D&D 5E If you aren't buying magic items, where will you spend your gold?

[Li Shenron]

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but my favourite approach:

1) "the PC are just like most people in the real world" i.e. they will spend their gold to improve their lifestyles

2) "the PC are just unlike most people in the real world" i.e. they will not even bother with picking up treasure

The two ideas can coexist, i.e. some PC might be in the first group and others in the second, or the same PC might be of the first group when young and of the second when older. But then from 1) they would probably buy themselves a house/keep/castle, horses and wagons, clothes and accessories, and/or hire servants/guards/teachers/performers (some even intimate companions), and/or expend in travels, entertainments, celebrations, businesses, etc. Case 2) simply means the PCs are beyond the lure of wealth, and value being heroes, becoming rulers, saving the country/world/multiverse, or they value knowledge, honor, ideals etc. more than wealth.

Honestly the only thing that bored me already is the circular idea of investing treasure into adventuring equipment that will help you find more treasure to invest in equipment to find more treasure to invest in equipment to find more treasure...... Removing the necessity of this in the 5e game was really a good move IMO.

 

[steeldragons]

Oh! This reminds me [duh. no posts without minimum 2 cups of coffee! Rookie mistake.]...STRONGHOLD! Castles, temples, hideouts, towers...Watchtower in orbit? Hall of [Heroes]? ...safe houses, vacation homes/summer estates, fox/bolt holes, etc... Construction and upkeep on a "home base(s)" is a nice, and constant, drain on ye olde income.

 

[CapnZapp]

I've seen people mentioning that they have excess gold in 5e, largely because magic items aren't generally available to purchase. So the question is, where are you going to spend all that cash?

...

Okay, what am I missing?

Aren't you trying to solve a problem that didn't need a new solution?

How about hoping the DMG contains magic item prices as an option for those of us who feel magic items that make your character better is the most fun option to spend your gold on.

 

[Hereticus]

Magic items are generally available for purchase. If they weren't common as dirt they wouldn't be all over the place in the hands of practically every group of 4 or more creatures.

I don't like to sell magic items to my characters often, or for them to find them as part of a treasure haul. They should fight the previous owner for them!

 

[CapnZapp]

Magic items are generally available for purchase. If they weren't common as dirt they wouldn't be all over the place in the hands of practically every group of 4 or more creatures.

Yes, 5th ed can't both eat the cake and have it too.

If magic swords are supposed to be invaluable then don't hand them out to level 1 characters like candy.

Conversely (and much preferred) accept the consequences of your own actions (=handing out magic loot is fun) and stop pretending there won't be a marked created around these items, WotC!!

 

[dagger]

I do it like 1e. Hard to make and expensive yet deceptively common. Does not make sense but it works.

 

[Quartz]

Magic items may not be available for purchase off the shelf, but shouldn't PCs be able to commission them? This also gives ideas for fetch quests, of course: "I'll be delighted to make this armour for you, Sir knight, but I need..."

 

[Hereticus]

Magic items may not be available for purchase off the shelf, but shouldn't PCs be able to commission them? This also gives ideas for fetch quests, of course: "I'll be delighted to make this armour for you, Sir knight, but I need..."

Yes they should. But as DM I would make them expensive to buy and time consuming to make. Characters should have stories about what they defeated, not where they shopped.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Yes, 5th ed can't both eat the cake and have it too.

If magic swords are supposed to be invaluable then don't hand them out to level 1 characters like candy.

Conversely (and much preferred) accept the consequences of your own actions (=handing out magic loot is fun) and stop pretending there won't be a marked created around these items, WotC!!

A problem which would have easily been solved with a decent crafting system. Of all the things they take from MMOs and shatter any RPG verisimilitude with, why don't they take a decent crafting system because that solves a lot of problems and doesn't break verisimilitude. Want to have magic armor, you need hide from X and scales from Y. Want a magic staff, gotta find a rare tree A and get beholder eye B and silver blessed by C.

This way it is MUCH easier to control magic item availability in your game. An encounter can but doesn't have to drop an entire magic item, it can drop a part of one. In the same way gold can be used to buy magic items or parts of magic items but availability of either is far more in the hands of the DM and feels far less artificial. It also greatly promotes PCs taking some initiative and going out and doing side quests.

Entirely as an option you can also add wear in to explain why magic items exit the world and don't accumulate. In 3E destroying items with sunder, disjunction or rolling 1 on a DEX save was relatively common at higher levels. A similar system for 5E could be entirely appropriate and meshes well with a crafting system.

 

[Chocolategravy]

Magic items may not be available for purchase off the shelf, but shouldn't PCs be able to commission them? This also gives ideas for fetch quests, of course: "I'll be delighted to make this armour for you, Sir knight, but I need..."

If a group of people with enough wealth to buy several kingdoms comes to town with a need for magic items, there will be people lining up to fill that need. In the case of that much wealth it will be rulers with entire armies who will annihilate every ruin, dungeon and cave in a 500 mile radius looking for things to get that wealth with.