Book of Gears/Wish Economy?

Miryafa · Post by **Miryafa** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:03 pm

I'm running a game with Tome Stuff, and my characters are level 11 now. I noticed that this means all their magic weapons are now Wish Economy material, even though I didn't mean for that to happen. I'm not sure if this is a problem or not, but since the Fighter can craft weapons and armor and equipment they essentially have free Wish-economy materials at no cost. I don't feel right about that. Comments?

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:28 pm

Why don't you feel right about it? What equipment do they have that you don't want them to have?

Midnight_v · Post by **Midnight_v** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:48 pm

That is really interesting. I'm curious to know how you want the party to interact with the wish economy in general then?
You want them to just stick to killing things and taking the stuff?
Ala' "I don't like you crafting"?

Or are you saying... they can take a sword that they spent X on at level 5 then at level 11 it sells for wish level item? If its something like that, I think I get the interpretation your using. I'd never though about it from that perspective, it likely doesn't work like that, but I can imagine a slight discrepancy from the wishing economy to the book of gears info's.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 9:35 pm

I think that the players have somehow gained a way to steal souls (thinuan weapon?), or a source of Pure Joy, or something like that. As a result, the fighter can craft whatever arms and armor they want, and trade them for whatever else they need.

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:02 pm

Crafting still takes time, and can't be done during time critical adventures. Besides, if the party want to spend the next month making magical bling the world still rotates and plots advance; the BBEG's virgin sacrifices continue as scheduled and the still hellmouth spews demons in sunnydale.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Nov 03, 2011 10:33 pm

Crafting magic items that can't be wished for requires materials that also can't be wished for. Souls, hope, concentration, that sort of stuff. You can't forge iron into a post-wish economy sword.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 4:12 pm

So, I'm not a huge fan of the arbitrary item limit, but I do like the wish economy solution. Is there another limiter that works?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 4:24 pm

fectin wrote:So, I'm not a huge fan of the arbitrary item limit, but I do like the wish economy solution. Is there another limiter that works?

The slot limit works, but is less satisfying (e.g. no 'ringmasters').

Removing the limit is an option. Then you assume that every character past a certain point has an enhancement bonus to all attributes, a competence bonus to all skills, deflection, natural armor, and so forth. Unlike normal D&D, it's not limitless (there are a sharply limited number of bonus types). The problem is that suddenly normal magic items are a requirement rather than being special (also true with the arbitrary limit, but to a lesser extent). You may as well just have no bonus items at all, or include them as part of the character. You'll also have to significantly adjust encounter levels. On the bright side, moderate and major magic items are still special.

Aharon · Post by **Aharon** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 10:05 am

There's also the enforced WBL limit.

I.e. "You can have millions and millions of gp, but you're only allowed to spend WBL on items that help you adventuring."

It worked well for one of my campaigns. Reasoning was that you will only get so many magic items on the market for the DMG-prices, and you spend your off-time looking for them. If they wanted to spend in-game rewards on stuff that made them permanently stronger, there was either a very stiff mark-up, or it was flat out unavailable.

Only modification would have been that Wish doesn't give magic items, but since none of the players wanted to chain-bind, I didn't have to introduce that.

Reasoning behind this was that some of the players liked NWN-style shopping sprees, and I liked giving in-game rewards and didn't want them to be converted to raw power. The compromise worked reasonably well.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Nov 05, 2011 11:02 pm

Well the way I understand the Wish economy is that you can buy whatever you want with gold, providing its value is 15,000 or less, which, by the time you get to the wish economy, is basically stuff you don't care about anymore, so it's okay for you to have as much of it as you want/can carry. Whichever is less.

To put it another way, you can't even spend gold on real power anyway, you have to use wish level currency. Even if you did limit gold expenditure as it relates to things that don't fall into the wish economy to WBL characters at the levels you get access to the wish economy, that is, mid to high levels. Don't even care about that because +x items don't even really put a dent into their WBL.

Miryafa · Post by **Miryafa** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 11:39 pm

The problem as I see it is how BoG magic items relate to the economy in general:
1. At level 5 the party gets a magic item that boost STR +1/3 Level, which is +2 at level 5. At level 15 that same magic item is +5 STR. If they sell it to a level 5 NPC, it's only a +2 bonus for that person, who would certainly not be willing to pay for a level 15 magic item's worth if they're only getting a +2 bonus from it (i.e. they would only pay for a level 15 magic item if it was an artifact).

Consider the other direction. The level 7 fighter crafts magic armor that provides +1/3 level enhancement, ie +3 enhancement bonus. They want to sell it to a Solar, who gets +12 enhancement bonus.

How much does the party get for selling it?

2. How much wealth does a magic item count for, as regards the wealth by level?

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:06 am

Miryafa wrote:How much does the party get for selling it?

Whatever they can get someone to pay for it. Probably in the ballpark of 1-4 kgp

2. How much wealth does a magic item count for, as regards the wealth by level?

What wealth by level?

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:24 am

Well, the thing about a regular old +x item is that characters of the same level get the same benefit for them in the BoG set up. So they're always worth what you're characters bought them for when they were just starting out.

Items with properties, cost however much you decided an item of that level costs, or however much the property cost if you, like me, want to have the variety of options available from the books.

Let me put that a different way, the item is magical but the user's level provides the actual +whatever the item has. So while, yes, higher level characters get more benefit, you're not actually paying for the benefit you're paying for the magic.

Miryafa · Post by **Miryafa** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:00 am

darkmaster wrote:So while, yes, higher level characters get more benefit, you're not actually paying for the benefit you're paying for the magic.

I like that... I'll use it in my game. Items will be more expensive if they provide Moderate or Major magical effects, not depending on what modifier they give to anything.

On that note, should items that give multiple bonuses to modifiers be moderate/major effects (asking as a newer DM)? Say for example an armor that provides a +1/3 lv bonus to armor enhancement, Natural Armor, and DR, plus a +1/4 lv bonus to deflection?

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:14 am

Miryafa wrote:
darkmaster wrote:So while, yes, higher level characters get more benefit, you're not actually paying for the benefit you're paying for the magic.
I like that... I'll use it in my game. Items will be more expensive if they provide Moderate or Major magical effects, not depending on what modifier they give to anything.

On that note, should items that give multiple bonuses to modifiers be moderate/major effects (asking as a newer DM)? Say for example an armor that provides a +1/3 lv bonus to armor enhancement, Natural Armor, and DR, plus a +1/4 lv bonus to deflection?

Items that provide multiple bonuses should basically not exist in the context of BoG. You could have an item that is treated as being multiple items, but that's pretty much it.

One of the conceits of BoG is that the scaling bonus (or appropriate 1-3rd level spell) an item provides is its most basic function, and not part of price calculations (beyond the 1-2kgp for a 1st level magic item).