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Hello community,
I am considering having magic potions cost a like amount of Silver pieces than Gold pieces.
This means a 1st-level potion will cost 5gp, a 2nd-level potion will cost 30-40gp, and a 3rd-level potion will cost 75-105gp. (Compared to 50gp/300-400gp/750-1050gp normally)
My reasoning would be to give my PCs a cheaper alternative to wands with the (maintained) drawback of increased encumbrance and action economy (move action to retrieve, standard action to drink).
Aside from making potions something my PCs will actually buy and carry, are there any unintended consequences that ought to cause me to shelve this proposal?
Best.
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I think that might be quite too cheap.
My friend and I use a houserule where we remove wands from the game, but make potions have the same price as a single wand charge. This has several beneficial effects, including:
1) Potions become the staple consumable item without making scrolls obsolete (since scrolls can have spells that potions can't). This more closely follows fantasy setting tropes.
2) It's no longer trivial to stockpile an insane amount of healing in just your backpocket.
3) Each character becomes responsible for managing their healing item inventory rather than leaving that responsibility to solely the guy who has cure spells on their spell list.
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This would allow some rather extreme prebuffing for lower-level characters. Someone could literally carry a collection of potions of Enlarge Person and blow through 5 GP per major battle to prebuff. Popping a potion of Fly, Haste, or Heroism before a fight would only cost 75 GP a piece, which is a very low price for those rather potent spell effects. Cheap curatives are probably the tip of the iceberg here; I'd be more cautious about the huge number of buff spells this provides access to at very low prices.
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Wand charges are 30% the cost of a potion.Is that true?
1st level wand cost = 750
Wand charges = 50750 / 50 = 1st level wand cost per charge
= 15
1st level potion cost = 50
1st level wand cost per charge / 1st level potion cost = 0.3
Therefore, wand cost per charge is 30% that of a potion.
Half the GP.
Or maybe limit the availability of 10% - 20% potions.
Wand charges are 30% the cost of a potion.Is that true?1st level wand cost = 750
Wand charges = 50
750 / 50 = 1st level wand cost per charge
= 151st level potion cost = 50
1st level wand cost per charge / 1st level potion cost = 0.3
Therefore, wand cost per charge is 30% that of a potion.
To build on this, wands are more limited in who can use them. Potions can be used by anyone. That makes potions more useful, which makes them more in demand, which raises their price. So at the very least, potion cost should be at least equal to what a single charge of the equivalent wand would cost, but should cost more.
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Sounds like an interesting experiment - be sure to add an actual weight value to potions (half a lb?)
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Thank you for math, Cuenta.
I'm going to assume that this ratio holds for 2nd- and 3rd-level potions.
Perhaps the cost of a potion should be (nearer to) equal to the cost of a wand charge?
What wands got going for them is improved action economy and improved encumbrance, at the cost of having to pay for 50x units up front and needing a skill-set (spell-caster or UMD).
What potions got going for them is improved affordability to scale and improved flexibility of skill-set, at the cost of reduced action economy.
So: 30%, 40%, or 50%?
(15gp / 90-120gp / 225-315gp)
(20gp / 120-160gp / 300-420gp)
(25gp / 150-200gp / 375-525gp)
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Sounds like an interesting experiment - be sure to add an actual weight value to potions (half a lb?)
This is a good easy realistic figure because 8 oz of water weighs about 0.5 lbs.
We'll give "magic water" the benefit of the doubt to make up for the weight of the container.
Thank you for math, Cuenta.
I'm going to assume that this ratio holds for 2nd- and 3rd-level potions.
The 30% ratio holds.
As I said, my friend and I have run this houserule for more than a year and a half. From levels 5 to 11 and levels 12 to 16. In both campaigns, it's worked out great. Potions feel cheap enough to utilize as the primary magical consumable, but expensive enough to not trivialize the investment.
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Sounds like an interesting experiment - be sure to add an actual weight value to potions (half a lb?)
This is a good easy realistic figure because 8 oz of water weighs about 0.5 lbs.
We'll give "magic water" the benefit of the doubt to make up for the weight of the container.
Potions only contain an ounce of liquid, and the vials are weightless according to the equipment chapter. No other piece of equipment in the core rulebook has a weight listed below 1/2 pound, so as far as the rules are concerned the potion would be effectively weightless.
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Those look bigger than an ounce to me!
Damiel is an alchemist. They have various other concoctions as well.
The description of potions in the core rulebook is what says potions are a single ounce.
Physical Description: A typical potion or oil consists of 1 ounce of liquid held in a ceramic or glass vial fitted with a tight stopper. The stoppered container is usually no more than 1 inch wide and 2 inches high. The vial has AC 13, 1 hit point, hardness 1, and a break DC of 12.
Those vials strapped to his upper arm may be potions. Those other things could be the various alchemical chemicals and reagents used in creation the various things alchemists can do. Acid flasks, flasks of alchemists fire, and other various alchemical items are also larger than a potion (weighing 1 pound each), so that is what some of those bigger containers could be as well. And of course there is always artistic license.
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Nikki I forgot about comparing potions to scrolls! hmm...
Those vials strapped to his upper arm may be potions. Those other things could be the various alchemical chemicals and reagents used in creation the various things alchemists can do. Acid flasks, flasks of alchemists fire, and other various alchemical items are also larger than a potion (weighing 1 pound each), so that is what some of those bigger containers could be as well. And of course there is always artistic license.
Fair. This is the first time I have imagined potion as really small though.
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After consideration, I'm going to go with "half" because it is a happy compromise between bringing potions into the "more affordable" range and the "easy to remember" house rule category.
And they will continue to be 1-oz weight-negligble items.
Thanks for the discussion folks!
After consideration, I'm going to go with "half" because it is a happy compromise between bringing potions into the "more affordable" range and the "easy to remember" house rule category.
And they will continue to be 1-oz weight-negligble items.
Thanks for the discussion folks!
Will yeu conversely cheapen scrolls ? (whose official price is the same you will apply to potions) which have the requirement of being an expert to use whereas anybody can benefit from a potion.
Hmmm, I hadn't looked at magical potions. Or scrolls.
In turn, you might want to look at alchemical items.
I think they're cool but clearly over-priced for one-shot uses. They're priced like magic items, when they're supposed to be mundane craft items. I've never seen PCs run out and buy much of them at all, because they cost so much.
So in my game, I cheapened alchemical items to 45% of their cost, due to... stupid reasons. Yes, it should have been 50%! My PCs have bought some, but my policy hasn't flooded the game w/ one-shot alchemical items. So far. I have to admit that they've only reached 3rd level.
FYI, I also reduced the cost of any divine magic items that a church (or similar not-for-profit source) sells by 10%. That doesn't help you with encouraging potions over wands, of course. But you might like the idea.
I hope you'll tell us in a bit how 50% for magic potions goes.
Can we talk here about the cost of scrolls? Or should that be a different thread?
I've been looking at the cost of staves, and discovered that in nearly all cases, they're untenable. You pay for a 50-use item, but only get 10, with maybe the potential for recharging it between adventures. If you're high enough level. (And I don't believe UMD helps here.)
People say that they're meant for a high-level game, and that's fine. Wands or potions are meant for a low-level game, or for spells that retain usefulness beyond a low level. What gripes me is that there isn't a good alternative for a mid-level game! Rods do something useful, but completely different.
I definitely should look hard at the cost of scrolls for my game. Yes, they're valuable, being the only reasonable way to store an assortment of mid- or high-level spells. And wands also require a specific class ability or UMD. But not the scroll's potential CL check w/ a chance of spell mishap if that fails... plus potentially an extra action economy expenditure (since a wand can be in your hand throughout a combat).
In addition, wizards get Scribe Scroll for free, but have to spend a feat slot on Craft Wand. So at first blush, it does seem like scrolls should cost no more than wands for one use, 15 gp * Spell Level * CL. Comments?
To build on this, wands are more limited in who can use them. Potions can be used by anyone. That makes potions more useful, which makes them more in demand, which raises their price. So at the very least, potion cost should be at least equal to what a single charge of the equivalent wand would cost, but should cost more.Wand charges are 30% the cost of a potion.Is that true?1st level wand cost = 750
Wand charges = 50
750 / 50 = 1st level wand cost per charge
= 151st level potion cost = 50
1st level wand cost per charge / 1st level potion cost = 0.3
Therefore, wand cost per charge is 30% that of a potion.
There's also the whole economy of scale issue. If you want one use of a potion, you buy one potion at 50 GP. If you want one use of a wand, you buy a wand with 50 uses at 750 GP. If the spell is something rarely used, it may be a waste to get 50 uses. And yes, I know about incomplete wands at a lower price, but I've always thought buying those outright was a bit much.
(I picture haggling at the magic mart like Chris Rock in "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka." "Give me 15 GP worth of Cure Light Wounds. Put it in my wand...")
There are a few other factors to consider.
The worth of consumables (in relation to items with permanent effects/daily uses) goes up if the character progression is fast (if the PCs only need few encounters to gain a new level or if xp are gained mostly through story awards) and goes down if the character progression is slow (if the PCs need many encounters to gain a new level).
The worth of consumables also depends on whether a character who uses a lot of consumables ends up with less wealth per level on the long run than a character who invests their money in permanent magic items. (The way I read the CRB, consumables (and similar expenses like resurrection costs) shouldn't have an impact on wealth by level (with the assumption that characters only spend a certain amount of their wealth on consumables).
In fact, once the PCs have gained a certain amount of wealth, investing in consumables is often better than buying an expensive magic item that only gets used once or twice during a campaign. How do you make your players realize that? Increasing the amount of consumables in treasure hoards could be an option to instigate their use by players. But I guess there is also a psychological effect to it--many players are stingy with their hard-earned gold. I saw high level PCs running around with 100k worth of staves they would never use, but flinch at the idea of buying a few potions and scrolls (or keep them stowed away and never use them, even in the final encounter of a campaign).
I really liked the cypher-mechanic from Numenera, where a PC could only carry a limited number of one-shot items and would find new ones on a regular basis. The players quickly learned that it is better to use their items than to hoard them. But I'm not sure if that is the best solution for Pathfinder.
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Will yeu conversely cheapen scrolls ? (whose official price is the same you will apply to potions) which have the requirement of being an expert to use whereas anybody can benefit from a potion.After consideration, I'm going to go with "half" because it is a happy compromise between bringing potions into the "more affordable" range and the "easy to remember" house rule category.
And they will continue to be 1-oz weight-negligble items.
Thanks for the discussion folks!
If you are accusing me of exacerbating the martial-caster disparity, worry not because potions will be available at the same price for both classes.
To answer your question: The first reason is that cheaper potions turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Alchemists) is less worrisome than cheaper scrolls turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Wizards). The second reason is that potions are capped at 3rd level spells.
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I still use this system today for wands.
Perhaps if you could decide how you wanted staves to change, recharge, all that, we could begin to figure something out?
Will yeu conversely cheapen scrolls ? (whose official price is the same you will apply to potions) which have the requirement of being an expert to use whereas anybody can benefit from a potion.After consideration, I'm going to go with "half" because it is a happy compromise between bringing potions into the "more affordable" range and the "easy to remember" house rule category.
And they will continue to be 1-oz weight-negligble items.
Thanks for the discussion folks!
If you are accusing me of exacerbating the martial-caster disparity, worry not because potions will be available at the same price for both classes.
To answer your question: The first reason is that cheaper potions turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Alchemists) is less worrisome than cheaper scrolls turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Wizards). The second reason is that potions are capped at 3rd level spells.
I'm not accusing you of anything. There is a system of consumable items in place, of which you change one element, I was simply asking if this will entail changing the rest too, or if you'll be satisfied with making potions as cheap/expensive as scrolls. I know now, and I'd like to have returns about how satisfied you are with this single change after you've had time to playtest it.
There are a few other factors to consider.
The worth of consumables (in relation to items with permanent effects/daily uses) goes up if the character progression is fast (if the PCs only need few encounters to gain a new level or if xp are gained mostly through story awards) and goes down if the character progression is slow (if the PCs need many encounters to gain a new level).
This sounds like an important consideration, and I sadly don't understand it. Partly, I'm used to WBE (wealth by encounter), and just now adjusting to WBL. Partly, I'm still confused by the fact that you classed "if xp are gained mostly through story awards" in with a fast progression. Story awards take time to earn, don't they? In any case, I'd have thought it would go the opposite way:
If you're raking in lots of money due to a hot WBL economy, you can put off consumables now in favor of better but more expensive stuff not that much later on. If the economy cools, forcing you to grind through lots of encounters to gain your next level-up & qualify for additional wealth, consumables now become a far more valuable bargain.
The worth of consumables also depends on whether a character who uses a lot of consumables ends up with less wealth per level on the long run than a character who invests their money in permanent magic items. (The way I read the CRB, consumables (and similar expenses like resurrection costs) shouldn't have an impact on wealth by level (with the assumption that characters only spend a certain amount of their wealth on consumables).
An interesting point -- how do you manage to balance it as GM? Can you litter your game with consumables in loot without paying attention to the value?
What if the party converts non-consumable loot to cash? Let's say you give the party a staff (under normal rules), and they sell it and distribute the proceeds. And...
Character A buys a backpack-full of consumables with the money.
Character B spends it on one highly useful permanent item.
Character C for cleric gives half to the poor, and spends half on a weapon enchantment.
What just happened to WBL?
In fact, once the PCs have gained a certain amount of wealth, investing in consumables is often better than buying an expensive magic item that only gets used once or twice during a campaign. How do you make your players realize that? Increasing the amount of consumables in treasure hoards could be an option to instigate their use by players. But I guess there is also a psychological effect to it--many players are stingy with their hard-earned gold. I saw high level PCs running around with 100k worth of staves they would never use, but flinch at the idea of buying a few potions and scrolls (or keep them stowed away and never use them, even in the final encounter of a campaign).
I really liked the cypher-mechanic from Numenera, where a PC could only carry a limited number of one-shot items and would find new ones on a regular basis. The players quickly learned that it is better to use their items than to hoard them. But I'm not sure if that is the best solution for Pathfinder.
I definitely recognize the tendency to stinginess on the part of players. I've actually been yelled at by another player for wanting to "waste resources" by tapping a wand when it was useful but not mission-critical. The idea was that if we as a party ran through the charges, we wouldn't have them when we needed them. If you never use it, you didn't really have it back when you needed it!
And at that, I tend to consider wands to be more spendable than true one-shots. I never look to buy potions or scrolls -- much less those hideously expensive one-shot magic items in Ultimate Equipment. If you never buy it, you won't have it when you need it!
Is it worth handing out some sort of scrip that can only be spent on consumables? Is that just too intrusive?
I still use this system today for wands.
Perhaps if you could decide how you wanted staves to change, recharge, all that, we could begin to figure something out?
I went looking through the archives earlier, and saw your system. Sadly, it was too random for my tastes.
There's several problems with recharging staves as published.
(1) You have to HAVE a slot of the level of the highest spell on it before you can recharge a staff. This turns most of them into very, very expensive scrollcases for most of an adventurer's career. There really aren't very many staves where the designers kept to even just 6th-level spells or lower.
(2) You have to commit that by definition valuable spell-slot before you go adventuring for the day. Okay, I'm told that very high level characters can likely shrug at burning a 6th-level slot. 7th? 8th? How high can we find such a shrug? The timing certainly raises the level bar for recharging the things.
(3) You can only put one charge per day into a staff; so using up more than one a day becomes expensive. In other words, casting a staff's highest level spell -- the one equivalent to what you're spending to "put the magic back" -- undoubtedly uses up multiple days' worth of recharging.
(4) Making all of that even worse, you can only recharge one STAFF a day. If you rely on staves for much of anything at all, you're relying on being gifted with months of downtime.
What were the designers doing? Setting out to create Pathfinder's least used magic item? Was there a staff contest or something?
...EtA: I typed that innocently, I did, I swear!
All right, I'm done griping for now. I'll try to come up with constructive suggestions tomorrow. I'm curious what people here have done!
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I'm not accusing you of anything. There is a system of consumable items in place, of which you change one element, I was simply asking if this will entail changing the rest too, or if you'll be satisfied with making potions as cheap/expensive as scrolls. I know now, and I'd like to have returns about how satisfied you are with this single change after you've had time to playtest it.
Sorry my humor didn't come across - I keep forgetting that tone is basically impossible to communicate intentionally over message posts.
Yes, just a little boost to "everyman" items (potions) and not anything else. And yes, I'll let you know how that goes.
That said, what Amaneunsis said upthread really got me thinking - I wish I could think like that on a regular basis. Instead my reasoning is something like "I want to give my martials a little boost"...
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I still use this system today for wands.
Perhaps if you could decide how you wanted staves to change, recharge, all that, we could begin to figure something out?
I went looking through the archives earlier, and saw your system. Sadly, it was too random for my tastes.
There's several problems with recharging staves as published.
(1) You have to HAVE a slot of the level of the highest spell on it before you can recharge a staff. This turns most of them into very, very expensive scrollcases for most of an adventurer's career. There really aren't very many staves where the designers kept to even just 6th-level spells or lower.
What about a Lesser Staff that used lower level spells only? Or that allows the use of higher level spells but at lower casting level? To compensate, they take 2 days to charge per spell level that exceeds the wielder's highest slot?...
There are a few other factors to consider.
The worth of consumables (in relation to items with permanent effects/daily uses) goes up if the character progression is fast (if the PCs only need few encounters to gain a new level or if xp are gained mostly through story awards) and goes down if the character progression is slow (if the PCs need many encounters to gain a new level).
This sounds like an important consideration, and I sadly don't understand it. Partly, I'm used to WBE (wealth by encounter), and just now adjusting to WBL. Partly, I'm still confused by the fact that you classed "if xp are gained mostly through story awards" in with a fast progression. Story awards take time to earn, don't they? In any case, I'd have thought it would go the opposite way:
If you're raking in lots of money due to a hot WBL economy, you can put off consumables now in favor of better but more expensive stuff not that much later on. If the economy cools, forcing you to grind through lots of encounters to gain your next level-up & qualify for additional wealth, consumables now become a far more valuable bargain.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
I was assuming a certain fixed amount of consumables that would have to be spread out over a number of encounters and I was comparing the value of consumables to permanent magic items. It's not easy to determine how often you have to gain a benefit from a permanent item to make it a worthwile investment, but in general, the returns increase with every additional encounter. (To be precise, in many cases, there are also opposing effects--for example, items with a fixed saving throw DC quickly become non-competitive, making them bad long-term investments; other items require upgrading to stay competitive). Likewise, for consumables, the returns go down with every additional encounter they could have been used in (it gets a bit more complicated if we assume that consumables serve primarily as 'equalizers' which are only required for particularly difficult encounters, but I'm assuming they would come up more often as well).In some cases, the short-term benefits of consumables outweigh the long-term benefits of permanent items. For example, a monk at the start of their career would be better advised to spend 1,000 gp on as much potions of mage armor as they can carry (or better yet, a wand, assuming someone in the party can use them) rather than buying bracers of armor +1. But at least in theory, we can think of a number of encounters at which the bracers of armor win out over the consumables (in reality, it never happens, because at that point, the character would have gained more experience and wealth).
When I was talking about story awards, I was more thinking of a Kingmaker-style campaign like the one I am currently running, where the PCs gain XP-awards for exploration and advancing their kingdom.
The worth of consumables also depends on whether a character who uses a lot of consumables ends up with less wealth per level on the long run than a character who invests their money in permanent magic items. (The way I read the CRB, consumables (and similar expenses like resurrection costs) shouldn't have an impact on wealth by level (with the assumption that characters only spend a certain amount of their wealth on consumables).An interesting point -- how do you manage to balance it as GM? Can you litter your game with consumables in loot without paying attention to the value?
What if the party converts non-consumable loot to cash? Let's say you give the party a staff (under normal rules), and they sell it and distribute the proceeds. And...
Character A buys a backpack-full of consumables with the money.
Character B spends it on one highly useful permanent item.
Character C for cleric gives half to the poor, and spends half on a weapon enchantment.
What just happened to WBL?
I think the game assumes that normally, a limited amount of wealth is spent on consumables (15% according to the CRB), and that share gets replaced on a regular basis without having a real impact on WBL. (The system has a built-in inflation due to the nonlinear growth of player wealth/item prices by level, so it usually doesn't really matter whether a character is a bit above or below the expected value.) Now, if a character spends considerably more on consumables, the GM has to decide whether they want to tolerate, encourage, or discourage this kind of strategy. If the general consensus is that players are stingy and don't use consumables often enough even if it would benefit them, GMs can create incentives by making them more available (after all, finding an item as part of loot means buying it for half the normal price). Likewise, if a GM feels that a player abuses consumables, they should probably make them less available (One example for this kind of situation would be one-shot adventures, where consumables generally have a higher value than permanent items. A GM would be well-advised to insist that during character creation, only a limited amount of wealth is spend on consumables). Or one could just watch it play out. In the long run, a player who spends, say, 40% of his wealth on consumables would end up with less permanent magic items than his fellow players, but in theory, they have more available consumables to make up for it, giving them a decisive edge when it really counts.
Coming back to rainzax' original concern (throwing martials a bone), I think action economy is also a factor why characters don't use them too often. Is your barbarian really going to spend the first round of combat retrieving and drinking a potion of haste or a potion of displacement? Assuming their positioning is favorable and the enemies don't have ranged superiority, that might actually be a good option, but then again, if you really think you'll need that extra edge for this encounter, that scenario doesn't seem very likely.
I think in many cases, the durations of standard potions are too short and potions with higher caster levels are disproportianately expensive (that holds true for wands and scrolls as well). Magical tattoos could also be part of the solution -- they are more accessible than potions, assuming you got them in the right places...
Yes, just a little boost to "everyman" items (potions) and not anything else. And yes, I'll let you know how that goes.
That said, what Amaneunsis said upthread really got me thinking - I wish I could think like that on a regular basis. Instead my reasoning is something like "I want to give my martials a little boost"...
I know what you mean about Amaneunsis's analysis: it was impressive.
I still think that if you're reducing prices for potions, you should look hard at alchemical items. (I don't mean special things Alchemists now create, btw, I mean things in Ultimate Equipment that are created with "Craft Alchemy.") They really are absurdly over-priced, and your reduction for potion prices will just make it more so. And if your reasoning is to give martials a boost, why not make it very cheap for them to make their own non-magical not-quite-as-good things? Of course, that "cheap" price still comes with a cost in skill points & downtime...
To answer your question: The first reason is that cheaper potions turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Alchemists) is less worrisome than cheaper scrolls turning into cheaper permanent spells (via Wizards). The second reason is that potions are capped at 3rd level spells.
You've given me something to think about, rather than rushing blindly ahead and reducing the price of scrolls. Thanks!
In any case, I'd have thought it would go the opposite way:
If you're raking in lots of money due to a hot WBL economy, you can put off consumables now in favor of better but more expensive stuff not that much later on. If the economy cools, forcing you to grind through lots of encounters to gain your next level-up & qualify for additional wealth, consumables now become a far more valuable bargain.
Sorry if I wasn't clear.
I was assuming a certain fixed amount of consumables that would have to be spread out over a number of encounters and I was comparing the value of consumables to permanent magic items. It's not easy to determine how often you have to gain a benefit from a permanent item to make it a worthwile investment, but in general, the returns increase with every additional encounter. (To be precise, in many cases, there are also opposing effects--for example, items with a fixed saving throw DC quickly become non-competitive, making them bad long-term investments; other items require upgrading to stay competitive). Likewise, for consumables, the returns go down with every additional encounter they could have been used in (it gets a bit more complicated if we assume that consumables serve primarily as 'equalizers' which are only required for particularly difficult encounters, but I'm assuming they would come up more often as well).
In some cases, the short-term benefits of consumables outweigh the long-term benefits of permanent items. For example, a monk at the start of their career would be better advised to spend 1,000 gp on as much potions of mage armor as they can carry (or better yet, a wand, assuming someone in the party can use them) rather than buying bracers of armor +1. But at least in theory, we can think of a number of encounters at which the bracers of armor win out over the consumables (in reality, it never happens, because at that point, the character would have gained more experience and wealth).
Hmmmmm. Math is not my strong-suit, and economics even less so, but this is interesting! It actually looks to me like there's room for a graduate school thesis here, if not a dissertation. Clearly, inflation economic theory does bear a part. I mean, the GM sees to it that there's never an actual recession. The issue is how much money floods into the economy a game session. So does anyone know what RL economic theory would predict about "frivolous" spending during a run-away inflationary economy vs. a more stagnant one? We are, of course, looking only at people who are "winning" -- whose income is climbing far faster than prices are rising.
The fact is, I've only ever played under "lukewarm" economy GMs, and I see players clutch onto their hard-earned gold rather than buy consumables. I do it, too. So you must be right. I'm just trying to understand why. Because naturally, I'm running a lukewarm economy, myself!
I think the game assumes that normally, a limited amount of wealth is spent on consumables (15% according to the CRB), and that share gets replaced on a regular basis without having a real impact on WBL. (The system has a built-in inflation due to the nonlinear growth of player wealth/item prices by level, so it usually doesn't really matter whether a character is a bit above or below the expected value.) Now, if a character spends considerably more on consumables, the GM has to decide whether they want to tolerate, encourage, or discourage this kind of strategy. If the general consensus is that players are stingy and don't use consumables often enough even if it would benefit them, GMs can create incentives by making them more available (after all, finding an item as part of loot means buying it for half the normal price). Likewise, if a GM feels that a player abuses consumables, they should probably make them less available (One example for this kind of situation would be one-shot adventures, where consumables generally have a higher value than permanent items. A GM would be well-advised to insist that during character creation, only a limited amount of wealth is spend on consumables). Or one could just watch it play out. In the long run, a player who spends, say, 40% of his wealth on consumables would end up with less permanent magic items than his fellow players, but in theory, they have more available consumables to make up for it, giving them a decisive edge when it really counts.The worth of consumables also depends on whether a character who uses a lot of consumables ends up with less wealth per level on the long run than a character who invests their money in permanent magic items. (The way I read the CRB, consumables (and similar expenses like resurrection costs) shouldn't have an impact on wealth by level (with the assumption that characters only spend a certain amount of their wealth on consumables).An interesting point -- how do you manage to balance it as GM? Can you litter your game with consumables in loot without paying attention to the value?
What if the party converts non-consumable loot to cash? Let's say you give the party a staff (under normal rules), and they sell it and distribute the proceeds. And...
Character A buys a backpack-full of consumables with the money.
Character B spends it on one highly useful permanent item.
Character C for cleric gives half to the poor, and spends half on a weapon enchantment.
What just happened to WBL?
I'm trying to pick your answers to my questions out of what you said -- mind you, it was all informative! :) Forgive me, please, for having to ask you to be more specific.
Can you litter your game with consumables in loot without paying attention to the value?
Now, if a character spends considerably more on consumables, the GM has to decide whether they want to tolerate, encourage, or discourage this kind of strategy. If the general consensus is that players are stingy and don't use consumables often enough even if it would benefit them, GMs can create incentives by making them more available (after all, finding an item as part of loot means buying it for half the normal price).
I think this amounts to "No, you do have to pay attention to the value, but all the consumables count as half-price." Am I right?
Does that mean that everything I drop counts as half-price for purposes of calculating WBL? Or just consumables? If so, I missed that!
What if the party converts non-consumable loot to cash? [...] What just happened to WBL?
Or one could just watch it play out. In the long run, a player who spends, say, 40% of his wealth on consumables would end up with less permanent magic items than his fellow players, but in theory, they have more available consumables to make up for it, giving them a decisive edge when it really counts.
In other words, I don't have to pay attention to what each character actually realized in non-consumables. I gave them a staff, and it's worth x gp divided amongst the 3 PCs. The big question is whether "x" is the staff's book price or half-price, seeing as they sold it.
Whew! This is so important. Thank you for taking the time with a fledgling GM!
PS: For context, I just gave my 3rd-level party a 35-charge wand of Cure Light. It would be good if I knew what that amounts to towards WBL! :)
From a player's perspective, everything you 'find', you can sell for half. There are some items that you wouldn't buy at full price, but if you find them as part of a treasure hoard, you'd still keep them because they are good enough not to be sold at half price. That is what I meant when I said that finding stuff is buying it at half price. Most published adventures give out more loot than the CRB recommends for exactly that reason: players keep some stuff they want to use and sell the rest at half price.
So don't sweat it. As long as you don't go completely off the charts, you should be fine. I occasionally ask my players how much they have to make sure they are within a reasonable margin. I have one player who has taken over the role of quartermaster -- he enters the group loot into an excel-sheet, making it easy to keep track of everything.
Edit: To clarify, the wand of CLW would count as 525 gp regarding group loot (whether they sell it or keep it). Now, given the discussion above, I would say that you can add a few consumables on top of the normal allotment without breaking the system.
Instead of reducing the $ price, you could just reduce the action economy price. Give Potion Glutton away for free, or make Quick Draw (Mythic) available to certain classes or with certain limits.
It's the contra of your proposal, but has the benefits of not having to alter any printed prices or disrupt the price ratios between wands, scrolls, staves, rings, etc.
Another idea: our GM last gave us the ability to pick 5 potions of 250gp or less, or 2 potions of 600gp. If you go that route, you won't have to pick/roll the potions yourself as treasure, but you are getting consumables into the hands of the party.
Action economy is not all, as stated by Rainzax, this is meant as a boost to martials who, by definition, buy their potions rather than manufacture them themselves...
Plus, have you looked at the prereqs of potion glutton? That feat is great, but it is conversely EXTREMELY restricted... generalizing it makes it unbalanced.
Perhaps if you could decide how you wanted staves to change, recharge, all that, we could begin to figure something out?
That is such a handsome offer, I'm not letting you off! I'd love some help.
There's several problems with recharging staves as published.
(1) You have to HAVE a slot of the level of the highest spell on it before you can recharge a staff. This turns most of them into very, very expensive scrollcases for most of an adventurer's career. There really aren't very many staves where the designers kept to even just 6th-level spells or lower.
(2) You have to commit that by definition valuable spell-slot before you go adventuring for the day. Okay, I'm told that very high level characters can likely shrug at burning a 6th-level slot. 7th? 8th? How high can we find such a shrug? The timing certainly raises the level bar for recharging the things.
(3) You can only put one charge per day into a staff; so using up more than one a day becomes expensive. In other words, casting a staff's highest level spell -- the one equivalent to what you're spending to "put the magic back" -- undoubtedly uses up multiple days' worth of recharging.
(4) Making all of that even worse, you can only recharge one STAFF a day. If you rely on staves for much of anything at all, you're relying on being gifted with months of downtime.
Summary Let's say I have found a staff with a 1st- & 3rd-level spell that cost 1 charge apiece, a 4th- & a 5th-level spell that cost 2, and a 6th-level spell that costs 3. Right now, if I don't have any 6th-level slots, I can't recharge this puppy. If I have them, but want to reserve all of them for my own use while adventuring, I have to wait for downtime to do my recharging. If I'm able & willing to recharge, it will still take me three days to make up for casting that 6th-level spell just once. And if I start using & recharging this staff, getting a second one as loot isn't going to do me much good - I can't recharge both.
Price Cut We could, of course, simply adjust the price. Just how many recharges can one expect to make? Given the fact that some GMs specialize in low- to mid-level games while others start mythic, it may not be possible to generalize. Nonetheless, more than 40 seems egregiously high even for an upper-atmosphere game. OTOH, 15 seems too low. Of course, one should get paid for one's spell slots. So maybe we could reasonably cut the price in half. The few exciting staves might be an exception (demand, donja know).
Having to sell my looted staff for a quarter of book price would certainly make it less of an instant-sell item. But I think it would still be an over-priced scrollcase in all too many instances. Plus, if I find a second staff, I'm pretty much forced to pick one to sell, because I can't use & recharge both. So I'd prefer to fix the recharge mechanics... and I saw some options in the archives that have been cooking in my mind.
Automatic Re-charging Basically, we'd create a special ioun stone that would be affixed to a staff. Its only function would be to spend a single "slot" to recharge its staff. Now, a lavender & green stone absorbs spells of 8th level or lower for 40,000 gp, and generating a single high-level slot daily seems equivalent. So I'm prepared to price our creation at 40,000 gp for a single recharging slot of up to 8th level. I'm also prepared to say that a staff with such a stone attuned cannot be recharged conventionally, and that the stone must be mounted for 24 hours before it will start working. (Given these other limitations, I'll do away with the "charges" on the life of the lavender & green stone! Hmm, I could argue that a one/day item is cheaper than a 50-charge item... That might adjust the price to 16,000 gp.)
The good news is that this solution simply adds a new wondrous item to the list, without materially changing mechanics. If I don't have a 6th-level slot yet, I can recharge my example find by spending gold. And once I gain a lot more experience, I can spend even more gold and use another staff or two regularly. They all would recharge in parallel, fixing the "only one staff a day" problem. One problem that isn't truly solved is the issue of a single 3-charge spell requiring three days of recharging. I'll still find myself running out of charges if I use high-level spells at all regularly -- so I'll still need downtime. Just not as much. Also, I'm talking about a lot of money, added to the already-hefty cost of a staff. A mid-range PC would likely still prefer to sell a staff and gain half of hefty than to spend hefty additional amounts of their own gold trying to make a looted staff functional.
Efficient Re-charging What I'm thinking about here is a simple principle, but I need help in expressing it simply. My sample staff has spells of up to 3rd level for 1 charge, so I want to say that I can use a 3rd-level spell-slot to give the staff 1 recharge. It has spells of up to 5th level for 2 charges, so I want to be able to use a 5th-level slot to give it 2 recharges. And I want to be able to spend a 6th-level slot for 3 recharges. I was basing this on a staff; I have to use the highest spell level in that staff for a given number of recharges. Maybe a table would be simpler -- it's always set spell-slots for a set number of recharges. In any case...
This solution has me excited. It doesn't cost money, although it does fiddle with mechanics profoundly.
>> I can start using & recharging my sample staff with just 3rd-level spell slots. (And yes, get 6th-level spells ahead of time -- for a *lot* more money than I'd spend on scrolls.)
>> I can spend a 3rd-level slot on each of three days in the field and replace a 6th-level spell's charges -- and I'm going to be happy with losing 3rd-level spell-slots while adventuring a whole lot sooner than a 6th.
>> Or, if I'm in a pinch but have a day of downtime, I can spend a 6th-level slot and "put back the magic" of a 6th-level spell in one day.
>> Finally, because I can recharge staves so much faster during downtime, I can make prudent use of two or more staves.
So what do you think???
My own beef with staff is that they hold a measly 10 charges, that's ridiculously low OK, maybe I'm still living 30 years in the past back when staves had 25 chages, but 25 feels fine and 10 is ludicrous to me.
My own beef with staff is that they hold a measly 10 charges, that's ridiculously low OK, maybe I'm still living 30 years in the past back when staves had 25 chages, but 25 feels fine and 10 is ludicrous to me.
I spent yesterday trying to create the right formulas & data in Excel. (Not my best day.) I've come to a surprising conclusion:
>> IF I can recharge it. If I can't, of course, a looted 10-charge staff is too tempting to sell. I can sell the staff at half-market price and buy replacement scrolls at full market price -- commissioned at the staff's CL, even -- and still make a huge profit. Now, a 25-charge variant does limit that temptation; commissioned scrolls are going to come close in full price to a 25-charge staff's half-price for one-charge spells. Efficient recharging has to lower recharging requirements if it's to address this problem.
>> IF I want the number of charges assessed. I've realized that staves should have very good reason to use more than two charges, and preferably only use one. Sadly, published staves generally use 2 or more charges for spells worth casting. So a 25-charge variant simply starts a staff out with 12 castings (on average) rather than 5 -- when we've established that a staff's market value considerably outweighs casting power for 10 or 12 castings. Efficient recharging is really the only way to address this.
>> IF I want the significant spells included. This is, of course, the most important issue. The staves in the book fall short, all too often, by jumbling together spells that no one wants in a staff alongside desirable ones. It drives up the resale value without also driving up the replacement cost. No mechanic will help here.
So after looking at staves again, I have a radical new solution:
Seriously. Normally, staves would never be found as loot or in a shop window. Wizards might certainly still take the Craft Staff feat in order to create staves on commission, RAW. The purchaser would specify the spells to be included & the charges. They'd have difficulty later on selling such a staff on the open market, however -- finding another caster w/ Craft Staff to improve it would be better. Special staves like the Staff of the Master would be rare finds.
In addition, as a bonus 8th-level class feature, all full casters would be able (without burning a feat) to make one staff that would only function for themselves. They would have to pay the crafting price still. They could re-work their personal staff at every even level after that (paying for increases in crafting cost).
There's a lot of details that would have to be resolved, and if the people here are at all interested, I think I'll move this to its own thread. Is this worth pondering?
I think you are mostly right with your assessment, but I also think that staves are better than you think. Staves have a few advantages over scrolls. They use the wielder's CL and save DC and they have the spell trigger activation method. Even if you are unable to recharge the staff, you can still use its remaining charges and sell it thereafter. During downtime, you could probably even pay someone else to recharge the staff (assuming a friendly and capable spellcaster is available). And unlike scrolls, staves are handy (even taking a handy haversack for granted, the bibliophile in me says that scrolls are delicate enough that they have to be stored in a separate scroll case).
That being said, I agree with you that most staves aren't worth the investment. Then again, on what else are you going to spend all that cash that your high-level wizard has earned during his adventures? Unlike the fighter, you don't need to buy magical weapon or armor. Casters aren't exactly equipment-dependent. I'd like to think of staves as guilty pleasures. Alternatively, you can build a golem or create a demiplane, but ultimately, it serves the same purpose: showing off, impressing members of your preferred sex, and winning dick-measuring contests with other casters.
Unfortunately, unlike golems and demiplanes, staves are also really boring. I think a staff should do more than just allow the wielder to store spell energy--it should modify the way spells work in a fresh and exciting way (I tried to show how this could be done with my RPG Superstar submission).
A conjuration staff that allows the summoning of different creatures or an evocation staff that can be used to change the damage type of certain spells would be a lot more useful and maybe even worth its price.