D&D 5E (2024) Help me Houserule 5e Equipment & Items

[Horwath]

There is an old Order of the Stick cartoon where one of them lives squalid since there is no game reason to spend coin or to not to. I have not eaten in 3 days since there is no penalty until the 4th day. This gruel is fine since taste has no game benefit.

HAHAHA!

There is no Gather Information skill anymore, but I might grant advantage to the other checks if the PC is spending gold looking for clues or rumors.

that would fall now under Persuation/diplomacy, depending on Game/edition.

 

[Horwath]

It is ignored because it has no impact on gameplay if a character lives like a hermit eating roots or like a king in a 5 star hotel with spa.

What you need in town-mode is to hang the effectiveness of long rest on your living conditions.
If you pay 0 per day for living, you don't rest.
If you pay 1sp per day, you gain 1% of your spend ressources back.
If you pay 1gp per day, that's not 10% and so on.

Pillars of eternity went the opposite way, if you payed extra you got some extra bonuses.
Carrot works here better than the stick.

same with ammunition,
lets say, we have "broadhead arrow" that deals d10 instead of d8 damage, but it's 2GP a piece and not 20 arrows for 1GP.
that would make it a measurable cost and a bonus over standard so it will be tracked by everyone.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

that would fall now under Persuation/diplomacy, depending on Game/edition.

I’d say Charisma using investigation for 5e

On the note of lifestyle, I feel having penalties for having multiple days of squalid lifestyle seems good in theory but in practice not so much. Adventurers sleep on cave floors for multiple days eating trail rations. So you’d have to rule that as squalid living and give penalties over time or rule that camping out isn’t squalid. (Which it probably isn’t given you probably have an actual bedroll and semi-shelter.). Tracking this stuff would be a pain.

Players would be more apt to pay for bonuses: one week of high lifestyle gives ‘x’ bonus, for instance. It lasts for 1 or two days and then fades. Edit: My point was just ninja’d

 

[Piperken]

...I can think of lots of ways to incentivise making a minimum payment towards lifestyle (e.g. anyone who lives below a modest lifestyle functionally lives with a level or exhaustion), but modeling systemic societal imbalances to any degree is going to garner resentment...

Downtime in Zyan I found pretty informative; I borrowed most ideas from that in the campaign I'm running to inform stuff like lifestyle/economy; nearly all of the downtime activity steps are just a 2d6 roll with PbtA outcomes; then depending on the activity, a light modifier to that based off a d20 skill check might come into play.

So yes you can choose (or have no choice depending) to live-in-squalor or live-it-large, but both carry a higher chance of consequence occurring vs. the character who just opts to live within their means.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Hmm... it seems like we are saying that tying Lifestyle together with both Resting and Reknown would be the way to go!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I will keep in mind that carrot is better than stick!