D&D 5E Copper piece value in U.S. dollars?

[KarinsDad]

Real world prices from which era? Because those are real-world prices that actually did exist in America at one point.

That's part of what I meant when I discussed the changes in technology affecting pricing; even with real-world currency, they have completely changed how much we value clothes and services. And that is a technological change of only two centuries; the typical DnD world is massively more technologically divergent from the modern world.

The technology of today is somewhat irrelevant. There is no way to correspond prices based on mass production.

But what can be done is to understand a relative value of x number of gold pieces.

At 1 CP = $1, many prices in the PHB make sense in players' minds.

A set of clothes for $50.
A mug of ale for $4 at a tavern.
A loaf of bread for $2.
A cab for $1 a mile in the city, $3 a mile outside the city.
A set of tools for a profession for $1000 to $3000. Ask a real world mechanic or carpenter how much he spent on his tools. A home business computer programmer will spend $500 minimum on a laptop (usually more) and many hundreds on needed software.

A modest living expense at $36,500 a year. Living expenses include food, rent, taxes, entertainment, clothes, and dozens of other expenses. Nobody has a modest living at $3650 (i.e. 1 GP per day at $10 per GP) a year in at least the U.S.

 

[aramis erak]

Mostly because mining has been industrialized to such a degree compared to the middle ages that the availability of metal is no longer comparable. The price of copper and silver relative to gold has plummeted over the last 400 years and especially during the last 100.

Actually, silver's not plummeted, merely dropped. It went from about 20:1 to 75:1, ignoring the move from 0.95 fine to 0.999 fine or better for silver, and 18k (0.75 fine) to 24k (0.99fine or better).


Copper maintains about a 100:1 ratio to silver, versus the 100:1 of renaissance Britain , based upon coinweights and purities.
19th C coins...
Copper 1/8d (half-farthing) 2.4g, and the silver tuppence at 0.9g, worth 16x as much, and only 2 2/3 as much... which is 42x the relative value - but note that the copper coin was always a fiat coin worth less than metal value. And the silver was not sterling, but only about 80%-90% silver, with the rest being tin and copper.

D&D's 10:1 C:S is true only for the most ancient greek and indian coins.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

The technology of today is somewhat irrelevant. There is no way to correspond prices based on mass production.

But what can be done is to understand a relative value of x number of gold pieces.

At 1 CP = $1, many prices in the PHB make sense in players' minds.

A set of clothes for $50.
A mug of ale for $4 at a tavern.
A loaf of bread for $2.
A cab for $1 a mile in the city, $3 a mile outside the city.
A set of tools for a profession for $1000 to $3000. Ask a real world mechanic or carpenter how much he spent on his tools. A home business computer programmer will spend $500 minimum on a laptop (usually more) and many hundreds on needed software.

A modest living expense at $36,500 a year. Living expenses include food, rent, taxes, entertainment, clothes, and dozens of other expenses. Nobody has a modest living at $3650 (i.e. 1 GP per day at $10 per GP) a year in at least the U.S.

No one today can manage a modest living using a pure barter economy, and yet according to the Player's Handbook they manage it for the typical DnD world.

It creates a problem that a simple banquet costs $1,000 per person under that economy. I can think of no banquet I have ever been to that cost that much per plate.

Also, you are forgetting that most tend to live on 1 silver a day, or about $10 under your calculation (Source: Player's Handbook, page 143). Using the figures provided by Celebrim on the previous page, that means the typical person lives on only $3,100 a year.

And then we dig up the actual amount that commoners live on and notice that commoners manage to live pretty well on that silver a day, given that copper is common for people who are lower in class than them; it is the laborers and beggars who deal in copper pieces. Which means that the people who actually do make a modest living in the typical DnD setting do so, using your figures, for less than one tenth of the amount of money that is typically required for Americans to make a modest living.

So, pretty much, the only way it works when basing it on the American dollar and American lifestyle is if a copper piece is equal to $10; otherwise, we have these people pulling off the impossible. And even then, it's still technically not enough money.

I suggested usage-based simply because, at the end of the day, usage-based is ultimately the easiest and provides the lesser headache. Especially since commoners manage to not have 9/10ths of the expenses modern Americans have.

 

[Jester David]

5e has gone to a gold standard, up from 3e's silver standard. 1gp is what an untrained labourer earns in one day.
So 1gp is what someone can earn from one day of hard work at minimum wage. That's about $50. Working from there, a sp is $5 and a copper is $0.50.

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

5e has gone to a gold standard, up from 3e's silver standard. 1gp is what an untrained labourer earns in one day.
So 1gp is what someone can earn from one day of hard work at minimum wage. That's about $50. Working from there, a sp is $5 and a copper is $0.50.

Please pick up the Player's Handbook and turn to page 143, then read the section titled Coinage. Laborers do not earn 1 gold a day.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

$1

Logic:

3e listed the silver piece as the daily wage of a laborer. Historically the Roman denarius was a silver piece that was the daily wage of the laborer. Coincidence? No. Design intent.

The buying power of the denarius in bread (the baseline they use for these things) translates into a bit over $20.

In 5e, they increased the wage of the laborer to 2 silver pieces and adjusted the prices slightly to make that actually enough to support a poor lifestyle. (In 3e prices added up poorly--in 5e you can actually buy the things your lifestyle indicates you should be able to with the wages indicated for that lifestyle. Yay!)

The 5e change from 1 sp to 2 sp as the daily laborers wage either changes the economy of the world by making everyone twice as wealth, or cuts the value of the coin in half. The latter makes the most sense. This makes the silver piece worth a bit more than $10. Round it down to $10.

A copper piece is worth 1/10th of a silver piece.

Therefore:

1 cp = $1 USD

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

The 5e change from 1 sp to 2 sp as the daily laborers wage

Page 143: It's still 1sp per day.

I know what the hireling page says, but that is not a specific mention and more of a general for players hiring unskilled people, which given the professions mentioned seems to be more of an average.

That said, the rest of your post makes sense and explains the costs on page 159.

 

[SirAntoine]

$0.25

 

[Jester David]

Please pick up the Player's Handbook and turn to page 143, then read the section titled Coinage. Laborers do not earn 1 gold a day.

I was working from memory. You'll excuse me for not having the PHB at my side at all times.

Yes, an untrained labourer does still only earn 1sp. But that same pages says an artisan earns 1gp. It dorsn't seem as likely that a barely skilled individual is making 10x minimum wage ($80+/hour or $160,000 per year) so it makes sense to assume the labouer in that situation is earning below minimum wage.

Splitting the difference would also work. 5sp as $50, with 1gp as $100 and a copper as $0.10

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

I was working from memory. You'll excuse me for not having the PHB at my side at all times.

Yes, an untrained labourer does still only earn 1sp. But that same pages says an artisan earns 1gp. It dorsn't seem as likely that a barely skilled individual is making 10x minimum wage ($80+/hour or $160,000 per year) so it makes sense to assume the labouer in that situation is earning below minimum wage.

Splitting the difference would also work. 5sp as $50, with 1gp as $100 and a copper as $0.10

I apologize for my reaction.

Now, on to the rest of your post.

It makes a lot more sense if you consider the idea that the artisans are likely massively more rare for the era in question than they are for the modern era.

It also makes sense if you consider that the cost of living is massively lower. They don't have utilities bills, taxes are probably a lot more simplified, and a lot more people working in the entertainment industry probably means entertainment is likely cheaper on the average.

Overall, if you adjust for the idea they don't need as much money and then factor in that the classes below merchants can survive entirely off of barter, it works out.

So, it may be easier to assume the artisans are middle class and work a comparison between artisans and middle class wages. But even then, we're going to be dealing with massive differences between them and us as far as cost of living, cost of supplies, and technology level.

I still say a comparison of how the currency is actually used may be best. A straight translation based on what currency can buy and what wages people make seems to be an area with a massive amount of problems, especially given entirely different lists of requirements for simple cost of living.