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

[James Gasik]

It comes down to motivations. By default, PC's are motivated to become wealthy/influential/powerful. They have decided that the best way to attain fortune and glory is to risk their lives doing dangerous things, as opposed to say, becoming merchants or simply taking the Noble background and managing their lands.

You can replace wealth with some other motivation, but greed is a rather universal one, so it's easier to use as a means to get a group of random weirdos to be on the same team.

AD&D turned this into a feedback loop where money, by it's nature, led to more success. This has proven to be successful as it never leaves players wondering, now that they've acquired mountains of cash, why they are still adventuring and not retiring as fat cats. Most DM's find themselves inevitably placing more and more importance on the adventures themselves to keep the campaign going.

5e has simply repeated the mistake of 2e; by removing wealth from any direct expansion of player power (beyond, say, building a keep and attracting a tiny force of goons to guard it as an excuse to give yourself a couple of extra characters to bring with you on adventures), it becomes a bad motivation.

If the players are motivated by a problem that can be solved with money, they'll be able to solve it before they reach the double digit in levels. Magic users have ways to effectively generate money at a certain point, making it even more meaningless.

Even if you add big ticket items to the game like majestic castles, actual armies, or flying ships, eventually the players will have all of those things as well. It's like billionaires who, rather than use their wealth to help others, go and buy yachts so large they block waterways or pay to put themselves in space because, why not?

As the game stands, money is primarily a metric for "when can I have Full Plate" and "how many spells can I put in my spellbook", and possibly "can I actually use this spell that has a price tag ever or can I live without it". This is a fairly low-Tier problem. The game could function perfectly fine without money at all.

In fact, all the things 5e gives us to do with money come down to "make healing potions/scrolls to make resource attrition meaningless", or just "let the players make/buy magic items" (at which point we've come full circle).

 

[aco175]

I still think the basic premise of the game is to; kill monsters so I can take their treasure so I can get more powerful, so I can kill monsters so I can take their treasure so I can get more powerful.....

5e has its flaws with the lack of spending gold problem. The item problem is better than 4e where you as a player listed items you wanted and the DM was expected to give them out and boost them every couple levels to keep it going.

I do like some of the stronghold rules and think they can solve some of the problems with gold if you get the PCs to build a fort or something. A problem is that the published campaigns tend to have you going nonstop until level 15 where the campaign ends, or at least the book ends. Many groups tend to start a new campaign then since they have played the same PCs for a long time and want something new. A system with shorted adventures/modules might allow for more development of a home base stronghold. Although some players just do not like this type of play.

 

[James Gasik]

I never saw the problem with purchasable magic items; the trick was to only make items that fix math or patch up weak points in classes available, and reserve the fun stuff for actual adventure rewards.

Fighters need magic swords the same way they need full plate armor; why have one available to be purchased and not the other? You can't expect either to be an "off the rack" purchase anyways, so they should have to be commissioned from a craftsman.

 

[Lanefan]

It comes down to motivations. By default, PC's are motivated to become wealthy/influential/powerful. They have decided that the best way to attain fortune and glory is to risk their lives doing dangerous things, as opposed to say, becoming merchants or simply taking the Noble background and managing their lands.

You can replace wealth with some other motivation, but greed is a rather universal one, so it's easier to use as a means to get a group of random weirdos to be on the same team.

AD&D turned this into a feedback loop where money, by it's nature, led to more success. This has proven to be successful as it never leaves players wondering, now that they've acquired mountains of cash, why they are still adventuring and not retiring as fat cats. Most DM's find themselves inevitably placing more and more importance on the adventures themselves to keep the campaign going.

5e has simply repeated the mistake of 2e; by removing wealth from any direct expansion of player power (beyond, say, building a keep and attracting a tiny force of goons to guard it as an excuse to give yourself a couple of extra characters to bring with you on adventures), it becomes a bad motivation.

5e has actually gone a step further than did 2e, in that 5e by RAW has also completely removed the magic item economy.

In 2e you could use your in-character wealth to buy magic items and expand your character's power that way. Not as player-facing as the 3e model, but the prices were in the DMG and the DM was more or less expected to use those prices somehow.

 

[tetrasodium]

5e has actually gone a step further than did 2e, in that 5e by RAW has also completely removed the magic item economy.

In 2e you could use your in-character wealth to buy magic items and expand your character's power that way. Not as player-facing as the 3e model, but the prices were in the DMG and the DM was more or less expected to use those prices somehow.

5e also did away with things like body slot (conflicts) & (non)stacking bonus types that made it possible for the GM to shell game in extra room for advancement within the system math where a certain amount of magic items were assumed. Now the closest 5e has is DMG 141 where it says "When a nonhumanoid tries to wear an item, use your discretion as to whether the item functions as intended. A ring placed on a tentacle might work, but a yuan-ti with a snakelike tail instead of legs can't wear boots. " alongside a character sheet & PHB with no actual locations to ensure player discretion is three cloaks a vest five quivers a coat armor boots a helmet with a hat & so on if the GM doesn't jump in to be the bad guy forcing a nerf on players.

 

[James Gasik]

5e has actually gone a step further than did 2e, in that 5e by RAW has also completely removed the magic item economy.

In 2e you could use your in-character wealth to buy magic items and expand your character's power that way. Not as player-facing as the 3e model, but the prices were in the DMG and the DM was more or less expected to use those prices somehow.

Actually it was 1e that had the gold piece values (90,000 gp for Baba Yaga's Hut! It's a steal!), the 2e DMG had XP values (as I recall, to be awarded to someone for making one). So I never assumed that 2e had a "magical item economy"; was this belief really prevalent?

Now granted, yes, this did change, because I know I can buy an Arrow of Distance for 125 gp according to the Encyclopedia Magica, but it didn't start that way (even if the people making the game sometimes forgot, like the Witch starting with 1500 gp of magic items when none of the magic items currently, even ones in the same book the Witch was printed in didn't have gp costs, lol).

And there several canonical magic item shops in the Forgotten Realms, such as Chemcheaux (which has a convenient outlet in Raven's Bluff), but I didn't know this was intended to be a standard for campaigns.

When I allowed for sales and purchases, I always had an eye towards what the market would bear. Nobody is paying 2000 gp for a +1 sword when it doesn't even function better than a non-magical weapon of exceptional quality when the Fighter's Handbook says I can buy one (the Drusus) for 50 gp, and the only way to test it's superiority (unless it generates light, or is intelligent, as 25% of +1 swords supposedly are, lol) is to go fight a dangerous monster!

3e had good intentions, but boy did they get prices for magic items way off base!

 

[tetrasodium]

Actually it was 1e that had the gold piece values (90,000 gp for Baba Yaga's Hut! It's a steal!), the 2e DMG had XP values (as I recall, to be awarded to someone for making one). So I never assumed that 2e had a "magical item economy"; was this belief really prevalent?

Now granted, yes, this did change, because I know I can buy an Arrow of Distance for 125 gp according to the Encyclopedia Magica, but it didn't start that way (even if the people making the game sometimes forgot, like the Witch starting with 1500 gp of magic items when none of the magic items currently, even ones in the same book the Witch was printed in didn't have gp costs, lol).

And there several canonical magic item shops in the Forgotten Realms, such as Chemcheaux (which has a convenient outlet in Raven's Bluff), but I didn't know this was intended to be a standard for campaigns.

When I allowed for sales and purchases, I always had an eye towards what the market would bear. Nobody is paying 2000 gp for a +1 sword when it doesn't even function better than a non-magical weapon of exceptional quality when the Fighter's Handbook says I can buy one (the Drusus) for 50 gp, and the only way to test it's superiority (unless it generates light, or is intelligent, as 25% of +1 swords supposedly are, lol) is to go fight a dangerous monster!

3e had good intentions, but boy did they get prices for magic items way off base!

2e dmg120 "A potion of healing is a fairly necessary item, something the DM may want to be readily available to the characters. Therefore, it should be cheap, costing no more than [400% the cost of a 5e one]." There is also a lot of talk about buying things beyond what is adventured for to craft magic items". Even if you didn't have a magic item economy there were a lot of places in the rules where PCs could burn gold plus things like level based living expenses (dmg 51) & optional training costs(dmg71)

 

[Lanefan]

Actually it was 1e that had the gold piece values (90,000 gp for Baba Yaga's Hut! It's a steal!), the 2e DMG had XP values (as I recall, to be awarded to someone for making one).

Wasn't there a note in there as to how to convert those xp values to gold values?

So I never assumed that 2e had a "magical item economy"; was this belief really prevalent?

Now granted, yes, this did change, because I know I can buy an Arrow of Distance for 125 gp according to the Encyclopedia Magica, but it didn't start that way (even if the people making the game sometimes forgot, like the Witch starting with 1500 gp of magic items when none of the magic items currently, even ones in the same book the Witch was printed in didn't have gp costs, lol).

And there several canonical magic item shops in the Forgotten Realms, such as Chemcheaux (which has a convenient outlet in Raven's Bluff), but I didn't know this was intended to be a standard for campaigns.

I don't think the actual magic shops were intended as a standard, but the idea of being able to buy-sell-trade items was, I think.

When I allowed for sales and purchases, I always had an eye towards what the market would bear.

I always randomize what's available at any given time/place, both to reflect the unpredictable nature of what might be on the market at the moment and to reflect the fact that what's on the market today might not be in two weeks - the PCs aren't the only adventurers in the world.

Nobody is paying 2000 gp for a +1 sword when it doesn't even function better than a non-magical weapon of exceptional quality when the Fighter's Handbook says I can buy one (the Drusus) for 50 gp, and the only way to test it's superiority (unless it generates light, or is intelligent, as 25% of +1 swords supposedly are, lol) is to go fight a dangerous monster!

3e had good intentions, but boy did they get prices for magic items way off base!

No price list is perfect. The ones in 1e, 3e and 4e each have some glaring pink-elephant-size problems, but - with significant time and effort involving a very fine-toothed comb - each can be massaged into usefulness.

 

[Shiroiken]

Actually it was 1e that had the gold piece values (90,000 gp for Baba Yaga's Hut! It's a steal!)

The prices for 1E were for players selling the items. Since magic items were usually random and treasure needed to be divided rather evenly, it was not uncommon for PCs to get magic items they couldn't use. They could either trade them with other characters or sell them. Selling them was the preferred option, because you got the XP for the GP if you sold the item immediately upon completing the adventure.

 

[James Gasik]

The prices for 1E were for players selling the items. Since magic items were usually random and treasure needed to be divided rather evenly, it was not uncommon for PCs to get magic items they couldn't use. They could either trade them with other characters or sell them. Selling them was the preferred option, because you got the XP for the GP if you sold the item immediately upon completing the adventure.

Oh I see, sadly I never played with gold to xp, even when I played 1e, so I wasn't aware of this nuance. So owning a valuable item isn't worth xp, but converting it to gold pieces is?