Don't you allow the PCs to sell those extra items for cash?
Well at some point, yes. There's not many people who could afford such in Sturnheim (the town in the adventure), but I did put
a way into the adventure, if the players do the right things. But as I posted upthread, I have a concern with what players are going to actually going to be able to
do with said money. Here's the ideas I've had and the problems with them:
Hirelings: the adventure comes with several NPC's who the party could hire or coerce into joining them. This would make the tougher battles easier, and it hits my nostalgia bone, remembering the time when I routinely adventured with a couple of NPC's around. But adding more bodies to battles will add to complexity, making those battles longer, and ultimately, force me to make them tougher.
Of course, the answer there is to have more specialized Hirelings you don't want to risk in battle, who can perform other services for the group, but there's some logistical issues to consider when traveling with camp followers, which leads into:
Base Building: another feature of older editions that I'm nostalgic for, is the idea of having a permanent base of operations. My experience, however, has been that this is something for high level play, when you can afford to build teleportation circles and whatnot. Building a base and then finding that the adventure is moving elsewhere, to the point you rarely see it, kind of makes the exercise feel a bit pointless.
Training: some NPC's could teach players proficiencies, boons, or even feats, with the right incentive and downtime investment. This does turn money into another xp track since you now have another resource that can expand your abilities, but it might be ok if I got light on combat benefits.
Magic Item Trading: another classic "money to xp" scenario. Since 5e isn't built for players to need lots of increasingly more powerful magic items, there reaches a point where I have to charge outlandish prices for what, I'm sure, will feel like minor upgrades to the players. And honestly, I want the most epic and amazing magic items to be things found on adventures, not purchased from a store. Consumable items are a different story, of course, I always make those plentiful and easily found, but historically, my players over the decades never seem to know when the right time to use them is, or when it's worth the action economy to use them. I'm going to allow for bonus action potion use, but 5e's design is lousy with other uses for bonus actions- for some characters a bonus action is as important as a full action!
Thieves', Taxes, Money Sinks: never been a fan of these, while it can make sense in a world, it's a feel bad moment when the DM has to come up with a way to rid the party of the money they gave out in the first place. Pass. Going out of my way to destroy magic items very often has a similar effect. I remember a Dragonlance module (one of the sequels to In Search of Dragons) where our party of mighty heroes encountered a random trap that disintegrated a bunch of our items in a pretty blatant attempt to cut down the strength of the PC's- and then by the end of the adventure we were once again flush with a hoard of new items anyways, so it really felt like a pointless exercise. There's already a bit of this going on with purchasing supplies and helping yourself to a fine meal or other diversions, but that's generally not going to break the bank. Or say you've decided to seed plot hooks for an adventure on an island, then turn around and charge money for the players to get to said island- behind the scenes it seems a little pointless, like charging your players an "adventuring tax" (I'm suddenly reminded of MMO "raid attunements"...).
Investments: if it's turning money into more money, that's not really a solution. I'm certainly going to try to make fostering goodwill in communities a benefit, but being told that you have an endless supply of free drinks at an Inn by giving up enough money to
buy said Inn feels a bit odd.
Bribes and Gifts: probably the best use for treasure, using it to influence NPC's (or gain influence by increasing your reputation in general). Need to sway the High Priest to lend you a holy relic? That's gonna require a hefty donation to the Church! The idea of gaining titles and increasing one's social standing might be attractive to some players- I know I always liked this sort of thing! Also in here would be joining organizations, though again, you only do that if there's tangible benefit.
General Do-Goodery: another personal favorite of mine is to use my wealth to help others without any real expectation of profit. As a DM though, if I have a player bound and determined to
do good, I end up going out of my way to make sure that matters. It's an interesting paradox, really. One should do good with no expectations of reward, otherwise, it's not really doing good- but if there isn't any reward, then greedy selfish characters are effectively rewarded for being jerks!
Luxury Items: in the real world, the super wealthy often splurge on crazy stuff they don't need, simply to flaunt how wealthy they are. In a fantasy world, one could expect the same, and I do plan on making a lot of these things available. I once purchased an airship that only flew marginally faster than a horse could gallop, and had terrible handling and elevation, but I didn't care- I made it into my private, floating mansion, with all the amenities I could pack into it, so I could always travel in style! This could be my best bet in the end. It certainly satisfies the "roleplaying" itch, but it runs contrary to the reality that this is a "game" and everything is a potential resource.
