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10 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 10:10AM
#61
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Date Joined:
Nov 16, 2009
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Ha Neat Markelhay! My friends have been on me for years to read the series, I'm just in the second one now. (I started with the crystal shard this summer)
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10 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 11:26AM
#62
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I love huge treasure troves. A dragon with a pile of 200 silver pieces and a couple gems seems a bit lame in a story game like this.
I have piles of treasures up to the roof when it's appropriate to the story. I also make sure that the players either can't leave with the treasure (chased off, have to swim, room is filling with lava, etc.) or that there is not much that they can do with it. I never have a magic item store where they can load up on magical gear.
Buying property and hiring help has always been a big part of my campaign, so I don't mind the characters being loaded.
The 'real' treasures in my campaign are the magical items, and those I make sure to make the players work for and appreciate. Every item has a story and if the character gets attached to it I give them a way to make sure it levels with them.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 1:45PM
#63
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Date Joined:
Dec 27, 2011
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Ha Neat Markelhay! My friends have been on me for years to read the series, I'm just in the second one now. (I started with the crystal shard this summer)
I started with the prequels Homeland, Exile & Sojourn and just now (literally, it was a few hours ago) finished Crystal Shard. I got the volume sets, so I'm starting in on Streams of Silver now.
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10 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 5:22PM
#64
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2008
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I've played D&D since 1981 and found the rewards on which a thousand year old Dragon nesting to be foul and inadequate. The Idea that a Dragon who can shapechange to look Human (or like anyone) for a thousand years tells me he should have the power to declare himself Emperor of Plook (passing himself off as the heir everytime it becomes necessary to do so), start his own church and have the happy citizens donate a gold piece a year for the next thousand years strait into his treasure hoard and wind up with millions if not billions - That is basic economics in a D&D setting.
Bolded for emphasis.
And any DM is free to do this, but it isn't the only way. You might also have dragons who don't care to amass power in the same way that humanoids to; a dragon cares little for titles like Emperor. You might have a world in which there simply isn't that much gold. You can do anything, because you are the DM and it is your world.
Treasures need to be able to be big because they represent wealth over time. Thats vital to a history of a setting.
The trouble is that players need to find treasure, because that makes the game fun (subjective, I know). And I assume when you say that "treasures need to be able to be big" you mean in a meaningful way (as opposed to big treasures that also come with big price tags). So this leads to the issue of retirement as soon as you find a treasure. Once you can buy the whole empire 10 times over, you don't need to go on quests. And your solution is...
Now if we make Levels harder to get to - while remaining something that improves with gold - then Collossal Wealth makes sense and makes it harder for the PCs to progress in power. Maybe it means the Local Emperor is a Fighter of Level 20. If he isnt - then he is going to be beheaded by the first guy who is going to sit on his throne.
So in addition to having meaningful treasure harder to find, you also want to make leveling slower? This really just seems like something that would be best left to an individual group. If your group likes slow leveling and infrequent but huge treasures, go for it. But my group like faster leveling and more frequent treasure. They would not play a game that took weeks and weeks to gain a single level.
In addition, having the leaders all be the ones of the highest level is another DM choice, much like your view on dragons. Nothing wrong with it, but it isn't the only way. In another world, the leaders might not be the highest level, but are protected by vast armies and bodyguards.
Also...take a look at your XP numbers again (and my last post). It is simply ridiculous. How much XP would monsters give?
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10 months ago ::
Sep 04, 2012 - 7:05PM
#65
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One of the problems is, of course, the counting of each individual copper and silver and gold piece. They'd do well to just abstract it, like some other games have, into something like a resource value that can be used to gain services or items.
If we absolutly still need GP, SP, and CP, then what I'd suggest is using those only for smaller, mundane things like rope and junk, and then allow large quantities of GP to be converted into RP, resource points. These can be used to gain much larger things, like property, magic items, specialist services, squads of guards or soldiers, favours from powerful people, etc. You wouldn't necessarily need to use the GP to BUY those things. You would gain RP any time you get rid of, in some constructive way, the money. Donate it to villages, gain bonuses from reputation. Fund construction of buildings in a town, get a base. Guidelines would probably exist to help the DM determine what RP can be spent on, given the circumstances. You probably can't gain the services of the temple of the God of Life from RP gained by donating the the temple of the God of Death. Objects that nobody would actually give you money for because they are so valuable wouldn't likely even have a GP value, just an RP value.
EVERY DAY IS HORRIBLE POST DAY ON THE D&D FORUMS.
Everything makes me ANGRY (ESPECIALLY you, reader)
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