When Signature Gear Becomes Expensive

[Grunker]

Originally Posted by SCAR

PK's House Rules for SG (previously linked) are a great option - buy the item normally, or using PK's variant wealth rules - and then apply SG for the 'Plot Protection' which hasa better scaling price scheme.
For a truely wandering character using 100% of SW instead of 20% doesn't seem like a problem.

Kromm posted an alternative a few years ago - see this post and thread.

Hmm. This seems like a workable solution as well!

Originally Posted by Aneirin

Another thing to remember is higher wealth levels don't necesarily mean a higher standard of living.

But it does decide what you earn by having a job. Witchers shouldn't be able to buy the same equipment again after just a bit of work. They should be able to feed their horse, feed themselves and upkeep their gear. Not much else.

Originally Posted by theothersarah

If the players are all going to be Witchers, you can just treat the equipment as a campaign feature and not have to worry about its money or point cost.

I am not writing a campaign purely for myself (in my campaigns, only one plays a witcher), I'm writing an extensive project for playing GURPS in the world of the witcher :)

[Grunker]

So, basically, I have these two options now:

PK's House Rule:

http://www.mygurps.com/h_money.html?p=ih&v=0

Starting Wealth for Average: $1,000.
Starting Wealth for Struggling: $500.
Cost of Trading Points for Money: 29 points which gets us Starting Wealth (500)x37 which equals 18,500.
After buying gear: $500.
Plot Protection: NO!
TOTAL: Gear for $18,500, $500 to spend and 29 points spent.

Kromm's Alternative:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...563#post750563

Starting Wealth for Average: $1000.
Starting Wealth for Struggling: $500.
Point Cost for Very Wealthy (x20): 30 points.
Point Cost Difference between Struggling and Very Wealthy: From -10 to 30 = 40 points. 40/5 = 8 points.
Difference in cash: $20,000 - $500 = $19,500.
Plot Protection: YES!
TOTAL: Gear for $19,500, $500 to spend and 8 points spent.

These options are vastly different. One costs 29 points and gives gear WITHOUT plot protection and the other option is 8 points and gives a bit more gear WITH plot protection.

What do I use?

[Aneirin]

Originally Posted by Grunker

But it does decide what you earn by having a job. Witchers shouldn't be able to buy the same equipment again after just a bit of work. They should be able to feed their horse, feed themselves and upkeep their gear. Not much else.

Unfortunately I do not know much of the Witcher setting. I was working on the assumption that monster hunting is not a job anyone can do, it requires equipment and pays a fair sum (compared to being a dirt farming peasant)

As struggling wealth represents a farming peasant I will be comparing what a peasant needs compared to a what a witcher may need (not sure about the ins and outs)

Taking care of a horse, maintaining weapons and equipment and so on is an expenditure that would exceed what a dirt farming peasant would have by quite a bit and so their job would need to give them sufficient income to meet their outgoings (though in the case of Witchers it sounds like they would have nothing left over)

It must be remembered a Witcher doesn't farm his own food, he needs to buy it. And it will probably have to be better food than a peasant if he wants to keep fighting fit (not just able to lug at laborious tasks all day but be stronger and faster and more alert) Horses can use a lot of grain (can't let them graze otherwise they will be useless for working) and there is also grooming, hoof care and appropriate stabling when needed.

Armour and weapons also need maintaining, and sometimes repairing. Even if they can do it themselves, the tools for maintaining are expensive.

Unless they never sleep anywhere except on the floor or in a hedge, they will also need to pay for accommodation themselves and pubs/hotel prices aren't cheap.

So because Witchers are doing a dangeours job that not many others could do (monster hunting) and because they have skills and equipment others do not have (weapons and fighting) they should be entitled to earn more from a job than your regular peasant...and would need to in order to maintain equipment. To make sure they are not living in luxury just make sure their wealth level is sufficient to cover outgoings from the jobs they can get (which again would be limited to fighting type jobs or what ever else a Witche could do that a normal person couldn't)

If some jobs are limited due to the fact he is a witcher, than can be covered with social stigma.

Again though, I don't know much about the Witcher world, just a suggestion on how a higher wealth level and therefore higher job income could be justified because a Witcher would have far mroe outgoings than a struggling peasant and only able to earn a struggling job income with his expenditure he would quickly wind up in debt.

So I would go with comfortable or wealthy depending on what income is needed to maintain all gear and cover living and leave the cost at 10 or 20 points. And make sure not to buy status if you get a free stuatus upgrade.

[Grunker]

Originally Posted by Aneirin

So because Witchers are doing a dangeours job that not many others could do (monster hunting) and because they have skills and equipment others do not have (weapons and fighting)

And they are becoming obsolete, because cities are protected by walls and young men are increasingly enrolled in Knightly Orders.

This means only unprotected villagers really protect them, except if they're extremely famous and good at their jobs and thus get hired by nobles for exotic curses that walls and knights cannot help with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZu-cNcGRTM

I guess the real issue here is that their earnings can vary greatly... A witcher may travel a month or two without finding any work, and then suddenly be hired by a noble for removing a curse from his daughter, earning him enough to live and upkeep his stuff for the next month or two.

If you catch my drift.

If some jobs are limited due to the fact he is a witcher, than can be covered with social stigma.

It already is; I forget whether witchers have -5 or -10 here, but they do have it.

Again though, I don't know much about the Witcher world, just a suggestion on how a higher wealth level and therefore higher job income could be justified because a Witcher would have far mroe outgoings than a struggling peasant and only able to earn a struggling job income with his expenditure he would quickly wind up in debt.

I suppose you are right, but the real issue that we've rooted up here seems to be the varying income.

[Aneirin]

True. Only way I can think around of this is either:-

Put a limitation on the Wealth advantage for Witchers making the job search rolls more difficult

I.e., they can apply for a job to earn a comfortable or wealthy income, but there chances of finding it are low and if they fail they only get a struggling income.

For instance, can only find a well paying job on a 6 or less (10% of time) or 8 (25% of time roughly)

And this roll could be modified by a Witchers reputation. A higher reputation will make it easier to find well paying jobs.

You could limit players from taking reputation at the offset (they have to earn it) and would give players a good icnentive to go out and earn a reputation...becuase if they don't soon they won't be able to afford their stuff and will have to do other things to pay!

Instead of modifying the wealth advantage (no idea what the limitation would be...some form of unreliable modifier limited to only job rolls? -10%, -5%?) you could just make it a campaign feature.

[Nereidalbel]

If the PCs are fresh out of training, consider their weapons to be freebies.
If they're veterans, they paid off those weapons years ago.
If they still owe money on them for whatever reason, take some points of debt.

Remember, if it's part of the profession, it should be a feature of the job/campaign. After all, if somebody wants to make a firefighter PC on modern day Earth, do you really think they should have to pay for the turnout gear? (Hint: They don't.)

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

If the PCs are fresh out of training, consider their weapons to be freebies.
If they're veterans, they paid off those weapons years ago.
If they still owe money on them for whatever reason, take some points of debt.

Remember, if it's part of the profession, it should be a feature of the job/campaign. After all, if somebody wants to make a firefighter PC on modern day Earth, do you really think they should have to pay for the turnout gear? (Hint: They don't.)

Job-provided gear isn't yours to keep and isn't given to you to use for your own purposes, typically. If it is given to your character, your character has the patron advantage with one of the gear-related enhancements or the gear's price comes out of your character's Wealth-derived gear budget.

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by Grunker

So, basically, I have these two options now:

PK's House Rule:

http://www.mygurps.com/h_money.html?p=ih&v=0

Starting Wealth for Average: $1,000.
Starting Wealth for Struggling: $500.
Cost of Trading Points for Money: 29 points which gets us Starting Wealth (500)x37 which equals 18,500.
After buying gear: $500.
Plot Protection: NO!
TOTAL: Gear for $18,500, $500 to spend and 29 points spent.

Kromm's Alternative:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...563#post750563

Starting Wealth for Average: $1000.
Starting Wealth for Struggling: $500.
Point Cost for Very Wealthy (x20): 30 points.
Point Cost Difference between Struggling and Very Wealthy: From -10 to 30 = 40 points. 40/5 = 8 points.
Difference in cash: $20,000 - $500 = $19,500.
Plot Protection: YES!
TOTAL: Gear for $19,500, $500 to spend and 8 points spent.

These options are vastly different. One costs 29 points and gives gear WITHOUT plot protection and the other option is 8 points and gives a bit more gear WITH plot protection.

What do I use?

PKs rules change Signature Gear to be ONLY Plot Protection, and 4 points buys you SG/PP for 20x Average starting Wealth (or $20K) - which makes it more expensive than Kromm's variant, but they're doing slightly different things.

PK's rules give you a way to handle more Starting Cash, and I think a better rules for SG.
Kromms rule was specifically to deal the scenario of a character owning an item of signature gear of disproportionate value to their starting wealth.

My gut says; (not that it has any special powers as far as I know)

Kromms rule probably works best in a setting where characters don't necessaily have substantial wealth, and yet might well have 1 or 2 items of 'Signature Gear' worth substantially more than their personal wealth - e.g. A wandering Knight's Armour and Horse; or Han Solo and the Millenium Falcon.

PKs rules are probably fairer when characters have quite a lot of Money and mundane Gear (although not necessarily high Wealth), since all Gear is bought with the same money mechanism, whether it is standard gear or signature gear.

[apoc527]

The problem I see with Kromm's method is that it doesn't seem to take into account the 20% rule. Even if we assume Witchers are wanderers, it's not a good generic rule because MOST characters need to abide by the 20% rule. Thus, to purchase a $20,000 item at TL3 requires Start Wealth of $100,000! That requires Filthy Rich (x100 starting wealth). So, point difference between Average and Filthy Rich is 50, and 50/5 = 10 points. So, 10 points for $20,000 in spendable wealth.

I guess that still makes signature gear pretty cheap. I would still want to enforce the "only 1 item" per Signature Gear, so that you can't just pay 15 points for multimillionaire effective starting money and be set for life.

I think I kind of prefer my slight variation. 24 points is still a lot, but a $20,000 item is also very valuable. OTOH, I agree that nobody is going to SELL their Signature Gear, so maybe even that is overpriced.

[Dustin]

Another possibility is that these weapons simply aren't as expensive in the Witcher world. If you don't start the game with one, or are buying one for your new apprentice, how accessible are they to purchase in the source material?