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

[NotAYakk]

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.

There are people in our world who have as much money as small nations.

They still seem to find more uses for money that don't involve magic swords.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And relatedly, MOST magic items should have nothing to do with adventuring. Nobles would be purchasing things that are either impressive indulgences to show off to their friends and rivals (animated statues that cost orders of magnitude more than a "mere" living butler) or exotic but useful things (the tankard that automatically chills the beer poured within).

It's too easy to assume the stuff listed in the PHB and DMG are the sum total of magic in the world, when those are just the things that are relevant to adventuring types.

It is too easy to assume that, as we're given very little reason from the text that it is otherwise. And again, magic items, even the ones that dont make you a better ranger, are insanely higher costed than anything else, because they're priced for adventurers. It's like the merchants in Act IV of Diablo II. Two folks just hanging out with an angel at the edge of hell, trying to sell overpriced gear to people literally saving the world. Makes me laugh out loud every time.

 

[Aldarc]

My problem with magic shops is simply that, for the world to make any sense, there have to be a lot more adventurers in it than you might expect or want. Otherwise, who is buying all this magic stuff? They're ridiculously expensive compared to nearly everything else in the world, so are out of reach of almost anyone. And a business can't survive if only 4-5 people ever have enough money to shop there.

I would treat it a bit more like Eberron. A magic item shop is likely backed by a magic item guild that is probably regulating prices, shop locations, and the like.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There are people in our world who have as much money as small nations.

They still seem to find more uses for money that don't involve magic swords.

Very few of the things the rich buy in our world are by default considered important to adventurers. You as the DM have to make them important, and the players have to willing to go along or suggest their own ideas. The text should be helping a lot more than it does.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would treat it a bit more like Eberron. A magic item shop is likely backed by a magic item guild that is probably regulating prices, shop locations, and the like.

Maybe so, but the question of who they're selling to is still, well, a question. Unless you radically decrease prices, nobody but adventurers and maybe the ultra rich and ultra bored would frequent the shop.

 

[Aldarc]

Maybe so, but the question of who they're selling to is still, well, a question. Unless you radically decrease prices, nobody but adventurers and maybe the ultra rich and ultra bored would frequent the shop.

So like other luxury goods.

 

[Aging Bard]

This question seems very group dependent. If your group wants cinematic discrete adventures, you don't need much gold.

In the ancient past of 1e, there were tons of things to spend money on, a mix of carrots and sticks.

Some sticks included: 1) mandatory upkeep spending (100 gp/level); 2) level training (1500 gp/level time play rank 1-4); 3) taxation and tolls. I imagine these would be super popular today /s. Strongholds were the big carrots, which gave access to followers and, well, a frickin' stronghold. But ships are nearly as good and perhaps even better for adventuring. I allow ships to be used like strongholds and attract followers. And there was also magic research, time-consuming but a good way to avoid magic shops (which I also don't like).

A simple way to make gold more useful is to make it clear that the party needs to spend money to get what they want. If you want an audience with the archduchess, hire a good tailor and bring a gift. 1e had very intricate rules about hiring and using sages, fonts on knowledge. The implication was clear that if you want to know something, there is some (large) amount of money that will get you that information. In a world where encumbrance mattered, you hired bearers. And so on.

Basically, if you want money to matter, have it matter!

 

[hopeless]

The one thing I kept from Eberron was the use of mana shards I believe they're more commonly called Dragon Shards from that setting.
The idea of coalesced magic formed into shards that can be added to armour, shields, weapons or arrow heads for those of you familiar with Stormhawks thus allowing access to +1 items.
Going by Xanathar's that's an unusual level of magic right there which I do to work on perhaps make them masterwork quality first and then can be upgraded to +1 items but that's a work in progress.

In regards to money use before the game I was playing ended when I left that group I was seriously looking at those tool kits as a potential area for my Knowledge domain Cleric to focus on.
Not everything needs to be magic based those things can be very useful if you're running a cleric whose shrine basically allows her access to an abandoned temple in the Feywild that could use refurbishing.

Its just that there's lot more than just magical items and treasure out there that this stuff could be spent on let alone knowledge whether locked in books, libraries or hoards that need to be found.

Whose to say where you can find that particular item you want if the only one who can tell you needs certain items to pin it down?

 

[Malmuria]

One way to look at it might be to consider not what your character or even PCs in general want money for, but what do people in the world want money for? What does a lot of cash allow for? Separately (because they are different things) what does wealth allow for? By asking these questions we can then think about how PCs fit into that world and how their sudden infusions of cash impact the rich and powerful.

I agree...but what's an example of problems in a typical 5e game that need money to solve? It's easy enough to create money sinks, but ultimately that just adds a layer of bookkeeping. Further, in a phb-based economy the players can afford a "comfortable" lifestyle by level 3 or 4, which could happen in a week of in-game time. In the real world money=power, but PCs acquire power by killing monsters and leveling up. Campaigns can also have characters travel a lot across the map, which makes strongholds not as appealing. It's not even clear the average group of PCs could be trusted to take care of a boat.

One thing that I find totally archaic are the treasure tables. If you are playing older editions with xp for gold, then it's a good way of stocking a dungeon and allowing for some randomness, though it's still tedious. But it's a complete waste of space in the 5e dmg. Nobody wants to carry around 1800 copper pieces and a large painting of an aristocrat out of a dungeon. Just write an optional wealth-by-level and a few examples of evocative treasure hoards. Even the magic item tables could be streamlined.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Blue Rose 5E abstracts wealth with a "narrative wealth" system -- characters have a wealth level and they are assumed to be able to get anything on that wealth level without an issue -- that I think ought to be baseline.

I play a character in an urban campaign. Not only does he not want a stronghold, he has nowhere to put one. And even buying a mansion in the city is far less expensive than even a modest castle.

Potentially throwing game balance out the window by letting player characters buy magic items is the wrong way to solve the gold issue.

That said, the easiest way to not have a glut of gold is to not give it out as thought it still matters. There are other things that motivate characters.