What do you guys think about the simple wealth by level table revealed in one of the enworld previews?
I think it's great that it uses level ranges and that it has three columns for Low Magic, Standard, and High Magic campaigns.
It might fix rarity by level in some people minds, but otherwise it's not bad.
Here's the preview for easy reference:
I'm glad to see that made it into the final cut of the DMG. They're nice and simple, and I also like how it's based on the four tiers.
Wait, why does magic availiability affect wealth by level? Magic items don't have price listings nor are they assumed to be availiable on the open market.
EDIT: Ok I see the wealth is the same in all three categories, it's just the number of magic items that changes.
Someone call a doctor, FFSAA is going to have a stroke.
rampant wrote:
rampant wrote:
Yeah I asked initially because the image wasn't loading at first.
Still seems like it's silly to break it up into three categories on the WEALTH by level table if the onlydifference is magic item suggestions which are generally independent of wealth.
rampant wrote:
rampant wrote:
Its excellent, just what I wanted. My higher level game (which started at higher level) is coming up to a book keeping phase (scribing scrolls, hiring NPC services, restocking components) and instead of having to guestimate, I have something to work with now.
MechaPilot wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
edwin_su wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
dmgorgon wrote:
edwin_su wrote:
The number of magic items seems rather low, even for high magic, compared to how many are given out in adventure league and HotDQ.
If I have someone join or make a new character for RoT they get... no magic items under standard. Meanwhile characters who went through HotDQ will probably have a couple each, more if done with Adventure League.
If you use high then the player gets one item and if they get to pick it, that will help to mitigate having less, although an uncommon hardly compares to a legendary greatsword.
Overall it doesn't seem useable to me for the most common place I'd want to use it, getting a new character joining an existing campaign up to par with the other characters. Both 4E and 3E did this far better. I'll just ignore it and figure out how much and what (if any) to give myself.
Overall it looks like everything else we're seeing with the DMG. Half-assed minimal effort on their part, no regard or even an attempt at balance, requiring the DM to do all the actual work.
Well, this is pretty much what I was saying (in another thread) such a thing could look like, if in the DMG. Heh, I am a genius. 
It is exaclty what I wanted! Even a high magic campaign suppose that you are going to have only 6 magic items by level 20.
We are far away from the D&D magic item christmas tree from older editions.
As a sidenote, I think my home game will be a standard game - 2 uncommon items and 1 rare by level 20. For 6 characters, that's still 18 magic items, almost 1 every level.
I'll have my DMG tomorrow, I'm already exited and I think I'm going to read it from front to cover in one serving 
FFSAA wrote:
Is it just me or do someone else finds weird that a character of 4th level hasn't earned a damn copper piece to his name?
Oh, and waiting for 11th level for that fullplate? Epic...
BTW, I do LIKE the magic item table.
but personaly, I would make the table by level not by tiers. This is even worse that 4E 11th/21st level power jumps
this looks like you can't beat a silver out of a thug or an orc, but one of every few hudred of those carry a 600-700 GP chest.
Yeah! now I can buy myself a breastplate and few alchemist fires. Maybe... It's time for big boys now, maybe trolls and drow. But even drow are down on their luck, 2 or 3 gold on those beggars on average. Lolth must be silent again and House Baenre is nowhere to be found these days...
And the trolls? these guys can't remember when they pillaged a village or a caravan last time. So you guys are hacking through the troll tribe with 2 alcemist fires per capita and the trolls regenerate so fast due to lack of fire damage that you think you're on a damn Borg cube.
but sooner or later you hack open one troll and out falls a sack of diamonds...
Fullplate time!!
now you got yourself a brand new shiny plate mail, maybe even +1(dont think about adamantium or mithril for another 15 levels), a magic sword, everburning torch and magic blanked that gives you 1 extra HD after full rest, a healing potion, horse(yes you can buy that one now), ivory music instrument and 5 alchemist fires.
gogo dragons!!!!
So after you placed red dragons on endagered species list and skinned an acre of dragon hide, one of those dragons actually has a hoard as any selfrespected dragon should have.
Now your wizard is getting 9th level spells and opening gates of hell so you can deliver long overdue justice to the pits of hell...
And you stand before shimmernig portal waiting for the hordes of abbyss to charge you wearing; +1 fullplate that reflects ranged weapon back at their shooter if they rolled natural 1, a magic adamantium flaming longsword that is intelligent and has a personality of Prince Charles, cloak that can turn into tent at night, bag of holding(for all the copper pieces), 5 healing potions, 9 alchemist fires.
And a new house in your favorite not-raided-by-trolls-village, so Asmodeus can teleport your corpse there so you can decompose in a nice and friendy enviroment.
/sarcasam
P.S.
I do like that the sistem simplifed, especially magic item selection and amount.
But there should be gradual wealth growth and not power spikes.
I know that GM will tailor the wealth better if campaign starts at lvl1 and goes 10 or so levels or more,
but we should get more realistic table.
We also have to remember that this guideline is for STARTING a character higher than level 1 and the PHB says that starting characters shouldn't start with magic items, they are to be earned. So I guess those guidelines are there for people that want to start playing with magic items from the get go.
It is not a wealth by level table.
As we saw in HotDQ and LMoP, characters can have many more magic items, but if you have a new player half-way through HotDQ and want him to start with some magic items you can use that table.
That is a nice little table that is pretty much what you need for a starting equipment guide
MechaPilot wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
3 magic items by 17-20th level is telling as far as "expected" number of magic items is concerned.
It's only telling if you plan on starting a character at that level. The table is silent on what items a character should have by level 17 if he started at level 1.
Very nice table. Exactly what I wanted. Exactly the right amount of magic items. Note, that common magic items are not listed at all and I expect that you can trade in some gold for some potions etc.
Orethalion wrote:
As someone who plays and runs low wealth and low magic item games and couldn't work out you'd be able to throw enough treasure at players as the old Weath/level and "starting gear at higher levels" of 3E and 4E indicated without monsters launching treasure chests via trebuchets.
I'm pretty happy with it, it's simple and very restrained, and reinforces that you 5E totally is ok for very low treasure games.
Frankly I'm kinda surprised though just how restrained the Standard Campaign is.
Partially because I assumed +1 Magic Weapons (uncommon) were about 6th level. Since that's when 6th level Monks get Ki-powered Strikes and 6th level Moon Druids get Primal Strike. - So their iconic unarmed/beast form attacks count as magical for purposes of overcoming non-magical resistance and immunity.
Orethalion wrote:
I have been learning a few things osme of them the hard way. The following is just IMHO.
1. It doesn't matter how many non copmbat magical items you hand out in 5E. Things like decanters of endless water.
2. You probably do not want to hand out magical hand crossbows, or long bows or at least nothing past +1.
3. +2 and +3 weapons are fine on d6 and d4 weapons, +2 maybe on one handed d8 range weapons.
4. For duel wielders you have a bit more leeway as it is a weaker fighting style so even a +3 dagger will not break them that bad. +3 rapier is a bad idea.
5. You want to add magic armor into the game but nort over do it- +1 every 4-6 levels of the game.
6. +2 and +3 armor is fine as long as its not leather, plate and the best medium armor (splint?).
7. Druids ACs are a little behind the average so +2 or +3 leather or hide armor there won't matter to much.
You can use magic items to counteract powergaming as well so if you have a great sword wielder dealing around double the damge of a sword and board PC maybe a +2 longsword turns up or +1 longsword that deals an extra 1d6 damage.
I hated the wealth by level system in 3e, at least the way our DM used it.. We ended up being accountants. It was worse than encoumbance and calculating every ounce to see if we were able to move, we'd have to dump extra items if we were over the limits. It's a terrible balancing act.
Now, if it's used to create higher level characters as a starting amount, fine.
Webster wrote:
guachi wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
dafrca wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
SillyMind wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
shpelley wrote:
I strongly recommend supplementing these rules with the following additional rule from the adventurer's league player's guide, even during home play.
Permanent Magic Item Distribution (ALPG, sidebar p10)
- If all the players at the table agree on one character taking possession of a permanent magic item, that character gets the item.
- In the event that one or more characters indicate an interest in possessing a permanent magic item, the character who possesses the fewest permanent magic items gets the item. If there is a tie in the total number of permanent magic items owned by contesting characters, the item’s owner is determined randomly by the DM.
SillyMind wrote:
It kind of assumes you will havbve some iot doesn't assume exact numbers though baked into the game math. So you might have 3 items but no +1 weapon or whatever. If you have a +1 weapon you have a real bonus.
Shasarak wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
I like these tables. And I'm against wealth by level tables. I'm especially pleased that so many people who expressed a desire for wealth by level tables are also happy with these tables. It seems the designers did a good job of balancing play-style desires on this issue.
So now that I have the DMG and read the text that goes with this table, it has nothing to do with Wealth by Level at all. This table is for a DM who wants to start a campaign at a higher level, and thus the whole party would start at these levels of equipment/magic in that new game. This table does not address a PC replacement being added into an existing game nor at what pace a DM should hand out magic.
The only thing I found is in Chapter 7: Treasure->
DMG wrote:
SillyMind wrote:
I don't get it - you hand out as much or as little treasure as you want - and oh, here's an average of how much you'll hand out?
I think there should atleast be a 'But if you want to have a baseline to work from, it's this : " after the 'hand out as much as you want' and before the typical campaign text.
They're saying each individual DM can do as they please, but a TYPICAL campaign will likely have such and such.
Being as the math is pretty fixed you could play without needing to earn as much as a copper, or could earn platinum pieces left and right and not break the power level. Especially since th DM is in charge of handing out things like magic items, and most of the powerful ones need to be attuned with a limit of 3 at a time.
Noon wrote:
NineInchNall wrote:
Actually the donation comparison is pretty apt.
You donate as much or as little moeny as you want. A typical donation is $5.
(You give out as much or as little treasure as you want. A typical treasure haul is 5 gp.)
You could donate $1,000 or $0. You're still getting in. Most people will give the typical donation, but you aren't required to do so.
(You could give out 1,000 gp or 0 gp. The math still works. Most people will give the typical treasure haul, but you aren't required to do so.)
How is that confusing?
SillyMind wrote:
My doubt is about hiring mercenaries for skimishes and mass battles.
Isn´t it funny? When I remember my Newerwinter online game where my character wearing all magic item...
Noon wrote:
dafrca wrote:
As a game designer I understand their desire to simplify the system. It is however not granular enough to be useful beyond a simple guideline for creating non 1st level PCs which is its intention but falls a bit short on details.
A wealth by level guideline for NPCs would be helpful when actually creating campaigns as well as PCs higher than first level.
5E is pretty sexy and streamlined but feels very underpowered and unsatisfying if played strictly by the DMG suggestions. Id like to see sample character sheets of various levels of players from the later rounds of in-house playtesting to see their progressions.