The Wish Economy (I didn't make this up, google it) was an interesting phenomenon in 3.5. Basically, by the book, you could chain bind efreet at 11 level (earlier with a scroll), and have them wish you up tons and tons of cash, but they couldn't wish up magic items over 15k gp. This resulted in many GMs seeing their game setting as one in which there are two seperate economies working, the normal and elite.
In the normal economy, everything functioned as per DMG, except there were never any major magic items to buy. Major magic items belonged in the Elite economy, where they basically were only available as rewards for quests, for equivalent trades, or for some sort of unobtainium, like souls, ransom for powerful NPCs, etc.
At first glance, the Wish Economy was removed from Pathfinder RPG. While chain binding Efreet is still RAW-legal, the wish spell has been changed, you can no longer reliably wish for money or magic items. (you can still totally get +5 inherent bonus to every stat, raise an efreet army, etc, but these aren't the topic here, and are mostly ok as the Efreet take it personally and can plane shift to here to take revenge after the spell wears off. Also, the +5 to all abilities helps fighting classes disproportionately, and that is good at 9-12th level, where it happens.)
However, it seems like the default setting has been designed with the Wish Economy pretty much assumed. According to the section on Buying Magic Items (page 460-461), items that cost more than 16,000gp are just not really available (except for a tiny number of randomly generated items per city). Given that it takes a powerful spellcaster over 2 weeks to make one, and the only others who will have them are high level NPCs or monsters with treasure, it's basically the same effect. Magic items up to 16k gold are purchasable with $$, Magic items worth more than that are only gotten as loot, rewards, or crafted by PCs.
My suggestion for GMs is to make the random major magic items available in each city barter only; you can only get them by trading other major magic items. This increases the appeal and makes every appropriate major magic item something worth going on a quest for.
It was in 3.0. It wasn't PF, but instead 3.5 that broke the wish economy by removing the cash cap and replacing it with GM fiat.
Actually, looking at the 3.5 SRD, wish creates 25k gp in cash per casting, or an unlimited in cost magic item, as the balancing factor is XP and Efreet ignore that.
Which is probably why the games I'm thinking of houseruled it to 25k gp, just like the gold entry.
Actually, looking at the 3.5 SRD, wish creates 25k gp in cash per casting, or an unlimited in cost magic item, as the balancing factor is XP and Efreet ignore that.
Which is probably why the games I'm thinking of houseruled it to 25k gp, just like the gold entry.
No, they just used 3.0 wish, which worked differently. 3.0 wish let you make anything up to 15K gold. 3.5 wish lets you make anything period, although you need to pay an XP cost for magic items. Since efreeti don't need to pay an XP cost ever, they can make any item for free.
PF broke the wish economy in a different way but it was broken in 3.5.
Spoiler:
3.0 wrote:
Wish
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes
By simply speaking aloud, the character can alter reality to better suit the character. Even wish, however, has its limits.
A wish can do any one of the following:
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not from a school prohibited to the character.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not from a school prohibited to the character.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s from a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s from a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells.
Create a valuable item, even a magic item, of up to 15,000 gp in value.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects must be cured of the same type of affliction. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the feat takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place these creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate and SR.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including the character's last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate and SR.
The character may wish for greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. Such a wish gives the opportunity to fulfill the character's request without fulfilling it completely. (The wish may pervert the character's intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)
Duplicated spells allow saves and SR as normal (but save DCs are for 9th-level spells). When a wish duplicates a spell that has an XP cost, the character must pay 5,000 XP or that cost, whichever is more. When a wish duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more than 10,000 gp, the character must provide that component.
XP Cost: 5,000 XP or more (see above).
3.5 wrote:
Wish
Universal
Level: Sor/Wiz 9
Components: V, XP
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: See text
Target, Effect, or Area: See text
Duration: See text
Saving Throw: See text
Spell Resistance: Yes
Wish is the mightiest spell a wizard or sorcerer can cast. By simply speaking aloud, you can alter reality to better suit you.
Even wish, however, has its limits.
A wish can produce any one of the following effects.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 8th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any other spell of 6th level or lower, provided the spell is not of a school prohibited to you.
Duplicate any wizard or sorcerer spell of 7th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Duplicate any other spell of 5th level or lower even if it’s of a prohibited school.
Undo the harmful effects of many other spells, such as geas/quest or insanity.
Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
Create a magic item, or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
Grant a creature a +1 inherent bonus to an ability score. Two to five wish spells cast in immediate succession can grant a creature a +2 to +5 inherent bonus to an ability score (two wishes for a +2 inherent bonus, three for a +3 inherent bonus, and so on). Inherent bonuses are instantaneous, so they cannot be dispelled. Note: An inherent bonus may not exceed +5 for a single ability score, and inherent bonuses to a particular ability score do not stack, so only the best one applies.
Remove injuries and afflictions. A single wish can aid one creature per caster level, and all subjects are cured of the same kind of affliction. For example, you could heal all the damage you and your companions have taken, or remove all poison effects from everyone in the party, but not do both with the same wish. A wish can never restore the experience point loss from casting a spell or the level or Constitution loss from being raised from the dead.
Revive the dead. A wish can bring a dead creature back to life by duplicating a resurrection spell. A wish can revive a dead creature whose body has been destroyed, but the task takes two wishes, one to recreate the body and another to infuse the body with life again. A wish cannot prevent a character who was brought back to life from losing an experience level.
Transport travelers. A wish can lift one creature per caster level from anywhere on any plane and place those creatures anywhere else on any plane regardless of local conditions. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
Undo misfortune. A wish can undo a single recent event. The wish forces a reroll of any roll made within the last round (including your last turn). Reality reshapes itself to accommodate the new result. For example, a wish could undo an opponent’s successful save, a foe’s successful critical hit (either the attack roll or the critical roll), a friend’s failed save, and so on. The reroll, however, may be as bad as or worse than the original roll. An unwilling target gets a Will save to negate the effect, and spell resistance (if any) applies.
You may try to use a wish to produce greater effects than these, but doing so is dangerous. (The wish may pervert your intent into a literal but undesirable fulfillment or only a partial fulfillment.)
Duplicated spells allow saves and spell resistance as normal (but save DCs are for 9th-level spells).
Material Component
When a wish duplicates a spell with a material component that costs more than 10,000 gp, you must provide that component.
XP Cost
The minimum XP cost for casting wish is 5,000 XP. When a wish duplicates a spell that has an XP cost, you must pay 5,000 XP or that cost, whichever is more. When a wish creates or improves a magic item, you must pay twice the normal XP cost for crafting or improving the item, plus an additional 5,000 XP.
The idea of the wish economy is that after a certain level, it doesn't hurt the game to handwave the cost of magic items under a certain cost threshold, the same way you stop worrying about the cost of bedrolls and torches and such.
This was built into the game in 3.0, where you could trivially bind efreeti and get any magic item you wanted under that threshold. Rather than houseruling this out of existence, (the argument goes that) it's easier to embrace it than try and patch it up.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
A Man In Black wrote:
The idea of the wish economy is that after a certain level, it doesn't hurt the game to handwave the cost of magic items under a certain cost threshold, the same way you stop worrying about the cost of bedrolls and torches and such.
This was built into the game in 3.0, where you could trivially bind efreeti and get any magic item you wanted under that threshold. Rather than houseruling this out of existence, (the argument goes that) it's easier to embrace it than try and patch it up.
Pathfinder changed wish Yet Again, so you'll need to make some house rules to bring back the old 15K magic item threshold, just like with 3.5. They'll just need to be slightly different house rules.
As for using the wish economy idea of handwaving magic items below a certain threshold, it works with PF just as well as it does with previous iterations of 3e.
so just out of curiosity, has anyone EVER been effected by the "Wish Economy?" Anyone ever had a major problem with a campaign because of the Wish Economy?
Now, as to whether it should be changed or not... let's look at the real world for a second... I want a Lamborghini, a fifty carat diamond necklace for my wife and solid gold glasses frames. Ummm I WISH! SO the real world is a Wish Economy as well...
I see it as having two effects, from a GM's perspective:
1. A GM shouldn't really have to worry at all about magic items worth less than 16k starting around level 12.
2. Around the same time, what players get for completing quests should be shifting to things that actually matter to powerful people, like favors, status and major magic items.
Basically, between 9th and 12th level, players start becoming capable of setting-altering magic. Teleport, planar binding, etc marks the PC's out as probably more powerful than most of the power structure of mortal affairs. This is the level when PC's can choose to join the Planar "Big Leagues", and so the game should adapt and start feeling a little more epic.
The Wish Economy (I didn't make this up, google it) was an interesting phenomenon in 3.5. Basically, by the book, you could chain bind efreet at 11 level (earlier with a scroll), and have them wish you up tons and tons of cash, but they couldn't wish up magic items over 15k gp.
Why does this sound like the most suicidal idea ever? Piss off efreeti by doing this, he suddenly starts granting wishes to your enemies...and he _will_ find your enemies. Heck, he might even create new ones for you.
Really, this 'wish economy' idea is like wishing your GM would make your life miserable. Or at least a lot more interesting.
The Wish Economy (I didn't make this up, google it) was an interesting phenomenon in 3.5. Basically, by the book, you could chain bind efreet at 11 level (earlier with a scroll), and have them wish you up tons and tons of cash, but they couldn't wish up magic items over 15k gp.
Why does this sound like the most suicidal idea ever? Piss off efreeti by doing this, he suddenly starts granting wishes to your enemies...and he _will_ find your enemies. Heck, he might even create new ones for you.
Really, this 'wish economy' idea is like wishing your GM would make your life miserable. Or at least a lot more interesting.
The Wish Economy (I didn't make this up, google it) was an interesting phenomenon in 3.5. Basically, by the book, you could chain bind efreet at 11 level (earlier with a scroll), and have them wish you up tons and tons of cash, but they couldn't wish up magic items over 15k gp.
Why does this sound like the most suicidal idea ever? Piss off efreeti by doing this, he suddenly starts granting wishes to your enemies...and he _will_ find your enemies. Heck, he might even create new ones for you.
Really, this 'wish economy' idea is like wishing your GM would make your life miserable. Or at least a lot more interesting.
Actually, yes, this is a good way to remind your GM to make the game more interesting.
One game I watched recently had 12th level PC's running errands for Sandpoint. Many of the PC's were Wizards and Sorcerors from Cheliax.
What sounds like more fun, 12th level PC's exploring a sinkhole in Sandpoint, or 12th level PC's on the front lines of an inter-planar war between the Efreet and Cheliax, with Infernal support.
Guys, the idea of this is that the GM doesn't screw with it. Efreeti seriously don't even care, it's like 5 minutes out of their day.
It's an in-universe justification for not worrying about counting pennies after a certain level, and at those levels low-power magic items are pennies.
...and at those levels low-power magic items are pennies.
Even at 20th level, something worth a mere 9,000 gp is fully 1% of your total net wealth. That's like saying that anyone who owns their own house can give away free used cars to everyone in a 50-mile radius without it affecting their finances.
Even at 20th level, something worth a mere 9,000 gp is fully 1% of your total net wealth. That's like saying that anyone who owns their own house can give away free used cars to everyone in a 50-mile radius without it affecting their finances.
Is there any non-consumable worth 9K that's going to break the game at level 20?
The wish economy is meant to make you stop counting pennies for trivial consumables, make sure everyone has the basic +2 to whatever gear in every slot that pretty much everyone should have to stay on the power curve at level 12-ish, and also allow people to get piles of money and spend piles of money without getting extra combat ability from that.
Really, don't just take my word for how it's supposed to work. Open this, and start on page 142 (or search for "Economicon").
I think the idea of certain items being essentially limited to a barter economy is a good idea in general. Figuring out the GP value in 3.5 is a giant pain in the ass. Even Minor Artifacts probably don't need a precise value, and the game will certainly move more smoothly and faster if this approach is taken.
The problem, though, is that GP value is the most effective indicator of relative power level in the current game, and abandoning the math behind it theoretically makes it impossible to figure an item's impact on the game without spending considerable thought. It might be easy to eyeball a +4 belt of giant strength, sure, but how about something like a staff? Or something totally off the wall like a pearl of the sirines that might be super handy in certain situations, but not all that worthwhile most of the time?
From an RPG perspective, that's what barter is all about. But GP value is used for more in the game than just roleplaying. It plays a significant role in balancing characters, and thus balancing encounters.
If I were starting from scratch and designing the game without thought for compatibility, I might strongly consider decoupling an item's value from its worth, so to speak. I definitely appreciate the simplicity of hand waving the small (and in some sense) the large stuff as far as magic items are concerned at higher levels, but it's one thing to appreciate a GMing style and another thing to codify it as the "official" rules of the game.
As an aside, I think 12th level is too early to send the players off to the planes to lead the Outsider Wars (or what have you). You're right that it's a certain plateau in terms of raw power, but I think the appropriate arc of a campaign here is more transitional. It's fun to let the players take the fight to long-term enemies and tie up the first major arc of the campaign when they can flex their muscles a little. I tend to let characters rule the roost a little bit before danging the opportunity to abandon it altogether in front of their faces.
I'm playtesting a 12th-level module in about three weeks, and I'm really excited about it.
The problem, though, is that GP value is the most effective indicator of relative power level in the current game, and abandoning the math behind it theoretically makes it impossible to figure an item's impact on the game without spending considerable thought. It might be easy to eyeball a +4 belt of giant strength, sure, but how about something like a staff? Or something totally off the wall like a pearl of the sirines that might be super handy in certain situations, but not all that worthwhile most of the time?
The wish economy isn't without currency; currency is an amazingly awesome invention. The wish economy just doesn't use currency that you can buy with gold or (trivially) make with magic. It's all souls or dragonshards or raw chaos or residuum or whatever. Considering that the smartest beings in the multiverse are all going to be on the wish economy, if there isn't a currency for trading the things that are valuable to them, one will quickly be invented.
The idea is that twice in their careers, characters graduate from one economy to another, and while a little bit of currency from the next tier up trades down, the currency from a lower tier does not trade up. Characters graduate from the turnip economy upon hitting level 2 or so; most games aren't making you keep track of the cost of torches and such after that point. Characters graduate from the gold economy to the wish economy sometime around level 11 to 17, and stop worrying about the cost of a few +2 items or wands of CLW or whatever.
The nice thing about graduating from the gold economy is that it does decouple the value of a pile of gold from the value of a +4 sword. So once you're on the wish economy, you have the players go to the Lost City of Gold without the worry that they'll strip the walls and turn that into +4 swords, or give the players Smaug's hoard without worrying that it'll overpower the game. There's a hard cap on how much power gold can buy, and after that you can let players spend money on building castles and wizard towers and golden statues of themselves and such.
Now, there are other ways to decouple the value of gold from the power of magic items; you could easily scale the wish economy threshold much higher or much lower. It just happens that wish becomes available right at the breakpoint between +2 and +3 items, allows the expensive +2 items and cheap +3 items but nothing stronger, and coincides with the ability of PCs to go to other planes. You could stick a tier right at about level 5-7, where gold only buys mundane items and residuum (or whatever) is the only currency that buys magical items, for example.
I played in a 3.0e game where a player wished for money from a bound efreeti, and the efreeti took the wealth from a powerful wizard. The wizard found out the character did this and totally destroyed them. Nobody ever tried this again.
I played in a 3.0e game where a player wished for money from a bound efreeti, and the efreeti took the wealth from a powerful wizard. The wizard found out the character did this and totally destroyed them. Nobody ever tried this again.
"Hey guys. This one game, I was the GM, and someone tried to cast Fireball, so I made it explode at his feet AND HE DIED. Isn't that awesome?"
3.0 Wish doesn't break the game. (And if you screwed a player for using a spell to do what it specifically says it can do I seriously hope he punched you in the face. Twice.) What breaks the game is being able to take many piles of 15K gold and turn them into a large pile of an arbitrary amount of gold and with that pile buy anything you want. This breaks the game even if Wish isn't involved. The Wish economy just embraces the idea that after a certain point, there's so many leaks in the wall between PCs and infinite money that you can't plug them all. Instead, if you want something more expensive than 15K gold, then you need to go and work for it, either working for the sort of person (or being) who can make the item you want, or working for something that you can't buy for gold.
So all the players buy up all the things they can buy with money, the game absorbs the +2 to everything that they get (since they'd be getting those items from wealth-by-level anyway), and from that point on gold coins (or things you can sell only for gold coins) are no more important to the PCs than a pile of turnips would be.
Wow... you don't have to be snarky about it. I was making a point that earlier on in the games evolution, (right after the first printing of the DMs Manual, when the players handbook came with a CD in the back) one of the players tried to break the game with an inexperienced DM. I'm not saying that this is the right action, but everyone is entitled to their opinions. You made your agruement, so if you feel the need to browbeat all comers with a differentopinion, why even post? And IF YOU READ THE POST, I NEVER SAID I WAS DMing! The same DM had a big problem with mixing up how AoO worked.
I guess I should have spelled that all out, however I didn't expect to get immediately mocked. I'm still kinda new to the forums, and thus far have found people posting to be a little more respectful. I guess people that haven't earned the right to post on your message board need to seek your approval. Next time I'll check with you if it's okay to post on your threads. D:<
Wow... you don't have to be snarky about it. I was making a point that earlier on in the games evolution, (right after the first printing of the DMs Manual, when the players handbook came with a CD in the back) one of the players tried to break the game with an inexperienced DM. I'm not saying that this is the right action, but everyone is entitled to their opinions. You made your agruement, so if you feel the need to browbeat all comers with a differentopinion, why even post? And IF YOU READ THE POST, I NEVER SAID I WAS DMing! The same DM had a big problem with mixing up how AoO worked.
The GM was a jerk. I try to avoid Wrongbadfun posts but "The GM screwed over a player for no reason" is a story that needs to end with "...and then the player jumped the GM in the parking lot."
Wishing for 15K isn't breaking the game. Making huge piles of money breaks the game, unless you cap the amount of power you can buy with money. I'm unsatisfied with just declaring things a barter economy past that point (which is what Eric Mona was saying that he does, I think?), because while this world may only have so many guys who are operating on that power level, Dis and the City of Brass and suchlike are full of creatures who are powerful enough to want to trade a +5 shocking glaive for a +5 flaming greatsword and do not want to play trade-with-Allen-to-get-the-item-Barry-wants barter games to get their business done. When you've got a city full of those people, the barter system breaks down for the same reason that it breaks down in the real world. Even if you don't want to go to that world, putting it in the background gives you a good source of +5 flaming greatswords for the setting.
The wish economy proposes a modern-like economy where minor magic and basic necessities are handled with the industrialization of very powerful magic. In one fell swoop it solves all of the issues with spells that make piles of money (Polymorph Any Object, Wall of Iron, Wish, and Fabricate being the biggies) and the wishing-for-wishes problem (because you can't wish for items that give you multiple wishes, so wishing for more wishes only gives you another wish, possibly with a little money on the side). This isn't to say it's flawless (scrolls are the worst culprit), but it solves a lot of the thorny economic problems that people mostly just try to cover with patchy houserules and GM fiat covering perceived excesses.
No thanks, this has the same problem with all the people who want to fix the "magic-mart" problem by saddling the GM with responsibility of adjudicating magic item acquisition when it's simpler to just not hand out more than the WBL and let the players have free rein in buying gear. GM fiat might be a club, but I'd rather break it on someone's head before I waste in-game time micro-managing my player's gear.
No thanks, this has the same problem with all the people who want to fix the "magic-mart" problem by saddling the GM with responsibility of adjudicating magic item acquisition when it's simpler to just not hand out more than the WBL and let the players have free rein in buying gear. GM fiat might be a club, but I'd rather break it on someone's head before I waste in-game time micro-managing my player's gear.
Guys, the idea of this is that the GM doesn't screw with it. Efreeti seriously don't even care, it's like 5 minutes out of their day.
If an efreeti's Wish ability has value, they'll want full value for it. Forcing them to cast it is robbing them, effectively. They will care - short term slavery is still slavery. Not to mention being interrupted at inconvenient times day after day because stupid wizards/whatnot keep Calling you to the Prime Material.
Wow... you don't have to be snarky about it. I was making a point that earlier on in the games evolution, (right after the first printing of the DMs Manual, when the players handbook came with a CD in the back) one of the players tried to break the game with an inexperienced DM. I'm not saying that this is the right action, but everyone is entitled to their opinions. You made your agruement, so if you feel the need to browbeat all comers with a differentopinion, why even post? And IF YOU READ THE POST, I NEVER SAID I WAS DMing! The same DM had a big problem with mixing up how AoO worked.
The GM was a jerk. I try to avoid Wrongbadfun posts but "The GM screwed over a player for no reason" is a story that needs to end with "...and then the player jumped the GM in the parking lot."
Wishing for 15K isn't breaking the game. Making huge piles of money breaks the game, unless you cap the amount of power you can buy with money. I'm unsatisfied with just declaring things a barter economy past that point (which is what Eric Mona was saying that he does, I think?), because while this world may only have so many guys who are operating on that power level, Dis and the City of Brass and suchlike are full of creatures who are powerful enough to want to trade a +5 shocking glaive for a +5 flaming greatsword and do not want to play trade-with-Allen-to-get-the-item-Barry-wants barter games to get their business done. When you've got a city full of those people, the barter system breaks down for the same reason that it breaks down in the real world. Even if you don't want to go to that world, putting it in the background gives you a good source of +5 flaming greatswords for the setting.
The wish economy proposes a modern-like economy where minor magic and basic necessities are handled with the industrialization of very powerful magic. In one fell swoop it solves all of the issues with spells that make piles of money (Polymorph Any Object, Wall of Iron, Wish, and Fabricate being the...
Why the attitude? And this is not the first thread I've observed you being snarky about anyone disagreeing with your POV -- usually if someone suggests that a GM can always override your (often literal) interpretation of RAW.
We have done exactly the same thing (i.e. wishing for riches result in an angry arch-wizard, king or an ancient red dragon that goes on a rampage; wishing for immortality might result in you turning into a zombie). And nobody has ever punched anyone. Quite the contrary, because everyone understands that you need to be very, VERY careful with any short-cuts to wealth and power. We still use the "it-is-all-about-the-wording" clause with 'Wish', and GM has the ultimate power to decide if/how/when the spell takes effect. I personally NEVER screw my players over anything, but if someone thinks he can just say "Mr. GM, I have this spell which virtually lets me get an endless stream of +X items or Y amount of gold, and I can make an efreet do the hard work for me!" I'm not going to let that fly.
And, FWIW, we don't allow shopping for magic items, either -- regardless of that it's more or less suggested or even encouraged in the game (scrolls and potions are a different matter, though). I compensate for this by modifying the numbers on the fly, if needed; often the spellcasters make this needless anyway.
I run my games more or less 90% according to RAW, but that doesn't mean I allow anything. Or adjudicate rules literally (e.g. all that silliness with Stealth and farmers and whatnot -- doesn't work that way if I'm GMing). If you're keen on punching people, don't sit at my table. It's that simple.
This was built into the game in 3.0, where you could trivially bind efreeti and get any magic item you wanted under that threshold. Rather than houseruling this out of existence, (the argument goes that) it's easier to embrace it than try and patch it up.
I see the points that you are making about the 'wish economy', and it's a perfectly valid way to play the game although not the way I do it.
I just wanted to comment that this probably wasn't 'built into the game'. I doubt strongly that the folks at WotC sat down and decided that they would give Efreet the ability to grant wishes and the players the ability to bind Efreet just to create this economy.
Like many of the other (copious) corner-cases in the rules, it's almost certainly unintended.
Also, I'm with the player above whose GM twisted the wish so that the 15kgp were transported rather than created. As both a player and GM, I'm very fond of the tradition of 'unintended consequences' with respect to wishes that exists in the game and I'd hate for wish to become just another spell. Any player should be very, very cautious about making a wish.
If an efreeti's Wish ability has value, they'll want full value for it. Forcing them to cast it is robbing them, effectively. They will care - short term slavery is still slavery. Not to mention being interrupted at inconvenient times day after day because stupid wizards/whatnot keep Calling you to the Prime Material.
It comes at no cost to themselves other than time, it forms the basis of their economy, it's free networking with all the most powerful creatures in all the planes, and, most importantly, it forever guarantees the sovereignty and safety of the City of Brass. It's not a great job, but presumably there's some control of who's stuck with the scut work. It's the least-onerous bottom-tier labor in the history of...well, labor, so even if individual efreeti aren't fond of the duty, the higher-ups have a vested interest in keeping anyone who doesn't want to have to make their own +2 swords happy. Plus, the difference between a lower-class efreet and an upper-class one is magical power, so efreet are going to be keen to suck up to anyone who can call them.
The City of Brass is a city in that it's full of people (or people-shaped beings, which is close enough), but its day-to-day operation is completely alien in that it is supported by the simple application of wishes to any mundane problem. There aren't a lot of architects or garbage-haulers or even wells or cooks in the City of Brass, because the labor of any of these people is trivially replaced with raw magical might. The lowest class of efreeti provide this raw magical might, and a binding wizard is not so much enslaving them as offering them some possibly more engaging tasks than wishing garbage into nothingness as well as valuable connections outside of the garbage-disappearing industry.
It's not slavery. It's internship.
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I totally just made all of that up, but if you can't do something interesting with Magical Casablanca On The Plane Of Fire or Efreeti Hanging Out With The Party And Bumming Tips All The Damn Time it's time to hang up your GM hat.
I know it's really easy to say "No, and also I'm going to punch you in the face for trying," but Wish and Polymorph Any Object and Wall of Iron and Wall of Stone and Fabricate and so on are seriously infinite money. In fact, given the Craft and Profession skills and one feat an elf can simply take 100 years off before the campaign making baskets or busking and earn enough money to break your game. Money = power is a broken system.
By not saying no and patching the system at a different point, in one fell swoop you not only introduce calling efreeti for wishes (an iconic and also awesome fantasy trope) and create a place to adventure completely unlike anything else in your game and also oddly recognizable. Is there a reason you don't want level 15 characters building golden statues of themselves?
With all that said, even if you outlaw Planar Binding entirely (or say "I'm going to stomp your character flat if you try it" which amounts to the same thing only in a dickish fashion) the point is not that Wish breaks the game and needs to be fixed, but instead that we have a broken system that allows you to turn small piles of money into large ones and buy essentially infinite power. By adding a cap, then any of the various ways you can get small amounts of money repeatedly no longer break the game because once you have all the 15K-or-cheaper magic items to cover all your main item slots, you're done getting power from piles of gold.
Once you break players away from wanting little piles of gold to turn into big piles of gold, then there's lots of new adventures that open up as a bonus.
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Why the attitude? And this is not the first thread I've observed you being snarky about anyone disagreeing with your POV -- usually if someone suggests that a GM can always override your (often literal) interpretation of RAW.
The right way to deal with it is to say to the player, "Look, man, I really don't want to play the sort of game where you can turn your daily spells into money. Can we please not do that?" I am all for house rules, and I play with many. House rules are <3. However, the sort of "Ha ha ha, you're screwed now!" nonsense for good-faith play is Gygaxian horsecrap that needs to be solved in the parking lot with a tire iron.
This is not snark. This is hate.
Asgetrion wrote:
Quite the contrary, because everyone understands that you need to be very, VERY careful with any short-cuts to wealth and power.
Right. But what if someone proposed a system where D&D worked recognizably, only you didn't need to be careful with shortcuts to wealth?
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I just wanted to comment that this probably wasn't 'built into the game'. I doubt strongly that the folks at WotC sat down and decided that they would give Efreet the ability to grant wishes and the players the ability to bind Efreet just to create this economy.
I don't think the folks at WotC did very much playtesting of the game after about level 10 at all. Whatever they intended, the rules at the points where the wish economy comes into play are leaky as a sieve.
The "wish economy" isn't a RAW construct. It's a set of house rules to fix the leaks. However, it's a set of house rules to fix the leaks in a different way from the "You can't use these 17 spells in any way" (or the variant "If you use any of these 17 spells any way other than what the GM intends, ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES, possibly with no warning"). It's a consequence of a few of the rules as written, but you can chuck all that slide the "wish economy" border up or down to do different things with it. In fact, most games have a bit of a economy-shift around the shift to gold pieces for pretty much everything; when was the last time you recorded the cost of non-masterwork gear after about level 5?
I'm just going to speak my peace and let this thread be. You ahve a valid idea for expanding upon a system that may not be as fleshed out as it should be. I whole heartedly recommend this for your game. There are obviously some frustration issues you are facing in the violent and hated reactions to certain GMing that most of us would stand up and walk out on instead. I've run a organized D&D group of 70 members before and only come across one or two that were branded psychotic and banned from being allowed to participate. I am not implying you are psycho, but if you don't wish to be branded sa such, I would encourage you to tone it down a bit as making such threats like that really solves nothing and looks immature. That said...
I'd relate this to the elder scrolls series in that you can make potions and scrolls and hawk them all the live long day to earn your gold. At my table this is even encouraged. However, trying to amass wealth through get rich quick schemes feels a lot like cheating.
I can hit a button combination or type in a code on many game and instantly have massive sums of money or infinite health. The problem with this is that the game soon is boring with nothing to conquer. there has to be a challenge to make things interesting.
I think many GMs are doing damage control to keep a single player from becoming overpowered, not 'gygaxian horsecrap'. If you so desire to 'cheat' and perhaps your compatriots do not wish to do the same, this creates a big problem as you have bypassed the GM and overrode your fellows in one fell swoop. It is the GMs job to deal with this and manage accordingly. I think a good GM if you entered this point and realized (and admitted) you made a mistake, would find a way of letting you out (so long as it's not an ongoing fault).
As far as resources being taken from elsewhere, from a reality point of view, magic can transform or transport, but it HAS to comefrom somewhere. Reality is built on balance and patterns, and the universe shifts to follow this when it is unaligned. The twist of having it come from somewhere (like say, an antagonist) is no farther a plot twist then being attacked by the villainous NPC the continues to harass the party.
Furthermore, in reality, if you attempted to gain vast sums of money in a short period of time (say rigging a lottery, selling thousands of kilos of cocaine, or even just honestly making the money with a killer app) there would be consequences. The government launches a follow-up investigation, another cartel battles is jealous, or you haven't the means to protect the gains against superior forces; and then something dramatic takes place as it resolves.
If you want to impliment a system of bartering power or such, and you want to explain it in detail on this thread, more power to you. Just don't berate every person who voices an opinion that does not align with your own (otherwise start your own thread labeled "This is ONLY for those that agree with [insert topic]!").
I'm just going to speak my peace and let this thread be.
It's probably for the best, because you haven't read the conveniently linked articles explaining what the wish economy is. It's about allowing players to have vast sums of money without giving them vast sums of magical power, instead of trying to prevent players from getting vast sums of money. It's pretty obvious you haven't read the linked articles, because you're persisting in describing gaining access to infinite gold as cheating, negating the challenge of the game, etc.
Nearly anything can be turned into gold.
Numerous spells can be turned into gold.
Idle time can be turned into gold.
Gold can be turned into power.
There are story and setting reasons to want to have gold, items which can be turned into gold, or idle time without having those items converted into gold in the party's pockets.
This is a broken system. Do you want to try and patch 1, 2, AND 3, or just patch 4? Because the only other alternative is to give up 5, and that sucks. The idea of separate economies is a patch on 4, instead of trying to plug up every hole in the dike in 1-3.
You don't need efreeti or wish or whatever to have the wish economy. It's merely convenient and leads to some cool setting ideas. You simply need a line between "Stuff you can buy with gold" and "Stuff that you can't," preferably at an acceptable power level for the sort of characters who can break mundane economies with magic. 3.0 wish gives a rule construct and implies a reason for this line, but it's not like it's impossible to come up with a new one.
There are story and setting reasons to want to have gold, items which can be turned into gold, or idle time without having those items converted into gold in the party's pockets.
This is a broken system.
Of course, gold then has no value. Gold coins have value. The broken system above doesn't take into account that as the supply became infinite, the value of gold as a commodity would vanish and it would be the minting process that gave gold its value, presuming that society could avoid counterfeiting without having to switch to a different material for currency.
The right way to deal with it is to say to the player, "Look, man, I really don't want to play the sort of game where you can turn your daily spells into money. Can we please not do that?" I am all for house rules, and I play with many. House rules are <3. However, the sort of "Ha ha ha, you're screwed now!" nonsense for good-faith play is Gygaxian horsecrap that needs to be solved in the parking lot with a tire iron.
This is not snark. This is hate.
I don’t think I ever implied that screwing players over is okay? I set that kind of rules BEFORE play starts, so everyone knows that there are no magic item shops or “Wish Economy” in my campaigns, and the world does not revolve around ‘Wealth-by-Level’-tables and such. I’m okay with using spells to get some income -- in a pseudo-fantasy world I see it as a perfectly a viable trade. Likewise with crafting items for the group. However, if the intention is to “break” the game by accumulating a huge hoard of treasure and/or gain power by spells or magic items alone – while ignoring plot hooks and the campaign -- *then* I have a problem with it. And I think most GMs wouldn’t just be satisfied with a meek “Look, guys, you’re so damn clever and everything you just said you would do is perfectly legal by the rules and I can’t do anything to stop you, but maybe you just wouldn’t do that, please? Pretty please?”. Sure, I’d ask the players if they really want to go ahead with such a plan, and that it might not work as they intend to, but if they persisted, I’d eventually kick them out of the group. No punching or tire irons, though.
A Man In Black wrote:
Right. But what if someone proposed a system where D&D worked recognizably, only you didn't need to be careful with shortcuts to wealth?
Maybe I misunderstood you? Because in my group any spell that would produce automatically and without any risk magical items, wealth or other goodness *does* require carefulness. And we are all fine with that.
You know, Pun-Pun and other such silly concepts are fully legal and valid by 3E RAW, and even easier to accomplish if you allow FR splatbooks – does it mean every player should see it as an ideal concept and aim for this shortcut to power?
You don't need efreeti or wish or whatever to have the wish economy. It's merely convenient and leads to some cool setting ideas. You simply need a line between "Stuff you can buy with gold" and "Stuff that you can't," preferably at an acceptable power level for the sort of characters who can break mundane economies with magic. 3.0 wish gives a rule construct and implies a reason for this line, but it's not like it's impossible to come up with a new one.
And yet local economy may collapse at the first casting of the spell, and eventually you'd collapse the global economy, too. Even wealthy kingdoms could not afford a constant stream of gems, gold and magical items -- the values would drastically drop pretty soon.
The wish economy isn't without currency; currency is an amazingly awesome invention. The wish economy just doesn't use currency that you can buy with gold or (trivially) make with magic. It's all souls or dragonshards or raw chaos or residuum or whatever. Considering that the smartest beings in the multiverse are all going to be on the wish economy, if there isn't a currency for trading the things that are valuable to them, one will quickly be invented.
The idea is that twice in their careers, characters graduate from one economy to another, and while a little bit of currency from the next tier up trades down, the currency from a lower tier does not trade up.
The sticking point for me is that there are logically individuals and organizations that will care about both gold and powerful magic items, and wouldn't mind trading one for the other. E.g. the Church of Pelor needs gold to run their hospitals and the Archbishop needs a +5 mace of disruption. Or the King of Fooland needs a +5 dragonbane sword for killing dragons and he needs gold to pay his army.
the concept of efreet being bound to grant wishes assume they do not care being some kind of arrogant mortal's slave girl ?
As a matter of fact they take great delight in perverting wishes so that they might backfire, is the DM being a jerk if he does this ?
In my opinion it is all that the player deserves.
In general I just wouldn't allow it and not a serious campaign would actually allow it to escalate like this, if some players want to play it like a computergame with cheatcodes in hand go ahead.
While I don't advocate MIB's punch-you-in-the-face style responses, I can feel his frustration at posters who say they are just disagreeing with him when they are, in fact, missing the point. There seems to be a fairly wide-spread and profound lack of understanding about what is actually meant by "Wish Economy". Many folks seem to believe that it is some kind of cheesy rules loophole, a means to stop measuring character power from items, or else an attempt to cheat for a short-cut to power.
It is none of these things. Not even a little bit.
It is, simply put, an in-game explanation using strict (3.0) RAW that can be used by a DM who like a certain style of play. I.e. he doesn't like to allow magic-mart style shopping in his game beyond a certain point, and wants to handwave minor expenses so as to get on with the game.
That's all.
As the OP says, something sort-of like it has actually been built into PFRPG with the item-availability-by-settlement-size rules. If it costs more than 16k you've gotta provide something a little less pedestrian than just gold to get it - luck (with the random items), crafting it yourself, finding it as treasure, or whatever.
Not exactly the same, sure, 'cause you still gotta track every last copper by strict RAW.
In conclusion, if you want to ban or restrict Efreet-binding-for-cash-wishes in your game because you feel it is cheesy and cheating then more power to you (PFRPG already put the kybosh in this for you, actually).
If you want to track every coin spent then please do. It is all good.
This sort of thing is, afterall, a matter of taste.
However, if you want to use the Wish-Economy explanation (or anything else) as a means stop tracking pennies at high levels and make characters work a little harder than just dumping gold for their >12th level items then that is all good too.
Neither approach actually changes the game very much.
Running things that way; allowing infinite money. Yeah the system is broken, and yeah I'd like to be able to hand out money for player to use on things besides gear (and it's not like infinite money to spend on non-combat realted things isn't going to break the game either) but it's still simpler to just say "no infinite money loops."
the concept of efreet being bound to grant wishes assume they do not care being some kind of arrogant mortal's slave girl ?
As a matter of fact they take great delight in perverting wishes so that they might backfire, is the DM being a jerk if he does this ?
In my opinion it is all that the player deserves.
In general I just wouldn't allow it and not a serious campaign would actually allow it to escalate like this, if some players want to play it like a computergame with cheatcodes in hand go ahead.
Now I wish this thread to die ^^
I have to completely agree with efreet intentionally perverting wishes. Its like the whole point of mosts classical stories where they do. If you want to summon a being to cast wish for you, it will, but not necessarily the way you want, as their intentions are important. If you want to cast the same wish spell yourself, your more likely to get what you intend.
Personally, I understand the wish economy, but its not one I want to play with necessarily. Its perfectly valid, but so is the efreet transporting the stuff from your enemy who now wants to kill you. And the second adds more plot to the game.
The biggest problem I have with the wish economy is deflation. There is no reason for anything the efreet can create to have any value, or for there to be any cost difference in any of it.
Running things that way; allowing infinite money. Yeah the system is broken, and yeah I'd like to be able to hand out money for player to use on things besides gear (and it's not like infinite money to spend on non-combat realted things isn't going to break the game either) but it's still simpler to just say "no infinite money loops."
For some folks, it's easier to say "you can't use money to break the game". Which is what the Wish Economy does.
So does the Wealth Check mechanic in d20 modern, by the way.
Personally, I understand the wish economy, but its not one I want to play with necessarily. Its perfectly valid, but so is the efreet transporting the stuff from your enemy who now wants to kill you. And the second adds more plot to the game.
You win the thread! This is the most sensible thing I have read yet.
Caineach wrote:
The biggest problem I have with the wish economy is deflation. There is no reason for anything the efreet can create to have any value, or for there to be any cost difference in any of it.
Value is maintained by the rarity of consumers with such buying power.
<1% of the market (those who can get an efreet to be their b!**& or otherwise use magic to trivially obtain large quantities of gold) can't eat enough hamburgers to significantly affect price levels in the hamburger market thanks to the law of diminishing marginal returns. No matter how much money they have.
Although they might have a smallish multiplier-effect on the amount of money circulating in the economy thanks to their large spending.
They'd also have an effect on markets for luxury goods... but it would be inflationary not deflationary.
Personally, I understand the wish economy, but its not one I want to play with necessarily. Its perfectly valid, but so is the efreet transporting the stuff from your enemy who now wants to kill you. And the second adds more plot to the game.
You win the thread! This is the most sensible thing I have read yet.
Caineach wrote:
The biggest problem I have with the wish economy is deflation. There is no reason for anything the efreet can create to have any value, or for there to be any cost difference in any of it.
Value is maintained by the rarity of consumers with such buying power.
<1% of the market (those who can get an efreet to be their b@~*# or otherwise use magic to trivially obtain large quantities of gold) can't eat enough hamburgers to significantly affect price levels in the hamburger market thanks to the law of diminishing marginal returns. No matter how much money they have.
Although they might have a smallish multiplier-effect on the amount of money circulating in the economy thanks to their large spending.
They'd also have an effect on markets for luxury goods... but it would be inflationary not deflationary.
Yes, but it would make +2 swords more common than +1. Add on some special straight cost effects as well that do not multiply but simply stack to get the cost up to the 15K. People would want to get as much as they could out of each efreet. Now, as there are tons of +2 swords on the market, why doesn't their price go down?
The sticking point for me is that there are logically individuals and organizations that will care about both gold and powerful magic items, and wouldn't mind trading one for the other. E.g. the Church of Pelor needs gold to run their hospitals and the Archbishop needs a +5 mace of disruption. Or the King of Fooland needs a +5 dragonbane sword for killing dragons and he needs gold to pay his army.
Fair enough.
However that's not a sticking point in my view... that's THE point.
They may want to use gold to buy that +5 mace or dragonbane sword, but the folks who have them won't part with them for mere gold.
i.e. High level PCs (or kings) can use their gold for things like strongholds, armies, hirelings, running hospitals, etc.
But for +5 keen thundering dragon bane swords they use favours, go on quests, barter with another character, Kill a rival, or whatever.
Why? Because the people who have these things that they desire are also fabulously wealthy and can cook up a boatload of gold with little or no effort - so they aren't as willing to part with something that they do perceive as rare/valuable (said dragonslayer) for something that they already have in great abundance and can easily get more of (gold).
hmm. I suppose the best way to say what I want to say is:
"I understand this".
In point of fact, this economy is precisely how characters operate in the New World of Darkness setting and splatbooks, published by White Wolf.
You've got Vampires with centuries-long life spans, enhanced intelligence, and powers to dominate the mind and shatter the body, who can arrange for whatever they desire. You've got Mages capable of conjuring, summoning, or otherwise acquiring literally anything they want. You've got Werewolves, Changlings, and other things capable of bartering with beings outside this world to get things they need.
Except for a few things.
Things like a safe place to sleep at night. It doesn't matter if you pay your guards 1,000 dollars a day if someone can: hand them 100,000 dollars to look the other way / teleport / turn invisible / turn into mist / dominate / etc and get in. You need mystical protections, the kind that no amount of money can buy.
You want a magic sword or gun? There's lots of Mages who can make you one, but you've got to convince them to give up a little part of their soul in order to make it real and lasting. What's a piece of someone's soul worth?
So, I understand what's being discussed here. It's an economy of favors.
We're talking about time and and resources - you need someone who can reliably summon an effreet safely and negotiate with it successfully, and you need something they want in order to get that. If you have the ability to make things they want, or do things they want done, you can barter.
Whether or not I want this sort of thing in my FIGHTER SMASH PUNY KOBOLD game is another matter entirely.
Introducing something like this changes the way the game is played at higher levels. It turns every significant magic item into a convoluted quest for someone who has something who wants something done for someone else who really wants a different thing, all in order to get the thing that another person wants in exchange for helping out the person who's actually going to make the damn magic item.
I know, I've played in games like this (see above).
That's not my D&D. It works, and it can be fun, but it's not my D&D.
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