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

[Chocolategravy]

I always thought it would be best to have the XP chart numbers also be the wealth by level guidelines. One chart easy to see, and you know how much treasure a monster should have based on it's XP value.

I thought having an easy to see chart with monsters listed by CR would be handy for a GM too. But what do we know?

 

[Remathilis]

I thought having an easy to see chart with monsters listed by CR would be handy for a GM too. But what do we know?

Ain't it good then that there is one in the DMG, as well as for free on WotC's site.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

This is 5E, you're supposed to have 6-8 fights per day and they can have multiple dragons in each fight! You'll accumulate more treasure than Smaug ever had in a week hacking and slashing.

At risk of falling victim to Poe's Law, I'll reply:

You're supposed to have a maximum of 6-8 Medium fights in an adventuring day. Even in the DMG it never says every day has to be an adventuring day. It even has a whole section on downtime between adventuring days. Even if you run non-sandbox and therefore want to use the "encounter balancing" rules, there are absolutely no guarantees that there are multiple dragons attacking your town every day. Even on adventuring days when something happens, it's as possible for your group of 4 20th level PCs to wind up fighting a hobgoblin battalion (500 hobgoblins, 200K XP) or 71 Wights (199K XP) as 2 Ancient Blue Dragons (150K XP).

So no, you won't be richer than Smaug in a week.

 

[Fanaelialae]

At risk of falling victim to Poe's Law, I'll reply:

You're supposed to have a maximum of 6-8 Medium fights in an adventuring day. Even in the DMG it never says every day has to be an adventuring day. It even has a whole section on downtime between adventuring days. Even if you run non-sandbox and therefore want to use the "encounter balancing" rules, there are absolutely no guarantees that there are multiple dragons attacking your town every day. Even on adventuring days when something happens, it's as possible for your group of 4 20th level PCs to wind up fighting a hobgoblin battalion (500 hobgoblins, 200K XP) or 71 Wights (199K XP) as 2 Ancient Blue Dragons (150K XP).

So no, you won't be richer than Smaug in a week.

In fairness, this only applies to very poor high level adventurers, which is hardly the norm. I believe the example was a CR 15 dragon, so the party is somewhere between levels 11 and 15.

By that point (typically) they'll have had seven rolls on the first hoard table (CR 0-4), eighteen on the second (CR 5-10), and somewhere between one to eleven rolls on the third(11-16). So realistically, a high level party will be quite wealthy after slaying a powerful dragon. It's simply that not all of the wealth came from that dragon.

Besides, if you want to depict dragons as creatures that collect vast amounts of treasure, it's not unreasonable to give them the equivalent of 2 or more hoards. It's up to the DM but I'd say it's less of a house rule and simply more a judgement call, based on what you're looking to evoke.

 

[jgsugden]

17 pages to ask why money is valuable?

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Dragons need beds too.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dragon Beds Zzzzzzzzzzz

 

[Chocolategravy]

Ain't it good then that there is one in the DMG, as well as for free on WotC's site.

LOL! Having an internet connection or buying and using another book is really what you're going to go with? Just how much do you have to love something to make those sorts of excuses for glaring flaws?

 

[Chocolategravy]

At risk of falling victim to Poe's Law, I'll reply:

You're supposed to have a maximum of 6-8 Medium fights in an adventuring day.

YOU say maximum, DMG says typical. If you're throwing less than 6-8 then you need to be throwing harder fights at the PCs to have the same level of difficulty which means the monsters will have more treasure so it will generally work itself out.

Even on adventuring days when something happens, it's as possible for your group of 4 20th level PCs to wind up fighting a hobgoblin battalion (500 hobgoblins, 200K XP) or 71 Wights (199K XP) as 2 Ancient Blue Dragons (150K XP).

A DM shouldn't be throwing such low level monsters at PCs, but those 500 hobgoblins still drop almost 2.5k GP even assuming they don't have a single magic item among them.

So no, you won't be richer than Smaug in a week.

The DMG's guidelines for what is "typical" and the math says otherwise.

 

[Fanaelialae]

LOL! Having an internet connection or buying and using another book is really what you're going to go with? Just how much do you have to love something to make those sorts of excuses for glaring flaws?

Is it really that far-fetched that a DM who owns the MM would also own the DMG? Personally, if I had to pick only one, I'd rather have the DMG. The Basic Rules have a decent selection of monsters but the selection of magic items is really sparse for my tastes.

That's not to say that lacking a CR index in the MM isn't a valid complaint. Personally, I'm happy with it since I can keep my DMG open to the CR listing while flipping through the MM. But who knows whether that was intentional or not?