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DMG tells us how many treasure hoards a party is expected to find over the course of a typical campaign. If we make a few assumptions, we can use this information to estimate how much wealth a character has accumulated at each level of his career.
My assumptions going into producing this table are:
- Treasure is split evenly among four members of the party.
- The hoards are evenly distributed throughout their appropriate level ranges.
- The players use individual monster treasure as “petty cash,” spending it on lifestyle expenses, carousing, replenishing supplies, bribing officials, hiring retainers, etc.
- The party always finds the average total value of all coins, gems, and art objects in each hoard.
Given these assumptions, a character who has just hit level 5 should have recovered about 560 gp from the Challenge 0-4 hoards. By level eleven, he will have recovered an additional 23,500 gp from the Challenge 5-10 hoards. He will have found an additional 110,000 gp by level 17. And he will have secured another 684,000 gp by retirement, presumably at level 20. Quite the nest egg!
We can break this down into each level as follows:
Level| Typical hoard treasure acquired (gp)
1|0
2|140
3|280
4|420
5|560
6|4500
7|8400
8|12,300
9|16,200
10|20,100
11|24,100
12|42,400
13|60,700
14|79,000
15|97,300
16|116,000
17|134,000
18|362,000
19|590,000
20|818,000
The idea of a suggested table of wealth by level is at odds with how I think D&D should play. Still, having these numbers on hand helps us to understand how the designers intended big ticket expenditures -- like building strongholds, buying ships, and creating magic items -- to fit into a typical campaign.
For instance, a character could commission the construction of a palace or large castle only by level 19, although he and three friends could go in on it together by level 17. A keep or small castle is affordable by a single character at level 13, a fortified tower at level 9.
If creating magical items is more your speed, the first common item can be built at level 3 and is limited by the minimum level requirement rather than the creation cost. A character has earned enough to make an uncommon item by level 5. A rare item must wait for level 7, a very rare item for level 13, and a legendary item for level 19. Seems appropriate, I suppose.
