Anatomy of Failed Design: Treasure Parcels

[Lago PARANOIA]

The 4E Wealth Accumulation system completely sucks. Why?

Because there are actually three values of money people can have. A minimum amount of wealth, assuming the party never gets anything they want and have to sell everything, the wealth-by-level amount in the Player's Handbook, and a value that assumes that players always get what they want. This number is absurdly higher than the other two, even if you dodge the obvious problem--so that you make it that so that over the course of a few levels everyone gets about the same value in items. If you do this even the person who is temporarily at the bottom of the chart still ends up with more wealth than someone who is pregenerated.

The biggest question as to why I had a minimum value: Well, for one thing, the item system in 4E is completely whack. I would much rather have a +2 Bloodclaw Greatspear (level 7) than a +3 Lightning Greatspear (level 15). It seems only logical that in many cases people will end up selling bupkiss higher-level items to afford lower-level items. And since you can buy an item 5 levels lower with the cash you get from selling one, there is absolutely no point in the DM awarding magical items that people don't want that are 5 or more levels higher than the magical items that people do want. So, we need a bare-ass minimum value.

Here's my assumption. The party never finds anything they want and ends up selling everything. Why do I make this assumption? If someone does find something they want (which leaves them out of the treasure pool) then your share of the treasure goes up an unpredictable amount. For example, a level 7th party has one guy who really likes the 11th level item. The money pool goes from 9520 (1904 is your share) to 7720 (1930 is your share). If the party decides to keep the 11th and 10th level item, the money pool is 6720 (your share is 2240). So you end up with more money if people decide to keep what they want. Of course, there are rarely breakpoints where people deciding to keep the fabulous prizes they have would end up with you actually getting enough money for a better item.

In fact, there's only one case. The system breaks down if everyone except one person gets a magic item they want. This would mean that a person walks away with both cash prizes; which means that they end up with more loot than the poor level+1 and level+2 guys. Which of course is unfair. For those cases, the monetary reward in half; the loser gets 2/3rds of that money so they can at least buy one magic item of their level. Then rest of the party gets a 1/10 of the money reward each. So on the assumption that a party going from 9th level to 10th level gets the best possible treasure split:

1 person gets a 13th level item + 1/5 the cost of a 9th level item (840 gold)
1 person gets a 12th level item + 840 gold
1 person gets an 11th level item + 840 gold
1 person gets a 10th level item + 840 gold
1 person gets 4200 gold pieces + 840 gold pieces--in other words a 9th level item and 840 gold.

Worst case scenario, no one gets what they want so ends up selling everything. Everyone gets 3,440 gold, or enough to buy an 8th level item.

But anyway, here's the chart. The first number is the minimum amount of treasure you should have earned in the process of going from the previous level to your current one. The second is how much money you should have at that level, total. I only did it out to three significant digits.

Level
2: 265 (265) (you can't buy squat; at level 2 you're almost guaranteed to get a better deal actually taking the puny treasure parcel)
3: 380 (645)
4: 501 (1,140)
5: 688 (1,830)
6: 880 (2,710)
7: 1,328 (4,040)
8: 1,904 (5,940)
9: 2,988 (8,930)
10: 3,440 (12,300)
11: 4,400 (16,700)
12: 6,640 (23,400)
13: 9,520 (32,900)
14: 13,040 (45,900)
15: 17,200 (63,100)
16: 22,000 (85,100)
17: 33,200 (118,000)
18: 47,600 (165,000)
19: 65,200 (230,000)
20: 86,000 (316,000)
21: 110,000 (426,000)
22: 166,000 (592,000)
23: 238,000 (830,000)
24: 326,000 (1,150,000)
25: 430,000 (1,580,000)
26: 550,000 (2,130,000)
27: 830,000 (2,960,000)
28: 1,090,000 (4,050,000)
29: 1,330,000 (5,380,000)
30: 1,550,000 (6,930,000)
END: 1,875,000 (8,800,000)

A character is almost always better off using the wealth-by-level rather than earning their money--for example, a 26th level character has 4 mil gold pieces worth of equipment that they exactly want. One created organically may have as little as 2.13 million--and that's assuming that they never bought anything until now.


Even worse, the system breaks down even further if a character is organically leveled and actually gets things that they want. For example, lets take an 11th level character who gets a 16th-level item upon reaching level 12 (so n+4), a 16th level item at 13 (n+3), 16th at level 14 (n+2), 16th at level 15 (n+1), and a 16th level item upon reaching level 16 (booby prize). The DM is a Monty Hauler frickin' genius and all of his treasure parcels are exactly what the party want so no one every has to sell anything during the course of these levels.

Of course, it's only fair that if someone got the primo magical item one level, they get a less awesome item the next time. For example, here's how one treasure allotment might be arranged:

Everyone starts at level 6; one person gets the fabulous cash prize (so an item of their level), everyone uses every item the DM hands out, and most importantly no one gets unfair weighting of magical items. Everyone at one point got the chance to receive a magical item 4 levels above what they wanted and there's no bullshit like the fighter getting the n+3 level item 5 times in a row.

Cleric: n+4, n+3, n+2, n+1, n+0
Fighter: n+3, n+2, n+1, n+0, n+4
Rogue: n+2, n+0, n+4, n+3, n+1
Ranger: n+1, n+4, n+0, n+2, n+3
Wizard: n+0, n+1, n+3, n+4, n+2

Or in other words:

Cleric: 10th level, 10th level, 10th level, 10th level
Fighter: 9th level, 9th level, 9th level, 9th level, 14th level
Ranger: 8th level, 7th level, 12th level, 12th level, 11th level
Rogue: 7th level, 11th level, 8th level, 11th level, 13th level
Wizard: 6th level, 8th level, 11th level, 13th level, 12th level

Let's add up their awesomeness of their prizes in money:

Cleric: 5,000 gp x 5 = 25,000 gp
Fighter: 4,200 gp x 4 + 21,000 gp = 37,800 gp
Ranger: 2,600 gp + 3,400 gp + 9,000 gp + 13,000 gp x 2 = 41,000 gp
Rogue: 2,600 gp + 3,400 gp + 9,000 gp x 2 + 17,000 gp = 41,000 gp
Wizard: 1,800 gp + 3,400 gp + 9,000 gp + 13,000 gp + 17,000 gp = 44,200 gp

Bullshit. Okay, let's try again, over a smaller scale.

Cleric: n+0, n+4, n+1, n+3
Fighter: n+1, n+3, n+2, n+2
Ranger: n+2, n+2, n+3, n+1
Rogue: n+3, n+1, n+0, n+4
Wizard: n+4, n+0, n+4, n+0

So:

Cleric: 6, 11, 9, 12
Fighter: 7, 10, 10, 11
Ranger: 8, 9, 11, 10
Rogue: 9, 8, 8, 13
Warlord: 10, 7, 12, 9

Monetary Value:
Cleric: 1800 + 9000 + 4200 + 13000 = 28,000
Fighter: 2600 + 5000 + 5000 + 9000 = 19,000
Ranger: 3400 + 4200 + 9000 + 5000 = 21,600
Rogue: 4200 + 3400 + 3400 + 17000 = 28,000
Wizard: 5000 + 2600 + 13000 + 4200 = 24,800

Oops. Okay, screw it, time for level 10. We have a 14th, 13th, 12th, 11th, and 10th level prize. Obviously in the interest of fairness the person with the most money should get the lowest prize and vice-versa.

So, prizes:

21,000; 17,000; 13,000; 9,000; 5,000

Cleric: 28,000 + 9,000 = 37,000
Fighter: 19,000 + 21,000 = 40,000
Ranger: 21,600 + 17,000 = 38,600
Rogue: 28,000 + 5,000 = 33,000
Wizard: 24,800 + 13,000 = 37,800

Hmm. That doesn't sound too bad. Let's see what the wealth assumptions say we should have at level 10. They should have an 11th level item, a 10th level item, a 9th level item, and gold pieces equal to a 9th level item (4,200 gold pieces)

11th level + 10th level + 9th level + 9th level = 9,000 + 5,000 + 4,200 x 2 = 22,400 gp.


What have we learned kids?

1) The DM has to give PCs exactly the item they want several levels ahead of them at repeated intervals, because if they don't the PCs will commit suicide in hopes of getting a better deal when they recreate.
2) But if the DM does exactly give the PC what they want they'll end up much richer than they would if they were pre-created, which means that they can't actually do that.
3) The system actually expects DMs to regularly hand out treasure that nobody wants. That's the only way the system comes even close to working for organic/pre-generated characters. But then, why the fuck would you even award treasure? This means the parcels don't work.
4) As the game grows older, the old system of people getting what they want by rolling treasure randomly breaks the fuck down. We can see this with the Bloodclaw/Reckless weapons; 4E refuses to print weapons more powerful than these. But people still want them, to the point where they are actually willing to sell higher-level magical items to get them. So this means that rolling for treasure will become a thing of the past.
5) Most importantly, how much treasure does the game expect us to have? Who the fuck knows. Why didn't they just use wealth by level?!
6) It is difficult like a motherfuck to create pre-made characters (for example, a min-maxxed character progression)under the current system. You HAVE to have two treasure charts: one for organic characters and one for pre-generated characters. That way organic characters who actually EARN their way to a level 16 Ranger/Fighter/Pit-Fighter don't end up with ridiculously less wealth than some lucky bastard whose DM lets them start at that level.

[Orion]

Note that there's no reason NOT to use massively underleveled boots, rings, and belts.

The only items that NEED to be replaced are your weapon or implement, your armor, and your neck slot. That's three items, four if you're two-weapon or have separate weapon and implement.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, so you guys might have heard of an alternate system floating around, done for simplicity of Min-Max purposes. The alternate system is actually amazingly simple.

Every level you get exactly one item of your choosing.

It matches up actually surprisingly well to recreating your character and picking what you want. You get slightly more money with the current pregeneration system (that is, you get an item of level + 1, your level, level -1, and gold pieces equal to level - 1). However, when creating min-max builds there are certain levels where you don't actually want to buy anything. Since you don't get change for getting a lower-level item in a higher level slot, it works out the same I believe. Selling old magical items becomes (unsurprisingly) not an issue. A character up upgrades his +2 bloodclaw bastard sword to a +3 bloodclaw bastard sword gets 520 for their old magical item, enough to purchase a magical item 10 levels lower than him. Ask Smoochy what he thinks about that kind of money.

But anyway. The total value of your magic items if you get to pick one a level on the left. On the right is total value of your magic items if you pre-generate a character.

1: Nice try. You start with 100 gold pieces, you fucknut.
2: 880 / 1,920
3: 1,560 / 2,560
4: 2,400 / 3,200
5: 3,400 / 4,480
6: 5,200 / 6,400
7: 7,800 / 9,600
8: 11,000 / 12,800
9: 15,000 / 16,000
10: 20,000 / 22,400
11: 29,000 / 32,000
12: 42,000 / 48,000
13: 59,000 / 64,000
14: 80,000 / 80,000
15: 105,000 / 112,000
16: 150,000 / 160,000
17: 215,000 / 240,000
18: 300,000 / 320,000
19: 405,000 / 400,000
20: 530,000 / 560,000
21: 755,000 / 800,000
22: 1,080,000 / 1,200,000
23: 1,505,000 / 1,600,000
24: 2,030,000 / 2,000,000
25: 2,655,000 / 2,800,000
26: 3,780,000 / 4,000,000
27: 5,405,000 / 6,000,000
28: 7,530,000 / 8,000,000
29: 10,155,000 / 10,000,000
30: 13,280,000 / 14,000,000

2: I'm calling a mulligan and letting people get a 1st level magic item and a 2nd-level magical item for free. A pre-generated 2nd-level character already has a 3rd, 2nd, and 1st level magical item with 360 gold pieces to burn. Why the douchiness?
19, 24, 29: Notice that these levels pre-generated wealth actually causes you to lose money as opposed to selecting an item.
30: I got the value for a fictional 31st level item by multiplying the price of a 26th level item by 5 (so it would be worth 5.625 mil gp). If your DM is a douche-meteor and doesn't let you do that, then your actual wealth is 11.5 mil gp.

[souran]

Lago,

What happens if you rerun your experiment with people using the rituals to dust/rebuild magic items instead of selling for 1/5th cost.

I have never had any real issues with the treasure parcels either way, although I never let players suicide to add magic items to the party.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Lago,

What happens if you rerun your experiment with people using the rituals to dust/rebuild magic items instead of selling for 1/5th cost.

For the minimum value, there would be no change, especially at higher level. Dusting magical items nets you just as much magic as selling them. Rebuilding magic items (with the Upgraydde option) wouldn't have an effect on the final price since in the minimum-wealth chart you don't purchase anything.

Best case scenario, you never sell or replace anything after getting exactly what you want at the time (which is possible with the Upgraydde option), that way your wealth doesn't go down a second time.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Remember too that even though the 'one item of your level or individual items of your level that equal the price of one item of your level' schemes is generally what is used in min-max:

This has the least support of any of the other wealth-accumulation scenarios I have stated.

Rather, it's just a way for people to go 'look, you fucknut, give me some decent treasure or I'll suicide and recreate'. In an actual game, especially if you use the DMG's suggestion and give wishlists to your DM, you'll probably end up much richer than with pregenerated characters. The example charts for an organic party I gave which had a fair item distribution ended up with 1.5-2.0x the amount of wealth of pregenerated characters.

In short, here are the outcomes:

1) You can end up much poorer than an pregenerated/organic character but still slightly more powerful if the DM doesn't go for wishlists because the 4E magical item system is a bucket of balls. Boots of Eagerness (level 9 items) are better than 95% of all magical boots ever printed; so if the only way you can get them is by selling your level 20 boots you fucking do it.

2) If your DM will let you, you can constantly suicide and recreate your character. You'll end up with more money than the above.

3) Your DM actually follows the wishlist guidelines and you end up obscenely loaded. From what I understand, this is how much wealth PCs were supposed to end up with since the 4E writers are completely clueless about their magical item system and don't seem to realize that higher-level items are no guarantee of being BETTER items.

4) You scrap all of the parcel bullshit and implement a wealth-by-level. If someone ends up with a higher-level item it just means they get less treasure for a while; if they end up getting a +6 butterface knife and don't want to to hurt their wealth accumulation, they can just throw it in a ditch or bequeath it to someone and go back on the wealth-by-level scheme. Oh, wait, that's what they should have done.

Bullshit. What a load of fucking bullshit. How did they fuck this up this bad? This isn't like they tried to fix something that was broken and fell short of the mark like multiclassing or save bonuses, they had a perfectly functioning system in place and replaced it with their own retarded, nonworky piece of garbage.

[souran]

Bullshit. What a load of fucking bullshit. How did they fuck this up this bad? This isn't like they tried to fix something that was broken and fell short of the mark like multiclassing or save bonuses, they had a perfectly functioning system in place and replaced it with their own retarded, nonworky piece of garbage.

While the core part of wealth by level was not broken there were a number of things that needed to be looked at with magic items.

The existing cap on the value of any single magic item that could be purchased was to high. However, that is a simple fix.

Additionally, rebuilding the magic item system so that the relative power and appropriateness of equipment was clearer was defiantly in the games interest.

Hell, even the idea of the parcels is not bad. "Break the loot into groups about like this" and then providing charts for 1-30 is actualy the sort of material I think OUGHT to be the dmg. Its a decent play aid.

Hell, even the n+1, n, n-1, gold for n-1 is not a bad idea. Its fast and makes playable characters. The problem with it is that it really has nothing to do with how characters are if they play the game.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The existing cap on the value of any single magic item that could be purchased was to high. However, that is a simple fix.

Anyone who has played 3E knows that the system had the exact opposite problem; namely that anyone with the slightest amount of sense went hunting for multiple unrelated bonuses rather than blowing their wad on a big item.

That problem could've been solved by fixing the issue of bonus accumulation--which 4E did for awhile until they started printing up a bunch of bullshit items. Some dumbass thought it would be a good idea for people get get damage bonuses for what they put in their arms or feet slot.

Hell, even the idea of the parcels is not bad. "Break the loot into groups about like this" and then providing charts for 1-30 is actualy the sort of material I think OUGHT to be the dmg. Its a decent play aid.

It would've worked if and only if higher-level magical items were in fact always better than lower-level magical items. This is clearly not the case; because bloodclaw/overreaching/reckless/withering/cunning/frost/subtle/etc. items are better than the other items printed, there is too much incentive to sell a higher-level item for a lower-level one.

Hell, even the n+1, n, n-1, gold for n-1 is not a bad idea. Its fast and makes playable characters. The problem with it is that it really has nothing to do with how characters are if they play the game.

The n+1, n, n-1x2 paradigm doesn't create usuable characters, especially if you start out at higher level. You're gimped out on too many item slots that need filling because you also don't get the option to forgo having a +6 weapon to have a +5 weapon, +5 armor, and +5 neckslot with two L21 rings. I mean, honestly, how are you supposed to have enough money to afford two decent fucking rings as a pregenerated L21 character, even though rings have been available for 10 levels?

[souran]

Anyone who has played 3E knows that the system had the exact opposite problem; namely that anyone with the slightest amount of sense went hunting for multiple unrelated bonuses rather than blowing their wad on a big item.

I guess it depends on where you played most of your time. Yeah stacking a ton of different bonuses was awesome once you finally could but for 10 and below it was possible to squeak in a single "I when the encounters in the first adventure" type item and then start building back up from there. Its possible to get things like low level rings of wizardry and honestly, we are talking about the part of the game where its possible to make "I cause relevant damage" melee characters.

That problem could've been solved by fixing the issue of bonus accumulation--which 4E did for awhile until they started printing up a bunch of bullshit items. Some dumbass thought it would be a good idea for people get get damage bonuses for what they put in their arms or feet slot.

Agreed. The one problem with turning all magic items into magic cards is that there is no agreeded upon "type II" dnd to be played.

Also, a number of things they needed to be absolulty hard ass about they did not. Which is infuriating.

They claimed that magic item slots would be focused. You wouldn't be able to get something to do + damage in ring, and belt, and waist, and boots and head. You were fucking stuck with belt and wrist.

They had to hold the line and not cave to putting stuff that is just straight effectiveness adders in every slot. Now, they exist for everything and so having some slots that are filled with thing that were not just +1 to thing you are already awesome at is just not done anymore.

Same thing with the powers that heal and dont' take a healing surge. There should be absolutely zero powers that allow you to heal without expending a healing surge. None. Its what drives your fucking game. You have to hold the line on this. They represent your "adventure fuel"

It would've worked if and only if higher-level magical items were in fact always better than lower-level magical items. This is clearly not the case; because bloodclaw/overreaching/reckless/withering/cunning/frost/subtle/etc. items are better than the other items printed, there is too much incentive to sell a higher-level item for a lower-level one.

This is not so terrible. Its not a huge deal that people would rather have a +2 bloodclaw weapon than a +3 weapon of something else. Eventually they will want the +4 bloodclaw weapon. Also this will eventually change, there will be a new weapon that supplants these published eventually.

The real problem i have is that I would prefer their be fewer options and have more of them as good as bloodclaw rather than have the literally hundreds of magic weapon options D&D now or in the past has had and 95% of them are never used by anybody because they suck.

The n+1, n, n-1x2 paradigm doesn't create usuable characters, especially if you start out at higher level. You're gimped out on too many item slots that need filling because you also don't get the option to forgo having a +6 weapon to have a +5 weapon, +5 armor, and +5 neckslot with two L21 rings. I mean, honestly, how are you supposed to have enough money to afford two decent fucking rings as a pregenerated L21 character, even though rings have been available for 10 levels?

I disagree here. This is the method we use when we want to run a one off. Characters made to this standard are quite able to defeat published adventures. They are not really hot stuff but the adventures are about the difficulty people would expect.

[shadzar]

Lago, did you post this on ENWorld or the WotC forums back when 4th came out, because it looks identical to threads there. ACtually it very closely resembles a thread when the treasure parcels preview came out before 4th did.

Just curious, mind you, because I saw no need to disagree that the treasure system in 4th was retarded then, and still no reason to think that it is not still retarded, and the game screws up any economy and common sense.

I think I made the argument you make about organically grown characters vs created as higher level characters way back then.

I think people were saying the christmas tree from 3rd was removed, but the christmas list replaced it for the same purpose, back then. Or something along those lines.

Treasure just should have never been tied to encounter levels and the encounter budget. When you have one part of a closed system that breaks, the entire system goes down, unlike 1st or 2nd edition (possibly 3rd, but didn't play much of it.)

[Lago PARANOIA]

So, I'm thinking about redoing the charts to something more workable because honestly even the method I gave out (get gold coins equal to an item of your new level when you level up) is honestly pretty boring. It leads to people getting the same 3 or 4 items and sucks all of the joy out of treasure finding.

What I'm thinking about doing is creating a wealth-by-level chart and also setting up a lottery. That way:

- You don't get bullshit results like people selling level 20 items so they can get a level 12 item.
- People don't feel like jackasses plopping their money into making a sweet castle or using rituals.
- People actually get excited about finding treasure rather than going 'oh. A Frost Bastard Sword. Just like I was expecting 5 levels ago and just what I expect 5 levels from now'.

[Username17]

4e did absolutely everything treasure-related in the worst possible way I could imagine doing so. Even the AD&D method of rolling on the giant chart everytime there was a magic item and having a chance of a potion of water walking or a +5 sword of sharpness in every treasure pile (higher level piles simply have more magic items, and thus more scrolls of magic missile and more frostbrands). It would be better to have an actual magic item marketplace involving social tests to track down more desirable equipment like Shadowrun. It would be better to have no market at all. It would be better to force everyone to use random equipment. It would be better to let everyone have exactly what they expected to get based on their character goals.

DM chooses followed by selling shit off at poor exchange rates to automatically get whatever you wanted unless the DM happened to give you something you wanted straight off in which case you have roughly 6 times as much swag is obscene. That is exactly like the designers opening a couple of blank pages, taking a shit right in the middle, and then Rorschaching it into a double page spread for mass consumption.

You couldn't possibly do any worse. Making some kind of min/max paradise where people got bloodclaw weapons, healer maces, and eager boots at precisely the breakpoints they expected to get them would be in all ways superior to the system in the book. Not particularly interesting mind, but still substantially better nonetheless.

Frankly, if I was going to do it, I'd cut off the magic item economy entirely, make all magic items scale to level automagically, make a fucking giant random chart that told us what items were, and I'd make all the magic weapons in the hands of all the monsters into actual chart-generated magic weapons. And then people would end up with dozens of various longswords with dumb enchantments on them, and they'd give those things to henchmen or put them over the fucking mantlepiece.

The fact is that the only way to make the frost blade you actually end up with actually feel rare is to have the players literally get two dozen other magic swords or somehow have to work to track down the frost brand specifically.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

DM chooses followed by selling shit off at poor exchange rates to automatically get whatever you wanted unless the DM happened to give you something you wanted straight off in which case you have roughly 6 times as much swag is obscene.

This is the core reason why 4E magical items (and by extension the treasure allotment system) do not work at all.

For example, Bloodclaw and Reckless weapons have been nerfed, probably into unusuability. But that didn't make the magical item system suddenly more interesting. All that means is now people use Radiant, Frost, Cunning, and Subtle weapons with occasionally some people using Staggering or Bloodiron weapons depending on what their character build is.

4E is apparently following 3.5E's footsteps of nerfing top-tier items while doing nothing to ensure that the weaker options are any interesting. Even if they do make the aforementioned magical items I described suddenly worthless, 4E will not have advanced an inch towards making people want Flameburst and Duelist's weapons. And since the vast majority of magical items are built on the same power level of Flameburst and Duelists's weapons, this makes the entire magical item system collapse like a house of cards.

That's why my charts have such wildly varying amounts of wealth people are supposed to get. An organic character who gets everything they want has almost twice as much wealth as a premade character and four times as much wealth as someone who doesn't get anything they want and has to sell everything. That is FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

The worst thing is that as far as I can tell players are supposed to get exactly what they want. If we're just using the Player's Handbook, the only magical swords I care about for anything other than pluses is the Dancing weapon and the Frost Weapon. And for the last 6th of the game a Holy Avenger. Until then, all I care about otherwise are the plusses on the item. Same for armor. Blackiron armor is really nice and it will come up fairly often (as 4E has a hard-on for necrotic damage) but would I actually want a +3 suit of Blackiron Scalemail (+11 AC) over a +4 random property suit of Wyrmscale Scalemail (+14 AC)? Hell fucking no.

Like I said, I'm going to implement a wealth-by-level scheme for my players and also introduce a lottery. Fortunately magical items in 4E don't do much, especially if they're not of the 5% of items you actually care about, so I don't see this doing much other than stimulating the reptilian center of my players' brains.

[Maj]

Frankly, if I was going to do it, I'd cut off the magic item economy entirely, make all magic items scale to level automagically,

I think this is the best way to do it - completely divorce magic stuff from piles of gold, then hand out X levels of enhancements.

make a fucking giant random chart that told us what items were, and I'd make all the magic weapons in the hands of all the monsters into actual chart-generated magic weapons. And then people would end up with dozens of various longswords with dumb enchantments on them, and they'd give those things to henchmen or put them over the fucking mantlepiece.

I like the theory behind Earthdawn's threads - your stuff doesn't work for anyone else, and other people's stuff doesn't work for you. If I recall correctly (and I may not because it's been a very long time), you could eventually use other people's things by unlocking one ability at a time, and that item would eventually become yours. So Excalibur would eventually be able to be used by a PC.

So pretty much there's the same effect as what you're saying - you find a sword. Oooh. It's pretty.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't see what's so bad about 4E just handing out magical items in the same ballpark of power as everything else.

Your fighter comes across six different kinds of paragon-tier Arms Slot items. They're nice, but there's no way they're going to replace your Iron Armbands of power. Unless you're getting something really crazy, you could have 30 different Arms Slot magical items to choose from and they still wouldn't make you deviate from the IAoP.

[shadzar]

Because they wanted to remove all resource management. Money and magic items are a hell of a resource to have to keep track of. So scrap it all and just ignore it, and get what you want, rather than having to carry any money or having to buy anything.

[Lokathor]

I like the theory behind Earthdawn's threads - your stuff doesn't work for anyone else, and other people's stuff doesn't work for you. If I recall correctly (and I may not because it's been a very long time), you could eventually use other people's things by unlocking one ability at a time, and that item would eventually become yours. So Excalibur would eventually be able to be used by a PC.

So pretty much there's the same effect as what you're saying - you find a sword. Oooh. It's pretty.

Yes, each person has to weave a thread to the magical item to get a benefit. Improving the strength of the thread increased how much benefit you got from the item, up to the item's maximum. Each item also has a maximum number of threads that can be woven to it. I forget what happens when the item is full and another person want to use it though.

Earthdawn is really cool, but suffers a lot from terrible organization.

[Maj]

Yes, each person has to weave a thread to the magical item to get a benefit. Improving the strength of the thread increased how much benefit you got from the item, up to the item's maximum. Each item also has a maximum number of threads that can be woven to it. I forget what happens when the item is full and another person want to use it though.

Thanks. Roughly translated into D&Dese, I'd have the threads be levels. So at 5th level, you get X amount of enhancement and abilities to your chosen weapon. Etc, etc.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I'm bumping this thread again because we have certain people saying that the treasure parcel system is fine.

It's not. It's one of the most inconsistent and broken pieces of garbage ever put into a game.

[shadzar]

Treasure Parcel is as big a joke as the fat bald men making things under the name of D&D right now.

Not only does it screw up any chance of an economy, it turns the Xmas tree, into the Xmas list; and makes the DM just a quarter machine spitting out toys.

Add to it residuum is so flawed that magic dust (The Golden Compass?) is worth something but keeps disappearing all the time it is used so you have magic for money.

I would rather play 3rd edition than use the 4th treasure parcel or economic system for anything other than an intro to a book about bad game design!

[Username17]

My assessment of the Treasure Parcel system as the worst possible system is one that I stick by. Imagine for the moment some possibilities:

Highlander of Earthdawn

"Magic Items" only work for the people who create them, and they create/enhance them simply by wearing them when they eat residuum. nd while we are at it, let's rename residuum to something like Essentia so it doesn't sound like the crust on the bottom of an unwashed coffee cup. When people die, a small and slightly random fraction of their Essentia can be claimed by the victors. And the net result is that people run around stabbing fools and getting little packets of power that they use to "buy" the enhancements they have, but no one has to wonder why they aren't looting the corpses of all the Yuan-Ti archers of their lightning bows. And everyone is getting equal valued crap be default.

The Lottery

Magic items all scale to the level of the people using them. All of them. You use one sword instead of another because you would rather have a frost brand than a flaming burst sword. And so it is that you check the magic equipment of all your fucking enemies, but since it doesn't stack, most of your winnings don't change anything. And then you throw in the Nightmare and Hell difficulty armors so that even after you've found a sweet set of cloth you'll want to start over when you start fighting enemies with Feyweave or wyrmscale. And so it is that players always have something that's vaguely level appropriate, and there's still the thrill of discovery when you find a rare drop.

And you know what these have in common? There's no fucking auction house that permanently reduces your item power every time you hav to visit it to get something you "really wanted."

-Username17

[Maxus]

I already use the Lottery system, and basically throw enough loot at the players that what they use is a matter of personal taste, with a couple of bits of description.

It works to much satisfaction on all sides.

One player swapped out a Bracelet of Natural Armor (an adamantine thing) for...an Amulet of Natural Armor, which was some dragon scales on a string to make a simple necklace.

And I'd made up that bit on the spur of the moment and felt a warm little glow when the bracelet was put away and the necklace put in its place.

The Book of Gears and lottery have been pretty useful in that respect, and led to things like a BBEG having a saddlebag full of minor magical items/equipment he swaps out based on his mood and what he thinks will be useful that day. Sometimes he loans it out or gives it away, and seriously doesn't care about it because his personal equipment is a lot better than what's in that bag.

[shadzar]

you find a rare drop

I think this is a mentality and problem outside of MMOs.

The current age of gamers play a LOT of MMOs, that are not group driven, and don't play many group games outside of the MMO environment.

Single player games have a grind for levels that doesn't exactly happen in TTRPGs, and you have ot make sure the tools are there for the players to be able to finish in some way. Sometimes you need the perfect thing, but not always.

This is the divide. While searching for this "drop" in an MMO, you know you will get it. It is always there and has to be for the massive component of the game.

A TTRPG, however, does not work like this. Did not in the past, because they weren't ported over from MMOs.

Some people may expect this now, and it is being catered too in the treasure parcel system. You get what you want by virtue of wanting it.

Many older gamers sought RPGs in order to try their hands in something that is not capable in the real world. A bit of fantasy and how they woudl fair in that fantasy. They wanted to be Conan and see what they would do in his situation.

The more people that started playing, the more "fair" for the players to have a chance to "win" it became and they "need" certain things, rather than use what is available and figure out how to make do within the game. They literally are expecting certain item drops, rather than saying What can I do with this stuff, they ask why can't I have this other stuff.

I big part of imagination is lost because people are looking for something specific. A part in which 4th plays heavily with its poor item creation rules as well.

I haven't really seen many published homemade magic items for peopel to use, because the system doesn't really have a mechanic for players to have their characters create something. Not something that will work with the other tied in systems without breaking it.

You are tied so closely to making things that work for the system, rather than for the players. There is no need for players to come up with things, as much as many want to be able to, that their characters could make for themselves as was in the past.

Now I couldn't understand the monstrosity that was item creation in 3rd, but it at least had something that wasn't bound to other crazy things and arbitrary reasons why you couldn't make magic item Z.

The treasure parcel system exists to keep two things through out the game stable: lack of economy and its resource management, and power curve per level.

This really hurts a game that should be based on imagination rather than button clicks to play it.

It could have been a shining moment for 4th, like residuum. But sadly it was so poorly executed, and the way residuum works in the entire system, and its lack of economy, the treasure parcel system is all that can work.

You would have to get rid of the need for level power-balance so you can remove the "item drop", and let people get back to figuring out how to make the most of what they have.

I surely hope people don't go on a quest for the fire-brand weapon just because they later fight ice-based monsters.

I hope there is more to stat-driven games these days, else there will not be any fix for the treasure parcel/item wish list mentality in the future.

The only thing I have seen someone express as a way that has helped them with the treasure parcel system was like Materia from FF, or those stones in some anime called MAR.

That way you could have your normal sword and find these stones/materia along the way and always change your weapon as you go, and reduce much of the need for anything, but skill in deciding what to use/keep, or discard of the stones that imbue the weapons or other items with power.

I don't fully understand how they implemented it within 4th edition, but they said it worked great. (Forgot which forum it was on too).

I just recall they mentioned something about family heirlooms that the PC got to keep his whole life, rather than throwing away some ancient family generic sword just because he found a +1 sword to replace it.

Then there wouldn't be need for so many drops, as depending on the weapon it could have X slots to hold multiple stones, and then they could be exchanged with other party member, so you could use what you needed without everyone having to track down their own fire-based weapon when fighting ice creatures.

It kind of already works that way with 4th, in how some power with the weapon keyword do things different with certain weapons. Slashing v piercing v bludgeoning.

So fully adapting that kind of thing, would allow the power balance to remain, and get rid of the mundane magic weapon exchange for power. That would give more organic play to the system to allow players and DMs to create their own magic items and throw in, plus bring back some sort of economy.

Not that you were trying to say MMO style drops, but the phrasing just caught me into a train of thought that I ran with based on the terms you used....

[Psychic Robot]

I haven't really seen many published homemade magic items for peopel to use, because the system doesn't really have a mechanic for players to have their characters create something. Not something that will work with the other tied in systems without breaking it.

3e has a loose system.

I surely hope people don't go on a quest for the fire-brand weapon just because they later fight ice-based monsters.

Uh...why? That would make for a cool adventure.

[Username17]

Let's say you really wanted to have magic items be real things that you found and bought for money. OK, we could make some systems that genuinely did that. Let's go!

The Ziggurat

The items in the world are harshly tiered. Maybe they have three or six tiers. I don't even care. The point is that you make the value spike between turnips to copper and copper to gold and gold to um... astral diamonds be large. And you put a fucking weight limit on exchanges. Merchants seriously will not sell you anything for 50 kilos of "currency" so once you're outfitted in copper-purchasable merchandise, there's no point in even picking that shit up. In this model, when players start getting gold they are in a rush to swap out all their shit with gold-tier crap and then once they get a full set they start saving up gold to pay the brokerage fees to hone in on the exact equipment they are looking for. This allows people an easy fall-back position because they can liquidate like any astral diamond merchandise at all to grab a big enough pile of gold that no one has to run around in that environment with actually empty slots.

---

There's really no excuse for the Treasure Parcel system to be so fucking awful. No matter what your design criteria are, there's really easy ways to achieve them, and I just can't imagine anyone's design goal being to create a system in which no one know how much treasure people were supposed to have and there were no impartial ways to determine that and it was almost impossible for characters to end up with roughly even total shares at any point and characters permanently hurt themselves by changing their character around at any point during their progression before "now."

Ugh. It's surreal how terrible that treasure system is. I want to make this clear: the completely bullshit random and totally unfair system in the AD&D DMG that gave you a tiny but real chance to find the wand of frickin Orcus in a first level Goblin Camp was a better system in every way.

-Username17