Now that the new rules for season 8 have been announced, those "disposable" familiars are now significantly less disposable. Gold is going to become scarce and my wizard needs some way to stay out of the red.
My initial thought was to use fabricate to make barding for sale, but since the AL rule is that the materials cost half the cost of the finished item it's not possible to make money with fabricate until you get wish. My FLGS is likely to run DDEX 3-08 soon which features the alchemy jug. I think I'm going to get one (a steal at only 4 treasure checkpoints) to make 25 g per downtime day selling acid (unless I misunderstand how much poison 1/2 ounce is). This seems like a reasonable amount considering you can tack it on to any DT day you are taking anyways.
Does anyone have any better ideas?
Edit: upon rereading fabricate, it does not have a material component. That means that wish won't work safely with fabricate.
Provide feedback to DDAL on your gold pain points. Something about this hustle for cash feels like not their intention, so worth trying to call attention to remedy current rule set before it goes into effect.
I actually think the intention is for spellcasters to make hard choices. I'm just trying to mitigate that a bit. Most characters won't have to hustle for cash; most of my characters hardly spend any gold except on a few health potions. The designers know that spell components can be expensive and so the rules will hit spellcasters harder. Wizards get hit with the double whammy because they are also trying to fill out their spellbooks and copying spells isn't cheap.
They've certainly succeeded at making gold mean something again.
Honestly, the best choice I see is to rebuild my <5 wizard to a different class.
That's an option I considered too. I think wizards are already rare enough in AL and I would hate to see them disappear entirely from AL. That's why I've decided to stick it out and figure out another way to proceed.
Turn all my tier 1 points in for medium armor (half plate) sell it for 375 gold.
Turn my tier 2 points in for full plate, sell it for 1000g each time.
Wait till tier 3 to actually spend treasure points, since I cannot use tier 1 and 2 due to money needs.
They can't really have been meaning to handicap wizards like that could they?
Secret Checst spell available at level 5 (4th level spell). I cannot possibly afford the component cost till 17. Yet I can get a bag of holding which does nearly the same thing with Tier 1 treasure.
But seriously. As a wizard spells are my treasure, so turning in my tier 1 and 2 items for gold gets me what I want in a bassAckwards way. Tier 3 I can actually get items I would want as a wizard. It is better to get the spells than to get a wand of war wizard +1/2. I can get more scrolls by selling the armor than I can by using treasure points.
Society will move from a gold standard to a potion of healing standard. Find money? Jewels? Silver holy symbol? SELL IT ALL before the end of the adventure and use the money to buy potions of healing to distribute. That seems to be the one thing you can BUY that will stick with you from adventure to adventure. Then in your next session, sell the extra for 25gp to buy the things you really need/want.
Society will move from a gold standard to a potion of healing standard. Find money? Jewels? Silver holy symbol? SELL IT ALL before the end of the adventure and use the money to buy potions of healing to distribute. That seems to be the one thing you can BUY that will stick with you from adventure to adventure. Then in your next session, sell the extra for 25gp to buy the things you really need/want.
You may be right about that and if that's the case, I think everything will be okay. Many characters only spend gold on potions.
Although the rules aren't final yet... this tactic has been nixed at least in discussion on Facebook AL. The key phrase in the document so far is "Any entry mentioning a GP reward is ignored. Mundane equipment can be used by the characters until the end of the session." So DMs just flat out ignore the mention of GP treasure from any adventure.
Although the rules aren't final yet... this tactic has been nixed at least in discussion on Facebook AL. The key phrase in the document so far is "Any entry mentioning a GP reward is ignored. Mundane equipment can be used by the characters until the end of the session." So DMs just flat out ignore the mention of GP treasure from any adventure.
I think the implication is that you "use the equipment" to trade for healing potions before the "end of the session". There are plenty of adventures with very valuable mundane equipment, like holy symbols and spyglasses. Certainly the availability of health potions for purchase will be an issue in many adventures.
I'm not really endorsing this method, but it doesn't seem to be contrary to the letter of the law.
I just noticed that the rod of security is available for purchase by treasure points in tier 3. Are there any AL specific guidelines for this item or is this 200 downtime days for the price of 10? Combining this with the alchemy jug could completely eliminate money woes.
Edit: If I have two rods is that infinite downtime days for the price of ten?
If you happen to find a Robe of Useful Items, the expected value of disassembling one is ~1300gp. It's also on one of the 4 point treasure tables, so it is slightly more efficient than selling plate.
If you happen to find a Robe of Useful Items, the expected value of disassembling one is ~1300gp. It's also on one of the 4 point treasure tables, so it is slightly more efficient than selling plate.
My whole table passed on one of these. I never considered just disassembling it and selling it. Thanks for the out of the box thinking on this.
Society will move from a gold standard to a potion of healing standard. Find money? Jewels? Silver holy symbol? SELL IT ALL before the end of the adventure and use the money to buy potions of healing to distribute. That seems to be the one thing you can BUY that will stick with you from adventure to adventure. Then in your next session, sell the extra for 25gp to buy the things you really need/want.
Except you don't actually receive the gold, jewels or holy symbols that you mentioned from the adventure. The ALDMG 8.0 specifically says gold and mundane treasure in the treasure blocks are ignored.
As it is in the current ALDMG, all treasure and wealth is converted to its gold value and distributed at the end of the session, which means you couldn't do that now even.
"Any entry mentioning a gp reward is ignored. Mundane equipment can be used by the characters until the end of the session."
So mundane equipment is not ignored. Also just because mundane equipment has a gp value attached to it does not make it a "gp reward" nor does that change its status as mundane equipment. There is also no restriction on how players "use" mundane equipment.
Edit: Lol. This was explicitly disallowed in the ALDMG 8.1. I guess they were listening.
I was in a session this week where some of our party was thrown into jail. The captain of the guard told us it would be 100 GP to bail them out and no roll was high enough to persuade the captain to let them out. Since we found out we were not getting "paid" by the person that hired us to get into the predicament that got them put into jail, we laughed and said, "well, I guess we're continuing on without you." No-one was willing to give up gold knowing what a pain in the arse it is to get more.
The lesson there is to demand payment up front for any adventure, so we have some spending money for bribes, bail, etc during that session.
Another way to earn gold, per the current version of the rules, is the buy potions for treasure point then sell for gold. Tier 2 is when it really comes into play. You can purchase a potion of supreme healing for 16 treasure points, which is listed as being 5000 GP, then turn around and sell it. It works out to 312.5 GP per treasure point but you have to spend them in groups of 16. If the DM is a stickler and claims that potions are sold as 'used' items then it only comes out to 156.25 GP per treasure point. But it is a potion (consumable), so it is either there at full price or it doesn't exist because it has been used. Either way 1TP = 312.5GP or 1TP = 156.25GP is much better exchange rate for treasure points than 1TP = 50GP. The only argument against this is per Adv League, the sell magic item downtime activity in the DMG is not available. Well, the equipment rules revert back to the players handbook and the players handbook says selling magic items is difficult, but does not prevent it.
We've gone through too many tier 1 modules that require players to spend gold at the beginning, for specialized clothing, mounts, carts, rations, etc. that we agreed to always get payment up front, no negotiation. We've actually skipped modules where we wouldn't get something up front that still required GP expenditure in order to participate. Pudding Faire is an easy example. Without going into spoilers, my character had enough GP to participate in 1 event on day 1 (mainly due to having to buy a spell components, 50 GP diamond for Chromatic Orb, and find familiar) from the leveling. The rest of the party had a great time on day 1 going through everything.
So now we demand payment whether it be gold, equipment or something up front. If we get GP we keep a running tally of everything we spend and use, then at the end of the module any remaining gold, that we will not receive anyway, is discarded/donated/used to party/whatever.
One other note, with most people dropping factions and no longer getting treasure or gold, the easy group motivation factors have been removed. They need to replace them with something.
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Now that the new rules for season 8 have been announced, those "disposable" familiars are now significantly less disposable. Gold is going to become scarce and my wizard needs some way to stay out of the red.
My initial thought was to use fabricate to make barding for sale, but since the AL rule is that the materials cost half the cost of the finished item it's not possible to make money with fabricate until you get wish. My FLGS is likely to run DDEX 3-08 soon which features the alchemy jug. I think I'm going to get one (a steal at only 4 treasure checkpoints) to make 25 g per downtime day selling acid (unless I misunderstand how much poison 1/2 ounce is). This seems like a reasonable amount considering you can tack it on to any DT day you are taking anyways.
Does anyone have any better ideas?
Edit: upon rereading fabricate, it does not have a material component. That means that wish won't work safely with fabricate.
Provide feedback to DDAL on your gold pain points. Something about this hustle for cash feels like not their intention, so worth trying to call attention to remedy current rule set before it goes into effect.
I actually think the intention is for spellcasters to make hard choices. I'm just trying to mitigate that a bit. Most characters won't have to hustle for cash; most of my characters hardly spend any gold except on a few health potions. The designers know that spell components can be expensive and so the rules will hit spellcasters harder. Wizards get hit with the double whammy because they are also trying to fill out their spellbooks and copying spells isn't cheap.
They've certainly succeeded at making gold mean something again.
Honestly, the best choice I see is to rebuild my <5 wizard to a different class.
That's an option I considered too. I think wizards are already rare enough in AL and I would hate to see them disappear entirely from AL. That's why I've decided to stick it out and figure out another way to proceed.
As a wizard:
Turn all my tier 1 points in for medium armor (half plate) sell it for 375 gold.
Turn my tier 2 points in for full plate, sell it for 1000g each time.
Wait till tier 3 to actually spend treasure points, since I cannot use tier 1 and 2 due to money needs.
Problem: Cheaper to sell half plate and use money to buy tier 1 spell scroll, than to use treasure points to buy scroll
They can't really have been meaning to handicap wizards like that could they?
Secret Checst spell available at level 5 (4th level spell). I cannot possibly afford the component cost till 17. Yet I can get a bag of holding which does nearly the same thing with Tier 1 treasure.
But seriously. As a wizard spells are my treasure, so turning in my tier 1 and 2 items for gold gets me what I want in a bassAckwards way. Tier 3 I can actually get items I would want as a wizard. It is better to get the spells than to get a wand of war wizard +1/2. I can get more scrolls by selling the armor than I can by using treasure points.
Society will move from a gold standard to a potion of healing standard. Find money? Jewels? Silver holy symbol? SELL IT ALL before the end of the adventure and use the money to buy potions of healing to distribute. That seems to be the one thing you can BUY that will stick with you from adventure to adventure. Then in your next session, sell the extra for 25gp to buy the things you really need/want.
You may be right about that and if that's the case, I think everything will be okay. Many characters only spend gold on potions.
Although the rules aren't final yet... this tactic has been nixed at least in discussion on Facebook AL. The key phrase in the document so far is "Any entry mentioning a GP reward is ignored. Mundane equipment can be used by the characters until the end of the session." So DMs just flat out ignore the mention of GP treasure from any adventure.
I think the implication is that you "use the equipment" to trade for healing potions before the "end of the session". There are plenty of adventures with very valuable mundane equipment, like holy symbols and spyglasses. Certainly the availability of health potions for purchase will be an issue in many adventures.
I'm not really endorsing this method, but it doesn't seem to be contrary to the letter of the law.
I just noticed that the rod of security is available for purchase by treasure points in tier 3. Are there any AL specific guidelines for this item or is this 200 downtime days for the price of 10? Combining this with the alchemy jug could completely eliminate money woes.
Edit: If I have two rods is that infinite downtime days for the price of ten?
If you happen to find a Robe of Useful Items, the expected value of disassembling one is ~1300gp. It's also on one of the 4 point treasure tables, so it is slightly more efficient than selling plate.
My whole table passed on one of these. I never considered just disassembling it and selling it. Thanks for the out of the box thinking on this.
Except you don't actually receive the gold, jewels or holy symbols that you mentioned from the adventure. The ALDMG 8.0 specifically says gold and mundane treasure in the treasure blocks are ignored.
As it is in the current ALDMG, all treasure and wealth is converted to its gold value and distributed at the end of the session, which means you couldn't do that now even.
"Any entry mentioning a gp reward is ignored. Mundane equipment can be used by the characters until the end of the session."
So mundane equipment is not ignored. Also just because mundane equipment has a gp value attached to it does not make it a "gp reward" nor does that change its status as mundane equipment. There is also no restriction on how players "use" mundane equipment.
Edit: Lol. This was explicitly disallowed in the ALDMG 8.1. I guess they were listening.
I was in a session this week where some of our party was thrown into jail. The captain of the guard told us it would be 100 GP to bail them out and no roll was high enough to persuade the captain to let them out. Since we found out we were not getting "paid" by the person that hired us to get into the predicament that got them put into jail, we laughed and said, "well, I guess we're continuing on without you." No-one was willing to give up gold knowing what a pain in the arse it is to get more.
The lesson there is to demand payment up front for any adventure, so we have some spending money for bribes, bail, etc during that session.
Another way to earn gold, per the current version of the rules, is the buy potions for treasure point then sell for gold. Tier 2 is when it really comes into play. You can purchase a potion of supreme healing for 16 treasure points, which is listed as being 5000 GP, then turn around and sell it. It works out to 312.5 GP per treasure point but you have to spend them in groups of 16. If the DM is a stickler and claims that potions are sold as 'used' items then it only comes out to 156.25 GP per treasure point. But it is a potion (consumable), so it is either there at full price or it doesn't exist because it has been used. Either way 1TP = 312.5GP or 1TP = 156.25GP is much better exchange rate for treasure points than 1TP = 50GP. The only argument against this is per Adv League, the sell magic item downtime activity in the DMG is not available. Well, the equipment rules revert back to the players handbook and the players handbook says selling magic items is difficult, but does not prevent it.
We've gone through too many tier 1 modules that require players to spend gold at the beginning, for specialized clothing, mounts, carts, rations, etc. that we agreed to always get payment up front, no negotiation. We've actually skipped modules where we wouldn't get something up front that still required GP expenditure in order to participate. Pudding Faire is an easy example. Without going into spoilers, my character had enough GP to participate in 1 event on day 1 (mainly due to having to buy a spell components, 50 GP diamond for Chromatic Orb, and find familiar) from the leveling. The rest of the party had a great time on day 1 going through everything.
So now we demand payment whether it be gold, equipment or something up front. If we get GP we keep a running tally of everything we spend and use, then at the end of the module any remaining gold, that we will not receive anyway, is discarded/donated/used to party/whatever.
One other note, with most people dropping factions and no longer getting treasure or gold, the easy group motivation factors have been removed. They need to replace them with something.