I've been playing in a campaign since the early release of the PHB and we're having a good time so far, but the latest session has introduced a little hiccup. After completing a fairly perilous quest, our party received 1000 GP of treasure, along with enough XP to get up to level 4. Of course, without any real treasure guidelines until November, the GM kind of had to just make up a number.
Now, from the get go, I've been all for abolishing the magic item economy; finding a magic item in this edition brings to mind the troll's treasure hoard in The Hobbit, where you knew these swords were rare and special things. The other end of the problem only just occurred to me as we began to experience it though. Without magic items to buy, what do players spend their enormous wealth on?
Even with only a few hundred GP each, we scratched our heads at what we could possibly do with it; no one in the party even wears heavy armor. Sure, we could get our weapons silvered, maybe pick up a flask of acid or an alchemist's fire in case we ever run into a troll, but after that, we're pretty much at the bottom of the barrel for adventuring gear that's actually useful. What's worse, we're only level 4. Should we survive until the lofty heights of level 12, where we will certainly have tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of treasure, and a significant amount of raw coinage, where in the world will we ever spend it?
So what do you think, denizens of enworld? Should the GM start putting money sinks in quests that help expedite information gathering? Limit adventurer rewards to more 'realistic' amounts? Introduce stronghold building and hope the players go for it? Or maybe the players should go the dragon route and hoard all their wealth in a cave somewhere so they can go for a swim whenever they feel particularly Scrooge McDuck. Or have I missed something obvious?
Now, from the get go, I've been all for abolishing the magic item economy; finding a magic item in this edition brings to mind the troll's treasure hoard in The Hobbit, where you knew these swords were rare and special things. The other end of the problem only just occurred to me as we began to experience it though. Without magic items to buy, what do players spend their enormous wealth on?
Even with only a few hundred GP each, we scratched our heads at what we could possibly do with it; no one in the party even wears heavy armor. Sure, we could get our weapons silvered, maybe pick up a flask of acid or an alchemist's fire in case we ever run into a troll, but after that, we're pretty much at the bottom of the barrel for adventuring gear that's actually useful. What's worse, we're only level 4. Should we survive until the lofty heights of level 12, where we will certainly have tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of treasure, and a significant amount of raw coinage, where in the world will we ever spend it?
So what do you think, denizens of enworld? Should the GM start putting money sinks in quests that help expedite information gathering? Limit adventurer rewards to more 'realistic' amounts? Introduce stronghold building and hope the players go for it? Or maybe the players should go the dragon route and hoard all their wealth in a cave somewhere so they can go for a swim whenever they feel particularly Scrooge McDuck. Or have I missed something obvious?
