I agree strongly with the premise of the OP. Ultimately to me the system can go one of two ways:
1) The gaining and spending of treasure are both loose constructs. Something like:
5th level: You live in comfort. You have hirelings for your house's needs, can afford lavish meals..etc etc.
20th level: You have several large mansions and castles, and armies of servants at your command.
So in this model, we don't track treasure. This is the lifestyle levels taken to a greater extent. We just assume that when the players reach a certain point they are rich enough to do X things.
2) The more accountant model, your treasure gains and expenditures are tracked.
a) In general you gain X per level or adventure.
b) You can spend X to gain Y.
The problem is 5th tried to go both ways. It used the accountant system to gain the gold, but then left its spending in vague, nebulous, or even absent terms. Hence the current issue.
Now, this is an gap in the rules. Not an unsurmountable gap by any stretch. Some have posted how they have handled it as a DM, which is always good. Some just ignore treasure, and the rest of the game runs without a hitch. But the OP wants to look at the system and try to make this aspect better.
The rules of an RPG exist so that the DM does less work...that's why it exists. The secret of Dnd is that you don't need Dnd. Give people time and they can create their own roleplaying systems if they want to. But most people don't want to make up all of their rules, they would like to pay someone to do that for them. That is why people buy tabletop RPGs.
So for the DMs and players who have found a solution to this problem....then enjoy your games....I just don't know why you are hanging out in this thread. This thread is designed to put a little more structure to the 5e economy so that Dms would like that can benefit and don't have to think of those things on their own.
Please allow them to do that.
1) The gaining and spending of treasure are both loose constructs. Something like:
5th level: You live in comfort. You have hirelings for your house's needs, can afford lavish meals..etc etc.
20th level: You have several large mansions and castles, and armies of servants at your command.
So in this model, we don't track treasure. This is the lifestyle levels taken to a greater extent. We just assume that when the players reach a certain point they are rich enough to do X things.
2) The more accountant model, your treasure gains and expenditures are tracked.
a) In general you gain X per level or adventure.
b) You can spend X to gain Y.
The problem is 5th tried to go both ways. It used the accountant system to gain the gold, but then left its spending in vague, nebulous, or even absent terms. Hence the current issue.
Now, this is an gap in the rules. Not an unsurmountable gap by any stretch. Some have posted how they have handled it as a DM, which is always good. Some just ignore treasure, and the rest of the game runs without a hitch. But the OP wants to look at the system and try to make this aspect better.
The rules of an RPG exist so that the DM does less work...that's why it exists. The secret of Dnd is that you don't need Dnd. Give people time and they can create their own roleplaying systems if they want to. But most people don't want to make up all of their rules, they would like to pay someone to do that for them. That is why people buy tabletop RPGs.
So for the DMs and players who have found a solution to this problem....then enjoy your games....I just don't know why you are hanging out in this thread. This thread is designed to put a little more structure to the 5e economy so that Dms would like that can benefit and don't have to think of those things on their own.
Please allow them to do that.