How powerful are charged magic items meant to be?

[Endarire]

I'm also not a fan of random treasure unless the party is already stocked.  I prefer to hand out money or credit or Noticeable Plot Items as rewards.

[SorO_Lost]

WBL in fact ignores consumables from your last level. You could have blown your entire 13th level budget on scrolls, but at level 12 you're to have X in gear.

Do you know where it says that? I've heard this before but never found it.

The closest I've found is comparing running the numbers for treasure per encounter and multiplying it to the WBL charts. I think there's about a 10% fudge factor there, or something, which is likely to account for consumables, inns, booze, and hookers. Or their math is stupid, which wouldn't surprise me either. If you fight mixed groups of monsters instead of one CR X every fight, you get different amounts of treasure. If you fight just NPCs or just animals, you get a widely different amount, too.

It's a conclusion, an extreme one certainly, but WBL is what you are supposed to be at and the DM is to ensure you are.

My DMG isn't OCRed but I used an online site so excuse the mispellings.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN: TREASURE VALUES There's a relationship between Table 5-1: Charaoer Wealth Level. Table 3-5: Treasure, and Table 3-2: Encounter Difficulty Writing adventures following the guidelines in this chapter. and using Table 3-2: Encounter Difficulty, should generate enough unsure using Table 3-5: Treasure to keep characters abreast of the wealth figures described it, Table 5-1 In fact, such adventures should provide more wealth, because characters expend some money on scrolls, potions. ammunition, and foot all of which get used up in the course of adventuring As you can see, rewards using these tables generate more wealth than indicated. We assume characters use up that additional money on expenses such as being raised from the dead, potions. scrolls, ammunition, food, and so forth. Your Job is to compare the wealth pined from the encounters in your adventure with the expected wealth gain shown on the table above. If your adventure has more treasure, reduce it. If your adven. lure has less treasure, plant enough treasure not related to en-counters to match the value (see Other Treasure, below). Your lob Is also to make sure that wealth gets evenly distributed. The third column in the table above shows that each character should get an equal share of the treasure from an adventure. If a single Item, such as a magic staff, makes up most of the treasure, then most of the party earns nothing for their hard work. While you can make it up to them in later adventures, it is best to use the methods described in this chapter to ensure an even distribution of wealth.

&&

Charactedgealt h One oldie ways in which you can mainuin measurable control on PC power is by strictly monitoring their wealth, including_their4_ magic hems. Table 5—I: Character Wealth by Level is based on average treasures found in average encounters compared with the. experience points earned in those encounters. Using that infor-mation. you can deternune hovv.much wealth a character should have based on hex leveL The baseline campaign for the D&D game uses this 'wealth by level" guideline asa basu for balance in adventures. No adventure meant for 7th-level characters. for example. will require or assume •that the party possesses a magic item that coms.20,000 sp.

Obviously the DM damn well better penalize you (which is actually brought up on page 135) and the player shouldn't go "Alright, I'm level 13, hand me my gold ASAP" so my extreme point should be dealt with in any manner other than giving them money. But in all honesty the system is forgive and forget: You *are* to have X for game balance and the game even awards +Y to cut down on expendables appearing in the main budget. So the first part, WBL not really caring about expendables, is quite true.

[RobbyPants]

Thanks. I'll have to re-read those passages later this weekend. It's been years sine I've used my DMG for anything other than table look-ups or to check the conditions summary.

[AyeGill]

I am likewise terrible at using consumable stuff. 1/day things I for some reason don't see a problem with using, although i still conserve somewhat on them, but items that have a limited amount of uses ever? NEVER USE THEM. This is ironical because in, say, Skyrim, a thousand potions of minor healing are still useful because combat is paused while you use them, but in DnD chugging potions, even powerful ones, is a terrible waste of your actions.