D&D 5E (2024) Gold & Other Treasure (Can we get off the treadmill?)

[tetrasodium]

I mean, I think it is certainly the case that many-to-most people didn't play to the strict formulaic potential outcome of the rules any more than people actually played in the Tippyverse. OTOH, I think there was plenty of 'okay new(to this group)bie, bring in a Xth level character with Y GP worth of gear, I'll look it over and veto items like I will abusive builds*.'

Agreed, but 5e still needs oversight GMs quickly learned that they needed to give at least a little oversight to a character coming in like that and in 5e the GM still needs to.

Likewise, I certainly think there was some unintended incentivization structures that came into play, such as 'I can't spend my GP on bribing the guard/investing in a merchant ship/bling/the other things we did with gold in 2e, that gold has to go towards magic items so I stay at parity with the challenges we're going to face.'
*each table having different standards

Using an earlier example, giving a guard a bribe equal to 3 years to three decades of their annual wages is not simply "bribing the guard" because it's closer to "destabilizing the economy" or "bribing the adventure away". Having monster math that expected a certain level of gear improvements actually resisted such a distortion as well since (unlike in 5e) doing such a thing to unreasonably force the GM to make NPCs unimpeachably loyal could come back to bite you later. The only change that 5e has added to that situation is that the PC is paying the bribe with a thing they probably can't need.

 

[CapnZapp]

It's been oft lamented that treasure becomes essentially meaningless very quickly in 5th edition D&D.

The solution is to add back the magic item economy. What we want to use our gold for is to purchase magic upgrades to help us be better adventurers.

 

[tetrasodium]

The solution is to add back the magic item economy. What we want to use our gold for is to purchase magic upgrades to help us be better adventurers.

They would need to put in a serious commitment to executing 5e's "magic items are optional" self inflicted wound first as part of that. Simply adding an economy for them without creating a need just causes the math to collapse once it starts getting used. I don't think I've seen wotc hint at any willingness on that front though

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Here you go.

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[CapnZapp]

They would need to put in a serious commitment to executing 5e's "magic items are optional" self inflicted wound first as part of that. Simply adding an economy for them without creating a need just causes the math to collapse once it starts getting used. I don't think I've seen wotc hint at any willingness on that front though

Let me simplify for you:

Adventures hand out gold and lots of it.

If the rulebooks tell GMs what items should cost (and "just randomize or make up a number" is NOT an acceptable answer) then the game is helpful and useful.

So do that.

The game can still claim the game is designed in such a way that magic items aren't necessary. That's still true.

But the way WoTC currently gets to both eat the cake and still have it is atrocious. I mean how official adventures are loaded with gold, without there being official rules for how to spend it, and those rules giving balanced numeric advice on magic items specifically.

They could easily change their adventures in such a way to not hand out gold, and also tell DMs no magic weapons are needed to complete these scenarios.

But they don't do that because people like gold and they like magic items. WotC just don't want to do the actual work required to come up with balanced price lists.

That's easily the worst downgrade of the entire edition.

 

[tetrasodium]

Let me simplify for you:

Adventures hand out gold and lots of it.

If the rulebooks tell GMs what items should cost (and "just randomize or make up a number" is NOT an acceptable answer) then the game is helpful and useful.

So do that.

The game can still claim the game is designed in such a way that magic items aren't necessary. That's still true.

But the way WoTC currently gets to both eat the cake and still have it is atrocious. I mean how official adventures are loaded with gold, without there being official rules for how to spend it, and those rules giving balanced numeric advice on magic items specifically.

They could easily change their adventures in such a way to not hand out gold, and also tell DMs no magic weapons are needed to complete these scenarios.

But they don't do that because people like gold and they like magic items. WotC just don't want to do the actual work required to come up with balanced price lists.

That's easily the worst downgrade of the entire edition.

That was kind of my point, they need to fix both of the problems they created by failing to design magic items into economy as well as math.

Reading through your post feels like you are trying to pull back the wool to show the facts with someone who disagreed, but I wasn't disagreeing in the post you quoted and agree with all of this. Wotc wants to have it both ways in both room for magic items in monster/system math as well as pricing/restricting*.

As you note wotc just unreasonably fobs the whole thing off on the GM to take blame for all of the problems created no matter which course the gm tries to plot around the gaping holes deliberately left in system design.

 

[billd91]

Why must magic items do more numbers instead of doing cool things?

Tracking back a little bit on this one.
Why must magic items do more numbers? So they're attractive to players to take instead of just the playing the numbers game. I ran into this mostly in the 3e family of D&D, specifically PF1. It's hard to get PCs off the Big 6 (magic weapon, magic armor, cloak of resistance, etc) when they have choices of magic items. It's honestly hard to give up a +1 bonus to all of your saves and AC in return for sticking to walls and casting webs (cloak of arachnidia, for example). And that's because you know that saving throw/AC bonus is going to be consistently useful, unlike the items that do more cool things.
My response in 3e was to treat rings and cloaks, the items most crunched by the decision between cool effect and consistent bonus, as requiring at least a +1 deflection/resistance bonus like weapons and armor needed at least a +1 before loading on other enchantments. Give away BOTH a bonus AND a cool effect and players are a lot more willing to take the cool item.

The other solution is to simply remove all bonus items, and I'm not sure I'm keen on it. There are good reasons there should be items that give a numeric bonus to saving throws at the very least. Most PCs have 2 strong and 4 relatively weak saves. A numeric bonus on those weak saves goes a long way and becomes highly coveted.

 

[Amrûnril]

The framing of this discussion seems very odd to me.

If you go adventuring to find gold and are then expected to spend most of that gold on enhancing your adventuring abilities (so you can find more gold and enhance your adventuring abilities even more...), that's a treadmill. If gold is primarily used for purposes orthogonal to adventuring capabilities, that's getting off the treadmill.

Thus, getting off the treadmill seems to me like exactly what 5e has already done. I understand the desire for clearer suggestions about what to replace that treadmill with, but it seems like most of the discussion in this thread is about how to reinstate the treadmill.

 

[TheSword]

I always liked D20 Modern’s wealth stat.

Instead of paying for every inn, pint of beer and quiver of arrows you are assumed to be able to live at an appropriate level for your wealth. With a chance to requisition special, or expensive one off items depending on your wealth level.

Major treasures would increase your wealth for a certain number of levels for a certain duration or permanently for exceptional hoards.

I think it’s an interesting concept.

 

[payn]

Tracking back a little bit on this one.
Why must magic items do more numbers? So they're attractive to players to take instead of just the playing the numbers game. I ran into this mostly in the 3e family of D&D, specifically PF1. It's hard to get PCs off the Big 6 (magic weapon, magic armor, cloak of resistance, etc) when they have choices of magic items. It's honestly hard to give up a +1 bonus to all of your saves and AC in return for sticking to walls and casting webs (cloak of arachnidia, for example). And that's because you know that saving throw/AC bonus is going to be consistently useful, unlike the items that do more cool things.
My response in 3e was to treat rings and cloaks, the items most crunched by the decision between cool effect and consistent bonus, as requiring at least a +1 deflection/resistance bonus like weapons and armor needed at least a +1 before loading on other enchantments. Give away BOTH a bonus AND a cool effect and players are a lot more willing to take the cool item.

The other solution is to simply remove all bonus items, and I'm not sure I'm keen on it. There are good reasons there should be items that give a numeric bonus to saving throws at the very least. Most PCs have 2 strong and 4 relatively weak saves. A numeric bonus on those weak saves goes a long way and becomes highly coveted.

I guess I'd prefer the numbers to be built into character progression and leave the magic items to doing cool things. I want cloaks of arachnidia and not cloak of resistance +x. YMMV.