# Wealth Per Level Guidelines?



## Nytmare (Feb 10, 2010)

I was kinda sloppy for a handful of levels with my treasure parcels, and now I'm looking to right the boat and figure out where we stand.

Unfortunately, the chart I was expecting to find, doesn't seem to exist.

Is there a way for me to just tally everything (and man, it would be great to have a DM control panel in the character builder that did this) and check it against a figure somewhere?

I know about the parcel lists on 126 in the DMG, but was hoping to find a way of doing this that didn't include quite so much paper shuffling.


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## Saagael (Feb 10, 2010)

It depends on what you are trying to do. I, as well, screwed up 2 or 3 levels of treasure parcels and one PC ended up with +1 items until level 8 or 9. 

Anyway, what I usually do is make up a spreadsheet at the start of the level (or adventure) and list all the items that the PCs are supposed to get. That is, magic items, gold, and miscellaneous items. At that point I sift through the character builder to find items that fit with the characters' wishlists, that would fit with the adventure's theme, or that fill out roles. 

With magic items done (roughly, I usually replace them later), I pick out any odd items that the players might get (rituals, wonderous items, or other non-slot magic items). I then divide up the gold into several parcels (I usually don't follow the DMG's guidelines here), then detail those parcels based on where they're found in the adventure. I replace chunks of gold with the miscellaneous items where appropriate.

I'm not sure how you could "fix" the wealth disparity from past levels, other than give it to them over the course of one or two levels. If you forgot to hand out 10,000 gold, then give it to them in 2,000 gold chunks on top of the other stuff.  Or if you missed an item or two, just find some reason to hand the lacking players some interim gear until their real loot kicks in. In my case, I handed the player a +2 weapon for a battle or two until his real magic item showed up (a nice +3 weapon), after which the +2 weapon was handed back with no wealth-gain from it.


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## Nytmare (Feb 10, 2010)

I had a party of four which became a party of three.  I ignored the parcels for a while, had a player who "misunderstood" the item creation ritual for a while, and had a string of encounters where the players never found the treasure, let bad guys get away with their treasure, or let obnoxious NPCs sweep through after they had cleared out all the monsters and keep all the loot for themselves.

Now, we have a brand spanking new fourth character, and I realized that the rest of the group's equipment, though more plentiful, wasn't as fancy as his shiny new set of three items.

I'm woefully behind, but thankfullly they just cleared out the Horned Hold and are staring at a huge pile of loot, unopened treasure chests, and a stockpile of crated goods that I can fill with whatever the hell we need.

What I ended up doing was just tallying their magical, non-potion equipment and figuring out the total parcel "weight" for a four man, ninth level party, which actually wasn't anywhere near as hard as I had assumed it was going to be.  Then I just filled the list up with a chunk of wishlist items till the numbers matched.

I'm ignoring (and assuming that in the long run it won't matter) actual item levels and consumable magic stuff.  I figure that as long as the item worth stays close to the right amount, and that the money and consumables I give them never goes over what they should be getting just for that level, then it's good enough.


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## Truename (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I was kinda sloppy for a handful of levels with my treasure parcels, and now I'm looking to right the boat and figure out where we stand.
> 
> Unfortunately, the chart I was expecting to find, doesn't seem to exist.
> 
> ...




Three answers, in order of increasing complexity and accuracy:

1- Compare their "big 3" (weapon/implement, armor, neck) plusses to the DMG2 inherent bonus rules.
2- Compare their "big 3" plusses to their level as described below.
3- Use the magic item wealth by level table I posted below.

*1. Compare their "big 3" plusses to the DMG2 inherent bonus rules.*

The only wealth that really matters in 4e is magic items, unless your campaign is unusual, and the only magic items that have a major mechanical effect are the big 3 of neck, armor, and weapon/implement. The DMG2's inherent bonus rules describe what plusses the players should have at each level, so just compare what your players have to that guideline and adjust accordingly.

*2. Compare their "big 3" plusses to their level.*

Option 1 lacks finesse--it gives everyone the same bonuses at the same time. You can smooth it out a bit.

Big 3 plusses correspond roughly to half-tier. By the end of level 5, everyone should have at least +1 everything; by the end of level 10, everyone should have at least +2 everything; and so on. 

Filling in the gaps, that means that (in a five-person party) at the end of level 1, there should be one +1 weapon/implement, one +1 armor, and one +1 neck-slot item. At the end of level 2, there should be two +1 weapons/implements, two +1 armors, and two +1 neck-slot items. At the end of level 3, there should be three of each. And so on.

Carrying this forward to the other tiers gives you two of each +2 item at the end of level 7, with the rest being +1; four of each +3 item at the end of level 14, with the rest being +2; and so forth.

*3. Use the magic item wealth by level table I posted below.*

If your party spends their treasure optimally, they'll end up averaging a level+2 item per person each level. (One person will _purchase_ a level+0 item and the rest will _find_ level+1 through +4, but it averages out to level+2.) Ignoring the rest of the monetary treasure, which is pretty trivial, the average "expected wealth per level" of a character at level N is the sum from 1..N of a level N+2 item.*

*Some of that treasure eventually gets sold or abandoned, but we can ignore that since old treasure is worth so little. Also, there's an adjustment at level 29 and 30 since magic items don't go above level 30.

In other words, this (per person):

1    680
2    1,520
3    2,520
4    4,320
5    6,920
6    10,320
7    14,520
8    19,520
9    28,520
10    41,520
11    58,520
12    79,520
13    104,520
14    149,520
15    214,520
16    299,520
17    404,520
18    529,520
19    754,520
20    1,079,520
21    1,504,520
22    2,029,520
23    2,654,520
24    3,779,520
25    5,404,520
26    7,529,520
27    10,154,520
28    13,279,520
29    16,404,520
30    19,529,520

(The spreadsheet formula for calculating magic item cost is =(160*MOD(A2,5)+200)*5^INT(A2/5) where A2 contains the item's level.)


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## Truename (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> a four man, ninth level party




Assuming they've found all the ninth-level treasure, they should have 9 +2 items, 3 +1 items, and 3-12 nonplussed items. The plussed items should be evenly distributed so that everyone has a magic weapon/implement, magic armor, and magic neck-slot item. If they have little cash, they should have 12 nonplussed items. If they have been hoarding their cash, they should have 3 nonplussed items, because they can use their cash to make up the difference. 



Spoiler



The nonplussed items should be unsure about what they're doing here.



If they haven't found any ninth-level treasure yet, they should have 6 +2 items, 6 +1 items, and 2-11 non-plussed items.


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## occam (Feb 10, 2010)

Truename said:


> *3. Use the magic item wealth by level table I posted below.*
> 
> If your party spends their treasure optimally, they'll end up averaging a level+2 item per person each level. (One person will _purchase_ a level+0 item and the rest will _find_ level+1 through +4, but it averages out to level+2.) Ignoring the rest of the monetary treasure, which is pretty trivial, the average "expected wealth per level" of a character at level N is the sum from 1..N of a level N+2 item.*
> 
> ...




These numbers are generally too high, since the cumulative effects of selling old equipment do mount up. The clearest statement of expected wealth per level given in the game is on p. 143 of the _DMG_, which states how much starting characters over 1st level should possess: one item of level + 1, one item of level, one item of level - 1, and cash equal to one item of level - 1. Converting that to cash values gives the following table:

1	100 (starting cash for 1st-level PC)
2	1,920
3	2,560
4	3,200
5	4,480
6	6,400
7	9,600
8	12,800
9	16,000
10	22,400
11	32,000
12	48,000
13	64,000
14	80,000
15	112,000
16	160,000
17	240,000
18	320,000
19	400,000
20	560,000
21	800,000
22	1,200,000
23	1,600,000
24	2,000,000
25	2,800,000
26	4,000,000
27	6,000,000
28	8,000,000
29	10,000,000
30	14,000,000


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## Nytmare (Feb 10, 2010)

occam said:


> The clearest statement of expected wealth per level given in the game is on p. 143 of the _DMG_, which states how much starting characters over 1st level should possess:




I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?

That, in general, the new character will have fewer pieces of higher level equipment, and an adventure-built character will have a more expensive, and wider array, of lower level items.


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## occam (Feb 10, 2010)

occam said:


> The clearest statement of expected wealth per level given in the game is on p. 143 of the _DMG_, which states how much starting characters over 1st level should possess: one item of level + 1, one item of level, one item of level - 1, and cash equal to one item of level - 1. Converting that to cash values gives the following table:
> 
> 1	100 (starting cash for 1st-level PC)
> 2	1,920
> ...




BTW, if you prefer formulas to tables, for L = level, W = wealth:

L mod 5 = 1 (1st, 6th, 11th, etc. levels) => W =  ~928 * 5^(L/5)
L mod 5 = 2 (2nd, 7th, 12th, etc. levels) => W =  ~1009 * 5^(L/5)
L mod 5 = 3 (3rd, 8th, 13th, etc. levels) => W =  ~975 * 5^(L/5)
L mod 5 = 4 (4th, 9th, 14th, etc. levels) => W = ~883 * 5^(L/5)
L mod 5 = 0 (5th, 10th, 15th, etc. levels) => W = 896 * 5^(L/5)

If you average that initial factor to 938, so that the formula for all levels becomes:

W = 938 * 5^(L/5)

then the table smooths out to the following:

1	1,294
2	1,786
3	2,464
4	3,399
5	4,690
6	6,471
7	8,928
8	12,318
9	16,996
10	23,450
11	32,355
12	44,641
13	61,592
14	84,980
15	117,250
16	161,773
17	223,203
18	307,960
19	424,902
20	586,250
21	808,867
22	1,116,017
23	1,539,802
24	2,124,510
25	2,931,250
26	4,044,333
27	5,580,086
28	7,699,010
29	10,622,552
30	14,656,250


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## keterys (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?
> 
> That, in general, the new character will have fewer pieces of higher level equipment, and an adventure-built character will have a more expensive, and wider array, of lower level items.




Although the new character will have better optimized items, which has some value - potentially a lot of value.


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## CovertOps (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?
> 
> That, in general, the new character will have fewer pieces of higher level equipment, and an adventure-built character will have a more expensive, and wider array, of lower level items.




Every 5 levels you will be losing 80% of the value of 3 magic items per party member.  As each person trades in their +1 item for a +2 and so on you only get 20% if you sell or disenchant it and keep the residuum.  This is a bare minimum loss.  The difference between the two tables is about 30%.  This is reasonable as the 80% loss is always on lower level/value items. 

14,000,000 / 19,529,520 = .716

If you were to spend the "cash" you could have what they suggest OR you could have more lower level items.  Be aware that some items do not repeat (such as a bag of holding) so you may have to look at much lower level items to find everything you want.


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## occam (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?
> 
> That, in general, the new character will have fewer pieces of higher level equipment, and an adventure-built character will have a more expensive, and wider array, of lower level items.




That may be. I was going to mention that, but didn't want to complicate the issue. I wasn't speaking to the accuracy of the starting gear guideline as it might reflect actual play, even for a DM strictly abiding by the parcel system; it's just that it's the only wealth-by-level guideline we have in 4e.

You can view the wealth-by-level numbers I gave as lower bounds. If you need upper bounds, then you could total up the value of treasure parcels for each level and divide by 5. I'll let someone else work on that.


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## Nytmare (Feb 10, 2010)

occam said:


> If you need upper bounds, then you could total up the value of treasure parcels for each level and divide by 5. I'll let someone else work on that.




That's actually what I did, and it wasn't tough to do at all.


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## DracoSuave (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?




If by 'complete bumpkiss' you mean 'close enough to be servicable without allowing the new character to overshadow the history of loot of the old' you'd be correct.

Why does a new character have to have exactly the same loot?  Is that extra 20 gp going to make a huge difference?  Is it going to be the difference between a broken character and a balanced one?

No.

The treasure tables themselves are just guidelines.   Just have them kill a dragon, update their weapons, armor, and give them a lump sum of treasure, and be on your way.

Gold does NOT have to be an exact science, it just has to be 'good enough to do.'


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## Nytmare (Feb 10, 2010)

DracoSuave said:


> Gold does NOT have to be an exact science, it just has to be 'good enough to do.'




You're reading a whole heck of a lot of intent behind that one word.  You might notice how the rest of the thread is nothing but,  "how do I figure out what's good enough."

I was between 3,000 to 10,000 gold off per character and had no way of knowing how far behind they were.  Trying to meaningfully convert three dozen 1st through 10th level items into nine equivalent level +1, level, and level -1 items wasn't an option.


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## DracoSuave (Feb 10, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> You're reading a whole heck of a lot of intent behind that one word.  You might notice how the rest of the thread is "good enough to do."




I also notice a lot of the rest of the thread is... a little bit too complicated to solve what is essentially, a relatively minor problem with a relatively painless solution.

It's like breaking out the calculus when trying to bake bread... yeah, it's -exact-, but the recipe is 99/100 times out of ten good enough, even if it's not precise to your elevation or oven temperature, etc. etc.

And in that 1/100th occurance, the fix is so easy that the calculus would STILL be too much work.

Is there a margin of error between the 'here's a new character, give them this' and 'here's the calculated wealth over time for a character from level 1 to level n'?  Yes. Is that margin of error so much that the original guideline is butkiss?  No, because the original guideline isn't trying to be an exact measurement.  

So, what are you trying to do?  You're trying to get your players caught up so they can fairly meet the challenges.   As such, the shortage comes in the form of the tools to do the job.  So, give them the tools, and a handful of gold for rituals and other stuff, and you've solved the problem.

The advanced levels of calculation and tables are simply avoiding that -very straight forward issue.-

And if that issue does not actually exist... then if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


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## Ahrimon (Feb 10, 2010)

I'd say the easiest way is to go through each character, add up the full value of all of thier items + thier gold.  Then compare that to the value of items lvl +1, Lvl and (lvl -1) x 2 (per a starting character's gold past lvl 1).  If they are ahead, then good.  If they are behind then look to see how even it is across the board.  If one character is significantly behind the others, throw him an item or two to catch up.  If they're all pretty close but still behind then just throw in some extra gold to catch everyone up.


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## ourchair (Feb 11, 2010)

We also had a wealth shortage problem by not remembering to consistently dole out treasure over a few games, and we resolved it when our DM lead us into a market trading adventure.

Sure, it's not as exciting as combat but if you and your DM are good with it, you can really play up the RP aspect and have fun with what is essentially prolonged skill challenge of haggling, persuading and impressing market folk into buying your goods at higher prices.

I posted about it here.


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## keterys (Feb 11, 2010)

The value of loot multiplies by 5 every 5 levels - pretty quickly a minor imbalance in either direction basically disappears.


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## Mengu (Feb 11, 2010)

Nytmare said:


> I thought that those guidelines were understood to be complete bumpkiss when paired up against a character who had gained loot via leveling up and adventuring?




Just for my education is "bumpkiss" a meme I'm missing, or do you actually mean bupkis? I suspect the latter, but asking just to be sure...


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## Nytmare (Feb 11, 2010)

Mengu said:


> Just for my education is "bumpkiss" a meme I'm missing, or do you actually mean bupkis? I suspect the latter, but asking just to be sure...




It was at least the pronunciation my grandmother had for it, but that was yiddish via a Polish ghetto in Rhode Island.


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## Iron Sky (Feb 12, 2010)

It's only related to this thread in a tertiary fashion, but I just noticed that in the Character Builder, under gear for higher level characters, it says level+1, level, level-1... "In addition, you may take any non-magical adventuring gear you like."

So, skimming through the Adventuring Gear tab, I noticed that there's a Sailing Ship for 10,000 gp.  All my pre-made 2nd level characters are going to start with one of those now!


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## Jhaelen (Feb 12, 2010)

Iron Sky said:


> So, skimming through the Adventuring Gear tab, I noticed that there's a Sailing Ship for 10,000 gp.  All my pre-made 2nd level characters are going to start with one of those now!



Do you have a DM? 
Unless you don't, you may find that it won't do you any good.


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## Mengu (Feb 12, 2010)

Iron Sky said:


> So, skimming through the Adventuring Gear tab, I noticed that there's a Sailing Ship for 10,000 gp.  All my pre-made 2nd level characters are going to start with one of those now!




I knew there was a reason why Krakens existed.


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## keterys (Feb 12, 2010)

Is oregano on the list of gear? Cause I bet you can buy a dash of oregano and it has no weight. Then you can stuff infinite oregano right into the ship 

P.S. I will be shocked right out of a chair if it's on the list.


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## Hellzon (Feb 12, 2010)

On a less insane note, an Everburning Torch is listed as "Gear" in the compendium. Every character starting above level 1 should probably get one if they expect to have a hand free most of the time. 

(I like that, to be clear. Light isn't an issue unless the DM wants it to be.)


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