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The 900 gp makes a difference at low levels. But at higher levels it's much worse than many other options.
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Rich Parents is fine, just gives them a masterwork weapon or a mount in most cases. Once the group reaches 3rd level it basically becomes the worst trait in the game.
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It's actually one of the weaker traits.
It's exciting early, but quickly becomes meaningless, other than for flavor.
About the only qualifier on this is if you're doing 'slow' advancement and it takes forever to level up... or coin is REALLY hard to come by for your adventurers. Then it may have a disproportionate impact in relation to it's 'pull' weight.
I have it on a home campaign character for story reasons, and the GM has pretty much said 'you get the candy first...'
All it's really good for at low levels is to grab a few extra potions, though the skill potions are quite good at those levels for rogues.
Agree completely with what others have said. The entire advantage of this trait disappears by 2nd level, and if it hasn't, honestly it probably means you aren't giving out enough treasure.
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It's actually one of the weaker traits.
It's exciting early, but quickly becomes meaningless, other than for flavor.
About the only qualifier on this is if you're doing 'slow' advancement and it takes forever to level up... or coin is REALLY hard to come by for your adventurers. Then it may have a disproportionate impact in relation to it's 'pull' weight.
I have it on a home campaign character for story reasons, and the GM has pretty much said 'you get the candy first...'
Even then, it's much more beneficial toward martial PCs, who depend on gear, and such games truly show the martial/caster disparity, so it helps put a teeny tiny push towards balance.
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Rich Parents is not a good trait. "It's a trap!"
900 gp to start is nice, but quickly gets eclipsed in a normal gold campaign. All it really does is start the PC with first level NPC gold.
Once a couple of levels pass by, the extra 750 gp becomes statistically meaningless.
Compare that with one of the traits that gives +1 to a saving throw. Take one to bolster your worst save, like Will for a Martial, and the benefit is noticeable both immediately, and throughout the game.
And then there are the ones which get better as you level, like Fate's Favored, which doubles any Luck bonus. Initially, not a big deal, but as your PCs level, they can get access to spells and items that give luck bonuses. Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier, Luck Stone, Halfling's Luck, etc.
Overall, Rich Parents gives a slightly better beginning AC or chance to hit, but it quickly gets hidden by normal gold and items gotten. Or allows an archer build to actually start with their weapon....
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Rich Parents is not a good trait. "It's a trap!"
900 gp to start is nice, but quickly gets eclipsed in a normal gold campaign. All it really does is start the PC with first level NPC gold.
Once a couple of levels pass by, the extra 750 gp becomes statistically meaningless.
Compare that with one of the traits that gives +1 to a saving throw. Take one to bolster your worst save, like Will for a Martial, and the benefit is noticeable both immediately, and throughout the game.
And then there are the ones which get better as you level, like Fate's Favored, which doubles any Luck bonus. Initially, not a big deal, but as your PCs level, they can get access to spells and items that give luck bonuses. Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier, Luck Stone, Halfling's Luck, etc.
Overall, Rich Parents gives a slightly better beginning AC or chance to hit, but it quickly gets hidden by normal gold and items gotten. Or allows an archer build to actually start with their weapon....
Agree with what you say...but just a correction on Fate's Favored. It increases Luck bonuses by "1", not doubling them.
Even better than Rich Parents is another trait that increases starting cash "by" 900 gp. I cannot remember the name, but it requires you to be from Tian Xia .Though it is stackable with Rich Parents, if I remember right, so you can start with 1800 gp. Still not OP as the advantage of all that starting cash will slowly diminish over the levels.
Contributor
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Rich Parents is not a good trait. "It's a trap!"
900 gp to start is nice, but quickly gets eclipsed in a normal gold campaign. All it really does is start the PC with first level NPC gold.
Once a couple of levels pass by, the extra 750 gp becomes statistically meaningless.
Compare that with one of the traits that gives +1 to a saving throw. Take one to bolster your worst save, like Will for a Martial, and the benefit is noticeable both immediately, and throughout the game.
And then there are the ones which get better as you level, like Fate's Favored, which doubles any Luck bonus. Initially, not a big deal, but as your PCs level, they can get access to spells and items that give luck bonuses. Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier, Luck Stone, Halfling's Luck, etc.
Overall, Rich Parents gives a slightly better beginning AC or chance to hit, but it quickly gets hidden by normal gold and items gotten. Or allows an archer build to actually start with their weapon....
Agree with what you say...but just a correction on Fate's Favored. It increases Luck bonuses by "1", not doubling them.
Even better than Rich Parents is another trait that increases starting cash "by" 900 gp. I cannot remember the name, but it requires you to be from Tian Xia. Though it is stackable with Rich Parents, if I remember right, so you can start with 1800 gp. Still not OP as the advantage of all that starting cash will slowly diminish over the levels.
Chosen Child; regional trait for Po Li.
One thing you'll notice is that in Pathfinder, you're pretty much expected to throw massive amounts of loot the players' way. The APs are going to have quite a bit of magic items floating around on the NPCs. We had a joke running the Skulls and Shackles that there must be some factory mass producing +1 chain shirts because they were on every ship's officer.
I actually would suggest you telling them not to take it. It is almost worthless. The only time I would suggest it as viable was if you were doing a campaign for levels 1-6 only. That trait is completely useless frankly.
I wouldn't worry about it. I wouldn't dissuade the player from taking it either. Most traits offer a nice little bonus, this one is no different.
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Rich parents can sometimes break the game at low levels, but only if the player is intent on doing so.
You could technically buy a combat trained Tiger for 500gp (CR 4). If the player can make a DC 10 (12 if injured) handle animal check then you've got a pouncing death-machine on your hands that will trivialise levels 1-4.
But in general I agree with the consensus - it's a short-term gain for a long-term loss. Compared to something like Fate's Favored or Armor Expert it's weak.
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Rich parents can sometimes break the game at low levels, but only if the player is intent on doing so.
You could technically buy a combat trained Tiger for 500gp (CR 4). If the player can make a DC 10 (12 if injured) handle animal check then you've got a pouncing death-machine on your hands that will trivialise levels 1-4.
But in general I agree with the consensus - it's a short-term gain for a long-term loss. Compared to something like Fate's Favored or Armor Expert it's weak.
Heh. +3 Will save means it isn't much safer than a fighter. Not to mention opposed Handle Animal checks, unless it is given the Exclusive trick...
Much better traits are the ones that either give a boost to a save, or make a non-class skill a class skill with a +1 bonus, or give a bonus to something important, like Focused Concentration, which gives a +2 bonus to Concentration checks. Or, like Two-World Magic, give you a non-class spell on your class spell list. I run a Sorcerer who added Guidance, as just another cantrip to his list, and a Cleric with Ray of Frost as an orison, for use against non-Undead.
Rich parents can sometimes break the game at low levels, but only if the player is intent on doing so.
You could technically buy a combat trained Tiger for 500gp (CR 4). If the player can make a DC 10 (12 if injured) handle animal check then you've got a pouncing death-machine on your hands that will trivialise levels 1-4.
But in general I agree with the consensus - it's a short-term gain for a long-term loss. Compared to something like Fate's Favored or Armor Expert it's weak.
Of course, the kombat kat nonsense can be done with level 2 WBL by every single member of the party. Maybe even level 1 if the party pools their funds. Rich parents just makes it a little easier to do.
Masterwork items don't really do a heck of a lot... +1 to hit, whoop de do.
Or +2 to a specific skill check...
Unless they are spending the money on combat animals, I wouldn't worry about it.
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Rich Parents is really useful for surviving level 1 and 2. It lets you buy a cure light wounds wand.
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Rich Parents is really useful for surviving level 1 and 2. It lets you buy a cure light wounds wand.
Vial of Efficacious Medicine + crate of Salt tablets. For each 1sp tablet you heal 1d8+5 (up to 3/day). 710gp gives you 100 1d8+5 healings. Well worth the trait and out of combat healing never hurts.
Even trap options can be optimized.
Rich parents is only really troublesome if the player in question buys a pair of combat-trained pet tigers with it (500gp and CR 4 each), and then retrains out the trait at a later level for a different trait when the tigers are killed off or otherwise not as useful (or worse, immedietely so he benefits from another trait AND the tigers). THAT's when you have an optimizer. Staying really strong at ALL levels.
EDIT: You could also afford a riding Pteranodon (750gp, CR 3) and snipe low level foes from on high. Alternatively, you can afford a riding dire bat for every member of the party (300gp and CR 2 each) so they can join in on the fun as well. How about a Megaloceros (800gp, CR 4) to trample all of those pesky goblin encounters into the earth? A quartet of combat-trained lions (300gp and CR 3 each) or a combat-trained dire lion (1,000gp, CR 5) would easily instill terror in pretty much everybody for quite a few levels to come.
The true terror, however, is a heard of 13 combat trained bison (75gp and CR 4 each) that could collectively deal 26d6+156 damage with their stampede as early as level 1.
And you're worried he might get a +1 to hit and -1 Armor check penalty from masterwork gear? lol. You got off lucky.
(The above assumes ~1,000gp with which to purchase the animal(s), which is fairly likely with most characters possessing this trait.)
What we do is put most of that gold into party treasure. That treasure quickly builds up when there are things no one wants. This helps when we need a restoration spell or someone wants to upgrade that sword or something.
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Actually, technically you can.
You take the feat, "Additional traits" at first level, and then retain that. Which is both clever and more than a little underhanded.
However, Ravingdork, I am imagining the bison herder now as a character. "Be afraid, infidels! My mighty herd of bison is upon thee!" He calls for them. They don't come. He looks around. "Where did they go?"
The other PCs look embarrassed as they try to hide the sign for the new Bison Burgers business they just opened.
Hmm
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Masterwork gear at debut does not break the game, and once the group starts advancing, becomes a fond memory, which may eventually become regret. The early levels can be miserly and scant of shinies -this is that player's way of compensating for a need, and by choosing this trait lost out on an option they can take to endgame. That person chose, let them live with their choice.
900GP advantage should not be cause for a DM to fret. If he is a powergamer, and he has access to his girlfriend's sheet, this is the least you have to worry about. There are more powerful traits, and the harder ones to justify would be the regional traits, and even then, its for flavor.
Seeing as this is your first Pathfinder game, please do not read my comments as being patronizing... but there is a lot worse ahead of you. If/when you encounter archetypes (and some stack ^_^), your mind may blow with character options available to a player that do not involve multiclassing. I fell in love with alternate race traits. Example: Gnomes do not have to be niche anymore! Goodbye racial trait racism, hello options. Bless Paizo for the continuous stream of options they release. May splatbooks never die.
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Then he hasn't retrained traits, he has retrained a feat...nothing in his post made mention of having the trait via the feat.But when you retrain the feat, you have to get rid of two traits. Nothing says it has to be the two you earned with the feat.
In his post nothing about the feat is mentioned. He spoke directly of retraining traits...which is not possible.
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In his post nothing about the feat is mentioned.?
You take the feat, "Additional traits" at first level,That seems like a mention of the feat to me.
OilHorse is talking about RavingDork's post, which didn't mention retraining a feat just a trait, not Hmm's response explaining a way to legally do it.
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Okay, you're all doing this wrong, you borrow 100 GP from someone else and buy a waterclock, that's max optimization. How can anyone stop you when you've got a huge waterclock to tell you what time it is? Also the idea of retraining rich parents amuses me to no end.
"Elric, didn't you say you came from wealth? How full of riches you were when we first met?"
"Oh that? Yeah, I lied, my parents are now pig farmers, but this masterwork longsword looks great, right?"
I love the idea of the herd of battle bison... I wonder if any GM in the history of the game has ever allowed this?
Most I managed to pull off was a few trained dogs...
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Word of advice-
If your player decides to retrain the trait later, make sure they "pay back their family." Tell them it will cost 900 gold extra to change the feat out.
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Word of advice-
If your player decides to retrain the trait later, make sure they "pay back their family." Tell them it will cost 900 gold extra to change the feat out.
This I don't agree with.
I have Rich Parents on a PC, and have taken it before, I generally spend the money on party gear.
-Climbing kits, healing kits, potions of CLW, either totally buying or paying a large sum for a wand of CLW.
When reaching the end of book 1 Shattered Star and I wanted to get the free swap of traits, I got resistence. Not fair they said.
I pointed out that the trait has a finite existence of relevance and that by this time the 900 gp accounted for < 7% of mean 5th level PC wealth, and getting smaller all the time. Added to that fact was that I had bought all sorts of party gear, again mostly paying for a wand that helped the group survive.
The group relented because they saw that the 900 gp was minor, and that none of them wanted to pay back the money with me.
Word of advice-
If your player decides to retrain the trait later, make sure they "pay back their family." Tell them it will cost 900 gold extra to change the feat out.
This I don't agree with.
I have Rich Parents on a PC, and have taken it before, I generally spend the money on party gear.
-Climbing kits, healing kits, potions of CLW, either totally buying or paying a large sum for a wand of CLW.
When reaching the end of book 1 Shattered Star and I wanted to get the free swap of traits, I got resistence. Not fair they said.
I pointed out that the trait has a finite existence of relevance and that by this time the 900 gp accounted for < 7% of mean 5th level PC wealth, and getting smaller all the time. Added to that fact was that I had bought all sorts of party gear, again mostly paying for a wand that helped the group survive.
The group relented because they saw that the 900 gp was minor, and that none of them wanted to pay back the money with me.
So you talked your group into letting you have a free 900 gold, with no long-term ramifications, at the levels when extra gold is scarce?
Good for you, I guess.
The fact that by the time you wanted to retrain it, 900 gp was only 7% of your expected wealth is just proof that you can afford to pay it off at that point.
The amusing part of beginning play with nasty combat-trained animals is the most important: feeding them. 13 bison eat a whole lot of animal feed... I'm not so sure I want to take care of feeding a Large or Huge carnivore at 1st level. That gets expensive real fast.