Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Demonwolf 07-18-05, 02:10 PM	I'm working on a campaign setting right now based on the setting of my stories. The premise is that it's a typical Arthurian sword-and-sorcery setting advanced into modern times (as opposed to their sudden, mysterious appearance like in Urban Arcana). The setting falls somewhere between urban arcana and core d&d- it has most of the standard issue PHB classes, magic items, races and a good deal of the prestige classes. One of the major modifications I'm making is switching from money to AP or advancement points, since the characters in this setting aren't ridiculously wealthy in comparison to the middle class. AP can be distributed to acquire two different 'item' bonuses- training and equipment. Knowledge would be bonuses gained through training and academic understanding, and equipment would be standard issue magic or technological items (although in this setting, giving an item inherent magic power needs a seperate power source- in this case, electricity). Training is often magical in nature, so antimagic fields will affect training bonuses in many cases. The two main problems I'm having with this system- 1. How I would balance out equipment to equal training bonuses, to account for the disadvantages of theft, disjunction spells, etc? I'm considering a reputation system that increases reputation and political leverage based on wealth, but I'm not sure how it would work. 2. How would rewards work in this system? I'm thinking that AP would represent all of a character's resources instead of just money: time, contacts, position, etc, and as such, could be used to gain money or training as the character sees fit. Problem is, how would that exchange take place between characters? It would be pretty odd to have a merchant give a character 5000 AP for clearing out bandits. 3. Considering you have to go through hell and high water to gain something via feats and levels that you could get easily with a magic item, not to mention the fact that items that bestow inherent bonuses (ability tomes) are extremely more expensive than items providing the same bonuses through constant use (belts, periapts etc.), I get a strong feeling that I'm going to have to do way more to balance this out.
tarkin 07-18-05, 02:29 PM	One of the other problems you need to address is the problem of the various Non-Treasures. Non-Treasures are valuable things that players rountinely find in an adventure that for various reasons they can not keep/steal/take. The typical example is the 500,0000 copper pieces (10,000 lbs) in addition to real treasure. While worth 5,000 gp, this weighs so much and takes up so much space (3 wagon loads just for the copper), and slows them down so much, that unless the players move into the monster's cave, they will not be taking possesion of this treasure.
Jaid 07-18-05, 05:20 PM	have you considered having the points give them the ability to buy income? that is, they use it to gain something that will make money on it's own... be it land (which is relatively hard to pick up and run away with), structures (roads that enable them to make money, dams, etc), businesses (mills, farms, carpenters, etc), soldiers (to protect their various properties), houses (which they can rent out to others and therefore make money), or even magical items that could be used to make money (a lyre of building for example). don't have it give them X gp/day (or month, or year, or whatever), but rather have it entitle them to a certain amount of resources. for example, if you are entitled to 10,000 GP worth of equipment, then should anything happen to reduce you to poverty you would gradually build up until you have 10,000 GP worth of equipment again, no requirements to adventure or anything, it just happens. this also makes expendable items more desirable, because now they will replace themselves over time ;) of course, i have no idea how well this would work though =P