Re: 3rdEd Minor & Major Helm

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Tue 09 May, Leroy Van Camp III wrote:
> On May 4, 2006, at 11:52 AM, Dreamer wrote:
> 
> > This is the latest version of the 3rdEd Minor and Major Helm,
> > with the 2ndEd text for comparison.  The main change is that
> > there is a spec for both helms as magic items.  Minimal changes
> > have been made to the text, mainly 'spellcaster' has been
> > substituted for 'cleric', 'priest', 'mage' and 'wizard'.
> 
> I am confused on the cost of helms in your conversion. Are they  
> 200,000g/500,000g or are they halve that? You list prices in two  
> places (unless you mean the difference between buying them and making  
> them, but that does not seem the case).

There are two prices - Arcane prices, which are the same as the
cost to others to actually make a helm (if the DM wants to allow
that in their campaign), and the market price, which 3rdEd seems
to require to be given for non-artifact magic items.

Thanks, that text does need cleaning up, and making clearer.


> Either way, the value seems much too high.

It is the 2ndEd SJ rules value - DMs are at liberty to decrease
this if they wish to.


> At what level would you imagine a party of characters getting their  
> hands on a helm? A second helm? If a minor helm sells for 50,000g,  
> that's 12,500g when split 4 ways, which is the reward for a party of  
> 13th level characters. Even if you divvy out some to the crew and pay  
> for repairs it is likely to equal the treasure reward for 12th level  
> characters.

There are lots of ways characters can get stinking rich - getting
so it supposed to be one motivation for people taking up the
dangerous profession of adventurer.

The answers to your question could be: whenever the story
requires it.  If they can bag a helm, and sell it before anyone
steals it off them, then they have done well.  Money sticks to
some characters and they accumulate it at an amazing rate even if
low level.  Money just slides off other characters, and they will
be poor even at 12th level, or if hundreds of thousands of gold
have been through their pockets.

As a DM I find that money is something that is rather
unpredictable around characters.

The high money values represent how much trouble non-adventurers
have acquiring helms for cash, how impractical it is to get their
own enchantment done, unless they have very strong motivation for
not buying from the Arcane.  People buying helms are likely rich
merchants, or guilds of merchants, or governments, in my
campaign.


> I haven't been following the 3e conversion threads all that close, so  
> maybe I am not seeing the big picture, but that seems like too much  
> gold to me. It would make it so GMs have to be very careful with ship  
> combat and letting the PCs defeat enemies and gain their helms and  
> ships. This was true in 2e to some extent, but much more so in 3e  
> where characters actually have something to do with all that gold.

As a DM I've never found it difficult to persuade most PCs to
part with their gold.  They were blowing it all on healing
potions even before AD&D 2nd Edition came out.  Temples were
charging worshippers 10,000 gp to attempt to raise someone, and
far more for non-worshippers.

Excess gold has never been much of a problem; more of a problem
was the issue of high level characters being able to break
an economy, just by not being careful enough.  Several characters
have looked around and realised that actual cash was not a
problem any more, but that they have quite enough problems to
keep them occupied, otherwise!


Thanks for the feedback.

> Leroy Van Camp III
> malacoda@????????.net
> ICQ #20039817

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/