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

[CapnZapp]

A lot of text for such a small topic.

Wealth is used for: Downtime, Restock potions, Write scrolls, Spell research, Building castle and tons of other activities.
Players would be wise to pay a resurection in advance just in case. Cloning or whatever means are necessary might be necessary to be brought back from the dead if something goes wrong (tpk) and it costs a lot. And giving a pound of flesh might necessecitate a regenerative spell not to suffer some penalties.

Wealth will pay for mercenaries, soldiers, henchman, stewards and zounds of other much needed employees the characters may acquire during their careers.

Enchantments do not come cheap. Dwarven work can be quite expensive.

And if all else fail, theft protection comes at a price. No protection might mean waking up very broke and depending on the amount, the thief might have paid for teleportation and he could be far, far away adventure site.

And all these ideas do not cover every possibilities.

I can think of at least one more possibility.

 

[Beleriphon]

I can think of at least one more possibility.

Is it one thing, or two highly related things?

 

[Azzy]

I can think of at least one more possibility.

Then why not implement that for your games?

 

[Xetheral]

Has anyone else noticed that noticed that exactly the same people that have an issue withencounter balance 5E are the same ones that are experiencing this problem with gold?

Without wanting to borrow too much from GNS theory, they seem to be the same guys that put the G in the theory.

They adventure to get gold so they can buy equipment to adventure better to get more gold to buy better equipment.

If the point of a given campaign is to adventure, then investment in adventuring makes perfectly good sense. This is true no matter whether it’s a player-driven campaign with adventure-seeking characters or a DM-driven campaign about adventuring. It’s identical to a modern business owner doing business to get money so that they can grow their business to get more money to grow their business (including the diversity of potential motivations for starting/continuing on the treadmill).

Even if a given campaign isn’t specifically about adventuring, many alternative focuses (including such stalwarts as “saving the world”, “defenders of the realm”, “retrieve the macguffin”) assume that adventuring will be the primary means employed to accomplish the objectives, which likewise makes investment in adventuring perfectly reasonable.

So a player doesn’t necessarily have to be motivated primarily by gamist impulses to have their character rationally want to invest gold on becoming a better adventurer.

My characters tend to have goals other than 'adventure better'. Money gets them closer to those goals. Purchasing land and titles, your own private army, your own Church in town were you become the high priest, Assassins at your beck and call, a network of Spies, your own wizard on permanent retainer, donations to large churches to have you resurrected or raised in an emergency.

Awesome! Those are the kinds of games and characters I most enjoy too!

But pursuing those types of goals isn’t appropriate in all campaigns—in many of them, it would qualify as disruptive behavior. Notably, that includes all the pre-written adventure paths WotC has published, at least as they are traditionally approached. (True, it’s possible to use the published adventures as a framework to run a semi-sandbox where pursuing such goals would be appropriate, but to my understanding and experience that’s not the usual way they are run.) For example, if you’re trying to take table time to meet with vast numbers of NPCs and organize a network of spies to find the Lost Mines of Phandelver, you’re probably going to annoy a random gaming group playing that adventure. The same will be true in many home campaigns where the focus (or the means intended to be employed to accomplish the goal) is adventuring.

From where I sit the problem is invariably a problem with your campaign. You've created a static game world where the whole point of adventuring is adventuring more. If your players can't translate those gold pieces into an additional +1 on the character sheet somewhere, to them gold is pointless. In other words, you have made gold meaningless outside of this pointless recursive cycle.

(Emphasis added.) Are you truly arguing that D&D doesn’t support the types of campaigns I’ve described where investment in one’s adventuring proficiency would be a rational choice? Even though all the WotC-published adventures fall into that category? And you believe that strongly enough--despite the evidence to the contrary--to be willing to condemn [MENTION=413]Uller[/MENTION] for wanting to accomodate two players who prefer that type of game?

I entirely disagree. Default 5e removed the ability of players to invest gold into improving one’s adventuring abilities. But, as evidenced by the published adventurers, the new edition certainly did not remove D&D’s support for the types of campaigns where such investment is a rational choice. That’s the crux of the problem that leads threads like this to be a common refrain. Sure, in campaigns like the ones you prefer there isn’t a problem, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who has different preferences than you do is running their campaign wrong.

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.

In the context of D&D, these are all Combat-as-War resources. They don’t matter in any campaign with a Combat-as-Sport style, because using them to overcome the opposition would be outside the intended scope of the encounter. (It’s certainly possible to design a system where the resources you mention are instead Combat-as-Sport resources. D&D isn’t that system.) So you’re right that 5e does still have the indirect ability to invest in one’s adventuring ability via these resources, but only in campaigns with a Combat-as-War element.

Ironically, as I understand it, part of the reason 5e removed the ability to purchase magic items was because they were no longer an assumed part of encounter balance. But detailed encounter balance is primarily a Combat-as-Sport concern! So, to maintain the system’s suitability for Combat-as-Sport, they created a game where the only way to invest gold in one’s adventuring ability is in Combat-as-War resources…. Whoops?

In the end, the problem of a lack of things to spend money on only applies to campaigns with a focus (or at least emphasis) on adventuring and without a strong Combat-as-War element. If that was a rare combination, you might be on solid ground claiming that it isn’t really a problem. But far from being rare, based on personal observation of games and conversations about games, the combination is extremely common. It might even cover a plurality (or even a majority?) of campaigns. A problem facing such a common playstyle is a problem worth addressing.

(For those unfamiliar with the CaW/CaS terminology, see here.)

 

[Igwilly]

Well, all I want to say is: in my table, the moment you buy a castle and start being a noble is the moment you retire your character and make a new one.
It’s perfectly fine to like the sort of game many of you are proposing. I would enjoy one myself. However, 5e has next-to no support for a magic mart campaign. I would need magic mart if I was running 5e. People are not asking that all tables should be like this, just to have support for our tables being like this.

 

[Ahrimon]

I don't really see this as a problem. If the players want to buy magic items and the DM supports this then they can. The prices are listed in the DMG for the items. It's a valid play style that's supported.

What isn't given is exact prices down to the copper. The prices are left in a range so that the DM can tailor them to his campaign. I understand some folks would like having everything done for them, but then that just ties the hands of the DM too much. Put exact prices on items and players will assume that is the price that it should be. By keeping the prices in a range the DMs can tailor the campaign exactly how they wish to.

 

[CapnZapp]

Then why not implement that for your games?

Because designing and writing and playtesting and balancing a magic item pricing and creation subsystem based on utility is a non-trivial task.

I'd much rather pay WotC $40 for a copy of their 5E version.

The benefit is not just that I get something ready to use or that don't need to it myself; a central benefit by having an official supplement is that I won't be alone in using and discussing it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Default 5e removed the ability of players to invest gold into improving one’s adventuring abilities. But, as evidenced by the published adventurers, the new edition certainly did not remove D&D’s support for the types of campaigns where such investment is a rational choice. That’s the crux of the problem that leads threads like this to be a common refrain. Sure, in campaigns like the ones you prefer there isn’t a problem, but that doesn’t mean that everyone who has different preferences than you do is running their campaign wrong.

Thank you.

 

[CapnZapp]

I don't really see this as a problem. If the players want to buy magic items and the DM supports this then they can. The prices are listed in the DMG for the items. It's a valid play style that's supported.

You'd be surprised how feeble some of us consider that support to be.

In practical terms, the rarity based pricing system used by 5E is worse than no system at all, precisely because it makes people like you claim "the playstyle is supported".

 

[Ahrimon]

You'd be surprised how feeble some of us consider that support to be.

In practical terms, the rarity based pricing system used by 5E is worse than no system at all, precisely because it makes people like you claim "the playstyle is supported".

It is though. Just not to the level that you and some others would like. You have my condolences that they didn't give you a highly polished system right out of the gate. But I think the game as a whole benefits from the more open nature of the current rules. I also don't think that the pricing rules need to be concrete and highly polished because the game will function just fine as is. You can buy and sell as the DM sees fit and the game won't break. It does put some extra work on the DMs shoulders though, but that also means the DM gets to make sure that the balance the DM wants is 100% in their hands.