D&D 5E [+] Design & Development: Wealth Curves

[CapnZapp]

I start a new thread in the hopes this will make a neat and tidy reference for other threads.

A "wealth curve" is essentially answering the question How much gold do you (the DM, the adventure writer, the game designer) intend to hand out to each adventurer over his or her career?

Let's begin with the "starting curve", drawing from the DMG Starting Equipment table on page 38. One major reason to include this curve is to impress upon each and everyone of us that 5th edition does not need gold (and by extension magic items) to function.

Choose this curve if you like not having to think about what millionaire PC heroes do to the local (or not so local) economy. Choose this curve if you are not bothered by the fact that if you do include a magic item economy, the difference in price between a low-level item and a high-level item will be rather small.

This curve is my extrapolation of the only three solid data points given by the table (at levels 5, 11 and 17).

There are two variants of the curve at its higher end. I made Starting B to feature a second dip with the same coefficient as the one at level 11 - it ends up at 33750 gp at level 20. Starting A does not, and ends up at 55000 gp.

Both end points are very low compared to how D&D is and has been designed. As the subsequent curves will illustrate. But remember that in 5E there is no "wrong curve" - since your game will keep working even without any gold or items whatsoever.

 

[CapnZapp]

The "Starting" wealth curve for levels 1-11:


For levels up to 17:


For high levels, with two variants A and B:

 

[CapnZapp]

Our next chart features two curves.

The burgundy one is called "XP=GP". You should recognize it because it is the Character Advancement table from PHB page 15

You would want to choose this if you like playing a classic "XP for Gold" game where a hero needs to spend one GP for each XP. As Blog of Holding explains, one straight-forward way to accomplish this is by using the DMG treasure hoard rules, with two easy-to-remember changes:
1) at the top half of each tier, double the indicated monetary award of any hoard. That is, for tier I, CR 3 and CR 4 monster hoards but not CR 1 and CR 2 ones.
2) ignore tier IV monetary gains entirely. Keep awarding double-strength tier III gold. You may still roll magic item loot from the tier IV.

This curve ends up at 355,000 gold.

The red one is the NPC wealth curve from 3rd edition. It's original purpose, back in the bad old days when you were supposed to spend hours equipping each and every NPC with items, was to tell you how much gold that NPC has spent on its equipment.

I am reusing it here simply as a nice curve that does not end up close to a million bucks, as the next set of curves will. Do notice how this curve is rather flat for most levels, if that appeals to you. The end point is 220K gp.

 

[Seramus]

Unknown.

The wealth I award in a campaign is directly tired to the type of campaign, which can include lower wealth stories that might involve a lot of tribal or arctic exploration themes, middle wealth stories that might involve politics and bribes, or high wealth stories that might focus on paying massive armies and sacking enemies cities for equally massive amounts of wealth (which go back into paying armies).

 

[CapnZapp]

And finally, the big boys, where level 20 characters end up with a lot of gold. Do note that this has been what every edition of D&D has resulted in, regardless of whether there's been anything to spend it on or not.

The green 3rd ed curve is the much-discussed "Expected Wealth per Level", included mainly for comparison purposes. Since Sane Magic Prices seems to reuse much of the d20 framework I'm assuming this curve is great for any campaign including magic shoppes with Sane prices.

Pathfinder is similar, for that game, and yellow. Presumably the differences are mostly because Paizo couldn't very well keep using the existing d20 curve, so they made their own.

The most interesting of the three is the blue "typical" curve. Thanks to the efforts of [MENTION=35915]tankschmidt[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6932123]Kinematics[/MENTION] we now have a curve of what the DMG treasure guidelines actually result in when used. Not always, of course - the curve is named "typical" because it's an average.

You could call this the "default" curve in 5th edition. And that would be fine, as long as you remain aware you need no gold in this edition for the game to work. And indeed, even official adventure campaigns sometimes do not bother sticking to this line. (Actually I would be interested in wealth curves for each of the major hardbacks. For instance, my feeling is that Storm King's Thunder comes closest to Typical wealth since it mostly off-loads treasure awards to the DMG tables. While my experience with Out of the Abyss tells me it hands out very low wealth.)

Here they are, first for low levels...



...then for all levels:


I'd say they are remarkably similar on the whole.

If you wonder why the blue curve looks a bit wonky, please head over to
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?402507-Deconstructing-5e-Typical-Wealth-by-Level
for more details than you can ever ask for

 

[CapnZapp]

Do note one interesting property - "typical" wealth resembles the mid-wealth curves all the way up to tier III. It is only for tier IV hoards the gold amounts skyrocket.

Let me plot "3rd ed NPC" and "XP=GP" together with "Typical", but end the graph at level 16:



For many campaigns that never reach tier IV this might mean Typical works well enough for their purposes, even if you the DM dislike super-massive wealth like me.

After all, having nearly 900,000 gold means you can buy everything in any low-level magic shoppe, completely wrecking any notion of you having limited spell slots. I can only speak for myself but I don't want to have to think about why the BBEG doesn't simply equip all his minions with a dozen low-level items each.

This graph comes closest to expressing my own personal preferences when I DM.

 

[CapnZapp]

Let me take a practical example of what all this is about.

I'm currently DM'ing Tomb of Annihilation for a party of 4-6 heroes (we play even when one or two people can't show up). The party is currently level 8 so I anticipate having to reinforce the Omu and dungeon chapters somewhat. I am using magic item shoppes to supply most magic items (but they still find some as loot).

Now, I've loosely kept to the XP=GP curve so far. The blue Typical curve is a recent creation by Tankschmidt and so it was unknown to me. The characters have spent ~11,000 gp on the following price list: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...he-many-and-fabulous-bazaars-of-Port-Nyanzaru and maybe half that during the low levels back in the Sword Coast (they arrived to Chult at level 5). They have maybe 10,000 gold right now, but are currently exploring the ruins of Hisari (=they're nowhere near Port Nyanzaru or any other shoppe).

Now I have a choice to make. To stick with xp=gp or to switch over to Typical.

I don't think the campaign will last until tier IV, so the hyperinflation of those levels should luckily be a non-issue.

Still, do I keep awarding wealth so they soon reach 50K or do I hold back to they gain 50K only by level 11.

Do I need to prepare the next version of the Port Nyanzaru price lists for adventurers with maybe 65,000 in their pocket or "only" for half that?

Questions, questions...

It is in this regard having this thread will be a great help for me (no more guesswork!), and hopefully for you as well

PS. To be sure, while I'm using the xp=gp curve I do not use "xp for gp". I just like the curve Also, before "Typical" was available, the Character Advancement curve was the most officially 5th-ish I could get, and thanks to Blog of Holding I knew how to get there.

Obviously, if characters need to spend 1 gp for each xp, and you offer magic shoppes, they effectively need to choose between levelling and buying magic items. Nothing wrong with this, assuming you're experienced enough as a DM to think on your feet as you can't predict the average party level. I would think this need to metathink "does my hero benefit more from a level or a shiny +1 thing" could be great fun!

But if you want the game to work as close as possible to the situation where you didn't force xp for gp you basically need to double the wealth of your game. Choose the burgundy wealth curve and then double the indicated gp amounts. This way, each time you find 2 gp, you can save one for your next shoppe visit and one for the xp.

 

[Ancalagon]

This is a very nice piece of work, and necessary too. Well done!