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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sekhmet" data-source="post: 5640385" data-attributes="member: 97602">As a DM, when one of my players almost invariably says "I want to come from a rich family," I think to myself... "What is rich in my campaign setting?"The average commoner makes less than five gold pieces per year (remember, most of his purchases and sales will be in copper pieces). A very good craftsman will make, perhaps, 20ish gold per week for about 1,000 gold per year. While this seems like a lot for an NPC, remember that they have to pay workers, buy materials, pay maintenance, and then the majority of the rest goes to personal bills (food, housing, clothes, tools, etc). At the end of the year, he still probably only has about 50-100 gold to his name if he's saved carefully and not spent for luxury items. Noblemen are a little harder to think out, as they are more individual to their circumstance. Every peasant, every craftsman will be about the same, whereas nobles tend to vary widely.  Assume a Nobleman family (through tax revenues) will have (1d6-1)1000 gold at any given moment. Remember that much of this gold goes to keeping up the appearance of being wealthy (feasts, jewels, clothes), maintaining their lands (peasant's wages, crops, horses, soldiers), and giving taxes to their King (roughly one quarter to one half their total wage).  At the end of the year, the Nobleman family will have only about a fifth of it's initial wealth to give to it's inheritance (and that's if they want to be perfectly broke at the end of it).  With all of this having been said, the difference in a rich person's starting gold will be relatively small. Assume they have enough for a masterwork weapon and armor, nobleman's clothes, and any other relatively inexpensive equipment they might need. This already puts them well ahead of the curve against the other PCs, but doesn't do too much to dampen the game. Also, make sure they all put ranks in Diplomacy, Knowledge(Nobility), and Ride - do not have Craft ranks, Profession ranks, or Knowledge (Dungeoneering) ranks.  "The nobility is built upon the lie that nobles are born, but when closely examined we find that a true nobleman is created."</blockquote>

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