D&D (2024) Gold & Other Treasure (Can we get off the treadmill?)

[Lanefan]

My personal opinion is that 5E was built acknowledging that its foundation is a game almost 50 years old, and that players from any of those years already know exactly how they want their D&D game to go. So there's no point in re-writing rules for 5E that most of those older players will just ignore or get annoyed at because they won't match their expectations. They own all their old books, they remember how they enjoyed playing with those old rules... if they want rules such as that so badly they can just incorporate their old chestnuts into this new game. It's like Stealth... I think WotC knew going in with 5E14 that every single player out there was going to have a different opinion on how Stealth should work in their game... so why go out of their way to build some elaborate hiding and stealthing system in 5E when 95% of the playerbase was just going to crap on it and end up just re-doing their old preferred rules from whatever their favorite edition was and just using that anyway? Just write something basic and foundational, and let players toss them out and use something else if they want something different.

Answer to both questions embedded here: because that's the designers' job, not the end consumers'.

Whether or not people are likely to gravitate toward different systems is no excuse for not even trying. Worse, not only don't they try but they also don't give any suggestions as to what other systems might most seamlessly fill those gaps.

One could, I suppose, make a (very flimsy!) case that the money piece isn't essential for ongoing play; but good stealth-sneak-hide rules sure as hell are and - given that some classes outright depend on those rules in order to function - to punt on them is nigh-inexcusable.

And new players? If they have no experience or knowledge of what you used to be able to do with treasure, then they won't know what they're missing. So WotC doesn't need to design a system for them either necessarily, if they think that system will just end up being more complicated or less fun than it's worth, or that those players could just go find stuff online to use if they think they need something.

I suspect most would fairly quickly figure out they're missing something when their mid-level PCs find themselves sitting on a fortune, they-as-players want to spend said fortune, and the DM has neither idea nor core-game guidance as to what to do next.

 

[Yaarel]

The best way to get off of the treadmill is to remove all costly gp components from spell descriptions.

This discontinuation makes clear that the game works for any setting scenario regardless of the amount of money available.

 

[Lanefan]

The best way to get off of the treadmill is to remove all costly gp components from spell descriptions.

In most campaigns this would serve only to take yet another restriction off of casters, which doesn't exactly help sort the caster/martial power issues.

 

[payn]

Answer to both questions embedded here: because that's the designers' job, not the end consumers'.

Whether or not people are likely to gravitate toward different systems is no excuse for not even trying. Worse, not only don't they try but they also don't give any suggestions as to what other systems might most seamlessly fill those gaps.

One could, I suppose, make a (very flimsy!) case that the money piece isn't essential for ongoing play; but good stealth-sneak-hide rules sure as hell are and - given that some classes outright depend on those rules in order to function - to punt on them is nigh-inexcusable.

I suspect most would fairly quickly figure out they're missing something when their mid-level PCs find themselves sitting on a fortune, they-as-players want to spend said fortune, and the DM has neither idea nor core-game guidance as to what to do next.

Why must they spend it at all? Why can’t the game just go on?

 

[payn]

In most campaigns this would serve only to take yet another restriction off of casters, which doesn't exactly help sort the caster/martial power issues.

Yeap.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's not about the bonus to hit, it's about how many foes have resistance to non-magical weapons. The mega-dungeon I'm playing in now (Scarlet Citadel by Kobold Press) was absolutely brutal for our weapon users because we consistently ran into enemies with this resistance. When we found our first magic weapon, we gave it to the Cleric not realizing how few magic weapons we would encounter (ironically, the next thing we found was an actual +1 warhammer). Our Dex Ranger was stuck using a pair of +0 daggers (one is +1 vs. monstrosities, and the other is +1 vs. undead). It wasn't until two sessions ago that he was able to upgrade to actual short swords (which cost us 10,000 gp to "rent" lol).

That's also a sign of bad dungeon design. If it was designed as a 5E dungeon, it should be stocked -- both with monsters and treasure -- based on how the game works.

 

[Yaarel]

In most campaigns this would serve only to take yet another restriction off of casters, which doesn't exactly help sort the caster/martial power issues.

The actual costs of specific spells are almost never a meaningful deterrent, being a trivial amount at a high level.

Only for two or three spells would the cost matter, and in these cases there are better ways to design the spell without gp costs.

Meanwhile the ubiquity of irrelevant gp components causes disruptions (such as to class flavors and innate casting) and misunderstands relating to the assumption that costs are for balance, which they arent.

 

[tetrasodium]

I am not confused by WotC's statements. I think you are. I don't mean that in a negative way either. I have done the same thing before. But it seems as though you have taken their statements as, "You don't need to use magic items in the game (in context of balance)," and warped it into some canonical expectation.

One: The DMG has an entire chapter on treasure, most of which is magic items. It is approximately 100 pages of magic item descriptions, use, and application. That is approximately 1/3 of the DMG dedicated to magic items! To dedicate a third of the DMG to anything means it is important.

Two: Xanathar's has an entire section in their section Downtime Revisited dealing with the buying and selling of magic items. They also have an entire section on Awarding Magic Items. Again, odd of them to dedicate a dozen pages of a supplement when the thought is "zero magic items expected."

The truth is, they are using that in context of power and game fluidity, not expectations. How about this, show me a popular D&D campaign online or a published adventure by WotC that doesn't use magic items. The answer is - you can't. That is because they are used. This insistence you have that "zero magic items are expected" is not wholly accurate.

You can run a D&D game without magic items. No one else does.

If you decide to run a game without magic items, please come back and tell me the implications on the gold economy. I will fix them for you.

That is not me saying they are playing wrong. It is me saying, if you sign up to be a DM, then some work is required. I am sorry if you feel otherwise, but it is the truth. It is written in the DMG. It is clear. It is in thousands of DMs posts here, on Reddit, and anywhere else people consume D&D information. It is written in every adventure path. The expectation is very clear - to DM you will have to do some work. That work requires you to read, write, and interact with your players.

If you do not believe that, then we are at an impasse.

No you are looking at it through some pretty significant blinkers. By designing so zero magic items are expected they were able to pretend that monsters were totally slotted into bounded accuracy even though PCs continue to advance with more HP, more attacks/damage dice, more proficiency bonus, etc. Had some level of magic item churn and progression been baked into the expectation it would have been undeniably obvious how currently somewhere in tier 2 or tier 3 the monsters become rather lacking in efficacy unless the gm creates new problems by throwing out encounters far beyond"lethal". That choice to design for no magic items has extremely far reaching consequences throughout the game.

The fact that the dmg and many books released since are packed with magic items only serves to exacerbate the problem as those magic items continue to improve in ways that ultimately undermine the gm's efforts to redesign around a bad choice wotc made before release. The obvious conflict of designing for none and printing lots is one that has even been raised a few times already.

 

[James Gasik]

That's also a sign of bad dungeon design. If it was designed as a 5E dungeon, it should be stocked -- both with monsters and treasure -- based on how the game works.

I'm the party treasurer (mostly because I use my tablet when gaming and take notes) and we've certainly found a lot of both. Just off the top of my head, we have a luckstone, a bag of holding, a wand of binding, a +1 crossbow, a mining pick that counts as magical and has the super amazing ability to, once per day, let you spend a healing surge and roll twice keeping the better result. A throwing hammer that counts as magical and returns to it's user, a Belt of Dwarvenkind, a Ring of Lightning Resistance, a Ring of Swimming, a +1 magic shield, two +1 warhammers, the two magic daggers I mentioned, a Bead of Force, two Potions of Superior Healing, a Potion of Fire Giant Strength, a magic flute that allows you to Speak with Dead 1/day if you're a Bard, and a few cursed/do not work as intended items (like a Ring of Sustenance that protects you from starvation, but you still feel like you're starving).

What it didn't have was the precise magic weapons the party needed, which caused everyone to struggle for some time. Now that we've hit level 7, we're in good shape (for now), but there were a lot of grueling fights to get there.

As for the gold in general, an NPC offered up powerful magic weapons for the Ranger to borrow while we're attempting to rid the Citadel of evil. The 10,000 gp is a security deposit, and it represented maybe 40% of the value of all the loot we've accumulated. Which has been mostly sitting around because the hub town is too small to sell some of the more valuable items in.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What it didn't have was the precise magic weapons the party needed, which caused everyone to struggle for some time. Now that we've hit level 7, we're in good shape (for now), but there were a lot of grueling fights to get there.

Yeah, that's bad design. A Ring of Swimming is not going to help fighting a monster that can only be hurt with magic weapons.

The dungeon needs to be designed so that, at the point that monsters that require magical weapons are a regular occurrence, most members of an average-sized party that need magical weapons to hit their targets (in other words, the warlocks, wizards and sorcerers wouldn't have them yet) would have them, if they had done an average job of clearing the dungeon and searching for magic items. They might not have their ideal weapons -- I would make the +1 shortswords easy to find and the +1 two-handed swords and axes harder to find. But a really skillful group would probably have magic weapons for everyone, maybe even two magic weapons.

To encourage groups to search for them, there should probably be a guardian between the area where mundane weapons are fine and where magical weapons are required that will stay tethered in their chamber but absolutely not be beatable without magic weapons. Don't let the PCs wander into a place where they're going to slaughtered because they're not properly geared up yet. (And this makes sense in-world: The higher level areas that belong to the lieutenants or where the treasure vaults are would of course have a powerful gatekeeper.)

Players are smart -- they'll bounce off that guy and gear up by clearing the rest of the level to that point.

This isn't rocket science: Nearly every CRPG works this way.