Item Dependency and the Pathfinder RPG

[ragnaroek]

I don't know if this came up before (if so: tell me where and ignore my post), but my concern is the following:

Normally (in d20/D&D3.X) it is assumed that the PCs "earn" a certain amount of XP and Gold/Items per enconter and this "Power by Equipment" is assumed in the CRs of the game.

In Pathfinder (even using the fastest progression) you need more Encounters to reach a new level and thus these characters will be better equipped than their d20-counterparts of an equal level (at level 20 (fast progression) we are talking about ten times the "normal" gold an adventurer would have) and suddenly I can't see the CRs of older material work with Pathfinder at all. I have actually no clue how Pathfinder-CRs could work for the diffrent Progressions (at level 20 a "slow" group will have twice the treasure a fast group would have)).

Genreally downsizing the treasure per Encounter will not work very good, because in opposite to a pile of gold, you can't split a +1 Weapon. Also giving less "consumables" (such as healing potions) or less gold to buy/create them, will make encounters more dangerous than before: If normally the adventurers would be able to use one healing potion per encounter, and suddenly their "income" drops by half, the healing potion has to be good enough for two encounters...

I could see a new variant of the 5-minute-work day at the horizon (one encounter and after this: Let's heal! We can't afford to buy a new Healing Potion/Fireball Scroll/...).

Anybody else sees this Problem?
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BTW: My english is not very good. If you have problems understanding me, just ask.

[ragnaroek]

ragnaroek wrote:

In Pathfinder (even using the fastest progression) you need more Encounters to reach a new level and thus these characters will be better equipped than their d20-counterparts of an equal level (at level 20 (fast progression) we are talking about ten times the "normal" gold an adventurer would have) and suddenly I can't see the CRs of older material work with Pathfinder at all. I have actually no clue how Pathfinder-CRs could work for the diffrent Progressions (at level 20 a "slow" group will have twice the treasure a fast group would have)).

Error on my side: Given the new XP-rules, the "fast" group has accumulated about the same treasure, the slow group abut twice the treasure. The difference between fast & slow is not as big but the Problem is still there.

[Spiritwalker]

Perhaps this could be solved with a "parcel" based reward system. Based on the progression speed the DM chooses determinins the amount of loots the players gain over the course of the campaign. Just remember as the DM the monster should probably be using that +1 sword to fight the PCs

[Squirrelloid]

As wealth by level guidelines get broken trivially in *core* 3.5, problems with wealth by level will have to be addressed by the DM.

My advice? Implement a cap on the value of goods that can be purchased with actual gold (15k has been suggested by some people elsewhere, for various reasons). Have rare currencies that people actually care about and will trade for real magic items. Let the players have all the +1 swords and piles of gold they want. Problem solved. Arbitrary temporal wealth, non-arbitrary magical wealth.

(This basic concept was originally laid out by Frank + K in their Tome series, in part because of various broken aspects of D+D economics, and in part because we really do want dragons to have piles of gold big enough they can sleep on it).