WBL state

WBL state

Gribel 25 Apr 2012 22:45

First off, this is in "General Discussion" because I'm not requesting any changes.

Noted under Black Marches Rules, there is a Character Advancement And Wealth By Level chart. Making a quick comparison between the 4th and 20th level:

XP at 4th Level: 6000
GP at 4th Level: 6000
GP by XP ratio: 1

XP at 20th level: 2.4kk
GP at 20th level: 0.88kk
GP by XP ratio: 0.3666…

With that analysis we can conclude that GP rewards should go down as levels go up. However, that's not what is happening right now, and that is against the chart that is under Black Marches Rules, so that's against the rules.

Why is that happening? In some cases, because DMs are handing out "too much" gold, gems, etc. In others, the DM gears up his creatures, and that is an important part of his encounters, because it affects the power of the creatures. In the first case, DMs could follow the chart more closely and give out less gold without too much impact on his games. In the second case, changing things would have a big impact on the intended challenge of the game, so it wouldn't be good.

What I want to conclude is respecting the WBL chart messes with some DMs' adventures, making it a bad thing. As levels increase, enemies should have more access to gear, not less, and the way the charts are, that's not really what happens.

First point: respecting WBL is detrimental to most high level games due to limiting the DM.

Second point: how does a lot more wealth impact the balance of the game?

More wealth makes the PCs able to buy more items or more expensive items, making them more powerful. However, not all characters get the same ammount of power from items. For example, spellcasters can buff themselves enough that they don't need as many items as mundanes to IP proof, so giving them more items is less impacting than giving more items to mundanes. With that in mind, it would be unfair to the spellcasters if WBL got raised, since they don't get as much out of it as mundanes, breaking the fine balance between characters. Except there's no balance and spellcasters are generally much more powerful, so giving out more WBL is actually a balancing factor.

Being more powerful due to more powerful items, PCs should be able to defeat more powerful creatures, making the CR system unfunctional. Since the impact of higher WBL is higher in the upper levels (due to the scaling on the charts), it doesn't really matter, since CR is not a functional thing at those levels anyway.

So how does an increased WBL impact the game? It helps balance and makes PCs more powerful, making most players feel better about themselves.

Third point: what could be done to make WBL work without limiting what DMs can include in their adventures?

This has already been addressed on a request for E6: getting gp at the same time you level. If this seems too discrete, one could get the ratio of GP/XP of his level and multiply it by the ammount of XP earned. A chart for easier use could be done.

Conclusion:

I don't want things to change, I like the way things are right now. I'd like to hear more opinions on this and, perhaps, change the Black Marches Rules so they don't include a chart that is not followed.

Sincerely,

Gribel

Edit: typo.

Last edited on 25 Apr 2012 22:45 by Gribel Show more

Re: WBL state

Gribel 25 Apr 2012 22:51

Another matter that impacts WBL is owning businesses and the like. I forgot to add this to the main post, so I'll just mention it here.

Also, I don't think the impact of crafting items for cheaper is a big deal, it just multiplies the value on a chart, while the other changes result in a totally different function between XP and GP.

Re: WBL state

Soft Insanity 25 Apr 2012 23:37

we're gonna hit the slot wall and custom items are being addressed. It doesn't matter imho as long as two of these 3 things is capped:

1. wealth by level
2. custom item rules and limited slots
3. time to craft (not as important as the first 2)

we are capping 3, and have just starting looking at 2 seriously.

Re: WBL state

The Echo 26 Apr 2012 07:04

As the patchwork solution I have seen work for E6 games, its simply, 11k limit on market value, which could slowly rise as levels are gained.

I suggested WBL with vaulted items or similar with no item discount feats allowed (basically, x2 wealth is the most you can do). Basically you can only bring so much WBL to bear as magic items interfere with each other. This was mainly defaulting to the rules as written, rather than just forgetting them and/or bending them via crafting.

Personally, I just thought when you have too much wealth, it basically becomes an issue as nothing is normalized between PCs and GMs have no way to deal with it except to ban it. Or the other side, they don't have enough wealth so a GM must "makeup" gold which could possibly break more WBL for people. Either way, the only solution I found is to use some WBL chart, limits, or similar.

If a person has a global solution besides that? Feel free to post it, I'm just out of ideas for balancing wealth.