D&D 5E Downtime home brew

[Antonlowe]

Thanks Ancalagon. I loved the tone of you post and your thoughtfulness.

I think that warhammer would be a good comparison to what I am going for. The difference will be in the higher levels. In warhammer you are basically always poor, in my game their is the chance to become truly wealthy.

the sack of 300cp I plan on handing out for getting from 1st to 2nd level, should seem precious because it is a month's wages.

The PCs will need to spend 70cp to be able to spend time training and advance to 2nd level. Probably another 100cp for getting the rest of the starting equipment they couldnt afford at character creation.

 

[Antonlowe]

Thanks Ancalagon. I loved the tone of you post and your thoughtfulness.

I think that warhammer would be a good comparison to what I am going for. The difference will be in the higher levels. In warhammer you are basically always poor, in my game their is the chance to become truly wealthy.

the sack of 300cp I plan on handing out for getting from 1st to 2nd level, should seem precious because it is a month's wages.

The PCs will need to spend 70cp to be able to spend time training and advance to 2nd level. Probably another 100cp for getting the rest of the starting equipment they couldnt afford at character creation.

 

[Ancalagon]

As an aside... are you using a "decimal" coining system? As in 1 gp = 10 sp = 100 cp?

Complicated and realistic coinage system can be fun to design as a gm, but I found that they tend to annoy players more than anything else. The "olde schoole" system of 1 gp = 20 sp = 240 cp is probably as complicated as you should get, anything more than that is *not* worth the hassle. Oh and if the players travel, even if it's "historically accurate" to change coinage system, don't bother, it's a big headache...

I would note that if players are used to being poor, having a bit of coin will make them "feel" wealthy with a lot lower coinage amount. That campaign I was talking about? Around the end, the party treasury had about 100 gp in it, and individual characters ranged from "I only have 5 gp but I have very good equipment" to "I have 150 gp on me... and a horse!". With that level of wealth, they felt "at ease" in said wealth.

Lastly, are you going to change the XP chart? Characters go from level 1 to 3 very quickly in 5e... Anyway, I do agree with you that high level characters that are really poor doesn't feel "right", but the mid levels they could still be short on funds. It leads to a grittier feel.