Due to having a gaming group that unexpectedly lost some players (and some other weird stuff that is a bit complicated to explain), I've ended up GMing for 2 players who control 6 PCs between them. On top of this, one of the PCs is a druid (hello animal companion!) and another took the leadership feat. Fortunately, neither of those PCs are played by the same person, and furthermore, they only ever use 4 PCs at a time for any given adventure (we joke that the others are "back on the airship with Setzer"). To make things easier and to keep the "odd men out" PCs relevant, we just agreed that all of the characters would level up together - so far, that's worked pretty ok.
We had a big, BIG conversation about character wealth last time, and some complications arose. One of the biggies is that we're using the Kingmaker Kingdom rules in a homebrew setting, and the PCs (now 9th level) spent almost a full year of downtime making their various cities (they have four) into economic powerhouses. The upshot of this is that they have the ability to pull lots of money out of the kingdom's economy for personal use, and this troubles me because of the vast amount of resources that they can gain so easily this way. I started designing special "events" that would force the kingdom to expend significant resources to try and keep things in balance, but the game got derailed for a couple of hours last session when one player complained vociferously about how unfair he thought that was. We came to a kind of agreement, but I'm not 100% convinced that this issue isn't going to rear its head again. So for those of you who have dealt with Kingmaker - am I off base here, or do I need to have these kinds of things in place to prevent runaway economies?
The other issue is what is perceived to be a lack of "sufficient character wealth." One player has frequently complained about this (and his mate has occasionally echoed him), often using the "we're dividing the loot amongst 6 characters" argument. While this seems to make mathematical sense, my gut tells me that giving them 6 PCs worth of loot is a bad idea, especially since they ever only use 4 PCs at a time. Now we're at a point where one player wants to "retire" a PC and bring in a new one, and is asking how he's going to handle character wealth. I'm not really sure what to say, since my players seem absolutely convinced that they are well below "appropriate character wealth"(see my objections below).
Maybe some wiser folks can offer me some insight on this? I want to just say "make your character using those guidelines," but I'm afraid that's going to be used as a pretext for saying "that's not fair, the other PCs don't have as much stuff" and having to pretty much let the PCs re-equip themselves at level 9. That's a big headache that will drastically skew the power curve, I think (especially since the party does not seem to have any problems dealing with EL appropriate encounters). So what should my answer to this player be?
Do they not have enough "stuff?"
My PCs say that they have well under the "character wealth by level" guidelines in magic items and goods right now. While I have been slightly conservative on treasure, I think they're getting the numbers wrong for a couple of reasons:
1) Inaccurate book-keeping. My players often forget to add loot to the big "party treasure" list (one player last session that everything they had gained from the previous adventure was listed on his master list, and I immediately found two items that he had left off) so I think they may well have lost some valuables along the way just to bad notes.
2) Lavish roleplaying/kingmaker spending. At one point, the PCs sacrificed a large number of magic items to raise funds to equip an army. At other times, they've spent a great deal of money on roleplaying concepts (one character in particular is a "high roller," and dropped 5,000 gp on a townhouse).
3) Expendable items. The PCs rely very heavily on wands of cure light wounds to keep them going - they burned through 4, I think, between levels 7 and 8. They've also used a lot of other consumables like potions and scrolls.
4) Special magic items/bonuses. I've given the players a number of "special" items that I personally devised for the campaign that don't have immediately clear gp values. I also introduced an event that gave them an opportunity to gain some permanent special abilities (like darkvision, natural attacks, even, in one case, a random +1 stat increase etc.) that they took advantage of.
5) Plain ol' bad math. I noticed that at least one of them was forgetting to add things like backup weapons (and masterwork costs) when estimating his total character wealth. Since the PCs recently dropped a lot of money on cold iron/silver weapons to fight against foes with DR, this makes a big difference.
On "wealth by level" and "party size":
Realise that the wealth by level guidelines and CR guidelines are designed with the idea that party size will be 4~ players -- you are exactly one higher. So being close if not on the money on Wealth by level wouldn't be a bad thing -- just make sure to include an addition "whatever" in every encounter *or* add another 2 levels(ish) to your big baddie (though with a party of 6 I really suggest 2 (at least) big baddies instead of 1. Indeed 3 *not quite so big* baddies could be a bigger challenge than one *really big* baddie).
On the "Enough Stuff" side of things:
1. Realise that wealth expended is gone -- it doesn't matter how it went it is gone. As such it no longer counts against them (afterall if they don't have it then it doesn't help them -- and wealth by level is based on equipment that helps them while adventuring).
2. See number 1.
3. Again see number 1.
4. Most of these sorts of things can easily be assigned a GP value -- if your players are going to track their WBL you need to let them know the honest GP value of these abilities -- by honest I mean "Is this of real actual value?" A natural attack has value for a barbarian -- not so much for a monk though -- darkvision is nice -- except for the fact that several races already have it and it isn't really needed.
5. This point can make a huge difference. I would suggest they might want to redo their item sheets and see what they've forgotten they have -- I try to keep a list every level of stuff I have and make sure that I use it -- If I don't use it inside of 2(ish) levels I get rid of it -- no point keeping something that isn't of use.
On the need of events to reduce wealth: Not really needed -- give them fluff reasons instead to spend the wealth on the community -- the townsfolk start asking for a new school, the tax collector wants some guard houses on his route to help him stay safe, the nobles are wanting a new fancy ballroom in the palace to show off how well the kingdom is doing.
Also if the PCs start pulling all sorts of wealth out of the kingdom people (i.e. the townsfolk) are going to get mad and unrest will rise. Which has its own problems -- the other rulers of the land will want their part of what is being pulled out (after all they helped make it happen) which means what gets pulled out either needs split amongs all the leaders or the other leaders start thinking about having a revolt or assassination.
Finally even if the kingdom does become an economy powerhouse remember -- this is one more thing the players have to worry about -- beyond the leveling, and keeping alignment, staying alive, slaying the baddies, etc you've also given them control of a kingdom that they've managed to succeed on. To hit them on something that they've done well because they've done well is kind of a jerk thing to do "Oh look I gave you a kingdom and you did well with it so now I got to knock it down" just looks bad.
I would however suggest looking to book 5 for some answers on how to get them to expend wealth.
|
Rather than creating disasters and such to drain kingdom funds, give the players opportunities to invest for the future. A wizards guild has agreed to move into the kingdom, but only if vary lavish facilities are constructed at the kingdom's expense.
An inventor offers to develop a revolutionary widget, but ony after and expensive and lengthy development process.
A nearby city in horrible economic shape sende and embassy to negotiate becoming part of the kingdom, but will cost great amounts of funds to develop to when the city contribute rather than drains the kingdom's resources.
Or, just give opportunities for the charactors to divert funds for ego boosting projects such as vast dams, city parks, zoos, statues to the great ones(pcs) ect.
and if the party still goes past suggested charactor wealth, then only the more resourcefull(rich) opponents are actually going to fight them...
just my thoughts from work.
1. When the PC's are "on the ship" (the extras, I mean) they are esentially NPC's. If they are leveling up then they are doing things, and they should be gaining /their own loot/. That loot is controlled by -you-.
If Bob the Player wants to swap out Character A for B, then look at character B, gear him according to the wealth guidelines (using the character concept as a guide) then give the NPC back to the player.
NPC B now becomes Character B, and Character A now becomes NPC A.
Do. Not. Let. them swap the items around.
2. You need to audit the PC's. You need to sit down and audit every copper they have on them and find out exactly how much cash they have.
They don't have to be "WBL" exact but you need to know if they are lower or higher so you can either adjust incoming wealth or adjust the encounters.
How much wealth they get is up to you and not them. PC's don't get a vote. You do need to be aware of the mechanical consequences though whether they are higher or lower. (i.e. if they are alot lower, you need to start adjusting CR's and such)
At no point should 4 PC's get 6 PC's worth of gear though. ALl that will happen then is the 4 will cherry pick the best and leave the crap for the 2 guys who aren't there- then when they swap PC's they'll swap gear too..
total metagaming.
4 guys = 4 loot. the 2 "on the ship" don't count. (just like they don't count for the encounter strength).
-S
I hate Wealth by level. It's too restrictive if players expect that to followed. Luckily my group that. I much prefer making sure my players get the magic they need when appropriate and allow gold to be spent on things like lavish life styles, buying things like property, bribing officials, and that sort of stuff. If you go strict wealth by level the players get miserly and hoard money saving up for the best item MAGICMART can supply.