The topic has come up in a few threads recently, one for a group woefully under WBL, and a couple of others who've mentioned going over.
I feel like I have a decent understanding of how and why being significantly under WBL can impact a party's ability to handle encounters appropriate to their CR.
My question is, where is the threshold of significance for when a party exceeds WBL? In my group, we take turns GMing, as none of us is a "pure" GM at heart. Some, more than others, really like to sprinkle in lots of treasure and magical items. At what point does this generosity lead to the party being "to strong" in terms of average encounters?
I don't think this really has anything to do with using ABP or not, as I'm not sure it's even too much of a problem in our games. We're happy to utilize or hold onto just about any odd or fun "suboptimal" items. More just curious, as to when it might become an issue.
I am one of those GMs that sprinkle (or rather, hose down) the characters with magic items or excessive wealth. It really isnt a problem because of the way I handle the economy of the game world and limit the available magic items to the group. A combination of some time sensitive quests, items that have to be commissioned, and the buying limits of the towns keep the characters about where I want them to be. I like them to have more lower cost magic item trinkets than large, expensive powerful items as it helps shore up their individual weaknesses. They do have the option of traveling to larger towns and capitals, but that can quickly become an adventure all in itself. Crafting feats and downtime can play a large role in the games that I run.
As a player, I am an unapologetic pack rat and blatant hoarder of misc magic items. That scroll of Phantasmal Killer we found four levels ago? I still have it and yes, I am using it on the big bad after I just WRECKED his will save. No, its not on my spell list, but my UMD is immense.
As far as keeping the party challenged, its all about keeping to the rules of a 'challenging encounter' using up about one quarter of their daily resources, regardless of how easily they walk through it. All their consumable items that they are hoarding will get used when I eventually spring a few unexpected additional encounters on them when they've nearly expended themselves.
Thanks for the input. I do think that was one big problem in our last sandbox game, we had two guys who were either over generous, or tried to create gear that was more awesome/important than the characters. Then later another GM, and myself once sadly, made the mistake of allowing the basically unlimited "magic mart".
Probably need to bone up on the commerce rules. Annoying thing is, I'm already kind of the default "rules lawyer" of the group. I don't really want another thing where I get in the way of folks ideas or fun. In the long run, I help to keep us on task, balanced, and running. But short term, I end up sometimes being the bad guy.
My question is, where is the threshold of significance for when a party exceeds WBL? In my group, we take turns GMing, as none of us is a "pure" GM at heart. Some, more than others, really like to sprinkle in lots of treasure and magical items. At what point does this generosity lead to the party being "to strong" in terms of average encounters?
My gut feeling is that +50% over WBL or 35% below it are roughly the thresholds where it gets noticable. So there is a broad corridor of wealth where the party's power is roughly the same.
WBL is one thing, usability of the items you get is another one. If you gain 200% WBL in items but have to sell everything in favor of buying something useful, you are effectively at 100%.
I definitely was too generous last campaign. I tried to keep everyone on WBL and provide them with useful items, so the melee people became a tad too strong. While they enjoyed their fancy weapons and other Big 6 items, I guess a higher difficulty wouldn't have hurt sometimes.
Now I am looking forward to GMing an AP, being curious how they will handle the reduced and more random loot.
I tend to be pretty restrictive on permanent magic items, though I do allow PCs to buy them if the settlement stat block would allow it. I do, however make up for this by dumping tons of consumables on my players. Scrolls and potions mostly, though sometimes single use wondrous items or wands with only a handful of charges.
Bear in mind however; I don't award these consumables in a vacuum.
More often than not a given adventure contains one or more intelligent foes. These foes are then carrying the consumables the PCs find. If a kobold adept 4/warrior 3 is flying around on their mauler familiar and I've randomly rolled a scroll of Bull's Strength for the treasure of the encounter, you'd best believe I'm going to try and have that kobold cast that scroll on his familiar.
As a result, PCs in my games often tend to have a lot of extra consumables carried over between levels. This is also fine, because hidden WITHIN these is frequently one spell or item that is the convenient fix for a specific problem I'm planning for the party to face. The PCs found a scroll of Knock for example, but decided to sell it. The next adventure involved a reinforced, Arcane Locked door that the PCs ended up bashing down and incurred a serious wandering encounter because of.
So... I overload the consumables, concealing these as the gear of intelligent foes, and often design these items with an eye to the future.
Lastly, there's plenty of ways to allow the PCs to buy/sell magic items in settlements w/out having a "magic mart." You could make them wait and have magic items be made for them; you could have specialty dealers or whole merchant leagues built on this trade; create a black market - the prices for the magic items don't change, but since the purchase of them is outlawed there is a very real danger that powerful clerics or wizards will be sent after you for prosecution.
Play off the PCs' skills. Got a fighter with the Profession: Soldier? Perhaps in order for her to buy a magic sword they've got to locate a military unit/installation willing to sell such a weapon. Arcanist with Knowledge: History? They have to find a rare antiques dealer to sell them a Cloak of the Bat worn by elite spies of the realm a century ago.
If you want buying magic items to be no big deal, then handwaving a "magic mart" is fine. If you want to control the flow of magi items and their avail though, putting minor wrinkles into the process can be very useful.
Finally, if the PCs are in a Kingmaker or "west marches" type of sandbox game w/out access to settlements... bring the settlements to them:
1. Ratfolk trading caravan - specializing in potions, alchemical gear and perhaps the occasional firearm, these travelers roam the wilds and work deals with whoever has the money to pay
2. Drow merchants - looking for trade goods and eldritch magics from the depths of the Darklands? These cadres, led by merchant-clan matriarchs can be a blessing... or a curse
Speaking of curses...
3. The Coven-weldt - these trios of hags are often willing to barter magical trinkets for a price, but often times these items come with strings attached. Perhaps the amulet is secretly a Hag's Eye, or the troll chieftain who lost his favorite helm is going to come looking for it.
4. Oasis of the Dead - in lands where the history is long but the resources are scarce, often times the intelligent dead will settle upon a place the living need to survive. Rarely however, this unliving creature will suffer the air-breathers for trade and commerce in order to make their immortal unlife that much more bearable. Being ageless has its advantages as you recall where all the best heroes' gear has fallen among the ancient tales and songs.
5. The random door - the PCs find themselves deep inside an endless dungeon. They have a great deal of material wealth but nowhere to spend it. More than that, they are in need of rest and rejuvenation. Suddenly a door appears, far different from all of those they've passed on this level. Venturing through it puts them... wherever you need in the planes! Perhaps a bazar at the center of the universe, or on the deck of an ethereal galleon, or in the court of Asmodeus. You can choose, obviously, but hopefully what you put on the other side will present the chances and resources they seek
I've gotten to the point where Pathfinder is almost definitely not the best system for me to be using, but it's what I and my players know. Sure, we could use a d10 or a d6 system. Sure, we could learn a new one. But there's just something about the d20 system that's a good combination of nostalgic and precise that really works well for fantasy stories.
I'm far more generous than the standard WBL guidelines would suggest, but in odd ways. I hand out custom magic items 90% of the time and usually adjust or outright ignore the cost of slotless items, additional powers, or even the exponential cost of an increased bonus. If you're lvl5 and find a talisman that grants a +1 to your saves and +2 to AC, I probably marked it as worth 4,000gp in regards to your character wealth, because the fact that it takes up one slot and that it offers the same bonuses as three separate items doesn't actually benefit your characterin any way at this time.
In the last several games I've run, the story was too pressing and the locals too remote to allow for much of any buying, selling or trading, much less downtime. So it wasn't really an issue.
And as far as keeping encounters challenging, I can't say anyone in any of my games has felt particularly safe when it comes to rolling initiative, armed with ancient relics and potent magics they may be.
Unless the extra WBL is going to raw combat power or not something your party can leverage in combat, I write it off. It's also important to remember that the WBL chart is what your character should have when you "hit" that level. Which means you should be gaining gold to hit the next milestone once you level up as well.
I made this comment in the other thread, but it belongs here as well.
I'll reiterate that I have found Tier 1 classes and experienced players make more of a difference to game balance than too much or too little gear.
WBL is just a guideline for building characters at the level. Most adventurers will have significantly more or less wealth depending on the adventure and how they use the wealth distributed in the game.
I've noticed that it's fairly easy to keep encounters challenging to the party, regardless of wealth, simply by maxing HP on the bad guys and if needed, adding a couple of extra bodies. In my experience, optimal builds, and tier 1 classes played by experienced players makes much more of a difference that too much gear.
I'll reiterate that I have found Tier 1 classes and experienced players make more of a difference to game balance than too much or too little gear.
I don't disagree with your statement but I want to flesh it out more. The Tier 1 classes have ways of mitigating their lack of wealth. In many cases, they can provide most if not all of the benefits for themselves or others whereas a Tier 3 class would struggle to do the same(Or would simply be expending the vast majority of their resources to do so). So in a game where WBL is shortchanged, they will remain mostly the same.
On the other hand, a Tier 3 class has to burn through their resources to keep up before dropping off exponentially when they're finally out of resources.
This is, of course, excluding certain archetypes that help get around the lack of WBL. Or the Full BAB, Free Belt, Free Weapon, Free Armor and Free Cloak of Resistance monster of a class that is the Occultist.
In practice, the way different tables handle it makes more of a difference than the actual amount of wealth you (the GM) gives out.
If you let your players purchase or make items, then more gold =higher numbers =more power. If you don't let your players purchase stuff, they could be twice wbl and still be under powered because they're missing the right +numbers items for their builds.
If you let players sell stuff, then more stuff = more gold. If you don't let players sell stuff, then it's another +5 greatsword to throw on the pile of useless junk that nobody wants or can use.
If players distribute items among the party willy nilly without any regards to their value, then you could have given the party 4 times wbl, but one player is hording a pile of +5 greatswords while other players are under geared.
Character power is mainly derived from system mastery (but has little to do with anyone's supposed tier system). On the other hand, wealth is a big part of the numbers scaling of the game. Ex- you can get +20 to AC just from armor enhancement, shield enhancement, deflection, and natural armor. That's a major difference and 100% based on wealth.
My game has been well beyond WBL for some time now and it hasn't been an issue encounter-wise, though at one point one player complained they were undergeared (ignoring the fact that I made crafting easier). Some of it is that the players have invested a lot money in domains, and some of it is that I know how powerful they are so I can always adjust encounters to suit them with a great degree of accuracy. Sometimes they surprise me in either direction, but for the most part I get it pretty close. The CR system, never particularly accurate, is not paid attention to at all and I just throw whatever will work at the PCs.
In any case, I never pay attention to WBL because it is of no interest of use to me other than for making characters at levels above 1st. I run Mystara so you go the the right place and you can get basically any non-artifact item you want. Maybe not immediately, maybe a bit pricier than its book price, but just about anything you can make within the rules is available (Yay! Alphatia!).
Part of the OP's question asks when players become too powerful for "average" encounters. This depends on what "average" means,
Using the CR system, when APL (avg party level) = CR of the encounter, it is considered an "average" threat. PCs should expend minimal or no resources resolving this encounter. As far as I understand it, CR's are based around PCs with Core book classes/resources and a 15 point buy.
Just based on these strict guidelines, well-optimized Core PCs with standard WBL can begin to outpace "average" encounters around level 6-8. Now I say "well-optimized" meaning that everyone's squeezing out every last bit of either DPR or ability to overcome foes' saving throws. If not everyone is dedicated to these build goals, monsters should remain average through double digit levels.
However, who runs games like this. Heck, Pathfinder Society expects a 20 point buy and characters that start with 150 GP. It is likely that PCs at current tables are running characters who are indeed well-optimized, start with a 20 point buy or better, utilize non-Core PC classes and archetypes, etc.
At my own tables, regardless of the gear given, PCs begin outpacing "average" CR encounters around level 5. By level 10 their "average" CR is usually a CR 12. You can mitigate this by optimizing monsters for combat, maxing HP, raising the CR with more foes, and so on.
There are exceptions though.
Spoiler:
Conspicuously I gave my players a bunch of items that had to do with Acid a couple adventures ago; they didn't end up using them. I then foreshadowed the appearance of an adult black dragon coming up in the current adventure but my players were so overconfident that when they rested before the encounter they didn't swap out spells, kept all their Acid damage gear, etc.
The PCs are all level 10 with decent optimization. We rolled stats and every single character rolled better than a 20 point buy array to start. The black dragon is unmodified so it is a CR 11 monster, but it is in it's home territory of a swamp. One of the PCs is a Swamp Druid, another has boots that allows her to move through the swamp w/no issues, a third PC can change form with a Racial ability to gain a Swim speed and finally the last PC has a mount he can summon with a Climb and Swim speed.
In short, I didn't think this fight would be as brutal as it's turned out. The terrain has several points that funnel PCs into a straight line if they stick to the obvious pathways through the swamp, which for some reason they have. The dragon has hit them twice with a line of Acid breath weapon and none of the PCs took spells to minimize/resist Acid damage.
Then when the dragon was close enough but still in the water of a swamp lake, the party scattered around it. Two PCs and an Animal Companion are in melee with the dragon from shore while the druid and the investigator/wizard (with mostly Acid damage spells/abilities for whatever reason) remain at range.
Since it took a couple rounds for PCs to get into position, one of the martial types suffered one improved vital strike AND one full attack round with Power Attack running. Needless to say, she's at very low HP at this point. We had to break in the middle of the fight but at this rate one of the PCs is likely to die before the dragon is defeated.
At higher levels, some monsters with many effective melee attacks or lots of defensive abilities, at will powers or SLAs that have strong combat effects, such as dragons or demons, can still make a decent challenge. These are, IMO though, the exception, not the rule. By the time PCs begin having reliable means of circumventing the terrain, any monster still hindered by that same terrain will be LESS of a challenge than expected.
So, imagine four non-Core, well optimized PCs with a 20 point buy, APL 9, against a single Frost Giant. This creature actually has NO special ability to move through ice and snow, while level 9 PCs may have magic items, spells or abilities that grant such movement types. Remaining at range from a Frost Giant means it's throwing big rocks at you with a +9 to hit. Even a badly built Wizard with Mage Armor running at level 9 likely has about a 16 AC before other items or spells kick in, so avoiding these rocks should cost them 1 level 1 spell for a Deflection bonus (Shield).
In the meantime, a base Frost Giant has a 21 AC. The standard 3/4 BAB PC by level 9 has a BAB +6, at least a +1 weapon, a feat that gives at least another +1, and is likely using an attack stat that grants +4 or better to hit with their stat-enhancing gear factored in. This means that a 3/4 BAB PC with what I'd consider an "average" amount of optimizing for a combat role should have a +12 to hit an AC 21 monster - they're hitting the Frost Giant 60% of the time.
Frost Giants have lots of HP, that's true; they have 133 HP. They also have 10' reach with a greataxe +18/+13 (3d6+13) full attack. Kind of scary, until you realize that a level 9 full BAB martial type likely has 90 HP or more and at least a 23 AC or better by this point, meaning that 2nd attack from the giant is unlikely to hit. Finally, this monster has to move over terrain which might be slowing it down and then get close enough to make these attacks, with ONE full attack round to every FOUR that the PCs get.
This is why I like giving out consumables.
There's a big difference between a PC having an item that gives them 3 hours of flight in a day and a single scroll that gives them 5 minutes of flight. Suddenly they need to prioritize WHEN to use that resource; when to nova, and when to play it safe. If high level combat is more about resource management than straight up DPR, the stakes can feel higher and the tension can be cranked up more.
I don't run APs, so I don't know what kind of hassle it is to adjust monsters or treasure spontaneously. I'd imagine it's a real bear though. APs mostly use standard monsters from the Bestiaries and are rated for CR's based on the standard assumptions of Core classes, modest optimization, 15 point buys and standard WBL. If the PC builds deviate from these, adjust accordingly.
For boss NPCs, just give the NPC a PC’s wealth. That increases the boss NPC’s CR by +1... We do this pretty much for EVERY major boss of an adventure path.
PC wealth is several times that of an NPC, so by this measure the party would have to be massively over WBL to justify increasing encounter CRs by one.
One of the parts of encounter balance is not just the enemy but the situation. If you fight a frost giant where the giant is at a disadvantageous position requiring him to resort to his poor rock throwing ability, this is worth at least a -1 reduction to the CR of the fight. If on the other hand, the frost giant is hiding beneath the ice of a frozen lake and he bursts out as the pcs cross a bridge above and he sunders the bridge so all the pcs fall into the icy water, this would be an increase to the CR of the fight. I'd say basic assumption for standard book CR is that PCs and monsters start within a single move or charge action of one another.
If you actually follow the printed guidelines then 6 players count as apl+1. So a party of 6 level 4s would face a CR5 encounter as an "average" fight. The thing is that, aside from listing easy as apl-1 to epic as apl+3, there's no actual explanation in the crb for what those mean or any guidelines for when to use what and how often.
Looking at early pfs scenarios, most fights are APL+0 to +2, while later scenarios are APL+2 to +4. (This is in part due to a change of assumption from a 4 player table to a 6 player table, which accounts for one of those +s). Glancing at the first few fights in a handful of different APs, they range from CR1 to 4, so APL+0 to +3.
I would add that in addition to large tables being +1cr, high point buy and high wealth can each be worth an additional +1cr. So a table with 6 players, 25pb, and excessive wealth should be facing level+3 as an average encounter, level +5 for hard encounters, and your epic boss fights should be level +6.
I would add that in addition to large tables being +1cr, high point buy and high wealth can each be worth an additional +1cr. So a table with 6 players, 25pb, and excessive wealth should be facing level+3 as an average encounter, level +5 for hard encounters, and your epic boss fights should be level +6.
Pass. HARD pass. If I get into anything near that kind of CR disparity, something has clearly broken and needs fixed.
I would add that in addition to large tables being +1cr, high point buy and high wealth can each be worth an additional +1cr. So a table with 6 players, 25pb, and excessive wealth should be facing level+3 as an average encounter, level +5 for hard encounters, and your epic boss fights should be level +6.
Pass. HARD pass. If I get into anything near that kind of CR disparity, something has clearly broken and needs fixed.
Two of those are actually hard coded rules though (the high point buy equals +1 CR and 6 or more PCs equals APL+1). Every NPC that has a 20 or 25 point buy calls this out in the abilities section as being +1 CR, which means your effective character level increased by 1, thus for the party having this, that increases APL by 1, and the rules on APL say 3 or less PCs equals APL -1, but 6 or more PCs equals APL +1.
As for the wealth, there are no rules for having higher than WBL wealth for players, other than a suggestion that low fantasy games use 1/2x wealth, and high fantasy games use 2x wealth. But due to the fact that NPCs with PC wealth have +1 CR, it is perfectly reasonable to make an educated guess and say something proportionally equivalent to that increase for players should be +1 CR.
The other thing to note with that is while they don't give any recommendations in the CRB about building encounters, an epic encounter of CR+3 isn't intended to be one single CR+3 monster. It's supposed to be a number of opponents that add up to the appropriate CR.
So your party of six 10th level PCs with high pb and wealth should be fighting a CR16 epic encounter. That would be something like one CR12 boss, a CR10 lackey, 5 elite guards of CR8, and 10 mooks at cr6.
I would add that in addition to large tables being +1cr, high point buy and high wealth can each be worth an additional +1cr. So a table with 6 players, 25pb, and excessive wealth should be facing level+3 as an average encounter, level +5 for hard encounters, and your epic boss fights should be level +6.
Pass. HARD pass. If I get into anything near that kind of CR disparity, something has clearly broken and needs fixed.
Aside from low levels, the CR system isn't half bad at accomplishing what it does. If your players are not very good tactically then reduce the CR as appropriate. If the party is getting to fight on favorable terms, reduce the CR by 1.
So a 6 player party of level 6 characters with 25 pb and excessive wealth(We'll say +50%) fighting on favorable ground for them but they're not very coordinated tactically or make poor choices in combat can reasonably fight a Juvenile Blue Dragon CR10 as an Epic Encounter.
One of the parts of encounter balance is not just the enemy but the situation. If you fight a frost giant where the giant is at a disadvantageous position requiring him to resort to his poor rock throwing ability, this is worth at least a -1 reduction to the CR of the fight. If on the other hand, the frost giant is hiding beneath the ice of a frozen lake and he bursts out as the pcs cross a bridge above and he sunders the bridge so all the pcs fall into the icy water, this would be an increase to the CR of the fight. I'd say basic assumption for standard book CR is that PCs and monsters start within a single move or charge action of one another.
Just as a quick aside, Frost Giants have no special movement abilities on ice and snow. They would be just as hindered as PCs moving in that environment, though they have immunity to the effects of the cold.
To your larger point though, I follow all the RAW on building encounters and increasing/decreasing CRs all the time. For example, taking a bunch of monsters and optimizing their gear COULD, if you run a quick comparison to averages, increase their AC or attacks high enough so that they change CR.
As written in the Bestiary, they are Warrior 1 with leather armor, a sling and a spear. So, their AC is already ridiculously high for their CR, but their attacks are all either Str based melee or a ranged attack that carries a penalty to damage due to their low Str.
Simply changing their ranged attack to a light crossbow not only gives every kobold approximately 35 GP extra treasure in their gear but it ALSO improves their avg damage with a ranged attack from 1 to 3.5 damage, more than tripling the potential pain.
They're Warrior 1, so they could even use Martial weapons. Plus they make complex mechanical traps. You're telling me that in the eons kobolds have been around none of their base warriors ever picked up a crossbow from the trap-making workshop and was like, "wonder if THIS would be better than my sling?"
But in order to remain as a CR 1/4 monster, an individual kobold needs to deal very little damage since its defenses are so high. Changing this puts low-level PCs at significantly more risk, so the CR is higher.
When it comes to the final CR of a fight, enemy gear matters; environment matters; stats and builds, on both sides, matter. If you choose not to use the CR system as much more than a guideline, that's fine, but in my game I adhere to these adjustments.
Since this thread is about going over WBL and how that affects the party's ability to deal with fights having a CR appropriate to their level, the GM's adherence to CR will have an impact on the discussion. If CR is a guideline and encounter design is as much about feel as it is by the numbers, then character wealth and gear might not be much of an impact until the "rocket tag" levels of the game, and even then, maybe not.
If we're specifically talking about CRs however and using the RAW around how final CR for a fight is calculated, WBL has a significant impact on success of the party, IMO. Not only wealth though, but HOW the PCs have that wealth.
If the PCs have a metric ton of raw gold coins, gems, Masterwork items and consumable magic items such as scrolls and potions at level 8, they will likely not be very effective as combatants against a vanilla CR 8 monster. On the other hand, if the martials have all the appropriate "big 6" items, the spellcasters have good rods of lesser metamagic, and so on, even if they're at appropriate WBL for their level a vanilla CR 8 monster can be little more than a speed bump.
So I'd say, if you're following the CR rules AND tracking WBL, while the guidelines above of Q-dawg above are appropriate (+50%/-35%), I'm mirroring Scav's comments that the inventory the PCs have that puts them at this WBL matters to the final success of the party.
Of course, there's lots of other factors too.
Spoiler:
Are the monsters fighting like tactical geniuses or goblins with a death wish? Are the players new to TTRPGs or 20-year vets to the hobby? Are PCs and foes all optimized for their combat roles? What's the environment of the encounter, and are either side using that to their advantage? Are the PCs already under some kind of ongoing condition, curse, poison or disease during the fight?
All of these and more will have an impact on PC success in combat. There's not a real easy way to account for some of them, but some is just simple math. If a kobold Adept 4/Warrior 3 specialized in Necromancy, using an invisible, flying familiar, delivered a Touch of Fatigue spell 30 seconds ago on a Surprise round to a barbarian who somehow managed to fail her DC 15 Fort save, now that the final fight has broken out this PC will be far less effective in combat. The spell has a well defined impact on the character's ability to Rage and the numbers of their combat effectiveness.
Finally, since this is getting wordy even for me, I'll end with combat frequency as a factor. If the PCs' gear is over WBL, it's granting permanent bonuses to their abilities, and their builds are optimized to the 9's, a 15-minute adventuring day simply isn't going to be a threat to these characters unless the monsters are ridiculously high CRs.
The number of foes and frequency of combats can chip away at consumable resources, but only if there's enough of them to actually have an impact. Think of the classic Fighter/Wizard/Cleric/Rogue party from the ancient days of the hobby. If the PCs are counting on a cleric with a wand of CLW as well as that character's spells and Channeling to keep them healed, even at mid levels that's more than enough to see the PCs through about 6-8 APL-equaling CR value combats.
However, if you change things up and make 12 combats, many of which are made of multiple opponents using good tactics and gear for their CR, suddenly the Cleric's healing is running low and you've directly impacted that resource for the party. Then when fight #13 turns out to be the "boss" monster and the Cleric doesn't have enough healing left to top off themselves, the Fighter AND the Rogue, suddenly this final battle just got a WHOLE lot tougher.
As I think I said in another thread recently, even being massively over WBL does not make that much difference.
My Rise of the Runelords group have an adapted 3.5 Artificer, who is very efficient at making gear and can make most of their stuff for half price or less, so they are probably close to double WBL. And it does make life a little easier:
Spoiler:
The final chapter takes place at extremely high altitude, so when they learned they were going there, they just made necklaces of adaptation for everyone (and plenty of wands of endure elements). But that means they have to take of their amulets of natural armour.
They probably got +6 stat boosters a little earlier than they otherwise would have done, but they would have them by now and there is no +8 to upgrade to.
My Rise of the Runelords group have an adapted 3.5 Artificer, who is very efficient at making gear and can make most of their stuff for half price or less, so they are probably close to double WBL. And it does make life a little easier:
** spoiler omitted **
They probably got +6 stat boosters a little earlier than they otherwise would have done, but they would have them by now and there is no +8 to upgrade to.
Well, it might be more extreme if the artificer would be allowed to combine item properties (such as both from your example) or go beyond the usual limits of stat boosters (allowing +8) and other Big 6.
Both comes with significantly increased costs, but closing to level 20 you rather run out of item slots than out of money.
Well, it might be more extreme if the artificer would be allowed to combine item properties (such as both from your example) or go beyond the usual limits of stat boosters (allowing +8) and other Big 6.
That's quite a big "if" though, especially the latter.
If you allow +8 stat boosters at the "expected" price (64000 gp), they would be affordable to high level characters even with normal WBL. But they do not exist at all in PF1 by default and they are 640k in 3e.
So allowing that is a much bigger deal than, and orthogonal to, being over WBL.
Don't forget the super expensive up to +5 from inherent bonus you could theoretically get to every stat if money is unlimited. Again though, it's not just exceeding wbl that matters. It's exceeding wbl added with access to purchase anything you want that really messes with encounter balance.
I've been running mostly Pathfinder games using the Mythic Adventures ruleset, so WBL and balance are constant considerations. Mythic rules can easily unbalance everything, so it's a good idea to know what you're working with.
Firstly, what adventure and setting are you running? Paizo created adventures are written for four player characters with 15 point builds that are inside their Wealth By Level guidelines.
Once you start to move away from any of those baselines, you need to start paying attention to how your combat encounters are playing out. As expected? Too easily? Or too hard?
If they're too easy start thinking about how high of a stat array your PCs created. What is the party's wealth? It is always a good idea to ask for everyone's WBL. They can send it to you privately. As mentioned above, one PC can horde a lot of items and leave someone out in the cold.
In those situations, say Player one is close to two levels over WBL, while player five is a bit short of his current level's recommended WBL. I usually adjust it simply by telling the PC that they found a gem in their robe or a coin roll fell out of their bedroll. Now they're fully adjusted.
I've never taken anything away from the PC that is over WBL, but I will remind them that they are X-amount over WBL and shouldn't have any complaints about their gear and loot.
If you're alright with the party slowly creeping over the WBL guidelines, just add a +1 to their APL before you calculate your encounter CR and you will have the combat at the appropriate challenge rating in no time.
Truly appreciating all the feedback. We're mostly homebrew, though the current GM at bat is sticking a module into our sandbox game for scheduling reasons mostly. We're only level 2 right now, so it hasn't come up too much, but our last game it was that combo of vast wealth and nearly unlimited shopping access that gummed things up for us.
I know nothing is ever a hard and fast rule, because there are to many variables that don't have concrete numbers to assign them. That being said, we are a party of 6 gestalted characters with very generous high rolled stats. If I'm following correctly, that's worth about a +2 APL right there (maybe +3). If treasure starts to get ahead of us again, maybe another +1, but of course, I'll do my best to make allowances for ridiculous creature abilities and synergies.
The overall issue with pathfinder rules is/has always been in the numbers. Since modifiers scale higher than the dice roll, then DCs and modifiers need to be within the same boundaries to matter. If a player has +30 then the DCs need to be between 32 and 49 for his bonus to matter, which is all fine except one player can have +30 while another has +10. Then no matter what you set the DC at, one of those players' bonuses doesn't matter. The more you move away from the assumed curve with treasure, stats, etc, then the larger the gap between players' numbers gets, and so the harder it is for the GM to set balanced DCs.
Add to that, not everything scales in the same fashion. This is most evident with saving throws. Say you use enemies 3 levels higher to compensate for your players' overpoweredness. Fine, the PCs who hit things with sticks are still going to be able to hit them with sticks. There's lots of monetary ways to increase hit chance, and hit chance is high to begin with, like around 75%. However the PCs who cast spells vs saves are going to have a lower chance to hit because save DCs don't really scale with wealth or build very much. Save chance is also lower, around 70% (success for attacker) targeting low saves and only 50% targeting their good saves. Save DCs are easy to max out with a 15 point buy as much as a 30 point buy. There's a couple feats to boost your DCs, but any power level of character can have those. There's basically one item to buy to boost your stat, and every caster will max that as soon as they can as well.
In my experience, this translates to spellcasters being far more powerful in low powered games than they are in high powered ones, as they are essentially getting a -15% chance to hit. Add spell resistance on top of that, which also scales up with the higher level enemies, but doesn't scale up with wealth or ability scores, and casters fall even farther behind against higher level foes.
