|
13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 9:34AM
#11
|
Date Joined:
Oct 24, 2007
|
On a tangent multiple currencies is one of my least favorite parts of D&D. I wish the game just had one currency, gold pieces, and that was it. I especially can't stand that the currency rates are random.
Ah well, I'm stuck with the currency rules, unforuntately. At least when I DM I can houserule that everything not trivial is in gold pieces andand leave it at that.
/rant off
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 11:38AM
#12
|
Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
|
Silver standard? YES PLEASE.
I agree very much with the sentiments of the OP!
D&D has long had a problem where the item costs render the dominant fantasy trope of commoner-turned-hero incongruent with the economics.
Of course, not everyone should have to start off as a poor farmer, but CP and SP need to mean something! Otherwise they're really just a burden; no one cares about anything other than GP, and CP and SP are a nuisance best converted at the earliest opportunity.
Also, even 1st and 2nd level characters often find that the cash required to pay for a night at the inn and buying some food and drink or greasing the palms of locals for rumors and favors--those classic D&D aspects of tavern-crawling adventurers--is trivial compared to the GP hordes they're raking in even with low level treasure parcels.
Of course, 4e was an absolute abomination so heinously broken I couldn't even figure out how to fix it with house rules without destroying the ruthlessly-required reward system by level. Infinitely relieved to see that magic item values aren't built into the economics system, on this score.
So, to end the rant, let's have a meaningful SILVER-based economy!
Then add other options (such as one common currency or complex currencies, or different price lists for different settings where certain things may be rare like in Athas) as modules later.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 1:17PM
#13
|
|
|
 YOU SHALL NOT CRUCIFY HUMANOIDKIND UPON A CROSS OF GOLD!!!
A great man once said "If WotC put out boxes full of free money there'd still be people complaining about how it's folded." – Boraxe
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 1:57PM
#14
|
Date Joined:
May 21, 2008
|
YOU SHALL NOT CRUCIFY HUMANOIDKIND UPON A CROSS OF GOLD!!!
You win.
On subject> DnD doesn't have an economy. Never have I ever seen a DnD game with a relastic micro or macro economy. Nor would I want to.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 2:53PM
#15
|
Date Joined:
Jul 31, 2007
|
I'm actually cool with armor prices being in the multiple gold range. Think of modern clothing. A suit costs hundreds of dollars (thousands, maybe, even). Women routinely buy shoes that cost more than $100. And these are factory-made, off the rack items.
A suit of armor, especially something like plate, needs to be fitted to the wearer. It's not enough to just grab a cuirass and slip it on. Armors seem to be fairly labor intensive things, even down to simple leather.
So, I'm fine with a full set of fitted leather armor costing 10 gold. It takes a lot of time to put studs all over that, so 25 gold seems okay for studded leather. The price for plate armor, seems really out of whack, at least with the prices of previous editions that I've seen. 1500 gold seems like a lot, even for a wealthy merchant family, who would likely want the best for their conscripted son. I can understandd Mithral, Dragonscale and Adamantine armors to be very expensive. But plate armor is fairly mundane, and I think the price needs to be lowered somewhat, though not to the 50 gold it was in 4E; I'm cool with plate being a kind of "advanced" armor seen later than the early levels.
While I'm on the subject of wonky prices: I have a feeling that we're not getting the entire weapon and armor tables but, rather, the most simple versions of them. It would not surprise me to see DR show up on the heavy armors later on to justify their use over medium armors. And it would not surprise me to see more weapon qualities show up later, perhaps like High Crit, or Brutal.
The reason is because I can see no other reason for two statistically identical weapons to be so different in cost. I am referring to the rapier and the short sword. Both do 1d6 piercing damage, but the rapier costs twice as much as the short sword. And the short sword has the advantage of being a light weapon. The only other difference is weight, where the rapier is a lighter weapon than the short sword (yet lacks the Light quality, which seems weird, but probably has to do with its shape rather than its weight). I would imagine that the rapier has to have something that makes it superior to the short sword in some way to justify the doubled price.
Luckily, these prices aren't set in stone, and I don't think we're really testing the economic aspect of the game yet, but it is something to watch closely as the test progresses and see what happens.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 30, 2012 - 3:40AM
#16
|
Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2011
|
For me I think the main issue is that if gold is standard coinage at level 1, what's the point in copper and silver?
Also I don't think PCs would start their career with 100 gold pieces - this would be a fortune the local lord might own.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 30, 2012 - 7:26AM
#17
|
|
|
I agree. (Im not sure how I missed this thread earlier.)
Also, it sets the tone. If player characters have gold, they must be royals, princes or the equivalents.
Peasants almost never have even silver coins. Peasants spend copper coins. They almost never see gold, much less have it to spend.
Wealthy people have silver. Not peasants.
But at least it is feasible for a “lord” to provide a “serf” with cheap leather armor and a poor-quality (used, abused, rusted, fragile, and partly broken) sword. The serf is being forced to fight the lords wars afterall.
Starting with a significant amount of silver coins, by definition, means the players have some kind of aristocratic or mercantile connection, membership or patronage. The backstory should probably mention how they came into this notable sum of 80 silver pieces.
A useful approximation to get a sense of reallife costs:
• 1 decent sword is roughly 10 silver pieces (or 1 gp).
• 1 crappy sword is roughly ½ silver piece.
1 decent sword ≈ 20 axes ≈ 1 prize-winning cow ≈ 10 gallons of superior wine ≈ 5 pounds of sugar, pepper, or cinnamon ≈ 1 book ≈ 1 weeks wages for a carpenter (skilled labor)
A shirt of chain armor (mail) is 100 silver pieces.
Probably the entire equipment list should appear in silver pieces, including decimal places instead of copper pieces.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 30, 2012 - 7:59AM
#18
|
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2007
|
I just wanted to make a few observations about the value of items and the amount of treasure from encounters in the test material.
I noticed most weapons and armour in the test material are valued in gold. I strongly feel that at the beginning of their careers, adventurers would be using copper and some silver. I think basic adventuring gear should be priced at a few copper pieces, basic weapons and armour at a few silver. Perhaps give a PC 50 silver to start off with. I would simply suggesting dividing the cost of weapons by 10. The price of general equipment seems ok to me.
When a PC starts with 100gp to spend, finding 10cp on some kobolds is pretty meaningless.
In the Cave of Chaos adventure, some monsters dropped copper, some silver, which I think is fine, but there was some electrum and some gold and even platinum in the adept's chambers. I would imagine gold would start to appear perhaps level 4 or 5, or from the hoard of a special monster. I think there is too big a disparity between the level of treasure from the monsters at the start of the adventure, to those at the end.
So for example, perhaps the kobolds at the start of the adventure have around 10sp, but the medusa at the end might have items worth 250sp.
So the bottom line: Adventurers should be using (and finding) copper and silver coins at low levels.
Yeah, I kind of hoped that WOTC would move away from the gold standard for pricing and adopt a silver standard. I loved the way pricing worked in the Black Company Handbook by Green Ronin Games for 3.5. Stick with silver for most pricing with gold being in the realm of royalty/merchant princes and think the economics work. A gold piece would represent a year's salary (or so) to a peasant.
visit my blog about writing, voice-over,and games (and not necessarily in that order) at mdarinyoung.wordpress.com
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 30, 2012 - 8:15AM
#19
|
|
|
Probably, gold shouldnt become standard until about level 11, Paragon tier.
|
|
|
|
13 months ago ::
May 30, 2012 - 8:27AM
#20
|
Date Joined:
May 26, 2012
|
Economics are brutally difficult to model, and D&D will never get it right. The time, cost and effort to build that into the system is just too high.
I agree that it sucks, but this is one place where I fear it just needs to be houseruled to the brink and back.
On the subject of prices, though, let's look at the cost of swords and armor in modern terms. A "real" sword (that is, one constructed in the form and style of an historical piece) starts at around $500USD, and those make concessions. In later Medieval terms, they would probably be considered munitions grade. Most "good" swords are closer to $1000. A pattern-welded Migration Era sword is closer to $2500, and the very best can be twice that.
But that pales in comparison to armor. A maille byrnie with welded links can take tens of thousands of man hours to create from wire. Triple that for a hauberk. These run around $5000 for a period-correct replica. But plate... plate takes the cake. A full harness of "correct" plate, as typified by the 16th century man-at-arms, will cost well well over $20,000. And these take months, if not years to create, being highly tailored to the intended owner. Needless to say, most soliders did not wear a full harness.
I'd love to see a better economy. I'd love to see a harness of mundane plate armor be the kind of thing that the fighter lusts over and saves for across seven levels of advancement because it is that expensive, and that worth it. I'd love to see players scrimping bits of copper all over the place, and being excited to find two silver coins on the corpse of a Thayan. But that's not going to happen, because it's one of those areas where realism just gets in the way of heroic gameplay, and most people simply don't want that.
|
|
|
