Money, Money, Money

[Vrischika111]

looks like I can't edit, so double post :
http://forums.wolflair.com/showthread.php?t=57766

[Silveras]

Something else to keep in mind... some GMs will choose to use the "Cost of Living" expenses in order to avoid detailed book-keeping (p. 405 in the Core Rulebook, HERE in the PRD, scroll down near the bottom of the page)

In essence, minor purchases become "free" (pre-paid as part of the cost of living lump-sum), and the higher the "bracket" of lifestyle, the more low-cost items can be obtained without tracking the money involved.

Considerations
Some GMs will want to adjust the amount of money charged on each bracket - sometimes on a month-by-month basis if the PCs are moving around.

Noting which "month" a payment is for would help with the book-keeping for the campaign.

[Azgulor]

Originally Posted by Silveras

I have had players divide their money in specific ways and locations .. such as hiding an emergency stash of money sewn into the linings of a cloak, or stored in a bank (the Church of Abadar offers banking services in Pathfinder's world of Golarion).

Additionally, the current abstract money makes it hard to transfer funds between PCs the way items can be.

This. A 1000 times this. Being able to allocate wealth to specific locations so that we don't have to enable "Dropped to ground" or inflate encumbrance b/c they're carrying it all would be great.

[Silveras]

Originally Posted by Azgulor

This. A 1000 times this. Being able to allocate wealth to specific locations so that we don't have to enable "Dropped to ground" or inflate encumbrance b/c they're carrying it all would be great.

The Community Pack has a work-around for this now.

Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Copper coins are represented as Platinum Piece, Gold Piece, Silver Piece, and Copper Piece gear items. ShadowChemosh also adjusted them so that they work correctly with the options to ignore coin weight or not use Encumbrance at all.

These gear items can be moved between characters in the portfolio easily, can be managed as stacks, and can be allocated to various locations. The only thing you can't do is to "spend" them in buying mode... you would need to "sell" them at 100% value to transfer them to your "Money". When done, "buy" the appropriate number of coin items from your remaining "Money" to convert back.

[Silveras]

A couple of other points about the Gear item coins that might help the LWD team working on how money is handled :

I find it a lot easier for my players to "loot the body" if the enemies have stacks of coin Gear items -- they can be transferred to a "Loot" character, or to the individual PCs, easily. The same cannot be said of the money in the abstract Money mechanism.

Purchasing: There have been occasions when the abstract money has failed to "make change" intelligently, leading to cases where I have sufficient funds but the algorithm does not recognize them and tells me that I "don't have enough of [that coin] to spend" when I have more in net value.

Adding/Subtracting: Using the Journal to add money feels "clunky" compared to adding coin Gear items. Using it to reduce/subtract feels even more awkward. A history of such transactions is a nice new feature... but it still feels awkward to use it.

[Aaron]

Originally Posted by Silveras

Purchasing: There have been occasions when the abstract money has failed to "make change" intelligently, leading to cases where I have sufficient funds but the algorithm does not recognize them and tells me that I "don't have enough of [that coin] to spend" when I have more in net value.

So would you say that the value of the purchase is more important than the user's choice of coin? One of the things we have discussed is how to handle a user who wants to pay with, for example, 900 copper when they have 100 copper and 90 silver.

[Silveras]

I don't know about "more important".. I would say that the current Money mechanism sometimes makes surprising automated choices. Some of that is probably just that users are paying less attention to the specific coins being used until they hit a spot where they suddenly can't complete a purchase easily because the coin types no longer match (if I recall correctly, typically on things that are priced in mixed coinage {ex. 1gp + 1sp} ).

I can't say it comes up often .. but when it does, it stands out and can break the flow of creating or equipping a character.

[Azhrei]

Would it be workable to provide a spinner for each coin type (plat, gold, silver, copper) such that the price of the item was reflected in the values assigned to the spinners, then let the user adjust one spinner and see the others change immediately?

For this to work, the algorithm would need to "make change" to convert larger units into smaller ones, and should similarly have an option to coalesce smaller coin units into larger ones (or "chip up", as poker players like to call it ).

[Silveras]

The spin controls exist now .. the issue is that sometimes the default values set don't match with the available coinage, resulting in a message that "you don't have enough [coin type]" (again, it happens intermittently, so while I know I've seen and been annoyed by it, I haven't made any great effort to map the detailed circumstances).

[TSRJim]

This gets back to what the Hero Lab roadmap and might be going too far into other territory, but...

I'd love to see a way to attach players to a specific campaign where the GM can assign the loot and players can sell or take items and apply them to their characters. The campaign would track things like:

1.) Coin found
2.) Magic items found
3.) Cost of living/day (downtime)

It would also do things like provide the official list of supplements allowed.

A boy can dream... :-)