The 100 gp/month Screw Job

[Wheggi]

According to the DMG, the DM should automatically deduct from characters 100 gp per level a month to cover living expenses. This - along with training costs, spell components and so on - is a financial check and balance and helps justify the large amount of treasure put in the modules and the Treasure Types. I get that. But still you know this tax must really sting players in long-standing campaigns where the DM inforces it.

Do any of you skim 12K a year off the top of all your 10th level characters? I'd love to hear how that goes over.

- Wheggi

[AxeMental]

I don't like rules that demand particular behavior from players (except when logical or defining) because such rules cut against the point of the game, free will. However, if pc.s want to live at a particular life style (and in a safer environment while in town) it may cost. Just go threw the pain adding it up.

[sepulchre]

I had not realized that, but the ruling makes me wonder how this works with monk characters whom I can't imagine having that kind of gold.

[rogatny]

I think you'd have to make an exception for the monk. Assume he's living like... a... well... monk. Staying at the abbey, abstaining from booze and chicks (or dudes, as the case may be), and otherwise living a monkish existence.

[Matthew]

I do not usually bother with the 100 GP/Level rule, though if the campaign were getting too treasure heavy, I would certainly consider implementing it. Otherwise, player characters can be as frugal or as open handed as they like, though that certainly has knock on effects for hirelings, henchmen, and so on.

[sepulchre]

Rogatny:

...living a monkish existence.

thanks for the clarification rogatny, 'dudes' and all.

Actually I'm surprised Gary placed such a blanket ruling in the DMG. without giving it a graduated scale for the various classes. It also assumes that most high lvl. fighters would wish to build strongholds and/or become more domesticated where I might imagine such an expense. Those characters who keep to a more devil-may-care, independent life-style typical of adventurers, being self-sufficient and/or itinerant stand out as the exception. Rangers, monks, or paladins sworn to the quest are certainly easy examples of this.

[Solinor]

I notice some of rules put in the DMG seem arbitrary, this ruling being one of them. I imagine many of these rules were put in the book to empower the DM against rules lawyers or troublesome players. Perhaps something BtB the DM can leverage to use as a club? I have never had difficult players in this regard so its never been an issue.

Me personally this is just one of those rules I never remember. I am usually bleeding characters for every meal and tracking all time and expenses anyway. If you enforce encumbrance rules it makes it hard to walk out with enough coin to enforce this rule anyway.

One of the BtB rules is you can ignore any of the rules in the book (Don't tell anyone I wrote this).

[Wheggi]

I like to think that Gygax sat down with a big-assed 1970's style calculator and compared the rate of treasure earned (namely, the Treasure type table) with the deductions he put into the system. Has anyone ever spent the time to go through a couple levels, adding up the treasure earned and subtracting the imposed costs? It would be interesting to see how that all checks out.

- Wheggi
NOW PLAYING ON RADIO WHGI: "Xanadu" by Rush
And I'm kicking myself for letting my 2112th post get by without making the appropriate Rush reference. Doh!

[Matthew]

I like to think that Gygax sat down with a big-assed 1970's style calculator and compared the rate of treasure earned (namely, the Treasure type table) with the deductions he put into the system. Has anyone ever spent the time to go through a couple levels, adding up the treasure earned and subtracting the imposed costs? It would be interesting to see how that all checks out.

Pretty badly once the training rules are taken into account, as the cost of training (over the first half dozen or so levels) generally necessitates more treasure accumulation than the experience point value it is worth (assuming a 1:1 ratio of EP to GP). There are also some pretty big assumptions you have to make about time taken to reach level X, but what the 100 GP per month things really does is motivate players to get out on the next adventure as quickly as possible.

Of course, the way the money disappears is very Conan in style, as characters will potentially find themselves penniless and destitute at the beginning of every adventure.

[T. Foster]

I imagine many of these rules were put in the book to empower the DM against rules lawyers or troublesome players. Perhaps something BtB the DM can leverage to use as a club?

This, pretty much. The idea of both this rule and the training rules were to keep players active and hungry and not idly resting on their laurels with a huge hoard of gold -- that, like Conan or Kothar or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, even when they win a huge treasure at the end of one story, by the beginning of the next one a couple months later they're inevitably broke again and looking for the next big score. As long as the players maintain that proper attitude -- being basically indifferent to their gold except as a means of keeping score and always up for new adventures -- it doesn't matter how much they're actually spending and if it's less (or more) than the rules dictate. But when one of the players gets miserly and starts wanting to spend the game staying in town managing his investments rather than adventuring, then the DM is empowered with a couple BtB rules to help drain his accounts and get him out adventuring again.

(Note: in OD&D this monthly upkeep fee no longer applies once the character establishes his own stronghold and "managing his investments" becomes an intended part of, rather than a distraction from, the assumed activity of the game; I can't remember if the same applies in AD&D or not, but if not, it probably should)

[sepulchre]

T.Foster wrote:

it doesn't matter how much they're actually spending and if it's less (or more) than the rules dictate. But when one of the players gets miserly and starts wanting to spend the game staying in town managing his investments rather than adventuring, then the DM is empowered with a couple BtB rules to help drain his accounts and get him out adventuring again.

Hat-tip to Solinor for beginning this train of thought, but a very nice interpretation Foster. Thanks for the insight.

like Conan or Kothar or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, even when they win a huge treasure at the end of one story, by the beginning of the next one a couple months later they're inevitably broke again and looking for the next big score.

Amazing how rules like this suggest the Sword & Sorcery roots of the game.

[Guy Fullerton]

Pretty badly once the training rules are taken into account, as the cost of training (over the first half dozen or so levels) generally necessitates more treasure accumulation than the experience point value it is worth (assuming a 1:1 ratio of EP to GP).

In my experience, this really isn't a problem.

A cooperative party should have no trouble pooling resources to pay for each constituent member's BTB training costs when the time comes, because it's rare that many members of the party gets enough experience to qualify for the next level simultaneously.

Only in really extreme experiences (several party members each needing 3-4 weeks to train), or an uncooperative party where individual characters have a dearth of liquidatable magic items, must a character go adventuring simply to acquire the funds to train (without being able to gain additional xp, of course). And in those cases, I think the effects of the system are quite desirable.

[Matthew]

In my experience, this really isn't a problem.

A cooperative party should have no trouble pooling resources to pay for each constituent member's "by-the-book" training costs when the time comes, because it's rare that many members of the party gets enough experience to qualify for the next level simultaneously.

Only in really extreme experiences (several party members each needing 3-4 weeks to train), or an uncooperative party where individual characters have a dearth of liquidatable magic items, must a character go adventuring simply to acquire the funds to train (without being able to gain additional xp, of course). And in those cases, I think the effects of the system are quite desirable.

Yes, but the point is that the 100 GP per level living costs are on top of what is already a significant drain on party resources. If a party composed of two fighters, two thieves, a cleric, and a magician reach 2,500 EP from 15,000 GP, their total training costs will be no less than 12,000 GP, leaving each 500 GP net gain, probably less if training was in any way staggered or any of them got less than an excellent performance rating. I am not saying it is unworkable, mind, only that there is no mathematical formula in play here on Gygax's part that will yield a specific relationship between treasure gained and support costs, they are just ballpark figures being thrown around.

[T. Foster]

IIRC it's BTB that training costs (and NPC spellcaster costs) can be paid in service instead of cash, so the low-level thief or cleric (the classes most likely not to have enough cash to pay for their training) doesn't necessarily have to go into hock or "waste" an extra adventure in order to score the necessary cash, he just has to owe a favor or service to the local guild or temple (i.e. they get to send him on a mission).

[Matthew]

IIRC it's BTB that training costs (and NPC spellcaster costs) can be paid in service instead of cash, so the low-level thief or cleric (the classes most likely not to have enough cash to pay for their training) doesn't necessarily have to go into hock or "waste" an extra adventure in order to score the necessary cash, he just has to owe a favour or service to the local guild or temple (i.e. they get to send him on a mission).

It is at the option of the game master that the NPC tutor might accept some combination of gold and service.