Forums of the Coast

So I've been stuck on a thought thread...

Given the nature of this game, our characters are not just adventurers, but also those with an actual life. That means all the other upkeep of life, be it housing and utility costs, or the benefits and 401k deductions from our characters' paychecks.

This is not even including problems like the fact I (and any sane DM) refuses to go through a list of all possible non-magical gear in the fusion age and start handing out prices...

which is the reason why I do stuff like separating costs, where you pay for your magical equips and I simply take it into consideration for nonmagic equips... except this does get annoying at times.

So the current thought is, would it be better if instead of tracking GPs separately for magical items, we move to the wealth check system used by the MSRD (which is much easier to keep track of). Although chances are I'm going to modify it a bit, starting by shrinking the dice size so it depends more on the mod than the roll...

I say let's give the wealth check system a chance.

Looks like we're leaning towards the wealth checks...

here's the info: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Wealth

if you're against it, post now and explain your reasons or forever hold your peace =9

I can see that someone payed attention in one of those panels we went to at Otakon .

Personally, I've always been a fan of the Wealth Check idea, but it would need some modding to transfer it over to D&D.

I'm against it for one simple reason: we made our characters without it. A rule change like this can transform our buying power. Thus, it should be present when we do our most important shopping: at creation.

Good point. I should also bring up that we would have to convert over the Occupation Bonuses from d20 Modern/Future as well. And that making characters using Wealth Checks can lead to some hax stuff. I've made a few low level d20 Modern/Future characters with high-bonus mastercraft gear. In fact, I think every character I've made for d20 Modern/Future has been an extremely wealth sniper with a mastercraft sniper rifle.

Who said I'm converting anything ? I'm only using the mechanics of the check, as for the wealth scores I'm going to make my own system of calculating. The system they have in place is far too metagame-able (as Drew notes the other day: his character has obviously busying working on publishing a book on politics for the last X years, with the copious amts of spare time his job leaves him with).

Well I have no intention of getting everyone to do gear again, far too troublesome. I'm simply going to subtract a few wealth points from everyone's scores to compensate [shrug]. Those with low wealth scores and choose to sell their starting equips (I'll give em full price if you do it fast enough) to boost it up, while those with higher scores - you can just go buy stuff.

I think I've decided to go with it at this point, with no major objections and the chance to avoid haggling with you guys on salary-vs.-upkeep. Don't feel like tearing my hair out when someone here tries to convince me he spends all his money on gear and lives out of a cardboard box during the vacation days...