# Simpler Treasure System with (mostly) Random Loot



## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

*The new system in three lines:*


*The DM randomizes (most) loot.*
*Items are sold at half price, instead of at 20% of  list price.*
*All treasure parcels containing magic items are raised by one level.*
A handy link for random loot generation suggested by Obergnom is Quartermaster - Asmor.com.  Don't forget to raise only the _items _by one level; the gold rewards should stay the same!

[sblock=Similar ideas and criticisms]


CapnZapp suggested simply randomizing loot but handing out 5 times more than normal.  This is only just slightly more powerful but more more swingy and doesn't need a sale-price adjustment.
If you don't like raising items levels by one, I have also figured out an alternative that hands out a few extra parcels instead in this post.
keterys notes that raising the sale price means that wacky items that might be interesting but not powerful are more likely to be sold, which may be an issue for some.  If it is for you, definitely think about something more along the lines of CapnZapp's approach which doesn't modify sale price.
 [/sblock]
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_...and now for the why's and how's of the above modifications..._
*Motivation:*

I don't like the 4e wealth system much: It presumes that players essentially get items they can really use.  But that's problematic:

_Problems with RAW:_


It's poor for immersion to have wish-lists.  These are boring, and remind you of the fact that your character isn't really in the world, he's finding stuff you prepicked-not what matches the story line.
It's a hassle for DM that now need to keep a close eye on _what_ they're handing out; handing out useless items seriously gimps players.
On the other hand, full player-conceived item choice can heavily favor finding exceptionally specific (broken) items.
Item creation rituals are usually pointless.
I'd like to fix the wealth system.  I think it's important to realize what a house rule here should achieve, and particularly what it _won't_ bother trying to achieve.

_Aims & Scope of Houserule:_


The wealth system should be *more robust* in the face of DM laziness, mistakes or simply misunderstanding where a player wants to take a PC:  I don't want to have to spend tons of time selecting the right items; if I select nonsense or *even occasionally something random*, this shouldn't be a major set-back to the party.
*No wish lists* should be required or encouraged.  *Party-tailored items should be rare* and used for dramatic effect, not the default. It's always cool to find a great and fitting item, but that should be a real cool find, not the norm (gee, another item that's perfectly tailored to my needs!)
The system will _NOT_ address the availability of overpowered items.  If a 6th level iron armbands is an attractive buy even at 10th level, players _will_ have enough gold to buy this.  This fix is about the _wealth_ system, not specific items.  On the other hand, since there's no wishlist nor expectation of tailored items, you're no longer in the quandary of either denying a bloodclaw-wielder his weapon of choice or overpowering the PC: you can avoid including it without impacting the wealth system or getting into difficult situatoins.  He could buy or forge the item anyhow, but he may get it a bit later (which can be a balancing factor).  Really broken items will need to be addressed seperately and not by this fix.
So, these are the aims.  Next up, expected wealth by level.


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

*Wealth By Level mathematically analyzed.*

_Item Value By Level:_
Items values scale _almost_ geometrically, though there is a bit of  a zig-zag (levels 5n+1 and 5n+2 are worth a little more and levels 5n+4  and 5n+5 are worth a little less than expected).  For simplicity, I'll  just take the average here.  Both geometric and arithmetic averages are  actually close here; *the worth of a n-th level item is about  244 * 5n/5*.  This is useful because now we can express  everything in terms of #'s of items of the PC's level.  I'll call the  unit for wealth for a level+0 equivalent item 1ei.

_Wealth By Level:_
I've looked at expected wealth by level before on the wizard's forums:
Wealth-By-Level guidelines for high-levels...

In short, your wealth should increase by a factor five over the span of five levels, or, on average, by a factor 1.38 each level.

If you look at the DMG guidelines, a character is expected to have a net  worth of 2x a level-1 item + a level+0 item + level+1 item. *Wealth by level is thus 3.83ei at the start of the level.*  To maintain parity, thus, you must increase your wealth by 1.45ei (being 38% of 3.83ei) over the span of the level.  Any more than this, and you'll be slightly ahead of new characters, any less and new characters will actually have more wealth.  I don't think it's good if new characters start off at an advantage, so any guideline should have at least this much.  Due to the exponential nature of the curve, if you earn more than this, you'll only be a limited fraction of a level ahead of the curve.  Earning a full factor 5 to much each level would represent a 5 level head start, but small errors tend not to matter much (a good thing!).

_Treasure Per Level:_
The DMG guidelines suggest that a 5-person party finds about the equivalent worth of 11.5 ei.  2ei hereof is in raw wealth (i.e. plain gold or equivalent).  So, you find about 2.3ei per person (0.4ei hereof in gold) but gain only 1.45ei: the rest is presumably loss or a head start vs. new characters.  In short, you expected to _lose_ no more than 0.85ei; otherwise you'd actually come out ahead by recreating a character (not a good thing for the game).  This is about equivalent to selling 1ei, since that's about 0.8ei loss - plus some some extra loss.  This will be our key balancing point.

_Treasure System Guarantees:_
*The system should ensure that characters gain at least 1.45ei in wealth but certainly no more than 2.3ei* (which would represent the absolutely lossless optimal character that retains full value from all items he ever finds for all levels).  The lossless character is not even 1.5 levels ahead of a new character, which demonstrates the stability of the base system.  Ideally, earnings would be about 2.3ei, and losses also about equivalent, but that less important, crucial is net wealth.


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

*Why the 20% sale price needs to go*

Ok, so how can we let PC's gain 1.45 to 2.3ei wealth per level without resorting to wishlists?

_Possibility #1: Just Use Gold_
We could just hand out 2.3ei of raw gold and let them shop.  This just follows the DMG precisely; PC's will be a little weaker because they can't use gold right away but need to find a shop first and/or craft an item (but can't craft higher-level items).  On the other hand, they might make a bit better decisions than the DM.  (The DM can still restrict availability of specific items from shops and in any case that's not the focus of this house rule anyhow).

While this works, this is boring (we never find items, only gold), and potentially troublesome for roleplaying since it makes it absolutely crucial to have fairly easy access to a magic item shop - and the PC's need to drag around absurd quantities of coinage.

_Possibility #2: Just Use More Items_
We can't just hand out more items and hope for the best - because of the extreme difference engine in 4e economics, you lose 80% of all worth each time you sell an item.  This means that you'd need to hand out almost *5 times more items than usual* to compensate if you keep the base system.  That sucks, because it makes the system volatile: sure, maybe you can't use all of those items, but if you're getting that many items, all of the sudden maybe you can (through luck or retraining) actually use a few, and that would represent a huge increase in weath; the system isn't very robust.  The problem traces its roots to the high cost of selling: the difference between buying and selling is so huge that it makes a big, big difference whether you get the _right_ item, or you just get gunk.

And that's exactly what we want to avoid: it shouldn't dramatically alter balance if you occasionally get something useful or less useful.  Selling stuff at just 20% of the list-price causes problems.

_Low Selling Price is not Important for Balance_
It's worth noting that this big loss isn't necessary for balance.  Because the total wealth rises exponentially an fairly rapidly so, any savings you make at low levels quickly become irrelevant at high levels simply because of massive, massive price rises.  Even without _any _buy/sell price difference, you'd _still_ need 5 10th level items to afford just one 15th level item: in short, you just can't reasonably save up low level items to get a big boost later on because higher level items are just that much more expensive.  Some value loss is reasonable when buying and selling, of course, but the current approach makes wishlists and/or tailored items critical to reasonable balance.

_Recap_
Inevitably thus, to permit some random item choice without unbalancing the game and heavily favoring the lucky few PCs versus the unlucky rest, we need to reduce the inefficiency of buying/selling (or disenchanting).


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

*Tweaking the Selling Price*

_Effective Worth of Random Loot_
I'm picking a selling price of 50% of the original instead of the RAW 20%.  There's no particular reason to pick 50%; but it's easy to calculate, and it happens to be the sell vs. buy ration for scrolls, which nicely fits in, thus.  With this new selling price, I'll guess that:


10% of all found items are still tailored to the PC (perhaps by shear luck, or because of story-related awards)
15% are mostly useful, though not fully worth their cost; let's say they retain 75% of their net worth
25% are dubious.  These retain 50% of their value, and might be sold, but might not be - it's also just easier to keep stuff and not hunt for a shop.
50% are junk and will be sold at 50% of their cost.
Under this (hopefully reasonable) model, the average item will be worth 58.75% of its list price; *to get the same net worth as under the DMG guidelines, you'd need to find 70% more items than previously*.

_Better Selling Price means Less Loss_
On the other hand, the old system presumes that you lose up to 0.85ei per level.  Let's say that that loss is due to some base costs (rituals, story-related, items becoming less useful as levels rise by competition of slots, consumables) but also due to selling items inefficiently, however.  *Under the new system, transaction losses will be lower, so PC's should earn slightly less to compensate.*

I think a high estimate for transaction loss is 0.8ei, equivalent to selling an item of your level each level. Under that pessimistic assumption, the new system would have only 0.5ei loss, so we can assume 0.55ei total loss.  Assuming this (low estimate for) the loss, PC's should earn 1.45ei+0.55ei = 2ei each level.  0.4ei hereof is still in terms of raw gold, so that leaves 1.6ei worth(!) in magic items - still to be compensated by the fact that items you find are no longer tailored.  

_Recap_
At 50% sale price, we need to find 70% more items to compensate for no longer tailoring items.  However, loss will be lower, so we no longer need to find 1.9ei but only 1.6ei of items (per level).  Since 1.6ei * 1.7 = 2.72ei, per PC, under the new system, you should distribute 2.72ei in items, which is (unsurprisingly) somewhat more than under a non-random system.  The amount of gold you distribute remains unchanged at 0.4ei per PC per level.


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

*Putting it all together*

The old system distributed approx 1.9ei per person rather than the 2.72ei required when you randomize loot.  This means that we'll need to add treasure parcels or raise the level of treasure parcels.  As it so happens, 1.9ei * 1.38 is only slightly less than 2.72ei:  so if a DM simply raises the level of all magic-item parcels by 1, the new system balances out (roughly, it's a tiny bit low, but that shouldn't matter).

That's easy eh?

*The Complete System:
*If you allow *selling items for HALF price* rather than one-fifth, and *raise all item treasures by one level*, and finally *choose magic items randomly *(e.g. using Asmor's Quartermaster) then the game retains its normal balance.  The fact that you sometimes need to sell items you just found is then balanced out by the slight increase in overall treasure and the fact that reselling involves only 50% loss rather than 80% loss.  The PC's will need to be able to spend their wealth buying magic items for this to work.

_Balance assumption made_
You're "random" picks are assumed to _roughly_ ensure that 10% of items are things the PC's would have picked anyhow, and 15-40% of items are things the PC's wouldn't buy, but won't sell even if there's something interesting on offer.  By design, however, if you violate this assumption balance will still largely be fine.

For instance, if by chance you give the PC's _only_ trash, they'll be just 15% behind - which is OK. If you accidentally give em 25% perfectly tailored items they'll be 6% ahead.  Both of these margins represent a fraction of a single level, in part because sale price isn't all that different from buying price so it's no longer _that_ important to get just the right stuff.

The second assumption made is that most of the loss PC's experience over their career is due to selling due to the difference engine.

Both of these assumptions were chosen conservatively to avoid accidentally overpowering PCs.  Also, raising item levels by 1 is slightly less than demanded for balance.  That means this new system will most likely produce slightly lower wealth than the DMG system, but with more player flexibility: if you use this system, expect existing characters to look a little more like new characters (that should generally have lower wealth but more appropriate items than naturally grown characters).

[sblock=minor variant]
Raising treasure item levels by one means handing out a parcel of level+6, however, so perhaps that's  unwanted.  If it is, you can_ instead add extra parcels_ equivalent to  0.82ei per person.  For various party sizes that's then:


1 PC: add a level+0 item
2 PC: add a level+2 item
3 PC: add level+2 and level+0 items
4 PC: add level+3 and level+0 items
5 PC: add level+3 and level+2 items
6 PC: add level+5 item
7 PC: add level+4 and level+2 items
8 PC: add level+4 and level+3 items
9 PC: add level+5 and level+2 items
10PC: add level+5 and level+3 items
11PC: add level+4, level+3 and level+2 items
12PC: add level+4 and two level+3 items.
 This list gives small parties slightly more p.p. that large parties; the  idea here being that randomized items are harder on small parties;  though even the 1 person party gets just 1ei instead of 0.82ei extra and  the 12 person party gets 0.73ei per person.[/sblock]


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

So, what do you think?  Is anyone going to try changing sale prices to 50%, raising item treasures by one level and then randomizing treasure?

I hope it'll be a much more natural (and easier to DM) mechanic with similar results to the RAW system.


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## the Jester (Nov 18, 2009)

How do you randomly generate magic items?

I applaud your efforts and look forward to more elaboration on this theme.


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## eamon (Nov 18, 2009)

the Jester said:


> How do you randomly generate magic items?
> 
> I applaud your efforts and look forward to more elaboration on this theme.




You pick whatever you think is interesting, or flavorful given the scenario.  Alternatively, if it's a published adventure, you just pick the default item they sometime name (why do they do that in the first place?  oh well, handy for this).  Or, you open the adventurer's vault, go to the index, pick a page, and roll a few dice to choose a row ;-).

It doesn't really matter.  If you think the party should consider some aspect they rarely do, include an item that hints at that.  Or pick an item they wouldn't have chosen voluntarily, but might still like - now you can, without nerfing them; since they can just sell it.  That platinum pouch is now a fine find.  Or a belt of sacrifice.

Since it doesn't much matter anymore _what_ you pick, you can do whatever suits your fancy.  Personally, I think it's cool to equip BBEG's with items the player's recognize.  Sometimes they (the players) can use the powers, sometimes they can't, but in any case that's not such an issue anymore ;-).

Every once and a while, you can give em something they _really_ want - there's nothing wrong with that; and you're unlikely to manage that much more often than 1 in 10 times even if you try, which you no longer have to...


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## fuzzlewump (Nov 18, 2009)

Cool. I'm interested to know what players would think of this system, rather than wishlists. Personally, I don't even use wishlists, I randomly decide what level items each player will get for the level, they pick what item they want, then I give it out over the course of the adventure. I think the sense of 'wonder' certainly is gone, but it still remains as 'where is the item I picked going to show up?' The key isn't to just randomly place the item, "You pick whatever you think is interesting, or flavorful given the scenario," as you advocate.

I guess that's why I'm interested to see what players would think. One way is fitting the scenario around what _the players _want (wishlists), and the other is to fit the items around what scenario the DM wants(flavorful to the scenario and storyline that _they made up._) Myself, I would find it harder to make up scenarios and items that only I want to see, and even if I did, I don't see how that would be more rewarding to the players.

That said, I definitely think as long as this system ends up at the same place, with the players selling the random crap given to them and picking out what they want anyway, I don't see a problem in general, since the players end up with what they really wanted. Of course, the whole magic shop/department store was never immersive in my mind.


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## aco175 (Nov 19, 2009)

First thoughts is that feels right and would be something I would use.  Although I did always like random treasure tables, they did sometimes throw some weird things around.  I've been finding that I have been giving out less treasure than I 'should' be the last few levels so I created a room where a magic pool allowed one item to raise 5 levels for each person who bathed in the well.  Not I always liked random treasure.


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## the Jester (Nov 19, 2009)

I am hardly using the treasure system at all with my new group, instead doing the "treasure that makes sense in the situation" system. 

I would like a good random magic item generator, though...


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## fireinthedust (Nov 19, 2009)

I was really hoping this thread would be about a random treasure generator.   I appreciate the economics math and work you put in, but it still means I'm skimming over lists of items.

I'd like a table I can roll from that has art items, coinage, jewelry, gems, and other loot that fills out the gp value of each treasure packet.  And a random generation of items of appropriate level that my players can have.


As a DM and a player, I like the idea of random loot that I can trade for magic items.  If my fighter finds weird platemail of, like, ocean diving, it's something I might not have gone for myself (I like teleports, etc.).  That said, it opens up the adventure potential for the group with a level of novelty we might not get with wish lists.  Novelty means on-the-go strategy and quick thinking.  That can be fun.

Arenas are different, however, as I'd prefer to munch out my characters that way.

Is there a treasure-packet generator the way there are random name generators?


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## Obergnom (Nov 19, 2009)

Here is a good one:

Quartermaster - Asmor.com

I wish it had the AV2 Items added... oh well.

@Eamon: I like your system. I tried using random treasure before, this will remove the balancing headaches  Thanks a lot, you just removed the least fun of being DM for me


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## eamon (Nov 19, 2009)

Thanks for all the replies!

* - The Jester* and *fireinthedust* were looking for a random loot generator; *Obergnom* pointed them at the (excellent!) Quartermaster - Asmor.com tool.  I'll edit my first post to include that handy link.

@aco175: I think it's often worth rerolling until you get something at least vaguely flavorful.  A random generator can save you thinking, but sometimes you still want a certain direction or flavor to an item.


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## eamon (Nov 19, 2009)

fuzzlewump said:


> I guess that's why I'm interested to see what players would think. One way is fitting the scenario around what _the players _want (wishlists), and the other is to fit the items around what scenario the DM wants(flavorful to the scenario and storyline that _they made up._) Myself, I would find it harder to make up scenarios and items that only I want to see, and even if I did, I don't see how that would be more rewarding to the players.



The players can still buy and sell items, so the in-game effect of a wishlist is still somewhat there.  Of course, it's attractive to _avoid _to much buying and selling as that's a loss-making proposition (and as that may cost in-game time).

That's why I think the randomized system works so well: you can have flavor where you want it, but if you just don't care (often enough it doesn't matter) you can pick randomly and retain balance.

It's also my experience that less die-hard players don't work well with wishlists.  They don't know what they want several levels in advance, and don't know what's feasible.  A wishlist is too open ended; a fixed budget handily restrains them so they only need to look for what's immediately affordable and useful.



> That said, I definitely think as long as this system ends up at the same place, with the players selling the random crap given to them and picking out what they want anyway, I don't see a problem in general, since the players end up with what they really wanted. Of course, the whole magic shop/department store was never immersive in my mind.



You can avoid some immersion issues by presentation; let them commission an item from a forging expert (costs time) or have it teleported in (interplanar trade, even - and 50% loss in selling would then be nicely explained away as to cover the costs of all this magic), let them find the right enchantment, but still need to increase the bonus by further enchantment.  Maybe a travelling genie pops (as in NWN, I believe?) up that makes it his business to cater to high-level adventurers (would be a lucrative market, after all)  In any case, I find wishlists even worse for immersion than magic shops - shops are just part of the economy, after all - the only weird thing is how well stocked they might be, and that you can tell a story around.

To be honest here, this is basically quite similar to the 3e treasure economy, which worked just fine.  It's just much simpler to do in 4e since item prices scale much more simply so you don't need to do much in terms of accounting, and it's much more balanced since item balance is much better across the board.

But the basic concept that items aren't tailored to the PCs and that the gap between PC's wishes and what they find must be bridged by shopping, crafting and some PC adaptation is just the same as in 3e.  I do find it somewhat amusing that it's actually easier to implement in 4e, though, even though it wasn't designed for it :-D.


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## CapnZapp (Nov 19, 2009)

Let me start by saying I really agree with your goals! 

I really think the presentation would improve by giving *an example* thou'.

Especially the "ei" bits come across as heavily theoretical. A picture tells more than a thousand words!

---

That said, I'm not convinced the 20% sales rate is at fault here. What are you supposed to do with the extra money? 

You say yourself the extra gold is all but irrelevant when it comes to buying useful stuff. (Even if you got 100% when selling stuff, as per your example).

Theoretically, nothing you can buy will compare to the things that "drop". Not as long as you don't change the curve, that is how every five levels also fivefold the price.

Sure, in practice, there are quite a few items of your level or lower that are desirable. But they are almost all mistakes, pure and simple. Anytime your epic character picks up a bunch of heroic stuff because it is useful, a mistake has (almost by definition) occurred.

So why change the 20% sales percentage? Why not change the exponential price hike? (If your goal is to allow players to use money to custom-buy what they don't get through drops).

In fact, why not keep the system as-is and simply fivefold the amount of random loot in the game?
_Edit:_ I meant "why not increase the amount of loot fivefold when you make it random?"

Your math should quickly tell you that this will amount to a very small increase in player power, because 1) the junk loot remains worthless and 5xworthless=worthless, 2) there's a limited number of slots anyway, very soon any increase will be incremental at best.

And of course 3) by increasing the rate of loot by five, the importance of getting something useful just dropped by 4/5 - essentially you get five tickets to the lottery each level instead of just one*

*) one magic item for each PC except one, who gets gold instead. Except in all those groups where gold is always split equally.

I guess I'm using your own argument that the system is inherently fail-safe (as long as you keep the x5/5 levels price hike) to argue your math is probably way too involved and detailed than necessary...


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## eamon (Nov 20, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Let me start by saying I really agree with your goals!
> 
> I really think the presentation would improve by giving *an example* thou'.
> 
> Especially the "ei" bits come across as heavily theoretical. A picture tells more than a thousand words!



Thanks, I'll think one up in the next few days.  I blame laziness for avoiding an example in the first version .

I intentionally had some "heavily" theoretical stuff because it's important to me to have a reasonably firm assurance that the new system is indeed equivalent to the old system.  You can skip it; it should be fairly clear that if items tend to be no more than 60% of their full worth that raising treasure by one level (i.e. 38% value) is pretty safe.  But if you want to take even later reselling into account and put all the bits together, it's there.



> That said, I'm not convinced the 20% sales rate is at fault here. What are you supposed to do with the extra money?
> 
> You say yourself the extra gold is all but irrelevant when it comes to buying useful stuff. (Even if you got 100% when selling stuff, as per your example).
> 
> Theoretically, nothing you can buy will compare to the things that "drop". Not as long as you don't change the curve, that is how every five levels also fivefold the price.



If you sell _old_ stuff, the buy/sell ratio is not that important due to the exponential price rise over levels.  After all, even at 100% stuff that's five levels behind is just 20% of a new item.

However, with random loot, people will need to sell new stuff regularly - stuff that just dropped.  Here, the buy/sell ratio matters a lot.



> Sure, in practice, there are quite a few items of your level or lower that are desirable. But they are almost all mistakes, pure and simple. Anytime your epic character picks up a bunch of heroic stuff because it is useful, a mistake has (almost by definition) occurred.



Well, that's dependent on specific items.  I can well imagine low level items remaining useful, but generally just as an extra option, not as an overall power increase.  In any case, that's not too relevant to the wealth system; after all the plain DMG system makes it easy for PCs to acquire low level items too by including a very heft gold amount each level.  In any case, this is outside of the scope of this wealth system, for sure ;-).



> So why change the 20% sales percentage? Why not change the exponential price hike? (If your goal is to allow players to use money to custom-buy what they don't get through drops).



  The exponential price hike is good because it makes it very very hard to sneak past fundamental assumptions by saving smartly or by a party pooling their money.  It's a very solid fundamental building block that gives solidity: by having the price rise by a factor 5 every five levels, even a factor 2 or 3 imbalance in wealth just means a few levels advantage in wealth - not even a single +1 on a weapon.  That's robust; I don't want to get rid of the exponential scaling for that reason.



> In fact, why not keep the system as-is and simply fivefold the amount of random loot in the game?
> _Edit:_ I meant "why not increase the amount of loot fivefold when you make it random?"
> 
> Your math should quickly tell you that this will amount to a very small increase in player power, because 1) the junk loot remains worthless and 5xworthless=worthless, 2) there's a limited number of slots anyway, very soon any increase will be incremental at best.
> ...



My reasoning behind this choice is in the post titled "*Why the 20% sale price needs to go*".  In short; you _can_ simply grant 5 times the items instead.  

But that's more complicated in practice because, well, it involves altering the # of parcels, just adding one level is really easy by comparison - you can run premade adventures with almost no change, just raise each item by one level.  

Secondly, you'll have more variance if you simply grant 5x the items.  If the sale price is half and you just raise an item by one level, then a lucky PC just "gained" 1 level on one item.  If you grant 5x the items, it's not unlikely to have a PC that got lucky and gets _several_ appropriate items; after all you're distributing 20-25 items each level.  That might disrupt intra-party balance somewhat.  No, this probably won't affect balance in the long run, but balance in the short run is important too.

Handing out that many items is also just more work for the DM; more items to choose, more items to make fit the flavor, etc.  Also, I like _sometimes_ handing out an appropriate item - and if the number of items isn't radically different, that's OK; if the number rises dramatically, you need to be careful to not imbalance the game (not to mention the fact that magic items become a lot less dramatic when you find half a dozen each session).

Finally, as a detail I don't like the (small) incentive the current system has whereby PC's try to pick items that remain useful indefinitely.  If the sale price is a little higher, it's a little less important to pick out items that will be useful forever; switching is cheaper.  This is a small step towards balancing hard-core gamers versus the more relaxed sort that didn't preplan every character choice X levels in advance.

*To cut a long excuse short:* you're right, you can definitely just increase the number of items by a factor of (slightly less than) 5 and make no further changes without dramatically altering balance.  On the other hand, that solution does have a number of small issues which is why I prefer the raise-by-one-level and sell-for-half approach.  It's not like that's much more complicated - it's actually simpler in play, even, I hope.


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## keterys (Nov 21, 2009)

Interesting. I suspect this would work out for a lot of people who prefer the 3e treasure method.

Of course, I tend to actually go the other route by not having buying or selling of items pretty much at all, but also avoiding wish lists. I don't give _completely_ random treasure, though - so there's a hit to verisimilitude - I do give out a selection of things they could use, that have the suckiest and mightiest stuff pruned off, effectively. 

I've been thinking on treasure quite a bit lately, cause I am starting up two campaigns this week. One thing I think you'll find with a 50% sell price and the same # of magic items given is that many wondrous items or less useful items are basically just trash (or, rather, residuum to be). I'd rather encourage folks to keep more random stuff, and an increased price for sell actually discourages that sharply.


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## eamon (Nov 22, 2009)

keterys said:


> I've been thinking on treasure quite a bit lately, cause I am starting up two campaigns this week. One thing I think you'll find with a 50% sell price and the same # of magic items given is that many wondrous items or less useful items are basically just trash (or, rather, residuum to be). I'd rather encourage folks to keep more random stuff, and an increased price for sell actually discourages that sharply.



I think that's kind of inherent with any largely random system.  If you're giving a broad diversity of stuff, then much of it won't be worthwhile.  Then you can either have a low selling price and thus a swingy wealth distribution (get lucky and score a high jackpot, or be forced to sell nevertheless), or a less swingy one since PC's are better able to sell or convert magic items.  I do suggest that with this system you aim for 10% very well suited items, and 25-50% retention rate (which, I suspect, is a little higher than a fully random distribution would have, to permit some dramatically appropriate tailoring without being so in-your-face as the current system).

Of course, I don't have a problem with the idea of the fact that there'd be an in-game market for items, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this in the first place ;-).  Many people obviously dislike the idea; for them, relying on reselling or disenchanting is probably not a good idea.


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## keterys (Nov 22, 2009)

The problem is that I'm referring to things like Wavestrider Boots... which are certainly a worthwhile item to have around, but if you're 1st level looking for a good +1 weapon are totally not worth keeping around. So you'd sell 'em and pick up your new weapon.

It's even worse for Everlasting Provisions, Instant Campsite, Flag of Ale Procurement and other similar items that add a lot of flavor to a game and should be fun to get, but are effectively not worth keeping.  

The problem may, I suppose, be that utility and fiddly items are too expensive in the system, but either way I think your system kicks a lot of them to the curb, so I'd want a way around that. Hrmmhrmm.


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## eamon (Nov 23, 2009)

keterys said:


> The problem is that I'm referring to things like Wavestrider Boots... which are certainly a worthwhile item to have around, but if you're 1st level looking for a good +1 weapon are totally not worth keeping around. So you'd sell 'em and pick up your new weapon.
> 
> It's even worse for Everlasting Provisions, Instant Campsite, Flag of Ale Procurement and other similar items that add a lot of flavor to a game and should be fun to get, but are effectively not worth keeping.
> 
> The problem may, I suppose, be that utility and fiddly items are too expensive in the system, but either way I think your system kicks a lot of them to the curb, so I'd want a way around that. Hrmmhrmm.





Well, you know - if you're _1st _level, sure, then a +1 weapon is pretty much the best of the best.  But once you have that +1 weapon, then it's worthwhile filling other slots.

I assume most people will have the crucial slots filled as early as they can (or deem them necessary - you might easily do without a neck slot, early on).  But as soon as they do, they'd want to spread out.

So this problem is really a 1st, maybe 2nd level only problem.  And even then, if the item looks like an item they might want to keep, they'll certainly be loath to sell it (wasting time and 50% of the value in the process) if they expect to find or be able to buy a +1 weapon soon later.

The system expects you to sell 50-75% of the items.  But I expect those many of those will be things like, say, a Rod of Reaving in a group without a warlock, or whatever.  You're still wasting a lot of money by selling something you might use if you can sell stuff you really don't need.

Right now, _nobody even puts_ and instant campsite on their wishlist, and if the DM gives you one (_daily_ wondrous item!) before giving you a +1 weapon, well, he's screwing you.

Part of the fun in previous editions was finding (or handing out) items with interesting properties: the trick is; can we use this, how can we use this, and is it worth it?  That was actually much harder to do in 3e, though, because item power varied so wildly.  In 4e, that's relatively easy.  You can now easily hand em a bunch of items that are tangentially useful, but where it won't be easy to sell em and get some massively more powerful item instead.  If you already have the few key items, when is it worth sellling something that's not optimally suited to you?  Its not that easy, since money isn't something you can do much with.  Even if you try to save up, you're not getting the next iteration of the "big three" much earlier, prices rise too quickly for that.

With the new system, you can do this: you can give items that are attractive both to sell, but also attractive to keep.  I mean, if that 1st level party holds out a little bit longer, maybe they'll find a crown of leaves and decide that selling that nets them 3.6 +1 weapons, and decide to keep the instant campsite instead.

How would you value that kind of treasure in the old system?  Do you let the instant campsite count as a full parcel (doing so is certainly not in the spirit of the DMG wealth rules and your party will end up with less wealth than expected).  Or do you discount it somehow?  A problem is that PC's really want somewhat up to date "big three" items.  If you hand out parcels, that means you need to carefully select enough of those (but also not too many) so that players can keep up.  Now, maybe they'll sell an item or two - but you don't need to worry about it.  And let's be frank, handing out Yet Another +2 sword is pretty boring.  Frankly, I think I'd only fuzzily recollect the less flashy items the PC's have - armors, neck slots - but you do need to take into account proficiencies and whatnot when selecting items.  Handing out leather armors to a guy with hide proficiency isn't good.  Nor is handing out a neck slot with a neat - but ultimately useless - daily power if it's high level.

So, that's my inspiration here.  You hand out about 10% that's stuff that's good enough that PC would have bought it themselves (though typically of a level that they can't afford to do so).  That doesn't imbalance the wealth, and it's rare enough to actually make a memorable impact.  The rest can be good enough to at least consider keeping - stuff like the instant campsite might be here, but where the trade-off is tricky; the full price is definitely not worth it, but is it worth selling? (I expect them to keep 25-50% of all items).


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## keterys (Nov 23, 2009)

eamon said:


> Well, you know - if you're _1st _level, sure, then a +1 weapon is pretty much the best of the best.  But once you have that +1 weapon, then it's worthwhile filling other slots.




And then you're working on a +2... and you're filling those slots with the best possible options, like for Boots that's Adept Charging, Acrobat, Swordsman, Freedom of Movement, etc. The more efficient you make selling the items, the more customizable you make the loot. Which is a feature in some cases, but it marginalizes the wacky/weird stuff.



> So this problem is really a 1st, maybe 2nd level only problem.




Nope, applies across all levels, until your character has every slot filled and every magic item at +6, or until the value of the item is so low it's not worth selling (such as when you have a 10 level gap in treasure)



> And even then, if the item looks like an item they might want to keep, they'll certainly be loath to sell it (wasting time and 50% of the value in the process) if they expect to find or be able to buy a +1 weapon soon later.




They money can always go towards something else, +1 was just the example.



> Right now, _nobody even puts_ and instant campsite on their wishlist,





Of course no one puts it on a wishlist. Wishlists are exclusively for the maximally effective and/or awesome items, most of the time. Also marginalizing the wacky and weird. Trivia: Wishlists aren't even used by the guy at WotC who wrote them 



> and if the DM gives you one (_daily_ wondrous item!) before giving you a +1 weapon, well, he's screwing you.




Eh, not if the giving doesn't change when you get your +1 weapon. Frankly, that touches on a level of entitlement that is contentious, but I've seen many low level modules that gave out Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Wavestrider Boots, Instant Campsite, Apprentice Gloves, etc... as well as weapons and armor and necks, and such, to be sure, but there was a mixture of treasure types all the same.

Now, technically the DM could get around it by literally assuming the instant campsite or ale item would just be sold and just count its value as 20% from the get go, sorta as if it were just a variant of gem or artwork. That's probably the most fair, for those using treasure parcels and wishlists.



> If you already have the few key items, when is it worth sellling something that's not optimally suited to you?  Its not that easy, since money isn't something you can do much with.  Even if you try to save up, you're not getting the next iteration of the "big three" much earlier, prices rise too quickly for that.




400-500g from selling one of the level 4 or 5 mostly flavor items I mentioned is a notable amount of gold, even when you're 6th - 10th. Even at 11th-15th it's actually still probably worth selling, but at least there the 10 level gap is enough to not worry too much about it.



> With the new system, you can do this: you can give items that are attractive both to sell, but also attractive to keep.  I mean, if that 1st level party holds out a little bit longer, maybe they'll find a crown of leaves and decide that selling that nets them 3.6 +1 weapons, and decide to keep the instant campsite instead.




Or sell the crown of leaves and instant campsite both and buy a +2...



> So, that's my inspiration here.  You hand out about 10% that's stuff that's good enough that PC would have bought it themselves (though typically of a level that they can't afford to do so).  That doesn't imbalance the wealth, and it's rare enough to actually make a memorable impact.  The rest can be good enough to at least consider keeping - stuff like the instant campsite might be here, but where the trade-off is tricky; the full price is definitely not worth it, but is it worth selling? (I expect them to keep 25-50% of all items).




Depends on how good the party is at planning. The more they know what items the way, the more they'll sell and buy new stuff. And, of course, eventually almost 100% of the loot will be sold - but the x5 per 5 rule lets that mostly work. Sure, they've more coin than you're expecting, but not more than 20% more, which is like a level.

Anyhow, for clarity, your system is great for simplicity and getting the job done. I just wish I saw a solution to the problem I've brought up other than revaluing the items in question.


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## eamon (Nov 24, 2009)

keterys said:


> 400-500g from selling one of the level 4 or 5 mostly flavor items I mentioned is a notable amount of gold, even when you're 6th - 10th. Even at 11th-15th it's actually still probably worth selling, but at least there the 10 level gap is enough to not worry too much about it.



But 400-500gp is just 10% of a level 9-10 item.  If you're doing this, you'll need to sell a lot of stuff around levels 6-10 just to get a single level-appropriate weapon.  Because prices rise by a factor 5 every 5 levels,  it'll never be particularly easy to "buy your way up" at the cost of low level items.  In fact, right now, I see the reverse: people try getting low-level items that stay useful throughout the levels because of the extreme price rises.  In any case, this is flavor thing that'll depend on the group anyhow.  Balance-wise, you can't get a big head start; the system presumes you resell at most 1 item each level and 50-75% of new stuff.  If you do that and you hardly use any rituals or have other expenditures, you break even with the new character creation rules.  If you resell more often, you'll fall behind.  If you resell less frequently, your wealth will be higher - but of course less tailored to your character.



> Or sell the crown of leaves and instant campsite both and buy a +2...



Sure; but then you're investing a very large chunk of your cash in one item for one player, for the same price you could have gotten _everyone_ in the party a +1 weapon... which is probably much better.  And once you do, getting the +2 isn't such a huge advantage anymore; just +1 more.  Is it worth selling so many general use items just to get one player an additional +1?  That's a tradeoff each party will need to make.  And as a DM, you can now give em items that make that tradeoff hard.  If they always sell, give em more attractive stuff; if they never sell, some more wacky things - all without major balance issues (unlike the RAW rules where that selling vs. not selling is quite swingy and the presumption is that players get useful items).



> Anyhow, for clarity, your system is great for simplicity and getting the job done. I just wish I saw a solution to the problem I've brought up other than revaluing the items in question.



 I think it's fundamentally impossible.  Part of the reason RAW works poorly if the DM hands out wacky items is that the actual wealth starts diverging quite a bit if players sell (or more insidiously, if they don't sell but actually don't get value corresponding to the wealth.)  If I ever get around to trying this idea in an at least somewhat longer campaign, I'll post my own experiences ;-).  So far, it's still just theoretical!

Thanks for the comments, BTW!

_*Edit: *_I forgot to point you to CapnZapp's alternative suggestion whereby instead of changing sale prices and raising found loot by a level, you just distribute 5 times as many items (but randomly, of course).  If you do that, you weird items will probably be way _more_ common ;-).  I do expect you may want to distribute a little less than a full factor 5 more, but 4e scaling system is pretty robust to small differences so it might not matter much.

_*Edit2:*_ updated OP with your note and CapnZapp's variant of randomized items.  Incidentally, keterys, if you do decide on how to run wealth+items in those new campaigns, I'd be curious to hear what you choose to do and how it turns out...


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## Starfox (Nov 27, 2009)

I've been using a crippled model (100% sell AND purchase price, essentially magic = gold) more from laziness than anything else - I could not be bothered to pick loot according to wishlists. I find this system VERY interesting, and that someone has done the match and found such a simple solution is encouraging. As it happens, I think this solution also solves a few problems that I've had in my game.

*Uniformity in Item Level*
In a system where you bye all magic items with gold straight off, players tend to have an upper limit on what they will spend on an item. In my game, that is usually character level +1. Anything above that is just too expensive. With this system, where have the option to retain items found at 50% cost, there is an actual incentive to use the high-level items you find if they make sense.

*Favorite Items over Level*
Not sure if this is really a problem, but in the cash system, characters tend to find a few magic items that suit them, then just upgrade them as they advance in levels. If what you want is a Vicious weapon, that is what you'll always have - only the plus changes. Again, this system gives an incentive to use what you actually find.

*Possible Problems*
In 3 and 3.5, you found mountains of "vendor trash" magic items, and the default reaction was to sell most of it. But because of the sheer amount of found items, it was almost guaranteed that some items would fit. In 4E, you only find one item per character per level (slightly less, actually) and items are also much more character-specific than in earlier editions - an item aimed at wardens is useless to everyone else, and there is no such thing as "Use Magic Device" anymore. The net result is that for the individual player, finding an item they can actually use is a big windfall. It is rare, but if you find a level +5 item that you can use, you probably more than double your net worth. Even if you have to pay the sale price to pay off your friends, it is still huge. Another problem with this is that you probably don't have the cash to pay off a level +5 item - the price escalation is just that big.


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## DanmarLOK (Nov 27, 2009)

In relation to the gimping, items the players can't use and thus are underpowered and all that.  

Consider inherent bonuses.   Every 5 levels my players pick one per level from this list: +1 to hit, +1 damage (1d6 on crit), +1 AC, +1 FRW, +1 to skills (I have a HR on skills that removes the +1/2 level on them among pretty much everything else). They can't pick one twice until they've gone through them all.   There are no +x weapons or +x AC items in the game anymore. 

This opens up magic completely to the toy/gimmick bases.  A level 10 character picks up a longsword and he's got a +2 to hit, +2 damage.  He puts on a suit of chain he stole off a guard while escaping?  +2 chain.  It's a property of being a hero not a property of gear. 

I can give them things like Restful Bedrolls, or Bowl of Everplentiful Gruel at will without having to worry I'm gimping them on power or they're 'behind the curve'. 

It makes character sheets a PITA but I'm willing to put up with that in return for freedom in loot placement.

For a more detailed list http://www.keyourcars.com/houserules


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## keterys (Nov 28, 2009)

Good point. And with the character builder now having a button to support giving out free enhancement bonuses, I think it's especially worthwhile.


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## eamon (Nov 28, 2009)

keterys said:


> Good point. And with the character builder now having a button to support giving out free enhancement bonuses, I think it's especially worthwhile.



I really wish the character builder were more customizable.  There's so many things that might be fun to experiment with but that just are worth the hassle if they don't fit in its mold...


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## keterys (Nov 28, 2009)

Amen.


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## Noumenon (Dec 28, 2009)

> just adding one level is really easy by comparison - you can run premade adventures with almost no change, just raise each item by one level.




How do you raise an item by a level?  I'm guessing you mean "randomly select an item one level higher", like if the adventure says "Darkleaf armor +1" (level 4) you would just sub in something like "Barkskin armor +1" (level 5).


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## clark411 (Dec 28, 2009)

Great thread and well explained.  With the prospect of having 7 players, fairly distributing treasure was a big concern to me.  I might just go with your house rule.  thanks!


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## eamon (Dec 28, 2009)

Noumenon said:


> How do you raise an item by a level?  I'm guessing you mean "randomly select an item one level higher", like if the adventure says "Darkleaf armor +1" (level 4) you would just sub in something like "Barkskin armor +1" (level 5).



Yeah, that's what I mean.  If the adventure really gives an explicit item and it's well suited (flavor wise), you could just ignore it (and the players get an insignificantly lower amount of gold - fine so long as you don't do it all the time), or add a bit of gold (say, the difference between the item values or a bit less).


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## eamon (Dec 28, 2009)

clark411 said:


> Great thread and well explained.  With the prospect of having 7 players, fairly distributing treasure was a big concern to me.  I might just go with your house rule.  thanks!




Thanks for the feedback!  If you _do_ try it and have any improvements or other feedback, do come back and post em ;-).


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## Animus (Dec 30, 2009)

Between this house rule and that random generator, my life as a paragon-level game DM has been made _much_ easier.


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## Noumenon (Dec 30, 2009)

edit: wrong thread


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## clark411 (Dec 30, 2009)

Very basic math questions:

1. How do you, or do you, adjust the price of rituals for this house rule?
2. How 'bout residuum?


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## Neuroglyph (Jan 1, 2010)

Animus said:


> Between this house rule and that random generator, my life as a paragon-level game DM has been made _much_ easier.




I too have started using this house rule - the economics are sound and my players really think the change is for the better.  They actually prefer random loot to "wish lists"!


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## eriktheguy (Jan 4, 2010)

I'm gonna give this a very serious go in my campaign and let you know how it turns out. I always thought that the wish list thing was kind of silly. I'll be using the 'extra items' option instead of the 'better items' one. I'll probably also try to get a +1 weapon into everyone's hands ASAP just for the first level or so.


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## Garmorn (Jan 5, 2010)

I am starting a new campaign with 6 out of 8 players having no recent RPG experence.  Of those 6 the best most recent was over 10 years ago and maybe for a summer.  A wish list is not going to work.  I am also going for extra instead of higher.  

Thanks for working all of this out.


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## eamon (Jan 26, 2010)

clark411 said:


> Very basic math questions:
> 
> 1. How do you, or do you, adjust the price of rituals for this house rule?




1. I don't adjust the price of rituals.  Rituals have always (inconsistently) been half-price when selling them, so that's nice and easy to fit in.  The DMG treasure parcels omit rituals entirely, and this system is modeled to be the same - just random - so it omits them too.  In the spirit of including random rituals too, however, you might take a segment of the gold reward parcel per level and hand that out as rituals.  The same basic balancing mechanic works for rituals too; so if you have money for a level N ritual but want to pick randomly, just pick a random level N+1 ritual instead.  Equivalently, pick a level X ritual but account for it as if it were level X-1.  

Realistically though, rituals aren't going to be a significant factor in wealth balance, so you'll do just fine handing out rituals randomly and not raising their level - they are such a minute part of overall wealth (and the system is quite self balancing to boot) that it just won't matter to PC balance anyhow.



> 2. How 'bout residuum?



Residuum is essentially just a form of money - just treat it like any other coinage, and you'll be fine.


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## makeshiftwings (Jan 27, 2010)

I'm going to give this a try in my next campaign.  I'm thinking of changing the parcels slightly.  I have a party of six.  I want to go for "more items" rather than "more powerful items", so I was going to use the 50% sell price (which I was already doing, and didn't notice any real balance issues), but remove the level+4 standard item, and the level+5 item that eamon suggests and replace them with an extra level+3, level+2, level+1, and level+0 item.  Would that work out alright mathematically?  Could I maybe throw in an extra level+0 or two into the mix?


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## marli (Feb 28, 2010)

I like how the "What is good treasure" moves from the DM to the Players, the people who ultimatly get to use it.


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## eriktheguy (Feb 28, 2010)

Hey, I've been using it for awhile with some success. My only problem is with the transfer enchantment ritual, which makes some items that the party wouldn't use suddenly become items that the party would buy.
Any easy fixes?


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## Starfox (Mar 1, 2010)

eriktheguy said:


> My only problem is with the transfer enchantment ritual, which makes some items that the party wouldn't use suddenly become items that the party would buy.
> Any easy fixes?




I find Transfer Enchantment a trouble saver. No longer do I have to care if the big bad uses an axe and no-one in the party does. Just remember that you can only transfer enchantments into items where those enchantments could normally be.


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## eriktheguy (Mar 1, 2010)

I understand that 'transfer enchantment' works fine when you are dropping items tailored to the player. I'm just wondering if it mucks up the math when you allows selling for 50%.


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## Starfox (Mar 1, 2010)

eriktheguy said:


> I understand that 'transfer enchantment' works fine when you are dropping items tailored to the player. I'm just wondering if it mucks up the math when you allows selling for 50%.




Keep an eye on how much stuff your party sells and how much they keep. I think the retention rate was supposed to be something like 20%. Even so, some of their gear will be suboptimal this way; they might have a somewhat higher net worth than normal, but be less efficient because they have the wrong kind of gear.


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## Gnosh (Apr 23, 2010)

First of all this is a fantastic system, and I'm going to use it in my current 4th ed. game, but I still have one problem. One of the things I've always done with my players in 3.5 etc was to allow them to roll the dice for random loot generation. This allows them as a group to have a bit of percieved "control" over what they get or don't get. This solves two problems. First: if they roll badly and get things they don't want they blame themselves, not me. Second: it creates a treasure "mini-game" which allows them to get better items if they roll better. Everything they roll goes through me (i control the tables) so I decide if they get that holy avenger they just improbably rolled or if I'm going to dumb it down a bit in the name of better balance. 
     I want to use this system but I want to allow my players to randomly generate magic items (with a small chance for lower level items, and a small chance for higher level items) using d100 rolls. Has anyone created such a system for 4.0 yet? If so where can I find it? I checked out the one that was linked earlier in this thread, and it was great, but it was still clicking a button and seeing what came out. I need something using dice, I am playing D&D after all.


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## eriktheguy (Apr 26, 2010)

Gnosh said:


> First of all this is a fantastic system, and I'm going to use it in my current 4th ed. game, but I still have one problem. One of the things I've always done with my players in 3.5 etc was to allow them to roll the dice for random loot generation. This allows them as a group to have a bit of percieved "control" over what they get or don't get. This solves two problems. First: if they roll badly and get things they don't want they blame themselves, not me. Second: it creates a treasure "mini-game" which allows them to get better items if they roll better. Everything they roll goes through me (i control the tables) so I decide if they get that holy avenger they just improbably rolled or if I'm going to dumb it down a bit in the name of better balance.
> I want to use this system but I want to allow my players to randomly generate magic items (with a small chance for lower level items, and a small chance for higher level items) using d100 rolls. Has anyone created such a system for 4.0 yet? If so where can I find it? I checked out the one that was linked earlier in this thread, and it was great, but it was still clicking a button and seeing what came out. I need something using dice, I am playing D&D after all.




You could drop some sort of magical items (crystals, orbs, artifacts, whatever). They players find that by using a ritual, they can randomly create magic items from the crystals. Drop both regular loot and the special items, make up a table for each one where the highest item on the list is the best to give it the same feeling.


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## Noumenon (Apr 26, 2010)

> I checked out the one that was linked earlier in this thread, and it was great, but it was still clicking a button and seeing what came out. I need something using dice, I am playing D&D after all.




You could maybe e-mail the guy and ask for his data files, then use the line numbers with percentile dice.


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