Alright, so this is for a homebrew thing I am working on, and I would just like to get any feedback at all. It's rather a strange question, but here goes:
Let's say you had one of the classic 3/4 BAB 6-level caster classes, i.e. alchemist, bard, occultist, inquisitor, etc..
Roughly speaking, if you could trade out the spellcasting for a steadily increasing amount of extra gold at each new class level, roughly how much gold do you think you would need to be offered (levels 1-20) in order for the trade to feel attractive, but neither clearly OP nor worse when compared to the lost casting? I realize the answer will differ based on which class is being considered, and classes more heavily focused on casting will by definition feel they need a lot more gold in order for the trade to be worth it. To make things easier, perhaps don't consider classes like magus where a lot of the class' other class features would become useless if magic was taken away. Bard, inquisitor or alchemist would probably be the ideal candidates to consider.
Anyway, I realize this is quite an odd thing to ask about, but I'd really appreciate any sort of response.
Cheers,
- Gears
Pages of spell knowledge might be a good place to start. I'd imagine it's more money than you were thinking though. If you feel that's not enough you could also throw in the price for Pearls of Power. Those are the closest items to spell casting that I can think of.
The pages represent the spells known table and pearls of power represent spells per day. I suppose it's also important to note that it doesn't really cover the versatility of prepared casters, but I'd imagine there's no absolutely perfect way to price out something like this.
Oh! I hadn't actually thought of checking up on those two kinds of items. That definitely seems worth investigating. Very much obliged, Mortigenous! :)
Aside from that, though, if it seems pretty obvious (as you seem to indicate) that just adding up all the gold it would cost to "buy" the spells known/per day for each class level would result in granting way too much gold, I'd still be very much interested in hearing other takes on reasonable amounts.
Cheers,
- Gears
That is a strange question, and it needs more context.
In this homebrew, do wizards still exist? If so, then those wizards are running around with spells that can break the game world. The Six-Level casters can't quite break the game world as much, but they still can, somewhat. What is the gold value for Somewhat-Break-the-World?
On the other hand, if this homebrew is getting rid of ALL casters and the idea is to strip the partial casters down to martial levels of power, then what you really need to do is ask yourself how much cash would let this (e.g.) bard fight and/or survive just as well as a fighter (how many magic items would that take at specific level X?), and then set the bonus cash to that level of compensation.
This would take much thought and effort, and the answer would likely be different for each partial caster.
Hm. It'd need to increase exponentially per level for starters. And much would depend on the speed of leveling. I honestly wouldn't know how to put a number on it.
Hm. It'd need to increase exponentially per level for starters. And much would depend on the speed of leveling. I honestly wouldn't know how to put a number on it.
It would also depend on the availability of items to spend the money on. 100,000 gold isn't worth much if you can only buy masterwork equipment.
The context for this is I am basically working on a homebrew class that gets a cash-based class feature that is intended to take up roughly about as much "design space" as 6 spell levels. So this is not for some massive sweeping houserule where I'm replacing magic with money across the board or anything like that.
I do agree it's a very hard question to answer, hence why I am beseeching all you wise forum folks for aid. I also realize the answer will be different for each partial caster, but I daresay the numbers would be somewhat similar. Using an alchemist or bard as the baseline strikes me as fine, though.
I definitely agree the cash would need to increase exponentially. My current idea is going off a fraction of standardized WBL. Increasing WBL by 50% seems like way too much money, even if most of it is towards the end of your career. On the other hand, increasing it by a quarter seems a bit cheap. I'm currently considering roughtly 1/3 of standard WBL. Which would leave a character with somewhere between 200-300,000 gp in excess of standard WBL at 20th level.
EDIT: I suppose I could add that this would assume a standard high fantasy setting like Golarion. It's not something I'm creating for a specific campaign setting, but rather a generic "rich guy" class.
This actually reminds me of noble from Star Wars: Saga Edition. Money was a bit different, but with one talent in that class you could afford a decent ship at level 5 easily. You could afford a poor ship at level 3. That talent gave you 5,000*noble level in credits every level, but credits have a different value than gold.
I would suggest on deciding on what you want them to be able to buy, and when. That may help you decide how much extra to give them.
One problem with this type of class ability though, is that a lot of GMs will try to mitigate it by giving out less wealth than they would, or by jacking up the prices of everything.
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The difficulty is in your wanting to equate the gold to the value of the spell slots. That is going to be really hard to do, because there's so many things that factor into the value of those slots. For example, if you're on a slow experience track instead of a fast experience track, you're going to have more encounters per level, which means the value of those refreshing spell slots is actually going to be greater in relation to the value of the consumables you could be purchasing with that wealth.
I think the smarter way to look at it is, instead of giving X amount of gold, look at the actual purpose of that gold - purchasing gear and consumables, paying bribes, paying for conveniences, etc. Now, take those conveniences and turn them into class features.
For example, give the class three resource pools, maybe Amenities (food, lodging, bribes, non-magical equipment), Charges (magical consumables, including single use wondrous items, potions, scrolls, etc.) and Contrivances (wands, magical equipment, etc.), or something along those lines. Then, set those up on different recharge tables, with Amenities maybe having daily uses, Contrivances having monthly or per level uses, and Charges having weekly uses. Use the Wealth By Level table to equate the maximum value of these charges (for example, an Amenity should probably be worth around 1-5% of WBL, a Charge should be 5-10%, and a Contrivance could be 10-15, maybe 20%).
If you do that, you achieve the effect you're going for of having a character who is rewarded in wealth, but without having to create multiple tables that account for things like experience tracks or struggle with in-game variables like the accessibility of magic marts.
Thanks for all the insightful replies, guys.
I do already have a system in play for how the wealth these guys gain functions. It's not as elaborate as Sslarn's suggestions (the class has reasons for being at least somewhat streamlined, design-wise), but I think it's going to work out nicely. Basically at the core of it the class only receives a chunk of raw wealth at each level, but they can then select "talents" allowing them to do fun things with said cash other than just buy things (although it can obviously be used for that too). Right now I am mostly just trying to figure out some reasonable ballpark figure of wealth at each level. Roughly 1/3 of standard WBL does seem to be working out quite smoothly, as noted, although as the class develops and I start playtesting it, we shall see.
Anyway! Thanks again for all the responses. Much appreciated! :)
Cheers,
- Gears