D&D 5E Is there too much gold/reward?

[CapnZapp]

The problem isn't that there's too much gold. The problem is that there isn't enough things to spend said gold on. Used to be that you had to spend money on training, or building a stronghold, or something to that effect. In 3e and 4e, it became that you needed gold to walk the magic item treadmill. In 5e? You don't need money. At all. Unless you have a specific need for gold, that kind of treasure is meaningless.

Lots of people suggest spending gold on stronghold or training (or carousing).

Problem is, there's no optional module for people that simply aren't interested in going into detail about what you do between adventures.

Gold in itself doesn't make anyone happy. But the way you could loot gold in anticipation of being able to buy some cool magic item for your character was a high point of 3rd edition.

That's not the same thing as "all these items wreck the campaign".

You only need to make a set of item construction rules that are better than 3E in avoiding abusive combinations.

5E would be even better if there was such a system, since not having a gold magic economy system is the biggest subsystem missing; it's the single biggest incompatibility for gamers who want to use 5E for their d20-style campaigns (since 3E/PF has drowned in its own complexity)

 

[ExploderWizard]

Maybe I just have a different set of ideals for playing d&d than you, but how is a system where you want to be "chasing every single Gold Piece" a bad thing? As opposed to "oh look... gold, that pointless stuff that I barely care to figure out how much of it I have...". If you apply the same reasoning to getting xp - I "enjoy" getting every single bit of xp. Why? Because it matters. Gold? Nope. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
I guess my point is that this "bad" thing that you are describe I consider to be an improvement over what exists now. But again, I think we just have a different set of ideals for adventuring.

The problem isn't that there's too much gold. The problem is that there isn't enough things to spend said gold on. Used to be that you had to spend money on training, or building a stronghold, or something to that effect. In 3e and 4e, it became that you needed gold to walk the magic item treadmill. In 5e? You don't need money. At all. Unless you have a specific need for gold, that kind of treasure is meaningless.

Once again awarding XP for treasure won fixes all these issues in a single bound. Gary and Dave knew what they were doing when they designed OD&D. There was no magic item "economy" to impact the game and yet every player was as greedy for as many gold pieces as he or she could lay hands on. Yes there were strongholds & hirelings to spend it on but spending it was a distant second to obtaining more, because more meant power in the form of level advancement.

I plan on going back to this method using 5E when I run the next campaign.

 

[delericho]

Once again awarding XP for treasure won fixes all these issues in a single bound. Gary and Dave knew what they were doing when they designed OD&D. There was no magic item "economy" to impact the game and yet every player was as greedy for as many gold pieces as he or she could lay hands on.

Even better is granting XP for treasure squandered, especially if the player is expected to explain how they 'wasted' it (be that on a big party, a huge donation to the church, arcane research that went nowhere, it gets stolen by thieves, or whatever). But the key thing is that the PC gains nothing from that gold... other than the XP accrued. That way, they get the XP but you also get to drain the treasure out of the game.

(Of course, the effect of this is effectively that players get to buy XP, which is maybe not ideal. But as long as you insist on the "how do you waste it?" question, there's at least a fig leaf of respectability. )

 

[CapnZapp]

Sure, but why have all that gold if you have to drain it away to not have it be a problem.

The AL approach, where you award incredibly little gold no matter the PCs level, seems much more logical.

Of course, if you have thousands of gold pieces I far prefer if you can translate that into things adventurers need to do their job.

And in D&D I would say a good expectation of an adventurer's job is 90% slaying monsters and the rest is a combination of surviving snowstorms, falling into alien goo, wooing princesses, talking to kings, resisting demonic madness, and exposing devilish spies.

You might set the percentage at 80%, but any talk of three equal pillars is a load of horse. The game rules revolve around combat. All classes are combat capable. The subsystems to "take a dragon to zero hp" are MUCH more complex than the systems for persuading it to open (or fooling it or intimidating it into opening) its treasure coffers for you. That's fact, not opinion.

You may play the game differently. And nothing wrong with that. Doesn't change that percentage, though. The game is still built around combat, even if you don't use it that way.

Which brings me back to the obviousness of how selling the game without a robust magic item economy is a serious omission, not to mention the single biggest stumbling block to using the edition for 3e-era gaming. Without it, they really can't claim they have provided full conversion guidelines, since their current guideline effectively says "don't play the game like you used to any more. stop buying magic items for gold even if you like it and have no problems with it"

 

[delericho]

Sure, but why have all that gold if you have to drain it away to not have it be a problem.

Because when the PCs slay the dragon they expect to get the hoard.

And in D&D I would say a good expectation of an adventurer's job is 90% slaying monsters and the rest is a combination of surviving snowstorms, falling into alien goo, wooing princesses, talking to kings, resisting demonic madness, and exposing devilish spies.

It's fair to say there are different styles of play. 5e is actually perhaps more flexible than the last two editions in that regard - to a certain extent, 3e and 4e needed to fit in large amounts of treasure and opportunities for shopping/crafting, even when on a time-critical quest to save the known universe. 5e at least allows you to skip that side of it.

Which brings me back to the obviousness of how selling the game without a robust magic item economy is a serious omission, not to mention the single biggest stumbling block to using the edition for 3e-era gaming.

It's certainly a weakness when running Eberron, given that that was built under 3e assumptions of a working magical economy. That probably hurts more even than the absence of 'full' Warforged or even Artificer conversions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sure, but why have all that gold if you have to drain it away to not have it be a problem.

The AL approach, where you award incredibly little gold no matter the PCs level, seems much more logical.

There is a way to do anything you want. You can award XP for gold and still keep available gold on the low side by simply increasing the ratio of XP to GP thus using smaller treasure hoards while awarding as much XP.

Of course, if you have thousands of gold pieces I far prefer if you can translate that into things adventurers need to do their job.

That has been done already. There are systems that do that and are still playable. Once this option becomes available then it dominates play as players race to keep up with expected gear levels and gold spent on anything else is seen as wasted. It also turns item that are supposed to be considered treasure into mundane sports equipment. I think 5E did a great job of leaving that bag of worms to the individual DM.

And in D&D I would say a good expectation of an adventurer's job is 90% slaying monsters and the rest is a combination of surviving snowstorms, falling into alien goo, wooing princesses, talking to kings, resisting demonic madness, and exposing devilish spies.

You might set the percentage at 80%, but any talk of three equal pillars is a load of horse. The game rules revolve around combat. All classes are combat capable. The subsystems to "take a dragon to zero hp" are MUCH more complex than the systems for persuading it to open (or fooling it or intimidating it into opening) its treasure coffers for you. That's fact, not opinion.

You may play the game differently. And nothing wrong with that. Doesn't change that percentage, though. The game is still built around combat, even if you don't use it that way.

Based on the current rules for awarding XP I have to agree. The game is naturally driven to activities that generate the largest amounts of XP. The most detail provided about XP awards are all combat encounter based with a few suggestions on making non-combat encounters equal to a certain CR and awarding XP as if it were a combat encounter. This drives play towards a very bloodthirsty focus. That which does not kill you does indeed make you stronger by awarding XP.

Changing the focus of those XP awards away from how much blood you spill can change the dynamic quite a bit.

Which brings me back to the obviousness of how selling the game without a robust magic item economy is a serious omission, not to mention the single biggest stumbling block to using the edition for 3e-era gaming. Without it, they really can't claim they have provided full conversion guidelines, since their current guideline effectively says "don't play the game like you used to any more. stop buying magic items for gold even if you like it and have no problems with it"

A magic item economy can exist in 5E if you want it. I'm using one in my current campaign ( and OH how I regret it) so it can be done. I'm using the table on page 135 of the DMG which DOES provide price guidelines. I use the highest value range for permanent items and the low to middle range for consumables. Its simple and functional. It also means that after the players find a decent loot haul they spend as much time shopping as adventuring, which is why I'm ditching the whole economy in my next campaign.

 

[CapnZapp]

That has been done already. There are systems that do that and are still playable. Once this option becomes available then it dominates play as players race to keep up with expected gear levels and gold spent on anything else is seen as wasted. It also turns item that are supposed to be considered treasure into mundane sports equipment. I think 5E did a great job of leaving that bag of worms to the individual DM.

The first two sentences got me interested, but then you lost me.

"expected gear levels" is NOT A THING in 5th Edition.

And I have a hard time reading "leaving that bag of worm to the individual DM" as anything else than "the DM have to do all the very tricky and intricate work, instead of being able to pay WotC for a well-balanced playtested version".

Doing such a subsystem is NOT easy. It is far from trivial. In fact, it's bloody hard and probably weeks of work.

I want WotC to take my money by publishing a supplement where items are priced according to function; where each ability or bonus and combination is priced according to usefulness.

And by usefulness I do mean "...in combat", since there and only there does balance matter.

It doesn't have to be perfect (the 3E-era efforts sure weren't) but it does have to do the (massive) groundwork that the current effort simply doesn't do. The current effort is simply pitiful - worse than nothing. Check the "Sane Magical Prices" list and associated forum discussion if you want details; let's not bring that up here.

I'm not proposing to magically add pages to your DMG suddenly forcing you to open Magic Shoppes in your campaign, ExploderWizard.

This would be a SUPPLEMENT.

Not a core book.

I would find it tremendously valuable. You might not buy it at all.

 

[TwoSix]

The difference is, that 5e doesn't assume that you have spent all that money on increasing your combat effectiveness, so it is easy to change the wealth level of the campaign, without affecting the relative power level of the class. 3.5 was designed around PCs spending all their money on magic items (especially the "Big 6) Armour, Weapon, Natural Armour Amulet, Stat Booster, Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Protection), and if you tried to adventure without those items, you were in for a very rough ride. As it is now, in 5th ed, I can easily reduce the monetary rewards, without impacting the ability of the PCs to deal with threats appropriate to their level.

That's an extremely common misconception in the 3.5 CharOp community that isn't quite true. The "Big 6" are certainly the most efficient way to spend your gold on items, but they aren't necessary. Allowing the PCs to fill up their slots with the Big 6 is actually a big contributor to allowing the PCs to punch well above their weight class in terms of CR. A Tier 3 party without Big 6 items actually will see pretty good results from the CR system, in terms of matching challenges to the level of the party.

 

[CapnZapp]

Based on the current rules for awarding XP I have to agree. The game is naturally driven to activities that generate the largest amounts of XP. The most detail provided about XP awards are all combat encounter based with a few suggestions on making non-combat encounters equal to a certain CR and awarding XP as if it were a combat encounter. This drives play towards a very bloodthirsty focus. That which does not kill you does indeed make you stronger by awarding XP.

Changing the focus of those XP awards away from how much blood you spill can change the dynamic quite a bit.

Let me just add that I'm not using XP - I'm awarding a level every three play sessions or so. Since I'm running a published module I have one eye on the party's progression through the chapters. But basically the idea is to spend enough time on each level to learn and new the new cool abilities for that level; and then move on before the players get too impatient.

But my point wasn't "you can't change the focus" - of course you can.

My point is that the game is BUILT for combat. It's there most of the design, the thought, the playtesting etc has been spent.

That has nothing to do with what focus you or I have in our campaigns.

It's a simple truth that D&D is a game where combat has a deep satisifying complexity, while social and exploration is handled comparatively simply. That's where my 90% figure comes in.

That doesn't mean "if you don't do 90% combat you're doing it wrong". It just means: let's not kid ourselves - D&D is a game built for combat first and everything else a distant second.

 

[delericho]

That's an extremely common misconception in the 3.5 CharOp community that isn't quite true. The "Big 6" are certainly the most efficient way to spend your gold on items, but they aren't necessary. Allowing the PCs to fill up their slots with the Big 6 is actually a big contributor to allowing the PCs to punch well above their weight class in terms of CR. A Tier 3 party without Big 6 items actually will see pretty good results from the CR system, in terms of matching challenges to the level of the party.

Agreed. Also, it's definitely worth checking out "Trailblazer", the first chapter of which did a lot of analysis of the 3e math, with some surprising conclusions.