Re: SJD20 question - Cost to the pilot?

> > Helms are now 20,000 and 50,000 for minor and
> major respectively IIRC.
>
> <blink><blink><blink> You have got to be BSing me,
> right?  You mean
> they've effectively reduced helms to carpets of
> flying?  No, wait, some
> of the carpets are MORE EXPENSIVE!  I can hear the
> "munchkin" cries
> already.  I have GOT to get me some of whatever
> they're smok'n, because
> man, that HAS to get you stoked good!
>
> --
> Adam Miller

Well, helms were always massively overpriced in the
original game. Really, for most people who didn't have
a spare 100,000 gp (the price of a reasonable size
/castle/ for goodness sake!) the only practical
methods of getting a helm were to be gifted one, rent
one, or to steal one. Certainly the prices were WAY
too high to support the kind of numbers of ships and
the trading, exploring and pirating levels portrayed
in the game.

Imagine that your options to cross America are to fly
in a plane you have to buy (for a few million $),
maybe to rent one (limited to commercial routes) for
$500+ a trip... or to walk. Then anyone who offers up
the option of even a horse-drawn cart is going to make
a killing...

So really most people would shell out a few tens of
thousands of gold for continual air and food devices,
and take months to sail anywhere using a more basic
helm... like in the old time sailing ships on Earth.
Or they'll all move to the less 'savoury' forms of
helm like lifejammers. All you need is slaves... cheap
and plentiful.

This just makes helms available practically to people
without being stupidly expensive, and therefore
requiring massive inflation of gold rewards, which 2E
could survive, but 3e isn't designed to bear.



=====
--
Niall Hosking
talmyr@?????.com

"Practice random kindess and senseless acts of beauty"

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