Can all of my PCs join their Wealth bonuses, as if they all shared a single bank account?
This scenario represents another way to model the kinds of situations outlined in the previous question. As a GM, I wouldn't allow it unless the PCs literally did have a joint bank account--perhaps a private investigating firm's business checking account, or a married couple's joint account. In that case, you can use the following somewhat complicated way to calculate a combined Wealth bonus.
Step 1. Take the Wealth bonus of each member of the group, add 10 to it, and pretend the result is a purchase DC.
Step 2. Convert that DC to dollars using Table 7-1 on page 204 of the d20 Modern Core Rulebook.
Step 3. Add all those dollar values together and convert the result back to a purchase DC by reading Table 7-1 in the other direction.
Step 4. Subtract 10 from the resulting purchase DC to arrive at the group's combined Wealth bonus.
Here are a couple of examples that illustrate how this process should work.
Example 1: Each of four characters has a Wealth bonus of +5. Adding 10 to that value produces a modified base Wealth bonus of +15. A purchase DC of 15 converts to $500 on Table 7-1. Adding the four characters' dollar values together gives $2,000, which corresponds to a purchase DC of 20. Subtracting 10 gives the party a joint Wealth bonus of +10.
Example 2: One wealthy character (Wealth bonus +12) joins forces with three very poor characters (Wealth bonus +2 each). The highest Wealth bonus yields a modified base Wealth bonus of +22, which converts to $3,500. The three lower Wealth bonuses convert to $200 each. Adding $600 to $3,500 gives $4,100, which converts to a purchase DC of 23. Subtracting 10 gives the party a joint Wealth bonus of +13.
One player is the MAIN purchaser. His wealth bonus stands as is for contribution. When the purchase is over he loses wealth as normal
Each additional player could add up to a +2 or a +4 Bonus on top of that (Your choice). EVERY ASSISTANT player involved in the purchase would lose wealth. Use normal wealth loss rolls, but halve it to a minumum of 1.
This would allow them to combine their wealths, but not balloon them to insane degrees. So say we had the mai purchased with a 16 wealth score and two other assistants. They could get a combined wealth score bonus of 20 (or 24 depending on wether you allow +2 or +4 per character).
It certainly better than having then merging all scores together as a whole.
You could also just allow them to contribute 1/4 of their wealth bonus to the cause, allowing players with more money to contribute more. But again, I would wealth loss them as normal then cut it in half to a minumum of 1.
The best answer I've had so far (in a different discussion area, I think) is to just allow the Wealth amounts to add up but not allow all the players to sink their entire scores into the pool of money because that's not what people actually do when they incorporate. He suggested putting a cap on how much you can "invest" into the collective. I'm not sure how much to make that cap, though. Is +3 too little? Is +10 too much? I don't know, not be honest, but I'll gladly take suggestions.
Also put a restriction on how often they can bump the pool up. Perhaps only allow them to add to the pool when each of them have leveled up again or perhaps an ingame time period?
Regardless, 1/4 does sound like a good, round number. Why would you want to limit how often they "invest", though? Is there a loophole that I'm not seeing?
The character purchasing an investment in the group fund is essentially purchasing a "non-item" with a PDC high enough that the group fund "non-character" can then sell it for a +1 increase in Wealth.
To better understand why this works, consider the following example: Bob and Ted are friends, and Bob (Wealth +8) knows that Ted (Wealth +4) has been down on his luck lately. Since there is no rule in the Wealth system that says a character can give part of his Wealth bonus to another character, Bob decides to buy Ted a fire extinguisher (PDC 8) and help him sell it. Since the fire extinguisher is now a used item, it sells at a PDC of 5 (PDC 8 - 3 for being used). This is still one point higher than Ted's current Wealth bonus, so he gets a +1 increase to his Wealth; bumping him up to the lower end of the middle class (Wealth +5).
Let's see if this works more directly, though. Hypothetically, I have four players who want to all donate Wealth 2 to a fund, so they create the fund, and it has Wealth +0 to start. It then receives the first Wealth 2, which is larger than Wealth +0 by two points, and thus the fund increases to Wealth +1. It acquires the second Wealth +2, and that's still larger than Wealth +1, so the fund rises to Wealth +2. Now, in order to increase it, they'd have to put in Wealth 3 to bring it to +3, and then Wealth 4 to bring it to +4, and so on. If they were to throw Wealth 10 at a Wealth +5 account, it would gain 2 points: one for being larger and one for being 5 points larger. You can't just subtract from the players' Wealth and add to the fund, though, and you'd have to do it one player at a time, so the poorest characters would donate first, and then the wealthier characters would have to donate more in order for their donation to increase the amount.
That's brilliant.
Oh of course! You're a genius. It's not a pile of money. It's buying power. You have to raise it the same way you'd raise a person's Wealth. That's why the bullet point says to convert to a PDC first and "acquire" the amount.
Let's see if this works more directly, though. Hypothetically, I have four players who want to all donate Wealth 2 to a fund, so they create the fund, and it has Wealth +0 to start. It then receives the first Wealth 2, which is larger than Wealth +0 by two points, and thus the fund increases to Wealth +1. It acquires the second Wealth +2, and that's still larger than Wealth +1, so the fund rises to Wealth +2. Now, in order to increase it, they'd have to put in Wealth 3 to bring it to +3, and then Wealth 4 to bring it to +4, and so on. If they were to throw Wealth 10 at a Wealth +5 account, it would gain 2 points: one for being larger and one for being 5 points larger. You can't just subtract from the players' Wealth and add to the fund, though, and you'd have to do it one player at a time, so the poorest characters would donate first, and then the wealthier characters would have to donate more in order for their donation to increase the amount.
That's brilliant.
I like that you're trying to make it more direct (though I feel you may have misinterpreted what I meant as my way is also rather direct), but your system punishes characters more than mine. Allow me to demonstrate.
Alice is part of a group that that forms a group fund. The others in the group are middle class (Wealth +8), but Alice is affluent (Wealth +12). Lets see how it breaks down under each system.
Your proposed system: Alice wants to increase the Wealth of the group fund by 2. The group fund is already at 8 because the other 4 members have each had their turn at contributing Wealth. Alice has to sacrifice 9 Wealth to raise the group account's Wealth by +1.
My proposed system: Alice wants to increase the Wealth of the group fund by 2. The group fund is already at 8 because the other 4 members have each had their turn at contributing Wealth. Alice has must make two purchases. The first is at PDC 12, which raises the group account's Wealth by +1 but doesn't lower her Wealth. Alice then makes a 2nd purchase at PDC 13. This raises the group account's Wealth by +1 and lowers her Wealth by +1.
I just did some math with what I proposed, and it is really expensive, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing because a Wealth score isn't money, as I said, so it shouldn't be cheap to create one.
That said, "buying an investment" is an extremely sensible way to think of this, and if the PDCs truly aren't linear then that +4 should account for a relative increase in cost. Where did you come up with +4, by the way? Just seem like a round number?
Oh, and just to clarify, the joint account starts at Wealth +0, so the first investor needs to by a PDC 4 investment, right? That's how you're picturing this?
I did this to simulate the buy-give-sell scenario. If you were going to purchase an item, give it to someone else, and then have that person sell the item; they would sell it for a PDC 3 less than the PDC you bought it for. As long as the resale PDC is at least 1 higher than the group account's Wealth bonus, it will increase the group account's Wealth bonus by +1. With this in mind, I took the give and sell out of the equation by making the PDC equal to the group account's current Wealth bonus +4 (+1 for the +1 needed to actually increase the account's Wealth score, and +3 for the transfer; call it investment fees if you want).
That is eminently logical. Do you see that investment amount increasing based on the thresholds I put on the first page? If PDC 4 gets you a +1, does PDC 9 (i.e., five higher) get you a +2? I would be consistent if that were the case, and it would give players a way to invest more and get more, if they wanted to.
Yes, that is the case. A PDC 9 investment would be equivalent to a PDC 6 resale. If the group account (I'm abbreviating it GA) had a Wealth bonus of +0 or +1, then this would net the GA a +2 increase to its Wealth bonus. So it would end up like this:
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +4 increases it's Wealth by +1.
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +8 increases it's Wealth by +2.
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +13 increases it's Wealth by +4.
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +18 increases it's Wealth by +6.
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +23 increases it's Wealth by +8.
A PDC equal to the GA's wealth bonus +28 increases it's Wealth by +10.
Edit: as you can see it's essentially the same your Wealth loss chart, only the numbers are increased by 3.
Nice work.
I like this a lot. It's mathematically consistent with the system as we know it, and it's not so complicated that no one would ever use it, and it's cheap enough to be useful.
Nice work.
Thanks for the praise, but all I really did was use the current buy and sell mechanics and cut out the middle man.
Incidentally, I think this is a great system for converting Wealth from one Wealth score to another. Take Cyberchase for example. In Cyberchase your Wealth and your Gray Wealth are entirely separate, and never the two shall meet. Well, not anymore. Now you can use this system to transfer one kind of wealth to another. I also plan on using it in my d20 Modern Toontown homebrew for allowing conversions between Toon Wealth and normal Wealth.
I'd love to cite you in Phoenix as the creator of this idea. PM me your real name, if you're interested...?
Seeing the rules clearly enough to come up with a solution that is simple and effective deserves praise.
I'd love to cite you in Phoenix as the creator of this idea. PM me your real name, if you're interested...?
Done.