Vow of Poverty versus WBL (no darkmaster,Shadow Balls)

[shadzar]

How do you know how 3e is played? By your own admission, you've never played it.

by your own reading skills, you just admit you fail at english.

[Grek]

The game gives rules for buying magic items, rules for selling magic items and rules for where you can buy and sell what. It's pretty clear that you're supposed to use those rules to exchange the equipment you get for the equipment you want to have, and that you're supposed end up with your WBL in items chosen off of the combined list of items looted and items buyable in town. It's assumed that anyone smart enough to play D&D is smart enough to understand the basic economics involved in buying and selling goods to end up with whatever you're in the market for.

If you use item creation to exceed your wealth by level, the DM should give you less treasure to account for that. The reason why item crafting costs less than item buying is to create a sense of verisimilitude.

The correct comparison is "Everything you would get with Vow of Poverty" vs. "Everything you would get without Vow of Poverty". And that second one comes out on top.

E: Man this thread moves fast. I just read Shaz's last post, so all I have is one thing to say:
If your DM isn't allowing you to buy and sell magic items in town, that's a house rule of theirs and not part of the official rules. And if they didn't tell you about it first or made arrangements to adjust the difficulty, it's an unannounced and unbalanced houserule.

[Psychic Robot]

okay shad

please build a fighter with vow of poverty and then let someone else build a fighter with WBL. then we'll see who wins.

[shadzar]

If you use item creation to exceed your wealth by level, the DM should give you less treasure to account for that. The reason why item crafting costs less than item buying is to create a sense of verisimilitude.

If your DM isn't allowing you to buy and sell magic items in town, that's a house rule of theirs and not part of the official rules. And if they didn't tell you about it first or made arrangements to adjust the difficulty, it's an unannounced and unbalanced houserule.

1. the fact of item creation kind of undermines the whole buying/selling bit, since it IS easier in 3rd to make your own magic. so economy isnt FUBARed you would need to get rid of one or the other.

so WBL is based on full price? so assuming a PC party made their own rather than buy, because they didnt want to buy, or didnt have a Magic Mart, then WBL should be roughly cut in half as far as items go, which would change the VoP as well.

2. i dont see how a Magic Mart is really required, since item creation exists...nor how it can be a houserule, as both work within the system. but of course the system is still too dependent on too many interconnected bits, and when one doesnt work then the house of cards falls down.

even Antique Store type magic buying, i wouldnt play in, but shouldnt let you find just anything. so PCs would have to make some things for themselves. this is all something missing form the WBL as defined, so is all DM fiat and group decision, and a number system built into the game, shouldnt be left so undefined.

in regards to VoP then...i dont know what to asume other than guess everything is valued at full price, and assume 4th edition wishlist mentality...but that is not a playstyle held by all, but i have no idea what Monte et all was doing with 3rd...so it really isnt that easy to see what to compare to.

[shadzar]

okay shad

please build a fighter with vow of poverty and then let someone else build a fighter with WBL. then we'll see who wins.

for the short-bus kids in the forums, like yourself...

time #786875: i do not have the books for 3rd, nor would i own them.

[fectin]

ah well as all other editions the stuff int he DMG isnt always for the players, so probably why we didnt even see such a place to buy anything.

maybe that is where the misunderstanding about WBL comes from that players shouldnt actually be trying to use it.

so during actual play it doesnt matter a much, but when you jsut want to dissect the system you have to look at both, even though how it is written isnt how it is played...

How do you know how 3e is played? By your own admission, you've never played it.

Ha! there is where you are wrong!
Story of Shad's 3E experimentation:
http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=51 ... &start=264

...followed 4 posts later by Kaelik's critique.

[Whatever]

http://www.d20srd.org/

http://www.msen.com/~muffin/ADD/Chars/w ... level.html

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Vow_of_Poverty

Need anything else?

[Grek]

so WBL is based on full price? so assuming a PC party made their own rather than buy, because they didnt want to buy, or didnt have a Magic Mart, then WBL should be roughly cut in half as far as items go, which would change the VoP as well.

Correct on the first half, incorrect on the second half. 1/1=0.5/0.5=x/x. If you're getting items at half price and get half as much wealth to buy items, then the number of items (and their total market value) is the same as if you hadn't crafted anything and got full loot instead. That's the entire point of adjusting loot to fit WBL guidelines.

[shadzar]

right, they change at the same time since a +4 shield would be worth the same AC no matter full price, the WBL value cut in half to make it versus buy it, would mean the VoP value lost would be the same as the new price for making it. since it would still offer the AC value of a +4 shield.

[Previn]

If your DM isn't allowing you to buy and sell magic items in town, that's a house rule of theirs and not part of the official rules. And if they didn't tell you about it first or made arrangements to adjust the difficulty, it's an unannounced and unbalanced houserule.

Ref:

Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit (see Table 5-2) is an indicator of the price of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community's gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical.

[shadzar]

If your DM isn't allowing you to buy and sell magic items in town, that's a house rule of theirs and not part of the official rules. And if they didn't tell you about it first or made arrangements to adjust the difficulty, it's an unannounced and unbalanced houserule.

Ref:

Every community has a gold piece limit based on its size and population. The gold piece limit (see Table 5-2) is an indicator of the price of the most expensive item available in that community. Nothing that costs more than a community's gp limit is available for purchase in that community. Anything having a price under that limit is most likely available, whether it be mundane or magical.

OH, so this is just how the sample towns in the DMG were set up... having nothing to do then with how the game is actually played using your own world.

[Emerald]

OH, so this is just how the sample towns in the DMG were set up... having nothing to do then with how the game is actually played using your own world.

There are no sample towns in the DMG. There's a chart of community sizes, from Thorp with a population of 20-80 to Metropolis at a population of over 25,000, each of which has a GP limit (for instance, 40gp for a thorp and 100,000gp for a metropolis). Every town of a given size follows the "nothing above the gp limit is available, everything under it is" rule--Waterdeep has the same limit as Sharn has the same limit as a metropolis in your own world.

[shadzar]

ok, so unless you are playing Metropolis' and Monsters, then it isnt like you are going somewhere with walls and walls of "high level" magic items.

so its low level stuff, make it yourself, or hope it is in treasure.

making the odds of getting higher level magic items a bit steeper, depending on where those breaks are and how many types there are.

[A Man In Black]

ok, so unless you are playing Metropolis' and Monsters, then it isnt like you are going somewhere with walls and walls of "high level" magic items.

At high levels, you get explicit "Go to a large city" abilities, like Teleport and Plane Shift.

[shadzar]

ok, so unless you are playing Metropolis' and Monsters, then it isnt like you are going somewhere with walls and walls of "high level" magic items.

At high levels, you get explicit "Go to a large city" abilities, like Teleport and Plane Shift.

and? it doesnt mean they will be used 400 tiems a day, or even to visit somewhere you dont know about or cant force you to go somewhere you dont want to.

Metropolis' are option, not requirements, as well any of the other between it an Torp.

the game cannot force anyone to have to play in large sprawling cities. so it cannot assume those to be default locations for PCs.

it fails at basic design as an RPG, and becomes a board game, if it does that.

so it doesnt really matter in terms of VoP...the same items can be made for much less than needing a city with a +6 Magic Mart in it.

[Gnosticism Is A Hoot]

okay shad

please build a fighter with vow of poverty and then let someone else build a fighter with WBL. then we'll see who wins.

for the short-bus kids in the forums, like yourself...

time #786875: i do not have the books for 3rd, nor would i own them.

Wait, what?

All this bullshit from you, all this mindless misspelled incoherent babble about how 3.X is for ROLLplayers and idiots and children, all these pointless threads and thread derailments on a forum *mostly devoted to discussion about 3.X*...

And you don't even have any of the books? What the fuck are you doing, man? What is the fucking point?

[Grek]

and? it doesnt mean they will be used 400 tiems a day, or even to visit somewhere you dont know about or cant force you to go somewhere you dont want to.

That's a strawman and you know it. You don't need to teleport 400 times a day. You don't even need to teleport once a day. You teleport to a metropolis every time you want to buy/sell some expensive items. This might happen once or twice a month, depending on your campaign style.

The trading minigame happen when and if the players want to trade. The DM does not get to declare that the players don't want to trade. He's not playing their characters, he doesn't get to decide.

[Psychic Robot]

for the short-bus kids in the forums, like yourself...

time #786875: i do not have the books for 3rd, nor would i own them.

then shut the fuck up about what you don't understand

[A Man In Black]

and? it doesnt mean they will be used 400 tiems a day, or even to visit somewhere you dont know about or cant force you to go somewhere you dont want to.

Metropolis' are option, not requirements, as well any of the other between it an Torp.

the game cannot force anyone to have to play in large sprawling cities. so it cannot assume those to be default locations for PCs.

Nothing's forcing the players to stay there. They just hit up Capital City/the City of Brass to shop occasionally, then head back to wherever it is that they were heroing.

I assume you go to the grocery store to restock when you need food. It hardly means you live or work there.

[shadzar]

and? it doesnt mean they will be used 400 tiems a day, or even to visit somewhere you dont know about or cant force you to go somewhere you dont want to.

That's a strawman and you know it. You don't need to teleport 400 times a day. You don't even need to teleport once a day. You teleport to a metropolis every time you want to buy/sell some expensive items. This might happen once or twice a month, depending on your campaign style.

The trading minigame happen when and if the players want to trade. The DM does not get to declare that the players don't want to trade. He's not playing their characters, he doesn't get to decide.

no you are missing the point, you can keep a low population game, and still get all the expensive stuff without the Metropolis and such in it...by crafting it yourself.

what i thought was being said was you had to have a Metropolis to get the stuff of that level to even CRAFT your own +5 sword of stabiness.

but you arent required to have such a city int he game at all. which still makes WBL silly, since you can get twice the # by making stuff yourself.

[Previn]

but you arent required to have such a city int he game at all. which still makes WBL silly, since you can get twice the # by making stuff yourself.

You can't get twice the stuff by making it yourself unless you're heavily into the crafting from the beginning. Even then, crafting can probably save you about 40% by making race/class restricted items and going with strickt formulas rather than actually applying realistic ad-hoc costs. (Ignoring artificers, wishes and similar shenanigans).

In example; by the formula, Glove of True Strike always on with a race/class restriction and some other tweaks in crafting, you technically get a +20 bonus to hit for 1,200 gp. Clearly that is a problem. A Ring of Regeneration is that in opposite.

WBL is explicitly a guide line. It's the "baseline" that D&D uses for balance in it's adventures. Exceeding, or dropping below it isn't an issue if you're aware of the implications. If you're aware of that, then WBL has pretty much served it's main purpose as a measuring stick of 'you should be about this tall to ride.'

No adventure meant for 7th level characters, for example, will require or assume that the party possesses a magic item that costs 20,000 gp.

There are other issues about the fragility of the economies in all version of D&D, but that's a separate issue from WBL.

{Edit: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050118a as additional reference}

[RadiantPhoenix]

Use-activated items have a cost multiplier based on duration. (And an item that requires you to spend a standard action to get a +20 bonus on attack rolls isn't anywhere near what people normally mean by, 'item of True Strike')

True Strike on a use based item is:
1 (1st level spell) * 1 (CL 1) * 4 (rounds) * 2000gp = 8 kgp

But that almost certainly trips the "epic" x10 multiplier, and might actually deserve it, which would bring it to 80 kgp, which actually sounds vaguely reasonable.

[shadzar]

(Ignoring artificers, wishes and similar shenanigans).

In example; by the formula, Glove of True Strike always on with a race/class restriction and some other tweaks in crafting, you technically get a +20 bonus to hit for 1,200 gp. Clearly that is a problem. A Ring of Regeneration is that in opposite.

No adventure meant for 7th level characters, for example, will require or assume that the party possesses a magic item that costs 20,000 gp.

There are other issues about the fragility of the economies in all version of D&D, but that's a separate issue from WBL.

{Edit: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050118a as additional reference}

an temporary buffs to anything doesnt mater either and should be ignored too since the "always-on" of the VoP.

that said, i was going off someone else saying 50% is the cost to MAKE an item compared to its price.

i dont think racial specifics would work, since VoP isnt restricted to any race, and the same goes for class, so discounting costs comapred to WBL there really shouldnt be done.

yeah edition prior to 3rd didnt have economies built into the system so really dont have any problems with an economy that doesnt exist, do definitely dont have any place in a discussion about WBL, nor did they have VoP outside of the paladin class bits, so dont belong in it either.

WBL is explicitly a guide line.

i tried my best to avoid this bit, but just cant help myself but to laugh at it considering all the RAW dominance of 3.x discussions.

but that being the case, VoP stacks up perfectly with WBL since you can fall below the guideline, which makes VoP better, than when you are on or above the line.

i still say it is comparable to the line itself personally. but i guess then in the end it will be personal value tot he abilities that matter int he end. some will personally value the $$$, while others will value the functions like not losing the "abilities" due to theft or disenchantment, etc.

[Previn]

an temporary buffs to anything doesnt mater either and should be ignored too since the "always-on" of the VoP.

Execpt that RAW, it's not temprary. I know you do't own the books, nor will you buy them, but you can seriously look 90% of this stuff up on the SRD. All you're doing is continuously showing how little know about anything, and how much you refuse even try and learn.

that said, i was going off someone else saying 50% is the cost to MAKE an item compared to its price.

Again, you could ook up the rules for item creation yourself instead of doing your darnedest to look like a massive idiot time and time again. The cost to make an item is roughly half the market cost, plus xp. With the remained of the market price actually being gold to cover the xp cost. As you get xp based on your level instead of the party level, you make the xp up as you adventure. Reductions to cost due to restrictions such as certain classes only applies to the... no, I'm not going to explain verbatim the item creation rules available for free online at d20srd.org

Suffice to you you don't have even the remotes clue what you're talking about, and you're desperate to twist your deliberate lack of knowledge toward your hard-on for 2nd edition.

i dont think racial specifics would work, since VoP isnt restricted to any race, and the same goes for class, so discounting costs comapred to WBL there really shouldnt be done.

Uh, yes it should. THe whole point of VoP is that gives you terrible bonuses and cause you to have less bonuses as well. It's been demonstrated multiple times, factually that this is true.

yeah edition prior to 3rd didnt have economies built into the system so really dont have any problems with an economy that doesnt exist, do definitely dont have any place in a discussion about WBL, nor did they have VoP outside of the paladin class bits, so dont belong in it either.

Oh, they did, they just didn't automatically come with magic items from breaking the economy, so you saw less abuse of it.

WBL is explicitly a guide line.

i tried my best to avoid this bit, but just cant help myself but to laugh at it considering all the RAW dominance of 3.x discussions.

but that being the case, VoP stacks up perfectly with WBL since you can fall below the guideline, which makes VoP better, than when you are on or above the line.

Seriously? We've shown you that VoP doesn't stack up to WBL, we've pointed out the crafting rules, and you still think somehow VoP is on par for wealth. You refuse to go and read rules of the game.... which are online, searchable and FREE.

How the hell do they even let you post here anymore?!? I cannot even begin to fathom why you're still allowed to post since as far as I can tell you NEVER actually contribute anything to any thread and in fact actively and purposefully sabotage them with trolling.

Actually, it's probably because everyone has you on ignore....and now I do to.

[shadzar]

(Ignoring artificers, wishes and similar shenanigans).

an temporary buffs to anything doesnt matter either and should be ignored too since the "always-on" of the VoP.

Execpt that RAW, it's not temprary. I know you do't own the books, nor will you buy them, but you can seriously look 90% of this stuff up on the SRD. All you're doing is continuously showing how little know about anything, and how much you refuse even try and learn.

wishes make things permanent, artificers i dont know shit about nor could find to "look-up", so i included the temp buff. EX: Bless gives +1 to saves or some such for a limited amount of time...VoP is not temp.

so go suck a barrel of cocks.

and your quote separations are all fucked up also.