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I wanted to get the boards opinions on how this should be handled, as I've always wondered how to do it, and do it well.
So, in a sort of adventuring bubble where the adventure and loot are all predetermined by the DM, factoring consumable items into the group's WBL is a relatively simple task. There's simply a limited amount of treasure in the adventure based on the group estimated level, and consumables are simply part of the total wealth available to the characters.
However, assuming we aren't in a totally perfect wealth situation, how do you, as a DM, deal with wealth by level in regards to consumables?
Let's look at this. Simple example:
At 4th level, each character should have roughly 6k GP worth of items and treasure. However, while one character may be spending his wealth on sustainable items (cloaks of resistance, +1 weapons, etc.), let's say another is buying limited use consumables (lots of wands, potions, minor wondrous items, etc.). By the time the next level rolls around, the first character is likely looking at some minor upgrades, and maybe saving up for bigger items.
The second character, assuming he used all those consumables he bought, is now (compared to the first character) significantly behind his WBL if we take his inventory at its current level. He will have been chugging/handing out potions, burning through wand charges, and milking those wondrous items for all they're worth, but now if we look at both their available items, he's losing steam, and out a good bit of money.
How would you handle this situation? On the one hand, it seems unfair to throw gold at people that buy consumables to keep their current level WBL reasonable, but on the other hand it sucks to be way behind everyone gear-wise just because he decided to buy items that would be useful now rather than later.
I have never actually had any player do this. Ever. Hundreds of PCs, nobody has invested all, or even most, of their wealth into consumables. EVERYBODY wants the Big-Six to varying degrees, so everybody invest some, usually most, of their wealth into it.
So, hypothetically, if I had a player make those decisions, I might drop a hint to the whole group that they have a team member who is falling behind in his gear through excessive consumable usage - since these consumables almost always benefit the whole group, maybe they should come out of "party treasure" rather than individual wealth. In other words, maybe every PC should chip in to buy those wands and potions.
I would also drop an item exclusively for this PC. The item would be of decent value and really only usable by him. This would help him catch up. I would also slow down on giving out generic items for everyone else for a little while; I might replace them with consumables the rest of the group wants. This should help balance things out.
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My post used an extreme example, but let me put it another way.
Let's say the party... oh, druid, springs for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Common item to buy, really useful, and at the same level he's down 750 GP for a good item. Fair enough.
However... does that 750 GP deficit follow him for the rest of his career? Is that wand he used for maybe 2-3 levels (at most) part of his character's total WBL for the remainder of his character's life? Basically, how final would you rule the estimated WBL chart is for characters? Yes, character can eventually save up money, but my main question is, in the long term, do consumables take up a permanent spot in a character's final wealth total? Or should they be assumed to be used and not count towards WBL?
Let's say the party... oh, druid, springs for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Common item to buy, really useful, and at the same level he's down 750 GP for a good item. Fair enough.
However... does that 750 GP deficit follow him for the rest of his career?
Simple answer, yes.
But as I said, nobody ever does this. If he did, I'm pretty sure he'd insist that someone else buys the next one. It's much more likely that he'd say "Hey, we need this wand. Everybody kick in 150gp and I'll go get it and use it on whoever needs it."
I even once had a player buy one and then charge everybody 15gp for each charge he used, but at least he was willing to take that cash from the treasure found - when the wand ran out of charges, he had 750gp in his pocket to buy the next one.
If the cost of consumables is deducted from the total cash the group finds BEFORE they divide that cash up into their own individual wealth, there really isn't a problem. If the group doesn't figure this out on their own (they almost always do) then I nudge them toward that idea and sit back and let them work out their own solution for it.
Finally, if there's ever a time when I do a quick audit* of a PC's WBL and find it's too low for my expectation, then I plan a little special treasure for that PC. If everyone is about the same (too low by about the same amount), I plan a big treasure for the group.
* for me, a "quick audit" means adding in my head the value of magic items and adding the value of gold, plat, and gems, usually rounded to the nearest thousand. I don't count potions or low-level wands but might count any wand higher than 2nd level. It takes about 1-2 minutes since I'm rounding and estimating rather than trying to be a perfect accountant and tracking every copper.
I have never actually had any player do this. Ever. Hundreds of PCs, nobody has invested all, or even most, of their wealth into consumables. EVERYBODY wants the Big-Six to varying degrees, so everybody invest some, usually most, of their wealth into it.
That which you have never seen has consistently been a major part of my strategy as a player, particularly with scrolls. In the final phase of one campaign, for instance, approximately 8/10ths of my character's wealth was (or had been) in the form of scrolls. I've never felt the need to complain about a "wealth gap" though. When you absolutely, positively need to make an advanced hydra who is 5 levels higher than APL go away, a Maze scroll is priceless. And, in Serpent's Skull,
I'm in the minority on this though. I find the "Let's go to Walmage and get us cloaks of resistance and rings of protection and blandness of blandness" style of gaming to be less than interesting, and hence, avoid games where that is the expectation. If you put some thought into how you allocate your gold, there's really no need to make sure you have the Big-Six items. But that kind of challenge, I admit, isn't to everyone's taste.
ADDENDUM: Also, I play this as a team sport. I grow weary of the "But my character spend X on this so everybody has to chip in." I do what needs to be done for the team to win. Sometimes that means I spend my character's gold for *GASP* someone else's character's benefit.
It's a radical notion, I know.
Let's say the party... oh, druid, springs for a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. Common item to buy, really useful, and at the same level he's down 750 GP for a good item. Fair enough.
However... does that 750 GP deficit follow him for the rest of his career?
Simple answer, yes.
But as I said, nobody ever does this.
Does what? Buy a wand? Allow a deficit?
My answer would be that there are two basic ways of handling it. One is for the GM to put in enough wealth into the adventure that competent players will be able to have roughly their WBL or a little above. If they spend their wealth on consumables and then use those consumables it's gone forever.
If you're running an Adventure Path you're probably doing this by default.
The other is to monitor PC wealth and put in more loot if they've fallen behind the curve.
The question is, would you rather punish PCs who are careless with their money, or keep them balanced with the rest?
I've played with PCs who did this, and I've seen GMs who rewarded it. It's dumb, and you shouldn't do it, but it does appeal to a gut-feeling level of fairness.
If you feel the PC is a new player who has learned from his mistakes, it's not terrible to drop him a little extra loot to catch him up as a one time measure. If the other players all are rocking Big 6, it's not an unreasonable kindness to have a few enemies drop Big 6 equal to the other PCs' minus one step.
The Big 6 are what they are because they matter. But clever use of consumables also matters, and so does just building and playing your character well. You're not going to ruin anyone's time by letting them sleep in the bed they bought, but they may ruin it for themselves by letting it bother them.
On a related note, I have had situations where consumable magic items are part of a creature's treasure. However, an intelligent creature will use those items on itself if it knows the party is coming, thereby removing them from the treasure haul. Unfortunately, if you go by the rules as written, role-playing the creature intelligently deprives the party of treasure. My solution is to have the creature use whatever consumable items are present, but then do not subtract the items from the treasure award. In other words, if the creature uses a "Haste" potion before combat, then I rule that there is still a "Haste" portion in the treasure for the players. Does that seem fair, or am I going easy?
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I've never played it that the consumables used followed you forever. I wondered for a long time why my players never used consumables until the subject came up of WBL and it turned out they deliberately *never* bought consumables because they didn't want to lose wealth.
IMO, the consumables you have available definitely use up WBL, but once used you are allowed to recover to normal over time. As a DM you shouldn't have it happen right away, but within a couple levels is fine.
Even with this my players barely use consumables, but they at least exist now.
Consumables are not so overpowering that they need to permanently scar your WBL. They typically come with inconveniences of their own that balance our their relatively low price point for the effect given.
(Because of the nature of consumables, I typically recommend counting most of them as group loot that comes out of everyone's WBL evenly. Even wands and scrolls are usually for group-focused buffs and heals. Exceptions can be made to this pattern where reasonable.)
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On a related note, I have had situations where consumable magic items are part of a creature's treasure. However, an intelligent creature will use those items on itself if it knows the party is coming, thereby removing them from the treasure haul. Unfortunately, if you go by the rules as written, role-playing the creature intelligently deprives the party of treasure. My solution is to have the creature use whatever consumable items are present, but then do not subtract the items from the treasure award. In other words, if the creature uses a "Haste" potion before combat, then I rule that there is still a "Haste" portion in the treasure for the players. Does that seem fair, or am I going easy?
You can do whatever you want, these are just guidelines. The problem mostly if your npc/monster get caught by surprise, he usually doesn't have time to use the consumables and end up giving them some extra treasures. I make it count as a part of their treasure, usually even if there is 1 or 2 potions, the npc rarely gets the chance to use them.
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WBL does not mean that a character will encounter only 16k by 6th level, it means that at 6th level he will have 16k worth of stuff in his pockets. Since that includes consumables up to that point and the inevitable trade ins (like ditching the medium armor for that full plate), characters should encounter something like 10-15% more than WBL over the course of their careers.
For those who believe consumables should "haunt the character forever" as part of his WBL, consider the problem from this angle: your 5th level Wizard just died (in a Medium advancement game, where the GM pays attention to WBL) with no hope of being raised. You need to create a 5th level replacement.
The table indicates you're entitled to 10,500gp worth of gear, but realistically over the course of his career to date, that Wizard will have burned through a number of potions/oils/elixirs, alchemical items, scrolls, a wand or two, maybe a couple of feather tokens. Just to put some numbers to it, let's say...
6 potions of 1st level spells - 300gp
6 scrolls of 1st level spells - 150gp
2 potions of 2nd level spells - 1,200gp
2 scrolls of 2nd level spells - 600gp
2 elixirs (hiding and vision) - 500gp
2 wands of 1st level spells - 1,500gp
10 flasks of alchemists fire - 200gp
5 tanglefoot bags - 250gp
1 feather token (bird) - 300gp
If you assume your replacement 5th level PC has already used these up, is he still entitled to 10,500gp in combined permanent and [unused] consumables when you create him, or only 5,500gp worth?
The assertion that consumables don't put a dent in WBL, or that no one ever spends much of their gold on them, is not warranted.
The assertion that consumables don't put a dent in WBL, or that no one ever spends much of their gold on them, is not warranted.
Perhaps it's unwarranted to assume money spent on consumables could never put a dent in a PCs current wealth, but I've never seen anyone put that much of their own wealth into such things, so I say, in my experience, it's been a non-issue.
Almost everybody acquires these things out of group wealth rather than personal wealth. Your example of a 5th level wizard who spent 6,000gp out of his 11,500 WBL value (just over half) on wands and potions and tanglefoot bags and a featherfall token AND has used all this stuff up and has none of it left, well, this has never happened in my experience.
So how did this happen?
Did this 5th level wizard go to magic-mart and buy all those consumables, while everyone else was buying magic armor, magic weapons, headbands, belts, rings, and cloaks? One poster up-thread seemed to indicate that he regularly does this and has no problems with it, but I've never yet had such a player; everyone I've seen would say "Hey, we need a few scrolls and a wand, everyone kick in some cash" and no one PC would end up covering the full cost. But, if someone did this, then I would be more than willing to let him do it and I would not throw more gold at him later - that would be bailing him out for letting him go nova with all those wands and potions and scrolls and such and then replenishing his wealth. Eventually he'll realize that his unselfishness is massively reducing his long term efficacy and he'll negotiate consumables with his companions better.
Did this 5th level wizard make all this stuff? If so, then he got it at half price and should probably still have 8,500gp, not 5,500gp. In essence, he's 3,000gp over WBL but has probably used much of that stuff. Even trade, with going nova being a benefit of investing in those crafting feats.
Did this 5th level wizard find all that stuff in treasure hoards and his "friends" said "Here, you consume all this stuff and leave yourself broke while we take all this permanent magic and become rich"? If so, he needs new friends. I've never seen this happen. Usually the party just uses this stuff and writes it off and only tracks the valuable permanent items toward WBL.
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The WBL chart considers that you have already expended rougly 15% of accumulated treasure in consumables, leaving you with the presented amount in permanent magic items/cash.
It is assumed that some of this treasure is consumed in the course of an adventure (such as potions and scrolls), and that some of the less useful items are sold for half value so more useful gear can be purchased.
You can double check this by timing the Treasure Value per Encounter for the amount of encounters needed to level up.
For example, a GS 1 moster has on average 260 gp treasure. You need to kill 5 of them to advance to second level. 260 times 5 makes 1300, plus starting equipment makes around 1450 expected gold by level 2. However, the WBL chart expects you to have only 1000 GP in equipment.|
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The WBL chart considers that you have already expended rougly 15% of accumulated treasure in consumables, leaving you with the presented amount in permanent magic items/cash.It is assumed that some of this treasure is consumed in the course of an adventure (such as potions and scrolls), and that some of the less useful items are sold for half value so more useful gear can be purchased.You can double check this by timing the Treasure Value per Encounter for the amount of encounters needed to level up.
For example, a GS 1 moster has on average 260 gp treasure. You need to kill 5 of them to advance to second level. 260 times 5 makes 1300, plus starting equipment makes around 1450 expected gold by level 2. However, the WBL chart expects you to have only 1000 GP in equipment.
In other words, consumable use is expected to put a dent in wealth, but WBL has already compensated for that.
Interesting approach. Not sure where this leaves this conversation, though..
I have never actually had any player do this. Ever. Hundreds of PCs, nobody has invested all, or even most, of their wealth into consumables. EVERYBODY wants the Big-Six to varying degrees, so everybody invest some, usually most, of their wealth into it.
So, hypothetically, if I had a player make those decisions, I might drop a hint to the whole group that they have a team member who is falling behind in his gear through excessive consumable usage - since these consumables almost always benefit the whole group, maybe they should come out of "party treasure" rather than individual wealth. In other words, maybe every PC should chip in to buy those wands and potions.
I would also drop an item exclusively for this PC. The item would be of decent value and really only usable by him. This would help him catch up. I would also slow down on giving out generic items for everyone else for a little while; I might replace them with consumables the rest of the group wants. This should help balance things out.
I've do it as player. Consumable at the lower levels are too useful not use. Permanent magic items are expensive and typically not quite as good the permanent item you could afford. It's short term greater benefit vs long term lesser benefit. Eventually the permanent item will fall into you lap or you will have the gold to buy it without having to save.
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I hate tracking loot so I just tell my players they have the WBL chart worth of gold to spend at the Magic Mart every time they level up. Is it lazy? Absolutely. Does it get me and my players to the parts that are actually fun for us? Yes.
I don't track WBL that closely, and I most players prefer permanent magic items to consumables, so the consumable money usually goes to a permanent item anyway. If someone did spend a lot of money on consumables they might be suffering for a while. Every few levels I check to see how much loot the party has, and if I feel they are too low I throw in more, but that is about as much as I do.
Does it get me and my players to the parts that are actually fun for us? Yes.
This needs to be on a t-shirt. Or maybe a 1-page PDF entitled THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO TABLETOP GAMING...
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Thanks for all the input, guys. I hadn't read this part before, but the rule that a rough percentage of the treasure is assumed to go towards consumables (with the listed value as being the total after selling/consumable use) is actually really cool. I never noticed that before.
Keep in mind, I'm also in the camp of "As long as the group is having fun, whatever works works". I'm just also concerned about not having to drastically change how I challenge the group because of WBL, so I just wanted some input.
I'll keep all this info in mind. Thanks for everything, guys. Don't let me keep you from discussing, though, if you want. :P