Having read the Player's Guide, I noticed that DM's receive experience and downtime days for every adventure they run. However, I also noticed they don't receive any gold, which makes the awarding of downtime days moot (as they can't afford to pay lifestyle costs associated with those downtime days).
I would suggest one of two solutions:
1) award a small sum of gold to DM's who run adventures, perhaps equaling half or one third the XP reward.
2) allow downtime days earned through DM'ing to include free lifestyle equal to that assumed from the character's background.
This is, in my opinion, one of those corner cases. It's definitely a problem is the DM never plays, and thus the only rewards his character has are what comes from DM'ing. On the other hand, if he never plays, then it doesn't really matter what his character does or doesn't have.
I believe that DMs that also play will earn sufficient gold to at least pay for lifestyle spent during downtime activities. Aside from (I suppose) buying potions of healing, there aren't THAT many things to spend money on right now. Plus, there's no requirement to spend downtime days, so they're completely optional at present.
Again, just my opinion.
In AL there is very little to spend gold on.
In AL there is very little to spend Downtime days on.
So I really don't see the problem.
Coredump00 wrote:
I never said anything about getting rid of the downtime system, not sure where you got that from...
But for now, gold and DT days are (for the most part) not very relevant to your character.
Plate armor and material components for spells are two pretty significant counterpoints to gold not being relevant. Increasing your AC is a big power gain, and someone who DMs 50% of the time will be a few levels behind everyone else in getting it. The Awaken spell, for example, requires a 1000gp focus per cast.
I'm not sure what the right answer is; I almost think DMs being able to write down XP is fairly problematic. But I'm not sure I have a better solution.
RCanine wrote:
RCanine wrote:
I am basing it on the DMG tables. HotDQ is known to be stingier than the 'norm' as described by the DMG.
But your numbers so far are not too far off. DMG has characters getting about 600+ gp by 5th level, but jumps considerably after that, to an average of 4K per level through 8th. (IIRC)
I am going through it, so I have not read it, but I would suspect (hope) that sessions 5-7 give out considerably more gp than 1-4 did.
Episode 5 was anaemic. My party is 2 sessions into episode 6 and has earnt a total of zero gp to date. This after travelling through a swamp and doing the first two sections of the castle
Yeah... the HotDQ writers have said that some things were in flux or just unknown as they wrote the material, so the erred on the side of stingy.... seems really stingy,but dems da breaks I guess.
I was hoping to continue with HotDQ and RoT, but I may switch with the Encounter season hoping for a better written adventure.
I think it'd be good for GM's to simply rate players by their lifestyle.
If people got various awards (or dishonours) for their lifestyle at the end of a campaign, they might find it more important.
Back on topic, my main concern with this system is that I only usually get to play DCI stuff when I go to conventions. As such, it would be nice to have a playable character when I do so.
As far as there not being anything worth spending gold on, I completely disagree. Being able to carry a couple of potions of healing or purchase better armor decreases the burden of one's character on the party healers. Also, using the "Catching Up" option requires the expenditure of gold unless I game the system and have my character live a "Wretched" lifestyle. Finally, my character specifically is a wizard, and so if I want to be able to add spells to the character's spellbook, that also requires gold.
Doing some quick math, I come up with the following, assuming a complete run through HotDQ:
Episode 1-7: gain 70 DTD, 3000xp
"Catching Up": costs 20 DTD and 0-200gp. Assume 40gp for "Comforable" lifestyle.
At this point, the DMG states a character created at this level should have 500+1d10x25gp, or 637.5gp on average (p38, DMG). Dropping the 40gp for lifestyle we get ~600gp. Compare that to the amount of experience gained, and we get 5xp=1gp.
Doing fast math, the character needs approximately 60,000xp to reach 10th level, spending 100 downtime days and 400gp to get to 11. The expectation of gold at this level is 5000+1d10x250, plus 2 uncommon items worth 500gp. This gives an average of 7375, or ~7000 with the lifestyle deduction. This equates to 8.5xp=1gp, a slightly worse ratio than the previous tier.
Averaging those two values, and rounding to a number that allows for easy math, I suggest a gold reward to DM's of 50gp times the tier (a 1:6 ratio). Worst case scenario, this would give a 5th level character leveled solely through DM'ing ~500gp (using "Catching Up" at Wretched lifestyle) and an 11th level character ~10,000gp. Note that the latter scenario would take DM'ing 65 games of Tier 3 Home Play (or nine runs through Rise of Tiamat) to achieve.
delroland wrote:
Kalani wrote:
I did not say there was *NO* use for gold, I said there was very little to spend gold on. Sure, maybe you want to buy a pot of Healing, or maybe you need to transcribe a spell at some point. But these are really penny ante kind of stuff.
Yes, if the DM never plays the character, and happens to play a wizard, and the first session they find a scroll, and it is given to the wizard, and it is low enough level to copy.... then sure, the lack of gold may be an issue. But a few sessions later, they will likely have enough gold. And really considering how few scrolls are in AL right now.... not a major concern. Also not a concern for warlocks, or druids, or rangers, or......
About the only thing to spend a decent chunk of cash on, is platemail armor. And even if you play from the beginning, you don't get that much money for quite awhile.
Coredump00 wrote:
I guess.... I have never had occasion to use NPC spell casting. Do you guys use it a lot? What do you have them cast?
NPC spellcasting costs 1 downtime day, and the costs listed in the module (or your PHB/DMG, I forget which). This includes raise dead surprisingly enough (although most people haven't noticed that as yet). Acolytes only have to pay the cost of expensive material components for 1/spell/day from a spellcaster of their faith.
I believe most spellcasting services are spells of 4th level and lower (but I could be wrong on that front).
I know they exist.... I just have never had a reason to use them. I was wondering if delroland used them very often. Enough to make them a significant expense.
Coredump00 wrote:
Which leads into the obvious question -- if your character just spent his savings on plate mail at 5th level, then dies, and his party can't be convinced to contribute to his raise dead fund, what happens to the character?
I know what my answer is, but I wonder how many people find that answer less than acceptable.
--
Pauper
Edit: noting that even an Acolyte background character needs to scrounge up 500gp for the diamond for the spell, so the scenario may apply to Acolytes as well
As I have a stable party at my table, my players have decided to split treasure 8 ways - with the 8th share going to a "party" fund. I would not recommend people do this as a rule, because the OP format assumes that you might take your character to a different table/store/city/region. I told my PCs this as well, but they all collectively agreed to creating the party share as well and so I am allowing it but monitoring it. If it ever causes a problem, I would immediately split the remaining party share amongst all PCs.
Regarding Raise Dead after 4th level
The tears of bahamut magic item certificate is a single use raise dead item. It became legal for use as of November 19th IIRC. If your table DM was lucky enough to score themselves a DM kit, said kit included 5? certificates for that item - to be handed out to the table. Excuse my faulty memory - I cannot recall how many certificates I had, and handed out. All I recall is that I was a few certificates short for my table of 7 players, and so to be fair, I gave them to the first X players to show up to that particular session.
As a DM, if you have those certificates - you could also consider them a party resource, and only hand them out only at the time of PC death.
Pauper wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Well... got ahold of a spreadsheet calculating average Hoard values. I double-checked the math on the 0-4 and it was spot on.
It says 375gp per hoard,and the DMG says 7 hoards is typical. So that is just over 2600gp for the party as you turn level 5.
I have not double checked the 5-10, but I have faith. It says just over 4500 per hoard, and 18 hoards are typical, so 81,000 for the party as you reach 11th level.
Now this is....weird.... DMG says from 5-10 you will find 18 hoards, but from 11-16 you will only find 12 hoards..... wut??
As for 1-10.... could be it was being written before the DMG came out. Or it could just be a matter of not treating lvl 5 the same as level 10. Meaning even if you are 'supposed' to find 20K before level 11, it will not be evenly distributed. Finding 1K, 2K, 3K, 4K, 5K, 6K from levels 5-10 would work out about right.
Kalani wrote:
CzarCascade wrote:
According to the DMG, you will find treasure from individual monsters and you will find Hoards of treasure.
According to the DMG, you will find 18 hoards of tresure from lvl 5-10
Using average stats, that means a total of 81,000 gp of treasure from the hoards alone (plus magic, which I am not including here)
That means about 20,000 gp per PC
Now if you average that evenly, its about 3400 gp per level... which means 1-10 should give out (3400x4)/2= 6800gp total hoard treasure (plus individual treasure and magic)
If you distribute it at an evenly increasing rate, one solution gives 1,000gp during 5th level, 2000gp during 6th level... etc.
DDEX1-10 s tricky, because it is supposed to give 'enough' treasure for a 5th level character, or for a 10th level character....
The assumption seems to be that every adventure should give the "average" treasure which is clearly not the case. Authors are given a range to fall within (which they all do) and then the editors sometimes tweak it based on what makes sense for that adventure (such as one where you are constantly fleeing and there's not much time to loot) and based on what they know is in the pipe for other adventures.
Pauper wrote:
Kalani wrote:
delroland wrote:
I think these things might well be addressed in the coming ALPG update.
- A character can already convert downtime to gold via the crafting rules; if the character is proficient with the appropriate tools (typically artisan's tools, but depending on the item to be crafted, other tools may apply, such as smithing tools for crafting armor or weapons), and has access to any additional equipment needed for the craft (such as a forge for smithing armor and weapons), the character can craft up to 5gp worth of salable objects in a day, at the cost of a downtime day and 2.5gp in materials. The character can maintain a modest lifestyle for free while doing this, or maintain a comfortable lifestyle by spending an additional 1gp per day (PH, p.187).
- Converting downtime to renown isn't currently allowed under ALPG rules, but could be added in when the update is released, as rules already exist in the DMG for this purpose; spend a number of downtime days equal to 10x your current number of renown points to gain a renown point. (DMG, p.129) The character would also have to pay lifestyle expenses during this time, so spending some downtime building up the purse via crafting (above) might be a good idea first.
Ultimately, though, the preferred solution to a DM who doesn't get to play in AL games is likely to convince someone at the table with you to take over DMing occasionally so that you do get to play -- running a scenario as DM does not prevent you from playing (and receiving awards for) the same scenario as a player.
--
Pauper
Pauper wrote:
TheBreen wrote:
I don't know. I see it differently, including the whole "unearned" concept.
I am a part-time AL DM, and I have my own regular home game every week as well. I'm fortunate that there are a number of local stores I can go to in order to play. For example, there is the Guild House in Bellflower every Wednesday night, or the monthly meetup at Game Empire Pasadena.
Both stores are perpetually low on DMs compared to the demand. Maybe half the time at Guild House I end up being the pinch-hitter DM instead of playing, and for the monthly meetup, I try to run one session (out of three slots available) because there's a need for DMs. This means I don't get to play.
To use the meetup as an example: if I play for four hours, I might get 450 to 600 XP, maybe 125 gp, 10 downtime days, 1-2 renown points, and usually have a 20% chance of getting a magic item. If instead I DM for those four hours, I get 200 XP, 10 downtime days, no gold, no renown, and no items. Plus my characters' stories don't advance any.
In other words, by volunteering to run the game so that others can play, I'm taking a pretty big hit in terms of what my characters could otherwise earn in four hours of play. Sure, I could be selfish -- as most of the players are -- and not run at all because it's a losing proposition. But if everyone did that, the AL program would suffer a lot for lack of DMs.
I'm not saying that the DMs should get the full rewards that the players get (nor am I saying they necessarily SHOULDN'T), but I do think that calling something "unearned" and harmful to the organized play program is wrongheaded when you're talking about gamers deliberately missing out on the things everyone else gains in order to ensure that the whole group has a chance to play.
Maybe the situation is different where you are -- maybe there's a glut of DMs or something, and my experience is unusual. I don't know; I can only speak for what I've seen, and what I've seen is that rather than harming the AL campaign through unearned rewards, the bigger harm comes from not valuing the DMs enough by making it a sacrifice to run games instead of passively playing in them.
The DM rewards DO work really well in one of two scenarios:
1) The DM prefers to DM as opposed to play. We have these kinds of people in our community, and we enjoy having them. Especially when they do it because what they like about D&D is the storytelling aspect. Yeah, the DM's PC is a few levels behind...but chances are, they don't care. They have something to trot out at a con or when they need to take a break (and most DMs do...)
2) The group practices a round robin DM strategy, where at least MOST of the players take a turn). Someone runs for a few weeks, then someone else pickes up, etc, etc. Yeah, maybe one person runs the adventure that only gets them 300 XP while the next gets 600. But within your group it's going to level out...more or less. (Personal experience...we found it was good to save the "1-hour" adventures, like the ones which came in DDEX1-1 for the people who haven't DMed before. It's much less stress on them to know they only need to DM for an hour or so...)
Where it doesn't work is where you have one or two guys who do all the DMing, and who also want to play regularly. Not only does this give them the impression that they're falling behind, but it isn't what they want to be doing...so why should they stick around.
My suggestion to the OP is that if you don't have someone who fits the bill for Scenario 1, and you being a "part time AL DM" is only as a back-up for a week here and there...talk to your group about moving to Scenario 2.
That all being said, it's a valid suggestion for the module designers to start including *some* GP along with the Downtime Days and XP as DM rewards.
Avross wrote:
Oraibi wrote:
TheBreen wrote:
RCanine wrote:
Oraibi wrote:
Oraibi: Now you have met one. I much prefer to DM then to play.. esp when it comes to Expeditions. Ive run through the set of 1-4s now on offer and have half run through them again. Im always finding differences when I run.
Ive recently gone away on Holiday and returned to find that 2 of my players have now started to run the Expeditions too. I like to think It was my influence.. but probably not 
As for why I prefer to DM?
Im not sure of that. I like to tell myself its a way for me to be more social as Im pretty introvertive in RL and I find it very hard to just have a casual conversation with someone. I think in a way its more than that though on some level... I like to know the story behind the adventure and whilst the pcs may never really grasp it , at least I know it.
I dont know that Im a fan of these conventions that have to essentially bribe DMS to actually have enough DMS with Free/Cheaper accomodation and other swag bags.
I also dont think Im missing out when it comes to playing? Ive effectively got my own party members under my control. I could have a party of 1 dude with a kickass Trident Attacks (SKEWER!) or have a cool bunch of Veterans ready to team up to kick some party but. I guess it comes down to how you look at it.