Economy of rewards

[willot]

Your character enters a merchant's Store

"I wish to sell this golden pendant, encrusted with ruby flakes and embossed in mithril. The center piece is a perfect cut Black Diamond! This pendant was recently acquired from the tomb of the arch mage Drog Mo'Harad, I estimate it to be unique and over 3000 years old!

GM consults the Party Treasure by Level table 10.9

Merchant scratch his chin, "Unique you say? mmmmm Gonna be hard to find the right Buyer... Ill give you 2 gold!

Player: "5! and not a penny less or strike me dead!"

Merchant :" 4!"

Player: "DONE! nice doing business with you"

I know why the economy has been realigned (downtime earning) but It just doesnt sit right with me. Under the old system that pendant would be worth like 400gp. and I know you can say oh well. in the world a gold piece represents 1 years earning of a farm. I do understand but it... just... seems....ODD?

May be Ive just been conditioned to the old reward system

Anyone else feel same?

[thenobledrake]

I'm kind of confused as to what you're meaning... is it just the numbers you're having a problem with (4 vs. 400), or is it the purchase power being different (one good piece of jewelry = a relevant and useful item then, but not now - which I'm not sure is actually the case but am also not sure isn't the case)?

...and what does downtime earning have to do with it?

[Ruzza]

I'm confused. Did the GM put in a very flavorful item and then value it low just to be a jerk?

What is your complaint?

[willot]

It isnt really a compliant more of a observation. When I hand out rewards to my players (Wealth rewards) they always seem underwhelmed "Oh , A ruby... 1 gold.. yeah I guess..thats nice.."

I possibly confused the question with the theatrics

Under the old system a PC is expected to have about 1000gp of wealth by 2nd level "Table: Character Wealth by Level"

Under the new system the "Table: Character Wealth by Level" states a party of adventures (4 players) should of gained about 300gp of wealth by level 2. One player therefore would be 75gp

So
Level 2 old system character 1000gp
Level 2 new system character 75gp

Meaning under the new system while you can hand out fantastic treasures there aren't allow to be worth much.

EG:
Chainmail under old system is worth 150gp
Chainmail under the new system is worth 6gp

Now this is all fine, everything balances out.
I guess my question is when you see a Cape of the Montebank being sold at 980gp (under old system 10800gp) does something in the back of your head say "That cant be right? Can it?"

Just curious if other people got the same feeling?

[Rysky]

No, they just switched the standard to make gold more valuable and cut a bunch of zeroes, everything still costs about the same, it’s just that gold is valuable now.

[tonyz]

Very roughly: PF1 price / 10 = PF2 price.

Copper is the new silver.

Silver is the new gold.

Gold is the new platinum.

[ChibiNyan]

I kind of understand where he's coming from. Gold became 10x more valuable than before, but jewelry and gemstones did not, so it seems like those items have become less impressive. A ruby that was worth 100GP is now worth 10GP, while 100 gold coins are now worth a hell of a lot more. It makes you think that gold is so rare in this setting that it can buy it's own weight in precious gems.

I think gems should have also gone up in worth to be worth as many gold coins as before, even if this put them out of the reach of low level adventurers.

[thenobledrake]

To me, it's kind of like talking about prices of things in different kinds of currency - such as comparing the price of an item in yen to the same item priced in U.S. dollars - one is a bigger number, but neither is more or less of a wow-factor just by that number alone.

In order to feel the actual worth, rather than see a number and have no context for what it means, you've got to see what X units of currency can actually get you.

Illustrative example: The 1000 gp of PF1 sounds like more value than the 75 gp of PF2, but using chain mail as a check we find the PF1 sum can almost afford 7 suits, but the PF2 sum can almost afford 13 - meaning the smaller number is actually the one with greater value.

[willot]

Oh yeah it all works, It is just a feeling I guess We'll get use to it.

Mind you the smallest unit of currency is 1cp so that Mug of Ale just shot up in value LOL

[Ediwir]

I did a double-take when I opened this, dammit.

That said, I as a GM am dropping mostly random numbers because I have to handle stacks of gold here and there in vaiours piles of coins and I must randomise the amount a little to make it look more natural (it ultimately adds up to an appropriate amount, but finding a pile of 500 coins is different from finding piles of 236, 128 and 136 coins), so my perception is a bit weird, but my players did a major "WAIT HOW MUCH???" over finding 1k gold in fine silk (5 bolts of 200gp each), so I suppose the perception is working.

This was around level 10, by the way. A sizeable amount, but by pf1 standards, it'd be nothing.