game. than it is to just try to find ways circumvent all challanges with a wish or a new shiney magic toy.
[/quote]
I think the elephant in the room is you have to assume that no other character in the entire history of that world ever figured out that there were ways to literally make money. Once money is freely available then you can buy magical items to make any challenge trivial. It isn't circumventing a challenge with wish or magic since the whole system is predicated on the players using them, it is having more than what they think you should have that screws up the system. Ie The game expects a fighter to have a 20 strength by lvl 8 but your guy has a 30 due to having piles of cash to buy items. So while it may not seem like a lot that extra +5 to hit and damage makes a huge difference. It isn't like they player did anything wrong trying to make their character better at what they do and the character sure as hell would take piles of money if offered.
Clerics and Druids are like the 4 and 2 in 42. Together they are the answer to the ultimate question in D&D.
Retire the character before the DM smacks you with the Table as the book will feel totally inadequate now.-Hazren

raith0

  • Bi-Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 442
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #44 on: October 02, 2010, 01:45:08 PM »
in the games i play in we dont have a problem with characters making money, or a lot of it.  we all ussaly have some form of work i character does to generate wealth outside of adventuring.  the thing is we dont have a wally mart for magical weapons/items. they all have to be found or rewarded for some reason or another.  part of that is set up in the history of the world with a few large kingdoms waging war and stockpiling magical wealth for the armies.  also while items may stay in a town or family after the adventurer dies/retires it doesnt mean they want to sell them.  or even that a retired wizard want to spend is xp to craft magic items in his old age for profit. remember that the basic economy of a farmer is about 15 gold a year that doesnt get returned into his farm.  and an adventure after level 5 can live like a king off of that economy without much effort.  this may not be how your games/worlds are setup but while greed may motivate some adventurers it doesnt mean that it has to motivate all of them. 




oslecamo

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1940
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #46 on: October 02, 2010, 04:06:50 PM »
You don't have to have access to Wish at low levels, but if you don't, and you don't come up with some way to handle magical items and wealth, then 3E is forever going to be tied to that model.  Because wealth = power, then suddenly you can't do stuff like give dragons treasure hoards big enough to sleep on.
You can, you just need to make sure the dragons with enough power to acumulate a bed of gold are major enemies that will cost the party an arm and a leg to defeat (after going over their minions, trapped dungeons and stuff) and happen like once or twice a campaign. Because dragons with beds of gold shouldn't be reduced to a road ecounter.

Seriously, a dragon's hoard of gold coins could fit in your backpack.  That sucks.
If dragons are common easy ecounters around every corner, I would say that sucks even more. This is, if money is completely worthless, why's the dragon acumulating it? Is it some dumb lizard that only cares about shiny baubles? Where's the glory on killing that?

A real dragon would make his bed out of raw chaos or crystalized souls or whatever passes by viable currency in your seting. Dragons  reduced to sleeping over shiny trash  aren't worth the time to put them out of their miseries on my opinion.

The game shouldn't fall apart if the PCs come across an entire cave full of coins.

It doesn't.
-The cave full of coins is as well filled with monsters waiting in ambush.
-The money is cursed (see: the ring of the Nibelungs)
-You beated the monsters and broke the curse? Good, now you have to find some place to actualy spend that money, because by the DMG each city has a limit on what it can sell to you, and no matter how much you insist the farmer village by RAW doesn't have stashes of magic weapons and scrolls to sell you.
-Insert rust monster/babau/steel predator ecounter. Yes, just like there's monsters that can give wealth if the DM's feeling generous, there's monsters that destroy wealth if the DM feels like the PCs start geting too much! :p

Also, what happens if we replace "coins" with "souls" or "raw chaos" or "major artifacts" on the cave? Does your campaign world needs caves bursting with shiny stuff at every corner? Then I guess the dungeomicon would work for you, but personally I'll rather have caves full of valuables to be extremely rare sights only reached after a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

veekie

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 9034
  • WARNING: Homing Miko
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #47 on: October 02, 2010, 04:15:31 PM »
I think the fundamental issue is that mundane wealth, can purchase magical power.
As long as that is true, any physically based currency would be inadequate, particularly considering that magic items takes XP, a renewable, but highly personal resource, to create, by a small subset of the population.

So, if WBL reflects the number of items that a character can power rather than afford it solves the issue neatly.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

RobbyPants

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 7139
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #48 on: October 02, 2010, 04:39:15 PM »
I think the fundamental issue is that mundane wealth, can purchase magical power.
Yes.  This exactly.

Mundane wealth = power.  So, while you can say your particular PC isn't motivated by greed, the system fully, 100% incentivizes looting everything.  This issue is particularly stark in games where one or more PCs aren't greedy like that and one or two are.

Oslecamo, I see what you're saying about dragons not being mundane encounters, but if you adhere to WBL, you're only going to be able to get so much loot from one dragon.  Even if you take all of the treasure of all of the minions for the whole adventure and put it all in the dragon's cave for one big treasure afterward, that whole treasure will still fit entirely in all of the party's back packs.  And since dragon's CR and size are strongly linked, they never get treasure's big enough to sleep on.

Also, regarding finding a place to spend all of that money: by the time you're fighting dragons that should have hoards that large, you also have Teleport and Plane Shift.  Finding a place isn't that hard.
My balancing 3.5 compendium
Elemental mage test game

Quotes
[spoiler]
Quote from: Cafiend
It is a shame stupidity isn't painful.
Quote from: StormKnight
Totally true.  Historians believe that most past civilizations would have endured for centuries longer if they had successfully determined Batman's alignment.
Quote from: Grand Theft Otto
Why are so many posts on the board the equivalent of " Dear Dr. Crotch, I keep punching myself in the crotch, and my groin hurts... what should I do? How can I make my groin stop hurting?"
Quote from: CryoSilver
I suggest carving "Don't be a dick" into him with a knife.  A dull, rusty knife.  A dull, rusty, bent, flaming knife.
Quote from: Seerow
Fluffy: It's over Steve! I've got the high ground!
Steve: You underestimate my power!
Fluffy: Don't try it, Steve!
Steve: *charges*
Fluffy: *three critical strikes*
Steve: ****
Quote from: claypigeons
I don't even stat out commoners. Commoner = corpse that just isn't a zombie. Yet.
Quote from: CryoSilver
When I think "Old Testament Boots of Peace" I think of a paladin curb-stomping an orc and screaming "Your death brings peace to this land!"
Quote from: Orville_Oaksong
Buy a small country. Or Pelor. Both are good investments.
[/spoiler]

Prime32

  • Administrator
  • Organ Grinder
  • *
  • Posts: 7534
  • Modding since 03/12/10
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #49 on: October 02, 2010, 04:43:21 PM »
Dragons don't necessarily make beds of gold because it's valuable. It could be simply because it's shiny.

Lv1 commoners would be awed by a bed of gold either way.
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

veekie

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 9034
  • WARNING: Homing Miko
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #50 on: October 02, 2010, 04:57:26 PM »
In short, make your WBL Spirit Points or something, the characters use that to power their magical gear. Anything you can't afford to commit those points to, you simply lack sufficient awesome for. You are allowed to commit to an item that is not on your person for someone else to use. Expended points from consumable items regenerate over some time.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

RobbyPants

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 7139
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #51 on: October 04, 2010, 01:15:03 PM »
Dragons don't necessarily make beds of gold because it's valuable. It could be simply because it's shiny.
It doesn't matter why the dragons do it.  It matters that the PCs will take it and convert it into a bunch of +x swords and cloaks and stuff.
My balancing 3.5 compendium
Elemental mage test game

Quotes
[spoiler]
Quote from: Cafiend
It is a shame stupidity isn't painful.
Quote from: StormKnight
Totally true.  Historians believe that most past civilizations would have endured for centuries longer if they had successfully determined Batman's alignment.
Quote from: Grand Theft Otto
Why are so many posts on the board the equivalent of " Dear Dr. Crotch, I keep punching myself in the crotch, and my groin hurts... what should I do? How can I make my groin stop hurting?"
Quote from: CryoSilver
I suggest carving "Don't be a dick" into him with a knife.  A dull, rusty knife.  A dull, rusty, bent, flaming knife.
Quote from: Seerow
Fluffy: It's over Steve! I've got the high ground!
Steve: You underestimate my power!
Fluffy: Don't try it, Steve!
Steve: *charges*
Fluffy: *three critical strikes*
Steve: ****
Quote from: claypigeons
I don't even stat out commoners. Commoner = corpse that just isn't a zombie. Yet.
Quote from: CryoSilver
When I think "Old Testament Boots of Peace" I think of a paladin curb-stomping an orc and screaming "Your death brings peace to this land!"
Quote from: Orville_Oaksong
Buy a small country. Or Pelor. Both are good investments.
[/spoiler]

Prime32

  • Administrator
  • Organ Grinder
  • *
  • Posts: 7534
  • Modding since 03/12/10
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #52 on: October 04, 2010, 01:19:01 PM »
In short, make your WBL Spirit Points or something, the characters use that to power their magical gear. Anything you can't afford to commit those points to, you simply lack sufficient awesome for. You are allowed to commit to an item that is not on your person for someone else to use. Expended points from consumable items regenerate over some time.
Thus reserving gp for buying castles and bling.
My work
The tier system in a nutshell:
[spoiler]Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.[/spoiler]

veekie

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 9034
  • WARNING: Homing Miko
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #53 on: October 04, 2010, 04:12:30 PM »
Yep, and the paladin who refuses reward is not screwed over because the plain sword he wields will become magical from extended exposure to HIS virtue. He can donate to charity everything else and it wouldn't affect his stats one whit.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

archangel.arcanis

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 2938
    • Email
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #54 on: October 04, 2010, 04:18:32 PM »
in the games i play in we dont have a problem with characters making money, or a lot of it.  we all ussaly have some form of work i character does to generate wealth outside of adventuring.  the thing is we dont have a wally mart for magical weapons/items. they all have to be found or rewarded for some reason or another.  part of that is set up in the history of the world with a few large kingdoms waging war and stockpiling magical wealth for the armies.  also while items may stay in a town or family after the adventurer dies/retires it doesnt mean they want to sell them.  or even that a retired wizard want to spend is xp to craft magic items in his old age for profit. remember that the basic economy of a farmer is about 15 gold a year that doesnt get returned into his farm.  and an adventure after level 5 can live like a king off of that economy without much effort.  this may not be how your games/worlds are setup but while greed may motivate some adventurers it doesnt mean that it has to motivate all of them. 
See this wasn't a problem in the game you are describing because this advice was already applied:
I think the fundamental issue is that mundane wealth, can purchase magical power.
As long as that is true, any physically based currency would be inadequate, particularly considering that magic items takes XP, a renewable, but highly personal resource, to create, by a small subset of the population.

So, if WBL reflects the number of items that a character can power rather than afford it solves the issue neatly.

Instead of the character powering the items your dm just doesn't let them be available for standard currency values. Items instead cost in terms of game time and role playing. Both of which completely negate the need to have gp associated with magic items, but also make it exceedingly hard for a PC to get items the game expects them to have unless the DM cherry picks some things to be available or tones down monsters at a certain point.
Clerics and Druids are like the 4 and 2 in 42. Together they are the answer to the ultimate question in D&D.
Retire the character before the DM smacks you with the Table as the book will feel totally inadequate now.-Hazren

veekie

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 9034
  • WARNING: Homing Miko
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #55 on: October 04, 2010, 04:26:34 PM »
Well, I assumed at some point the DM might want to feature a mountain of magical swords stuck into the ground. :D
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

Bozwevial

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 4497
  • Developing a relaxed attitude to danger.
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #56 on: October 04, 2010, 04:37:06 PM »
Well, I assumed at some point the DM might want to feature a mountain of magical swords stuck into the ground. :D
UBW?

veekie

  • Organ Grinder
  • *****
  • Posts: 9034
  • WARNING: Homing Miko
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #57 on: October 04, 2010, 04:43:48 PM »
Thats one possibility, dragons may have interesting ideas for interior decor and all those heroes come pretty well loaded. Essentially, the idea was that you could throw any number of magic items, for gold, for deeds or even created by your own deeds and yet still remain within wealth guidelines.
The mind transcends the body.
It's also a little cold because of that.
Please get it a blanket.

I wish I could read your mind,
I can barely read mine.

"Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. At 2:15, it begins rolling up characters."

[spoiler]
"Just what do you think the moon up in the sky is? Everyone sees that big, round shiny thing and thinks there must be something round up there, right? That's just silly. The truth is much more awesome than that. You can almost never see the real Moon, and its appearance is death to humans. You can only see the Moon when it's reflected in things. And the things it reflects in, like water or glass, can all be broken, right? Since the moon you see in the sky is just being reflected in the heavens, if you tear open the heavens it's easy to break it~"
-Ibuki Suika, on overkill

To sumbolaion diakoneto moi, basilisk ouranionon.
Epigenentheto, apoleia keraune hos timeis pteirei.
Hekatonkatis kai khiliakis astrapsato.
Khiliarkhou Astrape!
[/spoiler]

There is no higher price than 'free'.

"I won't die. I've been ordered not to die."

raith0

  • Bi-Curious George
  • ****
  • Posts: 442
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #58 on: October 04, 2010, 08:33:54 PM »
in the games i play in we dont have a problem with characters making money, or a lot of it.  we all ussaly have some form of work i character does to generate wealth outside of adventuring.  the thing is we dont have a wally mart for magical weapons/items. they all have to be found or rewarded for some reason or another.  part of that is set up in the history of the world with a few large kingdoms waging war and stockpiling magical wealth for the armies.  also while items may stay in a town or family after the adventurer dies/retires it doesnt mean they want to sell them.  or even that a retired wizard want to spend is xp to craft magic items in his old age for profit. remember that the basic economy of a farmer is about 15 gold a year that doesnt get returned into his farm.  and an adventure after level 5 can live like a king off of that economy without much effort.  this may not be how your games/worlds are setup but while greed may motivate some adventurers it doesnt mean that it has to motivate all of them. 
See this wasn't a problem in the game you are describing because this advice was already applied:
I think the fundamental issue is that mundane wealth, can purchase magical power.
As long as that is true, any physically based currency would be inadequate, particularly considering that magic items takes XP, a renewable, but highly personal resource, to create, by a small subset of the population.

So, if WBL reflects the number of items that a character can power rather than afford it solves the issue neatly.

Instead of the character powering the items your dm just doesn't let them be available for standard currency values. Items instead cost in terms of game time and role playing. Both of which completely negate the need to have gp associated with magic items, but also make it exceedingly hard for a PC to get items the game expects them to have unless the DM cherry picks some things to be available or tones down monsters at a certain point.


To be very honest yes at times we have fallen behind the curve as far as well by level goes for magic items.  ussally around the 10-13th level range is when we really notice that things are getting to be way off.  but then we generaly the DM throws some things are way from NPC and we are generaly caught up in a level or 2 anyway.  or we are given the time needed to invest in creating the magical items we are listed.

the one nice thing about the style my friends and have been playing is instead of buying magic items we end up building and maintaining towns and have litteraly created are own world as diverse as the relms over the last 14-18 years.

Ron

oslecamo

  • Grape ape
  • *****
  • Posts: 1940
Re: [3.5] Houserules Balance Question?
« Reply #59 on: October 04, 2010, 08:59:08 PM »
Essentially, the idea was that you could throw any number of magic items, for gold, for deeds or even created by your own deeds and yet still remain within wealth guidelines.

Wouldn't in that case just be better to play Exalted where you laugh at the "common people" problems and everything is powered by how awesome you are? Where Golden cities filled with jewels are at every corner and you don't care because a single donkey's jaw turns into a massacre weapon when in your hands? Ok there's the ocasional super artifact but those are strongly controled by the GM.

Really, because one of the main points of D&D it's not awesomness for awesomness sake. It's geting your hands on filthy powerfull treasure. The fighter wants his magic swords. The wizard wants the ancient arcane scrolls. D&D isn't only personal character growth, it's also finding that Ring of Invisibility or Mythral chain shirt or Volume of Forbidden Knowledge that make your character stronger.

Back in 1e wealth actualy gave you direct exp, so you didn't even care about killing the monsters as long as you got the hands on the treasure and lived to tell the tale. Treasure is out there, but it's well protected, trapped, hidden, cursed or a a combination of those, so geting your hands on it is the challenge, not a background event.

So, if you want the characters to literally be swimming with material treasure half the time, I would say you're kinda geting away from D&D's spirit.

Of course, I'm making a project for mechas in D&D so this may be kinda hypocrital, but hey, even in Super Robot Wars the characters strip every salvageable piece they can from the battlefield to upgrade their own machines!