A DM who was managing a game I recently played said that season 9 was going to have gold as a reward. My first thought was a positive response of "great! we finally will get a proper gold reward for our efforts! How things are suppose to be!"
Then that DM added, "but they will also limit how much gold you can keep, so for instance, if the cap is 100 gold, you have a party of 5, and the reward is 500 gold, you each get 100 gold and anything over that you won't be allowed to keep, no matter what..."
Now I am like "WTF is this BS! A gold reward cap?! I can understand the need for evenly distributing gold rewards between party members after quest turn in, but to out right cap the gold you can end the quest or level with entirely? Surely that is a lie? Surely such a thing would be the type of, cross the line, unacceptable authoritarian oppression that cannot be allowed as a rule!"
This DM was BSing when he made the second comment right? If he isn't, and that kind of "gone too far, gold cap" actually does exist, I think every DM in their right mind should rebel against that limit and regardless of any official rules made, completely ignore any gold capping rules. And don't waste my time with false claims of game balance as a reason. You are suppose to have the freedom to afford equipment and upgrades with far more flexibility then intentional gold capping permits. Using "game Balance" as an excuse destroys the fun and the freedom of game play that is suppose to exist.
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The problem with gold in AL is that some modules reward too much and some not enough. Some characters acquired vast fortunes and others less fortunate did not.
With enough gold, things like spell casting services become trivial to afford. Death is pretty meaningless if you have enough gold for True Resurrection. This creates a disparity between the character with a bag of holding containing 200 healing potions and any other consumable they want to purchase vs a character without that safety net. One character jumps into things without really caring whether they live or die, they can take risks, they can actually disrupt the play experience of everyone else in the group because they have so much gold everything else doesn't matter to them.
I think this is the problem that the revised gold rules were trying to fix. Personally, I think they went too far because some classes need gold more than others. The current level of 75gp/level in tier 1, 150gp/level in tier 2 etc ... give enough to buy a few healing potions and most mundane items. They don't reward enough to purchase spell casting services, to purchase material components for most spells, to copy any more than the required minimum of spells for wizards, or to purchase a breastplate/half-plate/full plate armor at an appropriate level.
The complaint about season 8 gold rewards was that it removed any motivation for the characters to actually find treasure. Why open that chest that could be trapped? Why explore the secret room? "You can't keep the treasure so why bother?" This is actually meta-gaming at its worst. The CHARACTER in the game would hunt for treasure since they need it to pay bills, buy food and other supplies. However, by the time they level up they realize that they only (on average) have about 75gp left/level in tier 1 to buy unusual stuff or save up. That is what the gp/level represents. The characters still want the treasure since they need it ... players meta-game it and say why bother since I get my 75gp/level when I level up anyway so it doesn't matter.
Now comes season 9, which I consider another band aid fix. Facing meta-game complaints about why bother looking for treasure since I can't keep it, they decide to let folks keep some of the treasure they find with a cap to stop the gold accumulation issue discussed at the beginning. There are two problems with this. Although there are a lot of modules that award large some of treasure, there are some that don't award much if any. In these cases, if the modules are run, the characters will actually end up with LESS gold/level than they would under the existing system. A seven player table in a tier 1 module that has 300gp to be found (if they players find it all) would only earn about 43gp/character for that level. Gold rewards could actually be WORSE under this season 9 rule.
However, to your original question. Yes the plan appears to be to award gold by dividing the amount found among the characters and then imposing a cap.
As irritating as someone becoming reckless and careless is, destroying the ability to save up gold and making a gold cap at all destroys the game.
Going from a few wreck-less people who can afford everything, to no one wanting to try is the worst case scenario that shouldn't ever happen, so capping off gold is the wrong answer. If you destroy the opportunity to advance, you destroy the opportunity to want to play, unless you get DMs that say "*F* this rule" even in Adventure league.
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There is a better way to deal with players who accumulate gold. Add a prestige aggro mechanic to the game, as well as a Prestige Karma Mechanic.
With wealth, comes fame, with fame comes enemies. The more wealth and power you accumulate, the more Prestige aggro you accumulate, so the more often a random and progressively more powerful hit on you form another wealth entity will target and attack you, sending enemies that have progressively better gear and supplies. If you can have a bag of holding filled with 200 health potions, so can they.
The direction of your Prestige Karma can also affect who comes after you and for what reasons, as well as what kind of support you can expect from what faction and alignment. A lawful good character would be attacked by chaotic evil attackers and vise versa! A Neutral Evil rogue stealiong things for higher, could get support from a thieves guild and members of underground market systems, when attacked by a well funded Neutral Good Druid that is supported by a local druidic guild.
That is how this situation concerning super rich characters that become wreckless should be handled, not this CAP EVERYONE'S GOLD AND OPPRESS THE MASSES BS!
Things such as Dungeon encounters can shift due to a Prestige Aggro/Karma system, where a normal dungeon run that has certain enemies could now have 2 or 3 hired hit NPCs that specifically target the wealth member, because that party members wealth and prestige are either, considered a threat to someone or simply wants what that player has so is motivated by greed to kill the player and loot his corpse.
Other things like adding more traps then would normally exist, while an invisible attack who is hiding and watching the party, while having an invisible runner, ready to send word to the next group in another room, that wouldn't have been there, had the player with wealth and prestige not been so wealth and famous, thus not provoking the interest of wealth and famous or infamous NPCs.
Things such as Dungeon encounters can shift due to a Prestige Aggro/Karma system, where a normal dungeon run that has certain enemies could now have 2 or 3 hired hit NPCs that specifically target the wealth member, because that party members wealth and prestige are either, considered a threat to someone or simply wants what that player has so is motivated by greed to kill the player and loot his corpse.
Other things like adding more traps then would normally exist, while an invisible attack who is hiding and watching the party, while having an invisible runner, ready to send word to the next group in another room, that wouldn't have been there, had the player with wealth and prestige not been so wealth and famous, thus not provoking the interest of wealth and famous or infamous NPCs.
Just a couple of points ..
1) Your suggestion to penalize anyone who accumulates gold by essentially trying to kill off their character with additional targeted threats in game would likely bother people MUCH more than a gold cap. What level do you set this karma thing at? What do all of the other players at the table do while these karma generated threats attack the character with the most gold? What happens when other folks characters die due to additional threats that the party can't deal with?
Honestly, this suggestion is far worse than anything the AL organizers have come up with.
2) In AL there is almost nothing to spend gold on anyway.
- potions
- plate and half plate armor
- spell material components (some of the most expensive items - and you can use treasure points to buy the scroll and have an NPC cast it anyway if you need it)
- copying spells
You don't NEED to accumulate gold in AL since there isn't much to spend it on. The only real objection I have to limiting gold is that it harms some classes more than others. Cleric and Wizard have expensive spell components, wizard needs to copy spells, medium and heavy armor users would like to be able to afford mundane armor before tier 3 where they can get the magical versions for less anyway.
Season 8 capped gold at a certain amount earned at level up. It has worked ok but I can see that it doesn't motivate folks to necessarily find all the treasure in the module. I think the new system has bigger flaws but I don't think capping is one of them ... simply that the cap should be either higher, vary a bit depending on your class, or costs of the items that affect specific classes should be adjusted.
Characters in AL receive advancement check points, treasure points, magic item unlocks, gold and story awards. Capping the gold awarded doesn't reduce any of the other rewards received so personally, I don't find the concept unworkable ... just the amounts being used.
Finally, if you don't like the gold cap then you will probably hate that Season 9 divides characters into Season 9 and Legacy (associated with seasons 1-8). A Legacy character playing season 9 content does NOT receive either magic item unlocks or story awards. A season 9 character playing season 1-8 content does NOT receive either magic item unlocks or story awards. Both kinds of characters can play CCC and season agnostic content and receive full rewards. Personally, I find this a lot worse than a gold cap since magic items and story awards are two key categories of rewards from playing modules and there will be modules where each type of character can play but not receive all the usual rewards.
so yes, they (at the moment) intend on capping the gold avaliable on a per-hour basis, its true, but by the same point, theya re giving the DM free reign to hand out any gold that they see fit during an adventure (so that sneaky theif that loots the hidden chest, or pickposkets the noble, yep, he can keep ALL that gold now)
as to seasonality, those season 9 character, by counter-point will be freely able to PLAY in Season 4 and 7 content without issue (no recieving the "Trapped in the mists" or "Death Curse" which makes those modules a little less incentive to run)
when i first heard that you can get more gold in Season 9 i was happy for playing my Rogue again but then i found out my Thief Rogue is getting screwed by it. What ever he can steal from npcs or from crimes count towards my Gold cap for the game this sucks.
when i first heard that you can get more gold in Season 9 i was happy for playing my Rogue again but then i found out my Thief Rogue is getting screwed by it. What ever he can steal from npcs or from crimes count towards my Gold cap for the game this sucks.
Well it is not a "cap" there is a total amount you can earn per game but it is much more than most Season 1-7 adventures even handed out.
During all of the seasons in AL if you tried to pickpocket an NPC the DM would scramble to figure out what to do because that was not in the adventure. It usually meant stealing from Paul to pay Mary and since in S1-7 everyone shared in the rewards what you stole went to the party and you. NOW in S9 every player has a gold limit for the session and what you take is yours. The DM has much more leeway to do this and at the end of the day you get your gold as opposed to waiting to level.
Honestly I'm pretty excited for the change to gold, its certainly better than what we have now.
I'm playing 2 AL campaigns at the moment with the same DM, but the second one has so far been so much more fun, largely just because the DM has basically ignored the rules on gold and decided to reward it the way the adventures suggest anyway, which has given our party a reason to be doing what we're doing and given us a sense of achievement, its allowed me to take risks, and sometimes be rewarded for it while roleplaying my pirate character. It seems to have also helped the rest of the party lean into their character''s more because we feel more immersed in the game.
On the other hand the other campaign (waterdeep: dragon heist) has regularly felt kind of pointless, and often it feels like the adventure expects us to be able to invest money into it, but we just can't. I've come away from several sessions of that campaign feeling completely defeated, which is even more frustrating as I use D&D as a way of escaping.
Honestly I'm pretty excited for the change to gold, its certainly better than what we have now.
I'm playing 2 AL campaigns at the moment with the same DM, but the second one has so far been so much more fun, largely just because the DM has basically ignored the rules on gold and decided to reward it the way the adventures suggest anyway, which has given our party a reason to be doing what we're doing and given us a sense of achievement, its allowed me to take risks, and sometimes be rewarded for it while roleplaying my pirate character. It seems to have also helped the rest of the party lean into their character''s more because we feel more immersed in the game.
On the other hand the other campaign (waterdeep: dragon heist) has regularly felt kind of pointless, and often it feels like the adventure expects us to be able to invest money into it, but we just can't. I've come away from several sessions of that campaign feeling completely defeated, which is even more frustrating as I use D&D as a way of escaping.
The only problem with what you describe is that giving out the gold found in the module isn't legal for AL in season 8. If you play the character anywhere else then folks can look at the log sheet and see that you received more than the 75gp/level in tier 1 (and other tiers) and then simply refuse to allow you to play the character because it isn't AL legal or force you to go through changing anything you may have purchased with gold you shouldn't have. I agree with you that the game is more fun with rewards but they are a role playing aspect ... the CHARACTER in the game will still receive gold, that is what they are working for, they are motivated by what the character in the module finds. However, it is the PLAYER that feels motivated by the DM handing out goodies. The character receives gold, spends gold and nets an average of 75gp/level. It is up to the player to spin that, make their character spend lots of the "gold" they find, but by the end of the day they only have 75gp (in tier 1) left.
Up to you how you play it but handing out gold creates characters that aren't AL legal which could be a problem (though not if you only ever play with the same folks at the same table).
The mere fact that the games current state of play and planned future state, has such limits as to actually have a perception of "Gold you shouldn't have" is just plain wrong and overly restrictive. And the limits as is, far too much of a choke hold on top of that, regardless of your perception of having or not having anything to spend it on. You can't claim any Roleplaying stuff if you are going to have such hard limits, that you can't even own a cart, horses and a merchant business in the process of the campaign and use that equipment as a mobile crafting base or run gathering resource supply runs, while being able to afford a couple of NPCs to help you manage your store, cart's, ect, as well as negotiate with other stores, nations, cities, churches, academies and guilds, all of which require being uncapped on gold, just to Roleplay.
You cap the gold, you destroy the game on all sides, from combat to all forms of roleplay, there is no defense for this. Who ever was writing the rules crossed that power tripping unethical authoritarian line that should never be crossed.
Any form of Gold cap also breaks the games own rules and play design in of itself. Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin Ranger, all of a max starting Gold possibility of 200 gold, if you get extremely lucky, just from the class starting funds dice role possibility. Both current and future gold rules are in direct conflict with Chapter 5: Equipment rules.
Owning things like Elephants, Warhorse, Carriages, Chariot or any waterborn vehicle that isn't a Rowboat is completely destroyed, regardless of Combat or Roleplay, Trade goods role play becomes highly limited, role playable Lifestyles becomes capped off or risk ruining anything you can do in order to support it. If your character is a heavy drinking, you have to weigh the cot of fin wine verse supplies in an artificially limited way, bases soley on the gold cap rules never letting you have more then a certain amount, so unless your a rogue that can steal the wine outright, you can never reasonably afford it.
No, Gold limiting Rules break the game entirely, thus should not even exist.
Being annoyed at one player in past games, who accumulated money and "ruined the game for everyone else" is not a valid defense, as most of the actions that would be taken, would have also been available to all other players, in those games of the past. If the character made their wealth threw being a merchant, or by gathering herbs and grinding them up into alchemy potions to sell, or by mining gems from a mine and jewelry crafting them into decorative jewelry too sell, or whatever else, every player at that time also had the option to do all those things just the same and simply didn't do it. So any complaints about a single super wealth character ruining the game for everyone else is a false argument that was actually on those players who did not want to take the time to gain their own wealth and equipment.
Gold capping rules are based on lies, hatred, jealous, laziness and an excessive covetous desire to control and destroy someone else. At no point should they exist or be enforced.
The current state of AL forces you to be a Murder Hobo. The gold cap plus the rushed nature of the sessions at the local comic book store, where you only have 4 to 6 hours of play with a DM that wants to get the campaign done and not extend it to a 2nd or 3rd or 4th session, destroyer Roleplaying and many other aspects that is suppose to be available to play, cause you can't afford things you should be able to afford and you don't have the time allowed to do any RP, nor any other non-combat game play aspects. Being a Murder Hobo might be fun sometimes but you already get plenty of that with computer/console RPGs and MMORPGs, but D&D was suppose to be much more then that and AL is making Murder Hobo'ism for peanuts the only option. You where suppose to have a lot more creative freedom that, you still can't program into a computer game to this day. Even Chris Roberts has failed at making a computer game with that desired level of play freedom. And now D&D is actually removing game play features it used to have, even to the point of imposing limits that should never exist for any reason.
The mere fact that the games current state of play and planned future state, has such limits as to actually have a perception of "Gold you shouldn't have" is just plain wrong and overly restrictive. And the limits as is, far too much of a choke hold on top of that, regardless of your perception of having or not having anything to spend it on. You can't claim any Roleplaying stuff if you are going to have such hard limits, that you can't even own a cart, horses and a merchant business in the process of the campaign and use that equipment as a mobile crafting base or run gathering resource supply runs, while being able to afford a couple of NPCs to help you manage your store, cart's, ect, as well as negotiate with other stores, nations, cities, churches, academies and guilds, all of which require being uncapped on gold, just to Roleplay.
You cap the gold, you destroy the game on all sides, from combat to all forms of roleplay, there is no defense for this. Who ever was writing the rules crossed that power tripping unethical authoritarian line that should never be crossed.
Any form of Gold cap also breaks the games own rules and play design in of itself. Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin Ranger, all of a max starting Gold possibility of 200 gold, if you get extremely lucky, just from the class starting funds dice role possibility. Both current and future gold rules are in direct conflict with Chapter 5: Equipment rules.
Owning things like Elephants, Warhorse, Carriages, Chariot or any waterborn vehicle that isn't a Rowboat is completely destroyed, regardless of Combat or Roleplay, Trade goods role play becomes highly limited, role playable Lifestyles becomes capped off or risk ruining anything you can do in order to support it. If your character is a heavy drinking, you have to weigh the cot of fin wine verse supplies in an artificially limited way, bases soley on the gold cap rules never letting you have more then a certain amount, so unless your a rogue that can steal the wine outright, you can never reasonably afford it.
No, Gold limiting Rules break the game entirely, thus should not even exist.
Being annoyed at one player in past games, who accumulated money and "ruined the game for everyone else" is not a valid defense, as most of the actions that would be taken, would have also been available to all other players, in those games of the past. If the character made their wealth threw being a merchant, or by gathering herbs and grinding them up into alchemy potions to sell, or by mining gems from a mine and jewelry crafting them into decorative jewelry too sell, or whatever else, every player at that time also had the option to do all those things just the same and simply didn't do it. So any complaints about a single super wealth character ruining the game for everyone else is a false argument that was actually on those players who did not want to take the time to gain their own wealth and equipment.
Gold capping rules are based on lies, hatred, jealous, laziness and an excessive covetous desire to control and destroy someone else. At no point should they exist or be enforced.
The current state of AL forces you to be a Murder Hobo. The gold cap plus the rushed nature of the sessions at the local comic book store, where you only have 4 to 6 hours of play with a DM that wants to get the campaign done and not extend it to a 2nd or 3rd or 4th session, destroyer Roleplaying and many other aspects that is suppose to be available to play, cause you can't afford things you should be able to afford and you don't have the time allowed to do any RP, nor any other non-combat game play aspects. Being a Murder Hobo might be fun sometimes but you already get plenty of that with computer/console RPGs and MMORPGs, but D&D was suppose to be much more then that and AL is making Murder Hobo'ism for peanuts the only option. You where suppose to have a lot more creative freedom that, you still can't program into a computer game to this day. Even Chris Roberts has failed at making a computer game with that desired level of play freedom. And now D&D is actually removing game play features it used to have, even to the point of imposing limits that should never exist for any reason.
I'm sorry you have had such a negative experience with AL. However, do you actually play AL?
In my experience, playing AL almost weekly, the season 8 rules have significantly INCREASED the amount of roleplay in AL as well as the characters attempting to resolve encounters without combat (this is due to the change to ACP from XP where maximizing XP in previous seasons often required killing everything that you possibly could including NPCs ... that was a true murder hobo environment and there were enough players who tried to maximize XP earned from every module that it was not an uncommon experience).
As for gold limitations in season 8, the only character where I have found it to be a hardship is my wizard who has spell copying and component expenses. Every other character has been able to buy a few healing potions (rather than a few hundred). Finally, AL has NEVER allowed characters to earn gold outside of what was awarded from modules. Characters could never be merchants selling trade goods for actual gold they would earn in game, they couldn't sell magic items for gold (trading for equal rarity was allowed). Basically, characters earned gold from adventuring in modules and that is ALL. Most of the methods you described to get wealthy are only applicable to home brew games and have NEVER worked in AL.
Finally, from a roleplaying perspective, the gold earned/level represents the AVERAGE net earnings the character manages to save at that level considering the money earned from adventuring less the expenses on lifestyle and other things. So if the character wants to role play buying fine wine then they can STILL go ahead and do so. On average they will still manage to save the 75gp/level in tier 1. The season 8 change doesn't change the gold from a roleplaying perspective, it only changes it in terms of giving the net gold that the average character has available after completing a level which gets added to their savings to purchase whatever items are available. It is more a matter of philosophy and how you look at gold income and it levels the playing field between characters playing different modules or with different DMs who may be more or less generous in terms of allowing the characters to find all the loot in a module. It is also more fair across group size where a group of 3 earns more than twice the gold/character as a group of 7 in the previous system.
Yes the gold limits have issues but in my experience they haven't really impacted how the game is played in the local game stores where I play and overall the season 8 changes have been far more positive than negative.
I have been playing AL for the past 3 months, sometime between 2 to 4 a week, having seen 8 DMs styles. And so far, every one of those groups have been closer to Murder Hobo's.
And have you read threw your own guide books? There are a lot of intended game play elements that exist in the guide books that are completely destroyed. Do I have to reference page numbers for you? Do you even role play?
You are trying to support something that shouldn't exist and using the guise of fairness to create a false argument. You are trying to oppress what someone has or can get, rather then having the natural response of an enemy that considers you a threat coming out of the woodwork and trying to kill you out of a sense of threat, greed or jealousy, the usual thing that happens to someone who amasses a lot of wealth and power.
AL has to directly break game mechanics that D&D was originally designed with, even in 5e. You need but read your books too see what gets broken with any form of gold cap rules and magic item limitations.
The mere fact that AL doesn't allow you to be a merchant is game breaking right then and there as being able to do so is part of D&D and role play. AL is doing things it should not be doing.
Trying to use a potion to heal takes an action during combat. So even if someone has 200 potions during a fight, they could only self heal them selves according to the potion they have and the action economy limits they have, per round. Something that can be easily negated by a dedicated healer who has all sorts of spell slots to cast all sorts of healing spells from single target to multi target healing, which negates most of your concern about someone who has 200 healing potions to begin with, nullifying your argument to limit someones ability to be able to afford doing that. In this, you have to be acting on jealousy to support limiting someone else in this gold cap manner. Your reasons for supporting a Gold cap limit is based on your own hostility and desire to control someone else, not on any real fairness. You are abusing fairness as an excuse to hide your personal hatred and desire to control.
You can't even claim out of combat either, as resting in both short and long rest heal you and gain spell slots back as well as good berry and song of rest from bards and any heal spells from available spell slots left over for a healer to burn on party members before a long rest. So any affect of a single person owning hundreds of potions is negated by many other powers, nullifying any reasonable argument you have to support gold capping and magic item limiting.
You have already pointed out a game play element that was destroyed by AL, without even realizing it, thinking that it was ok to destroy being able to have a merchant style mechanics both in RP and game play mechanics. You need but read the game play books to easily find others, from the cost of certain items, to things you can RP and how wealth plays a big role in it.
You support destroying D&D under the illusion of fairness.
I have been playing AL for the past 3 months, sometime between 2 to 4 a week, having seen 8 DMs styles. And so far, every one of those groups have been closer to Murder Hobo's.
And have you read threw your own guide books? There are a lot of intended game play elements that exist in the guide books that are completely destroyed. Do I have to reference page numbers for you? Do you even role play?
You are trying to support something that shouldn't exist and using the guise of fairness to create a false argument. You are trying to oppress what someone has or can get, rather then having the natural response of an enemy that considers you a threat coming out of the woodwork and trying to kill you out of a sense of threat, greed or jealousy, the usual thing that happens to someone who amasses a lot of wealth and power.
AL has to directly break game mechanics that D&D was originally designed with, even in 5e. You need but read your books too see what gets broken with any form of gold cap rules and magic item limitations.
The mere fact that AL doesn't allow you to be a merchant is game breaking right then and there as being able to do so is part of D&D and role play. AL is doing things it should not be doing.
Trying to use a potion to heal takes an action during combat. So even if someone has 200 potions during a fight, they could only self heal them selves according to the potion they have and the action economy limits they have, per round. Something that can be easily negated by a dedicated healer who has all sorts of spell slots to cast all sorts of healing spells from single target to multi target healing, which negates most of your concern about someone who has 200 healing potions to begin with, nullifying your argument to limit someones ability to be able to afford doing that. In this, you have to be acting on jealousy to support limiting someone else in this gold cap manner. Your reasons for supporting a Gold cap limit is based on your own hostility and desire to control someone else, not on any real fairness. You are abusing fairness as an excuse to hide your personal hatred and desire to control.
You can't even claim out of combat either, as resting in both short and long rest heal you and gain spell slots back as well as good berry and song of rest from bards and any heal spells from available spell slots left over for a healer to burn on party members before a long rest. So any affect of a single person owning hundreds of potions is negated by many other powers, nullifying any reasonable argument you have to support gold capping and magic item limiting.
First :) ... I'd like to point out that I have no official association with AL whatsoever. I've read the available material. Made complaints about the gold limits placed on season 8 and how it isn't fair to certain classes. I don't think they listen to me any more than anyone else.
I am not hostile towards you, the game, other players or DMs :). I've been playing AL more or less weekly for the past couple of years and try to keep up with what is going on via social media and through friends at the local game store who are more connected than I.
I completely agree with you that AL does not provide the full spectrum of role play experiences that is available in a home game of D&D.
That said, AL has never promised this, it attempts to get as close as is reasonable for a shared game environment where the same modules are played across the world and where people can take a character that they have played in Canada, India or China and take the same character and expect to be able to play it at a convention in the US without people needing to worry about DMs that give out magic items and gold like candy so that one level 5 has 16 magic items, 200,000gp and the best magical weapons and armor available while another character has 1 magic item and 50gp because the DM was less generous. AL creates a common basis so that the two characters created in different parts of the world, played with many different DMs should still be roughly comparable in capability when played together.
Season 7 and earlier did this by giving an XP range for each module and limited treasure and awarded one magic item which was distributed based on which character had the least magic getting the first choice. Unfortunately, this system really encouraged being murder hobos over role play because maximum XP and loot often required killing everything. Gold was limited by the modules you played. The XP and gold are the more traditional methods used in D&D (I've been playing since 1e).
I am sorry to hear that the tables where you play tend to be populated with murder hobos in season 8. In my experience, the situation in season 8 is MUCH better than earlier seasons. In previous seasons, role play could be seen as a waste of time preventing characters from receiving maximum XP. Now that XP/ACP is awarded for playing the module (including role playing) the situation at my local game store is much better. I can role play my character, social interactions can be played out, every encounter doesn't necessarily become a fight for max XP. At least where I play, season 8 is much improved from a role play perspective.
Since characters are supposed to be roughly comparable, AL does NOT have mechanisms for characters to earn unlimited funds by being merchants or plying a trade. These require a fully developed game world with a DM who can balance income with expenses for the characters in the world they build. However, in AL, you play with different players and different DMs every week. There is limited continuity and the only way to create fairness between the opportunities presented to each character is to limit or eliminate some of those opportunities so that in the end when these characters end up being played at the same table then characters of comparable level are of comparable power and wealth. It isn't perfect, it is a design goal and AL is only partially effective at it, and folks can cheat if they feel so inclined. However, it works for most folks but anyone playing AL pretty soon realizes the constraints imposed by AL on the play environment in an effort to keep a more or less even playing field for everyone.
Finally, there is nothing that AL can do to "break" D&D. D&D is a role playing system that is different at every table and for every DM. Some folks run low or high magic campaigns, low or high wealth, ones that focus on combat, politics, social interactions, exploration ... the number of campaigns is as different as the number of DMs. The AL campaign is just a subset of D&D and doesn't break anything since D&D can be played however any particular group feels like playing it. AL is just a somewhat larger group that has imposed a number of extra rules that most tables wouldn't use so that AL can accommodate thousands or potentially millions of players all receiving roughly comparable play experiences and rewards for their characters all over the world.
Anyway, I'm sorry that your local experience isn't the way you would like, I'd suggest seeing if anyone is running a home brew game where you can find the full range of possible character activities.
How much of the game will be destroyed under a false argument of fairness? What will be killed next, in the effort to achieve "balance" against someone elses personal hatred and jealous manifesting in their desire to control someone else threw cleverly concealing there intent behind an illusion of fairness? How often do we have to watch a great game burned to the ground because of that false idea, deceptive misuse of fairness?
If you are willing to destroy one players ability to do the same thing another player can still do in another way as part of their class and skill, are you then going to turn around and destroy that other character class and abilities, because now they can do something that I can no longer do, out of fairness?
The path you follow is a path of historical destruction.
What will you destroy next, under the illusion of fairness? Tiny Hut? Make it where you can't cast it more then once a week? Are you going to give a separate heal charge to healing spells, where not only does the heal spell use up a spell slot, but it also uses up a weekly usage slot? Is Song of rest going to be limited to once a week? Is casting goodberry going to be capped off as well, to a max of 50 per day? all in the name of fairness? This is the path your false argument goes. It will destroy the game and any decisions made going this direction should be reversed.
If this is what AL is going to do to D&D, then AL needs to be stopped, before it destroys anything else in D&D.
The way the game modules play out, feel like they are connected to a fully developed game world and the module is just a section of it.
Using DMs who give out gold and magic items like candy is an extreme example fallacious that could happen anywhere, so it wouldn't matter where the player came from. One players nation of origins is not justification for a gold and item cap. An extreme cases are usually far less common then your perspective implies.
Since the AL modules are based on a completed world, the mechanics of a merchant should not be legitimately affected. Without a base world, the modules wouldn't be able to flow together and shown to you in the module pieces. So the destruction of the ability to be a merchant is based on a lie. You wouldn't have so many common city names between modules if there wasn't a larger complete world those modules are connected too, so the very world economy you claim doesn't exist, actually does exist.
AL is suppose to be an extension of the D&D universe, so it is bound by it. Saying it "doesn't promise to give the full D&D experience" is no excuse as it inherits what D&D is suppose to be, by being an extension of D&D, so it inherits that promise. It is made from D&D so it is bound by D&D. Not following threw is a betrayal.
Destroying entire game play mechanics for everyone is the wrong way to handle candy factory DMs and doesn't address the actual problem. As things are now, you simply punished everyone for the actions of a rare few extreme DM cases, rather then writing the rules to mitigate those candy factory DMs. It wasn't necessary to destroy entire game play elements to deal with only a handful of candy factory DMs. Most of these problems are usually mitigated by having campaign reward range limits from the quest giving NPC. If your next argument is about loot inside the actual area of play, when doing all your skill checks searching for items, there is a loot table that uses percentage dice, so the Candy Factory DM problem is also already has rules to mitigate the Candy Factory DM problems. Rules and methods that exist before AL. So AL does break D&D, especially when it had a rule to deal with the Candy Factory DM problem that AL should have simply insisted that it be used, all be it, needing slightly better rewards at earlier dice roll chances by 6 to 8 points. With that method, it is plenty difficult to get loot. after that, if you still get lucky enough to get that 200,000 at best gear at level 5, then you should be allowed too keep it. You should not have a cap on earning anything, just because someones jealous is hidden under a illusionary mask of fairness, that they try to play off as not harboring jealousy, threw token politeness imagery and PR head games.
You shouldn't be telling people that they are not allowed to have something because you don't like the fact that they have it and you don't, especially if they earn it and wasn't handed to them like candy. Other wise, you create monstrosities that destroy freedom, creativity and erode the desire to try, since there is no reasonable chance for progress. Otherwise You may as well be on Government disability payments and told you can never have more then $2000.00 on hand or in your bank account combined, while being limited to 20 hour work weeks, only allowed to go over that for 9 months in which each month only resets only after 5 years from that month.
The tools and rules needed to deal with the problems you suggest is a problem, are already handled by rules in 5e, before you get to AL. The real problem was the fact that those rules didn't get used. AL's method completely mishandles that problem of not enforcing the current rules, by making outlandishly restrictive rules that lead to apathy, due to how it punishes everyone.
With rules existing to already address the problems ignored. The reasoning left top push the rules into capping off gold earnings per level or what every, and saying "you should not be able to have more then this amount" becomes soley rooted in hatred and jealousy. The rules to deal with candy factory DMs already existed and merely needed to be enforced. The mere existence of those rules removes the foundations for using Candy Factory DMs as an argument to justify gold and loot caps as they exist in AL 1 threw 9. With there being fundamentally no bases other then hatred jealousy and the desire to control to be the root of why those capping rules exist, any politeness and civility is nothing more then deceptive PR head game cover.
As far as XP points and leveling goes, limiting XP rewards to only combat kills is a very bad, cultural wide problem that is seen in almost everything, despite the fact that every successful act should grant XP, from healing, to diplomacy to crafting, not limited to creature kills and destruction. It is a lesson that a lot of entertainment makers needs too learn. So far, I have only seen 3 games the award XP for everything you do, those games would be Minecraft, 7 Days 2 Die and PlanetSide 2.
If you want to encourage role playing, like D&D should, XP must be rewarded for acts of diplomacy and usage of other skills must grant XP as well. you should be able to level up based on just being a dedicated healer, crafter, diplomat, merchant, construction contractor, guild master, taxi driver, ship crew, galley chef or whatever. There shouldn't be anything stopping you from being the Galley Chef that is also a monk that guides your parties carriage and feeds your horse and then turn your Carriage into a battering ram to bust down that door to the crypt that has the lich you need too meet and still gain XP to your next level while cooking bacon and eggs on that carriage, as the chef sorts the next handful of hay for the horses. +10 more XP per horse fed. 20 more XP for successfully cooking the dish, just before the chef stuns a skeleton, +5 more XP for the successful stun, + 10 for party member being fed +5 to the chef when party member receives a 1d6 heal form eating breakfast.
A DM who was managing a game I recently played said that season 9 was going to have gold as a reward. My first thought was a positive response of "great! we finally will get a proper gold reward for our efforts! How things are suppose to be!"
Then that DM added, "but they will also limit how much gold you can keep, so for instance, if the cap is 100 gold, you have a party of 5, and the reward is 500 gold, you each get 100 gold and anything over that you won't be allowed to keep, no matter what..."
Now I am like "WTF is this BS! A gold reward cap?! I can understand the need for evenly distributing gold rewards between party members after quest turn in, but to out right cap the gold you can end the quest or level with entirely? Surely that is a lie? Surely such a thing would be the type of, cross the line, unacceptable authoritarian oppression that cannot be allowed as a rule!"
This DM was BSing when he made the second comment right? If he isn't, and that kind of "gone too far, gold cap" actually does exist, I think every DM in their right mind should rebel against that limit and regardless of any official rules made, completely ignore any gold capping rules. And don't waste my time with false claims of game balance as a reason. You are suppose to have the freedom to afford equipment and upgrades with far more flexibility then intentional gold capping permits. Using "game Balance" as an excuse destroys the fun and the freedom of game play that is suppose to exist.
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The problem with gold in AL is that some modules reward too much and some not enough. Some characters acquired vast fortunes and others less fortunate did not.
With enough gold, things like spell casting services become trivial to afford. Death is pretty meaningless if you have enough gold for True Resurrection. This creates a disparity between the character with a bag of holding containing 200 healing potions and any other consumable they want to purchase vs a character without that safety net. One character jumps into things without really caring whether they live or die, they can take risks, they can actually disrupt the play experience of everyone else in the group because they have so much gold everything else doesn't matter to them.
I think this is the problem that the revised gold rules were trying to fix. Personally, I think they went too far because some classes need gold more than others. The current level of 75gp/level in tier 1, 150gp/level in tier 2 etc ... give enough to buy a few healing potions and most mundane items. They don't reward enough to purchase spell casting services, to purchase material components for most spells, to copy any more than the required minimum of spells for wizards, or to purchase a breastplate/half-plate/full plate armor at an appropriate level.
The complaint about season 8 gold rewards was that it removed any motivation for the characters to actually find treasure. Why open that chest that could be trapped? Why explore the secret room? "You can't keep the treasure so why bother?" This is actually meta-gaming at its worst. The CHARACTER in the game would hunt for treasure since they need it to pay bills, buy food and other supplies. However, by the time they level up they realize that they only (on average) have about 75gp left/level in tier 1 to buy unusual stuff or save up. That is what the gp/level represents. The characters still want the treasure since they need it ... players meta-game it and say why bother since I get my 75gp/level when I level up anyway so it doesn't matter.
Now comes season 9, which I consider another band aid fix. Facing meta-game complaints about why bother looking for treasure since I can't keep it, they decide to let folks keep some of the treasure they find with a cap to stop the gold accumulation issue discussed at the beginning. There are two problems with this. Although there are a lot of modules that award large some of treasure, there are some that don't award much if any. In these cases, if the modules are run, the characters will actually end up with LESS gold/level than they would under the existing system. A seven player table in a tier 1 module that has 300gp to be found (if they players find it all) would only earn about 43gp/character for that level. Gold rewards could actually be WORSE under this season 9 rule.
However, to your original question. Yes the plan appears to be to award gold by dividing the amount found among the characters and then imposing a cap.
As irritating as someone becoming reckless and careless is, destroying the ability to save up gold and making a gold cap at all destroys the game.
Going from a few wreck-less people who can afford everything, to no one wanting to try is the worst case scenario that shouldn't ever happen, so capping off gold is the wrong answer. If you destroy the opportunity to advance, you destroy the opportunity to want to play, unless you get DMs that say "*F* this rule" even in Adventure league.
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There is a better way to deal with players who accumulate gold. Add a prestige aggro mechanic to the game, as well as a Prestige Karma Mechanic.
With wealth, comes fame, with fame comes enemies. The more wealth and power you accumulate, the more Prestige aggro you accumulate, so the more often a random and progressively more powerful hit on you form another wealth entity will target and attack you, sending enemies that have progressively better gear and supplies. If you can have a bag of holding filled with 200 health potions, so can they.
The direction of your Prestige Karma can also affect who comes after you and for what reasons, as well as what kind of support you can expect from what faction and alignment. A lawful good character would be attacked by chaotic evil attackers and vise versa! A Neutral Evil rogue stealiong things for higher, could get support from a thieves guild and members of underground market systems, when attacked by a well funded Neutral Good Druid that is supported by a local druidic guild.
That is how this situation concerning super rich characters that become wreckless should be handled, not this CAP EVERYONE'S GOLD AND OPPRESS THE MASSES BS!
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Things such as Dungeon encounters can shift due to a Prestige Aggro/Karma system, where a normal dungeon run that has certain enemies could now have 2 or 3 hired hit NPCs that specifically target the wealth member, because that party members wealth and prestige are either, considered a threat to someone or simply wants what that player has so is motivated by greed to kill the player and loot his corpse.
Other things like adding more traps then would normally exist, while an invisible attack who is hiding and watching the party, while having an invisible runner, ready to send word to the next group in another room, that wouldn't have been there, had the player with wealth and prestige not been so wealth and famous, thus not provoking the interest of wealth and famous or infamous NPCs.
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Just a couple of points ..
1) Your suggestion to penalize anyone who accumulates gold by essentially trying to kill off their character with additional targeted threats in game would likely bother people MUCH more than a gold cap. What level do you set this karma thing at? What do all of the other players at the table do while these karma generated threats attack the character with the most gold? What happens when other folks characters die due to additional threats that the party can't deal with?
Honestly, this suggestion is far worse than anything the AL organizers have come up with.
2) In AL there is almost nothing to spend gold on anyway.
- potions
- plate and half plate armor
- spell material components (some of the most expensive items - and you can use treasure points to buy the scroll and have an NPC cast it anyway if you need it)
- copying spells
You don't NEED to accumulate gold in AL since there isn't much to spend it on. The only real objection I have to limiting gold is that it harms some classes more than others. Cleric and Wizard have expensive spell components, wizard needs to copy spells, medium and heavy armor users would like to be able to afford mundane armor before tier 3 where they can get the magical versions for less anyway.
Season 8 capped gold at a certain amount earned at level up. It has worked ok but I can see that it doesn't motivate folks to necessarily find all the treasure in the module. I think the new system has bigger flaws but I don't think capping is one of them ... simply that the cap should be either higher, vary a bit depending on your class, or costs of the items that affect specific classes should be adjusted.
Characters in AL receive advancement check points, treasure points, magic item unlocks, gold and story awards. Capping the gold awarded doesn't reduce any of the other rewards received so personally, I don't find the concept unworkable ... just the amounts being used.
Finally, if you don't like the gold cap then you will probably hate that Season 9 divides characters into Season 9 and Legacy (associated with seasons 1-8). A Legacy character playing season 9 content does NOT receive either magic item unlocks or story awards. A season 9 character playing season 1-8 content does NOT receive either magic item unlocks or story awards. Both kinds of characters can play CCC and season agnostic content and receive full rewards. Personally, I find this a lot worse than a gold cap since magic items and story awards are two key categories of rewards from playing modules and there will be modules where each type of character can play but not receive all the usual rewards.
if you wwere curious, here's the announcement:
https://dndadventurersleague.org/zeroing-in-on-gold/
so yes, they (at the moment) intend on capping the gold avaliable on a per-hour basis, its true, but by the same point, theya re giving the DM free reign to hand out any gold that they see fit during an adventure (so that sneaky theif that loots the hidden chest, or pickposkets the noble, yep, he can keep ALL that gold now)
as to seasonality, those season 9 character, by counter-point will be freely able to PLAY in Season 4 and 7 content without issue (no recieving the "Trapped in the mists" or "Death Curse" which makes those modules a little less incentive to run)
when i first heard that you can get more gold in Season 9 i was happy for playing my Rogue again but then i found out my Thief Rogue is getting screwed by it. What ever he can steal from npcs or from crimes count towards my Gold cap for the game this sucks.
Well it is not a "cap" there is a total amount you can earn per game but it is much more than most Season 1-7 adventures even handed out.
During all of the seasons in AL if you tried to pickpocket an NPC the DM would scramble to figure out what to do because that was not in the adventure. It usually meant stealing from Paul to pay Mary and since in S1-7 everyone shared in the rewards what you stole went to the party and you. NOW in S9 every player has a gold limit for the session and what you take is yours. The DM has much more leeway to do this and at the end of the day you get your gold as opposed to waiting to level.
Honestly I'm pretty excited for the change to gold, its certainly better than what we have now.
I'm playing 2 AL campaigns at the moment with the same DM, but the second one has so far been so much more fun, largely just because the DM has basically ignored the rules on gold and decided to reward it the way the adventures suggest anyway, which has given our party a reason to be doing what we're doing and given us a sense of achievement, its allowed me to take risks, and sometimes be rewarded for it while roleplaying my pirate character. It seems to have also helped the rest of the party lean into their character''s more because we feel more immersed in the game.
On the other hand the other campaign (waterdeep: dragon heist) has regularly felt kind of pointless, and often it feels like the adventure expects us to be able to invest money into it, but we just can't. I've come away from several sessions of that campaign feeling completely defeated, which is even more frustrating as I use D&D as a way of escaping.
The only problem with what you describe is that giving out the gold found in the module isn't legal for AL in season 8. If you play the character anywhere else then folks can look at the log sheet and see that you received more than the 75gp/level in tier 1 (and other tiers) and then simply refuse to allow you to play the character because it isn't AL legal or force you to go through changing anything you may have purchased with gold you shouldn't have. I agree with you that the game is more fun with rewards but they are a role playing aspect ... the CHARACTER in the game will still receive gold, that is what they are working for, they are motivated by what the character in the module finds. However, it is the PLAYER that feels motivated by the DM handing out goodies. The character receives gold, spends gold and nets an average of 75gp/level. It is up to the player to spin that, make their character spend lots of the "gold" they find, but by the end of the day they only have 75gp (in tier 1) left.
Up to you how you play it but handing out gold creates characters that aren't AL legal which could be a problem (though not if you only ever play with the same folks at the same table).
The mere fact that the games current state of play and planned future state, has such limits as to actually have a perception of "Gold you shouldn't have" is just plain wrong and overly restrictive. And the limits as is, far too much of a choke hold on top of that, regardless of your perception of having or not having anything to spend it on. You can't claim any Roleplaying stuff if you are going to have such hard limits, that you can't even own a cart, horses and a merchant business in the process of the campaign and use that equipment as a mobile crafting base or run gathering resource supply runs, while being able to afford a couple of NPCs to help you manage your store, cart's, ect, as well as negotiate with other stores, nations, cities, churches, academies and guilds, all of which require being uncapped on gold, just to Roleplay.
You cap the gold, you destroy the game on all sides, from combat to all forms of roleplay, there is no defense for this. Who ever was writing the rules crossed that power tripping unethical authoritarian line that should never be crossed.
Any form of Gold cap also breaks the games own rules and play design in of itself. Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Paladin Ranger, all of a max starting Gold possibility of 200 gold, if you get extremely lucky, just from the class starting funds dice role possibility. Both current and future gold rules are in direct conflict with Chapter 5: Equipment rules.
Owning things like Elephants, Warhorse, Carriages, Chariot or any waterborn vehicle that isn't a Rowboat is completely destroyed, regardless of Combat or Roleplay, Trade goods role play becomes highly limited, role playable Lifestyles becomes capped off or risk ruining anything you can do in order to support it. If your character is a heavy drinking, you have to weigh the cot of fin wine verse supplies in an artificially limited way, bases soley on the gold cap rules never letting you have more then a certain amount, so unless your a rogue that can steal the wine outright, you can never reasonably afford it.
No, Gold limiting Rules break the game entirely, thus should not even exist.
Being annoyed at one player in past games, who accumulated money and "ruined the game for everyone else" is not a valid defense, as most of the actions that would be taken, would have also been available to all other players, in those games of the past. If the character made their wealth threw being a merchant, or by gathering herbs and grinding them up into alchemy potions to sell, or by mining gems from a mine and jewelry crafting them into decorative jewelry too sell, or whatever else, every player at that time also had the option to do all those things just the same and simply didn't do it. So any complaints about a single super wealth character ruining the game for everyone else is a false argument that was actually on those players who did not want to take the time to gain their own wealth and equipment.
Gold capping rules are based on lies, hatred, jealous, laziness and an excessive covetous desire to control and destroy someone else. At no point should they exist or be enforced.
The current state of AL forces you to be a Murder Hobo. The gold cap plus the rushed nature of the sessions at the local comic book store, where you only have 4 to 6 hours of play with a DM that wants to get the campaign done and not extend it to a 2nd or 3rd or 4th session, destroyer Roleplaying and many other aspects that is suppose to be available to play, cause you can't afford things you should be able to afford and you don't have the time allowed to do any RP, nor any other non-combat game play aspects. Being a Murder Hobo might be fun sometimes but you already get plenty of that with computer/console RPGs and MMORPGs, but D&D was suppose to be much more then that and AL is making Murder Hobo'ism for peanuts the only option. You where suppose to have a lot more creative freedom that, you still can't program into a computer game to this day. Even Chris Roberts has failed at making a computer game with that desired level of play freedom. And now D&D is actually removing game play features it used to have, even to the point of imposing limits that should never exist for any reason.
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I'm sorry you have had such a negative experience with AL. However, do you actually play AL?
In my experience, playing AL almost weekly, the season 8 rules have significantly INCREASED the amount of roleplay in AL as well as the characters attempting to resolve encounters without combat (this is due to the change to ACP from XP where maximizing XP in previous seasons often required killing everything that you possibly could including NPCs ... that was a true murder hobo environment and there were enough players who tried to maximize XP earned from every module that it was not an uncommon experience).
As for gold limitations in season 8, the only character where I have found it to be a hardship is my wizard who has spell copying and component expenses. Every other character has been able to buy a few healing potions (rather than a few hundred). Finally, AL has NEVER allowed characters to earn gold outside of what was awarded from modules. Characters could never be merchants selling trade goods for actual gold they would earn in game, they couldn't sell magic items for gold (trading for equal rarity was allowed). Basically, characters earned gold from adventuring in modules and that is ALL. Most of the methods you described to get wealthy are only applicable to home brew games and have NEVER worked in AL.
Finally, from a roleplaying perspective, the gold earned/level represents the AVERAGE net earnings the character manages to save at that level considering the money earned from adventuring less the expenses on lifestyle and other things. So if the character wants to role play buying fine wine then they can STILL go ahead and do so. On average they will still manage to save the 75gp/level in tier 1. The season 8 change doesn't change the gold from a roleplaying perspective, it only changes it in terms of giving the net gold that the average character has available after completing a level which gets added to their savings to purchase whatever items are available. It is more a matter of philosophy and how you look at gold income and it levels the playing field between characters playing different modules or with different DMs who may be more or less generous in terms of allowing the characters to find all the loot in a module. It is also more fair across group size where a group of 3 earns more than twice the gold/character as a group of 7 in the previous system.
Yes the gold limits have issues but in my experience they haven't really impacted how the game is played in the local game stores where I play and overall the season 8 changes have been far more positive than negative.
I have been playing AL for the past 3 months, sometime between 2 to 4 a week, having seen 8 DMs styles. And so far, every one of those groups have been closer to Murder Hobo's.
And have you read threw your own guide books? There are a lot of intended game play elements that exist in the guide books that are completely destroyed. Do I have to reference page numbers for you? Do you even role play?
You are trying to support something that shouldn't exist and using the guise of fairness to create a false argument. You are trying to oppress what someone has or can get, rather then having the natural response of an enemy that considers you a threat coming out of the woodwork and trying to kill you out of a sense of threat, greed or jealousy, the usual thing that happens to someone who amasses a lot of wealth and power.
AL has to directly break game mechanics that D&D was originally designed with, even in 5e. You need but read your books too see what gets broken with any form of gold cap rules and magic item limitations.
The mere fact that AL doesn't allow you to be a merchant is game breaking right then and there as being able to do so is part of D&D and role play. AL is doing things it should not be doing.
Trying to use a potion to heal takes an action during combat. So even if someone has 200 potions during a fight, they could only self heal them selves according to the potion they have and the action economy limits they have, per round. Something that can be easily negated by a dedicated healer who has all sorts of spell slots to cast all sorts of healing spells from single target to multi target healing, which negates most of your concern about someone who has 200 healing potions to begin with, nullifying your argument to limit someones ability to be able to afford doing that. In this, you have to be acting on jealousy to support limiting someone else in this gold cap manner. Your reasons for supporting a Gold cap limit is based on your own hostility and desire to control someone else, not on any real fairness. You are abusing fairness as an excuse to hide your personal hatred and desire to control.
You can't even claim out of combat either, as resting in both short and long rest heal you and gain spell slots back as well as good berry and song of rest from bards and any heal spells from available spell slots left over for a healer to burn on party members before a long rest. So any affect of a single person owning hundreds of potions is negated by many other powers, nullifying any reasonable argument you have to support gold capping and magic item limiting.
You have already pointed out a game play element that was destroyed by AL, without even realizing it, thinking that it was ok to destroy being able to have a merchant style mechanics both in RP and game play mechanics. You need but read the game play books to easily find others, from the cost of certain items, to things you can RP and how wealth plays a big role in it.
You support destroying D&D under the illusion of fairness.
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First :) ... I'd like to point out that I have no official association with AL whatsoever. I've read the available material. Made complaints about the gold limits placed on season 8 and how it isn't fair to certain classes. I don't think they listen to me any more than anyone else.
I am not hostile towards you, the game, other players or DMs :). I've been playing AL more or less weekly for the past couple of years and try to keep up with what is going on via social media and through friends at the local game store who are more connected than I.
I completely agree with you that AL does not provide the full spectrum of role play experiences that is available in a home game of D&D.
That said, AL has never promised this, it attempts to get as close as is reasonable for a shared game environment where the same modules are played across the world and where people can take a character that they have played in Canada, India or China and take the same character and expect to be able to play it at a convention in the US without people needing to worry about DMs that give out magic items and gold like candy so that one level 5 has 16 magic items, 200,000gp and the best magical weapons and armor available while another character has 1 magic item and 50gp because the DM was less generous. AL creates a common basis so that the two characters created in different parts of the world, played with many different DMs should still be roughly comparable in capability when played together.
Season 7 and earlier did this by giving an XP range for each module and limited treasure and awarded one magic item which was distributed based on which character had the least magic getting the first choice. Unfortunately, this system really encouraged being murder hobos over role play because maximum XP and loot often required killing everything. Gold was limited by the modules you played. The XP and gold are the more traditional methods used in D&D (I've been playing since 1e).
I am sorry to hear that the tables where you play tend to be populated with murder hobos in season 8. In my experience, the situation in season 8 is MUCH better than earlier seasons. In previous seasons, role play could be seen as a waste of time preventing characters from receiving maximum XP. Now that XP/ACP is awarded for playing the module (including role playing) the situation at my local game store is much better. I can role play my character, social interactions can be played out, every encounter doesn't necessarily become a fight for max XP. At least where I play, season 8 is much improved from a role play perspective.
Since characters are supposed to be roughly comparable, AL does NOT have mechanisms for characters to earn unlimited funds by being merchants or plying a trade. These require a fully developed game world with a DM who can balance income with expenses for the characters in the world they build. However, in AL, you play with different players and different DMs every week. There is limited continuity and the only way to create fairness between the opportunities presented to each character is to limit or eliminate some of those opportunities so that in the end when these characters end up being played at the same table then characters of comparable level are of comparable power and wealth. It isn't perfect, it is a design goal and AL is only partially effective at it, and folks can cheat if they feel so inclined. However, it works for most folks but anyone playing AL pretty soon realizes the constraints imposed by AL on the play environment in an effort to keep a more or less even playing field for everyone.
Finally, there is nothing that AL can do to "break" D&D. D&D is a role playing system that is different at every table and for every DM. Some folks run low or high magic campaigns, low or high wealth, ones that focus on combat, politics, social interactions, exploration ... the number of campaigns is as different as the number of DMs. The AL campaign is just a subset of D&D and doesn't break anything since D&D can be played however any particular group feels like playing it. AL is just a somewhat larger group that has imposed a number of extra rules that most tables wouldn't use so that AL can accommodate thousands or potentially millions of players all receiving roughly comparable play experiences and rewards for their characters all over the world.
Anyway, I'm sorry that your local experience isn't the way you would like, I'd suggest seeing if anyone is running a home brew game where you can find the full range of possible character activities.
How much of the game will be destroyed under a false argument of fairness? What will be killed next, in the effort to achieve "balance" against someone elses personal hatred and jealous manifesting in their desire to control someone else threw cleverly concealing there intent behind an illusion of fairness? How often do we have to watch a great game burned to the ground because of that false idea, deceptive misuse of fairness?
If you are willing to destroy one players ability to do the same thing another player can still do in another way as part of their class and skill, are you then going to turn around and destroy that other character class and abilities, because now they can do something that I can no longer do, out of fairness?
The path you follow is a path of historical destruction.
What will you destroy next, under the illusion of fairness? Tiny Hut? Make it where you can't cast it more then once a week? Are you going to give a separate heal charge to healing spells, where not only does the heal spell use up a spell slot, but it also uses up a weekly usage slot? Is Song of rest going to be limited to once a week? Is casting goodberry going to be capped off as well, to a max of 50 per day? all in the name of fairness? This is the path your false argument goes. It will destroy the game and any decisions made going this direction should be reversed.
If this is what AL is going to do to D&D, then AL needs to be stopped, before it destroys anything else in D&D.
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The way the game modules play out, feel like they are connected to a fully developed game world and the module is just a section of it.
Using DMs who give out gold and magic items like candy is an extreme example fallacious that could happen anywhere, so it wouldn't matter where the player came from. One players nation of origins is not justification for a gold and item cap. An extreme cases are usually far less common then your perspective implies.
Since the AL modules are based on a completed world, the mechanics of a merchant should not be legitimately affected. Without a base world, the modules wouldn't be able to flow together and shown to you in the module pieces. So the destruction of the ability to be a merchant is based on a lie. You wouldn't have so many common city names between modules if there wasn't a larger complete world those modules are connected too, so the very world economy you claim doesn't exist, actually does exist.
AL is suppose to be an extension of the D&D universe, so it is bound by it. Saying it "doesn't promise to give the full D&D experience" is no excuse as it inherits what D&D is suppose to be, by being an extension of D&D, so it inherits that promise. It is made from D&D so it is bound by D&D. Not following threw is a betrayal.
Destroying entire game play mechanics for everyone is the wrong way to handle candy factory DMs and doesn't address the actual problem. As things are now, you simply punished everyone for the actions of a rare few extreme DM cases, rather then writing the rules to mitigate those candy factory DMs. It wasn't necessary to destroy entire game play elements to deal with only a handful of candy factory DMs. Most of these problems are usually mitigated by having campaign reward range limits from the quest giving NPC. If your next argument is about loot inside the actual area of play, when doing all your skill checks searching for items, there is a loot table that uses percentage dice, so the Candy Factory DM problem is also already has rules to mitigate the Candy Factory DM problems. Rules and methods that exist before AL. So AL does break D&D, especially when it had a rule to deal with the Candy Factory DM problem that AL should have simply insisted that it be used, all be it, needing slightly better rewards at earlier dice roll chances by 6 to 8 points. With that method, it is plenty difficult to get loot. after that, if you still get lucky enough to get that 200,000 at best gear at level 5, then you should be allowed too keep it. You should not have a cap on earning anything, just because someones jealous is hidden under a illusionary mask of fairness, that they try to play off as not harboring jealousy, threw token politeness imagery and PR head games.
You shouldn't be telling people that they are not allowed to have something because you don't like the fact that they have it and you don't, especially if they earn it and wasn't handed to them like candy. Other wise, you create monstrosities that destroy freedom, creativity and erode the desire to try, since there is no reasonable chance for progress. Otherwise You may as well be on Government disability payments and told you can never have more then $2000.00 on hand or in your bank account combined, while being limited to 20 hour work weeks, only allowed to go over that for 9 months in which each month only resets only after 5 years from that month.
The tools and rules needed to deal with the problems you suggest is a problem, are already handled by rules in 5e, before you get to AL. The real problem was the fact that those rules didn't get used. AL's method completely mishandles that problem of not enforcing the current rules, by making outlandishly restrictive rules that lead to apathy, due to how it punishes everyone.
With rules existing to already address the problems ignored. The reasoning left top push the rules into capping off gold earnings per level or what every, and saying "you should not be able to have more then this amount" becomes soley rooted in hatred and jealousy. The rules to deal with candy factory DMs already existed and merely needed to be enforced. The mere existence of those rules removes the foundations for using Candy Factory DMs as an argument to justify gold and loot caps as they exist in AL 1 threw 9. With there being fundamentally no bases other then hatred jealousy and the desire to control to be the root of why those capping rules exist, any politeness and civility is nothing more then deceptive PR head game cover.
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I wish you the best of luck finding a D&D campaign that you will enjoy since AL doesn't sound like it works for you.
As far as XP points and leveling goes, limiting XP rewards to only combat kills is a very bad, cultural wide problem that is seen in almost everything, despite the fact that every successful act should grant XP, from healing, to diplomacy to crafting, not limited to creature kills and destruction. It is a lesson that a lot of entertainment makers needs too learn. So far, I have only seen 3 games the award XP for everything you do, those games would be Minecraft, 7 Days 2 Die and PlanetSide 2.
If you want to encourage role playing, like D&D should, XP must be rewarded for acts of diplomacy and usage of other skills must grant XP as well. you should be able to level up based on just being a dedicated healer, crafter, diplomat, merchant, construction contractor, guild master, taxi driver, ship crew, galley chef or whatever. There shouldn't be anything stopping you from being the Galley Chef that is also a monk that guides your parties carriage and feeds your horse and then turn your Carriage into a battering ram to bust down that door to the crypt that has the lich you need too meet and still gain XP to your next level while cooking bacon and eggs on that carriage, as the chef sorts the next handful of hay for the horses. +10 more XP per horse fed. 20 more XP for successfully cooking the dish, just before the chef stuns a skeleton, +5 more XP for the successful stun,
+ 10 for party member being fed +5 to the chef when party member receives a 1d6 heal form eating breakfast.
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