I'm curious if the core assumption for player wealth in PF2 is going to be the same as in 3.x, 4E and PF1, namely that most characters will convert most of their money directly and easily into magic items.
I'd rather this wasn't the case. Adventurers who have no connection to the world and carry all their material wealth on their person in the form of bling has always been weird. The assumption that you can just somehow sell all these crazy expensive items for half and buy other crazy expensive items just with a handwave of being near a city is weird.
I am hoping PF2 has other things to spend your money on, not just castles but more, and makes players want to put their money there. In core, not just in some GM supplement years down the line, because by then it's too late and the core bling economy is already set in stone with the rules grounded in it. I fully realize that Red Sonja etc are a different genre than D&D and the game will never function on that level economically without heavy house rules, but there should still be some reason for players to want to put their money elsewhere.
I know getting new bonuses and abilities is exciting, and a primary motivation and reward for adventuring and accomplishment. So, for this to work there has to be actual mechanical character benefits to putting your money elsewhere. Role-playing benefits are great but only fully satisfy a small subset of players; the majority, even those who do enjoy the RP side as opposed to being pure number crunchers, still want their characters to get materially better. So I'm hoping to see a system of boons that can confer actual abilities or bonuses to characters who don't put their money into bling.
This can be represented in a number of ways. The obvious ones are getting blessings from Gods for your tithes or from nature / fey spirits for protecting powerful natural loci, but not every character is religious or nature spiritual. Favors is another one, but not every character has interest in such things, and they're also often not very useful inside a dungeon. So let's say there is a Fisher King effect, where for investing in a home / kingdom, you actually form some kind of abstract connection to the universe that can give you actual abilities, and that can then have RP side effects like your home territory's condition reflecting your own and vice versa. And on the less supernatural side there can be special training, where just from the time you are spending with the peoples you are investing into, you pick up some of their abilities. In this case, it's not money converting into items - it's money converting into bonus skills, proficiencies, feats and class abilities. I know a lot of players who would give up on bling to actually get feats and such out of it, provided a fair way was worked out to make that trade worth it.
I say all this as someone who likes magic item crafting, btw. But even that shouldn't just be direct conversion of money into items. The process should be more involved and flavorful, and it definitely shouldn't be at half price. I want "money converts 1:1 into relic" to be the house rule, not the assumption with which the book goes to print.
I'll start. So, let's say there's a semi-abstracted track of increasing price for each step that represents the conversion of money into extra feats. Just for the thought experiment without any playtesting, say this is the 3.x armor enchantment track. So, 1000 gp of investment in the world eventually turns into your first bonus, then another 3000 (total 4000) becomes the second, then another 5000 (total 9000) becomes the third, and so on.
Obviously the numbers are pulled out of thin air for the sake of this example, and would have to be tested and tweaked based on how much money you are expected to get in PF2 vs the price of items. But conceptually, does this work and get the idea across?
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I dislike the idea of money spent giving any special bonus, be it feats or whatever.
Maybe you should look at it another way: if a character *doesn't* spend a certain level of income on either their family (making other people happy), their own addictions (liquor & companionship) or conspicuous consumption (clothes, bling jewelry and socializing) then they take a penalty to something. Like applying an adverse condition if they aren't paying for adequate upkeep at an inn, owning a house, supporting dependents and so on. Or supporting their social standing through social spending (going to the right taverns, or the right clubs, to gain social influence).
Or not. Even thinking about it makes it sound far too fiddly and complex to write rules about. <g>
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Personally I am not a fan of the magic item market (outside of consumables). I prefer magic items to be rare and wondrous such that it would be hard to find a buyer and harder still to find someone selling.
Players can spend gold on more gear and consumables for a few levels until they all have masterwork gear and a pile of potions. After that I like blessings, castles, hirelings, tattoos, cool hats etc. As for training I don't think you should be able to buy feats, those should be reserved for level up, but if there is something similar to background skills from PF Unchained (Lore was mentioned) then going from untrained -> trained -> expert in those would be a good way to spend money that isn't game breaking.
Mostly I hope whatever is done it levels out the wealth by level a bit. While I don't so much have the problem anymore when I started off GMing DnD 3 I occasionally got thrown off by just how wealthy the PCs were compared to commoners and how easily they could pay a peasant a years salary to do something for them.
I dislike the idea of money spent giving any special bonus, be it feats or whatever.
The reason it needs a price attached is for mathing out the balance against items, since a lot of games are still just going to use items. But that doesn't mean the GM has to always actually /award money/ that is then converted into feats, blessings etc. Part of the idea is that once you have that price tag, the GM can sometimes just award you the special training or the divine boon, and know how it fits into your WBL.
Okay, so another example in the more supernatural vein. Adjudication of powers /like/ a magic item, by way of divine blessing, fey lord's favor, Fisher King magic connection to the land, and the like. Getting powers like a Cloak of the Bat because you helped the King of the Bats or whatever.
In PF2, what should be the price equivalence be of a magic item effect that doesn't actually occupy an item? I imagine this has two answers. The first being the price adjustment (if any) if you still have to invest resonance into it each morning, to strengthen and renew that bond, like you would an actual item; the second being if the boon comes free of any such attachments, and doesn't cost Resonance.
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Magic in Pathfinder comes from either internal sources, such as arcane knowledge or a powerful bloodline, or as direct gifts from divine sources. What if magic could also be drawn from sacred places? Imagine a druid tending a sacred plot of land and gaining an extra spell point from it. Likewise, a paladin could donate cash to the temple of his god and get an extra point of resonance from it. A small gift would give one temporary point that is spent the first time the resouce is used. A larger gift could give an emergency point that appears when all other points in that resource are consumed. A very large gift could become an endowment to a sacred place that guarantees a fresh temporary point every morning, regardless of how far away the party is from the sacred site. "This is the Ezren Library of Abjuration, donated to the Varisian Academy of Magic by the wizard Ezren in 1718 AR. Every morning the apprentices hold a dedication ritual to honor the gift."
And we could have a graduated scale. The first temporary point costs 25 gp, the second temporary point costs 100 gp, the third temporary point costs 400 gp, the fourth temporary point costs 1600 gp, etc. Thus, a 1st-level PC could afford one temporary resonance and a 3rd-level PC could afford two temporary resonance.
So long as Pathfinder 2nd Edition has resonance and spell points, the players will search for ways to get more of these resources. Spending money gives another use for treasure. For that matter, a poor priest in a humble village might not be able to pay a party in cash to eliminate the pride of lions preying on their flocks, but perhaps he has a tie to the land that can be converted into one emergency spell point to transfer to a party member in a colorful local ritual.
This notion was inspired by the thread Spell Points - Less gamey name please, many people suggested renaming spell points as mana. I was familiar with magic points named mana from Magic: The Gathering, and I had assumed that it came from the Hebrew manna, meaning gift, food, or spiritual nourishment. But it really comes from Polynesian mana, meaning power inherent to nature, such as thunder, storms, and wind. That fit Magic: The Gathering, since mana in that game comes from land.
EDIT:
Okay, so another example in the more supernatural vein. Adjudication of powers /like/ a magic item, by way of divine blessing, fey lord's favor, Fisher King magic connection to the land, and the like. Getting powers like a Cloak of the Bat because you helped the King of the Bats or whatever.
Looks like Fuzzypaws and I had similar ideas posted almost at the same time.
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I like the idea of being able to buy Feats, Spells and Proficiencies from different Masters/Schools. It give a roleplay purpose (finding the good people to teach you) and link the PCs with the universe. Because your teacher can become a lover, or an opponents or just a nice touch in the adventure.
We could add also some beneficial merits to have a good social situation. Like a Lord can have Charm Personn 1/day on one of his subject, or he could considers his proficiency in Diplomacy higher with his subjects.
Finally if Alchemicals items are stone they can be a good thing to buy. Same for scrolls.
But yes I don’t like free item market. That is why I play PF1 with the automatic bonus progression and make other magic items rares and strong. If by any chance there is on to sell, you can expect it to be sold in an action house.
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I was hoping magic items would be divorced from assumed leveling process. It appears that will not be the case in PF2. I've already got a WBL headache thinking about it. Paying gold for feats? /Fugedaboutit.
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I fail to see how turning money into magic items or into feats creates different results? Besides downgrading the value of feats. One could just redfine items as feats then.
The difference between buying a magic item that when worn gives the PC +2 to Will saves and buying a blessing from a temple that give the PC +2 to Will saves is that dealing with the temple has a stronger tie to history and a community than dealing with a magic item shop.
If a party kills and loots an evil wizard who carried the Wand of Ampere (a wand of lightning bolt), they would never learn the history of the wizard Ampere who crafted that wand atop Craggy Mountain in North Umberland. If a party goes to the Temple of Desna in Sandpoint in Varisia for a blessing that gives the recipient the ability to cast Lightning Bolt for spell points, then the GM can easily incorporate a tale of Desna into the ritual that grants the blessing.
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If a party kills and loots an evil wizard who carried the Wand of Ampere (a wand of lightning bolt), they would never learn the history of the wizard Ampere who crafted that wand atop Craggy Mountain in North Umberland. If a party goes to the Temple of Desna in Sandpoint in Varisia for a blessing that gives the recipient the ability to cast Lightning Bolt for spell points, then the GM can easily incorporate a tale of Desna into the ritual that grants the blessing.
And the Dm COULD always leave a diary on the wizard to "incorporate a tale of" the wand. If you aren't adding all that nifty stuff to items, that's on you not the items: ANYTHING you do with boons you can do with items. If you WANT a story with the items, just like you incorporated a "tale into the ritual", you can say the item seller has a quirk of telling you the background of the items as he slowly looks for where he stored it...
So I'm NOT buying the fluff/history/background issue here.
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Magic items, their bonus and so on, are a major part of PF1 PC building AND PLANNING, point being, it is a major factor on what character will be built AND HOW the character will be built...
One concept im greatly against is, "leave to the GM to drop the magic stuff", reason being one cant plan ahead if he has to adapt to whatever the GM felt like dropping next. In these games i usually go full caster to avoid needing magic items as much as possible instead.
Im not against the concept here, i have spend ridiculous amount of gold in NPCs/builngs/plot elements like ressing NPCs just cause... with no stat return during game after game, it would have been much better with a sheet return for sure, but the key here is that none of this limited me from getting key equpis i wanted.
So honestly i would have a side system, than learn that one bonus an old equip gave now is a blessing of Desna and the GM isnt putting that into the game.
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If a party kills and loots an evil wizard who carried the Wand of Ampere (a wand of lightning bolt), they would never learn the history of the wizard Ampere who crafted that wand atop Craggy Mountain in North Umberland. If a party goes to the Temple of Desna in Sandpoint in Varisia for a blessing that gives the recipient the ability to cast Lightning Bolt for spell points, then the GM can easily incorporate a tale of Desna into the ritual that grants the blessing.And the Dm COULD always leave a diary on the wizard to "incorporate a tale of" the wand. If you aren't adding all that nifty stuff to items, that's on you not the items: ANYTHING you do with boons you can do with items. If you WANT a story with the items, just like you incorporated a "tale into the ritual", you can say the item seller has a quirk of telling you the background of the items as he slowly looks for where he stored it...
So I'm NOT buying the fluff/history/background issue here.
Okay, graystone's point is valid. Futhermore, since my players tend to do their shopping by catalog, not only is the difference quite minimal, the roleplaying is minimal, too.
PLAYER: Ultimate Equipment says a wand of lightning bolts costs 11,250 gp. I want to buy one.
GM: Your character goes to Walt's Magnificent Magic Emporium in Magnimar. You see burly guards in black leather standing beneath signs that say, "Thieves who shoplight a magic item will be the spell components for the next one." The proprietor Walter Finch greets you personally. He shows you the Grand Electric Wand of Ampere, forged on the lightning-filled crags of the mountains of ...
PLAYER: Does this "forged by Ampere" stuff make the wand better?
GM: No, all wands of lightning bolt are the same.
PLAYER: I buy it.
GM: On the way out of the shop, you spot a bulletin board. A notice there says, "Daring adventurer wanted for a short but dangerous job. See Abu the Short at the Clock Tower."
versus
PLAYER: Ultimate Ritual says a blessing of lightning bolts costs 16,000 gp. I want to buy one.
GM: You enter the Temple of Desna in Sandpoint. Children are laughing at the tables in the common room as they make toy butterflies out of bright cloth and clothes pins for the Swallowtail Butterfly Festival next week. The head cleric Father Jordan greets you with a smile. Upon learning of the blessing you desire, he says that he has the ritual ingredients in stock, but asks that you pay so that he can restock them. Acoltyes fetch the materials and light several special candles near the altar. Father Jordan tells of how Desna often protects travelers from lightning and rather than extinguishing the bright beauty of this dangerous wonder, she gifts it to ...
PLAYER: Do I have to listen to the sermon?
GM: Your character is standing right there.
PLAYER: I mean me.
GM: No. Father Jordan finishes the ritual. An acolyte tattoos a butterfly with lightning bolts on its wings onto the back of your right hand. You feel a crackle of electricity and know you have the power of lightning. On the way out, you see a woman complaining to an acolyte that the Sandpoint Devil has claimed another of her cattle. Father Jordan says, "We have been praying for an adventurer of sufficient prowess. Would you be interested in a short but dangerous job?"
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I hate magic items as expected parts of builds, honestly. I also hate that even characters who shouldn't really have a desire to strip search every corpse still need to do so to get their WBL.
That being said, I know a lot of people like the status quo.
I mentioned in one of the economy threads that I would like to see a list printed that shows when abilities are expected to be available for PCs. Things such as, when to expect flying to be common, when you can deal with flesh to stone, diseases, curses, and all sorts of other situations often solved by spells/magic items, as well as when the math expects certain item bonuses.
This would have two effects:
1) It would help people know what to expect when planning a party composition, including knowing what they would need to cover via items if a character can't innately handle it.
2) It serves as a guideline for groups who want to remove the importance of magic items from their games.
I really do like Mathmuse's suggestion, though. And the idea of having something to spend your money on other than a treadmill of magic items is really appealing. I'd personally prefer to ask the question, "Why do high-level PCs need to be assumed to be wealthy at all?" But, given that it's been the default for a long time, it's safe to think the APs will assume that - thus another use for wealth is important.
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I guess I can expand on my headache. If you were to allow PCs to purchase their profs and feats it would have to be very spelled out in the CRB. So many GMs are stingy with gold and rewards and fail to understand that the game doesn't work unless they provide the golden shower and ye olde magic shop.
I can relate because its often hard to explain why a troll who lives in a cave and eats whatever it finds has gold and magic items. Sure you can do a whole backstory on the poor adventurer who came before you and died in the trolls cave yadda yadda. Though after the 13th time telling such a tale it gets to be a chore. I cant speak for any GM but me, but I dont like chores...
Also, I am so tried of players turning over every stone for gold. I mean I joked once about them stripping out the copper pipping from a dungeon and their eyes lit up like they just discovered a new source of income...
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Well, since Crafting will actually be a thing any character could possibly do, I could see, say, a fighter crafting his own sword or armor, spending his own gold, and possibly some resonance, to make it truly his. Or a rogue "cobbling" together a pair of special boots.
Of course this assumes(I know, I know) that the characters have enough Down Time to accomplish these.
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I guess I can expand on my headache. If you were to allow PCs to purchase their profs and feats it would have to be very spelled out in the CRB. So many GMs are stingy with gold and rewards and fail to understand that the game doesn't work unless they provide the golden shower and ye olde magic shop.
I can relate because its often hard to explain why a troll who lives in a cave and eats whatever it finds has gold and magic items. Sure you can do a whole backstory on the poor adventurer who came before you and died in the trolls cave yadda yadda. Though after the 13th time telling such a tale it gets to be a chore. I cant speak for any GM but me, but I dont like chores...
Also, I am so tried of players turning over every stone for gold. I mean I joked once about them stripping out the copper pipping from a dungeon and their eyes lit up like they just discovered a new source of income...
I share your headache.
The troll thing can be solved by just adding that treasure to another encounter where it makes sense. The problem for me is that does nothing to help with the players wanting every single thing - although we had a funny campaign where my friend's character liked to loot furniture for his home. :)
One of my worries is caused by my 5e experience, where people still loot everything even though they don't need it and can't sell it for much. It took a lot of convincing to get people to stop wanting to take every goblin short sword and grimy boot. (Eventually I just refused to write it down, as I was the one keeping the loot list as a PC)
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I guess I can expand on my headache. If you were to allow PCs to purchase their profs and feats it would have to be very spelled out in the CRB. So many GMs are stingy with gold and rewards and fail to understand that the game doesn't work unless they provide the golden shower and ye olde magic shop.
I can relate because its often hard to explain why a troll who lives in a cave and eats whatever it finds has gold and magic items. Sure you can do a whole backstory on the poor adventurer who came before you and died in the trolls cave yadda yadda. Though after the 13th time telling such a tale it gets to be a chore. I cant speak for any GM but me, but I dont like chores...
Also, I am so tried of players turning over every stone for gold. I mean I joked once about them stripping out the copper pipping from a dungeon and their eyes lit up like they just discovered a new source of income...
Well again, it doesn't have to always be /purchased/ with actual money. These sorts of things can be quest rewards, or unexpected but welcome boons for something you do along the way of your main quest. And there's plenty of situations, like training or purifying a generic "site of power", where you can allow the PCs to choose which feat or which magic item equivalent up to X cost that they want.
Giving these abilities and boons monetary prices serves several purposes. Many if not most groups DO adhere pretty strongly to WBL; for all the problems I have with WBL, I do recognize that it is a useful tool to many GMs. Many groups WILL acquire a veritable hill of coins and gems, and this sort of stuff is another way to spend it for benefits in a way that ties the characters more flavorfully to the setting. And as mentioned earlier, it is a balancing tool; the game designers figure out what the equivalence is between items and boons and bonus feats and extra skills. That way, when choosing whether to award a treasure or boon, or allowing the PCs to buy a treasure or boon, you have a good idea of what's fair for their level.
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It took a lot of convincing to get people to stop wanting to take every goblin short sword and grimy boot.
I don't think you could ever get me to leave loot behind. I once took the time to remove EVERY tile from the floor of a dungeon because each was worth a cp... I'm not about to let someone come in after us and get free floor tile! I'll pry nails out of the wall if they can be resold. ;)
I'll be working with others to regen multiple PCs at different levels from 2 to 20, for a number of ongoing campaigns and new ones.
We'll need SOME system. XD
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Like a chump, I somehow failed to see this thread and posted another thread--which I believe I successfully deleted--with the following text:
I think 2E has potential to be an exciting opportunity to "fix" the game's reward economy and I am excited to see how buying and selling items is going to be handled in the playtest. I am guessing that we are going to see something pretty similar to Starfinder's cash economy where items sell for 1/10 their base price so GMs can be a little more liberal with what kind of gear they leave on their enemies and stuff.
The 1/10th selling system means that you can give a powerful item to your players with a smaller risk of them just fencing the gear and buying items that are more optimal for their build.
If I had my druthers however, I'd like to see a more stylized wealth system with gold-and-jewels-found acting as experience towards a "wealth level" that allots players a pool of wealth (or leveled item slots or w/e) to outfit themselves with at the beginning of each adventure. I can't remember what games I have seen this in but I have have always liked the idea. Keeping track of the "wealth level" of each of your players is a hell of a lot easier than thinking about each player's cash-on-hand plus the separate market values and sell values of those characters' gear (up to and including the value of items with expended uses). As a player, I think I would like something like this more as well since it would be more obvious to me how my stock of consumables is competing with the overall power of my other gear.
In addition to wealth level, a GM could throw in one or two items by DM or adventure fiat that could sit on top of party wealth as special exceptions (not taking up a portion of a player's wealth level themselves).
What would other people like to see?
What do people predict seeing?
@Designers:
Will you just give me a text dump containing all of your plans so I can sift through it with a fine-tooth comb right now rather than having to wait and deal with the anticipation!
are you saying that all or most of your characters share this quality?
*shrug* They generally do. Never had an issue and no one ever asked me to stop. At worst, I got an eye roll, I wrote down my loot and we moved on. Even if I'm not 'prying nails out of the wall', it's a rare character of mine that would leave loot on the ground, even low quality loot, if there is a viable way to take it.
The reason is clear: it's a game where you are constantly buying new items: ammo, scrolls, wands, magic items, ect... Unless you're independently wealthy, those 'trash' items add up. Even if all I do is trade my pile of goblins stuff for arrow refills it was worth it. Even if it wasn't magic items, it'd be spells, buildings, followers, hirlelings, boons, ect... There is always SOMETHING you need that requires cash,
PS: I also don't usually play high enough level games where cheap loot is truly a drop in the bucket.
Magic items, their bonus and so on, are a major part of PF1 PC building AND PLANNING, point being, it is a major factor on what character will be built AND HOW the character will be built...
One concept im greatly against is, "leave to the GM to drop the magic stuff", reason being one cant plan ahead if he has to adapt to whatever the GM felt like dropping next. In these games i usually go full caster to avoid needing magic items as much as possible instead.
Im not against the concept here, i have spend ridiculous amount of gold in NPCs/builngs/plot elements like ressing NPCs just cause... with no stat return during game after game, it would have been much better with a sheet return for sure, but the key here is that none of this limited me from getting key equpis i wanted.
So honestly i would have a side system, than learn that one bonus an old equip gave now is a blessing of Desna and the GM isnt putting that into the game.
Well, axing the big 6 is going to reduce the need for quite the same level of mass production and magic item access. Also, your ability to plan magic items isn't necessarily true in an adventure path unless you are bringing a new character in at high levels. You never really know if you are going to find something you are considering buying. And if the DM adjusts the treasure to fit your character, you are basically back at having the DM control your wealth access.
I gave gotten very annoyed by players who get greedy for gear or gold and lose sight of everything else going on in the story. I've also been very pleased with players who generously give NPCs wealth for in story reasons, and would like it if that was rewarded more as is. You can give extra XP, but XP is tricky business to balance if you even use it in the first place. Also, some characters will spend every coin on crafting and then not have the pocket change to bribe an official or buy a diplomatic gift.
That being said, I agree with you that wealth as it currently exists does provide a dimension of customization for players. For some folks this is an important feature. As such, I'm pretty hesitant to say we should get rid of it and am not sure how it should be changed.
I would dig it if we had some guidance on ways we can reward players not spending all their gold on bling. In Pathfinder 1 I would sometimes give out extra skill ranks as appropriate. Or you could use feats which mostly just provide flavor. The town's bar room brawler could train your fighter and grant Improved Unarmed Strike, which doesn't help the fighter much with weapons but doesn't hurt to have for free. Not sure what will make the most sense in PF2e but it is a design space that seems worth exploring.
I hate magic items as expected parts of builds, honestly. I also hate that even characters who shouldn't really have a desire to strip search every corpse still need to do so to get their WBL.
That being said, I know a lot of people like the status quo.
I mentioned in one of the economy threads that I would like to see a list printed that shows when abilities are expected to be available for PCs. Things such as, when to expect flying to be common, when you can deal with flesh to stone, diseases, curses, and all sorts of other situations often solved by spells/magic items, as well as when the math expects certain item bonuses.
This would have two effects:
1) It would help people know what to expect when planning a party composition, including knowing what they would need to cover via items if a character can't innately handle it.
2) It serves as a guideline for groups who want to remove the importance of magic items from their games.
I really do like Mathmuse's suggestion, though. And the idea of having something to spend your money on other than a treadmill of magic items is really appealing. I'd personally prefer to ask the question, "Why do high-level PCs need to be assumed to be wealthy at all?" But, given that it's been the default for a long time, it's safe to think the APs will assume that - thus another use for wealth is important.
People on various homebrew boards (and maybe even an official 4e expansion?) have done stuff like this. Specifically, they have figured out the bonuses that are "expected" by the system at each level and just created a separate progression for you.
I remember one guy who even had like this whole wu-xia/spiritual writeup for why the fighter's falcion suddenly can suddenly crit on a 17 at level 7 and fly once a day at level 12. I would certainly dig it if the was a kind of modular optional system in the final version of 2E.
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Like a chump, I somehow failed to see this thread and posted another thread--which I believe I successfully deleted--with the following text:
I think 2E has potential to be an exciting opportunity to "fix" the game's reward economy and I am excited to see how buying and selling items is going to be handled in the playtest. I am guessing that we are going to see something pretty similar to Starfinder's cash economy where items sell for 1/10 their base price so GMs can be a little more liberal with what kind of gear they leave on their enemies and stuff.
The 1/10th selling system means that you can give a powerful item to your players with a smaller risk of them just fencing the gear and buying items that are more optimal for their build.
If I had my druthers however, I'd like to see a more stylized wealth system with gold-and-jewels-found acting as experience towards a "wealth level" that allots players a pool of wealth (or leveled item slots or w/e) to outfit themselves with at the beginning of each adventure. I can't remember what games I have seen this in but I have have always liked the idea. Keeping track of the "wealth level" of each of your players is a hell of a lot easier than thinking about each player's cash-on-hand plus the separate market values and sell values of those characters' gear (up to and including the value of items with expended uses). As a player, I think I would like something like this more as well since it would be more obvious to me how my stock of consumables is competing with the overall power of my other gear.
In addition to wealth level, a GM could throw in one or two items by DM or adventure fiat that could sit on top of party wealth as special exceptions (not taking up a portion of a player's wealth level themselves).
What would other people like to see?
What do people predict seeing?
My first thought reading through this was D20 Modern's wealth bonus system. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about, it's just the first thing that came to mind. :) Which was always kind of interesting. You can fluidly have a lot of small stuff that doesn't really impact your wealth, you can always have food and rope and medical kits and the like, it's only major purchases that decrease your purchasing power. I don't think that will really fly in this genre, though; people are wedded pretty strongly to that happy feeling of rolling around on a hill of coins. It works better in a modern genre with credit systems.
I would be happy to see sale prices for items drastically decrease, like you mention was done in Starfinder. Maybe not to 10%, though; 20% or 25% would be fine. That would still be a heavy discouragement to selling the cool stuff the GM designed or rolled up for you in order to go catalog shopping.
Re your suggestion about "item slots".... A guideline that "a 10th level character should usually have A items or boons of levels X1-X2, B items or boons of levels Y1-Y2, and C items or boons of levels Z1-Z2" could be helpful. At least during character creation above level 1, definitely! Or as a sort of "soft target" for GMs who want to keep the party at some kind of expected parity, but don't want to actually calculate the price of everything.
As Shadrayl mentioned above, I think it would be really, really helpful for the designers to actually list what abilities players are expected to have at a certain level. So if at level 7 you're expected to have at least one or two people in the party able to reliably deal with incorporeal foes, that should be explicitly called out in the CRB. It would be helpful even to those of us who have gamed and run games for years, since we don't know going in to PF2 what levels those challenges will come up in the new edition. It can help guide what sorts of boons and treasures GMs hand out or players pursue.
Did you really roleplay working for minimum wage?
We were 4th and the tiles added up to several hundred gp. Even crappy goblin items are a few gp. In the same time I collected tiles, an untrained Hireling makes 3 sp while I made enough for a replacement potion I'd used. Those 'trash' items are often the difference between having extra expendables or not in my experience.
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My first thought reading through this was D20 Modern's wealth bonus system. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about, it's just the...Like a chump, I somehow failed to see this thread and posted another thread--which I believe I successfully deleted--with the following text:
I think 2E has potential to be an exciting opportunity to "fix" the game's reward economy and I am excited to see how buying and selling items is going to be handled in the playtest. I am guessing that we are going to see something pretty similar to Starfinder's cash economy where items sell for 1/10 their base price so GMs can be a little more liberal with what kind of gear they leave on their enemies and stuff.
The 1/10th selling system means that you can give a powerful item to your players with a smaller risk of them just fencing the gear and buying items that are more optimal for their build.
If I had my druthers however, I'd like to see a more stylized wealth system with gold-and-jewels-found acting as experience towards a "wealth level" that allots players a pool of wealth (or leveled item slots or w/e) to outfit themselves with at the beginning of each adventure. I can't remember what games I have seen this in but I have have always liked the idea. Keeping track of the "wealth level" of each of your players is a hell of a lot easier than thinking about each player's cash-on-hand plus the separate market values and sell values of those characters' gear (up to and including the value of items with expended uses). As a player, I think I would like something like this more as well since it would be more obvious to me how my stock of consumables is competing with the overall power of my other gear.
In addition to wealth level, a GM could throw in one or two items by DM or adventure fiat that could sit on top of party wealth as special exceptions (not taking up a portion of a player's wealth level themselves).
What would other people like to see?
What do people predict seeing?
When I was talking about "item slots" this is roughly what I was imagining (with much more fine tuning for numbers and such of course):
A wealth level 1 character will start each adventure with:
5 level 0 items (examples: a lantern, basic leather armor, a simple weapon, like 1 gp of walking around cash)
3 level 1 items (examples: a martial weapon, chain mail, an adventurers pack w/ the basic necessities of adventuring, an elixir of healing, a set of respectable street clothes, thieves tools, 5 gp of walking around cash)
1 level 2 items (example: 4 elixirs of healing, an expert-craft weapon, 20 gp of walking around money)
Meanwhile a character of wealth level 7 could start with:
As many level 0-2 nonconsumable items as they can reasonably carry
3 level 5 items (example: a set of fine nobleman's clothes, a set of plate mail, a horse w/ feed that was well cared for in its down time, the bearing of a man who is used to being well fed and bathed, a +1 simple weapon, a Lv. 1 wand of healing, 1,000 gp walking around money)
2 level 6 items (example: a +1 martial weapon, a 4 potions of healing level 4, a gun)
2 level 7 items (example: you get the idea)
1 level 8 item
1 level 9 item
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are you saying that all or most of your characters share this quality?*shrug* They generally do. Never had an issue and no one ever asked me to stop. At worst, I got an eye roll, I wrote down my loot and we moved on. Even if I'm not 'prying nails out of the wall', it's a rare character of mine that would leave loot on the ground, even low quality loot, if there is a viable way to take it.
This is actually another pet peeve of mine: carrying capacity. Utilizing hero lab has made me appreciate how heavy adventuring equipment actually is, and how easy it is to cross your light load line. Even handy haversacks and bags of holding don't necessarily have enough to hold all the trash gear of an entire dungeon.
I tend to handwave a certain amount of encumbrance, and try to apply some common sense rather than heavily track that minutia. Maybe the party stashes the gear as they go through the dungeon to pick back up later-- if they have horses or carts then it is conceivable that they could just be heavily encumbered on their way back to town.
But I still find myself running into THIS problem with my players. . I dunno if the new Bulk system will fix this, and I'm not sure what the exact solution should be. Do we want players grabbing EVERYTHING, or do we want them having to crunch weight vs sales value on every item they find? It seems like the right answer is somewhere in the middle.
This is actually another pet peeve of mine: carrying capacity. Utilizing hero lab has made me appreciate how heavy adventuring equipment actually is, and how easy it is to cross your light load line.are you saying that all or most of your characters share this quality?*shrug* They generally do. Never had an issue and no one ever asked me to stop. At worst, I got an eye roll, I wrote down my loot and we moved on. Even if I'm not 'prying nails out of the wall', it's a rare character of mine that would leave loot on the ground, even low quality loot, if there is a viable way to take it.
it's ridiculously easy to get an insane amount of carry. Bags of holding start at 1000gp and muleback cords are that cost too. A pack yak can carry a PILE of stuff [1 yak can carry multiple yaks...] for a mere 24gp and you can tape one of those muleback cords to carry almost anything. That's not including the various feats, traits, skills, spells, ect that boost it too. So, I agree weight is mostly ignored but I think so because it's mostly a moot point.
PS: kyrt-ryder also makes a good point about dropping containers. Even if you ARE weighed down, it doesn't have to slow combat.
I guess I can expand on my headache. If you were to allow PCs to purchase their profs and feats it would have to be very spelled out in the CRB. So many GMs are stingy with gold and rewards and fail to understand that the game doesn't work unless they provide the golden shower and ye olde magic shop.
I can relate because its often hard to explain why a troll who lives in a cave and eats whatever it finds has gold and magic items. Sure you can do a whole backstory on the poor adventurer who came before you and died in the trolls cave yadda yadda. Though after the 13th time telling such a tale it gets to be a chore. I cant speak for any GM but me, but I dont like chores...
Also, I am so tried of players turning over every stone for gold. I mean I joked once about them stripping out the copper pipping from a dungeon and their eyes lit up like they just discovered a new source of income...
Well again, it doesn't have to always be /purchased/ with actual money. These sorts of things can be quest rewards, or unexpected but welcome boons for something you do along the way of your main quest. And there's plenty of situations, like training or purifying a generic "site of power", where you can allow the PCs to choose which feat or which magic item equivalent up to X cost that they want.
Giving these abilities and boons monetary prices serves several purposes. Many if not most groups DO adhere pretty strongly to WBL; for all the problems I have with WBL, I do recognize that it is a useful tool to many GMs. Many groups WILL acquire a veritable hill of coins and gems, and this sort of stuff is another way to spend it for benefits in a way that ties the characters more flavorfully to the setting. And as mentioned earlier, it is a balancing tool; the game designers figure out what the equivalence is between items and boons and bonus feats and extra skills. That way, when choosing whether to award a treasure or boon, or allowing the PCs to buy a treasure or boon, you...
I assume you have something more than anecdotal evidence to back up the assertion that "most GMs" use WBL? My anecdotal evidence is quite the opposite. In fact, most players who out number GMs handily, dont even know WBL is a thing. Its very poorly understood element that has huge implications in game play.
I am an old school narrative rocks and rulings over rules is life kinda gamer. Though there was a good reason that RAW was all the rage in the aughts. Folks want clear guidelines so the game doesn't devolve into mother may I. I like your proposal, but i am quite pessimistic about any useful outcome. The waters on WBL have always been rather muddy. YMMV
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I could see selling loot and such being abstracted out to downtime points. You can then spend downtime points on retraining, purchasing businesses, spicking out a castle, whatever. Then adventures could say "if the PCs own an inn, they automatically get the knowledge from these gather information checks up to DC X. Otherwise they must roll and spend 1d4 hours per attempt" or maybe "If the PCs own a Castle, Lord Hardnose confides in them and gives them this information. Otherwise they must intimidate, bluff or diplomacy him at DC 40 to get the same information."
In Pathfinder Society we had faction points. There were three obvious ways to spend action points (from memory): Convert them to small amounts of gold pieces, a free raise dead or purchase vanities that have no actual game impact." I believe the vanities were extremely popular despite the fact they had little to no mechanical impact on the game.
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I could see selling loot and such being abstracted out to downtime points. You can then spend downtime points on retraining, purchasing businesses, spicking out a castle, whatever. Then adventures could say "if the PCs own an inn, they automatically get the knowledge from these gather information checks up to DC X. Otherwise they must roll and spend 1d4 hours per attempt" or maybe "If the PCs own a Castle, Lord Hardnose confides in them and gives them this information. Otherwise they must intimidate, bluff or diplomacy him at DC 40 to get the same information."
In Pathfinder Society we had faction points. There were three obvious ways to spend action points (from memory): Convert them to small amounts of gold pieces, a free raise dead or purchase vanities that have no actual game impact." I believe the vanities were extremely popular despite the fact they had little to no mechanical impact on the game.
I really like downtime and business management, but other people are not me and probably won't appreciate that being the core system.
Also, a lot of adventures won't have downtime breaks so having item exchanges requiring downtime will put an additional penalty on parties on top of them being unable to access crafting and the like. A good GM could just be sure to give their players the items they need (which is what many GM's ultimately opt), but as others have said, those GM needs to be taught what items and rewards are necessary/fun/fair.
I guess I can expand on my headache. If you were to allow PCs to purchase their profs and feats it would have to be very spelled out in the CRB. So many GMs are stingy with gold and rewards and fail to understand that the game doesn't work unless they provide the golden shower and ye olde magic shop.
It works just fine and there's already alternate rules for doing this. There's little reason to assume the game "needs" instant access to magic items and you can clearly see it when you try it. Even using the settlement rules to roll % to see if an item is being sold (the official Paizo way) is a step up from blanket availability. Using other systems they've devised such as trying to find buyers and sellers of items can make magic items quite the commodity and the game is plenty of fun.
CR rules are already extremely generous as it is. Even with HALVED WBL halfway decent characters can easily take on challenges higher than their CR on a regular basis.
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I like the idea of being able to buy Feats, Spells and Proficiencies from different Masters/Schools. It give a roleplay purpose (finding the good people to teach you) and link the PCs with the universe. Because your teacher can become a lover, or an opponents or just a nice touch in the adventure.
1e AD&D style training lasted one session - we buried it deep and it can stay buried - it doesn't add anything to the game except more administration - you can have all those stories and connections without forcing your players through that nonsense.
I really don't get this entire thread. If players easily trading magic items is preventing you from conveying any lore about your world or even stopping your players from caring about your world you've got bigger problems than WBL IMHO.
I really don't get this entire thread. If players easily trading magic items is preventing you from conveying any lore about your world or even stopping your players from caring about your world you've got bigger problems than WBL IMHO.
That is not a problem I have. What I want is clear guidelines for balanced alternate rewards, so I don't have to "ad hoc" it all the time and be unsure about the power level being granted to or denied to the players as a result.
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Having character power significantly dictated by magical equipment gets in the way of certain tropes such as the monk or religious person who has found power through personal discovery and part of their training was renouncing the material world.
There are plenty of other tropes where having money determine power really doesn't work well for the story.
There are systems where the two are divorced. Something like Hero System (especially when used for Superheroes) do that. There you purchase powers with XP rather than 'leveling up'. There is still mundane equipment, but that is the stuff for minions and everyday people. Want that artifact? Pay points for it and it is yours. Want the ability to fly? Pay points for it and it is yours. It is a very different way of doing things, with advantages and disadvantages.
Using money to purchase equipment that is a significant portion of your character's power tends to cause a lot of weird situations in the game world economy. The biggest problem in my mind is that it presupposes that everything can be bought with coins.
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This is actually another pet peeve of mine: carrying capacity. Utilizing hero lab has made me appreciate how heavy adventuring equipment actually is, and how easy it is to cross your light load line.are you saying that all or most of your characters share this quality?*shrug* They generally do. Never had an issue and no one ever asked me to stop. At worst, I got an eye roll, I wrote down my loot and we moved on. Even if I'm not 'prying nails out of the wall', it's a rare character of mine that would leave loot on the ground, even low quality loot, if there is a viable way to take it.
it's ridiculously easy to get an insane amount of carry. Bags of holding start at 1000gp and muleback cords are that cost too. A pack yak can carry a PILE of stuff [1 yak can carry multiple yaks...] for a mere 24gp and you can tape one of those muleback cords to carry almost anything. That's not including the various feats, traits, skills, spells, ect that boost it too. So, I agree weight is mostly ignored but I think so because it's mostly a moot point.
PS: kyrt-ryder also makes a good point about dropping containers. Even if you ARE weighed down, it doesn't have to slow combat.
You are correct that it isn't hard to skyrocket your carrying capacity. But that is something that itself requires some forethought and administration. I've found bags of holding to rarely be found in treasure piles for whatever reason despite being iconic, useful, and a huge quality of life improvement, so a party needs to budget for it. Which isn't an unreasonable requirement either, but it doesn't always occur to newbies and I've found that the greedier players are reluctant to shell out money on things that aren't personal upgrades. This isn't universally true, but I've had players that whine at suggestions for things like that.
Dropping loot bags is a good example of the sort of commonsense handwaving I tend to assume. And that works well until it doesn't-- namely navigating hazardous terrain (stuff that requires acrobatics, climb, or swim checks) and battles the party has to flee.
In all of the those cases though the fault falls squarely on the players. None of these are deal breakers or anything, but they are pet peeves. I would just be interested in seeing other approaches to wealth explored.
For example: you know how leveling just happens for every 1000 XP in the new system? I'd like it if wealth felt a little more like that at least. You might be pulling up the tiles at level 1, but by level 12 that crap isn't worth your time.
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Having character power significantly dictated by magical equipment gets in the way of certain tropes such as the monk or religious person who has found power through personal discovery and part of their training was renouncing the material world.
There are plenty of other tropes where having money determine power really doesn't work well for the story.
There are systems where the two are divorced. Something like Hero System (especially when used for Superheroes) do that. There you purchase powers with XP rather than 'leveling up'. There is still mundane equipment, but that is the stuff for minions and everyday people. Want that artifact? Pay points for it and it is yours. Want the ability to fly? Pay points for it and it is yours. It is a very different way of doing things, with advantages and disadvantages.
Using money to purchase equipment that is a significant portion of your character's power tends to cause a lot of weird situations in the game world economy. The biggest problem in my mind is that it presupposes that everything can be bought with coins.
But man: find a magic sword is cool. Finding gold and loot that makes you feel powerful is cool. You are right about the world economy stuff, but I think limiting purchases to cities of a certain size side steps that well enough (or alternately, you can buy shit from genies or whatever once someone gets plane shift).
Once someone has plane shift (lv. 9 or 10) a lot of bets are off.
That is not a problem I have. What I want is clear guidelines for balanced alternate rewards, so I don't have to "ad hoc" it all the time and be unsure about the power level being granted to or denied to the players as a result.I really don't get this entire thread. If players easily trading magic items is preventing you from conveying any lore about your world or even stopping your players from caring about your world you've got bigger problems than WBL IMHO.
Convert GP to, for the sake of argument let's call it "karma" on a 1 to 1 basis. Use magic item pricing to calculate the effect of your boons.
A one off boon price as a potion or scroll. An ongoing effect as a slotless magic item.
Reduce treasure found by a like amount - or limit what it can be used to purchase.
You don't need to re-invent anything here, the hard work has already been done. You can just re-flavour it however you want and get exactly the same end result.
But man: find a magic sword is cool. Finding gold and loot that makes you feel powerful is cool. You are right about the world economy stuff, but I think limiting purchases to cities of a certain size side steps that well enough (or alternately, you can buy s+#@ from genies or whatever once someone gets plane shift).
Once someone has plane shift (lv. 9 or 10) a lot of bets are off.
Finding a magic sword shouldn't necessarily require money. In fact, it is often more interesting when it is part of a story.
There is also nothing wrong with finding gold and other valuables. What can become a problem for some types of games is when you expect to be able to freely trade between valuables and magical equipment.
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But man: find a magic sword is cool. Finding gold and loot that makes you feel powerful is cool. You are right about the world economy stuff, but I think limiting purchases to cities of a certain size side steps that well enough (or alternately, you can buy s+#@ from genies or whatever once someone gets plane shift).
Once someone has plane shift (lv. 9 or 10) a lot of bets are off.
Finding a magic sword shouldn't necessarily require money. In fact, it is often more interesting when it is part of a story.
There is also nothing wrong with finding gold and other valuables. What can become a problem for some types of games is when you expect to be able to freely trade between valuables and magical equipment.
There is no such thing as a universal RPG that can handle well every type of game. There are many that pathfinder is simply ill equipped to handle.
It's like trying to use a hammer to cut wood, when there are saws available out there.
I know that this is seen as a trite answer "well find a system that works", but there does need to be those different games. You can't match the feel of pathfinder using those other systems and I really don't wan't to lose that feel. If you change pathfinder to become something you could get just by changing systems - you then have two similar systems and nothing pathfinder-ish, that's not a win.
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But man: find a magic sword is cool. Finding gold and loot that makes you feel powerful is cool. You are right about the world economy stuff, but I think limiting purchases to cities of a certain size side steps that well enough (or alternately, you can buy s+#@ from genies or whatever once someone gets plane shift).
Once someone has plane shift (lv. 9 or 10) a lot of bets are off.
Finding a magic sword shouldn't necessarily require money. In fact, it is often more interesting when it is part of a story.
There is also nothing wrong with finding gold and other valuables. What can become a problem for some types of games is when you expect to be able to freely trade between valuables and magical equipment.
Trading valuables for magic items is only a problem if the game was not designed for magic items (like 5E dnd). Pathfinder 1E (and I believe 2E) are games where magic items are the assumption for your characters efficacy at mid to higher levels.
We already know that +X weapons in 2E essentially act as damage die multipliers and I strongly suspect that this will be built into the game as being core to the math with the health of the game's monsters. This causes problems that we are talking about.
Here is a thing though: I kinda like that aspect of pathfinder. I like being mechanically incentivized to go out into the world to seek fortune. It gives players a mechanical goal other than gaining experience (killing shit).
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That is not a problem I have. What I want is clear guidelines for balanced alternate rewards, so I don't have to "ad hoc" it all the time and be unsure about the power level being granted to or denied to the players as a result.I really don't get this entire thread. If players easily trading magic items is preventing you from conveying any lore about your world or even stopping your players from caring about your world you've got bigger problems than WBL IMHO.
Convert GP to, for the sake of argument let's call it "karma" on a 1 to 1 basis. Use magic item pricing to calculate the effect of your boons.
A one off boon price as a potion or scroll. An ongoing effect as a slotless magic item.
Reduce treasure found by a like amount - or limit what it can be used to purchase.
You don't need to re-invent anything here, the hard work has already been done. You can just re-flavour it however you want and get exactly the same end result.
I think life would be made easier for me if the designers of the game did this kind of work for me one way or another.
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I really don't get this entire thread. If players easily trading magic items is preventing you from conveying any lore about your world or even stopping your players from caring about your world you've got bigger problems than WBL IMHO.That is not a problem I have. What I want is clear guidelines for balanced alternate rewards, so I don't have to "ad hoc" it all the time and be unsure about the power level being granted to or denied to the players as a result.
Most of my players have their PCs indifferent to wealth. I explained their style and motives only two weeks go, so I will merely link to it now.
Nevertheless, Fuzzypaws' statement, "Adventurers who have no connection to the world and carry all their material wealth on their person in the form of bling has always been weird," struck a chord with me. The standard adventures in Pathfinder often force the PCs to be outsiders. Some of Fuzzypaws' suggestions provide ways for them to connect to a community. If the Fisher King blesses them as a reward, they could find themselves seeking to heal the wounded Fisher King, visiting his castle to support the community there. Or they could walk away--some parties like being outsiders.
In addition, the Paizo Blog: All About Spells mentioned rituals becoming a strongly supported area of spellcasting. Most of my roleplaying experience with rituals--when they were not simply spells with a one-hour casting time--has been in stopping insane cultists from finishing an evil ritual. Beneficial rituals as a reward can move "ritual" out of dirty word territory. Beneficial rituals would also provide poor people a way to reward player characters for heroism that does not provide loot.
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I really like downtime and business management, but other people are not me and probably won't appreciate that being the core system.
Sure. But based on my experience in Pathfinder Society (which I believe to be widespread based on forum posts at the time) the vanity options were quite popular. And for those who don't want it, they can ignore it or stockpile it for free raise deads. Or use it as an economy to manage retraining.
Also, a lot of adventures won't have downtime breaks so having item exchanges requiring downtime will put an additional penalty on parties on top of them being unable to access crafting and the like. A good GM could just be sure to give their players the items they need (which is what many GM's ultimately opt), but as others have said, those GM needs to be taught what items and rewards are necessary/fun/fair.
What I would envision is something like this:
LARGE SUMS OF GOLD AND MAGIC ITEMSExpensive magic items are typically custom made due to the limited people who can afford them. However an enchanter is able to live a very comfortable life off the production of magic items, even if they only sell a handful of them across their entire lives. Given this, the expensive materials required to create magic items and the years of study necessary to gain the knowledge, enchanters are seldom motivated to lower the prices of their goods to make them more affordable.
Given the above, there are very few people who are willing to buy magic items that they haven't specifically commissioned. Most of the time it will be a city or country's leaders (whether they be nobles, politicians, religious leaders or even the town mayor) who are willing to purchase such items and then hold onto them for many years or sell them to a merchant for a fraction of their true value. However given the expense of such items, these leaders are loathe to actually pay in gold as it would quickly pauper them. Instead they typically take magic items or large piles of weaponry and armour in return for favors (which are represented via downtime points or favor points that can then be spent in a number of ways as detailed in the downtime section). Examples of such favors may be, securing the purchase of a tavern, shares in a ship, obtaining a free raise dead at some point in the future, or in some cases a non-hereditary noble title.
The exception to the above are of course cheap magic items and consumables. Typically alchemists and similar people will keep a handful of these on stock for sale.
Sidebar: Common Magic Item Shops
Some settings may have magic items and large collections of arms and armor be much more plentiful and easily exchanged for gold. In such settings a good rule of thumb is for 10 downtime points to equal about XXXX gp.
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The point to the above is GMs can equip their bad guys with as many items (either magical or mundane) as they need to without the PCs then being able to loot it and get a ridiculous amount of gold to then purchase vast sums of magic items with. Instead the adventure has a sidebar saying: If the PCs recover all of the magic items and treasure in the room (or complex) and sell it they receive XX downtime points.
Now you could ask "what if the players keep all the magic items", but chances are if they get a greatsword they'll probably be handing back in a greatsword of lower value. And even if they don't, is the game really unbalanced by having a fighter with two magical greatswords? He can only use one at a time so there's no power level increase by having multiple magic greatswords. You could decrease the amount of downtime points if you wanted to, but it would likely be more work then it's worth.
Finally if the players do find someone who wants the exact magic item they have: let them sell it for gold and even let them sell it for the full price. Treasure is never tightly bound and is always in need of adjusting in case they get things they shouldn't or overlook things they should have seen.
So how would players get magic items in the above system? Finding piles of gold, gold, gold and trade goods (precious stones, works of art, etc). Pathfinder games already hand out big sums of gold. Just increase a bit to compensate for the lack of selling magic items for gold and your good to go.