Modifying Game Economics

[Mrakvampire]

Hello All!

I'm not 100% happy with current game economy system, specifically with a fact that PCs wealth grows really exponentially to non-realistic amounts and very early in their careers they become ultra-rich people, and sometimes it is not good for story.

I'm trying to figure out an easy and fast solution to this.
This is what came to my mind - what will happen to WBL, if all magic item prices will be reduced by 50%, but any item must be sold only for 33% of it's price?

So we can easily cut treasure per encounter by same amount (50%) and...
What potential issues do you see here?

[Azothath]

review the table on wealth by level.
Things are tied together by level at; level, wealth, ability scores, class gained feats, hit die. Notice that several are not linear.

[Mrakvampire]

Azothath wrote:

review the table on wealth by level.

Things are tied together by level at; level, wealth, ability scores, class gained feats, hit die. Notice that several are not linear.

Of course I know this.

I'm not sure that I understood the intent of you comment correctly.

[Vidmaster7]

If you cut everything but mundane gears price in half I see no side effects other then the obvious of bringing magic item cost close to mundane item cost.

[Mrakvampire]

Vidmaster7 wrote:

If you cut everything but mundane gears price in half I see no side effects other then the obvious of bringing magic item cost close to mundane item cost.

I'm a bit worried - will it impact game balance too seriously or destabilize WBL? Have anybody ever done something similar in their games?

[Vidmaster7]

As long as you reduce everything but mundanes items cost by half I can't imagine it having any other effect then making mundane items seem more expensive. you could probably alternatively double the price of mundane gear and get almost the same effect. but you would probably have to increase starting gold so they could afford starting gear.

[Lathiira]

If you cut magic item prices by 50%, they'll be easier to buy and make (as market price factors into the production costs of magic items). You can make that +5 heavy fortification full plate in half the time you used to need to finish the job. If the price you get is cut to 33%, well, so what? I used to need just over 100K to buy that full plate, now I need 50K. Instead of selling for 50K, I get 33.3 K. If I want to get another suite of abilities (heavy fortification isn't doing it for me), I have 33.3K...but since you cut the price by 50% I now need to spend 25K to make my armor. Used to be I'd get 50K in resale, spend that much to make the new armor, end up right where I started give or take. Now...I just made a profit, as I spend 25K to make my new +5 armor with +5 abilities, have 33.3K, so I keep 8.3K.

I am of course being somewhat silly and this is assuming I understand you rightly that you want to cut the market price of items.

[Azothath]

cutting the price of mundane and magical items, treasure, etc is fine as long as it is across the board (deflation). If you just cut prices, not treasure, then you are increasing the purchase power of PCs. This in turn deflates the value of spellcasting services or spellcasting PCs as their product price is halved and magic items are more accessible.

I've always felt that book price is the standard price and business/haggling skills and charisma should cause actual purchase price to vary. This should also work with selling items. There is always a bit of luck involved.

In small business most products have a 50% to 250% markup, usually around 100%, so they purchase at 67 to 40% or 50% of sales price. Short shelf life items tend to have higher profit margins as some of the product will be unsalable. Specialty items like perfume, beauty products, etc have 200%+ markup. High labor products (like restaurants) food costs run 20 to 40% of the final bill.
So selling new/pristine condition items at 50% is reasonable. Selling used items at 50% purchase price is a very good deal. Selling at consignment, through a broker, or by yourself will likely get you more. Auctioning items is a random affair.

Is there a supplement that covers haggling, bartering, and trade?
PF puts it under Appraise, see Bargaining.
haggling thread
Old 3.5 CAdv: used a Diplomacy check to adjust vendor attitude to helpful, they'll reduce the price for an item or service they're selling (including magical items) by 10%.

lastly, some people convert to a silver standard. This also means you'll have to introduce a currency below a copper. I've used "iron" pieces. Honestly I have a long list of various coinage and formulae. Most "copper" pieces are bronze or brass.
Various rules like Crafting will have to be addressed.

[Ciaran Barnes]

I think that after a certain point, a characters wealth should consists of magic items he or she has acquired by adventuring - not just coins and gems that can be used to buy specific gear. The compromise between "spend money to personalize your character" and "use the magic items that the GM handed out" is that a GM can find out what kind of magic items the charcters would like to have. As a player, I love customizing my character, but I also think a charcater should evolve during its career. It seems unnecessarily stringent to think that at 12th level I must have the equipment I decided on at 1st level in order for my character to work.

[Parka]

It isn't simple, but I remember a suggestion that any magic item valued above a certain point requires extra-special magical materials to be made, and simply can't be bought with ordinary money. The exact stuff varied by item and honestly wasn't that important mechanics-wise; it was just so that the best goods weren't in mortal markets that ran on gold.

When you do this, large sums of money simply won't buy the players level-appropriate gear, and they know it. You don't feel pressured to drip-feed them gold, and they stop wasting time stripping grungy hobgoblin helmets and going through every pocket.

Theoretically, they could become rich by selling one of these valuable items, but all bets are off when it comes to how much the ordinary market will give you. Many merchants know they'd have to work hard to find a special buyer to get the "full" value of the item, so they won't offer much. The players would likely need to go on a quest of their own to find someone who can offer you something approaching normal value (plus consideration for the extra-special materials).

Since you are their only source of level-appropriate gear, though, you do need to start considering where they might get it, or adjusting encounters because they haven't found it. You don't need to directly award the +4 Oddly Specific Sword of Conspicuousness, but you would have to make sure they know they can look for this sort of thing or get them specially made if they're having a hard time.

The benefits? - Players stop looking to money to get magic items, and instead listen to hints of them in the world.

The drawbacks? - You need to pay more attention to what gear they need, and things that destroy gear at high levels become disproportionately hurtful

[Azothath]

I've adventured in let us say low resource games where you had to craft everything in AD&D and 3.0/3.5. Yes, everything. That included arrows, pots and pans, clothes, and resting spots. Some things were found and usually tweaked using the repair rules. It was interesting and somewhat of a pain in the butt. lol... Several times we had to trade at a disadvantage to get what we wanted, but you cannot eat gems. *sigh* It also cost experience under 3.5 to craft things so the wizard was perpetually behind the average.

[Cyrad]

A simple solution is just increase the base wealth of commonfolk and raise the value of non-masterwork mundane goods. I advise this since this is a world building problem than a game mechanics problem. No need to change game mechanics or force you to do additional math when handing out treasure.

[Daw]

Remember that the whole WBL concept assumes a module based power level, and a less than completely competent GM. Recognize that tossing the economy just means that you will just need to pay more attention to balancing your encounters. I always used to use Chivalry and Sorcery economics back in the day.

[Azothath]

one thing that helps the process is that in Pathfinder gold and experience are not linked via magic item crafting (as they were in 3.5). That left Wealth By Levels (which is why I referenced that chart in my first post) which is really a "how much stuff" per level via price. It's close. Once economic adjustments are done you can check a few sets of inventory to ensure that things stayed about the same per level.

Crafting ties into the economic system at low level for most PCs. Later most crafting is done by buying the masterwork item from an NPC. The crafting times are short of realistic but it is a game and people don't want to wait a year for a black lacquer box or samurai sword. Still crafting is in silver pieces of value and that will have to flow with the change.

hmmm... hopefully there isn't an income stream that was left out.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Change the name/fluff of the currency used to buy magic items to something that doesn't break your head economy. You don't have to change any of the numbers, just what they're called and their in-world justification. An example might be "reputation": the number represents your social influence to get various organizations to give your their holy artifacts.

You could also use the rule from Automatic Bonus Progression that grants the bonuses as if characters were 2 levels higher so that you don't have to hand out magic items (or massive amounts of cash, by implication).

[SmiloDan]

Give out XP, mundane gp, and "WBL GP."

Basically, when PCs level up, they get equipment equal to their Wealth By Level expectation. Each level, they can update and/or swap out their magical equipment. PCs cannot sell their WBL equipment.

In addition, they earn regular money through adventuring. This is the money they use to buy mundane equipment, food and drink, hire hirelings, pay cab fair, get room and board, build businesses and castles, etc.

This means you can make a barbarian with a +5 sword--and a desperate need for jink! He can't sell his magic sword (well, maybe for 10 gp NOT 50000 gp!), so he needs to take that dangerous job where he has to sneak into a temple and steal the ruby eyes of its idol.

You might have work out the math (like give out 90% of WBL for free and let the PCs earn the remainder 10% through adventuring).

This will also help set up heirloom magic items that "grow" with the characters, etc.

[Daw]

Would it be simpler to just set the base unit of currency to the silver piece?

[rainzax]

Use Automatic Bonus Progression - this allows you to halve WBL without penalizing them.

Then use a Prestige Point system which includes a (homebaked) way to get big discounts on gear.

This mitigates but doesn't eliminate the problem, however.