Level Up (A5E) How many coins is 1 bulky item & the real value of gems/trade goods

[DeviousQuail]

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[tetrasodium]

While I agree with what you're saying, @tetrasodium, I also don't think you're understanding what I'm talking about.

First off... @Morrus, any chance we can get a definition for Bulk? Is it a certain weight, and anything that weighs that much is 1 Bulk? Or are items declared Bulky due to size and shape and weight is only partially a factor here, so a box of coins isn't Bulky because it's compact, but a chair or a rolled-up tapestry is because it's unwieldy?

But, assume that Bulk equals a specific weight. For the sake of this post, let's say 40 pounds. The size of a large bag of cat litter. 1 Bulk = 40 pounds.

So what I was saying is, 1 Bulk of gold coins is going to be worth more than 1 Bulk of copper coins, unless you've decided that the coins are all different sizes so that 40 pounds of gold coins is actually the same value as 40 pounds of copper coins. And in either case, 40 pounds of mixed coins is going to be worth a varying amount.

The fact that players aren't likely to be carrying around 40 pounds of gold, unless they've just sacked a monster's hoard, isn't relevant.

If you look at the bottom of page3 on the sheet but first it's worth noting that the maximum bulky items box doesn't seem to fit a 10 right without clipping but a single digit fits fine & is centered.
@Morrus this may reveal some sheet form field revision needs or deliberate limitations being hit by trying to use bad examples

Spoiler: this

it seems pretty likely that "bulky items", "equipment" & "treasure" are intended to be different things & that at least some are intended to be measured different or there would be no point in splitting wt/bulky items. With that assumption Ye-olde gem encrusted pimp cup worth 75gp could plop over in treasure because the size/weight is negligible & it doesn't need much special care to safely carry without destroying it. 10 pounds of saffron with a 5e phbvalue

I think bulk i probably some nebulous combination of size/shape/fragility where weight may or may not factor inrather than just weight. Take a box of glass bottle beers, I could confidentally run in the rain to the car with a dozen boxed up in a bag but think 2-3 without moving slowly with a carefully balanced platter is probably close to my limit if they are loose.

 

[Morrus]

bulky items will always be a single digit

 

[tetrasodium]

paragraphs. can't parse.

The post I tagged you on was because I thought I may have found some issues with the sheet but you confirmed "bulky items will always be single digit" so it sounds unlikely that "maximum bulky items" box will ever be a weirdly fitting 2 digit number like the screengrab shows.

For the rest...

In the states we refer to putting coins in the little paper tubes as rolling loose change. Loose change is far more unwieldy than a solid object of equal weight because they slosh around. That's not true in d&d where they are easier than trade goods due to 50 coins=1 pound to make them even easier to efficiently spread across the group than something like a 10 pound bag of pepper or a 10 lb/10yd silk skein. The "bulky items" count could allow inverting that so trade goods are more portable than a pile of loose coins

The apparent split between equipment by weight, bulky items, & whatever unit of measurement is used by the treasure/treasure2 fields on the sheet allows trade goods to be the convenient smash & grab type wealth over spending minutes or even hours carefully sorting a pile of coins into boxes If instead of 50 coins=1 pound it were more like the first 100(or whatever) on a pc are baked in to the allocation but everything beyond that is 1 bulky item per whatever number of loose coins with sorted or boxed coins going back to a more reasonable weight like 5-10pound per 500 coin box.

With the bulky item loose coins & 5-10pound coin box split across items by weight & far less convenient bulky items it changes the nature of a large pile of coins from changing coin count numbers on everyone's sheet to a logistical problem that takes time and/or planning in order for the group to safely get out & back home with a huge pile of coins. Anyone who has ever sorted coins into rolls or even tried to feed a huge container of loose change into those coin counting coinstar machines knows just how awkward the loose change is compared to neat orderly rolls & boxes of rolled coins.

 

[Horwath]

Best solution would also be return to silver standard or

1 GP = 100 SP = 10.000 CP

that turns 1500 GP full plate into 15 GP only to carry.
Copper and silver would be for everyday purchases and gold only for expensive items; best armors, magic items, houses, best quality horses, etc...

 

[hopeless]

Deleted.
Thought this was about encumbrance and not what its actually about thus why I deleted my comment.

 

[Maxperson]

in my game I standardized gem values. Now 1000 gp topazes and 5000 gp rubies can be used as currency. As a related note, why do copper pieces even exist? Even 10,000 copper is a meager treasure for a 1st level party.

Just as a side note, gems are very heavy. They are formed under great pressure usually and are pretty dense. Their main advantage is that small gems can still hold great value. The largest gem quality aquamarine was found in 1910. It was 18 inches long and 15.5 inches in diameter. It weighed 243 pounds. That sack full of gems that you find can weight a whole lot.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm going to -guess- that bulky items are big unwieldy objects rather than just "Heavy Things".

Carrying 9 bed pillows in a stack might not encumber you too badly, but they're bulky and hard to keep in that piled while moving it.

I also don't think 15,000 gold coins will be "Bulky" so long as you have enough pouches or other containers to put them all in. But a chest containing all those coins would absolutely be Bulky.

... I wonder if the Bulk Items rule will have something to do with gaining Disadvantage or Minor Disadvantage based on how many bulk items you're carrying relative to your strength, dexterity, proficiency bonus, or something similar?

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm going to -guess- that bulky items are big unwieldy objects rather than just "Heavy Things".

Carrying 9 bed pillows in a stack might not encumber you too badly, but they're bulky and hard to keep in that piled while moving it.

I also don't think 15,000 gold coins will be "Bulky" so long as you have enough pouches or other containers to put them all in. But a chest containing all those coins would absolutely be Bulky.

... I wonder if the Bulk Items rule will have something to do with gaining Disadvantage or Minor Disadvantage based on how many bulk items you're carrying relative to your strength, dexterity, proficiency bonus, or something similar?

thats the problem. Getting it in those pouches would take a while . A sack at max capacity with that same 30 pound pile of 1500 coins probably not so much.
Weight in pounds treats everything up to capacity break points for encumbered as if efficiently distributed across your body for ease of load bearing with no load shifting issues since coins can be trivially split into 1pound 50 coin units the result us that they are more convenient than mimmany trade goods. Allowing the 50:1 for sorted/boxed coins while forcing the more valuable bulky item slot for up to 500 coins puts the efficiency back in the right order again.

I only picked 500 for a box size because it was a good number to scale with coins per pound with a resulting ten pound large brick sized box that would scale well across levels and coin types. 500 copper/silver way low levels isn't bad if you have capacity & 500 gold/platinum is great even at higher levels. Jumping to 2k like the box of quarters is 40 pounds using that 50:1 weight so starts going from large brick to cinderblock territory if you assume slightly larger/thicker coins than quarters.

Of course there is a lot we don't know about bulky items and we are mostly just making guesses equipped only slightly better to guess than the people of plato's cave with our certainty that bulky items will always be a single digit. So we could wind up with this whole thread a laughably bad guess based on completely wrong assumptions

 

[Horwath]

Just as a side note, gems are very heavy. They are formed under great pressure usually and are pretty dense. Their main advantage is that small gems can still hold great value. The largest gem quality aquamarine was found in 1910. It was 18 inches long and 15.5 inches in diameter. It weighed 243 pounds. That sack full of gems that you find can weight a whole lot.

densest gemstones have a density of 4,8. Gold has 19,3. So any volume of gold vs gemstones will be at least 4 times as dense. Good thing that gemstones have better value per mass.