Wealth in game

[Anastasia]

Normal methods of wealth regulation fall by the wayside when you can create riches and have a divine realm. So we're going to use different wealth rules now. It consists of two parts: Realm wealth and personal wealth. Realm wealth is how big, prosperous and thriving your realm is. The bigger this number is, the bigger the pool of resources you can draw on is. Personal wealth is GP you get each level to cover expenses, improve gear and so forth. This covers a variety of factors, both related to your realm and to other ventures.

Realm wealth is expressed by a GP value. This GP value is a pool that you can draw items from at any time from your realm. These items are borrowed from others, taken from the bounty of your domain or given as tribute by your worshipers. This is meant to cover various minor expenses and give you flexibility to represent all the material and magical resources you can draw on. For example: Alicia's realm wealth is 30,000 GP. Say she happens to desperately need a ring of feather fall here and now. She can hop to Sylica and get the item on demand. Say Ebony has one she can borrow, or someone tithed to on a pilgrimage. Whatever. She has it now and can go back on her merry way. Her realm wealth decreases by the item's GP value as long as she has it. When she returns it, the wealth returns to normal. Realm wealth isn't meant for permanent purchases, but to cover odds and ends as you need them.

Personal wealth is a lump sum of GP you get at each level up for magical equipment purchases and upgrades, for both yourself and your closest followers. You can do whatever you want with this money, but it's primarily meant to cover expenses and the boring side of gear upgrades. Getting someone's con booster to +6, or upgrading rings of protection, buying a ring of wizardry or those other boring things. Even if it's not useful for you, it's probably useful for your direct followers like Antenora or Donald. Further, even if it's not for them, improve some of your secondary NPCs if you have some loot. If all else fails, hell, go to Tymora's realm and gamble it all on 00. Personal wealth can still be augmented by income you get from adventuring, but I'll be trimming this back some as I figure much of it either goes to your realm or Seira's hoard.

Realm and personal wealth will be updated each level up. Further, certain things could cause immediate changes. Various expenses and obligations can eat into these, or very abrupt winfalls can raise these. That said, I'm trying not to alter these too much except at level up.

More interesting and flavorful gear will continue to be found through normal means, as well as created.

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Behind the numbers

I'm going to level with you guys, I tossed around trying to pin down every number and make a fancy formula for this. But you know what, it just wasn't worth it. So I'm going to be doing most of this by ear. As a rule of thumb, personal wealth given each level is going to be 2.5 times that level's realm wealth. This isn't quite set in stone, I'll adjust it over the next few levels until we find a groove.

Various expenses will be deducted from realm wealth. The numbers are going to be a bit abstract. Say if Kesse costs Seira 1,000 GP in realm wealth, that doesn't mean that she's spending only 1,000 GP there. It's relative to the wealth of her entire realm.  Each of you has access to your material wealth for level 22 as soon as you get back to your realm. For Alicia this is essentially immediately, for Seira it's once this entire storm thing resolves.

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Here be fancy numbers:

Spoiler: ShowHide

Sylica:

Base realm wealth: 30,000 GP.

Positive modifiers:

Negative modifiers:

Occupying the fortress of the Q'Pa: -1,000 GP.

Cauldron:

Base realm wealth: 26,500 GP.

Positive modifiers:

Teleportation network: 3,000 GP.
Various and sundry church works(Seira's had a lot, summarizing them): 1,000 GP.

Negative modifiers:

Kesse peacekeeping: -1,500 GP

Alicia's realm wealth: 29,000 GP.
Alicia's personal wealth: 72,500 GP.

Seira's realm wealth: 29,000 GP.
Seira's personal wealth: 72,500 GP.

(I didn't plan for them to be equal, pure coincidence.)

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What do you guys think? This is an attempt to abstract a lot of the various wealth rules and streamline things. Suggestions? Also, if it's decent, am I missing any obvious obligations or sources of income?

[Corwin]

I think it's decent and very helpful. It also stays consistent with how we've been doing things so far, which is always nice.

I'd like to see stuff such as Wish, Permanency and the like addressed. By this I mean that there are various NPCs who aren't our closest followers, say, or even 'secondary'. Using Wish to reward them with an item when the situation calls for it is okay and not restricted by the realm/personal wealth numbers? Permanency costs 1k per spell level, but if you emulate it with Wish, the material costs are eliminated, it would seem, due to its 10k material component coverage. This, too, is fine? Finally, there is stuff not covered by this and I know it can't possibly all be covered, but I'm looking for your opinion on an example. To name one, let's say I want to take the sword Lumenbur showed me we were forging and give it to Obi so that he'd be keeping up with the times. What's the process here? I get it appraised, and then I take it out of one of the wealth values? I can give it to him for free? Does it matter whether I was presented with it or if I actively went down to the forges to look for one?

Re: trimming income from adventuring. We get what we get, so that's cool. You already said you'll keep on giving us neat and unique stuff, so that works out well. If you want to reflect this, you could just continue to present flavorful things we'll want to take for the hoard/treasury/the like, but not list any gp value to their name? I've appreciated the ability to collect various trinklets thus far.

Re: further obligations/sources of income. There are surely a few, but they don't really factor as heavily as what's listed, so I'm fine with keeping things as is. We can let things evolve as they go, which sounds like more fun. By that I mean that if I succeed in turning the Cauldron into a trading outpost, I want to work at it and reap the reward, not write it down in the income/expenses column just to say I did.

[Ebiris]

Just to point out that Wish lets you create magic items worth up to 15k, or mundane wealth up to 25k. I've basically been using that to assume Alicia's ability to cover all of her expenses of late.

[Anastasia]

Yeah, I'm assuming wish from http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=100700.15 , Eb. That said I don't really mind the uses you've used it for. I just don't want it to be literally infinite money for gear. That's why I'm using something like this instead. (Not to mention it's a little closer in spirit to the SLA type of an actual power granting the wish since you are a power, but I digress.) Stuff like giving out freebies and minor stuff can be handwaved or dealt with depending on how much I feel it impacts play. There's no point in trying to cover every contingency and magic you can conjure up at this level of play.

[Ebiris]

Oh, my bad, I missed that.

I wasn't planning to abuse it anyway because I'm at the point where I and the people I bargain with really don't give a shit about money - I've been assuming I'm arbitrarily rich and leaving it at that. If something can be bought for gp then really it's not something I'm interested in anymore.

Ixen didn't ask for a dumpster truck full of gold, even though it would have been simplicity itself for Alicia to snap her fingers and make it happen. He asked for something unique that money can't buy. And that's really how all transactions of value should work for beings at our level.

That said, I guess the traps for the Third Resort dungeon would have to be financed by selling some of the weapons that were in it since I couldn't use Wish to make them.

[Anastasia]

I'm not trying to worry about economics and I agree with you, per se.

I'm just giving a framework for money you may need for whatever reason and gear, without having to sell all the loot you come on now in the ol' grind.

[Corwin]

Not using Wish to just break economy/give yourself infinite cash is a given.

I agree that sensible transactions would be 'beyond money' at this stage, but saying that if something has a price you don't care about it is not really true and sounds kinda disagreeable. Yes, you don't head into the local magic shop to get a dagger +5 for your visiting dignitary, but if you still plan to give Baalzebub the shadow dagger, the monetary price it has to its name hasn't evaporated or rendered the gift meaningless. On a personal note to myself, I don't find a ring of wizardry less useful to me now than a level ago or three levels ago. Would I prefer to not have to rely on a ring of wizardry? Yes, actually, but when I tried to float epic feats to increase my spell capacity it didn't really go anywhere. I'm kinda stuck if I want to have enough support spells available to me at our level and can't rely on good old cash for that.

Dune, Eb's line about traps for the Third Resort made me confused again about that specific usage. Did you mean that we can't use Wish for that stuff?

[Ebiris]

When I speak of things being worth gp I am speaking exclusively of stuff that Elle can make if we throw enough money at her. The shadow dagger might have been given a value for us to sell it at back in the day, but it's still a unique and basically unreplicable item. Those kinds of items are basically the only ones I'm likely to look twice at at this point. Likewise, something that Elle can make if we give her X rare priceless ingredient is also cool.

I guess it maybe is a snobbish mindset, but I'm okay with that. It makes things feel more impressive and mythical and that makes the game more fun for me.

Also, I have to say you seem to be worrying over nothing with regards to your spells per day. Between yourself and Lagann you have 60 spell slots available, compared with 55 for a 20th level wizard with 28 int. You really don't need a ring of wizardy, and while I freely admit that it's a useful item, it should rightfully be eclipsed by stuff like the ring you took from Agares.

[Corwin]

50 actually, with my Int 32. 5 of those are indeed Lagann's spells, and I take him around less and less outside of Serious Business. 4 more are from the ring of wizardry I currently have, which doesn't translate to draconic form without a wilding clasp (4,000gp if I want it to).

It was really just an example close to my heart, though. There are surely others. If I want an item of holding, my current choices are to sell something cool and unique I've collected or fence a priceless artifact (goes without saying I like neither one). If you ever somehow had the portable hole lost or destroyed (while it was empty, for the sake of argument), wouldn't you wish to replace it? I see that as more likely than you holding out for the One True Portable Hole that is unique and thus the only one now good for you, right? What about a ring of deflection? An amulet of natural armor? Once lost, that's it, since they're basic and boring? I don't think still having regular spending cash for the boring, ordinary stuff demystifies the cool and epic stuff in play. That ring of Agares? Pretty damn cool. Alas, can't use it as a dragon unless I have a boring 4k item (or slap a boring Sizing enchantment on it, I guess, which is about the same thing). If I have a regular source to draw from for this, I don't need to spend any time worrying how I'm going to actually get my full use out of an epic item I got my hands on, which makes the game more fun for me.

Also, a reminder poke to Dune to elaborate on Wish uses.

[Anastasia]

Using wish for worshiper loot, rewards or that sort of thing is fine as I said.

Cor has a point too about minor and mundane items. This is meant to take care of that, leaving the things you find to be interesting and unique instead of shit to sell for gold. That's why I'm going to the effort to do this, to ensure that loot can be seen as loot and not a pile of gold coins to turn into the next belt of magnificence +6.

Thaaaaaaat all said, I agree with Eb's point of view and want to put out unique magic items of interest. So view this as more of a way to balance the books on that.

[Anastasia]

Here's the numbers this level. I'm still feeling this system out so bear with me. I'm adding more information - if an expense is temporary or going to be around awhile, and if it's likely to go change or stay the same.

Sylica:

Base realm wealth: 37,000 GP.

Positive modifiers:

Latha's armory works profits: 100 GP. (Small for now, I get the impression this is mostly to arm Sylica. If you want more or no selling, say so Alicia and I'll adjust.)(Indefinite; unstable)

Negative modifiers:

Occupying the fortress of the Q'Pa: -1,000 GP. (Indefinite; stable)
Tarrasque Shield Creation: -1,200 GP. (Temporary; stable)
Titan Library Study: -50 GP. (Temporary; stable)
Mist Coil Study: -500 GP. (Temporary; stable)

Cauldron:

Base realm wealth: 33,250 GP.

Positive modifiers:

Teleportation network: 3,000 GP. (Indefinite; unstable)
Various and sundry church works(Seira's had a lot, summarizing them): 1,000 GP. (Indefinite; stable)
Bazaar: 100 GP. (Just starting out and a native weapons industry is just beginning too.) (Indefinite; unstable)

Negative modifiers:

Kesse peacekeeping: -1,800 GP (+300 GP raise due to committing more to it)(Indefinite; unstable)
Tarrasque Shield Creation: -1,200 GP. (Temporary; stable)

Alicia's realm wealth: 34350 GP.
Alicia's personal wealth: 85875 GP.

Seira's realm wealth: 34350 GP.
Seira's personal wealth: 85875 GP.

[Ebiris]

Don't forget Mist Coil study in case that gives me a negative (I'd assume it'd be more intensive than just having some guys read books like I'm doing with the Titan's library).

[Anastasia]

Oh thanks. Editing.