Community

As a DM, I had one question while reading the rules and running the Isle of Dread. With magic items removed from economy why do players need so much gold? 
Wasn't one of the early goals of 5e changing gold to silver and creating a real respect for money?

I hated it in 3.x+ that players always treated money as unimportant. You either had not enough to get that next magic item you wanted or you had way to much to care how much you gave to beggars, informants or city officials or almost any non-magic item.

Now there are no magic items shops, magic items don't cost gold anymore but players still get way too much gold. And they got nowhere to spend it. At least not within game rules.

I would really like to see more effort in 5e towards simulating a real medevil economy. Now with removing magic items from every corner it is about time. If players need to deal with most problems they need to in real life (except paperwork and thank the gods of DnD for that :D) they should also need to with the most important one: money.

Also I got a suggestion about equipment. Collecting stuff was always fun in DnD. Now with magic items taking a lesser role (especially permanent ones) I  would like to see new stuff added for players to collect. Either different alchemical stuff or one shot lesser magic items. 
Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved had many of such items and they were fun.

I completely agree with you and posted a similar question when the magic item packet came out.

Here are a couple of my random ideas to spend money on:

• healing potions and healing kits
• NPC wizard/cleric spells
• hirelings and henchmen
• paying off local law enforcement for the drunk dwarf's unruly behavior in the tavern after the dungeon delve
• character training under the best warrior/wizard/priest in the land (to learn a new maneuver or spell perhaps)
• buying that strange looking map from strangely cunning tavern wench (spoiler alert: she's a Dragon/Demon/Vampire/Lich/Fey Queen in disguise! Probably not a trap to get that new relic they found....)
• horses and barding
• a suitable base of operations for the party
• a lab for the wizard
• a NEW lab for the wizard because that Outsider he summoned blew the place up (we told him not to insult the guys mother!)
• a masterwork suit of armor for the warrior
• a good supply of flasks/vials of poisons, acids, wildfire, and alchemist goo
• a ticket to the Princess's upcoming wedding (I hear it's gonna be a bitchin' party and their evil arch-nemisis is gonna be there!)
• grease-money for the one hobgoblin sympathetic to the human town....use him to infiltrate the bandit gang and stop their attacks once and for all!
• the party's house is too small....build a small keep outside of city walls!

I completely realize that most of this stuff is roleplaying stuff. I'd like to see a short section in the rule books devouted to things like this. Even if it was just a random table or list of ideas.

Without magic items gold is more worthless than it has ever been. I would assume healing potions will be what most people spend their gold on now.

Well, you don't need to hand out lots of cash with every adventure.  It's not as though there's a high cost of living, or anything.  If the party happens upon a huge treasure hoard, then it's pretty much a plot device, just like it was before 3E.

It's entirely viable to go from 1 - 20 without making 10,000 GP along the way.

I agree with the majority of these posts. I'd really like to see the return to the older, more conservative use of money in D&D.  A good example is when a group of low-level adventurers must scrounge for enough money to pay for a 1-night stay in an expensive inn. It makes for great role-playing when, as a DM, you can emphasize the difference between social classes. I mean, most adventurers should not have the same economic ability as wealthy merchants or nobles. There is a reason why they need to adventure - it's how they make a living! If, by 5th level, adventurers have enough gold to buy whatever they want, I find it hard to justify why they would continue to put their lives on the line? Questing for wealth can be a simple/strong motivation for adventurering parties, but this is rendered useless (as a DM tool) at very low levels with the current currency system in use in D&DNext.

Nov 30, 2012 -- 11:57AM, Shodan_1 wrote:

I agree with the majority of these posts. I'd really like to see the return to the older, more conservative use of money in D&D.  A good example is when a group of low-level adventurers must scrounge for enough money to pay for a 1-night stay in an expensive inn. It makes for great role-playing when, as a DM, you can emphasize the difference between social classes. I mean, most adventurers should not have the same economic ability as wealthy merchants or nobles. There is a reason why they need to adventure - it's how they make a living! If, by 5th level, adventurers have enough gold to buy whatever they want, I find it hard to justify why they would continue to put their lives on the line? Questing for wealth can be a simple/strong motivation for adventurering parties, but this is rendered useless (as a DM tool) at very low levels with the current currency system in use in D&DNext.

good point. I definitely agree with you.

But the problem I see is this: What rewards can/should the DM give out instead of gold?

Clearly, if gold (and experience) is the default reward, then you're going to saturate the PC's with too much currency at low levels -- especially now that they cant save up to buy magic items.

So what else can they receive as reward for an adventure that both FEELS like a good reward without overbalancing the game economy?

I think the DMG needs a good section on non-XP/non-gold/non-magicitem rewards.

Just speaking as someone who DMed a lot of 4E, I really came to loathe that system of gold and magic items.  The majority of the groups I DMed viewed gold/any kind of fungible treasure as a means to magic items.  100% of the player's gold went to magic items and for me, my DMing style, I felt this was bad for the game.  Saying that gold is useless if it can't be spent on magic items really disappoints me.  I want my players to spend it on their desires.  Phat loot being entirely about numbers and power levels has its place, but doesn't anybody wanna buy a castle anymore?  A horse?  An airship?  I think there's a reasonable middle ground here which is a way of saying I don't have the answer.

I think wealth by level guidelines in 4E got out of hand quickly.  I felt this was because there was an expectation that gold would be used for magic items, not to achieve story goals like purchasing land or ransoming family members.  What would your players do if they suddenly had way too much money?  In 4E everyone would rush to get magic items.  I think its an interesting question I'm actually planning on throwing out there in my next Next game.

Emphasis on the use of "lesser" currency (like copper and silver) in the beginning/lower levels could do much to alleviate the problem of players accumulating too much wealth (gold bloat is a factor that can effectively devalue currency rewards, even at low levels of the game).  Also, there are alternatives to the typical gold & items rewards that D&D has yet to really bring to the table.  

Taking an example from other RPGs, one option would be to give out rewards in the form of "assets" that players can utilize.  For example, once the party completes the quest for the wizard/noble/wealthy merchant, notify them that, as a reward for completing the quest, they now have gained an "NPC asset" that would allow them to have access to a boon relating to and provided by an NPC/group.  This reward should be limited in scope and use.  Possibilities for this type of reward system might come in the form of tutelage (learning or retraining of a trade, skill, or spell), networking (charters/endorsements from local nobles or communities), a single use access to a high level cleric/wizard spell/ritual (i.e. Teleportation, Resurrection, etc.), discounts on product purchases (i.e. horses, basic items, potions, etc.), or (at higher levels) even titles, honors, land, and holdings (I believed the developers talked about these things when describing the "Legacy" system they are working on).

Great thread with a lot of good input.

I tend to use a lot of customization within each campaign for the rewards of completing tasks or quests, etc.  Respected status at the Keep (the castellan looks to the group when trouble arises, supports the group when possible, etc) might be one reward for thwarting a significant threat to the area.  Free stay at the inn for service to the innkeeper's in-laws.  Reduced cost and free minor repairs at the blacksmith's after avenging his dog's mutilation.  A good country meal with all the fixin's for slaying the rabid dire wolf that was killing the farmer's sheep.  As the group levels, the rewards become more exotic, but more about bringing the world to life and not just about loot.  One of my 4E campaigns is set in the Chaos Scar, and when Lord Drysdale was killed by assassins, he left the keep's guardianship to the players' characters.  It wasn't just a boon, though, as they suddenly had servants, militia to maintain, etc., etc.  The focus of the campaign had a shift and eventually, the group hired a castellan (of sorts) to run their estate because it was interfering with their adventuring (of course, troubles arose with them away resulting in more twists in the campaign's plot).

As for coins, which are still found, looted, and rewarded as well, I tend to play a more tightly controlled world of magic.  Just because magic items have a price doesn't mean they are available to buy, much less available to buy at the "listed price."  No Magik 'R Us shops with shelves full of every available item.  Often, getting the magic items through purchase is a quest in itself.  Perhaps they are remotely located and there's risk and much higher costs involved in getting it.  Perhaps the characters need to recover rare material components necessary to have the item crafted.  Perhaps dealins with a blackmarket are necessary, with all it's inherent trappings.  I've even had a character duped into buying what he thought was a highly coveted magic item only to discover later, through trial and error (and only after growing suspicious after some oddities in results), it was a fake (this spawned a whole new "quest" for the group - seek revenge and recovery of lost wealth).

Plus, I have always encouraged thinking beyond just character combat equipment.  Some players will never break from the it's-all-about-encounters mentality, but most actually start to see the fun, and even some benefits, to having a character that's part of the world, not just a sheet of paper to use in combat.

Also, my groups tend to reserve or use coins for healing, curative, etc., potions, rituals, and the like.  Those tend to be coin sinks to some degree (from early on Healing Kits to the expensive potions later on).  

To be honest, though, I have no problem with players who do find ways to amass wealth in the game if that's their goal.
 
Not sure if it would work for all groups and DMs, but that's how I deal with wealth and rewards.

I ran into this problem with the "evil" campaign I'm running when the party knocked over a jewelry store (it's my own damn fault for letting them into a jewelry store).

So next they went to the richest city in the country where the prices are exorbitant and the security is daunting.

So I have not read the Island of Dread Adventure yet, (Running Caves ATM). You could have a  HIGH cost of getting off the Island and getting back to the main land. I would also use excessive treasure as a good plot device.  For example. On thier way back, as they near the main land the ship runs up on some rocks, and sinks, and now too get their treasure they have to do a "raise the ship" type adventure. Potenial for lots of role play fun. Maybe on the way back they get attacked and overrun by pirates. Now they have to go on the trail of the pirates. But,  have to buy a ship... might be a while before they they get that treasure back. Or put both together, they run the ship on rocks and when they come back to raise the ship, pirates are there looting the ship. This could make for a funny on running campaign joke, where there is a lot of treasure, that is always just out of reach, and evey time they have thier hands on it, something happens and they loose it.

Some of you misunderstood this as me looking for ideas on how to force players to spend money through quests and roleplaying. That is not a problem, that can always be done. But what do I need rules for then?

I am trying to make wizards see how their magic item changes influence more then just magic items.

If you read DM pdf, it has instructions about how much gold you should give them per encounter based on how hard the enounter is. And based on those numbers players will have too much gold and no way to spend it by the rules.
I want game mechanics that force players to spend money or a economy overhaul for 5e.  

Ok, you want to come up with an economy for your system.  Put yourself in Medieval times...
Lets start simple, in a fudal system.

Per Day Costs.>Food 1sp per day, Water 1sp per day(1 gallon refilled water skin).

Every So Often Costs.>clothing 15 gp fine cloths, Weapon Upgrades such as masterwork equipment +300gp, sharpen swords 10% of total cost, pound out dents in armour 10%, buy a new tent, Sleep and meals at Inns, yearly Guild dues, ect.


Here is an idea, how much does 1000gp weigh? According to the rules its 20lbs. So unless you want to carry all that weight, you have to put it in ye olde bank, and I am sure you can have a cost associated with that. Maybe 5% per year.
 
Your going want have to buy a Horse; riding 250gp, farming 350gp, war 500gp. Feeding and upkeep horse, 5sp per day.

Lets say you want to buy a ship (cost,carpenter cost). Row boat (250gp,125gp) Picard small single masted (500gp, 250gp) Cog small boat for shipping (1000gp,750gp), Caravel dual masted for ocean travel (10,000gp, 9,000gp) Longship (25,000gp, 23,500gp)  War Gally(50,000gp, 47,000gp)

Let say that you purchase a house, a amall house costs 2,500 gp (or the cost of plate armor) your going to pay tax to the Lord of the Land, say 10% of house cost 250 gp per year. Your going to have to upkeep your house. 10% per year 250gp (unless your a carpenter or mason).

To accully own land you have to be appointed a lordship. Which is only attainable by deeds, valor, or the purchaced 10,000 acres (15 miles) of land at 50gp per acre from the king totaling 500,000gp , and must build a Simple Stone Keep for 50,000 gp (ten times the cost of plate armor). Now you pay 2.5% of land and keep (550,000gp) to the king in tax per year = 13,750gp. Which means you would have to have minimum 55 serfs to paying 250gp per year to pay the kings tax. Now with serfs comes lordly responsibilities such as having mercenaries or guards to protect them. 15 gaurds at 1gp per day (food, board and equipment included) Thats 5,475gp per year. 

Building city walls and a castle would be next.
I this what you mean?

That is good but only works for people that want to roleplay landowners and nobles. Those that just want to be adventurers have thousands of gold and no way to spend it.

Hey all,

Since this isn't a session report I'll be moving it to D&D Next General Discussion.

Thanks!

Monica

Medieval economy was more land based then gold based.  Trade was still very often done barter style.  Like wheat for a duck, and duck eggs for timber.  You couldn't eat gold, it doesn't keep you warm, so it was little use to pesants.  Only nobles really used it.

It wasn't untill the renacance that money really became the base trade good for other people.  When people could start thinking beyond the basic needs, and nobles started wanting other things, like fancy cloths and art.  And the merchant class started growing.

The easy way to do it is simply stop giving out treasure as a 'reward'.  Stop fussing over money; just assume the PCs have sufficient cash to buy food, re-stock their ammo and such, and move on.  Stop tracking minutia.

If a PC suddenly wants to make an exorbitant purchase, then acquiring the money to do so (or the item directly) can become part of the story.  You don't have to sweat the party sitting around with tens of thousands/millions of gp buring a hole in their pocket.

Read how Savage Worlds: Beasts and Barbarians deals with money. It is both highly entertaining and an lead to some wonderful RP moments.

Basically the PCs "lose" their money between adventures in one or more interesting ways.

I think the premise of the OP's post is a bit flawed... it's not that magic items don't cost gold anymore, it's that they don't have a price anymore.  The magic item shop may be a thing of the past, or at least no longer an assumed part the default setting, but that doesn't necessarily mean that magic items cannot be purchased.  It just means that, when an adventurer asks "how much for that magic ring?", the owner of said ring may respond "how much do you have?" and negotiations begin.  At best, an item's rarity gives a ballpark value (i.e., a legendary ring of invisibility will cost more than an uncommon ring of water walking), but the rest is a challenge for the Interaction pillar.

You have to be careful about the extent to which you make treasure rewards not much of a thing that the game does because treasure, at least historically, is a big part of the game's reward structure. The reason that magic items are a great reward and gold that can be used to purchase magic items is a good reward is that those things feed directly back into adventuring. I believe that for most players, rewards of a particular GP value that feed back into adventuring are just orders of magnitude more exciting than ones that do not, especially past the first few. (The first "Your reward is some land!" is a little exciting; the tenth is not.) Not all arbitrary good things that can happen to a character have the same effect on player happiness.

The DM guidelines for Next don't seem to have fully adjusted to the notion that large amounts of gold don't mean the same thing as they have in previous editions. They're not fractions of exciting things any longer. They're just... money. Some of the suggestions in this thread about what to do with gold in a world where gold isn't fractions of cool stuff are interesting, but I don't think that "Cool! Gold! Now I have something that can be siphoned away by the medieval economics simulator attached to this adventuring game!" is a great long-term solution. Reevaluating what gold can be used for also requires reevaluating how it's rewarded.

Nov 30, 2012 -- 11:19AM, Saelorn wrote:

Well, you don't need to hand out lots of cash with every adventure.  It's not as though there's a high cost of living, or anything.  If the party happens upon a huge treasure hoard, then it's pretty much a plot device, just like it was before 3E.

It's entirely viable to go from 1 - 20 without making 10,000 GP along the way.

Do me a favor and add up the money in the three included adventures.

Without a purchase price for magical gear, I have absolutely no reason or desire to have gold in the game to waste my time with. They should add in magical gear costs for those who want them, make it modular. If not, I'm not going waste my time trying to bring in mechanics on running a keep or paying a tithe or some moronic feudal "upkeep" tax.

Personally I am still waiting for the sliver economy they discussed at the start of Next. If you are making your own adventures, I would suggest non-coin treasure instead. Jewelry and Artwork can be valueable, but much harder to sell. Gems are also a great option. Considering the Ritual rules, you could have them find Arcane/Divine Components.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 11:31AM, Diffan wrote:

If not, I'm not going waste my time trying to bring in mechanics on running a keep or paying a tithe or some moronic feudal "upkeep" tax.

Which is why I would just sweep such minute details under the rug.

I think any game system should allow for non-money treasures. 4E has boons for example. Even magic items can be very useful as treasure if the PCs are not likely to sell the items because they remain useful for the characters over a long period of time. 4E (a non-bounded accuracy system) achieved this through optional automatic increases in to-hit and defense values. With a system like this, item abilities become more important. I like this a lot.
One of the PCs in the game I DM saves money to rebuild his family's keep. Of course, playing Eberron (which has a banking system with checks and promissory notes without the need to carry kilos of cash around with you), a PC will be able to do something like this sometime in Paragon Path (lvl. 11-20). But if you have a tight adventure time schedule and story arc (a campaign covering a year or so in game time), wanting to stop adventuring because you want to build a keep is not an option, since building a keep will take years and the PC will want to supervise the process (as everybody who built a home in the real world will know). So in the end, a PC/player will have to choose between following the adventure story or building something like a wizard tower or a keep.
Both options should be available in a game system IMO.

Also, I am strongly for making PCs rich in the course of character development. While having to starve because of a lack of money can be fun in lower levels (no, not really), I find it becomes ridiculous at higher levels. After all, I am playing DnD, not Harnmaster. In my opinion, PCs should feel powerful not only through level advancement, but also wealth advancement along with level advancement. If you save a city from mind flayers, the city will be thankful, people will give you credit and free stuff and treat you well. You start to deal and network with powerful people. Which can make you rich, if you play your cards right.

Which brings me to the issue of "money as an incentive for adventuring". I find this does not work, or only for a very short while. In the beginning maybe. IMO, it is much more motivating to have a red line to follow, a mystery to solve or to save the princess, the city, the world, the multiverse. This, not money, is the stuff of legends. It can lead to untold riches, too, but only as a side thing.
However, a system should offer money as the sole incentive as well, for those who have fun with this sort of thing.

Which probably means that there should be no rule mechanic for wealth, only as a guideline for adventure and world building. That way, all players can decide what kind of campaign they want to play and can plan and develop the story accordingly.

Treasure and gold is a great reward, especially when you cannot buy magic items with it and it vastly exceeds any normal costs. Gold is influence in the game world and is a perfect way for players to contribute to crafting the story.  

Hurray, you now have 10,000 pieces of gold. What are you going to do with it? :-)

The game works better when it is about the story, not the fight.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 1:13PM, Wuzzard wrote:

The game works better when it is about the story, not the fight.

Unless the fight is a story and one likes fighting a lot.
Other than that: +1 to what you said.

 I want my players to spend it on their desires.  Phat loot being entirely about numbers and power levels has its place, but doesn't anybody wanna buy a castle anymore?  A horse?  An airship?

Defeat monster, level up, get loot, buy better gear. That's how its supposed to go in World of...I mean D&D.

 I prefer thepre 3rd/4th ed system of gold. 3.0/3.5/PF/4th ed have a magic item supermarket feel to them.

Nov 30, 2012 -- 2:18PM, Bly2729 wrote:

doesn't anybody wanna buy a castle anymore?  A horse?  An airship?

Well, horse yes, but I haven't heard a player express any interest in a castle since the game stopped the 'you hit 9th level, you're settling down' nonsense, and that was just because they felt they had to.

It seems most legit uses for money outside of magic items are more roleplay-oriented, yes.

There are plenty of ways to soak up money if you really want to though. Horses are a good start. Besides the expense of buying them and their barding, blankets, oats, etc., the party will need to either pay regular stable fees or set up their own home base, which will likely require hiring a stable boy, etc. to take care of things as they adventure.

When they travel, having to board their horse easily doubles the cost of their lodgings. And if you go into combat with your horse, that often doesn't bode well. Most horses are just for transport. If your party is ambushed by orcs, or you leave the horses tied up at the cave entrance while you dive for goodies, chances are excellent you will lose one or two of the animals. Bang, more bucks must be spent.

In regards to home life, it's easy for this to get neglected by the party. But that could be some fun as well. I once had a party who had so much gold around level 13 or 14 they didn't know what to do with it. At that point even most magic items had lost their appeal and they were basically adventuring only to solve mysteries, set wrongs right and discover interesting stories. They had a keep with stables, and a small staff. Unfortunately they then just ignored it. But I kept deducting from their treasury as their keep's expenses warranted. Once they finally went back home, they discovered that their bank account had run dry! Without pay coming, the servants had wandered off. The horses had been stolen, and the keep ransacked as well. A group of thieves had set up shop in the upper levels.

This led to a fun session of "cleaning house", which involved some political encounters as well. The party then spent a bunch of gold and fun times laughing over all the traps, secret passages and other improvements made to prevent this from happening again.

But why have a keep, stables, traps, etc if it isn't FUN? They had the keep and stables just to not have to bother worrying about up-keeping the horses and all their unused treasure and gear, but otherwise it was mostly a GP-sink. A gold sink must not only be useful to work, but must also be fun.

The campaign drew to a close soon thereafter, so I didn't have to worry too much about keeping their keep interesting. But at some point I had considered doing a little reverse dungeon adventure! The heroes would guide and command minions as monsters invaded their keep. :D

You have slaid the dragon, defeated beholders, cleared the land of evil wizards, saved the princess, defeted the evil lord, sailed the seven seas and took every pirate booty. You are level 20+ and you have every magic item in the world, you have 100,000,000,000gp. Now what? What do you do? Welcome to high level play. I say Play a Game of Thrones.... How do you over throw an evil king? Why not lay siege a castle with an army? Where did the army come from? What happens when the king sieges your castle? How about build a wizard tower, or found a magic school, or be a teacher at one (Harry Potter kinda), take over a thieves guild and run it (Den of Thieves modual). How about become a high cleric build a church or found a religion, or slay old gods with the might of your new one.  Those sound like great adventures to me. But its not for everybody, it maybe easier just to start new charictars.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 3:32PM, Jenks wrote:

 I want my players to spend it on their desires.  Phat loot being entirely about numbers and power levels has its place, but doesn't anybody wanna buy a castle anymore?  A horse?  An airship?

Defeat monster, level up, get loot, buy better gear. That's how its supposed to go in World of...I mean D&D.

You do know that entire process was pulled directly from D&D right?

Dec 2, 2012 -- 3:32PM, Jenks wrote:

 I want my players to spend it on their desires.  Phat loot being entirely about numbers and power levels has its place, but doesn't anybody wanna buy a castle anymore?  A horse?  An airship?

Defeat monster, level up, get loot, buy better gear. That's how its supposed to go in World of...I mean D&D.

I think what I hate most about WoW comparisons is when the thing being compared isn't even how it works in WoW.

To all those who have mentioned that PCs cannot buy magic items anymore, that is not a hard and fast rule.  It is a playstyle assumption that any DM can freely ignore.  The current playtest packet even includes suggested pricing based on item rarity.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 9:03PM, MechaPilot wrote:

To all those who have mentioned that PCs cannot buy magic items anymore, that is not a hard and fast rule.  It is a playstyle assumption that any DM can freely ignore.  The current playtest packet even includes suggested pricing based on item rarity.

Exactly. How else are they going to do Eberron?

Yeah, I refuse to play the game if it does not have magic item creation and purchasing and selling. It doesn't have to be super common magic marts on every corner, but it needs to exist and possibly be in big cities...

Dec 2, 2012 -- 9:27PM, vegetakiller wrote:

Dec 2, 2012 -- 9:03PM, MechaPilot wrote:

To all those who have mentioned that PCs cannot buy magic items anymore, that is not a hard and fast rule.  It is a playstyle assumption that any DM can freely ignore.  The current playtest packet even includes suggested pricing based on item rarity.

Exactly. How else are they going to do Eberron?

Pretty easily, since I've had no problems doing Eberron without it.

Yeah there will always be high level purchases.

Magic items for High magic Games
Buildings and Structures for Location based game
Followers and Hirelings for games where Mass combat is important
Spells and Maneuvers for Create Your own style Games

For example, my game is based on building a castle(s), filling it with men, paying upkeep, and conquering land TBS style so "You need more Gold" will eventually be heard.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 10:04PM, Salla wrote:

Dec 2, 2012 -- 9:27PM, vegetakiller wrote:

Dec 2, 2012 -- 9:03PM, MechaPilot wrote:

To all those who have mentioned that PCs cannot buy magic items anymore, that is not a hard and fast rule.  It is a playstyle assumption that any DM can freely ignore.  The current playtest packet even includes suggested pricing based on item rarity.

Exactly. How else are they going to do Eberron?

Pretty easily, since I've had no problems doing Eberron without it.

Yeah, I don't think they were talking about your personal house ruled version. They were talking about the RAW Eberron where you can buy any magic item from specific houses and magic is so common they hand out +1 weapons as party favors...

Dec 2, 2012 -- 11:17AM, vegetakiller wrote:

Nov 30, 2012 -- 11:19AM, Saelorn wrote:

It's entirely viable to go from 1 - 20 without making 10,000 GP along the way.

Do me a favor and add up the money in the three included adventures.

I said it's viable to not hand out cash like it's going out of style.  I never said it wasn't equally viable to just give away money and hope your players are creative.

The included adventures are just an example of the latter rather than the former.

I just hope this allows characters to break out of that christmas tree advancement mold we have all gotten used to. It really bothered me that in a lot of game high level characters really had nothing to show for themselves except gear. 

Seems to me that high-level D&D would benefit from a module that provides a smooth transition from its normal playstyle basis to instances of a more traditional wargame model.

It used ot have that with the battle system rules IIRC. At lesst the old D&D rules cyclopedia referenced it.

Dec 3, 2012 -- 7:53PM, ryanroyce wrote:

Seems to me that high-level D&D would benefit from a module that provides a smooth transition from its normal playstyle basis to instances of a more traditional wargame model.

  My thoughts are just have rules on how your armies factions interact with the enemy armies factions, and you pick key places for your charictars to fight at. For example, Your castle is being sieged by an army of orcs. Your group chooses how to setup your troops, archers and wizards hurrling spells and arrows from on the walls, how many ballistas and catapults are being used and where they are fireing. You could have men set up above your gates with hot oil, in case the enemy breaks your door down with a battering ram have them pour it on them. Your play group does all this as prep work. And the rules accommodate for how those factions interact.  While during the actual battle your charictars move from place to place as needed to turn the battle in your favor, with normal dnd rules. It may be time to open a new dissussion about this.

I'm a fan of revising the economy somewhat. A silver piece standard makes more sense. I did a bit of an analysis on the economy, and came up with this:

1. The "days wage" silver piece is likely based on the Roman denarius.
2. According to my research, a denarius would be roughly equivalent to $20 USD in value. (I'm comparing this to US society.)
3. Peasants would have to have more than one worker in a family, and would still be poor.
4. Gold would be serious money. As in $200 per gp.
5. You would still have poor, middle class, and upper class.
6. Many of the prices in the books make perfect sense.
7. Weapons and armor are highly expensive, but that makes sense.
But...
8. Some prices make absolutely no sense. The way they make some items cost 6 sp, and then something else similar cost 7gp ends up totally throwing the comparison out of whack.
9. Magical services are downright ridiculous. It takes all of a couple minutes for a spellcaster to prepare a spell in the morning that they can then charge thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to cast.
10. Real Estate and realm level expenses also seem to use an entirely different scale than everything else.

So they basically made an economy that almost makes sense for casual observation, but then when you get to adventurer purchases it all goes wacky and becomes seriously inflated. Adventurer economy would make sense if they switched more things from gp to sp.

However, that simply makes it make sense--it doesn't solve (and actually increases) the issue of ridiculously wealthy adventurers with nothing to do with their cash.

Of course, you can't easily solve the issue for adventurers who do things like raid extravagant tombs. If you are walking out of dungeons laden down with bags of gems and jewerly, you are going to be filfthy rich! There is no way around that except not to provide those sorts of adventuring opportunities. The problem is that the game worlds create the assumption that there is a small amount of money in actual circulation, and 500 times as much money stashed out there in dungeons (or in $100,000 jewerly that happens to be worn around the neck of a random goblin).

In other words, as soon as Alice enters Adventurerland, she finds money growing on trees.

If the cost of real estate and domains is kept to believable values, then the only way to really use up that cash is to leave the Material Plane and go buy crazy stuff in some planar metropolis.

All that being said...it's ridiculously hard to actually create a heap of coins for a dragon to rest on. (See 3.5 Draconomicon p.278) Maybe that's a goal worthy of the cash of high level adventurers.

Armor is extremely overpriced especially the 500 gold scale and the 5000 gold plate.

Dec 4, 2012 -- 4:46PM, Sword_of_Spirit wrote:

I'm a fan of revising the economy somewhat. A silver piece standard makes more sense. I did a bit of an analysis on the economy, and came up with this:

1. The "days wage" silver piece is likely based on the Roman denarius.
2. According to my research, a denarius would be roughly equivalent to $20 USD in value. (I'm comparing this to US society.)
3. Peasants would have to have more than one worker in a family, and would still be poor.
4. Gold would be serious money. As in $200 per gp.
5. You would still have poor, middle class, and upper class.
6. Many of the prices in the books make perfect sense.
7. Weapons and armor are highly expensive, but that makes sense.
But...
8. Some prices make absolutely no sense. The way they make some items cost 6 sp, and then something else similar cost 7gp ends up totally throwing the comparison out of whack.
9. Magical services are downright ridiculous. It takes all of a couple minutes for a spellcaster to prepare a spell in the morning that they can then charge thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars to cast.
10. Real Estate and realm level expenses also seem to use an entirely different scale than everything else.

So they basically made an economy that almost makes sense for casual observation, but then when you get to adventurer purchases it all goes wacky and becomes seriously inflated. Adventurer economy would make sense if they switched more things from gp to sp.

However, that simply makes it make sense--it doesn't solve (and actually increases) the issue of ridiculously wealthy adventurers with nothing to do with their cash.

Of course, you can't easily solve the issue for adventurers who do things like raid extravagant tombs. If you are walking out of dungeons laden down with bags of gems and jewerly, you are going to be filfthy rich! There is no way around that except not to provide those sorts of adventuring opportunities. The problem is that the game worlds create the assumption that there is a small amount of money in actual circulation, and 500 times as much money stashed out there in dungeons (or in $100,000 jewerly that happens to be worn around the neck of a random goblin).

In other words, as soon as Alice enters Adventurerland, she finds money growing on trees.

If the cost of real estate and domains is kept to believable values, then the only way to really use up that cash is to leave the Material Plane and go buy crazy stuff in some planar metropolis.

All that being said...it's ridiculously hard to actually create a heap of coins for a dragon to rest on. (See 3.5 Draconomicon p.278) Maybe that's a goal worthy of the cash of high level adventurers.

Well what they need to do is figure out what the numbers would be for all those items, then figure out what it takes an adventurer to live on for the length of the average adventure. Things like trail rations, meals, inn stays, tavern costs, repairs and upgrades to items, passage to and from areas, things like that and then build the treasures around that kind of cost. So instead of finding 1000gp in a dungeon maybe they find 1000cp which turns out to be about 10gp and 4 of that covers their costs for the next month. Then the party can save up their money to buy that fabled 5000gp suit of plate by level 10 or so. The Fighter would start with the higher end of light armor and have to work their way up because their starting money would be 20gp instead of 200gp or whatever it is now.

Dragons would sleep on beds of copper pieces rather than silver, and the few gems they find would be valued in copper not gold. They might rarely find an art piece worth 5-10gp.

Throw in the costs of healing potions and the group would have to choose between upgrading the Fighter from Ring Mail to Chain Mail or getting everyone an extra potion or two...

Dec 4, 2012 -- 5:56PM, lokiare wrote:

Well what they need to do is figure out what the numbers would be for all those items, then figure out what it takes an adventurer to live on for the length of the average adventure. Things like trail rations, meals, inn stays, tavern costs, repairs and upgrades to items, passage to and from areas, things like that and then build the treasures around that kind of cost. So instead of finding 1000gp in a dungeon maybe they find 1000cp which turns out to be about 10gp and 4 of that covers their costs for the next month. Then the party can save up their money to buy that fabled 5000gp suit of plate by level 10 or so. The Fighter would start with the higher end of light armor and have to work their way up because their starting money would be 20gp instead of 200gp or whatever it is now.

Dragons would sleep on beds of copper pieces rather than silver, and the few gems they find would be valued in copper not gold. They might rarely find an art piece worth 5-10gp.

Throw in the costs of healing potions and the group would have to choose between upgrading the Fighter from Ring Mail to Chain Mail or getting everyone an extra potion or two...

Why should someone wait until they are 10th level to wear Plate? I hate tanks so Im stepping out of the box here. 4e had it right with 50gp Plate Mail.  A wearer of full Plate is a character type not a status symbol. Or I should say that is what I want. Right now a wearer of Full Plate is a status symbol. Its someone who made a bunch of money and spent 4,500 gold on one AC point.

Im all for beds of gold in the teen levels. Dragons are just too weak in the current packet.

Dec 4, 2012 -- 10:15PM, Rory wrote:

Dec 4, 2012 -- 5:56PM, lokiare wrote:

Well what they need to do is figure out what the numbers would be for all those items, then figure out what it takes an adventurer to live on for the length of the average adventure. Things like trail rations, meals, inn stays, tavern costs, repairs and upgrades to items, passage to and from areas, things like that and then build the treasures around that kind of cost. So instead of finding 1000gp in a dungeon maybe they find 1000cp which turns out to be about 10gp and 4 of that covers their costs for the next month. Then the party can save up their money to buy that fabled 5000gp suit of plate by level 10 or so. The Fighter would start with the higher end of light armor and have to work their way up because their starting money would be 20gp instead of 200gp or whatever it is now.

Dragons would sleep on beds of copper pieces rather than silver, and the few gems they find would be valued in copper not gold. They might rarely find an art piece worth 5-10gp.

Throw in the costs of healing potions and the group would have to choose between upgrading the Fighter from Ring Mail to Chain Mail or getting everyone an extra potion or two...

Why should someone wait until they are 10th level to wear Plate? I hate tanks so Im stepping out of the box here. 4e had it right with 50gp Plate Mail.  A wearer of full Plate is a character type not a status symbol. Or I should say that is what I want. Right now a wearer of Full Plate is a status symbol. Its someone who made a bunch of money and spent 4,500 gold on one AC point.

Im all for beds of gold in the teen levels. Dragons are just too weak in the current packet.

Well really plate mail needs to be broken into two types, plate and plate mail. The plate would be a kind of incomplete suit that covers the chest and the major parts of the arms, legs, and shoulders. It would have an AC bonus of 1 less than plate mail and cost significantly less. Then have plate mail that requires a fitting and custom work to make it fit and have it cost quite a bit of money...

The problem that I see is the assumption that D&D is a game based on dungeon crawling and collecting loot.  I understand that plenty of people play the game that way, so it's more or less a standard.  With that said, by maintaining tradition, the economy will continue to be horribly inflated with mountains upon mountains of gold that can only truly used on extraordinarily expensive real estate or magical items.  As per prior editions(namely 3rd and especially 4th), the economy made absolutely no sense when regarding the cost of goods and services.  With extremely expensive magical items available for purchase, shouldn't there be, like, a magic item bubble or something?  I've never really seen much emphasis on economy or even politics in D&D, but with prices as listed for some things, like plate armor, for example, wouldn't there be some sort of economic collapse?  What happens if a group of adventurers walk into a small hamlet with a sack of platinum pieces?  They could likely buy the entire hamlet, its goods, its people, and the residing lord.

I guess what I'm trying to say is the economy in D&D is f-ed, and pricing magical items on the basis of glorified grave robbery does not help this in the slightest.

I also agree and like some ideas in this thread (which I've not read entirely).  At this point, gold is generally pointless, except that you need a HUGE, HUGE amount to get a single healing potion (25g), which means all those rewards of a few silver and a few copper are complete junk.  (It also makes rolling low on a potion feel even worse.)  However, once you have 100g, you really don't care how much you have until you have 5000.

Personally, I think common items like healing potions are drastically overpriced, and I like the idea of making the economy silver-based:  it might be easy to think of it like 1 silver = 1 dollar/euro in today's markets, although that may still be a bit high for some.  (So a good meal is a few silver, and a fancy room at the inn + meals might be a gold.  Healing potions would be more like 50 silver in that economy, I'd think.  No idea how this matches up to the equipment pages - it's just an example.)  But I think some of the feeling in this thread is right:  if "special" items are mostly priceless, then there is really an opportunity to make money "valuable" again.

I'd like, for once, to have gold not just be an alternate form of XP, leading directly to character advancement and charcter advancement only, and instead plot-focused.  The gold you get lets you have access to more story, not shiny loots.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 7:46AM, nukunuku wrote:

I also agree and like some ideas in this thread (which I've not read entirely).  At this point, gold is generally pointless, except that you need a HUGE, HUGE amount to get a single healing potion (25g), which means all those rewards of a few silver and a few copper are complete junk.  (It also makes rolling low on a potion feel even worse.)  However, once you have 100g, you really don't care how much you have until you have 5000.

Personally, I think common items like healing potions are drastically overpriced, and I like the idea of making the economy silver-based:  it might be easy to think of it like 1 silver = 1 dollar/euro in today's markets, although that may still be a bit high for some.  (So a good meal is a few silver, and a fancy room at the inn + meals might be a gold.  Healing potions would be more like 50 silver in that economy, I'd think.  No idea how this matches up to the equipment pages - it's just an example.)  But I think some of the feeling in this thread is right:  if "special" items are mostly priceless, then there is really an opportunity to make money "valuable" again.

That's a really good point, actually. I hadn't thought how a silver-standard economy would affect things like healing potions. I also like your analogy that a silver is a dollar/euro.

It might be easy just to change the prices of certain items listed in gold to silver instead. So a Healing Potion would be 50 SP, not GP. I dont know if that exchange rate would knock things out of balance, but it seems like the easiest fix.

Using 1 silver = 1 dollar, a quick look at the Equipment section shows...

Leather Armor = 10 gold = 100 dollars/silver
Chain Mail = 75 gold = 750 dollars/silver
Splint Mail = 500 gold = 5000 dollars/silver
Shield = 10 gold = 100 dollars/silver

Spear = 1 gold = 10 dollars/silver
Dagger = 2 gold = 20 dollars/silver
Longsword = 15 gold = 150 dollars/silver
Greatsword = 50 gold = 500 dollars/silver
Bow = 25-50 gold = 250-500 dollars/silver
20 Arrows = 1 gold = 10 dollars/silver (or 50 cents/arrow)

Common Clothes = 5 silver = 5 dollars/silver
Traveler's Clothes = 2 gold = 20 dollars/silver
Fine Clothes = 15 gold = 150 dollars/silver
Torch = 1 copper = 10 cents
Bucket, empty = 5 copper = 50 cents
Healer's Kit = 5 gold = 50 dollars/silver
Musical Instrument = 5 gold = 50 dollars/silver
Hammer, basic = 2 silver = 2 dollars/silver
Potion of Healing = 50 gold = 500 dollars/silver
**Potion of Healing = 50 silver = 50 dollars/silver ** with new price


These prices seem mostly reasonable, I suppose. I definitely think that the Healing Potion is better off at the 50 silver price.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 8:00AM, Mand12 wrote:

I'd like, for once, to have gold not just be an alternate form of XP, leading directly to character advancement and charcter advancement only, and instead plot-focused.  The gold you get lets you have access to more story, not shiny loots.

I like this idea, +1.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 8:00AM, Mand12 wrote:

I'd like, for once, to have gold not just be an alternate form of XP, leading directly to character advancement and charcter advancement only, and instead plot-focused.  The gold you get lets you have access to more story, not shiny loots.

You can already do that. It's up to the DM to implement it, though.

A new quest is posted on the board of the Adventurer's Guild. It requires you find passage on a ship to the land of XXX. Oh no! Pirates frequent those waters! No one wants to sail there. You'll have to find a really stupid ship captain or come up with enough money to make it worth his while.

An NPC the players need to talk to is going to be at the Royal Ball tonight and tonight only! They can only talk to him if they manage to get tickets or bribe a guard!

The entrance to a legendary temple has been discovered but no one can open the door. You take a drawing of the strange runes to a sage to identify...for a price. He tells the party the door is attuned to certain gems. They need a rare and expensive gem to unlock it.

Oh, another thing:  I also think it'd be far more realistic and story-centric (and easier) to give rewards that were intagible. I'm sure others have probably already mentioned it, but when you save the farmer's daughter, you don't get money:  you get a free place to sleep and free meals any time you're in the area.  The blacksmith's shop you saved now gives you free arrows (or whatever), or maybe repairs things for free.  Maybe the wizard you got that ingredient for is an expert in a specific type of lore you might need later.  Those are way better than money - especially when it comes to the story - and occasionally more valuable.  I'm sure many people do this sort of thing already, but it's a good way to combat inflation in-game.

Ramzour:  thanks for the comparison list!  I'd say if 1 silver were to equal 1 dollar, we'd have to think about prices as if it were still about 1985 or so.  I don't think I could get a set of "fine clothes" today for just 150 bucks. 

Nov 30, 2012 -- 8:42AM, Archangel wrote:

I would really like to see more effort in 5e towards simulating a real medevil economy. Now with removing magic items from every corner it is about time. If players need to deal with most problems they need to in real life (except paperwork and thank the gods of DnD for that :D) they should also need to with the most important one: money.

Please no, leave that sort of thing to the setting/DM.  I don't want to care how much the inn costs or how much it takes to bribe the official.  I only care about whether I can afford those things, and I'd prefer to let the DM just figure that out and give me a yes/no.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 7:46AM, nukunuku wrote:

Personally, I think common items like healing potions are drastically overpriced, and I like the idea of making the economy silver-based:  it might be easy to think of it like 1 silver = 1 dollar/euro in today's markets, although that may still be a bit high for some.  (So a good meal is a few silver, and a fancy room at the inn + meals might be a gold.  Healing potions would be more like 50 silver in that economy, I'd think.  No idea how this matches up to the equipment pages - it's just an example.)  But I think some of the feeling in this thread is right:  if "special" items are mostly priceless, then there is really an opportunity to make money "valuable" again.

 

Amazing. Didnt think anyone could underprice me on any items.
You really think healing potion at 25gp is overpriced? I never really looked at healing potions as common items. Even in the economy you speak of I would price healing potions in the 15-50gp range. In my setting its not goji juice. Its a relatively exotic magical elixir.

Dec 4, 2012 -- 11:14PM, lokiare wrote:

Well really plate mail needs to be broken into two types, plate and plate mail. The plate would be a kind of incomplete suit that covers the chest and the major parts of the arms, legs, and shoulders. It would have an AC bonus of 1 less than plate mail and cost significantly less. Then have plate mail that requires a fitting and custom work to make it fit and have it cost quite a bit of money...

 

How much? Sure separating fullplate from a breastplate or half plate adds some flavor. Im for that. I want 4e prices with half or full plate. Maybe even cheaper. There are better ways to balance armor. More posatives and negatives gives armor more personality. A cheaper price and players arent spending years risking their lives, amassing thousands of gp before they can use a classic Knight in full plate build.

Besides armor, some weapons, poison and spyglasses I cant think of anything that is so horribly inflated. You could simply reduce monetary rewards and you have your realistic economy. And it isnt just fluff. Now the players arent left with a surplus of money and nothing to spend it on. By the time they have 5 to 10K gold you could allow them to bid on a magic item or two in the teen levels.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 8:21AM, nukunuku wrote:

Oh, another thing:  I also think it'd be far more realistic and story-centric (and easier) to give rewards that were intagible. I'm sure others have probably already mentioned it, but when you save the farmer's daughter, you don't get money:  you get a free place to sleep and free meals any time you're in the area.  The blacksmith's shop you saved now gives you free arrows (or whatever), or maybe repairs things for free.  Maybe the wizard you got that ingredient for is an expert in a specific type of lore you might need later.  Those are way better than money - especially when it comes to the story - and occasionally more valuable.  I'm sure many people do this sort of thing already, but it's a good way to combat inflation in-game.

Ramzour:  thanks for the comparison list!  I'd say if 1 silver were to equal 1 dollar, we'd have to think about prices as if it were still about 1985 or so.  I don't think I could get a set of "fine clothes" today for just 150 bucks. 

I really like your suggestions. I think giving out gold as treasure is easy (read: lazy)...but the rewards like you suggested are far better in terms of roleplaying and potential awesomeness.

Say the party kills a flock of ghouls that were haunting the sewers in town. The local Lord wants to reward the party for their good deeds. What's more memorable? A reward of 125 gold....or having the Lord grant the party 2 favors of their choice?

As a DM, the latter is perfect opportunity to give depth and life to your world. Why waste it on a sack of coins when you can get tons of good story with just a little more thought and effort.

And when 125 gold is like giving out 12,500 dollars, it makes sense that you'd inflate the economy quickly!  

Not to say that giving treasure rewards isn't acceptable or even story-positive sometimes.  I mean, think of the scene in Conan with the old king talking about how gems lose their luster...

But when 125 gold is something you get and you're like, "eh, that's another six thousand hammers but not much else," something is messed up.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:34PM, nukunuku wrote:

And when 125 gold is like giving out 12,500 dollars, it makes sense that you'd inflate the economy quickly!  

Not to say that giving treasure rewards isn't acceptable or even story-positive sometimes.  I mean, think of the scene in Conan with the old king talking about how gems lose their luster...

But when 125 gold is something you get and you're like, "eh, that's another six thousand hammers but not much else," something is messed up.

exactly!

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

+1

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

this +1.

It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed.    They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat, and make the economy exponential to encourage "wasting money".   I mean, my bard spent money on rituals, potions, a castle, restoring a temple of bahamut and a variety of other things that the forums would tell me are a waste and causing me to fall behind.   But, 4e was originally designed to have reduced payoff for spending money, so that even though you'd fall behind in theory, you wouldn't be noticeably punished for spending some money on pointless trivialities. 

It saddens me they couldn't make this more clear.  Perhaps by enforcing level limits and by enforcing a strict limit of magic items per person, they can make sure that people have money they can't use for war.    That'll avoid people feeling that they're falling behind without removing item shops and without arguing why 30% of your gold must be spent on story.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 5:48PM, MeCorva wrote:

It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed.

They did, because of the enhancement-bonus treadmill.

They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat,

They succeeded at that... for standard builds. Of course, that left the average PC with the gold equivalent of one magic item every five levels for other things, including living expenses.

Non-standard builds, without inherent bonuses, could have problems. My dancer, mechanically, needs armor, neck item, weapon (main-hand short sword), weapon (off-hand short sword), weapon (bow), and possibly a weapon (dagger) or two, because he can't necessarily carry his swords in all social situations. For RP (backstory) reasons he tithes. And for RP reasons he desires a certain magic item (moderately low level) that is of almost no mechanical value to him, possibly in multiple instances, if that item happens to exist in that world. That's kind of hard on a 4-magic-items-minus-expenses-in-5-levels budget.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 5:48PM, MeCorva wrote:

It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed. They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat, and make the economy exponential to encourage "wasting money". I mean, my bard spent money on rituals, potions, a castle, restoring a temple of bahamut and a variety of other things that the forums would tell me are a waste and causing me to fall behind. But, 4e was originally designed to have reduced payoff for spending money, so that even though you'd fall behind in theory, you wouldn't be noticeably punished for spending some money on pointless trivialities. It saddens me they couldn't make this more clear. Perhaps by enforcing level limits and by enforcing a strict limit of magic items per person, they can make sure that people have money they can't use for war. That'll avoid people feeling that they're falling behind without removing item shops and without arguing why 30% of your gold must be spent on story.

 It wasn't a 4th ed problem although it just made it a bit more apparent as it assumed you would have a +XYZ item by a certain level. 3.5 had the same incentive to spend money on magic items as well. If you can buy and sell magic items as default rules there will be a strong inventive to buy combat gear over everything else.

 Pre 3rd ed characters tened to have more nagical items than 3.5 and 4th ed characters. Some of them would be pointless from a min/max point of view or hardly used (6 +1 spears carries as thrown weapons)

 The lony real way to have interesting mgical items is to divource them from an assumed or implied WBL guideline otherwise the incentive to buy magical items (combat ones) is a large one.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 5:48PM, MeCorva wrote:

It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed. They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat, and make the economy exponential to encourage "wasting money".

Yeah it did fail. The thing is that your supplement items like iron armbands of power were still huge, and you needed them, not to mention, every coin you wasted was less progress towards getting better items.

So long as you can buy relevant items at all, then you always run into the "wasting money" problem. 

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 9:04PM, Diffan wrote:

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.

What do you want to spend your money on, then?

If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.

Is it that hard to role play what your PC might do if he is rich? What would you do IRL if you aquired 10 million dollars?

 The options are endless. Some DMs might not mind their PCs having a million gold pieces at level 6 others might want them broke at level 10.

 WBL guidelines remove this option and PCs are going to want loot simialr to what the WBL guidelines are. Without them that +1 sword might cost 1000gp or it might cost 50 000gp depending on what the DM thinks is right for his game (or even how much wealth the PCs have available).

 Its not hard to port over the 3.5 WBL guidelines or the 4th ed equivilent if thats what floats your boat. We basically junked WBL rules in Pathfinder and our game is running fine. If part of the treasure is a magical bath tub and 7 singing mechanical/mechanical canaries they are not going to try and sell it to turn it into a +2 sword as they can't realy buy a +2 sword anyway. Thegame is actually working bettwer without them anyway as you do not really have to sacrifice anything if the the DM (me) decides that they can have a ring of freedom of movment at level. In effect it nerfs the spell casters as the PCs can have access to more defensive items they normally wouldn't be able to afford under normal WBL guidelines.

 And they can have a magical bath tub and 100 000 gold pieces as well.

Dec 2, 2012 -- 10:11AM, Lawolf wrote:

Read how Savage Worlds: Beasts and Barbarians deals with money. It is both highly entertaining and an lead to some wonderful RP moments. Basically the PCs "lose" their money between adventures in one or more interesting ways.

I haven't read through the whole list of post yet, but I ran a Sword & Sorcery inspired D&D campaign which used much the same principle. Basically it was a take on the old "money for XP" rule, but instead of getting XP for getting the treasure, the players got XP for spending the treasure. So while you could save up your money to spend it on something useful, it usually just got spent on whores, drinking and gambling, since those were the quickest ways of spending the gold. Not useful for all campaigns, but it set quite a nice tone for a band of rowdy adventurers who somehow never seemed to get rich no matter the dangers they faced.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 12:28AM, Ramzour wrote:

Dec 5, 2012 -- 9:04PM, Diffan wrote:

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.

What do you want to spend your money on, then?

If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.

Or simply go on adventures where you don't get loads of money? If money can't get you something you realy value, why strive to get them as a reward? Quite a lot of adventures could be done simply for the thrill or as pro-bono work for poor peasants or whatever.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 2:03AM, NHBaggesen wrote:

Dec 6, 2012 -- 12:28AM, Ramzour wrote:

Dec 5, 2012 -- 9:04PM, Diffan wrote:

Dec 5, 2012 -- 1:40PM, Dwarfslayer wrote:

I like the idea that gold doesn't buy anything "worthwhile."

You spend gold on flavor stuff like castles and arcane laboratories, but it doesn't make your character more powerful. The thing I always hated about 3E/4E is that characters became effectively heavily armed paupers, because every single coin they made went to buying better stuff. Every coin that you spent on not-gear was making you weaker and was just a flat out waste of money. So forget about your cleric donating to his church or your fighter ever owning a stronghold, you need to save up for that +4 cloak!

No thanks. I don't want a Castle. I don't want an Arcane Laboratory. I don't want to play D&D:SIMS. Not saying it shouldn't exist but there should be alternative ways of spending money besides arbitrary things that have little to no intrinsic value. I don't want to be forced into tithing or having to find a "court" and servants for my stronghold.

What do you want to spend your money on, then?

If you want your game worlds to have magic item shops like previous editions, that's fine. It makes figuring out what to spend your gold on much easier. But that's not the default assumption in Next. So since magic items aren't (normally) going to be on your shopping list now, we are trying to figure out what WILL be on our shopping lists.

Or simply go on adventures where you don't get loads of money? If money can't get you something you realy value, why strive to get them as a reward? Quite a lot of adventures could be done simply for the thrill or as pro-bono work for poor peasants or whatever.

First of all, you are confusing the roles of players and DMs. The DM gives out rewards, whether it's xp, gold, items, gems, or a story-based reward. The players don't decide to go on adventures where you gets loads of money and then suddenly have lots of money. They can TRY to seek out adventures with high gold-yield, but it doesn't mean they will succeed. The DM decides that.

But all that aside, I currently see 2 issues with the D&D rewards system.
1) since you aren't saving gold for magic items anymore, what other options exist to spend your gold on? These options can be anywhere from mechanical (gear, spells, henchmen, training) to story-based (favors, influence, castles, really nice hats).
2) to avoid the problem of only getting gold as a quest reward in the first place, what other reward options are there?

I know all this stuff can be brainstormed on your own, but that's not the point. I'd like to see the DMG have a couple sections dedicated to rewards that are not magic items and gold. Give us ideas. Random tables of non-gold rewards an NPC might give out.

Having options like this would allow for both styles of play and everywhere in between. As a DM, I want to have the tools I need to customize my game. The DMG should have those tools.

I still like the idea of GP for XP or "carousing". PC's spending their money on other things than gear, hirelings or other adventure-related stuff get xp for every gp they spend. This will cause an increase in level advancement speed unless you cut xp rewards elsewhere (cutting monster xp bij 80% for instance). Granted, this works for sandbox/exploration type campaign and less well for adventure path campaigns. Also wizards might need the money to buy/research their new spells instead of automatically getting them when they level up.

I would support having stuff like prices for opulent lifestyles, sailing ships, real estates and the costs and durations for having castles build in the same chapter as equipment in the players handbook. Players seeing these things might strat wanting them for their character and thereby breeding player motivation. Which is always a plus, even in adventure paths, the "in-it-for-the-money"-hero is a well-known trope.

Dec 5, 2012 -- 5:48PM, MeCorva wrote:

It saddens me when people say that in 4e you needed to spend all your money on gear or you'd fall behind, because it meant that the designers failed. They were obviously trying to make sure that only 3 items had strong relevance to combat, and make the economy exponential to encourage "wasting money".

I don't buy this; then why did they make so many awesome ring/waist/arm/head slot items?

I've been dipping in and out of this thread 'cause the topic interests me, and there are a number of points I think are valid which I'd like to highlight:

1. The shift of attention from magic items as an extenion of currency represents an attempt at a major paradigm shift - one that requires explanation and guidance for us all to acclimatise to.
2. The shift requires DMs to pay attention to what their players want and facilitate a rewards strategy that works for the group. If that means magic items are brought back into play as gold sinks, then that's what it means. Again, guidance on possible reward strategies will be an essential part of the DMG.
3. The shift requires players to work together to establish what kind of game they want to play and what kinds of rewards are appropriate. This is all about compromise: if a player is so unhappy that they insist that rewards work like they used to but everyone else is reasonably happy to try the new way then the unhappy player has to either give in and try or choose not to play. It's their right, either way and we should respect that right, but this system cannot work with half the party using castles as a gold sink and the other half using magic items.

The strategies I see available for those who want to keep the magic item as the gold sink is that they either don't have magic items with numerical effects attached to them or they tweak the encounter elements to reflect the incrased power due to magic items. To be fair, that's not so great a hardship.

well said, Kadim.

Just like with any major change through the editions, new things are always going to ruffle feathers. The great thing about the D&D Next design philosophy, though, is THIS IS OKAY! There's more than one way to play the game and D&D Next is going to be robust enough to handle all types of play styles.

I think 85% of the arguments on this forum can be resolved by saying: PosterX, you play your way over there...and PosterY, you play your way over there.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 2:25AM, Ramzour wrote:

First of all, you are confusing the roles of players and DMs. The DM gives out rewards, whether it's xp, gold, items, gems, or a story-based reward. The players don't decide to go on adventures where you gets loads of money and then suddenly have lots of money. They can TRY to seek out adventures with high gold-yield, but it doesn't mean they will succeed. The DM decides that.

But all that aside, I currently see 2 issues with the D&D rewards system.
1) since you aren't saving gold for magic items anymore, what other options exist to spend your gold on? These options can be anywhere from mechanical (gear, spells, henchmen, training) to story-based (favors, influence, castles, really nice hats).

To preface, I agree with virtually the entirety of your post.  However, what is in the range that you described between mechanical and stoy-based?  Everything that I can think of falls into either one of those two categories or falls partially in both of them.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 2:25AM, Ramzour wrote:

2) to avoid the problem of only getting gold as a quest reward in the first place, what other reward options are there?

I know all this stuff can be brainstormed on your own, but that's not the point. I'd like to see the DMG have a couple sections dedicated to rewards that are not magic items and gold. Give us ideas. Random tables of non-gold rewards an NPC might give out.

Having options like this would allow for both styles of play and everywhere in between. As a DM, I want to have the tools I need to customize my game. The DMG should have those tools.

I definitely want to see a section for non-gold rewards.  I'd also like to see 4e's boons come back, that way magic item rewards don't have to be actual items.  For instance, instead of a +1 armor, the +1 to AC might be some kind of divine favor or outrageous luck bestowed upon a character.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 12:00PM, MechaPilot wrote:

To preface, I agree with virtually the entirety of your post.  However, what is in the range that you described between mechanical and stoy-based?  Everything that I can think of falls into either one of those two categories or falls partially in both of them.

You are correct. Pretty much everything DOES fall into those two categories. What I meant is I'd like to see "stuff you can buy" that satisfies both the materialistic and the RP camps. I fully recognize (and several posters here have pointed out) that not everyone wants to buy tickets to the royal ball or build an alchemist lab....just like not everyone wants to spend their gold on only mechanical character upgrades. The REWARDS chapter in the DMG should list and give ideas for rewards that can fit in any style of game. High gold or low, high magic or low, high RP or hack-n-slash. Which I know you totally agree with me on! (see below)

Dec 6, 2012 -- 12:00PM, MechaPilot wrote:

I definitely want to see a section for non-gold rewards.  I'd also like to see 4e's boons come back, that way magic item rewards don't have to be actual items.  For instance, instead of a +1 armor, the +1 to AC might be some kind of divine favor or outrageous luck bestowed upon a character.

Awesome ideas. Yes, I think boons would be a great addition (though, I really don't care for the name that much, but whatev). I think 4e boons were a great concept, but they still fell short of their full potential for me. Ironically, the awesome story/fluff in the Magic Items packet is exactly the kind of direction these non-magic item rewards need to go.

Example:
Boon Givers (for lack of a better term)
-Ship Captain
-Bar Keep
-Grand Wizard
-High Priest
-Legendary Warrior
-Lord of Town
-Shy forest nymph
-Dragon
-Elemental Spirit
-Benevolent Ghost
-Angel/Celestial
-Demon/Devil
-Fey Queen

Boon Types:
-Protective
-Enhancement (Sensory)
-Enhancement (Mobility)
-Enhancement (Skill Increase)
-Good Fortune

Boon Duration:
-Limited Use, user activated
-Limited Use, trigger activated
-Permanent, user activated
-Permanent, trigger activated

So you could roll up something like this:

Boon - The Mirror of Phasing
Keywords: Benevolent ghost; Enhancement (Mobility); Limited Use, user activated
Benefit: An NPC ghost gives a player one of its precious heirlooms: a small mirror with a pearl handle. While that player holds that heirloom, as an action, they can go ethereal for 1 round. This boon only functions while holding the heirloom in hand. When the player leaves the grounds of the manor, the boon is extinguished and the heirloom vanishes.

Boon - A Salty Blessing
Keywords: Ship Captain; Enhancement (Mobility); Limited Use, trigger activated
Benefit: The Ship Captain blesses his crew before sailing into the heavy storm. For the next 24 hours, the crew of his ship gain a Swim Speed of 30 and can hold their breath for twice as long as normal. This only functions while they are in the water.

Boon - Water Blade Strike
Keywords: Legendary Warrior; Skill Increase; Permanent, use activated
Benefit: For two whole moons, the legendary warrior trains the player in the lost maneuver of the Water Blade Strike. The player gains the maneuver called Water Blade Strike. When making an attack with a slashing weapon, spend two ED. If you hit, you automatically initiate a knockdown in addition to any damage you dealt. Roll to resolve the knockdown normally.

I dunno, these are all just off the top of my head. But the point is, given some random tables like this, you can generate boons like you do magic items. Roll up some keywords. Spend 5 minutes thinking up a story. BAM!

I'm of the camp that enjoys spending money on things that aren't directly related to adventuring (or, at least aren't directly gear upgrades.)  Lands, businesses, fancy clothes, etc.  As a DM I like to use the tables for random works of art and jewelry. As a player, I like to actually keep some of that stuff, rather than trade it in for gold.

I've always been a fan of buying/building a ship. And a great way to spend vast sums of money and adventuring is to create that magical flying house boat.

One simple idea that occurred to me, if the designers choose not to alter the economy by much, would be to find out what the results would look like of cutting treasure rewards to 10%. By that I mean, if we keep the prices where they are, but just convert all of the gp that monsters or NPCs are packing into sp, what does that do to the world believability? It makes a lot of sense for your typical goblins and bandits. How does it stack up for merchants, nobles, etc?

A major problem you see with non-PC wealth is the increase in amount of wealth between low-level creatures and high level ones is simply too linear. Use that 1sp = $20 conversion I was talking about and check out the amount of money in the sample adventures, for instance. The savage humanoids and common folk have too much, and aristocrats have too little.

And of course, the price of weaponry and armor is absurd as far as PC wealth gain goes. Sure, it makes sense that high quality military equipment (like a longsword) would cost $3,000, but the idea that the weapons used by monsters are usually of too poor quality to sell is ridiculous given those values. You can bet my 1st-3rd level adventurer is going to be toting those things back to town, even if he can only get 10% for them.

They really need to price everything in the PHB and DMG using modern currency. Then they can convert it to D&D currency, and in the process decide how much they want a silver piece to be worth.

Dec 6, 2012 -- 1:49PM, Sword_of_Spirit wrote:

I've always been a fan of buying/building a ship. And a great way to spend vast sums of money and adventuring is to create that magical flying house boat.

An airship? YAAAAAAAAAY! I love those. I totally want that to be my money sink and if the rest of my party only wants magic items they can eat my wake.