Too contrived and video gamey for me. But I can see where some folks would be into it.
That sounds like an awful system and I would never want to play in it...
That said, is there a WBL/Income per encounter chart? You could just follow that chart and increase each increment by 10-25%, and that increase is how much you spend to level.
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I dislike a system that encourages mercenary behavior to this degree. There's no in-system reward for doing anything but whatever pays the most regardless of morality, and encourages such a callously mercenary attitude very strongly. That's kinda not the game I want to run.
Even Shadowrun and other games where the players actually are purely mercenary usually have some reward other than cash that has meaning.
That said, if that's the type of game you want to run and your players want to play in, go for it.
By video gamey, I was thinking of something like Gauntlet. Or one of those games where you kill a creature and it turns into a pile of coins on the screen that you steer your avatar over.
This is a variant aimed at the OSR (old-school revival) community, and I'm not one of those folks. I've looked at some of the various systems that have sprung up for those types of games, and concluded that they're not for me or my players. I'm not sure how many of those folks will be looking at PF2, so I suspect the reactions you're seeing will be common.
That said, I think it's really hard to put gold for XP in the PF2 system, because they no longer scale in any comparable fashion. I think the overall approach you're trying to take is about the only one that will work. You have to either add scaling costs to XP or scaling totals required.
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I'm running a campaign exactly like this at the moment, for a change of pace. There's a village and a massive megadungeon close by (but difficult to get to). The PCs are delving in and the deeper they go, the more valuable the loot and the more powerful the magical items - plus the more dangerous the monsters. I also drastically reduced the experience points for killing monsters and added in sizable story awards for triumphing over one wandering monster and clearing two rooms on any given level - I think it's important to de-emphasize the benefit from fighting things as well as highlighting the value in finding loot.
The way I would approach the issue you raise would be to simply increase the exchange rate - so early on in levels experience points would be a copper piece each, then a silver, then a gold....and so on (or "1 experience point costs your current level in silver pieces" or something - I'd go for easy to remember and just tweak how much the PCs find). The system we're playing in has the usual pseudo-exponential progression but you're in charge of how much coinage gets handed out so you just need to bear the exchange rate in mind when determining loot.
They're at the point where they can safely poke around in the first few levels but they're also strongly incentivised to try and go as deep as they can (since safely exploring level one nets them rubbish items and a handful of coppers or silver if they're lucky - all those spells and healing resources for a meagre return in experience points just isn't as attractive as delving deep to clear out a new level and scoop up some really valuable stuff).
In terms of the economy, I have sales of treasure at full value, sales of "ordinary stuff" at half value and sales of magical items at 1/10th value. That'll be a little system dependant, but I found when magic items sold for more the PCs barely kept anything - this way they are keeping (and thus utilising) the miscellaneous, "oddbod" items they find.
I've picked up loads of campaign coins and am preparing little packages of them to handout and distribute - I also have mountains of Paizo item cards which are all shuffled up and "searching the room" involves drawing some randomly determined number of those (with foil cards being magic items and others being mundane). I'll be honest that I suspect that physicality is part of the appeal of the campaign, rather than the abstract "kill the monster and take it's stuff" approach. We're also randomising what magic items are found and the players are rolling those percentages, which they're enjoying. Overall, it's quite a silly premise - but that was how games ran back when we started.
I do think it captures the reasoning behind "gold pieces = experience points" to have PCs spend it on developing the campaign world - people nowadays forget that the idea of developing your PC's abilities hadn't found its way into the consciousness of gamers the way it has now. The earning of new abilities wasn't as central to the idea of levelling up in the 70s (imo). It was a side-effect of becoming one of the setting's movers and shakers. As it turned out - gamers generally enjoyed growing in martial/magical power more than being lords of a realm.
Already my PCs have developed their own campaign goals. One wants to send the local innkeeper bankrupt over a long-forgotten personal sleight. They also stumbled into a dragon they had no chance of defeating who has now put them to work retrieving loot for him throughout the dungeon. That has created this organic goal within the party. They've been through numerous APs, but I don't think I've ever had a villain they are more committed to overthrowing than this dragon who demands a "tithe" every time they leave the dungeon (of loot which I also count towards their experience points as "spent" - so they're no worse off, but they feel hard done by).
We're all pushing fifty and have been playing for forty years - the nostalgia element is probably a big reason behind the success. It's not something I'd go into without a lot of pre-campaign discussion and buy-in from the players.
It's not a game I'd like to play in, to be frank, but I have one player in particular who just doesn't get into heavily story-based campaigns. He's playing a nature priest for example with no nature or religion skills (it all went into "tactically useful" things). He doesn't have a name for his god and quite cheerily went for Animate Dead as one of his spells with absolutely no thought as to whether it would "fit" his deity - his PC development choices are purely made for their in-game utility. He chose the nature domain because of some mechanical benefits he wanted, not because he had a character in mind.
Presumably you could just play PF2 using the CR/XP system from PF1, and add your 'gold -> XP' system to that. Multiply XP rewards for money by 10, since gold coins are worth more now.
That said, I think it's really hard to put gold for XP in the PF2 system, because they no longer scale in any comparable fashion. I think the overall approach you're trying to take is about the only one that will work. You have to either add scaling costs to XP or scaling totals required.Thank you.
(I honestly do not think replacing the xp numbers is "really hard". "Non-trivial" maybe, but not hard at all.)
I think I was also still weighing the philosophical disconnect with the rest of the system design, rather than the mechanics.
More like mixing oil and something else that just doesn't naturally want to mix. You can do it with some vigorous shaking, and you have to keep an eye on it or they'll start to separate. But maybe that's your preferred salad dressing and no one else makes it, so you'll keep shaking.
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I'm personally not a fan of assuming that you get a set amount of money from defeating monsters. That would make the game seem too grindy (although it is already grindy as you still get EXP from monster encounters) and also rather unrealistic.
I don't think it would be any more grindy and unrealistic than the current system, where you basically get XP for slaughtering things.
Sure, it makes sense for goblins and dragons to have gold on them, but not so much for undead or specters (unless they were formally nobles and their corpses have loot on them).
Its kind of like that anyway, in that there is an expected amount of gold due to the wealth-by-level guidelines.
However, one effect of this system is that the PCs won't be interested in fighting powerful creatures that don't have enough treasure to make it worth the risk. I don't see that as a drawback, and it can be a plus if it encourages the PCs to do some research before setting off on the adventure.
And even then, rationing out gold amongst party members is always a tricky subject.
Why not give everybody an equal share? Are people unhappy that they have been unfairly deprived of gold going to be significantly more unhappy at being deprived of gold and xp?
I'm still somewhat baffled by the idea that buying XP with gold could be remotely balanced in PF1.
I'm familiar with old-school D&D where finding treasure gave you XP, but as far as I know, that never required you to sacrifice magic items for the sake of leveling up.
I'm familiar with old-school D&D where finding treasure gave you XP, but as far as I know, that never required you to sacrifice magic items for the sake of leveling up.
It sort of did - I never played AD&D second edition which is often what people reference, so maybe it changed there. However, in first edition you can sell a magic item (and get its value in gold as experience). If you keep the item, there is a reduced experience reward for it - the argument I heard to explain it being that you were compensated by being more powerful, you just have to choose whether that’s power by virtue of items or class advancement.
Levels weren’t such a big thing back then though. It didn’t really matter if a fifth and eight level PC adventures together - certainly not to the extent that it matters in modern games.
Ah, found it in my 1e DMG, page 121: "The suggested experience point (x.p.) values are for characters who keep the items. Gold piece sale values are the usual sums which characters will be paid for magic items, and if so sold, the x.p. award should be based on the selling price of the items, not the x.p. value."
So, you'd get 4,000xp for finding a Maul of the Titans or you could sell it for 12,000gp. And selling an item for 12,000gp would gain you 12,000xp, because all gold gives you xp.
Or you'd get 1,000xp for finding a Gauntlets of Ogre Power, or you could sell them for 15,000gp. So there was no fixed ratio of gold value versus XP value.
No idea what would happen if you kept the item until you gained the XP, and then sold the item, but I imagine GMs of that period had to cope with a lot worse.
Ah, found it in my 1e DMG, page 121: "The suggested experience point (x.p.) values are for characters who keep the items. Gold piece sale values are the usual sums which characters will be paid for magic items, and if so sold, the x.p. award should be based on the selling price of the items, not the x.p. value."
So, you'd get 4,000xp for finding a Maul of the Titans or you could sell it for 12,000gp. And selling an item for 12,000gp would gain you 12,000xp, because all gold gives you xp.
Or you'd get 1,000xp for finding a Gauntlets of Ogre Power, or you could sell them for 15,000gp. So there was no fixed ratio of gold value versus XP value.
No idea what would happen if you kept the item until you gained the XP, and then sold the item, but I imagine GMs of that period had to cope with a lot worse.
Yeah. We tended to give the difference. It was a matter of some debate though.
Even Shadowrun and other games where the players actually are purely mercenary usually have some reward other than cash that has meaning.
Oh people have done the math. Its more efficient to steal cars than it is to go running. People don't because its boring.
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I'd love to see an update on this thread.
I am interested in running a campaign using gold for XP, probably along with automatic bonus progression...which I think would simplify the issue of gold vs magic.
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Has anyone tried to homebrew the old school XP for gold mechanic in pathfinder 2e? My current thinking would be to use the suggested treasure by level charts alongside the automatic bonus progression variant.
Note: Not interested in comments about whether they like the old-school XP for gold mechanic or not, just interested in how to make it work within the 2e ruleset.
The problems I am seeing is that magic items typically sell for half value. So there is a tradeoff for players will face (keep magic items but less XP, or sell item, but have less magic). Because items play an important role in power progression, it seemed easier to make the hard stat bonuses automatic, and magic items focus on more interesting effects. Moreover, alot of GP for XP type rules stipulate that XP is rewarded to players after they bring it 'home' and spend it on certain campaign themes, for example fight hard, party hard, or on class specific goals (strongholds, temples, titles, etc). This is appealing to me, especially in the kind of campaign I'm setting up: I'm planning to run a hexcrawl where clans are competing to become the next high magnate, by plundering the most riches, throwing the best parties, and basically showing the people that they can provide, a la Vikings. No AP compatibilities required.
Rise, thread!
Has anyone tried to homebrew the old school XP for gold mechanic in pathfinder 2e? My current thinking would be to use the suggested treasure by level charts alongside the automatic bonus progression variant.
Note: Not interested in comments about whether they like the old-school XP for gold mechanic or not, just interested in how to make it work within the 2e ruleset.
The problems I am seeing is that magic items typically sell for half value. So there is a tradeoff for players will face (keep magic items but less XP, or sell item, but have less magic). Because items play an important role in power progression, it seemed easier to make the hard stat bonuses automatic, and magic items focus on more interesting effects. Moreover, alot of GP for XP type rules stipulate that XP is rewarded to players after they bring it 'home' and spend it on certain campaign themes, for example fight hard, party hard, or on class specific goals (strongholds, temples, titles, etc). This is appealing to me, especially in the kind of campaign I'm setting up: I'm planning to run a hexcrawl where clans are competing to become the next high magnate, by plundering the most riches, throwing the best parties, and basically showing the people that they can provide, a la Vikings. No AP compatibilities required.
I think the answer here is pretty simple. Don't give XP for selling magic items.