Champion's Games Betting

[Shade325]

I want to make sure I'm reading the betting side bar right. It says that the maximum bet is 250 gp unless you make a Gather Info to find some high rollers in which case it become 500 gp.

My take on this is that the PC's aren't going to one bookie and saying here's 250 gp on me... its they're going to seven or eight bookies and putting 20 gp down here and 45 gp down there.

Otherwise they could find ten bookies and place 2500 gp down and triple it in the first round to 10,000 (7500 plus original stake). Wow!!! So much for the character wealth chart on DMG p.135.

If they can place 250 down with every bookie its also makes Tirra's offer rather pathetic as they could put the 2500 gp she wants down in the first round and get a better return.

So I think I'm reading the intent right but what to others think.

Shade325

[carolhoward]

interesting

[Apostanox]

Firstly, the player's might not necessarily draw those conclusions themselves.

Secondly, not every bookie is required to accept the 250gp wager (that's just the maximum, before using Gather Information).

Finally, the risk/reward for the Champion's Games kind of make up for the chance they will win those amounts. And if they are exploring/disrupting the underhold, they could likely be burning through those rewards.

Assuming they don't use any consumables (beyond the 1200 in healing that Ekaym can provide, assumedly through NPCs) during the full duration of the games, sure they now have a fat sack to spend afterwards. But that isn't really the intent of the wagers/manager system for the games.

When I have run the module, the party is generally burning the candle at both ends and heavily reliant on those consumables after even a half night of adventuring (remember that they have a strict curfew unless they are bribing anyone).

I think the wager rewards are largely supposed to be treated as solvent during the games, anything leftover at the end is just gravy.

[Apostanox]

The rewards are also limited by their rank.

They would gain more if someone was lowering them to rank 1 for the first fight (rank goes up after they win or score critical hits during the first fight).

I think the adventure has several points where player wealth becomes inflated above the core guidelines. Assuming a roughly optimized party, this additional wealth is more than helpful when it becomes available.