D&D 5E What's the point of gold?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The problems come when you don't want to play in those "long after the fall of the Empire" scenarios. Why should I be limited to have my campaigns in very specific time periods? why can't I play in a golden age when those lost arts haven't been lost yet?



But what if I want my players to do it without needing me to micromanage what they are doing? Or to be able to do it without being subject to my whims? I need balanced crafting rules that don't need my approval at every single step and that are easy to communicate with my players. The complex quest based one in this edition is not that helpful if you want to play something like Eberron or if you have a very high magic world. I know that taking away is harder, but it is also very hard to create a subsystem out of thin air when you need it.



Speaking of these, the main reason I want a list of magic items and magic shops, to allow for any kind of plot without having to take a detour because the party scout needs a set of goggles to keep being the party scout once we move the rest of the campaign into the underdark.(And to me a magic item has to feel magical on its own instead of needing three to four sessions of sidequesting to feel special) These rules for magic item crafting work very well on platonic sandboxes, but the way I like to play is far from it, and it should have no bearing on whether my players deserve to have fun with magic items or not.

I don't know what to tell you other than you may have to do some work to adapt any given game to your needs. I personally don't like the party just going to magic Wal-mart and buying night vision goggles and I'm glad I don't have to do the work to remove that stuff from the core game assumptions. You are on the other side and I have no solution on than to fix it yourself or you may have to go with a game that caters to your needs better. Not sure what else to say.

 

[MoonSong]

I'd be happy with a web enhancement but it's not coming. Hard to do properly = higher cost to create = not happening in this edition.

At least is more realistic than expecting a rewritten DMG...

 

[mlund]

People who are arguing for magic item prices are not arguing for 'easily purchasable' magic items or walmarts of magic items. Some posters quite the opposite actually. They're arguing that the designers *should* have put this stuff in the game to save them the hassle of having to do it for themselves, and it's not a niche demand, it's something which the past two editions and pathfinder supported/s.

I think he understands the argument just fine. I think the point is he finds a conflict between what those posters want and what other people want. The outcome of what earlier editions did and Pathfinder does is, in my opinion, terrible. In Living Greyhawk I suffered through the historical outcomes of putting price-tags on everything in the Core game and then trying to integrate those price-tags in some semi-logical manner by means of a crafting system. It's nothing I ever want to repeat.

Economic models of magic item distribution are seasoned to taste. Leaving them deliberately ambiguous in the core game is a great thing because it avoids setting table expectations before the DM has even laid hands on the world. It'd be great if something costs one price on Krynn and another price in Ebberon and maybe can't even be found for sale in Greyhawk. I want a game system designed without magic economies factored into challenge ratings and wealth-by-level - and that's a game system that's Core rules don't even suggest that access to X Gold = Y Magic Items as a standard.

And-ons (especially campaign setting specific ones) that add Gold Costs for magic items, artifacts, and other stuff are certainly welcome - I just don't want it in Core.

Marty Lund

 

[MoonSong]

I think he understands the argument just fine. I think the point is he finds a conflict between what those posters want and what other people want. The outcome of what earlier editions did and Pathfinder does is, in my opinion, terrible. In Living Greyhawk I suffered through the historical outcomes of putting price-tags on everything in the Core game and then trying to integrate those price-tags in some semi-logical manner by means of a crafting system. It's nothing I ever want to repeat.

Economic models of magic item distribution are seasoned to taste. Leaving them deliberately ambiguous in the core game is a great thing because it avoids setting table expectations before the DM has even laid hands on the world. It'd be great if something costs one price on Krynn and another price in Ebberon and maybe can't even be found for sale in Greyhawk. I want a game system designed without magic economies factored into challenge ratings and wealth-by-level - and that's a game system that's Core rules don't even suggest that access to X Gold = Y Magic Items as a standard.

And-ons (especially campaign setting specific ones) that add Gold Costs for magic items, artifacts, and other stuff are certainly welcome - I just don't want it in Core.

Marty Lund

But nobody is asking for it to be in core. Just to have it at all in some form. The trinity is already printed and in stores...

 

[DaveDash]

I think he understands the argument just fine. I think the point is he finds a conflict between what those posters want and what other people want. The outcome of what earlier editions did and Pathfinder does is, in my opinion, terrible. In Living Greyhawk I suffered through the historical outcomes of putting price-tags on everything in the Core game and then trying to integrate those price-tags in some semi-logical manner by means of a crafting system. It's nothing I ever want to repeat.

Economic models of magic item distribution are seasoned to taste. Leaving them deliberately ambiguous in the core game is a great thing because it avoids setting table expectations before the DM has even laid hands on the world. It'd be great if something costs one price on Krynn and another price in Ebberon and maybe can't even be found for sale in Greyhawk. I want a game system designed without magic economies factored into challenge ratings and wealth-by-level - and that's a game system that's Core rules don't even suggest that access to X Gold = Y Magic Items as a standard.

And-ons (especially campaign setting specific ones) that add Gold Costs for magic items, artifacts, and other stuff are certainly welcome - I just don't want it in Core.

Marty Lund

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there as a variant. For many, player driven gear advancement - crafting especially, is an entire pillar of game play unto itself.

 

[mlund]

But nobody is asking for it to be in core. Just to have it at all in some form. The trinity is already printed and in stores...

And all is right with the world. I'm simply of the mind that leaving purchase prices for Magic Items out of the Core Rules is not a bug in the product, but rather a feature.

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there as a variant. For many, player driven gear advancement - crafting especially, is an entire pillar of game play unto itself.

Sure. Permanent Magic Item Crafting just happens to be an outside-the-three-pillars premise that I don't want to touch again with a pole, 10 ft. I'm glad we have a Core Game and Adventure League without it, this time around.

I'm all for people getting supplemental material with such things built in that I'll never read, just like I'm happy for people getting an Eberron setting despite the fact that I have 0 interested in playing in Eberron. Heck, I hope you get a rules supplement for running a WoW-style Auction House in every major city along with crafting recipes and the whole kettle of fish if that's what you fancy.

Marty Lund

 

[DaveDash]

And all is right with the world. I'm simply of the mind that leaving purchase prices for Magic Items out of the Core Rules is not a bug in the product, but rather a feature.



Sure. Permanent Magic Item Crafting just happens to be an outside-the-three-pillars premise that I don't want to touch again with a pole, 10 ft. I'm glad we have a Core Game and Adventure League without it, this time around.

I'm all for people getting supplemental material with such things built in that I'll never read, just like I'm happy for people getting an Eberron setting despite the fact that I have 0 interested in playing in Eberron. Heck, I hope you get a rules supplement for running a WoW-style Auction House in every major city along with crafting recipes and the whole kettle of fish if that's what you fancy.

Marty Lund

Yeah that's it, putting magic item acquisition in the hands of my players means I want to run WoW-style Auction Houses. Clearly we also want to turn D&D into a PvP game with 60 levels too, right?

Heaven forbid people actually want to have some sort of player driven gear progression in a RPG game (that isn't so vague it's basically useless).

Based on your argument I should be giving all my players lazers and grenades. They're in the DMG right, so uh oh the expectation has been set!

 

[mlund]

Yeah that's it, putting magic item acquisition in the hands of my players means I want to run WoW-style Auction Houses.

Hey, there's obviously a non-niche market for that sort of thing.

Clearly we also want to turn D&D into a PvP game with 60 levels too, right?

With the way some Char Op board arguments go these days, you'd probably have some takers.

Heaven forbid people actually want to have some sort of player driven gear progression in a RPG game

Why Heaven forbid it? Different people want different scales of gear progression and access. Sounds like modular content to me. Heck, I love player-driven gear progression in my games, it's just more Book of 9 Swords / Rokugan / 13th Age in style than Pathfinder / 3.5 / WoW styles.

Marty Lund

 

[Remathilis]

But nobody is asking for it to be in core. Just to have it at all in some form. The trinity is already printed and in stores...

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there as a variant. For many, player driven gear advancement - crafting especially, is an entire pillar of game play unto itself.

More power to you. As a supplemental rule, I have no problem with it. Actually, a UA with some rules for how to price things wouldn't be bad. My concern is the on the world assumptions and player assumptions with making such a system critical to D&D.

I want such a system as an option for Eberron, but not a core assumption for Greyhawk.

 

[Shasarak]

Assuming a lamp is used for six hours each day, it costs 1sp to operate and 37gp every year.
A continual flame spell requires 50gp in components, but the caster is not likely working at cost (especially if their skills are rarer). So the magic lamp might be 75gp. More if there is a middle man or merchant. 100gp would not be unreasonable.
So asking someone to buy a magic lamp is asking them to invest in something that will break even after three years. That's more long term than many people think.
The very rich might buy, but it would be a luxury.

In a world with lots of low level spellcasters (Eberron) the service costs become cheaper and the break-even point is reduced Tia year. In a world where class levels are rare, it's more expensive.

Using that calculation no one would every invest in solar panels for their house. The cost and the return on investment is no where near 3 years.