Post/Author/DateTime	Post
krazykelc 08-09-07, 07:02 AM	...what to buy? We are two level 14 characters--a bard and a paladin--who are well-equipped for our level. Our DM (Pelor bless him) has just allowed us to complete a quest where we sold the one and only map of the entire world to an allied king for three. Hundred. Thousand. Gold. Our bard can Craft Wondrous Items and has already devoted a substantial part of her soul to the party, and has always dreamed about owning the cool, 2nd ed. Monty Haul treasure table items. Staves of illusion. Tomes of Leadership and Influence. Chaos diamonds. We always thought it would be so easy to spend so much. Now, though, we're paralyzed by our options. Should our bard craft market value 600,000 gold coins in wondrous items at a significant drain of xp and a time expenditure of two years? Should we spend it to craftily maximize every bonus on our character sheets? Should we hand magic items and treasures to every cool NPC we know, making our allies more powerful and more loyal all at once? Or should we perhaps restructure the world by building our own dungeon, or an unsinkable warship, or create our own training academies for bard and paladin alike? Either way feels like a loss. If we don't maximize our gear, we'll always wonder "what if?" and recognize that we'll never get such an opportunity to twist the game again. If we do maximize our gear, we'll feel like we skipped three CRs worth of fun, disappointing our DM in the process by not giving him something to hand to future heroes in his multi-generational campaign. To the forum then, I ask this: in a serious and open-ended campaign where the DM really can get away with offering us an incomprehensible fortune at 14th level, which investment would bring us the most "reward"? And please, keep the "they're both good--compromise" answers to a minimum. We've been trying that for hours.
marcus_antonius 08-09-07, 08:22 AM	Well, i can only tell you what I would do with so much cash: buy a stronghold / house / theatre / shrine or whatever would suit your characters best. The prices for houses are not THAT high, trust me nothing roots you in a campaingn world as your own home sweet home (if you don't already have one) (50000) donate the money / give a part of it to friends allies and such, generousity goes a long way, and will come back. (50000-100000 depending on the level of your allies) for the rest: SPEND IT...50000 for each one of you, with a BIT of backup-cash ;), its never wrong to have cash for when you need that one item that'll save your behind if you just had the cash for it :)
BilopTheFleshwarper 08-09-07, 08:30 AM	300,000 one gold prostitutes, retire onto ocean of prostitutes. Money baths. Seriously, that's way to much at once, if you have any reason to keep adventuring, buy/improve your gear and get going with your platinum laced instant fortress, if you are not so busy, buy land and retire, start a school or something to spend your time on.
Radijs 08-09-07, 09:21 AM	A really big turnip. :cookie: for reference.
LeuktheSavior 08-09-07, 09:28 AM	when you're that rich, its time to wage a crusade against someone you hate. if you have a reoccurig enemy, an enemy you cant reach yet, or just somebody you've been meaning to take out, its time to gear all the money into a war machine.you;ll have a better time making decisions bout your money when you know what you need with it. If you cant find a erason to spend it now, dont.
elondir 08-09-07, 10:35 AM	I would either build a custom stronghold (get the landlord feat first - you get an allowance and gives you a one-for-one gp for stronghold costs after that), or get some really good gear from Magic Item Compendium because everything's cheap in that book. Boost your stats (belt of magnificence +6?), trick out your weapons and armor, make a staff of holy word, a scroll of genesis (wizard, 9th), an amulet of Use Magic Device +30 Competence, rings of evasion, thought bottles, a few wands of ray of stupidity, a staff of heal, a few scrolls of true resurrection, and whatever else floats your boat. Or you could buy a few iron golems. Or, take the leadership feat, hire an army, and start conquering evil nations in the name of good.
Alakar 08-09-07, 10:58 AM	A really big turnip. :cookie: for reference. The Brothers Grimm come to mind.... On that note, I'm for building a stronghold of some sort. With the both of you Charisma centric, you could attract enough followers to start your own kingdom. The RP aspects of that alone are astounding. Thats my :twocents:
Radijs 08-09-07, 06:50 PM	S. Baldric from Blackadder the third. But have a :cookie: anyway.
Mock26 08-09-07, 07:32 PM	What is wrong with all the cool, 3.x Monty Haul treasure table items?
Callista 08-09-07, 07:45 PM	Build a custom-made keep!! With that much, you can have a regular castle, complete with servants.
ArgulFraster 08-10-07, 01:12 AM	Develop mecha and take over the world. Take to shaving your head and fondling a cat named "Mr. Vorpalsworth." Be sure to groom a few adventurers for the occasional amusement. Or get a bunch of decent-level mercs and exploit the spoils of the Blood War. Or start exploring the Planes.
Bozwevial 08-10-07, 09:52 AM	Well, my answers may not be as appropriate, as I usually play pure casters like wizards, but in your situation, here's what I would do: Expend money as you need to. If you find that healing is running scarce, drop some cash on a couple wands of CLW, which both of you can use. Buy new equipment periodically, so you don't go from well-equipped to overpowering all at once. Adjust your equipment as time goes on (maybe buy one or two new items after every adventure, but don't go wild-your DM will likely continue to have treasure coming in, albeit at a much reduced rate). This, of course, begs the question of how one keeps 300k safe when it isn't being spent and the owners are adventuring. I would advise keeping some money on hand at all times, perhaps in forms that are more portable than the coins (like gems, or even magic items that could be useful to people-a decanter of endless water means never having to go to the well again, and could even let them start up their own bottled water business). Part of the money could, in fact, be spent on ways to keep the money safe, like creating a fortress to hold the money with various protections (which incidentally could double as a base of operations for you two). I don't know about crafting 600k worth of magic items, since you would lose not only two years, but about 24k of XP, and in a two player party, having one player fall behind the other in XP is a recipe for trouble. Still, one hates to see a feat they selected with high hopes go to waste. Perhaps some of the more expensive items on your wish list could be crafted by the bard, cutting back on the gp expenditure. Or, try the other way around, and have her create some cheaper but useful items so you can use your hoard for the big stuff while still allowing the bard to utilize the feat she selected. Again, these answers may not prove to be relevant, since I don't usually play bards or paladins, and have never tripped over 300k gold all at one time (let alone in a two-player party).
archerpwr 08-10-07, 10:12 AM	Another vote for a stronghold or 2: 1) CRs wont have to jump up in response to your wealth 2) Opens up possibilities for adventure hooks (Defend your castle!) 3) A base of operations is handy 4) Leadership and followers would actually make RP sense
re1oaded 08-10-07, 02:53 PM	There is a very nice item , a headband i think, that gives you +6 strength, +6 constitution and +6 something else that I don't remember. Someone on the board may fill in my misssing info, but it,s a pretty kick ass item. Other than that, upgrade either your armor and / or weapon and go kick some major butt.
MaryContrary 08-10-07, 04:04 PM	I absolutely say build a stronghold. If you have a DM with any imagination at all then it can turn out well. We have a campaign that's on hold at the moment and in it we came into a run down keep early on (I think the adventure was "Base of Operation" or something and one of the free adventures here on the Wizards site). Every free pile of gold pieces we came into went into making our own magic items or building onto that keep. And think about this: we didn't really have to spend that much on it. We hired some people to work around the place sure but we had a cleric in the party. Think about all the things you can do with those cleric stone spells. Our wizard got married and retired to the keep also and was replaced with a druid. And since the wizard was close to her next level she spent all those extra experience points on permanent spells for the keep. Alarms, magic mouths, walls of fire, dancing lights, invisible things, explosive runes (already sorta permanent), etc. Not the mention cleric's various glyphs and symbols, forbiddence, hallow, etc. Last time I looked at the little notebook we keep our keep in (:D ) we had a small town growing at the base of the plateau where our keep was, a garnet mine in the mountain right behind the keep (didn't pay much but it did make a little bit of profit), a series of caves off of that we hadn't fully explored (had one adventure there already), a bound lich in a jar buried under the old well in our courtyard, an arena for games (cleric worshipped Kord), a grove around our magical fountain with awakened trees all over the place (druid), a very fancy scrying pool, two huge stone torches at either end of the arena lit with permanent circular walls of fire, a small army of loyal mercenaries (fighter), a small cadre of rangers (our dead ranger's old group...and they pay rent!), a hidden thieves guild hall (my gal, Molly)... ...well I could go on and on. It became something of a hobby for us to see what we could come up with next. There were two adventures we went on just so we could have the money to finance some new thing or other for our keep. So far the DM hasn't had the nerve to make some threat to Brightwater Keep yet. We've got the place so well defended it would probably hold up against anything short of an epic monster or something. But he's built in an easy dozen adventure seeds into our little keep already while we were developing the place.
MCage 08-10-07, 05:54 PM	Last time I built a stronghold it cost 1.4 million, but I was lvl 44 and I wanted it to have a crawl speed of like 20 mph or something (it was a huge bone citidel). If your going to Invest in a building i would say do a buisness of some kind, the DMG2 i belive has rules for profit centers and whatnot and if you have leadership you can use your trusted cohort and/or followers to run it while you keep adventuring. Plus if you have enough followers and money you could set up trade networks for bonus cash and plenty of adventure hooks for your DM to use. Such and such passage that your network uses is infested with rageing quaggoths or the plains of this nation-state that your networks trade through have been sacked by an evil empire from the south, ect... Or hell just make the first fast food chain of your campaign world "Sir Kernals Original BBQ house and Merc Guild"...i got to write that down, im so gonna use that...
discipleofevil 08-10-07, 08:28 PM	buy some land (enough to make you a wealthy landowner) say 75k for that. spend about 75k each on items. and store about 10k each. the rest donate to churches, helpless, npc comrads and others who need. or just make yourselfs very powerful and declare jihad on your enemies :D ;) :eek:
krazykelc 08-11-07, 01:37 AM	Thanks Everyone! Most of the posts were helpful indeed. Our Paladin and Bard took two fairly seperate routes. First, we gave 20k to our druid NPC who'd helped us through thick and thin, helping him pick up that dragonscale fullplate of the wild he'd been dreaming about. Next, we put 25k towards getting a true rez for a long-dead war-priestess whose soul we found trapped in a ruby, and 40k towards getting her geared somewhere near her level. Our Paladin, Ilithria, spent the rest of her money on adding more plusses to the gear she already has, as well as throwing a few items toward her 9th-level warrior followers. Our bard, Regina bought an animated shield, and created some armbands of maximized healing, and now plans to hide away for half a year working on that chaos diamond (or ruby, in our case, as we also found the soul of a grey slaad sorcerer traped-- conveniently providing 30gps worth of raw material). The rest she invested into her family's noble house and bought her spymaster NPC a medallion of thoughts. So, though the decisions we made may not have been the wisest, we sure had fun making them. *sighs* Now, to kill the vampires guarding the teleportation circle we need to dispel....
discipleofevil 08-11-07, 02:43 AM	those were actually some rather decent choices. you could have just blown it all on yourselfs and made rather high powered characters. but rather then that you chose to help others and yet still yourselfs. a paladins dream lol:D
Infernostrider 08-11-07, 11:50 AM	NPCs in the D&D world have a knack for smelling out money, and a good DM imho should always raise prices of common items through the roof as soon as characters' purses shoot through the roof. You find 1 million gold pieces and actually manage to drag it to town with you? even when concealed in *several* bags of holding, hidden beneath a cloak so nobody can see you have those, merchants smell it and even a simple short sword or sling costs 100k gold, absurd i know, but a little railroading should be allowed if the characters are at a loss (possibly breaking a good campaign) or if they are trying to empower themselves beyond reason (there is no fun in creating several major wondrous items, effectively raising the party 5 levels for each member, thereby again breaking a good campaign) Edit: right..just read the 2 posts before me ^^ i think that monks and paladins shouldn't keep riches (extra challenge to put in their codes: poverty) but donate them to their church/cloister etc, or sacrifice it to their deity
Thubby 08-11-07, 12:07 PM	if your paralyzed with options at 300k, why would you double the problem? anyway, what would your characters do with? everyone and their mother has a "if i had a million dollars" plan. and i doubt it is to spend years in a workshop every day, and doing nothing else(see magic crafting). or for the paladin to sit around doing nothing. if i were them, id probably give some to charity, maybe some to my friends, then buy 300k worth of gear and head out for the next adventure.
Grumman 08-11-07, 01:12 PM	You find 1 million gold pieces and actually manage to drag it to town with you? even when concealed in *several* bags of holding, hidden beneath a cloak so nobody can see you have those, merchants smell it and even a simple short sword or sling costs 100k gold, Only if they have good Fort saves. Or they can smell a "DM's Paladin" coming. Edit: right..just read the 2 posts before me ^^ i think that monks and paladins shouldn't keep riches (extra challenge to put in their codes: poverty) but donate them to their church/cloister etc, or sacrifice it to their deity +5 Mithral full-plate doesn't pay for itself, you know.
LazyNinja 08-12-07, 02:36 AM	Good choices. I was going to suggest True Rez. Bring back every brave comrade who died too young. A few more options, in case you or anyone else finds themselves in the same terrible predicament: Wishes. +5 inherent bonuses to all stats. Necessary? Meh. But if you want to play a god/dess among wo/men, it's nice to be stronger, quicker, tougher, smarter, wiser, and prettier than everyone else. And sounds like your DM's easygoing, so get creative. Personally, I prefer my rewards to be permanent and unswipeable. Wish for wings (might take a few.) What the hell, pick up some spell resistance or a few SLA's. Darkvision? Some DM's will even let players wish for a feat or skill ranks. Phat Lewtz. It's been said before. Belt of Magnificence +6! The perfect companion for your nasty new stats. Mithral pants! Adamantine teeth! +5 holy splitting shocking spiked chain of everyonebutmebane! Of course, as everyone else has pointed out, CR appropriate encounters won't be a challenge. So... Templates. Yeah, you know, those cool things you always wanted to try out but never did because, well, they blow *ss? Now your gear can take the edge off that massive LA. Half-celestial? Why not? You were bitten by a radioactive archon while adventuring in the Upper Planes. Vampire? Okay, still a no, but you get the idea...
Thubby 08-12-07, 04:41 PM	Phat Lewtz. It's been said before. Belt of Magnificence +6! The perfect companion for your nasty new stats. Mithral pants! Adamantine teeth! +5 holy splitting shocking spiked chain of everyonebutmebane! Of course, as everyone else has pointed out, CR appropriate encounters won't be a challenge. So... shouldn't it be mithral teeth and adamantine pants? everyone likes sexy black pants, and i doubt black teeth are attractive.
LazyNinja 08-13-07, 11:58 AM	shouldn't it be mithral teeth and adamantine pants? everyone likes sexy black pants, and i doubt black teeth are attractive. I was thinking, "Who doesn't want lighter pants?" And adamantine teeth would make a great bite attack. Or an impromptu file to saw (chomp) through manacles or prison bars. But yeah, maybe a glamer on the teeth? They can totally afford it. Then again, it might not matter with +11 to Charisma...
SokenzanMarauder 08-13-07, 12:49 PM	Fund a search to find the world's only priest that can turn water... into FUNK! :D Seriously though, I'd pick up a stronghold and maybe a few water based vessels as well. -Gene
Temroc 08-13-07, 12:56 PM	A really big turnip. :cookie: for reference. A turnip of your very own in the country? You'd have to haggle...
feanor_elfprince 08-16-07, 03:32 PM	as far as the stronghold suggestions go, why leave your precious home behind? floating tower ftw!
VulcanStormwrath 08-17-07, 10:25 PM	Paladin gets belt of magnificence Bard tomes for Int/Cha/Dex