Disenchanter, you are completely wrong.
I didn't know I had an ex-girlfriend posting on these boards. So, which "victim" are you?
See post above for how "wrong" I am.
EDIT: It ends up being the post on the previous page.
The problem of moving money around is, in my opinion, not a problem. Most PC's were willing, if there was no bag of holding readily available, to pay a gem merchant a ten percent fee to convert all their money into easily carryable jewels.
The economy does function, it's just that people have to remember that merchants exist.
I was actually refering to purchase value of the money being moved around. A single +1 longsword generates enough money for the wizard creating it to stay in a good quality inn eating good meals and enjoying a couple of pichers of wine for about 386 days and still cover the cost of creating the item.
I have no problems with a wizard creating one magic sword and retiring for a year to do research. I actually like the idea. However, a wizard that creates highend magical items (if you can find such a mage) would generate so much money that he would never be able to spend it all.
Admittingly, a lot of this does not need to be in the main rulebook, but I would like for it to be kept in mind for the world itself.
Recall for the moment that the current rules about Item Slots (with the waist and arms chakra and all that) aren't open content. They were written up in the Magic Item Compendium and Magic of Incarnum - neither of which are available for fair use. So rather than come up with something that is very much the same, I propose that we ditch the entire concept and just give people a maximum number of magic items.
-Frank
The particular system described in the Magic Item Compendium and Magic of Incarnum may not be open content, but fortunatly the idea of item slots is. It exists in the DMG, because of how magic items are worn, and it also exists dozens, if not hundreds, of other video and RPG games. It is now too universal a concept to gaming to be surpressed.
If you limited the number of crazy items (or tinkets) you can carry to 8 or so (less then what it is now anyway), you could reduce the Christmas Tree syndrome of 3rd edition. They can very easily update Pathfinder to include these rules.
Directed to the OP.
I thought they changed the weight of coins in 3rd ed to 50 coins= 1 lbs*? Still, that 15000gp magical Item will require about 300 lbs of gold. And who are they going to get to carry that much gold around, anyways?
This is one of the reasons I considered gems to be a reasonable substitute for coins at higher levels of exchange. After all, those 15 1,000gp emeralds are a heck of allot easer to carry around, and have the same value.
Even this can breakdown once players near epic levels
(*=note from page161 of the 3.5 PHB last paragraph. Hey, it's the only place that mentions coin weight the I can find at the moment.)
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I will stick with the simple formula - kill monsters + take their stuff = PC wealth
Precisely. This is why "gold" (which high level characters can magic into existence at the rate of 1500 pounds a day) should not transfer into "character power" for high level characters.
- Gold -> Power punishes players for doing fun things with their characters instead of saving all their pennies and living like a hobo.
- Gold -> Power destroys the game when players do anything vaguely clever involving wall of iron or plane shift.
- Gold -> Power destroys the game and the setting (literally) the moment the DM uses cool areas like castles made of Blue Ice or bridges made of onyx in adventures.
High level equipment should not be purchasable with precious metals at all. It should cost other things when it's purchasable in any manner.
-Frank
I don't get why people are so resistant to Frank Trollman's ideas. Essentially he's saying...
Barter Economy Mundane items like room and boarding generally will be bartered for with some labor or maybe a favor. Don't bother keeping track of copper and silver, unless you're in a big city. (In other words, this reduces bookkeeping!) This is for level 1.
Gold Economy Mundane adventuring equipment and minor magic is specialized equipment. For this you probably need gold pieces. This applies up to the extent of minor items (10,000 gp). For magic items you are buying from people who will make this stuff using minor creation magics, or around 6th spell level. (This is no different that what we had before.) 10000 gp is about 200 lbs. of gold, so a single bag of holding is all you'll need. This takes you from 2-11.
Favor Economy Once you're powerful enough to make minor magic for the gold economy, you don't need gold for equipment. Major magic items are created by people with wish or miracle, and they certainly don't need anything as pedestrian as gold. Major items are either found, stolen, or granted in payment for favors, like adventuring. The Magic Item Compendium already lists items by recommended level. Just take this concept and expand it a bit. This takes you from 12-17.
Wish Economy At the highest end of the spectrum, the players have access to wish and miracle. Any magic that can produce most things they would need. The only items that you still might seek are artifacts whose magic is beyond even those you could summon with wish and miracle. This takes you from levels 19 through epic.
So what do I do with my dragon hoard? You become a political player, or you hoard it in a dungeon of your own devise and live comfortably, dishing it out in reasonable amounts the economy can handle for favors, rare components or to hire lesser adventurers to handle problems not worth your time or effort. Just as in prior editions of D&D. In other words, you use it to set your player up for retirement.
Why follow this system?
1) It's not nearly as complicated as people think, and most of the building blocks are already in the game.
2) It restores the fun of being able to spend your gold frivolously for flavor and character building, instead of being forced to hold onto to it to increase your headband of intellect from +3 to +4.
3) It's more flavorful than the system we have now in which PCs are dragging around tons of gold and dropping them off with wizards to manufacture items at a 100% markup.
Why not follow this system?
1) GP is an easy "points" system to keep track of how well your character is doing. It's like keeping score.
2) It requires a bit more faith in your DM to provide you with opportunity to collect the items you need. However, some player-DM cooperation should work nicely, with the player telling the DM what he wants to acquire, and the PCs next employer arranging for that to be the payment.
What is not a problem with this system?
All the arguments that economies are inherently broken. My response? So what? Yes, a 10th level wizard can toast any community smaller than a town for change. So what? They can do that now. That's not an economics problem. That's a problem with having superheroes in a world.
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All he's seeking is a chapter on economics that replaces the buckets of gold phenomenon with an easy to apply barter ystem.Is that all?
Hmmm...
So if a PC wanted to start a dairy farm, and had a +2 Short Sword to finance it:
S/he could "sell" it for about 50% of the value, as per the rules. Misconception #1; the item doesn't even have to be sold to a specific person.
Then take that gold. Misconception #2; the gold doesn't even have to really exist.
And then purchase a number of dairy cows - I don't recall a cow entry, but a workhorse would be close enough. Misconception #3; the cows don't have to be bought from anyone in particular.
Dairy Cow = Oxen not workhorse
Dairycow = 20lb of milk per day over 8 months1 Dairy Cow require 9 acres graizing land per year + 20lb Grain & Chaff
per day(2/5 of a Bushel)
1 Acre wheat Field =0-36 Bushels (medieval labour techlevel)
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What astonishes me is that everyone assumes the PCs deal in the same economies that farmers do. Are Paladins peasants? (Okay, forget my "shepherd paladin" concept.) Wizards are the intelligencia of the pseudomideval fantasy world, paladins and fighters its knights, clerics its priests, etc. These folks are unlikely to be dealing in the same economy that the peasantry is. They would be the kinds of people to deal in such "abstract nonsense" as letters of credit.
I'm not going to some farmer to buy a longsword, and I'm surely not going to some podunk blacksmith to get a holy soulbreaker longsword +2. Lords, guildmasters, and priests deal in gold all the time, and given the socioeconomic stresses of the settings (read: dragons), the set-up makes sense provided you assume peasants aren't a part of it.
Now, how many people run games for peasant characters?
Consider Peasant Paladins as doable (Joan of Arc).
I don't get why people are so resistant to Frank Trollman's ideas. Essentially he's saying...
A lot of stuff.
Wercan hit the major points I was not doing a good job of illustrating.
The problem with creating high level magical items is that it eventual raises the question of where it is coming from. I would personally love to go back to the the players having to create their own high level gear instead of going to the big city and buying it.
The only time that dsoe not bother me is when I run a Planescape game. Even then, on more than one occasion I have offered to pay them in the gear they wanted if they delivered a valuable item to a customer on another plane (or maybe to just another ward in Sigil).
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High level equipment should not be purchasable with precious metals at all. It should cost other things when it's purchasable in any manner.
-Frank
I go back to my first point - gold piece value is an abstraction. I don't care how a PC "actually" paid for something in game but the X,XXX GP is easier than figuring out who traded what and why.
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i think we also tend to forget that adventures go to differnt countries and each country has a standardize currency. Thus they need to have money changers to take both foriegn and ancient coin. All based on wieghts and messures. The money changers are also ussually charge an exchange fee of 10% and will also infom the local tax collecters of the obvious wealth that has entered the town or city.
It is very possible to run a party out of coin if you actually use what has been done in real life.
In real life, most countries did not bother with fees for using foreign coin. They wanted people to bring more precious metals into their country so they could melt them down and make more local coins. They would too often pay a premium for getting such bullion. Rather than give you 9 local coins of equal bullion content for 10 foreign ones, they would give you 10 local coins for 9 foreign ones.
What they would put a limit on was how much you could take out of the country. Letters of credit helped get around that.Taxes were common, but they tended to be for more specific, non-merchant activity. What you would get hit with were tariffs and monopolies. For most looting activities, tariffs would not apply (few people loot dragon lairs across the border), but the monopolies would. If you have to go through a particular guild to unload several dozen swords, you are going to get severely skinned. Of course if you were in a Merchant's Guild, you would be safe. The guild would have a lot of restrictions though, and might be just as much a pain to deal.
Where you were most likely to get it was an end consumer. You either overpaid for everything in the lower and middle classes, or you were expected to be an egregiously conspicuous consumer. The old 1st ed rules about spending 100 gp per level per month in general expenses reflects how anyone of status would bleed coin to maintain that status. If you could not feed a bunch of retainers and entertain friends, you simply were not that important and relevant.
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The reason D&D economics does not work for general use is because it is not supposed to work for general use.
It is supposed to work for player characters.
It tracks and maintains their wealth by level, not that of peasants, communities, and kingdoms.
As such, there is no reconciling them. Any system that works for one will not work for the other.
Something that changed my way of thinking about economics in D&D was reading the "Baroque Cycle" by Neal Stephenson (Quicksilver, The Confusion and System of the World). Granted, his novels take place within events that actually happened, but the system of trade and seeing a whole new system of commerce evolve (the appearance of gold smiths notes, the first "bancas" etc) really aided me in making a more "believable" system for my own D&D world and in other fantasy setting I've run.
Portraying a society with a functioning economy is not for everyone, and I don't do it in all my games. Sometimes a town is just there because it serves the story, no questions are asked about what it produces exactly, or why they haven't just moved the town upriver and away from the horde of undead that swarm from the ancient cairns.
I really like Wrecan's compilation of the issue and it sounds quite good. I ofcourse hit my players with allsorts of treasure. Ancient coins with different metals, different "valuable" things like livestock etc. Helps keep it fresh and it is interesting to see how they unload it.
I do not want to play an economics system. I want to play a role playing game.
What I described is not playing an economics system. It's actually only a few tweaks to the current system, which eliminates some of the more absurd aspects of the game, like having to lug around portable holes filled with gold at higher levels and the idea that folks with access to sixth level spells should even be concerned about "precious" metals.
Just because we discuss economics does not mean we want to tun Dungeons and Dragons into Goldsmiths and Greengrocers.
It's actually only a few tweaks to the current system, which eliminates some of the more absurd aspects of the game, like having to lug around portable holes filled with gold at higher levels and the idea that folks with access to sixth level spells should even be concerned about "precious" metals.
But they don't have to lug around that much gold.
That gold notation could just as easily represent the characters accumulated favor, renown, line of credit, or whatever else you want it to represent. The mechanics don't have to change just because some don't like the skin it uses.
And really, once you step out of the abstract, and start adding in "little" things like a specific Barter, or Favor, economy you add in all sorts of unfavorable 'loopholes.'
First up is even more of a reliance on GM trust. Sure, it may be great for your personal group that you already trust implicitly. But can really screw up a "pick up game."
Next, and perhaps more important, is how do you judge just hom much an NPC would value a certain item or action? How does a fledgling GM, just learning the ropes, figure out whether or not a NPC considers trading a +2 Short Sword for two suits of +1 Chainmail a fair trade? On the other hand, that abstract Gold System already in 3.5 does a decent - even if it is imprecise - job of doing that.
You may not want to run Goldsmiths and Greengrociers, but once it becomes clear to your players that the economy is more important than usual, they might (I would say usually) realize it is easier, and more rewarding to "milk" the economy system than to play the rest of the game. Every game that I have been in that the GM wanted a "more realistic economy," the players quickly realized that if they focused on trade the DM would just keep throwing random encounters at them for their XP, and they never had to worry about the BBEG's, saving the village children in time, or anything else. And they tended to make better returns on their game time to character monetary rewards too. And this is with "good" groups that enjoy a good story.
But if the current system isn't right for you, that is okay. Feel free to change it for your games. Just don't drag the rest of us along for that horror show because some of us have been there, and hate that.
That gold notation could just as easily represent the characters accumulated favor, renown, line of credit, or whatever else you want it to represent. The mechanics don't have to change just because some don't like the skin it uses.
Gold is not a "notation" it's a substance. It weighs 1/50th of a pound per piece.
A system where the PCs can "carry" more than a few tens of thousands of gold pieces because it is "abstract" is not even recognizable as the economic system of the basic game. This isn't Final Fantasy, we don't operate on the Gil. Money has weight, lots of weight.
The fact that you can create things that are worth "gold" by waving their hands of course means that the game breaks much worse if you just hand-wave wealth away as being weightless and infinitely fungible. Your suggested method of handwaving makes the problems inherent in the system infinitely worse. It literally involves people sitting around casting fabricate to make telescopes and then mystantaneously having gear appropriate for characters a dozen levels higher than themselves.
You chastising me for suggesting an overhaul to the economics presented in D&D 3.5 is peculiar. You have also been expounding upon a set of revisions. A set of revisions which are at face value horrendously and instantaneously broken!
-Frank
Gold is not a "notation" it's a substance. It weighs 1/50th of a pound per piece.
And because you don't have the imagination to think outside the box, we have to entertain a worse system?
Come on Frank. You can't be that dense.
New Player: "Hey guys, can I join your game?"
GM: "Um, sure. We have an advanced game here, do you have a 16th level character?"
New Player: "I have a thirteenth level character, but I can advance him as we go."***** After the session, treasure has been split. *****
New Player: "Hmmm... I don't have much use for this +4 Whip. Hey DM, can I trade it in for a +2 Frostbrand?"
***** Whole group lets out a heavy sigh. *****
Player A: "Look, you're new here. So let me explain it to you. It doesn't work that way. First, you have to kiss the Princes ass. And I said Prince. Stay away from the Princess. If the King catches you and her together, he will behead us all. On the other hand, make sure you don't insult her because she will then claim you raped her, and the King will behead us all. Now then, you kiss the ass of the Prince enough to where you can ask him for an audience with the King. Then, when you go before the King, you ask him to allow you to trade your +4 Whip at the Imperial Mage College. He will then tell you that you will have to perform some favor for him first. It will usually involve a lot of travel, great peril, and your character will likely die twice - at least. Since you are looking for a Frostbrand, it will likely involve a Red Dragon or some other fire breathing creature. After all, there is no better way to get you to really appreciate that Frostbrand than to get it after you really need it. Assuming we try to bring you back, there is a flat 10% chance the Mage College even has the item you are looking for.
Now that you got the hang of it, hold back for a while. We all have a few items we want to exchange, and we want to ask all at once to try and reduce the number of quests we need to do.
Oh, and if the DM sets us up with conflicting or competing goals, we go in order of who has been in the group the longest. Dave gets first, then Steve, then Gary, then me. As the new player, you just get to suck on it for a while."
You have also been expounding upon a set of revisions. A set of revisions which are at face value horrendously and instantaneously broken!
They are? Damn! And here I thought Paizo would be smart enough to playtest them first. Oh. Wait...
But they don't have to lug around that much gold.
That gold notation could just as easily represent the characters accumulated favor, renown, line of credit, or whatever else you want it to represent.
It could, but it doesn't. That's not the rule system the game employs. In the game, "gp" actually represents how much gold you're lugging around.
So, Disenchanter, you're not actually defending the status quo. You're actually defending your own economics system but mistakenly thinkign that's the one in the game books.
The mechanics don't have to change just because some don't like the skin it uses.
Right back atcha!
Next, and perhaps more important, is how do you judge just hom much an NPC would value a certain item or action?
What are you talkign about? The Magic Item Compendium give level values for items. That's all you have to follow rather than gp values.
You may not want to run Goldsmiths and Greengrociers, but once it becomes clear to your players that the economy is more important than usual, they might (I would say usually) realize it is easier, and more rewarding to "milk" the economy system than to play the rest of the game.
The gp system can be gamed and is. The system proposed reduced the gaming of economics.
Every game that I have been in that the GM wanted a "more realistic economy,"
Realism is a secondary benefit. It's more manageable (and also less gamable).
PC: "Hey, I don't have much use for this +4 whip. Can I trade it for a +2 frost brand?"
DM: "Let's see. Well, the +4 whip is listed as appropriate for 13th level, and the frostbrand for 12th, so I don't see why not. The archmage who hired you just wishes it out for you. A fair bargain, he says, and he indicates that he appreciates your fair-mindedness (ie, future plot hook)."
Gee, that doesn't seem much more different than what we have now, except the player isn't given 280 lbs. of gold in change to lug around
Seems like a win-win.
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There was a book I read a few decades back, The Flying Sorcerers (go Wiki!), in which a sorta/kinda sorcerer made special chits of bone, marked with dye, and traded them to people in lieu of coins. Each of these 'coins' was payment for a certain level of spellcasting services.
It would be interesting if the Wizard's Guilds of a particular setting used similar writs to transfer large sums of 'money.' Instead of 1000 lbs of coin, you might have a single sheet of parchment (alchemically treated and quite fire resistant) that was a promisary note for a, for instance, 6th level spell cast by an 11th level caster. Moneylenders and wizards conclaves and some temples would recognize the value of such writs, and take them in place of cash. Wizards Guilds in particular might prefer them to coin.
Temples might use a similar system, with indulgences or favors being passed around. Instead of handing over a pile of diamonds to get a friend raised from the dead, you might even receive a 'get out of death free' card, that you can redeem later at any temple that has a high enough level priest to provide that service.
It could, but it doesn't. That's not the rule system the game employs. In the game, "gp" actually represents how much gold you're lugging around.
You sure? Can you point me to the rule that says a character actually gets handed 15000 gp's for selling an item?
I am fairly certain you are making that assumption.
So, Disenchanter, you're not actually defending the status quo. You're actually defending your own economics system but mistakenly thinkign that's the one in the game books.
Who is mistaken anything? What I have been doing is pointing out that the current system can fit with the model some poeple want, without opening it up to a whole slew of worse problems. Sounds to me like you are making assumptions again.
The mechanics don't have to change just because some don't like the skin it uses.Right back atcha!
Agreed.
Next, and perhaps more important, is how do you judge just hom much an NPC would value a certain item or action?What are you talkign about? The Magic Item Compendium give level values for items. That's all you have to follow rather than gp values.
First, MIC isn't OGC. Second, what is the difference between using GP and Item Level? Two words. That is all.
Seems like a win-win.
And I wouldn't have a problem with that. Then again, as I said the difference between using a Gold Piece economy and an Item Level economy is just two words. Everything else is close enough to wing.
I would like to say that this is a fascinating discusion and yes games are to be taylored to the style you most enjoy. That being said the concept of a magic emporium is quite disgusting to me. It gives the feel that their is a mass production of magic items somewhere in the game world. The only world this seems feasable in a published setting is in Ebberon thanks to the Artificer. That concept is more believable then most because they can disenchant items and reform them. So if you want your +3 sword you just have to find one powerful enough and trade in your 25 +1 Swords and 10 +2 swords so that he can melt them down and reform them. Thus their are people capable of making any object you wish as long as you have time and the proper trade goods. Physical money amounts would then be decreased.
As a side note the average farmer in a "fantasy world" would love to sell their products for gold. With that they can pay their taxes and still live have food to live with. Not to mention actually being able to purchase trinkets and goods from wondering traders that come through the vilalges. Plus they would make at least 2 to 4 times as much as they could selling to a merchant. Have you not realised that you can usually by more for less from a farmers market then from a grocery store. Plus they generally make more money. ie Merchant pays 1 Copper for 30 apples, adventurer pays 1 silver for 3 apples.
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The archmage who hired you just wishes it out for you. A fair bargain, he says...
That wish costs him roughly 7500xp. And in the end...he's got a whip. Which he (most likely) doesn't know how to wield.
He can't turn the whip back into an equal or greater quantity of xp than he just expended to create it...so where is the archmage's incentive in this exchange?
Doesn't strike me as a fair bargain in the slightest.
You sure? Can you point me to the rule that says a character actually gets handed 15000 gp's for selling an item?I am fairly certain you are making that assumption.
Actually, yes we can.
gold piece (gp): The primary unit of currency used by adventurers.
Market Price: This gold piece value, given following the word "Price," represents the price someone should expect to pay to buy the item.
In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price. Characters who want to upgrade to better armor or weaponry, for example, can sell their old equipment for half price.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself. Wheat, flour, cloth, gems, jewelry, art objects, and valuable metals are trade goods, and merchants often trade in them directly without using currency
So yes, by the rules you do in fact receive 300 pounds of gold for selling that item. Although by the rules you are welcome to take a tonne and a half of salt or three thousand, seven hundred, and fifty yards of linen instead. Those are the actual rules.
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Alex:
As you well know, the Iron Kingdoms production system is essentially unusable. It requires a flow chart, is immensely complicated, and at the end of the day it really just has 8th level characters cranking out CR 10 constructs that have a special button on the side that makes impotent cries come out of the party fighter.
Iron Kingdoms thus is a classic example of how to not fix the D&D economy. It is more complex than the basic rules, and yet left to their own devices the player characters can and eventually will pile together a large sum of money and set actual fire to the CR guidelines with it.
That being said, switching to a Silver based economy is a positive nation building step, as it involves player characters being able to physically carry the amounts of wealth that they are supposed to drag around in order to trade back and forth for the low and low-middle level equipment that is actually balanced to be bought and sold for precious metals.
-Frank
Can you point me to the rule that says a character actually gets handed 15000 gp's for selling an item?
"This gold piece value, given following the word 'Price,' represents the price someone should expect to pay to buy the item."
-Magic Items:Magic Items Basics:Market PriceQED.
What I have been doing is pointing out that the current system can fit with the model some poeple want, without opening it up to a whole slew of worse problems.
What problems? You keep making criticisms and we keep pointing out that's not part of the proposal.
First, MIC isn't OGC.
The principle can be ported over to Pathfinder with ease, and most people are quite familiar with the concept.
Second, what is the difference between using GP and Item Level? Two words. That is all.
Good, then you shouldn't have any problem with it, if you think it's only the matter of changing two words.
Of course to me it's more than two words -- it's an entire attitude towards magic items and the dreaded (and silly) magic item emporium. It simplifies magic items, eliminates PCs lugging around hundreds of pounds of gold to the local magic shop, and gives DMs a built-in system for magic item management.
And I wouldn't have a problem with that.
Glad you're on board!
That wish costs him roughly 7500xp. And in the end...he's got a whip.
Actually, he got whatever benefit he got when he hired the party in the first place. Personally, I'd amend the wish to allow people to use the XP inherent in a magic item be used as a component for the wish. Then again, I think wish and miracle should be made epic level effects, not 9th level spells.
To implement this system, some changes to item creation would be needed.
1st-5th level characters are working for one-shot and masterwork items and gold. Make Fabricate a 4th level spell and create a divine version. Now it makes sense for 1st-5th level parties to be employed by 7th-10th level spellcasting employers.
6th to 10th level PCs work for minor magic items. Make a divine version of limited wish (minor miracle?) and the spell can create any minor magic item, and now these parties are working for 13th-16th level employers.
11th to 15th level PCs work for medium magic items. Allow wish and miracle to make any medium magic item and these parties can work for 17th to 20th level employers.
16th to 20th level PCs work for major magic items. Create an epic ritual to create such items and these parties can work for epic casters.
Epic characters work for artifacts. These can only be gotten through salvage or granted from divinities.
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Actually, he got whatever benefit he got when he hired the party in the first place. Personally, I'd amend the wish to allow people to use the XP inherent in a magic item be used as a component for the wish. Then again, I think wish and miracle should be made epic level effects, not 9th level spells.
So, players can only take jobs from wizards if they ever want to get any loot? And what if I'm running a campaign where the players are not "taking jobs," but are instead fighting their way up to defeat some pending evil of their own behest?
Even if you allow the wish to drain xp out of an item, there's still the 2x premium for wishing up the item, and even if you cut that out, there's still the flat 5000xp for the wish.
So, players can only take jobs from wizards if they ever want to get any loot? what if I'm running a campaign where the players are not "taking jobs," but are instead fighting their way up to defeat some pending evil of their own behest?
Huh? What? Just because a high-level caster can give out loot doesn't mean that's the only reason to work for one. Nor does it mean a party works exclusively for casters. Not sure why you think it would.
Even if you allow the wish to drain xp out of an item, there's still the 2x premium for wishing up the item, and even if you cut that out, there's still the flat 5000xp for the wish.
Obviously, if the system is being set up to accommodate this proposal, the entire system will be set up to accommodate it. Pathfinder has already changed nine spells in the SRD. I'd expect them to make further changes and Fabricate, Limited Wish, Wish and Miracle are four spells that are almost definitely going to need amending eventually anyway.
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Alex:As you well know, the Iron Kingdoms production system is essentially unusable. It requires a flow chart, is immensely complicated, and at the end of the day it really just has 8th level characters cranking out CR 10 constructs that have a special button on the side that makes impotent cries come out of the party fighter.
Iron Kingdoms thus is a classic example of how to not fix the D&D economy. It is more complex than the basic rules, and yet left to their own devices the player characters can and eventually will pile together a large sum of money and set actual fire to the CR guidelines with it.
That being said, switching to a Silver based economy is a positive nation building step,...
Well yes the IK crafting rules hurt my brain. That stuff was more convoluted than the Eukaryotic cell stuff I was working on at the time.
It didn't help that I could build devices several CRs higher than the party. But it was fun! Pretty soon I could have had those suckers adventuring for us at only the cost of maintenance.
Obviously, if the system is being set up to accommodate this proposal, the entire system will be set up to accommodate it. Pathfinder has already changed nine spells in the SRD. I'd expect them to make further changes and Fabricate, Limited Wish, Wish and Miracle are four spells that are almost definitely going to need amending eventually anyway.
Yep, that's my take on it. Those spells are going to be changed or amended. Still it's fun to watch the debate.
You sure? Can you point me to the rule that says a character actually gets handed 15000 gp's for selling an item?I am fairly certain you are making that assumption.
Actually, yes we can.
gold piece (gp): The primary unit of currency used by adventurers.Market Price: This gold piece value, given following the word "Price," represents the price someone should expect to pay to buy the item.So yes, by the rules you do in fact receive 300 pounds of gold for selling that item. Although by the rules you are welcome to take a tonne and a half of salt or three thousand, seven hundred, and fifty yards of linen instead. Those are the actual rules.In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price. Characters who want to upgrade to better armor or weaponry, for example, can sell their old equipment for half price.
Trade goods are the exception to the half-price rule. A trade good, in this sense, is a valuable good that can be easily exchanged almost as if it were cash itself. Wheat, flour, cloth, gems, jewelry, art objects, and valuable metals are trade goods, and merchants often trade in them directly without using currency
Reads it all once. Reads it again. Then a third time.
I still see nothing about actually receiving gold. I see several things referring to receiving a value that is often, but not always, listed in gold. But nothing about receiving gold. Unless you want to make an argument that when an adventurer sells a candle he gets 1/200 of a Gold Piece, or 1/10000th of a pound.
See, it is an assumption that gold is the only currency exchanged. A logical, and reasonable assumption, but an assumption none the less. If that assumption doesn't work for you, then change the assumption.
It doesn't matter if the PC gets 1.5 million Copper Pieces, 1500 Platinum Pieces, 300 Black Onyxs, 15 Blue Feathers, A certificate for 3 "round the worlds" at the local house of ill repute, 2 naked pictures of Bea Arthur, or a line of credit with the local "merchants" guild. All that matters is that the value is kept track of. Well that, and that the characters can trade that value for approximately the same value later.
If you have a hard time dealing with how much the 5 digit number after the section "GP" weighs on your character sheet, RPGs are not the hobby for you.
Pathfinder has already changed nine spells in the SRD. I'd expect them to make further changes and Fabricate, Limited Wish, Wish and Miracle are four spells that are almost definitely going to need amending eventually anyway.
Hold on a moment. Pathfinder has proposed a change on nine spells. Those aren't final yet. I am not saying that they won't go through, but lets not start getting ahead of ourselves.
What problems? You keep making criticisms and we keep pointing out that's not part of the proposal.
Then what is part of the proposal?
I see people saying they want a Favor Economy, among others. Who defines what a Favor is? Who defines what a Favor is worth? How many pages of rules are needed to make that system work for you better than the Value System in place now, and isn't so wide open to ruin the game for others?
I see people asking for a Barter System. How many rules are needed to effectively play out a Barter Session? If it is more than, "hmmm.... The item you don't want is valued at 25000 GPs, I'll give you this item worth 20000 GPs in exchange" it is too many. And if that is enough, then why the hell is this thread here in the first place?
If all people want is to use the GP value of an item in a different way, then this thread is a waste of space.
On the other hand, if they want a whole new system, then they want a whole new system that has been presented as a vague trap at best.
So which is it?
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To me the exchange of GP has always been an abstraction of a much more complex economic system for which I have no interest.
Nor is there a need for any depth of detail to those mechanics.
If you want to add "realism" to a critical mechanic then get rid of AC - roll to hit, roll to parry, roll to dodge, have the armor block damage, and have rules for hit locations.
Why accept a high level of abstraction in melee but demand more realism from the economic system?
I just do not get it.
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Gold is not a "notation" it's a substance. It weighs 1/50th of a pound per piece.
Actually, if you want to get all hard economics and technical, gold is a notation.
The value is purely notational, with no established requirement anywhere for it to be worth anything other than a specific notation in a book somewhere.Gold is "worth" something solely because the rule books say it is. If you turn around and say the unit of wealth is the quatloo, that it is functionally weightless, limitless in number, combines and reforms in denominations as needed, and exchanges for equipment and commodities (including gold) at a specified rate, then you have a different notation to work with from that point on.
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I played a game with a gamey dungeonmaster who was running sort of a barter system story hook where we were travelling all over this city to deal with multiple individuals trading commodities for commodities that one guy wanted for some commodity that some other guy wanted, to get some damn mcguffin for some guy at the end of this neverending chain of deals. I don't even remember what we were doing; just "yeah I'll give you these 5 camels. I need 200 gallons of cottonseed oil."
Hot damn! Let's gather information to find out who has cottonseed oil!
It got to the point of "who the f$*@ wants to spend a Saturday night like this? Let's just kill merchants and city guardsmen until we get whacked."
We don't want to throw Astral Diamonds at the problem, but D&D's economics are badly in need of a serious overhaul. Here is an essay about the direction I would like it to go (note: assumes that we use 3e wish as opposed to the broken 3.5 version):
Spending the Loot: the Three (or so) Economies
"I'll give you five pounds of gold, the soul of Karlack the Dread King, and three onions for your boat, the Sword of the Setting Sun, and that cabbage…"
Make it FOUR onions and you've got yourself a deal.
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Here's the very simple description of my ideas:
While XP can be (and is) restricted on the accumulation end,
GP has to be restricted on the spending end.
- Characters gain power from XP and from GP in 3rd edition rules.
- Wisely, the rules prevent you from gaining XP by defeating challenges who are more than a few levels lower than yourself.
- Gold, however, is a genuine physical object, and you literally can get it by defeating "challenges" that are not worthy of your character's level.
- So long as characters can gain real personal power in that unsportsmanly fashion we are back at having characters boil anthills in order to gain levels (or crank through stupid crafting tricks to purchase +5 swords, which is the same thing).
Now obviously you can't say "Sorry, you're a 12th level character, you can't get Gold by doing 3rd level quests over and over again." because the gold is a physical object that is genuinely right over there. What you have to do instead is to segregate the purchasing of equipment so that the treasure you get from lower level adventures is not convertible at any exchange rate into the kinds of equipment that higher level characters want and need.
And that's where the Turnip Economy, the Gold Economy, and the Wish Economy come in. If you establish right at the outset that equipment over the 15,000 GP limit is not purchasable by gold, then having characters do stupid gold accumulation tricks stops being problematic the moment that a character wants and needs equipment that is in a higher price bracket than that.
And we literally can't stop people from doing stupid gold accumulation tricks, because gold is a physical object that exists in the fantasy world in discrete locations. If people want to take on non-threatening tasks to get that physical gold and put it in santa sacks that is totally possible.
-Frank
Now obviously you can't say "Sorry, you're a 12th level character, you can't get Gold by doing 3rd level quests over and over again." because the gold is a physical object that is genuinely right over there. What you have to do instead is to segregate the purchasing of equipment so that the treasure you get from lower level adventures is not convertible at any exchange rate into the kinds of equipment that higher level characters want and need.
Now that makes a certain amount of masochistic sense...
While your point makes sense, the rippling effect through out the game might prove more harmful than the fix is useful.
At current, and probably through out the end of Pathfinder (although I am no authority), the 3.5 design is that high level characters have relatively easy access to the powerful items worth more than 15000 gps. Removing the possibility of acquiring them through Gold can have any semblance of balance crumble. Although some would say there isn't a semblance of balance.
The follow up problem is: How do you quantify whatever you have to use to acquire those high level items?
And if you can't quantify it with the standard value of the value system... What the hell do you quantify it with? And if you can quantify it with the standard value of the value system, then all your efforts are lost.
It sounds like playing a game of Tic Tac Doe with yourself.
Good luck with that one.
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I just choose what magic items my players' characters have.
You want to find a magic item emporium in my Riddleport? Good luck with that.
Characters get the good stuff by finding it in hoards, prising it from an enemy's cold, dead hands, making it themselves or being rewarded it by a benefactor (king/archmage/gold dragon seer/whatever).
And my players never complain, because I make sure they get a certain amount of cool stuff they need, mixed with some fun stuff that isn't essential.
If somebody is dropping down the power-graph from the rest of the party the next bit of cool magic they find will probably be most appropriate for them.
This is a lot like Frank's system - only my players expect and are comfortable with it because they know "The Magic Item Store TM" is not an option.
And that's where the Turnip Economy, the Gold Economy, and the Wish Economy come in. If you establish right at the outset that equipment over the 15,000 GP limit is not purchasable by gold, then having characters do stupid gold accumulation tricks stops being problematic the moment that a character wants and needs equipment that is in a higher price bracket than that.And we literally can't stop people from doing stupid gold accumulation tricks, because gold is a physical object that exists in the fantasy world in discrete locations. If people want to take on non-threatening tasks to get that physical gold and put it in santa sacks that is totally possible.
-Frank
I see your point here. But this puts me, and DMs like me I would assume, in a conundrum.
I want to play D&D. However, I don't want to play in a setting where wishing items into existence is so common as to be the basis for an economy, because that just doesn't seem fun to me. And I also don't see an alternate system, because the problem you bring up is a real one.
So, what are DMs and players that feel similarly to me supposed to do? And I'm saying now, "play a different system" isn't an option, because I don't want to play a different system, I want to play D&D.
So, what alternative solutions to the Wish economy exist at these high levels, Frank? All I can think of myself is either "don't play with players that want to do stupid gold accumulation tricks" or "just pretend that society is exactly the same, only it has magic that hasn't actually effected society at all ever", but neither of those deals with the actual issue. And I can't imagine that this is the only possible, workable, simple system that's ever been thought of for the issue.
I mean, I think this is why so many people are resisting it. Because the idea of wizards Wishing up magic items for trade just isn't fun to them; the various objections are just more detailed ways of expressing this opinion, or the specific form the opinion takes for them.
Edit: I think Geraint might be on to something - I missed his post before. What if the higher level items don't have an actual price at all? That is, they can't be easily bought? Go back to a pseudo-2e like system. These items have "prices" associated with them, but these values are solely for balancing purposes, there's no way to actually be assured of being able to purchase them...well, anywhere. That way, high level characters can't grind up gold from the low level quests or use other tricks to be able to get access to items much more powerful than they should otherwise have.
In fact, I realize now that this is basically what I've been doing, though not so strict. When a PC wants an item in my game, I consider if it's one that could reasonably be obtained in the general area they're at, and if so, I let them take it. But then again, I've never really DMed a 3.5 game that went that high of a level, so the issue of Wishes never really came up for me.
What about this, combined with simply striking the magic item conjuring from the Wish description?
Idran, the problem is that you can't just arbitrarily deny characters high level equipment.
And I say "arbitrarily" not because there isn't any rationale behind the decision, but because not only is there no support in the system (currently), but because the current incarnation of the system expects characters to have that high level equipment.
Maybe Pathfinder will fix all of this eventually... But I can't imagine a fix that allows easy backwards compatibility.
Now, you could say that a DM should make sure that his players get the gear they need. But that puts too much faith in the DM for many of us to be comfortable with. And that is where the resistance really stems from.
Sure there are a few DMs who are great at tailoring their parties treasure to the game world, and keeping the fighting challenges from overwhelming the party if the treasure level is lower than what the system expects.
But they aren't everywhere.
And expecting all DMs to be that level isn't really fair to all the players out there.
A mechanical system for high level item acquisition is nearly mandatory. And once it is mechanicalised, it takes it out of the realm that Frank Trollman wants - I think. I mean if I grasp what he is looking for now.
That's a good point, I didn't think of that issue. That would be problematic if it was codified into the system.
There's just something that rubs me the wrong way about picturing wizards using something like Wish as the basis for an economy. It'd be nice if I could better describe why exactly I don't like the idea, because that might give me better ground to propose an alternative. But as it is, all I can say is I don't, and I'm not exactly sure why. I guess it's like it takes a little bit of the wonder out of magic, to reduce it to something so small. It doesn't feel...escapist enough, I suppose. It's not fantastic enough, which is funny considering I'm talking about mages regularly magicking up enchanted equipment out of nothing at all; hard to get more fantastic than that, and yet it still feels cold.
I do still acknowledge that yes, as is this issue still exists at high levels. But unfortunately even though I don't like Frank's solution and don't really want to play with it on either side of the screen, I can't think of a better answer either.
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"You konw what we do to Arsonists in this Farming District?"
Bob the Farmer hoisted a bit of rope he had worked into a noose."It was Thuringian Firehounds I tell you! Thuringian Firehounds!"
QUESTION 1
a. FIRKIN OF SALT (WEIGHT: 200lb, VALUE: 1000gp)
B. FIRKIN OF SILVER COINS(WEIGHT: 500lb, VALUE: 2500gp)WHich Barrel does your King use for Taxes?
Salt, it was good enough for the Roman Legions of yore.