D&D 5E Do We Really Need a Lot of Gold? (D&D 5th Edition)

[jmartkdr2]

I tend to have my pc's buy lots of luxury items, as part of RP. Fancy clothes, good booze, minor magic items that increase quality of life without adding power, art objects, and strongholds at some point.

But that's all just RP. Which means if I were playing a character not inclined to spend money for some reason, or (more likely) the nature of the game makes this kind of spending difficult to do, the gold does just sort of sit there gathering dust.

 

[Steampunkette]

I never liked Prestige Classes, myself. Whenever I do something "Prestige Classy" in D&D I make it a separate track situation. Kind of like Boons or Alternate Class Features.

You still progress as a Paladin, but you can swap out some paladin abilities or gain new uses of your paladin abilities that reflect what your "prestige class" merits. And sometimes the progression is outright "Outside" your class. Gaining followers and strongholds, political benefits conferred upon the character, bonuses to social skills in specific situations or with people who respect/fear/know your Prestige.

Things like that instead of multiclassing. I just generally really dislike multiclassing.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, absolutely. Branching character development paths are great fun, but if you have to plan all of it in advance that really ruins the whole thing. I want to have tools to spontaneously to take the character into new direction when their emerging story warrants it.

Exactly. It's why I've turned to magic items as the major vector of character growth. Nobody expects to gain a flame tongue sword, but it's a much more satisfying component of character power than the level 10 ability you picked at level 1 as part of your subclass.

 

[Sithlord]

To be honest. I could care less about gold. I’m not playing a game where my character pays bills. I am here to slay the dragon, banish the demon, kill the evil undead wizard, and stop the cultists. That being said such a thing isn’t a bad idea for those that want it. But please no magic shops. Personally I would rather barter. Normally we the heroes are between a rock and a hard place and are doing some quest to get what we need to complete a quest or whatever. I do like stronghold rules for certain kinds of games.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't care about the money, but I want to have an excuse for my character to care about the money, if that makes sense. Adventuring for profit is pretty common character motivation, but that doesn't really work if you already have as much money as you could possibly need.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

My 10th level character still has 5k to repay on his stronghold loan and wrangled a 6k deal to hire 100 mercenaries for a month of campaigning.

His recent share of treasure totals about 4.5k.

There's a temporarily resident transmuter-smith that could make magical plate armour, I'm guessing that's a cool 5k and how many weeks/months?

Plus there are springtime adventure hooks that require a retinue, ship or both.

Nah, if anything the tier 2 treasures are too small. Tier 3 troves are great, at least early on. Plenty to spend the gold on.

 

[Aldarc]

My next campaign is going to be a sandbox on the edge of the wild, and so I am going to heavily curate things like the spell list to reflect what the "normal" world looks like. Everything else is going to be out there, somewhere -- go find it.

Please keep us updated as your campaign progresses. I'm curious how this plays out.

 

[Steampunkette]

To be honest. I could care less about gold. I’m not playing a game where my character pays bills. I am here to slay the dragon, banish the demon, kill the evil undead wizard, and stop the cultists. That being said such a thing isn’t a bad idea for those that want it. But please no magic shops. Personally I would rather barter. Normally we the heroes are between a rock and a hard place and are doing some quest to get what we need to complete a quest or whatever. I do like stronghold rules for certain kinds of games.

There have actually been a couple of occasions where someone in one of my games tried to buy a magic item through a broker and found the person who owned it was willing to trade... but not gold.

In one, the adventuring party wound up going on a quest for the dude and helped to cover up some of the terrible things he had done... unintentionally, I mean. The party didn't know they were part of a cover up. They got their item, found out what had happened, and revealed the truth to the populace. It earned them a brand new antagonist character with a bunch of money and magic items who had reason to be incredibly pissed at them!

In another, the item was traded in exchange for helping the Queen to conceive a -proper- heir to her throne... Which didn't mean the paladin had to drop trou. Instead, the players had to petition an angel for aid to bless the King so the child would become an Aasimar, ensuring that their "Divine Right to Rule" wouldn't be questioned. The Paladin's oath and importance in the church is how they wound up being chosen for the task.

Side-quests and stuff like that can be super useful in varying up the content of the game, giving your players new places to explore, new people to meet, and crazy wild story events that wouldn't fit the primary tone of the story.

 

[akr71]

If the adventurers are off killing some monster than has been terrorizing the local humanoids, I also try to make it clear to the players that the loot that they find quite likely belonged to those poor people. If they really are heroes, they should be giving the loot back to those that had it stolen from them.

I tend to use a lot of bandits or cults at low levels for this reason. The rightful owners make sure the heroes are well compensated, but they do want their stuff back.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't care about the money, but I want to have an excuse for my character to care about the money, if that makes sense. Adventuring for profit is pretty common character motivation, but that doesn't really work if you already have as much money as you could possibly need.

One of our table stories was our friend Kenny who made a ranger with that motivation and after his first adventure, getting his share of a few hundred gold and a long sword +1, plus hitting second level, decided to retire to the woods, since he was now hardier, had a good weapon, and had more than enough money for his chosen lifestyle. The player just then happily made a different character (though some people in the group groused that that magic sword was "wasted").