I've never been very happy about D&D economics but I understand that the rapid increase in price of magic items is largely due to people's desire to find piles of gold along with the need to keep PCs from having enough money for +5 swords at 3rd level.
So I'm thinking that the next campaign I run I'm going to try running low-currency. I'll establish a few denominations of sub-gold pieces and eliminate the platinum piece all together. What I'm wondering, though, is how to adjucate prices. I considered just scaling back all of the prices by some fixed amount (eg: 1/100th to make a masterwork weapon 3 gold and a handful of change), but that leaves non-weapons and armor equipment basically free. Does anyone know where I can get my hands on information regarding actual prices of things in the middle ages? Even just quick estimates from someone in the know on how much the most common stuff would cost would be awesome: a longsword, shield, suit of chainmail, a good (but not war-) horse, a night at an inn, a solid meal, a mug of ale or cup of wine, and 50 feet of rope.
Obviously they didn't actually use 'copper pieces' and so forth, but I'd imagine there was some sort of penny-ish base unit that would allow for conversion...
So I'm thinking that the next campaign I run I'm going to try running low-currency. I'll establish a few denominations of sub-gold pieces and eliminate the platinum piece all together. What I'm wondering, though, is how to adjucate prices. I considered just scaling back all of the prices by some fixed amount (eg: 1/100th to make a masterwork weapon 3 gold and a handful of change), but that leaves non-weapons and armor equipment basically free. Does anyone know where I can get my hands on information regarding actual prices of things in the middle ages? Even just quick estimates from someone in the know on how much the most common stuff would cost would be awesome: a longsword, shield, suit of chainmail, a good (but not war-) horse, a night at an inn, a solid meal, a mug of ale or cup of wine, and 50 feet of rope.
Obviously they didn't actually use 'copper pieces' and so forth, but I'd imagine there was some sort of penny-ish base unit that would allow for conversion...
