Is Gold Scarce?

The crafting cost of items suggests that 500,000+ gold is needed to obtain optimal items for a party of five. My party just reached Nulb and I acquired only a small fraction of that gold "legitimately." I follow several walkthroughs closely and complete all available content.

Will the gold acquisition rate pick up dramatically later in the game or are we intentionally limited in what we can craft?

I realize that there are many questionable, even exploitative, ways to get infinite gold and experience in the game. Pickpocketing from characters such as Burne and the Hommlet jeweler provided most of my gold so far, though my success rate has been about 90%, causing a few failures and reloads along the way, so I am not sure how I feel about this. Resting in unsafe areas and/or traveling between areas triggers random encounters that can be farmed indefinitely without save-scumming. Finally, we can scribe level 0 scrolls for no XP cost and sell them to vendors for a profit, which can yield >6 gold/sec with key bindings, fast clicking, and maxed Appraise skill.

Considering how easy it is to gain gold and XP through above means, one can justify using the cheat console to speed up the process, though this would trivialize the game. I am curious how much gold is available without having to resort to tricks and gimmicks in both the base game, as well as Co8 additions.

 

I have never used any of the exploits and am rarely short of gold.
1. remember to sell items to the shops that offer the best prices, i.e, Bows to the carpenter and leather items to the leatherworker.

2. Make sure the party "face" has Appraise and spell buff the appraise attribute before selling as by Nulb this can gain you a few THOUSAND gold

3. store more valuable items like magic items, chain, Breastplates, long bows etc. until you can get your modified appraise number to at least 12 (at 16 you can see a real difference in what you are paid)

 

By "rarely short of gold," do you mean that you're able to collect >500,000 gold before you clear the temple and have several +6 attribute items on each of your characters, as well as fully enchanted weapons and armor?

I have 40,000+ gold as I'm entering Nulb and I've sold items to the best vendors, waited to sell until I maxed Appraise at 19, etc. Most of my gold came from pickpocketing - I would probably be at around 10k if I had not done it.

 

You'll be swimming in gold, don't worry.

BTW you can alt click the Create button in Temple+ and it won't close the item creation window.

 

It depends what items you consider it necessary to craft, and at what stage of the game. If you are just arriving in Nulb, you have presumably recently 'taken delivery' of a magic club and breastplate. Further +1 weapons are within reasonably easy reach from your next couple of outings. You won't yet have the levels to add aligned or elemental damage, and stat-boosting items will be limited to +2, which will soon become obsolete so probably won't be worth the investment. For your next trip or two into the temple it will probably be worth carting out all the high-value mundane items you can (I'm thinking breastplates in particular here) to fund some early crafting attempts, but by the time you are looking to craft your 'endgame weapons' around level 9-10 (i.e. when you can create what you want) money won't be much of an issue if you sell on the stuff you find that you don't intend to use; shortly after you are likely to be able to buy (rather than craft) +6 stat boost items where needed. The 'Christmas Tree effect' of PnP D&D isn't so much in effect here.

 

Are you saying that there's a vendor that sells +6 items in the base game? I didn't see one in the vendor lists posted at http://www.co8.org/community/index....eight-modpack-new-content-edition.8742/page-2, with the exception of one in Verbobonc, who only appears later in the game under certain conditions. Is it cheaper to buy these items than to craft them (18k apiece)?

I'm definitely targeting to have a bunch of walking Christmas trees at some point, so it's probably a question of when, rather than if, I'll be able to collect 500k or so to buy several +6 items per character, as well as fully enchanted armors and weapons (+3, holy, axiomatic, and 2 elemental bursts). I don't spend funds on anything but top of the line items, which is made especially easy considering that +4 spells are plentiful in my party. In a perfect world, I'd like to have funds left over to create situational weapons, too, such as having a 3rd burst in place of axiomatic for non-chaotic enemies, etc.

 

Sorry, no: by 'shortly after (10th level)' I mean when you hit Verbobonc. It looks like we might have different definitions of optimal. I suspect if you want everyone to have multiple +6 items, enchanted armour and a choice of crafted weapons, you are going to have to squeeze as much gold as possible from encounters, including ferrying even mundane items back for sale. I tend to go for one maximised combat option per PC, plus enough back-up (e.g. at least a couple of front-liners can do bludgeoning damage with something) so as not to be screwed by unusual immunities, balanced against minimised inventory management, especially late-game.

 

Gotcha, ~500k by level 10 seemed a bit too good to be true... that's a lot of breastplates.

 

Shortly after reaching Nulb, I triggered an ambush at the house I purchased and reeled in about 100k from the proceeds of that single battle, which dwarfs everything I've been able to find so far. I even kept a few items, so I could've earned more. A few more fights like this and a party of walking Christmas trees is indeed within reach, though my guess is that we don't see a lot of enemy parties full of magic items until we're done with the base content...

 

I don't have Temple+ and it's been a while since I played but I've found that by the time I reached 10th level (and was still working my way thru the Temple) that between selling off all the items I didn't intend to use that I could craft at least 1 +6 item for at least 2-3 of my characters (3-4 depending on loot from random encounters). Wizards got +6 Crowns of Intelligence, Sorcerer +6 Cloaks of Charisma, +6 Gloves of Dexterity for the rogue and Belts of Giant Strength +6 for the fighters. Collect and sell anything that says magic, including potions you won't use. Doesn't sound as if you've reached it yet but there are at least 3 encounters at the early parts of the Temple that will reward you with plenty of loot to sell for gold- should you survive them that is...

 

Actually the cost of crafting does not indicate at all how much gold your PC’s should have. Just because an item can be created does not mean that every character of your party should have every possible maximized item.

The 3.5 DMG suggests as character wealth e.g. for a 10th level PC 49000 gp, so far from the 100000 gold you expect as normal.
Part of the fun, to me, is to have to make the best use of the magical items earned in battles or found until they can be replaced by something better and only crafting as much as the party wealth permits to fill the most important slot at that point in the game.

 

Of course - I was merely trying to determine whether optimal builds were attainable, and if not, what a realistic target should be. By now I have already multiplied my assets and I've barely set foot in the temple...

 

Do not forget, one way to save money is to upgrade magic weapons and armor you find(like Elven shields, Elven mail, holey Longswords etc.

 

Ahh, but to my knowledge, nobody drops Holy Great Cleavers, upgraded Mithral Plate, and some of the other top-tier goodies. Nothing but the best for my team.

I did discover a couple of easy tricks available shortly after reaching Nulb. The Nulb house ambush that I mentioned above is one. The other is to escort Prince Thrommel and snag his swords as documented at http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/ToEE/Walkthrough/Temple/DaringRescues.php. Surprisingly, there are only about two enemy packs along the way, so even a poorly optimized party should be able to do this.

Between the Nulb ambush and Thrommel, it is easy to earn >200k, as well as a few nice items, despite barely setting foot in the temple. It is mostly a pedantic pursuit, though, since an optimized party shouldn't be challenged after level 3 even with little to no crafting based on the stats of enemies prior to the "Demons and Demigods" quest.

 

I tthink he meant saving money as in saving the gold and XP you would have normally to spend for aquiring a masterwork variant of the item you want and saving the amount for the first enhancement (e.g. the holy longsword +1 in Hommlet) and then building on that by crafting the holy longsword to e.g. later a holy, lawful, longsword +3 with flaming bursts.