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!

 

[bedir than]

My world has smog-punk Victorian-ish goblins.
Some of the things added because of that include Optical Telegraphs, smog-buggies, bicycles/tricycles, lighters, airxips that burn tar tree oil for lift, weird waterworks that power plumbing/etc

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I apologize to anyone following along that this project isn't going to move more quickly - I'm pretty busy, and I'm still mostly collecting thoughts, in spite of having thought about it for years.

So this one is obvious, but I'm going to put my thoughts down here.

Here's a pretty obvious observation: This is the price of spells, according to 5.24 PHB:

Spell	Service	Scribe
L0	30	15
L1	50	25
L2	200	100
L3	300	150
L4	2000	1000
L5	2000	1500
L6	20000	10000
L7	20000	12500
L8	20000	15000
L9	100K	50000

It seems pretty obvious to me that they rounded off the price of "Spellcasting Services" to save space, right? Otherwise, "Service" (the price of having a spell cast) should always equate to twice the cost of Scribing a Scroll (with Calligraphy Tools).

 

[bedir than]

I apologize to anyone following along that this project isn't going to move more quickly - I'm pretty busy, and I'm still mostly collecting thoughts, in spite of having thought about it for years.

So this one is obvious, but I'm going to put my thoughts down here.

Here's a pretty obvious observation: This is the price of spells, according to 5.24 PHB:

Spell	Service	Scribe
L0	30	15
L1	50	25
L2	200	100
L3	300	150
L4	2000	1000
L5	2000	1500
L6	20000	10000
L7	20000	12500
L8	20000	15000
L9	100K	50000

It seems pretty obvious to me that they rounded off the price of "Spellcasting Services" to save space, right? Otherwise, "Service" (the price of having a spell cast) should always equate to twice the cost of Scribing a Scroll (with Calligraphy Tools).

That level 5-8 discrepancy from the pattern is weird.

 

[Distracted DM]

Anyone care to spitball ways of making it more... worthwhile?

DCC Carousing tables really liven up a game! There's one for most of the classes, I'll post the generic/warrior one here:

Spoiler

Obviously you need to adjust things as necessary, but it can make a night out a lot more interesting. Also a lot more costly :'D