FAQ 3.5: I've noticed PCs seem to be poor here. What's with that?

I've noticed PCs seem to be poor here. What's with that?

There are a couple of notes that must be made to answer this question.

First off, the decision was made at this site's inception that having equipment rather than abilities, powers, or personality define a given character is not a desireable situation.

While said situation is unavoidable in some cases (given how the game itself is written), we believe that reducing the overall level of wealth forces PCs to rely more on innate talents and creative thinking than on the one-size-fits-all toybox. This tends to make for more memorable play.

Secondly, balancing the level of wealth on a site like this is, compared to a standard tabletop game, next to impossible. With ever-changing parties of varying level, varying levels of activity among the player base, etc., there is no simple way to ensure that all PCs will have the same amount of stuff.

Some PCs will be very close to our desired limits, while others will lag far behind the norm, and the best the DMs can do in the interests of fairness is to try and work everyone into a vaguely similar range. While we like to reward active, enthusiastic players, we also want to make sure everyone is playing as close to the same game as possible.

The above noted, the answer really amounts to: PCs seem to be poor here, at least compared to a typical tabletop, because they are and we kind of want them to be. Ideally, PCs will have at least 50%, and up to 75%, of the wealth they would typically be expected to have by the various DMG tables.

The process for ensuring such is constantly a work in progress, and we're always considering tweaks to treasure tables and other rules when we establish that they are resulting in too much or too little wealth. We hope that our players are understanding of this goal, and of the spirit in which it is pursued.