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(reposting because it's come up again)
An especially small ysoki's ears perk over the desk of the lecture hall. After poking the stage for a minute and not getting a response, he just stands on a chair and activates a laser pointer
Thank you all for joining me. Today I'm going to try to help new starfinders learn how to manage all those credits burning a hole in their pocket. Historical records indicate that in the gold old days of lost golarion your typical adventurer started out with grandpas sword and as he traveled and gained wealth he could just have it enchanted and that was the end of it. He'd go from chainmail to plate armor but after that he'd wear that same suit for the rest of his life and if he was lucky his children could inherit it. There wasn't much to think about: you bought the best you could and then upgraded it as much as you could until you quit or your died.
But in today's disposable society things are a little more complicated. People would rather get a new second skin than use your old one, so when you sell your gear it's for pennies on the credit. It doesn't matter how much you enchant this hunk of sharpened iron, you're never going to do anywhere near as much damage as hammer with an edge made out of black hole density material. At some point you're going to have to ditch your sword or pistol for a new one but.. when?
1-2 Novice starfinder 720 credits per mission X 6 misssions= 4,320 credits
3-4 beginning starfinder 1450 credits per mission X 6 missions= 8,700 credits
5-6 Seasoned starfinder 4,000 credits per mission X 6 missions= 24,000 credits
7-8 Veteran starfinder 5,800 credits per mission X6 missions= 34,800 credits
9-10 New legends 14,000 credits per mission X6 missions= 84,000 credits
That's your income. Income minus spending is wealth. The idea is to strike a balance between maximizing your wealth by minimizing your expenses while spending enough to keep you alive.
Starting out: unless you breathe in space you need a suit of armor to survive, a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and enough healing serums for the party to pour down your throat to keep you up.
Novice starfinders: Should prioritize buying their two personal Augmentations. There's no investment like an investment in yourself. You're going to want to get a CHEAP backup weapon in case you're fighting a fire elemental and you have a laser weapon or a sentient thundercloud and all you have are shock gloves.
beginning starfinder: Cheaper augmentations start to look good here. Low light vision if your species is normally night blind (and you don't plan on getting the darkvision ones), foot slats to climb on the ceiling away from things trying to eat you is far better at getting out of harms way than 1400 credits worth of armor. Maybe dermal armor 1 if you're going to learn to block with your head.
guns and armor are bright shiny and new, but aren't that much more effective than their much cheaper level 1 versions.
5-6 Seasoned starfinder 4,000 credits per mission X 6 missions= 24,000 credits
It may be time to upgrade the armor or weapon by this point. Try to get the highest level thing you want and stick with it for a while: constantly upgrading is just throwing money away. You can also spread out a bit to cover obstacles and hazards like clearsight goggles for fog, null space chambers for large amounts of loot, and definitely look into a jetpack if you don't have some other means of flight.
7-8 If you didn't upgrade weapons/armor at the last tier, probably time. if you did, hold off. Armor upgrades add a lot more defense than new armor.
9-10: May be time for a weapon upgrade again. I'll let you know when I get here.
One of the big changes for the starfinder economy is that some of the different loot systems groups use function very differently from each other, whereas under pathfinder they'd more or less get you similar results.
Cash and carry: a SFS style loot system where you get everything in cash and you're on your own. (Pros, fair, book keeping is only tracking numbers, Con: they don't actually give you the numbers to do this straight out, There's no joy in finding a +5 Schlesinger knife as opposed to a soulless pile of copper pieces)
Murdermart: A campaign system where you get most of your loot off of bodies. (Pros Feels the most organic/realistic Cons: Complicated (will literally require a spreadsheet), loot can be VERY unevenly distributed, loot can be jerky and uneven. If PCS use everything they wind up horribly over powered if they sell everything they wind up horribly underpowered. Many official APs using this system seem to really under pay characters.
Wealth by level reset: At every level either you redo all of your gear to set you to wealthy by level, Or anyone that's below wealth by level gets a boost. (Pros: really, really easy, fair to everyone Con: requires social contract to not abuse. Finding treasure is a non issue )
Wealth= Income - spending. (W= I-S) Wis
So what happens in a homegame when you're not piling up buckets of credits?
Murdermart Under a murdermart system actual cash is TIGHT
Wealth= Income - spending
Income= (100% Usable item) + (10% not usable items)
Items you will use retain their full value, but vendor items only go for a measley 10%. It becomes absolutely imperative to only spend credits on things you can't get off of bodies and onto your character (since they functionally cost 10 times as much). Unless your build relies on a very specific weapon, don't buy weapons, absolutely don't buy armor, and only buy oddball upgrades if you can. Pray everything else drops, because your cash income isn't going to cover a heck of a lot. Save your cash for augmentations and keep some fabreeze on hand to get the smell of badguy out of the armor.
Under a wealth by level reset your wealth is fixed by level but your income is actually variable to what you spent over that level. In pathfinder this was no big deal, you had a few consumables and a few wands of clw that you replaced eventually. You'd need to go out of your way blowing through consumables to get a vast difference between another loot system.
Under starfinders disposable goods economy though, you can go absolutely gonzo blowing your wealth on upgrades. Compared to someone in in a different loot system, you have far more reason to upgrade your weapons and armor to the latest cutting edge thing. It gives a fair bit more power if your weapon and armor are always top notch. I think with one weapon and one armor set to constant upgrade you'd almost have to double your effective income over another loot system.
Which loot system is best is incredibly subjective, but the effects of those loot systems drop out of the game theory and realities behind them. (fake realities?)
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Mr. Ysoki,
What would you suggest for someone in my unique position? In the level 5-6 range where you suggested purchasing new armor or a new weapon, I did both. Admittedly, the armor was a snap buy and a rare instance of... Emotion. I acquired it at the Recent Strawberry Machine Cake concert, you see, as I'm a fan of the band. It even has their logo on it. What it does not have are armor slots. So your suggestion to instead purchase armor mods instead of new armor is a bit difficult for me to follow.
Now yes, as an Android, I am capable of integrating a single minor mod with my person. However, it has come to my attention that an upcoming mission I am assigned to potentially entangles with the Azlanti Star Empire. Their Spec Ops armor has a certain reputation. If My team successfully acquires some for the society, it would be my desire to purchase a suit for myself, though I understand that would be in opposition to your council.
Additionally, I anticipate a promotion following this mission that would authorize me to purchase a Mk II Personal Upgrade. I expect purchasing upgraded PUs would also be a boon to my combat efficiency. This does raise concern that pursuing the armor and the PUs may be a financial impossibility. And this still would not fall in line with your advisement.
Given these circumstances, I would eagerly ask for further Advisement and council.
With regards,
OVERWATCH.
P.s. considering this is advisement to current and future Starfinder Society field agents and personnel, perhaps this would be more appropriate in the advice section?
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'Overwatch'
From field testing of the Azlanti Spec Ops armor, I should warn you that it is physically restrictive after a point. Depending what kind of Mk II Personal Upgrade you intend to purchase, be aware that with it in place, you may find the armor too tight and unresponsive at certain joints.
I will recommend that you prioritize the Personal Upgrade as, as the Ysoki mentioned, it is an investment in yourself. Your team may be able to heal you if necessary, what matters is that you have the ability to fight beside them at full capacity.
Reg.
Atlas-1
it has come to my attention that an upcoming mission I am assigned to potentially entangles with the Azlanti Star Empire.
The nice thing about a seniority based payscale is that mistakes tend to not matter over the long term, just the short term. Losing 8k credits is your life savings of scrimping and saving for a novice starfinder, but as a seasoned field agent it's just one more mission that you're behind.
So like getting drunk on the starship engines don't worry TOO much if you did it once just don't make a habbit of it.
also Mister Ysoki is my father...
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An android in heavy armor strides into the auditorium, not bothering to touch the ground. Security guards trying to intercept them receive painful electric shocks and decide to let this one go.
"Hello everyone. I'm Bailey, I've been asked to address you on the subject of Accounting For Heroes. As you know, the universe needs saving from any number of lunatic cultists, and the Society has only so many funds to kit out its agents. Using your credits wisely is key to success and the survival of life as we know it."
I wanted to see how different SFS is from regular SF when it comes to WBL, and what conclusions we can draw from that. In all analyses, I'm assuming a 4-player party.
First, I figured out how many encounters it takes to go up a level. It turns out, about 13 encounters with [CR = your level] enemies. Consistently along all levels.
Next, I calculate the loot you'd earn as a 25% share from 13 of such encounters. (A monster worth twice as much XP also tends to be worth about twice as much GP; not precisely but close enough.) Then add those in packs of two levels, so they're comparable to SFS tiers. As it turns out, the difference is less than 5%, so from here on out we can assume that SF and SFS run on a fairly similar wealth model. Notable difference: the CRB advises not to give big pure cash payouts because it encourages players to put all their money into one above-level item. SFS only gives pure cash payouts though.
Having established that the amount of money you earn in SFS is about the same as in a by-the-book home game, let's look at how much money that actually is.
First, let's check another assumption in the CRB: that characters built above level 1 shouldn't spend more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, and no more than 25% on armor and protective devices. I think this is copy-paste nonsense from Pathfinder where you were encouraged not to spend too much of your wealth on a single magic item; but a typical character had a lot of magic items. Starfinder restricts you to two worn items, and anyway, by far the most expensive things in the game are armor and weapons. I'm just going to ignore this 25% advice.
Next, lets look at how much money you earn ("lifetime earnings") vs. how much you're expected to have (WBL). When you reach level 3, WBL expects you to have 4000 credits worth of stuff; but you started with 1000 credits and are supposed to have earned about 4078 credits in SF or 4320 in SFS. That puts you about 1000 credits (20%) above target. I guess the expectation is that you lose this money somehow:
* Bribes and taxes
* Spellcasting fees
* Replacement body parts
* Expended consumables
* Obsolete lower-level weapons and armor sold back for only 10%.
Typically, the last two categories will make up the bulk of expenses. If you take the "target WBL" of a new tier (for example, the amount of money you should have at becoming level 3), and subtract that from [the WBL at the start of the previous tier + the money earned during that tier], you get the surplus earnings in that tier. Now if you divide that surplus by the WBL at previous tier, you get the fraction of money that was supposed to evaporate.
Doing some of that math, it turns out that the obsolescence rate per tier should be about 40-50%.
Put plainly: you're expected to no longer have/use 50% of the stuff you had last tier.
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That's the idea anyway. I'm not so sure it works that way in practice. In practice, people aren't sure on when to upgrade, or don't think upgrading a weapon is quite necessary yet. Or they buy things with a longer shelf life, like armor upgrades, instead of things that have a short shelf life, like armor.
GM babies are another thing. GM babies accumulate all the income without wasting money on stuff that becomes obsolete. So when you decant them at higher level, they're about 20-50% over WBL.
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What kind of practical lessons can we draw from this?
* If something doesn't need replacing right now, consider postponing it for a few levels and skipping ahead to the next generation of the item
* Mistakes you make in purchasing should fade out in about 2-4 levels.
* The difference between home games and SFS in wealth aren't as big as I thought, assuming that the GM uses the treasure rules well. If he's giving you items counted as full value which you don't use, then you're behind SFS. It's hard to beat the perfect flexibility of cash.
* It's okay to use consumables. It's in the budget.
* If you think about it, an armor that only has a shelf life of a couple of levels is also a kind of consumable.
@ Bailey: Very succinctly put. I had to math out the same calculations several times before I finally made sense of the new economy and realized keeping top-tier weapons / armor would not automatically bankrupt you.
So, just to repeat something I've said a thousand times by now:
It is a duty for the GM to properly judge whether a given piece of loot dropped is likely to be used by the PCs. If its *not* likely to be used, it should *only* be counted 10% towards the wealth in an encounter/adventure. And if you predict wrong, you *should* adjust later encounters.
I am convinced that at least a good 75% of equipment availability problems? Are due to GMs ( or AP writers! ) not providing enough loot in the first place, because they are counting things at full value which should not have been counted at full value.
To harp on this a little more.
It's spelled out that items not used should only count as 10% of their value when accounting for wealth gains per encounter. Pg. 391, Gaining Wealth, Items section.
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So, just to repeat something I've said a thousand times by now:
It is a duty for the GM to properly judge whether a given piece of loot dropped is likely to be used by the PCs. If its *not* likely to be used, it should *only* be counted 10% towards the wealth in an encounter/adventure. And if you predict wrong, you *should* adjust later encounters.
I am convinced that at least a good 75% of equipment availability problems? Are due to GMs ( or AP writers! ) not providing enough loot in the first place, because they are counting things at full value which should not have been counted at full value.
To harp on this a little more.
It's spelled out that items not used should only count as 10% of their value when accounting for wealth gains per encounter. Pg. 391, Gaining Wealth, Items section.
I missed this so thank you! I haven't run in games but this is a crucial point on gear/wealth.
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I think if as a GM if you do the treasure right (pretty much as described in the CRB; take care to properly valuate loot based on whether they'll use it), then based on the math I did, I think it should work pretty well.
* Loot > WBL: you earn more than you need to earn, because you're expected to waste some of it. It's okay to use consumables, buy armor that you'll eventually replace, and so on.
* Loot can be cool. Finding a higher-level useful weapon or armor is pretty cool.
* Ups and downs in the WBL curve, because the party found more or less loot than expected, fade out after a few levels.
So that's really nice if it works. You have the classic D&D loot glee where you find something really brutal and go rampage with it. But if you don't, or if it gets stolen, or if you find more than one; within a couple of levels, you should be getting close to the average again. On the whole, the system is designed to trend towards the middle.