D&D 5E In fifth-edition D&D, what is gold for?

[Uller]

I can play a game like that, but I have my preferences, and I would like to see those preferences supported by the system. Although I already gave up 5e, I spent a long time hoping it would be like that, but things didn't go that well.

I guess I don't understand. 5e doesn't make assumptions about magic items the party has and seems to work just fine without any magic items at all. Maybe I'm missing something but what about the system forces magic items to not be rare and wonderful?

About the only hiccup I can see is some monsters are immune to mundane damage...but it isn't that hard to fix those few monsters (and honestly it makes them much more frightening, which is the point of a low magic game, isn't it?)

We had very few magic items in our group until about 7th level. Even now (at 12th) they don't have much.

 

[Igwilly]

I guess I don't understand. 5e doesn't make assumptions about magic items the party has and seems to work just fine without any magic items at all. Maybe I'm missing something but what about the system forces magic items to not be rare and wonderful?

About the only hiccup I can see is some monsters are immune to mundane damage...but it isn't that hard to fix those few monsters (and honestly it makes them much more frightening, which is the point of a low magic game, isn't it?)

We had very few magic items in our group until about 7th level. Even now (at 12th) they don't have much.

I can see the problem: My style is actually worlds with magic marts and magic items are much more common. I thought the rest of my posts made that very clear.

Edit: it's getting late here in Brazil, but reading my comments, I think I wasn't clear enough. I'll clarify this as soon as possible.

 

[Uller]

Ask your players what their characters want. Why they got into this adventuring caper in the first place. Was their village destroyed by barbarian Raiders and they're out for revenge? Are they an exiled noble seeking to reclaim lost lands stolen by an evil relative? Are they just a bunch of mercenaries who want a life of luxury? Are they devoted to spreading the cause of a particular God? Are they just trying to provide for their family?

They should be spending their money, or at least a sizeable portion of it, on that.

And when they say "I want to adventure better" then what? Is it really that hard for people to understand that not all D&D players want to be character actors or shared-storytellers but simply want to play a game and get better at the game through in game rewards?

I give my players lots of options to use gold in interesting ways but I have two players that don't care about RP reasons for using wealth. Two of them embrace it and find all sorts of uses for their wealth. The other two couldn't care less. They want to buy stuff to help them be better at killing monsters to get treasure to buy stuff...What am I supposed to do? Tell them to shove off and only play with two players? That seems like a sub-optimal solution.

The issue is that the PHB and DMG built in assumptions about about using wealth during downtime but then the APs don't have much downtime built in or any way for wealth to be used by the PCs in strategic ways to make getting through the AP more easily or in ways that are more satisfactory. My game is moving away from the APs and back to a more traditional sandbox/episodic campaign, so I'm sure it will improve (and I'm letting them trade gold for XP). But groups that are playing the published APs then making new characters to start a new AP after they finish one, they are probably finding the wealth they find in the AP to be superfluous.

 

[Flamestrike]

Nice alternative uses, but fails in one point: they are adventurers, and if they want to adventure more, they’ll want to improve their adventuring skills.

That's what XP is for.

For example, my characters are the “save the world” kind of adventurers – even if the reasons are not totally “heroic” – and in order to better save the world, they need – or would greatly benefit from – good magical equipment.
In both our cases, making the world a better place is expensive.

Now, I think I wasn’t clear at that: It’s not that I don’t like the sort of game you’re proposing. I like it, and it should be supported by the system. However, I also like – and actually prefer – games with magic mart and such. The problem is (was, I’m not that interested in 5e now) my style isn’t supported. The guidelines (from what I remember) are too vague and just broad cost ranges are not enough.

I have magic marts my games to an extent. The market in town with the players are based occasionally gets in a magic item (ill make a couple of rolls on one of the lesser magic items subtitles to see what's in stock, and arbitrarily assign value based on the guidelines in the DMG. The PCs recently returned from 'the big city' where they were given an opportunity to make a few requests in a magic items shop (effectively it was a reward at mid-levels to ensure each of them had at least one magic items that they really really wanted). Made them pay for it and earn it though.

My PCs are also a notoriously drunken rabble rousing lot. They use carousing as their main downtime activity. The swashbuckler has been locked up a couple of times for drunk and disorderly, and our Druid (who has the bond 'I enjoy the finer things in life') is equally famous for her excessive gambling and drinking binges! Our LG cleric paladin tends to donate a fair bit of money to help orphans and the like, and to spread the word of his God.

Laughably, they still stay in the local tavern whenever they're in town and are yet to actually buy any real property. I might have one of the NPC make an offer to them to purchase a house in town when they get back from the current adventure. They found a pretty decent hoard with 40,000 gold pieces in it.

I remember back in the day my warlock PC buying a tower so that I could terrorise the local population from a base. Part of the fun back in the day was mapping out your own keep or tower, and stocking it with your own traps, mercenaries and minions.

Having a keep or a tower, your own henchmen or a subdued dragon as a mount and your own titles meant you 'made it'. You weren't just 'Grom the random murderhobo' anymore. Now you were 'Lord Grom, Dragon rider of the North, Conqueror of the Orcs of Malcozar, Warmaster of the Armies of Doom, and Lord of Aqualonia'

You didn't have guards dragging you before some Baron at the point of a crossbow forcing you to do some piddling quest because you're a troublemaker and an expendable asset .

Those same Barons would now travel to your keep and grovel and beg you for assistance saving the whole realm, because they and their armies can't deal with it alone.

 

[Uller]

I can see the problem: My style is actually worlds with magic marts and magic items are much more common. I thought the rest of my posts made that very clear.

Edit: it's getting late here in Brazil, but reading my comments, I think I wasn't clear enough. I'll clarify this as soon as possible.

Ah...okay. I see. No need to clarify.

I agree with you. The game could have easily supported your style with some guidelines on buying/selling magic items. Your style isn't mine. I like magic to be fairly rare. But if a character would rather spend 15,000 gp on a kewl magic item than on a tower or outpost the game should support that. After all, if it is within the assumptions of the game that the PCs can be hired by an NPC to find a magic item, then it should be within the assumptions of the game that the PCs can hire and NPC to get a magic item for the PCs. This should be a downtime activity like any other.

 

[Flamestrike]

I give my players lots of options to use gold in interesting ways but I have two players that don't care about RP reasons for using wealth. Two of them embrace it and find all sorts of uses for their wealth. The other two couldn't care less. They want to buy stuff to help them be better at killing monsters to get treasure to buy stuff...What am I supposed to do? Tell them to shove off and only play with two players? That seems like a sub-optimal solution.en making new characters to start a new AP after they finish one, they are probably finding the wealth they find in the AP to be superfluous.

Show them, don't tell them.

The players that you do have use their gold for role-playing reasons such as lands and title and temporal power, reward them in game with the benefits of that expenditure. Describe their Castle, describe the benefits that flow from having such power. Engineer scenarios were those PCs can get problems resolved through their henchmen, or their armies or simply by their word or reputations. Set up scenarios were they can march their armies into battle with other armies; scenarios that can't be resolved with a plus one sword.

If you do it right the other two will catch on quickly, and before you know it be saving money for Keeps and titles and henchmen of their own.

Most gamist players are competitive beasts. If one PC has a Tower, and Towers matter, the rest are gonna want a bigger Tower than that other guy.

Maybe it's a phallic thing. I dunno. It's certainly something that happens in the real world so why should your games be any different?

 

[MechaPilot]

Show them, don't tell them.

The players that you do have use their gold for role-playing reasons such as lands and title and temporal power, reward them in game with the benefits of that expenditure. Describe their Castle, describe the benefits that flow from having such power. Engineer scenarios were those PCs can get problems resolved through their henchmen, or their armies or simply by their word or reputations. Set up scenarios were they can march their armies into battle with other armies; scenarios that can't be resolved with a plus one sword.

If you do it right the other two will catch on quickly, and before you know it be saving money for Keeps and titles and henchmen of their own.

I think that's part of the OP's point though, that D&D doesn't generally incentivize such a thing over getting gear to adventure better. And, while DMs can independently come up with ways to do so the lack of rules or guidelines on these things doesn't help.

 

[Flamestrike]

I think that's part of the OP's point though, that D&D doesn't generally incentivize such a thing over getting gear to adventure better. And, while DMs can independently come up with ways to do so the lack of rules or guidelines on these things doesn't help.

DnD doesn't either incentivize or disincentivize it. It's the DM that does that.

If you DM your game to be somewhat similar to real life, then money and the temporal power that comes with it, matters.

I'm struggling to think of a scenario where a keep, a small army, a network of spies and assassins, his own court wizard, access to powerful clerics, political connections with neighbouring kingdoms etc doesn't matter.

I mean I often hear about 5E how are conjurer can summon a lot of skeletons, and how fighters suck because they can't have access to summoned armies, flight, Divination magic, transportation, simulacra and so forth. There is your solution right there. lll see your simulacra and raise you my 17th level henchmen. You can fly? Here is my Griffin cavalry. Divination magic and conjured Demons? Here is my network of spies and assassins. You're scrying me? Well my court wizard is scrying you. Kill me and you and kill the Lord. This means you'll be hunted down and killed yourself. Your word is now the law, and is backed up by armies. You have diplomatic immunity when you travel. You don't sleep in the tavern anymore, you are feted by Kings and barons.

Even the most gamist of players can surely see the benefits in that, And if they can't it's more often the not because the DM refuses to show them, or never thinks of them as anything other than murder hobos.

They earned that wealth. They deserve the tangible and temporal rewards that come with it.

 

[MechaPilot]

DnD doesn't either incentivize or disincentivize it. It's the DM that does that.

Yes and no. The game could easily incentivize it by providing guidelines or suggestions for the benefits those things could provide and the required levels of investment. As it is, the DM must invent these things from whole cloth, often by assigning rather arbitrary amounts of wealth to things like recruiting and maintaining spies, wizards, and relations with neighboring kingdoms.

If you DM your game to be somewhat similar to real life, then money and the temporal power that comes with it, matters.

I'm struggling to think of a scenario where a PC with a keep, a small army, a network of spies and assassins, his own court wizard, access to powerful clerics, political connections with neighbouring kingdoms etc doesn't matter.

Agreed. But, there are likely many DMs who don't have the time to create subsystems for determining how those things affect adventuring characters (downtime effects however are easier to deal with).

Even the most gamist of players can surely see the benefits in that. . .

Can we not bring those terms into this? Any time someone makes a GNS reference I start to tune them out.

And if they can't it's more often the not because the DM refuses to show them, or never thinks of them as anything other than murder hobos.

Or because the DM doesn't have that much time to invest in creating systems for those things. I don't have a family or significant other to speak of, but I do work and go to school. I always used to make my own adventures, but now I have to run published adventures because I don't have the time to craft my own adventures.

 

[Flamestrike]

Yes and no. The game could easily incentivize it by providing guidelines or suggestions for the benefits those things could provide and the required levels of investment. As it is, the DM must invent these things from whole cloth, often by assigning rather arbitrary amounts of wealth to things like recruiting and maintaining spies, wizards, and relations with neighboring kingdoms.

Hirelings are in the PHB. 2gp per day for a skilled mercenary like a veteran. Two silver a day for a guard. Followers are in the DMG, as are several downtime activities, which include building a stronghold. On the page immediately prior includes the maintenance costs for that stronghold (100 gp a day for a keep which also gets you 50 skilled and 50 untrained hirelings).

First you need to get the estate which cost 5000 Gold pieces or more. Then you need half a million gold pieces and 1200 days to build the thing. Then every 30 days you need to fork out 3000 Gold pieces for upkeep. This includes 50 skilled and 50 unskilled hirelings including a steward.

You could of course enter an arrangement with a local lord to storm the Keep of a rival and if successful he agrees to let you rule it as his vassal.

What more do you need? Just use your imagination.

Agreed. But, there are likely many DMs who don't have the time to create subsystems for determining how those things affect adventuring characters (downtime effects however are easier to deal with).

You don't need mechanical subsystems to reflect the power of the PC. We didn't need them in first edition and we didn't need them in second edition. Pathfinder tacked on its own kingdom building rules but they were fairly easily broken by any player that tried. Birthright in second edition also had a pretty good crack at it.

The fact that you are now 'Lord of the eastern realm and Commander of the legions of doom' should be enough reward in its own right. You have a whole army at your beck and call. You can call up your spymaster to find information out for you. You can deploy assassins to take care of rivals. You have the money to hire your own adventuring parties to deal with things you can't be bothered with. You have the political clout to hold court with Kings. You don't need some sort of mechanical subsystem to deal with this.

Just common sense and a healthy imagination.