Basically the idea is this:
At about level 9 or 10 or so, the PC's get ahold of an arbitrary amount of gold, and magical items that cost equal to or under 15,000 gp become a dime a dozen (ie, you can get them by Wish, or people in the past got them by Wish, so they are common, and you can pay gold and normal gems for them)
The general ideas with this is that CHARGED items (ie, 50 charges left or whatever, but rods and suchnot that do x/day are fine, they just count against your eight) of equal to or under 15,000 GP are generally To Not Be Used at this point, except for small basic assumptions like OF COURSE you have a wand of lesser vigor, or the group has access to a small amount of alchemist's fire, or whatever, at any given moment, but that massive amounts of these items generally can't be used as the primary way to solve problems.
The other idea is that each character has a maximum of 8 magical items that they can have on their person at any given time, and to not worry TOO much about item slots, but that items do have to not greatly overlap and not do the same thing, and that you have to go back to base to swap out one of your eight.
And then it's basically the DM that hands out anything that costs 15,001 gp or above, so they are easy to keep track of, and that crafting is seriously downplayed.
From what I understand, that's the basic idea of games using the Wish Economy.
Has anyone tried to do much group or individual Item Optimization using this or similar systems? How did it go? What did you notice?
I was just wanting more ideas for how it impacts the game, both from a mundane player's perspective (we have multiple fighter 3's in the party.. *cries*), an optimizer's perspective, and a DM's perspective.
Interesting economy idea. One thing I'm not sure I'm getting, so you're basically allowed eight "magic item slots" that can be whatever, without major duplication. That being said, are you allowed additional items that are under 15,000 mostly without limit? Or is 8 the hard cap?
If it's the hard cap it could actually hurt you somewhat, since a well equipped adventurer should have more than eight magical items at higher levels, especially to cover contingencies and weird enemies that would only come up occasionally.
Also, just fyi, I can think of a large number of problems that can be solved with items that cost less than 15k, especially at level ten. (Belt of Battle, Circlet of Rapid Casting, weaponshard augments, and a lot more are pretty cheap)
"Ding! You have gotten access to the Wish Economy! You are now Fantastically Wealthy! Choose Eight major magic items, of values equal to or under 15k gold pieces. Write them down on your character sheet. These are the items that are important to your character. If you go out and are ready for business, you are carrying these items. Assume you have whatever miscellaneous light and minor magic items around, that do not directly affect how your character does business, just like you might have assumed you had whatever cheap, miscellaneous mundane items on you, at about level four. As long as you don't mention those too often, or try to stack them (I have 5000 vials of Alchemist's fire!) they get to stay out of your Eight. Mention one big one in particular too many times, and it has to be part of your Eight. Also, whatever items ABOVE 15k the DM gives to you, are not part of your Eight, UNLESS they specifically REPLACE one of your eight, like as a main weapon or a suit of armor. Note: You have, at your MANOR or CASTLE or ESTATES or AWESOME KITTED OUT DUNGEON, basically as many of whatever items that are under 15k that you can think of. And lots of awesome architecture. Write up the conspicuous consumption for status points!"
This seems pretty badass....basically, if you can think of a relatively cheap item that would help your character at a given moment, it's assumed that they have it? What about items, cheap items, that grant continuous small bonuses. Is it assumed that every pc has all these items simultaneously, but it just not keeping track of them?
I feel like this is the D&D economy version of gestalt.
sign me up!
But no, you can only have 8 continuous magic items active at any time. That's it. The way I'm running it is that it takes 15 minutes to swap out your magic items (which I call "attuning" them). Some items are exempt from this, like "use-activated" things such as weapons (so you can have a guy that flings a zillion magic daggers every round, if you want).
How have you found the economy plays out? I feel like characters would have a couple powerful options/enhancements, but would suffer from a lack of versatility. I've always found my strongest characters were the ones where I really shopped carefully and creatively; they were the ones most likely to have the proper gear-solution when need arose.
- Create a nonmagical item of up to 25,000 gp in value.
- Create a magic item ... *** or add to the powers of an existing magic item.
So long as you have a wish loop of some sort,
25K per use, becomes the "currency".
And in whole numbers only, like 3 uses to make a 63k item.
iirc 15k was the 3.0e version, but it doesn't matter much. Maybe that includes exp burn too - idk.
The major disadvantage of a Wish based economy,
is Wish can dispel multi-stacked Wish items or Wish uses.
And Wish can undo, slightly more powerful stuff, than what 1 Wish can normally do.
You could come out a little ahead, for just a little while, nuking other nukes (tactic).
Deities "ought" to get mad about the Wish economy,
and start sending down Miracles to their minions and followers.
While technically a dm fiat action, it is within the flavor of a Deity,
to prove it's relative deific-ness, compared to the pikers around it.
Miracle > Wish
Miracle + Ticked Off Deity >>> Wish.
See, there's lots of ways to do this ...
The Wish economy is not based on casting wishes, it's based on summoning up efreets and forcing them to give you 3 wishes via uses of Candles of Summoning to Gate them in and make them do whatever you want. Then you use one of the wishes to replace the candle so you can rinse and repeat the trick.
The XP burn alone for wishes is going to stop a casting wish economy dead in its tracks.
Likewise, any efreet who can be summoned and forced to use wishes should have an agreement that basically was a Wish that says that they cannot cast Wishes without prior authorization by a higher power or as a reward for a mortal who has aided them in some way. Forcing them to cast a wish then becomes literally impossible..they literally cannot oblige you.
The other alternative is that every Efreet has a mortal servant who every day uses two wishes for himself and one on behalf of the efreet, meaning that Efreets and whatever servant they have eventually rule the worlds entire.
Wish economies don't work on the face of it.
==Aelryinth
Seriously, in practical terms, this would never work. For one, as aelryinth has pointed out, XP has to go into normal casting, so it's not exactly like wish is really around that much. And for two, an economy like this turns the game into "Is there a spell to help this situation? Why, it just so happens I have an x/use per year item of that spell right here!" Wealth is abusable enough that this kind of assumption would murder the game instantly. And three, it sounds there's a huge assumption that goes into it: you have to mention your item. You don't. So for instance, I have an item of continuous shield up. I don't have to mention it... my AC is just higher every time something or someone attacks me. I have a weapon augment crystal on every weapon. I don't need to mention it, I just ignore miss chances against ethereal creatures, or get sneak attack on undead. I have an item of permanent magic weapon on. I don't have to mention it, I just roll at a higher attack bonus every time I attack.
Basically, I highly recommend avoiding this idea, because it hands nearly any situation to the guy who's played wizards or psions for years and knows the item creation rules and says "Here! You win!"
If your DM is having that much trouble because of you guys using your wealth effectively, he needs to consider other options. For instance, in my games, each character has an upkeep cost that they pay at the end of each session, based on how their character typically lives and how much time the session covered. (Also known as a % of how much wealth they have on hand... *cough cough*) If they can't or won't pay it, they take exhaustion penalties next session. Archers pay more because they have to buy ammo. (Hooray for not having to track each arrow...) BSFs typically pay a little more for armor upkeep. A wizard will be paying high upkeep for the more luxurious settings in which he'll typically be interested. If you maintain horses, you pay more. And so on. Another option is to consider how much time it really takes to do things like salvage a tapestry while keeping it in saleable condition. (Hint: if you hang out in this castle for the next week sacking it for cash items, the guy who was the liege lord of the boss may show up... or a band of mercenaries that heard about your fight... or the customer who's been waiting for a week for you to return his LIGHT DARK FIRE ICE JADE CRYSTAL DIAMOND RUBY OF POWER AND DEATH AND LIFE AND MORE POWER may think you've decided to keep it yourself... or the thing you maybe were going to do next goes to a different group and your party has to sit at home and pay six months of upkeep before something else happens.
)In short: don't do this. There are better ways.
Wish economies don't work on the face of it.==Aelryinth
They work if the DM says they do. I'm the DM in my game, and I say they work. The OP sounds like he's thinking of trying this in a game he's DMing, so it will work. So what's your point, really? Are you trying to tell us how to run our games? If so, shut up. It's none of your damned business.
The topic is how optimization would work under such a system, not your opinions on if such a system itself can work.
@ PhaedrusXY
How have you found the economy plays out? I feel like characters would have a couple powerful options/enhancements, but would suffer from a lack of versatility. I've always found my strongest characters were the ones where I really shopped carefully and creatively; they were the ones most likely to have the proper gear-solution when need arose.
I let them combine items, as long as they're below the limit. So they can actually still kind of have a bunch of little effects if they want.
It makes items mean more, in some ways, I think. It doesn't really change things hugely, though.
Also, once they reach the point where 15,000 gp items are actually cheap for their level, you'll have to start hand-placing treasure, or work out other ways for them to acquire appropriate items, since magic items worth more than 15k aren't bought/sold with gold in such a system.
The exp burn is rather easily mitigated.
From: www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htmSpell-Like Abilities
1/day—grant up to three wishes (to nongenies only)
EDIT - man, on the previous bbx set-up, I could make posts look "sexy". No more.
The exp burn is rather easily mitigated.
From: www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/genie.htmSpell-Like Abilities
1/day—grant up to three wishes (to nongenies only)
EDIT - man, on the previous bbx set-up, I could make posts look "sexy". No more.
Also the Thought Bottle (Complete Arcane) could reduce the exp drain to 500xp per use.
And no, Wish Economies don't work by the very logic that was used to construct them, which is ostensibly based on game logic. It's all about summoning efreeti, and by that simple rule, either higher powers will crack down on the efreet, or the efreet will have arrangements with certain people ahead of time, not you, and those people rule the world.
i.e. it only works with houseruling that efreeti are idiots, the gods let them get away with it, and the world doesn't implode under the use of unrestrained wishes.
And yes, DM golem, you'll notice I did mention the summon efreeti trick in my first post.
==Aelryinth
That doesn't seem like a bad idea, however you manage it, does it?
I don't know. At what certain point is +120k gp of bonus 'on-demand' goodies considered balanced? Esp for NO cost?
The Wish Economy assumes there is NO xp cost for Wishes and Deities aren't overseeing Miracle. As soon as you enforce either, there is no wish economy...because 5000 xp a pop is a LOT of XP, and XP does not come that easy to NPC's.
I was doing some calculation once for the BBEG in Castle Mhoire, Mr. Demon Hands (can't remember the name). He was like level 19. I assumed he used Wishes for his inherent bonuses. He'd have been level 21 or 22 if he hadn't Wished up his stats!
==Aelryinth