Basically, instead of having coins and gems and all that as a number. Like you have 100 gp, 243 sp and so on. You have a wealth skill or ability or something.
Basically when you want to buy something, you roll a d20 to see if you can afford. DC depending on how rare and expensive the item is.
It makes it pretty easy for people who don't want to sit and count copper pieces. And also the DM can just go "you find a treasure filled with gems and coins, you are rich beyond your wildest dreams. You gain a +5 to your wealth skill".
Any thoughts?
It makes it pretty easy for people who don't want to sit and count copper pieces. And also the DM can just go "you find a treasure filled with gems and coins, you are rich beyond your wildest dreams. You gain a +5 to your wealth skill".
This.
"Traditional" medieval societies don't have that. You give cash, you get goods. That's how complicated it gets.
On another front, leaving the availability of resources to such a check would mean that a party's equipment is all left to chance, and we all know that Random is the enemy of Balance.
Personally, I just did away with money and purchasing of items altogether and my players have not once complained about it. They can rely on simplicity in their equipment and getting items they know they can put to use.
In my experience as DM and player, the entire process of selling purchasing and purchasing items has only served to slow down the game significantly no matter how it's done. Hence, I preselect the items I want my players to have or have mentioned wanting and simply let them acquire them through other justifiable means in game.
A "Wealth Check" is good for modern or futuristic settings, because it represents a character's credit, his ability to find discounts, and possibly other, non-monetary resources to which he has access.
"Traditional" medieval societies don't have that. You give cash, you get goods. That's how complicated it gets.
The concept of credit has been around pretty much since the concept of money which is pretty much since the beginning of civilization. And medieval societies were even more about bargaining then the modern day pre-priced stores of today. And the non-monetary resources I assume mean contacts well people could know nobles, rulers, powerful spell casters, and etc which might contact in helping to get an item. So none of that really holds any water in the argument.
If anything I think a "Wealth Check" should be tied to diplomacy in D&D. Because it doesn't seem unreasonable that the person you are doing a quest for might be a wealthy individual or ruler of some sorts who would have access to lots of various items. So they might give the players some to help them complete the task they set forth or even as a reward.
This way it's not to far off the normal path of quest giver gives treasure when quest is finished setup. But at the same time provides a sort of believable format to where this money is coming from rather then simply I pull it out of thin air sense.
Also you need to create some system to limit the items that can be gotten from a wealth check. Because on of the problems I've heard mentioned with the wealth check system in some games is that since a player can buy anything below their wealth level they can then buy an unlimited number so they can literally buy hundreds.
Also the roll for each item to see if they can purchase it could pose a bit of a problem as the player just sits there and rolls over and over for a ton of different items. They keep picking different items to roll for until they get a bunch of the high end gear that they can get (aka roll 20s on items at the limit of their wealth check range).
I think the best idea would be to do what my group does which is limit the buying and selling of items to the end of the session or between sessions so it's cleared up for next time and doesn't waste valuable session time which is often limited due to people's busy schedules.
Also when you do a wealth check setup limit how many items they can attempt to buy so they don't roll a hundred times. My group does a store availability check for items to have magic items keep a bit of that rare feel. Where a store may carry most of the lower end magic items but it sometimes has a few extra which the group can make a check for but are limited to a set number of checks per week, that's in campaign time.
I've thinking about stealing a rule from the True20 ruleset.
Basically, instead of having coins and gems and all that as a number. Like you have 100 gp, 243 sp and so on. You have a wealth skill or ability or something.
Basically when you want to buy something, you roll a d20 to see if you can afford. DC depending on how rare and expensive the item is.
It makes it pretty easy for people who don't want to sit and count copper pieces. And also the DM can just go "you find a treasure filled with gems and coins, you are rich beyond your wildest dreams. You gain a +5 to your wealth skill".
Any thoughts?
I like this a lot as it would remove counting copper and its useful beyond just that. But at the same time, if MY wealth skill is 20 and I am trying to buy a loaf of bread at an afford cost of 10, then I can make a wealth check every round to get unlimited bread and then sell it to someone else for a "you are rewarded the value of 1 wealth per loaf of bread, then I can abuse the hell out of it.:D
Ok, so while we were resting in town (OOC: since the last time we played D&D and stopped to go home) (IC) I'v been up for the past 12 hours doing wealth checks and skill challenges on this merchant for the rocks he has for 3gp but if you look close (perception) its really rubies worth 100 gp! - And he has 200 of them (intelligence check :P ). So lets do this, DM! Mo money! Money Mo! DM: 200 wealth checks later, "you earn the value of 20,000 wealth!" (PC) "oh look, another merchant with 200 more "rocks" lets go take a look." :D
Still. I like it, cool rule. I'll stick with counting copper though.
Whether its actually an improvement over "counting copper" is debatable, but the work's been done for you.
A suggestion as per this skill (or feat, whichever)...
If you have this skill, you should be adept at barter and bargaining... so gain a 5 or 10% reduction in price on purchased items, and also gain a 2-5% annual interest on banked money...
Weath can build wealth if used properly. But it should be ON THE PLAYER to keep the records, not on the DM!! :P
Weath can build wealth if used properly. But it should be ON THE PLAYER to keep the records, not on the DM!! :P
While this maybe true I've found that a lot of DMs tend to be wary of their players keeping track of their own wealth long term. There seem to be two mains reasons for this. The first is most obviously game balance as the DM wants to ensure the players have the correct wealth for their level as well as the challenges the DM puts before them.
The other reason is the DM doesn't completely trust his players to be honest with their wealth records. This can be either because the DM is naturally suspicious or the DM has had a player in the past who wasn't honest and thus forever clouded the DMs trust.
So the end result is it will still come down to the DM to keep track of these things. Because as soon as a player seems to have a little more wealth then they should the DM will want to see the accounting records of it to make sure their is no creative accounting going on
.Also the wealth builds wealth sounds more like a plan to develop an investment or stock market type system. While that would be a rather interesting thing I think it might be a little off topic as for wealth as a skill to simply roll and see if a player can afford something.
lot of DMs tend to be wary of their players keeping track of their own wealth
I keep copies of each Player Character sheet. They can't cheat me this way :D
Now if you take that into dice roll say you have a 50% chance of being able to afford an item. That means an item one tier higher you would only have a 10% chance of being able to afford. This is the difference between needing an 11 and needing a 19 on the dice roll. This is a difference of 8 on the roll.
But things get a little more complex when you take into account skill roll modifiers. Say you have an 80% chance of successfully affording an item. Well at the same 1/5 because of the price increase you not have a 16% chance of affording the one tier higher item which can't really be showing on d20. Though you can come fairly close if you say it's the difference between needing a 5 and needing an 18. As you can tell the lower tier item got a lot easier while the higher tier item barely changed in difficulty.
There is also the issue when you purchase items you no longer have the funds available to you. For example sure when you reach paragon tier the purchase of a heroic tier item might be fairly easy but you can't purchase an unlimited number of them. Though because of the steep price increase it may seem like a nearly unlimited amount. After all you can buy 8680 level 1 items for the cost of a level 30 item. But at that point most level 1 items are not much use to a level 30 character.
I think a good way to handle the use of wealth in the skill system is the player suffers a penalty to the wealth check for each magical item he owns within a curtain level range of his character. For example a level 10 character with a level 11 weapon, level 12 armor, and level 10 neck item is going to have a bigger drain on his wealth then say a level 15 character with those same items.
While I'd like to see this idea in action, you'd have to find a way to convert pricing into a DC check. This would require examining item level versus cost which really isn't that crazy an idea but it could prove cumbersome. Personally, I just did away with money and purchasing of items altogether and my players have not once complained about it. They can rely on simplicity in their equipment and getting items they know they can put to use. In my experience as DM and player, the entire process of selling purchasing and purchasing items has only served to slow down the game significantly no matter how it's done. Hence, I preselect the items I want my players to have or have mentioned wanting and simply let them acquire them through other justifiable means in game.
Same. Though often, if it takes as long as a quest, I might as well make it a quest for them.
lot of DMs tend to be wary of their players keeping track of their own wealth
I keep copies of each Player Character sheet. They can't cheat me this way :D
I do this as well. The benifits of having a spare sheet in case if one of them loses theirs is worth the wealth double checking.