Character wealth using Tomes material

General questions, debates, and rants about RPGs

Moderator: Moderators

Post Reply
deathdealingjawa
Apprentice
Posts: 76
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2009 7:34 pm

Character wealth using Tomes material

Post by deathdealingjawa »

I am confused how wealth by level works in the tome system. my game is set in "The Gold Economy" from the tomes, and the highest power level of anything in the setting is CR 10.
How do I figure out what the party's wealth should look like in the Gold Economy? How many magic items should they get per level? Should they ever get artifacts?
Last edited by deathdealingjawa on Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:59 am, edited 2 times in total.
IGTN
Knight-Baron
Posts: 729
Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 4:13 am

Post by IGTN »

Look here and ctrl+F "Wealth by Level".

Read down through the advancement schemes.

For starting characters, I generally do one minor item per level, or per level above first.
"No, you can't burn the inn down. It's made of solid fire."
User avatar
Judging__Eagle
Prince
Posts: 4671
Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Location: Lake Ontario is in my backyard; Canada

Post by Judging__Eagle »

Actually... I'm in a similar situation right now.

I'm running a level 11 campaign. That's a 66k gp budget out of the DMG.

However, it's also when the wish economy is accessible.

So, I'm splitting the difference.

Players can get their 8 slots on their character. They also can get BoG 'scaling' items. Those cost '15,000' gp; keeping them out of the hands of lower leveled characters, but able to be available for Wish-economy access characters.

The 'starting character wealth' is then able to be spent on magic items, however the players wish.

I'm thinking that 'adding' +X properties to a weapon or suit of armour costs whatever the bonus would cost, and all the costs of enhancements on a suit of armour all add up. This cost isn't added to the 15,000 gp cost of a Magic Sword when determining the items total cost. Some weapon properties are obviously different.

Something like say, Flaming means that "the weapon deals fire damage now", and that's a +1 cost.

Adding Spells to a weapon or armour should be possible as well imo.

I'm not sure on a system though. A +0.5 for every spell level might be a way to go.

Only paying full price for the highest level spell, and +0.5 for every other spell that is lower level, might be how to arrange costs. So, if you get a "+5" added; and get a say Wish at will, on your sword, your item also gets a free 8th level spell; like say... some Cleric or Druid spell, or a Domain only spell.

So, a lvl spell 1 it costs a +1, and gives say... Burning Hands and Read Magic.

A level 2 spell costs a +1, but gives say... Scorching ray.

A +2 weapon gives Scorching Ray, and Flaming Sphere. Since they're both costing a +1 each.

At a +4 cost, you can get a lvl 8 spell.

... would that work as a method for making Items in D&D bring casters, and non-casters to greater parity?
The Gaming Den; where Mathematics are rigorously applied to Mythology.

While everyone's Philosophy is not in accord, that doesn't mean we're not on board.
User avatar
Avoraciopoctules
Overlord
Posts: 8624
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Oakland, CA

Post by Avoraciopoctules »

For character wealth, I like to cut out most of the complexity. For midlevel (6-12) I'll generally let each PC have a reasonably awesome magical item and a handful of minor (such as scaling +x) items. No real effort is made to track mundane wealth unless it seems to be getting absurdly high. Inherent ability score bonuses rarely enter the question. Since people rarely level far past their starting point, one of the biggest methods of advancement in my games is the acquisition of stuff. So there's rarely an upper limit on how much stuff you can get.

I don't do games below level 5 very often, and I run games above 10 even more rarely, so I don't generally worry much about character wealth for either of those. Personally, I'd just tell the low-level PCs to keep their wealth reasonable and give a hard limit to the max value and number of wish-economy currency items the high-level characters had.

edited for continuity --Z
Last edited by Avoraciopoctules on Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply