The Gaming Den

I had an idea about wealth and power sites, So I decided to start a thread. This rule can do many things, including explaining why you don't strip the scenery of wealth. This assumes you can't buy a +2 sword with gold off the wall.

Alternate Power Site rules:
- Power sites have their magical power amplified by treasure, wondrous works of art, and great architecture. Magic is whimsical and appreciates greatness, that is why it lends itself to powerful heroes.
-- So, for example, a level 3 power site would bump up to a level 4 power site if it acquired enough treasure/great architecture/art.
-- A Power Site requires a huge initial investment of treasure/great architecture/art to bump up it to the next level, and a small steady supply forever afterward to maintain it.

- Once an article of treasure has been "invested" in a power site, the following changes occur:
-- That piece of treasure can never be invested in a different power site.
-- If the treasure is ever destroyed or stolen, the power stays attuned to the power site.

The results are the following:
- There is motivation for rulers of power sites to adorn it with fantastic works.
- There is no motivation to steal/deface the power site (can't buy magic items with it, can't attune to a different site, doesn't lessen the power of the power site)
- All power sites will be places of greatness and wonder, and have accumulated wealth.

Finally, this rule puts great importance on mundane items and mundane skills. If the king knows that his power site will bump up from level 3 to level 4 if he builds a great marble palace, then marble and masons will have great worth.

So in this system, mundane people could still have worth. Your low level Expert Mason/Artist/Sculptor/Architect/Painter/Weaver/etc are all important to both the economy and the powerful rulers. This gives a reason as to why kings care about their populace. A working populace is as valuable as the power sites they can improve. This also can give importance to the lowly commoner farmer. His meager contributions of foodstuff, in aggregate, feeds the kings populace of Experts.

As a further result, killing off a rulers population weakens his power site, as well as him personally. So Kings and Emperors will fight and a wage wars to both protect their populace and destroy their enemies populace.

Thoughts?

I don't think that power sites should ever require constant treasure influxes. If Prince Prospero and his Nobles all die off in their expensive abbey, and fortress lies forgotten for years upon years, if it is finally uncovered people shouldn't say "Damn! This place drained dry years ago and all this gold is worthless and can't be attuned to anything."

Now that being said, I am intrigued by the notion of having it be desirable to build big buildings on top of power sites in order to get the power flowing properly. But rather than having it be arbitrary gold piles and such, it should be a variety of choices of reasonably mundane architecture that you can potentially levy ordinary people into building. We want giant wheels, huge stone spires, elaborate gardens, and all kinds of other weird stuff on these things.

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Another point on the magic weapons is the two competing pulls of magical weapons:

• Finding The Helical Spear is Awesome. Having your character's appearance reflect the adventures she has had and the challenges she has overcome is cool. It's part of the story, it makes the character's past actions matter.
• Being forces to fight with a chicken on your head or switch from hammer to short sword is lame. Certain parts of your character are in fact iconic. You're a swordsman, not a ranseurista. Or whatever. Point is, if the quest for the biggest bonuses makes your character unrecognizable, then something's wrong.

A big part of that can be solved by:


If the bigger deal magic weapons are basically like power sites in that you can attune them to be whatever kind of magic weapons you want, then we've got a system in which people can literally have their victories reflected in the weapons they use and still allow people to play Tira:


-Username17

I don't think that power sites should ever require constant treasure influxes. If Prince Prospero and his Nobles all die off in their expensive abbey, and fortress lies forgotten for years upon years, if it is finally uncovered people shouldn't say "Damn! This place drained dry years ago and all this gold is worthless and can't be attuned to anything."

Yes, that wouldn't be good. I added treasure influxes as almost an afterthought. I wanted there to be a fundamental reason why rulers kept their society going after they had built their grand fortresses. Possible solutions could be: If a power site "died" or became dormant, then all its treasures could now be attuned to other power sites. Alternatively, adding a suitable amount of treasure to the dormant power site could reactivate it.

Also, I wasn't trying to say that the kings treasure hoard was attuned to the power site. That's why I listed treasure/works of art/great architecture. By treasure I didn't just mean gold and other precious metals. I meant things like royal furnishings, historical artifacts, ancient carvings from rare woods, etc.

Also, I liked the idea of the Kings lieges being mandated to make a yearly (or so) pilgrimage to the Royal Palace and giving donations of treasures/art/architecture made by their best artisans. This pilgrimage would serve as both a symbol and as a direct source of power for the King.

Now that being said, I am intrigued by the notion of having it be desirable to build big buildings on top of power sites in order to get the power flowing properly. But rather than having it be arbitrary gold piles and such, it should be a variety of choices of reasonably mundane architecture that you can potentially levy ordinary people into building. We want giant wheels, huge stone spires, elaborate gardens, and all kinds of other weird stuff on these things.

Exactly.