Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-14-07, 11:28 AM	One of my PC's will be a minor or major noble with potentially considerable resourses. It is my understanding that to much gold can upset game balance. How much is too much. I am thinking in regards to both liquid and non-liquid assets. Thanks in advance for the help!:D FYI: At the time that he recieves this inheritance he will be between 3rd and 5th level.
JeckAndon 02-14-07, 12:55 PM	If you could give a rough estimate of how much you were thinking of it would help a lot. Also there is a table in the DMG that gives average wealth per level but I'm not sure which page its on.
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-14-07, 01:06 PM	If you could give a rough estimate of how much you were thinking of it would help a lot. Also there is a table in the DMG that gives average wealth per level but I'm not sure which page its on. I was more looking for an amount of what your typical, minor or major noble would have available to him/her at any given time, in both liquid and non-liquid assets. My second question depending on the amount then becomes: Would that particular amount of money cause game balance problems for a 3rd to 5th lvl character. If so how can that game balance issue be managed? So in short I am looking for those of you on the board to tell me what an acceptable amount of money is based either on canon material or personal gaming experience. I am open to either, as long as it seems to reasonably make sense.
Cambian00 02-14-07, 01:06 PM	I have played a char that was a member of the nobility with royal bloodline. The key to maintaing game balance and logical playability is simple. Simply because a character is from a noble house doesnt automatically translate into pocket-fulls of platinum. It costs considerable money to run a household - from the upkeep of the grounds and castle/manorhouse to the payment of the employees (Im assuming there aren't any slaves). If a character just drained his family's coffers to stock up on masterwork/magic items, Im sure he would quickly be cast out of the house and labled a thief and a traitor. This school of thought worked best for my character: Just because such a character could 'conceivably' draw an allowance, doesn't usually mean that he is in an area where he can collect - that translates to this....keep them in areas where he is out of contact with his family. I do believe that a rich character should start out with better gear than most people would. Just give him a masterwork weapon or armor. Maybe it could be an ancestral blade that father used during the war and now handed down to his son. Also...being from a royal/noble house lends itself to a plot element. If a person went around bragging all the time that they were from a high born bloodline, then there is inevitably going to be someone who would want to take advantage of that character - kidnapping for ransom for example. The bigest point I can make is this - having a character from a noble/royal line can have its benefits (more money and better equipment) but a good DM would be able to take that bloodline and use it in-game...for and against the character...in such a way as to balance it out. hope I didnt confuse you even more???
Cambian00 02-14-07, 01:13 PM	I just thought of something... The Dragonmarked houses....... The Dragonmarked houses are exeedingly rich. Even so, not everybody has access to those riches. Even a Dragonmarked Heir with the Favored in House feat and a Full Greater Dragonmark can only gain so much money from the house at any given time. Why dont you just use those same rules for your Noble character. I can even see such a character have to take a variant of the Favored in House feat to even get any money at all..
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-14-07, 02:43 PM	hope I didnt confuse you even more??? lol...no you didnt. Thanks though. Hey heres a bit more info to help you better understand where I am coming from. This individual will be the sole heir, so he will have access to 100% of whatever the inherited amount is unless I figure a way to limit that.
Just another user 02-14-07, 04:17 PM	Normally if a character have more wealth than the suggested wealth-by-level guidelines you can just increase is CR (or it is ECL) appropriately, i.e if a 5 level character have ther wealth of a 7th level character count hima as a 6th level, he'll get less XP because the fight would be easier for him either because he have better equipment or because he can afford better healing, and of course the treasure will be less interesting to him because he is already loaded and with probably better items that those he will find.
DarkWarriorKarg 02-14-07, 04:26 PM	lol...no you didnt. Thanks though. Hey heres a bit more info to help you better understand where I am coming from. This individual will be the sole heir, so he will have access to 100% of whatever the inherited amount is unless I figure a way to limit that. You might also be putting the cart before the horse. Have you discussed this plot element with your player yet? Your player might be reasonable and NOT want to liquidate his/her assets for a +1 weapon. Inheritance changes the tone of the game. Now the character's got things to maintain (Think DS9 or Bablylon 5 vs Next Generation) and can't be absent for too long. There are disadvantages, as well as advantages in this. My player's didn't start out like this, but they ended up with lots of GP... so they spent it on RP-related things: owning a chunk of a sharn neighbourhood as a base of operations, airship purchase fund, resurrection-fund[OK, not quite RP, but still], employment of staff, financing their own adventures... yes, they don't just get HIRED to do things, they stick their noses in other people's business, sometimes because noone else will
Cifer 02-14-07, 04:48 PM	This school of thought worked best for my character: Just because such a character could 'conceivably' draw an allowance, doesn't usually mean that he is in an area where he can collect - that translates to this....keep them in areas where he is out of contact with his family. Ahem... House Kundarak is present just about everywhere and his identification papers will allow him to draw upon the funds of his family. In the early levels, I would suggest to use the Cannith rules: Nonmagical items he buys are sponsored by the family to 75%. When he becomes the family patriarch, you might work something out with the player - the family has recently lost massive amounts of money and now needs every gp it can hold on to to consolidate itself. The administrator (the PC probably doesn't want to be tied to his estate in order to take care of everything personally) may sometimes send him money (= you can give the party some GP whenever they lag behind the wealth/level tables), but otherwise the PC should draw upon the family fonds in cases of emergency only. Oh, and you should work out what happens to his title and stuff if he dies. Succession can be funny when the possibility of ressurection is around...
RavenGraygem 02-14-07, 06:16 PM	One way to limit his inheritance, and provide a nice story arc for that character as well is to have someone make off with. 1) The family was accused (falsely or accurately) of treasonous acts and had much of their property/assets confiscated. 2) A very good con-artist swindles a more gullible family member into giving/signing over significant assets. 3) An outbreak of war/rebellion in the area results in the family home being taken and them dispossessed. 4) A newly-revealed heir has just been legitimized and happens to be older than him, and is now first in line for the bulk of the inheritance. Thus, he's still a noble (though perhaps one from a disgraced line), and he still has whatever assets he acquired beforehand, but the bulk of it is untouchable.
yossarius 02-14-07, 07:09 PM	An even easier way to explain not being able to draw considerable amounts from the family coffers is that he is the sole heir. Adventuring is dangerous; the head of the household may disapprove of the PC adventuring on these grounds ("What will happen to the family if you're maimed or killed?"). Thus, Daddy (or whoever) withholds funds as a means of coercing the PC to retire from the exciting life and settle down to doing the books for the estate. Not as exciting as having to absolve the family name of wrongdoing, but much more real world. Or, instead of withholding funds entirely, Daddy uses the PCs allowance as a means to control the PC ("go do this for me or I'll cut you off!"). Or, you could simply give out less money in the early adventures to compensate for this one PCs spending ability.
Edymnion 02-14-07, 08:56 PM	The easiest way to handle this is to seperate his "adventuring money" with his "lifestyle money". While he may have all the money in the world for fine art and wine and women, he still only has his character wealth by level for any given adventure. You could loosen up on him a bit and say he can have just about any item he could normally afford available to him, but he can only take his character wealth at any given time. So, he may have a closet at home with a +2 sword, a +1 Flaming sword, a +1 Shocking sword, etc, but he only takes one sword with him at a time.
RogueElement 02-14-07, 11:55 PM	Wouldnt it be easiest to say that he inherits enough liquid assets to put him at the DMG recommended wealth for his level and the rest is in non-liquid assets (land, heirlooms, farmland, etc)? Maybe instead of inheriting everything, he becomes a trust baby and the trustee won't let him spend "his" money willy nilly...in fact he lets him spend no more than the recommended wealth for his level. I played in a game where I figured out a way to infinite wealth and it just wasn't fun any more after I bought every magic item in the DMG. In real life, it is very fun, but in the game it is very boring since so much of the game is combat based and you can easily dominate any encounter with enough firepower. The CR mod as suggested above would be the way to go if you dump tons of cash on the PCs.
Arcane Guyver 02-15-07, 12:56 AM	Dunno how much help this might be, but in 'Arcana Evolved' there's a 1st-level feat that gives you double the usual starting wealth (which is 200 gp in that game, for a total of 400 gp) to start with. Then, at any one time between 5th and 10th level, you can choose to acquire your inheritance, which is worth 1000 gp per character level.
OmNefarious 02-15-07, 11:55 AM	I have a friend who made up his own campaign in an Eberron-esque world and had a casino with slot machines (ok maybe a bit more advanced than Eberron). Well my rogue hit it big with the casino slots and I got like close to 200k (I played it multiple times, plus blackjack). Needless to say I was only lvl 5. I didnt go over board with my wealth. I gave a bit to my party members, bought us a house/HQ fully stocked, got myself fully stocked on regular items and then bought myself a new katana and got it imbued with bane, keen, and icy burst. I still have about 80k left. Next on my list is a portable hole, a glove of storing, and boots of spider climb.
Yakman 02-15-07, 12:04 PM	lol...no you didnt. Thanks though. Hey heres a bit more info to help you better understand where I am coming from. This individual will be the sole heir, so he will have access to 100% of whatever the inherited amount is unless I figure a way to limit that. He might be wealthy, but what form is the wealth? I mean, he might stand to inherit a large estate--but if the wealth is the land, then there might not be a lot of gold for him to throw around--the wealth is all tied up in the land, or it's being used to rebuild the estate from the War. It might be that he stands to inherit the estate, but it's in such a huge amount of debt (could be cheated on war bonds, or the Kundarak bank where the wealth was kept was in Cyre and the records are lost, or it was just plain stolen--or daddy/granddaddy drank it all away), then while socially he's upper class and might have access to nice items from the family heirlooms, he doesn't have tons of cash to throw around--and is adventuring to get the family out of debt, sending the bulk of his cash home. That way, even if the adventurers make some sort of huge score (which this character will be desperate for), he's still poor--the money all goes to the loan sharks. This can be a major motivation for the character, and add extra dimension to him--he's gotta be out on the case all the time in order to stay ahead of the interest.
goblin_pride 02-15-07, 12:13 PM	This individual will be the sole heir, so he will have access to 100% of whatever the inherited amount is unless I figure a way to limit that. He'll also owe 100% of any debts, have to pay 100% of the wages for servants, men-at-arms or farmers to work his fields, have to oversee his crops getting to market or pay someone else to, have to pay any taxes owed the crown on his lands, and then, just for spite, he'll have to pay 100% of the upkeep on any buildings on his property. I'd figure as a base amount he should walk away with about 10% less than the total cost you assign to all of those sizable expenses, that way he has to really work hard to ensure that everything goes exactly right for the first ten or twelve years so that he at least gets something in the way of coins from his inheritance.
maollelujah 02-15-07, 12:21 PM	The simplest way to limit the wealth he has is to have his inheritance be challenged by someone with a dubious claim or have fraudulent liens placed upon it. This way as the DM you are in control of when he gets the money and how much as the bulk of the estate is tied up in court proceedings.
Cambian00 02-15-07, 12:31 PM	Ahem... House Kundarak is present just about everywhere and his identification papers will allow him to draw upon the funds of his family. In the early levels, I would suggest to use the Cannith rules: Nonmagical items he buys are sponsored by the family to 75%. When he becomes the family patriarch, you might work something out with the player - the family has recently lost massive amounts of money and now needs every gp it can hold on to to consolidate itself. The administrator (the PC probably doesn't want to be tied to his estate in order to take care of everything personally) may sometimes send him money (= you can give the party some GP whenever they lag behind the wealth/level tables), but otherwise the PC should draw upon the family fonds in cases of emergency only. Oh, and you should work out what happens to his title and stuff if he dies. Succession can be funny when the possibility of ressurection is around... OH dont get me wrong, I agree with that completly but I dont think Kundarak has any holdings in....say the Demon Wastes....or Sarlona....or Argennosen.... The point I was trying to make is to limit his access to the money. I also did this with my character, who was upper nobility - instead of taking mad ammounts of cash to start off with, I took a modest amount of cash to get started and then didnt draw anything else from the family's coffers. I justified this to my party (who kept wanting me to fund the artificers magic making forge) by telling them that the money was needed elsewhere. I even went so far as to send most of the treasure I received from my adventures back to the castle to be used for "family business."
johnkretzer 02-16-07, 01:06 AM	lol...no you didnt. Thanks though. Hey heres a bit more info to help you better understand where I am coming from. This individual will be the sole heir, so he will have access to 100% of whatever the inherited amount is unless I figure a way to limit that. You could always have the crown take the land and wealth back. This happens in the real world so... Or you could have the roytal family decide to take control of the assets till he marries and produces a heir. In the meantime they will spend money to make his life style suitable etc....It could be also great fun on setting him up on with other nobel women etc. It also depends where he is a nobel.
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-16-07, 11:23 AM	You could always have the crown take the land and wealth back. This happens in the real world so... Or you could have the roytal family decide to take control of the assets till he marries and produces a heir. In the meantime they will spend money to make his life style suitable etc....It could be also great fun on setting him up on with other nobel women etc. It also depends where he is a nobel. Well this is what I am planning to do. His family had holdings in both Cyre and Aundair, obviously his Cyre holdings where destroyed in the "Mourning" but he still has his land holds in Audair. Also my justification for how his family was able to keep their wealth was simply the fact that they had monies on deposit with House Kundurak. Also I am thinking that at this point I will make the family inheritance and title of his family that of a minor nobility. Would 20,000 - 50,000 gp be to much? That would be their liquid assests, that number wouldnt include his non-liquid assets. What do you guys/gals think?
Yakman 02-16-07, 12:17 PM	Well this is what I am planning to do. His family had holdings in both Cyre and Aundair, obviously his Cyre holdings where destroyed in the "Mourning" but he still has his land holds in Audair. Also my justification for how his family was able to keep their wealth was simply the fact that they had monies on deposit with House Kundurak. Also I am thinking that at this point I will make the family inheritance and title of his family that of a minor nobility. Would 20,000 - 50,000 gp be to much? That would be their liquid assests, that number wouldnt include his non-liquid assets. What do you guys/gals think? That's a lot of liquid assets. Most nobles in RL didn't have huge stocks of gold sitting around--they had expensive lifestyles. Remember, part of being a noble is looking the part, and you have to buy nice clothes, eat expensive food, visit distant relatives, keep a mistress, make spurious purchases, give outlandish gifts, finance an entrouge, etc.. The money gets eaten up in the lifestyle. So while there's a constant flow of cash from the estate, there's never a lot on hand.
johnkretzer 02-16-07, 12:21 PM	Well this is what I am planning to do. His family had holdings in both Cyre and Aundair, obviously his Cyre holdings where destroyed in the "Mourning" but he still has his land holds in Audair. Also my justification for how his family was able to keep their wealth was simply the fact that they had monies on deposit with House Kundurak. Also I am thinking that at this point I will make the family inheritance and title of his family that of a minor nobility. Would 20,000 - 50,000 gp be to much? That would be their liquid assests, that number wouldnt include his non-liquid assets. What do you guys/gals think? It depend on the player.
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-16-07, 12:34 PM	That's a lot of liquid assets. Most nobles in RL didn't have huge stocks of gold sitting around--they had expensive lifestyles. Remember, part of being a noble is looking the part, and you have to buy nice clothes, eat expensive food, visit distant relatives, keep a mistress, make spurious purchases, give outlandish gifts, finance an entorage, etc.. The money gets eaten up in the lifestyle. So while there's a constant flow of cash from the estate, there's never a lot on hand. My thinking as to why the liquid was so high, is because previous to the uncle Willing everything to the PC he had not been living a "Nobles" lifestyle, he merely took what he needed to live a modest lifestyle or none at all, and only spent what he made from adventuring. Therefore nearly all of the liquid assets available for roughly the last 25 years have simply been sitting in a Kundurak Bank, earning interest. The uncle who is the npc that Wills everything to his nephew, for his own reasons chose not to live the life of a Noble, he has lived like this for so long that even his own nephew who has lived and trained with him did not know about it. The PC will be between 17 and 21 years old when he receives his inheritance.
Yakman 02-16-07, 12:41 PM	My thinking as to why the liquid was so high, is because previous to the uncle Willing everything to the PC he had not been living a "Nobles" lifestyle, he merely took what he needed to live a modest lifestyle or none at all, and only spent what he made from adventuring. Therefore nearly all of the liquid assets available for roughly the last 25 years have simply been sitting in a Kundurak Bank, earning interest. The uncle who is the npc that Wills everything to his nephew, for his own reasons chose not to live the life of a Noble, he has lived like this for so long that even his own nephew who has lived and trained with him did not know about it. It's certainly possible. Then again, interest rates back in the day were not what they are now. no compounding, you see... my question is then, what is the motivation or what does the money bring to the campaign?
Dawn_of_an_Age 02-16-07, 01:21 PM	my question is then, what is the motivation or what does the money bring to the campaign? That’s actually a very good question, in short what happens in this particular PC's story arc is this. He inherits the money and the title, and with it a cousin who he must take care of. The cousin is a young woman who falls desperately in love with a pauper. The PC whom I know well enough will either offer to pay for the wedding and help them get started, possibly even allowing them to stay at the manor house and take care of it while he is away on business of one sort or another or be passively motivated to do so. The pauper fiancé however has his own agenda. Without going into to much detail, he will over a period of time make moves that will allow him to steal the identity of the PC. He will grow overtime as well to hate the PC's cousin who he married, sending her into a state of extreme depression. On some random day in the future the PC will return home only to find that he is no longer welcomed on his own estate. He will emphatically object and state with great anger that he his the lord of this manor and that the guards should step aside. They however will not. As he stands there the husband will come out of the house quite regally dressed exchange words with this "imposter" and then leave. Shortly thereafter the PC will see his dear cousin thrown from a window and fall to her death. If he try’s to fight he will lose and be imprisoned. This is where his story shall begin in earnest. In short this will become this characters "Moral Dilemma" He is Knight bound by oath, once a poor boy who became a noble with an uncles final request to take care of his cousin, the uncles daughter, he fails, has his nobility taken away, and will possibly find himself in dept to a person he despises. These are just my initial thoughts, and are subject to change as I think through things in more detail.
Yakman 02-16-07, 01:24 PM	But all this can be done without tons of cash. Just the title and the estate are needed--and it hurts more if he doesn't have lots of gold to throw around. Also, it doesn't quite work out to be so painful if he wasn't raised as a noble. He can just go back to the adventuring life he's used to--he doesn't mind living without perks and such. You gotta rip the rug right out from under him. Make it hurt. Make him angry at this thief and imposter who would dare to pretend to nobility.
goblin_pride 02-16-07, 01:52 PM	You gotta rip the rug right out from under him. Make it hurt. Make him angry at this thief and imposter who would dare to pretend to nobility. BINGO! Good adventures aren't made from returning to your roots, they come from when the fit hits the shan and you can't go back.
JulesCARV 02-16-07, 02:55 PM	Maybe you could have his estate mostly tied up by an entailment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fee_tail), so that the noble only collects money from rent, interest, etc, and doesn't have the right to sell it, and the money from rent, interest, etc, mainly goes to running the estate. There's a lot of money, but it's part of an estate that's been kept intact for generations and is supposed to be intact for his great-grandchildren, so various legal means are used to prevent a dissolute or foolish heir (like some idiot who goes off to become an "adventurer" and ends up dying in some dank cave and getting 30,000 gp worth of magical equipment taken off of him by dolgrims) from squandering the family estate.
Hand_of_Vecna 03-19-07, 06:22 PM	I've played characters like this before the way to make it work is to make the character feel an look rich without giving them gamebreaking money. Let him have a few hundred extra gold to start like some masterwork items (assuming level one). Then make him regulate his expendatures to not be too much above those of his companions (at least mechanically). However his equipment should be of superior quality in non mechanical ways like with engravings by master craftsmen and such. Have npc's regard him well or poorly in some cases based on his status. That's all you really have to do. If refuses to spend his money like this than he only wants the money to be more powerful without increasing his EL. If he were to spend all his money on equipment than he would be too powerful for a group of adventurers of equal level and should travel with a higher level group.
Edymnion 03-19-07, 08:07 PM	Thats a good idea. Give him his extra money, on the clause that it can't be spent on anything useful. He can spend it on the finest of inns, the best of meals, but he can't use it on weapons, armor, hirelings, or anything that would give him the slightest edge in combat. He has his money, but can only use it on frivolous things to live it up on.
Melvin the Mediocre 03-20-07, 02:36 PM	A few ideas that come to mind for me: 1) Look at the starting wealth for the aristocrat NPC and give the player a one time bonus of that amount 2) consider giving him an ancestral weapon (or other item) that levels with the character giving him a (slight) edge over what other characters can purchase 3) handwave the wealth into descriptive story aspect: he has the shinyest clothes, best most exotic food, fancyiest table settings, and most comfortable bed 4) look into the noble class from Dragonlance Campaign Setting
mightyix 03-20-07, 03:08 PM	DMG II, Cityscape, and some other books out there have got 3.5 rules on how much it costs to have a particular kind of home. Assume the estates have a combined value equal to the value of the properties that you assign to them. These costs assume full furnishings and artwork, etc. Using the rules for running a business (I think it's DMG II), you can figure out what kinds of businesses the family was involved in and figure out total annual income from all of those businesses. Remember that unless the PC is going to be running those businesses himself (what his family did... and what the profession skill is for), he's going to have to hire an expensive business partner to maintain them or risk significant losses on a regular basis. If the noble family has a town or village that they collect taxes from, I'd take 10% of the base community wealth and add that as an annual income as well. Tall up servant costs for maintaining each of the properties: Cook, butler, maid at a bare minimum - large estates WILL have more than that including grooms, stablemen, etc. On top of that, you're going to have at least one well paid accountant and possibly some security folks. Total up the servant costs on a per year basis based upon their levels and the NPC hiring costs from DMG. Total up any transportation and animals the family owns (ships, carriages, horses, livestock), and total the annual costs for feeding those animals. Add up the costs for annual food costs (nobles meal x 365) Once you've tallied up everything, apply the following formulas: Non-liquid asset value: Estates + Business Value (not income) + livestock/horse value + transportation value. Annual Income: Business Income + Taxation Income (if any) Annual Expenditures: Servant Costs + Livestock food costs + Business costs + Meal costs + taxes he owes the crown Starting Liquid Income: Assume there's enough to run the estates for one year in the bank and multiply it something less than two. This gives you the ability to let him have a self sufficient set of holdings (multiplier of 1), one that can survive some adversity (multiplier >1) or one that's been run into the ground and is in danger of collapsing(multiplier <1). He can take whatever he wants out of the liquid income, but risks not being able to pay his servants, maintain his businesses in lean times, or pay the taxes he's obligated to pay. The taxes he has to pay are particularly important. In the classic 'feudal' model, he doesn't pay direct taxes, but is responsible for providing troops in times of conflict. I don't know if you've checked the cost of lv. 2 warrior + equipment + warhorse + food for both for 1 year, but it adds up when you've got a couple dozen people like that. This gives you the ability to give him lots of inheritance (if he wants to sell stuff off --- but it's been in your family for generations), plenty of roleplaying hooks with threats to property, businesses, or low funds for next year, etc. There's an amount of liquid wealth that you can control by controlling the size of the family holdings, and an annual income that you can control by regulating the tax base and businesses.
Elderich 03-22-07, 06:46 PM	One of my PC's will be a minor or major noble with potentially considerable resourses. It is my understanding that to much gold can upset game balance. How much is too much. I am thinking in regards to both liquid and non-liquid assets. Thanks in advance for the help!:D FYI: At the time that he recieves this inheritance he will be between 3rd and 5th level.Many of the aristocracy had no money. Most all of the nobles were cash poor and land rich, and lived on credit. You could just have him have the very best of mundane items, but not majic. What did it cost him for this advantage. Did he spend a feat?
Huzzah! 03-23-07, 10:36 AM	Give him all of the extra wealth in the same form that the uber-rich of our society collect their wealth and evade taxes at the same time. Government bonds that cannot be redeemed for 30 years or so and trickle out interest. So, while he may have 300,000 gp tied up in bonds, he only sees 300 gp a month from it.