By request, a thread about treasure in 4th Edition. The requester wants to discuss the concept of "treasure parcels," as well as wishlists and random tables (specifically what is seen as a lack of them).

4e's advancement and difficulty curve, and relatively tight math, pretty much assumes that PCs will have a pretty specific suite of gear.  If you want to randomize treasure, I highly recommend using the Inherent Bonuses found in Dark Sun.

As one who always found treasure in general problematic, and never had much trust in or success with random tables, I was happy with what 4th Edition tried to do. That said, I can't say I ever had much success with it either, primarily because trying to get wishlists from people is like pulling teeth.

I know people have had a lot of fun experiences with random treasure items and the use to which the people at their tables have put them, but my overall experience was that unless an item was something a player had specifically asked for, it would never see use. It often wouldn't even be remembered as something that could be sold.

I draw a direct analogy with real-world gift giving. These days, I try only to give gifts that the person has specifically told me they want. Either that, or I give over any expectation that they will enjoy it or make any use of it whatsoever. My kids have Christmas gifts from two years ago that they haven't opened, because it's just not on their radar to consider trying them.

So, I want to give players what they know they want. It should come at the end of a tough encounter or quest, but they should get it and not some other thing that they weren't expecting and can't think of much use for.

I myself can manage to enjoy random treasure, as I know many people can, but I don't expect that from any particular person unless they don't bother giving me a wishlist. In that case, if I get to the point in the game where I'm giving out treasure (which, more than a few of my games end well before then) I'll put in whatever I think makes sense to be there and that is, technically, useful. If they don't like it, then they tend to finally tell me what they really do want, and I'm only too happy to change the item to that.

Sure, though there's still room to randomize inside that "specific suite." Maybe it's "time" for the wizard to find a +2 wand, but that still leaves a collection from which one could be randomly chosen. Also, difficulty curves are within the GM's power to control, even on the fly. As written, yes, it's tight, but I'd wager few enough people follow that exactly, even if they're trying to.

But I'm relatively inexperienced with long-term, level-spanning play. Are there lots of cases of games going far off the rails due to random treasure, or the GM not hewing to the treasure tables? By the rules we should expect some oddness, but how much actually occurs in practice? I don't want to rule something out just because of a concern of what not sticking to the rules might mean.

Generally when it comes to wishlists, the only three treasures to focus on are the Weapon (or Weapons, in the case of Rangers/Rogue/multi-weapon specialists), the Armor, and the Neck slot item. As long as those three items are kept up to speed, your players will often be just fine. The problem with asking for a wishlist is that it presumes your players are well-informed about their choices. If they are not, the pressure falls on the GM to note their playstyle and what they are likely to go for.

Sometimes players will decide to sell the item or trade it. That's fine. Sad, but fine. Hopefully, they can settle for hand-me-downs from other players.

One GM I recall made the mistake of locking some treasure in an Adamantine vault. This is the equivalent of telling players you have locked money in a safe made of gold; they will hire a team of miners, if they have to, come back and take the vault. Not the contents, mind you, the vault. As in the entire room.

I ended up inheriting this game myself, and I had to come up with what I was going to do with players who wanted 5000000 gp at level 9 (the roughly calculated resale cost of that much metal of that type). My solution was to point them to a dwarven clan who informed them it would take them years to get the Adamantine down to a form that could be used by them; thus turning a sudden payout which would have busted both the economy and the game into the equivalent of a salary, which was less breakeriffic and still felt like a reward for their hard work and ingenuity in stealing a damn room.

So yes, it does occasionally happen, and from the silliest things, too.

I ran into the 'adamantine as loot' problem when I was running the Age of Worms campaign, and one of the later adventures had a room blocked by a massive pair of solid adamantine doors.

Granted, at this point the party wizard simply cast shrink item on them and put them in his pocket. But that particular wizard favored simple, direct solutions.

I agree that getting players to fill out wish-lists is like pulling teeth. Even when they know that they're guaranteed at least one of these items turning up, they still don't want to do it. Guilty of it myself, but that's partly because I like finding random treasure.

To some degree. But if the GM doesn't know what to provide, they can always provide just basic magic weapons, along with some fun description.

I agree with Engine, in that random magic items in 4E (for example, as presented in Essentials) don’t work in practice. The issue is not the maths, which in 4E style is tight and works well. The issue is the boreingness of 99% of 4E items.

5E succeeded in fixing the issue of boring magic items, but the cost of this – to exclude magic item maths from the encounter building guidelines – was too high, in my opinion.

I think the basic 4E rules work extremely well for a GM and players who love loads of magic items and the complicated building mini-game of D&D. Personally, I don’t play in this way.

The inherent bonus rules are the answer for me. They fix the key issue I have and completely liberate the GM from needing to provide treasure or specific sorts of treasure. The problem is that they make most existing magic items (with the key exception of weapliments) redundant. In the two games I GM I use the inherent bonus rules and provide homebrew barmy magic items whenever and wherever I feel like it. Most of my players seem to like this approach.


Lol those are funny stories - they really remind me of my 1E and 2E days, where this sort of thing was really common. Because I play 4E in a cinematic scene-based way, this issue never comes up any more, as all those selling/buying/economy scenes are just skipped.

I can see that a little (A +2 bonus to ritual checks is all the vaunted crystal ball of scrying does? Really?) but I think description can make up for that, and rarely is used to do so. Maybe the dynamic weapon is one of the easier ones to describe, but my group had great fun with that one, a lot of it merely narrative. I've been having fun with my character's magic sword in your game, jack, just by me deciding that, unlike a mundane sword, it can slice metal. And that's just a +1 sword. A +6 should be off the wall; making a crackling sound and an ozone smell when it moves through the air, because it's separating elemental lightning from the "indivisible" particles of the air itself, or something like that.

Adding nifty/gonzo extra powers to items is not a bad idea, but I'd want to work that on a wishlist basis too. "What are some goofball or situationally-useful effects you'd like your character to gain from an item?" And then, randomly, an item that character finds gives them one of those effects.

I agree with the former and disagree with the latter.  I also think 4e Magic Items in general are a bit too bland and conservative in design.

5e's solution to bringing the spark back to magic items was enforcing Attumenent limits.  Bringing each PC down to 3 big magic item whammies (and unchaining the cumulative effects of minor and fluff items, to prevent slot competition) rather than the dozen plus individual magic item slots you had to carefully keep up to par makes encounter design much easier, since you, as the DM, presumably know what magic items your PCs are attuned to.  Items that don't require attunement are generally either niche in application or relatively minor in effect, with a handful of notable exceptions that a DM could easily keep track of.

It also increases the narrative and dramatic impact of individual magic items, allowing you to create magic items with lasting value that can have strong story relevance that don't get pitched like JRPG vendor trash because they're not keeping up with the Joneses.  This, in turn, allows you to give out fewer magic items overall, since those items are of increased importance.

While this does break the Diablo style loot grind of 4e, I consider that a feature, not a bug.

If you use Inherent bonuses to shore up the base math of PCs, I'd be much more inclined to work 5e-style magic items (with small statistical bonuses, but which stack with Inherent bonuses) backwards into 4e.  Magic items with big Whammy effects would require 5e style attunement.

This, however, would be a lot of work.

One other thing you could do is to use the 4e magic items as is, but stack Attunement on top of that.  Reserve Attunement for the items that have that flash and substance, and paint "regular" magic items as just a product of a magic-rich world.  If every guardsman is rocking a Sword +2, your Fighter is set apart by having a flaming sword that ignites everyone who he makes an opportunity attack on with Ongoing 10, but he can only have a limited number of these upper tier magic items attuned at any given time.



On the issue of Wishlists - I am one of those players who is impossible to pry a wishlist out of.  And the reasons and psychology behind it are a bit arcane, but I think my perspective might be instructive.

When a DM asks you what you want, it's a really complicated question.  What do you actually want?  I think nobody really actually wants to find exactly what they tell the DM. An element of unpredictability is part of the thrill of unearthing ancient treasures, and finding the exact thing you wrote on a wishlist takes some of the excitement away.

Furthermore, you have to weigh what the DM is actually willing to give you.  If you want a +5 Holy Avenger, and you ask for a +5 Holy Avenger, are you miffed if you get a +3 Holy Avenger?  Add on top of that the psychology of the Overton Window.  Would you have gotten a +5 Holy Avenger if you had asked for a +7 Holy Avenger?

This is somewhat mitigated by treasure hunting quests, where PCs actively seek out an item, following information about it.  The impact of these quests, however, is diminished in 4e specifically, where the gear churn is real, and each item in the player's repertoire has less narrative weight.  That lack of narrative heft can make it difficult to get your friends to help you quest for a Sword +4, when you should be getting a Sword +5 in 2-4 levels, great-grandfather's lost legacy or not.

So I think the solution is complicated but not unachievable.  It's all about player psychology.

1. Implement houserules that reduce dependence on gear, like Inherent Bonuses and Attunement.  This will reduce the opportunity cost of actually asking for things.  Loot, as-written, is a zero-sum game, and everything you ask for and get, is something potentially exciting and interesting (or powerful, or even necessary) that you didn't ask for, that you don't get.
   
   
2. Ask the players what they think they need, in fairly broad terms.  Better bows?  More Fort defense items?  Some ritual scrolls and materials?  Potions?  Some kind of flying transportation?  This is the bread and butter of your typical loot drop, the things that keep them going day-to-day.
   
   
3. Separate from that, ask them what they want.  Couch this in narrative terms. It's not important if they want a +3 Longbow of DoingWhatever.  Do they want a bow that makes trees shoot out of people?  Do they want a sword that fell from the heavens during a battle between gods?  Do they want to just, for the love of god, never have to make a climbing check again?
   
   
4. Build the things that they want into adventure seeds.  Evil Villain is normally enough to get most adventuring parties sit up and take heed, but Evil Villain Has The Thing That You Want And Is Using It To Make Everyone Miserable will have them frothing and chomping at the bit. Treasure maps, sketchy rumors related to (or in the area of) their current quest, and political conflicts that encourage seeking out symbols of ancient/recent/future glory are also great seeds to put those items out there.
   
   If you can fold those things that they want into the things that they need, all the better!  If Elflord needs a better bow, and wants a bow that grows trees out of his enemies, you have a million gallons of gas here to work with.  Just make sure to polish those mechanics, and build a cool story into it.
   
   
5. Lastly, and I think most importantly, you have to back it up.  Make that item relevant, maybe even powerful, and keep it relevant.  Aragorn didn't pitch Anduril into a river because it was only +2 and he found some sweet +3 Axes in Orthanc. Letting these items keep pace and keep having mechanical impact to match their narrative impact lets the player not only feel more invested in their story- and character-relevant item, but it lets them feel rewarded for giving you a cool thing on their wishlist.
   
   While you can only really ask Dwarves to pound new ore into the Master Sword so many times before it gets tiresome, you really do have to find a way to make it work, or they will just pitch those items in the Residuum chipper with a jaunty salute, and then their grandfather's magic sword is tomorrow's Teleportation Circle.

This message was last edited by the player at 22:05, Sun 28 May 2017.

I'm one who wants to find exactly what I tell the GM. Why would I tell him to give me something I didn't want to find?

But, I also give the GM several items at each level. Out of a given set of parcels, I don't know which items might be for me, and I don't know which of the items I listed might be the one the GM gives me. I don't know if I'll be getting a generic magic weapon, or a suit of armor, or an amulet, or a wondrous item, or maybe nothing this level but enough gold to get something else I want. That's plenty surprising, but I'm also generally bought in enough to get excited even if there's no surprise at all.

You're describing something I'm not sure I've ever really seen, and which therefore seems like an unattainable ideal to me: players actually curious about what they might find, and fascinated by what they do find. I may have seen this in a few very beginner players, but with players who get the game aspect of the game, the reaction tends to be cool, at best. They know that the GM is going to keep them where he can work with them, or that anything they have that really is cool is going to have to be destroyed to succeed in the quest, or something.

It would never have occurred to me that this was a real issue with the 4th Edition approach. First of all, if you have a question like this, ask the GM.

Second of all, as GM, I ask for a list of items of level+1 to level+5, and I'm literally willing to give them any item they ask for that fits that criterion (plus things like allowed sources). I could have sworn this was exactly what the DMG advises, but if not, I'm not sure why anyone would handle it differently.

This is another thing I've never understood.

I thought one of the DMGs advised it, or maybe it just seemed obvious to me, but magic items tend to come in multiple versions, spaced about 5 levels apart. To me, the says that if someone has an item they like, then they can keep that item and, at an appropriate time, it "breaks through" to the next higher version of that item. Technically, this robs them of the money or residuum they'd get for cashing in the old weapon, but just tack that on to some other parcel, or something.

The only thing that might get tricky with is armor, since the goofy masterwork system heavily implies that one must actually get a new suit made with new materials. I suspect a creative group could handwave that.

So, in terms of a character's main items (and even a few of the non-main ones), they can stick with the "orginal" their entire careers. I'm not seeing a real downside to that.

The first two seem to be asking "What would you like to be cool about your weapon." In a recent game, my tiefling who wants to restore the glory of Bael Turath, but this time in partnership with the dragonborn, asked for a dragonborn-related weapon. It's actually a pretty "boring" weapon with a hard-to-use power - but I picked that power, because a) I like a challenge and b) it seemed more along the lines of what I was after.

They'll find a way to help make it work, if that sword really meant that much to them or their character in the first place. Or they can lose that item in a really awesome way, sadly vow to carry on their quest with the new sword they pull from the hoard, and the GM can slide them some extra gold or residuum.


Edit: I say I don't understand these ways of thinking or those interpretations of the intended process, but I'd be willing to. I'd be interested to know how they arose, and how my own arose.
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:41, Sun 28 May 2017.

They don't state it's possible in the core books, and the description for the Enchant ritual says it has to start with a mundane item. However, I see no reason why you shouldn't allow someone to upgrade a magic item to the next 'level' if they pay the difference. So upgrading a +3 flaming weapon (25K) to +4 (125K) should just be a matter of spending 100K in materials.

This would let someone have their heirloom weapon or historied armor, while letting its basic empowerment keep up with the party and the character's needs.

I wouldn't allow changing the type of enchantment, though, because some of them are material-dependent. You shouldn't be able to change a suit of blackiron armor to darkleaf armor, even though they're the same level. (The Transfer Enchantment ritual does circumvent this, because it specifically alters the target item to retain the enchantment. It's mainly for changing out weapon types or armor categories, though.)

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 11):

I didn't mean in terms of players making items. I just meant that if the party just defeated an encounter and the treasure parcel could contain an item five levels higher than a PC's key item, the item could instead "become" the next higher version of that item, with appropriate description of the "becoming" and a little extra gold or residuum (equal to the sale or disenchantment value of the other item). No item "churn" need happen, because the items are the same items, as far as the fiction is concerned.

You could make it something that attaches to the original item -- sort of like using gems or rune-stones in the various Diablo-type games. The Eberron book did something like that with Dragonshard Augments, inexpensive items that latch onto other magic items and give them additional abilities.

You could describe the base item as having empty slots or niches for these add-ons, and make finding them part of the main quest. Defeating the ultimate BBEG requires finding the Legendary Sword, then recovering all of its components.

You could go really complex and elaborate on this, and make a set of weapons that work individually (at low levels), but can be combined in specific ways to produce higher-level effects. I'm thinking of the multi-piece sword Cloud wields in Final Fantasy: Advent Children. Each sword had its own use -- one pair was intended for dual-wielding -- and attached to the main sword in a specific order. Each time he did this, the main sword got stronger, until at the end of the film he uses it to unleash a final-boss-killing attack.

(Incidentally, go watch that movie if you want an idea of what epic-level characters might look like.)

Yes, I agree with you to a point. Restricting magic items to 3 per player would make them more exciting by virtue or rarity. Each item could then become more powerful without breaking balance, but ultimately this still involves remaking the 4E items to make them better, which as you pointed out requires work.

4E is finely tuned mathematically and totally upfront about the maths behind the game. This means that the pluses of magic items become invisible (though not irrelevant) to the players as they become familiar with the system, and the problem here is that the magic items that ship with the game don’t do that much exciting stuff in addition to the pluses.

This is in contrast to the 5E approach, where the pluses of magic items have significant meaning in both the maths and the fiction of the game. 5E is able to do this by being less finely-tuned mathematically. It’s a fundamental difference of approach, and one that simply restricting magic item availability in 4E by way of attunement alone won’t change.



It’s interesting to note that wishlists are often mentioned as a specific criticism of 4E. Usually this is connection with ‘player entitlement’, and the fact that magic items are published in the PHB rather than DMG unlike other editions. The reason I think it’s interesting is that I saw no increase in wishlist use from 2nd or 3rd edition to 4th edition: some players always had wishlist, and some players always disliked them; ditto GMs. I never felt that 4E required them any more than 3E – in fact ironically I had much more issues with choosing appropriate magic items for my players in 3E than in 4E, and depended much more on wishlists in previous editions that in this one.

I'd be interested to hear what the rest of your experiences are like regarding wishlists and previous editions of the game.

5e doesn't strictly limit you to 3 magic items.  Only magic items with outsize effects, like Luck Blades and most magic Rings that do more than +1 AC, require attunement.  Other magic items aren't limited, except that similar effects don't stack.

So if you used Inherent Bonuses, or just kept the bread and butter magic items and saved the broken mechanics for Attunement slots, you can keep your workload down a bit while preserving the advancement math.



We have never used wishlists in my tabletop group, except specific treasure hunts, and broad asks like "better weapon" or "something tied to x backstory element."  Our magic item density is usually quite low, and the necessity to cram a green or blue in every slot was one thing that we, as a group, found offputting about 4e (and to a lesser degree, 3e).  It turned what was an exciting find and a reward for a dungeon well-crawled into a commodity, almost a necessity.

Right now in our 5e game, we are level 6 and our Barbarian is still rocking the same maul she has been swinging since level 1.  My character's biggest finds have been a Ring of Mind Shielding and a cool statue he Persuaded a bunch of archaeologists to drag back and put in his yard.

Phat lewt has always been icing on the cake of the narrative for us.  The bigger, more powerful, or impactful the magic item, the more that we feel it has to have narrative unto itself, otherwise it becomes strange and jarring.  Finding +3 Swords in the back of the Troll Cave just so we have +3 swords to be "ready" for the next bit of dungeon jars our game flow.

Sure, that could work, but I'm not sure I'm making my overall point that a GM can narratively "upgrade" items, rather than have those items be "found" or augmented with other treasure.

I finally found the official source that may have served as my basis for thinking about it this way: the first Adventurer's Vault, page 197-198, "Item Levels as Treasure." The book suggests a different way of handling it than I normally would, but it clearly allows for characters to retain a beloved item rather than churning through items or getting items they don't want.

Sounds like you're wanting the other entry on pg. 198, "Empowering Events". Make the increase in power be tied to something like the defeat of an enemy or a specific reward for a difficult task. Instead of saying "Here's the supplies you need to improve your sword", say "[after dramatic light-show] Your +2 sword? It's now +3."

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 17):

That's just the flavoring. The other sections describe a couple of mechanical approaches. It strikes me as easy enough to keep high-powered items out of the hands of players, so I don't see a need for level scaling as described there. Items levels as treasure makes sense, but I don't see why changing a level 3 item to its level 8 counterpart is focused on the difference in their cost, instead of just replacing the level 8 item in the array of items for that level, plus a little.

  I've found that my play-group doesn't really work well with true "wishlists."  They sometimes suggest a few items they might like in a vague sense..."something to let me resist fire," "a better weapon," or "something that gives me another attack power" are not uncommon 'wishes' on my players' wishlists.  For the most part, my players would rather trust me to give them gear that fits the setting/campaign rather than requesting specific gear.  At least one player has told me he dislikes the idea of wishlists because it breaks immersion to ask for something specific and then 'find' the requested item in a foe's cache of gear.

---

  As for 4e parcels, I found that 4e's parcel system taught me an important lesson as a DM.  One that I've applied in other systems.  "The gear/rewards don't have to be tied directly to the monsters/foes defeated."  It is okay to grant gear in other circumstances, scattered appropriately (timing-wise) across the progression from one level to the next.  Not only is it easier to plan rewards that way, but it's easier to place the rewards in more interesting places and give them in more interesting fashions.

  For example (at the successful end of a skill challenge):  The wizard uses her wand to disrupt a particularly complex and dangerous lightning trap that blocks the cavern's exit.  Having unwoven the magical energies, she finds the power is greater than expected and she starts to lose control.  At the last second, to keep it from hurting her companions, she bravely takes the risk of shunting the energy through her wand and using her own body as a magical ground.  Her skill, will, and connection to her wand are enough that she avoids personal injury and the wand glows with the energy of a captured lightning bolt.  The wizard knows that with a bit of time and effort (applied during the next long rest,) the energy can be integrated into the wand's nature...converting it from a normal implement into a +1 Wand of Radiance.

  Customizing the way rewards are earned like that can really help players get attached to them, too.  The wand created by the wizard who bravely risked themselves to disarm the trap...that was earned.  The wizard made that...even if I'd always intended her to get that wand, regardless of how the skill challenge ended, she doesn't know or care about that.  She has a sense of connection to the wand that wouldn't have been there if she'd just found it at the back of a troll's lair under the skeleton of a dead-and-eaten wizard.

  Similarly, bumping an item up a level while keeping it the same to replace the normal treasure drop (as engine suggests) is pretty easy.  Just wait until they do something interesting with the item and have that be a triggering event for the character's connection to the item to cause it to get better.  (And, if it's an item they don't use often enough to justify using that excuse, it is also an item that probably doesn't deserve the upgrade treatment anyway.)

---

  The other interesting thing that parcels can do if one of your players has the Disenchant Magic Item ritual and the Brew Potion ritual...instead of littering your world with potions, you can offer 'random-but-appropriate magic items of low power' instead of potions.  That way, the players can choose what potions they want...or keep the random magic item if they want.  Giving players extra options is usually a good idea, I've found.  And, that's a great way to do so.

---

  As for calling the 4e treasures out as 'bland'...I never really felt that way about them.  Maybe it's an artifact of my 4e adventures starting (more-or-less) after 4e had been out for a few years, but 4e's magic items always felt like they were able to add additional tools, interesting options, and clever story hooks to a character's arsenal.  While there are boring magic items in 4e, like the standard +1 Magic Weapon (as there have been in every edition,) there's almost no reason to use them in 4e...unlike in 3.5 where almost every magic weapon and armor has to be the basic variety until fairly high level magic items are available.

Instead, in 4e, every item has a purpose beyond just a numerical bonus.  And, to me, that makes them all potentially interesting...as magic items should be.

For those of you who like random stuff, here's a site that will randomly determine treasure parcels. It'll roll magic items, randomize coinage, add gems. It shows potions and other consumables, but I haven't seen any turn up yet.

It'll even account for odd-sized parties, by adding or removing treasure parcels.

It doesn't have every sourcebook covered (no Dark Sun, for instance), but it has more than enough for most games. You can filter out items that the party doesn't use -- for instance, if no one uses an Orb implement, you can uncheck that and none will turn up.

http://www.asmor.com/scripts/4...s/randomTreasure.php

EDIT: Playing around with it, and I just saw a potion turn up in one of the top-level parcels, where permanent items are supposed to be. So I guess that part's not handled very well.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:00, Sun 18 June 2017.

The subject has come up in my game as to whether or not the treasure parcel system actually provides the amount of loot that parties are expected to have. So I'm going to analyze that.

I'll be ignoring 1st-level characters here. Basically, the treasure listed for 1st level is what the group is expected to accumulate by the time they reach 2nd level. For the Expected Value, I'll be using the figure stated for creating high-level characters: one item at CL+1, one CL, one CL–1, and coin worth a CL–1 item.

These figures also assume a 5-member party, and that everything is divided evenly, even if that's not technically possible.



(Credit goes to Excel for doing the math for me.)

Clearly the method of equipping a high-level character, while easy, results in significantly more than what you'd get by just finding items using the parcel method.

Okay, massive table #2 time. There's a detail I didn't account for when it came to the "actual amount" of treasure: it's cumulative. Assuming that nothing is sold (or that it's always sold for 100%), here's how the numbers change.


This means that the "quick-and-dirty" method for making high-level characters will result in less treasure after 4th level. Even accounting for loss from selling items at below market value, and having to replace consumed items, this means that the parcel system is more generous than the quick method.

Good analysis, thanks.

Does the difference in treasure impact play noticeably? Plausibly it would, in a controlled comparison, but is there evidence for a difference? Have people who have used one approach found the game too hard or too easy as a result?

In reply to LonePaladin (msg # 22):

That difference, by the way, is intentional.  The Wealth by Level is supposed to give less than the total earned across a career from parcels because the characters are expected to use some of what they earn during adventures in order to advance in later adventures.

Potions are consumable, and the math assumes both that a certain percentage of treasure will be potions and that potions gained at one level will be used up by characters in their attempt to get to the next level.

As characters earn better weapons, armor, and amulets, they're expected to sell or disenchant the earlier ones at a discount.  That results in a reduction in wealth as all gear becomes (over time) consumable.

All those assumptions are built into the 4th edition system.  The assumptions may be inaccurate depending on the group, since some groups are stingy with their potions/resources, some GMs dislike consumables an replace them in the parcels with either more money or less consumable items, some players dislike the idea of 'wasteful' selling of gear at a discount and will either try using skills to get their full value or hold onto old gear 'in case it becomes useful again' (making the numerical wealth higher than expected and the effective wealth lower.)

It's kinda like economic theory.  The formulas all work in a vacuum when applied to average, rational players...but there aren't very many real players that are both average and rational.  So, in practice, the formulas don't end up working the way they're intended and GMs tend to adjust on the fly to fit their group.