D&D 5E How do you deal with expensive material components in your campaigns?

[delericho]

At the risk of a derail, here's (roughly) what I would do with components, given a clean slate to work from:

1. Rebalance all spells to remove the need for expensive components. That may mean some spells need moved up a level.
2. All spells now require Verbal, Somatic, and Material components. The Material component can be anything thematically appropriate, either to the spell or to the caster - they're not specified in the book. Players are encouraged, but not required, to provide some description of how they cast the spell, in the same way that casters of martial characters are encouraged but not required to describe how they make their attacks.
3. A character using a spell focus can skip using any one of the three components. Most Wizards therefore cast spells with a flick of their wand and a magic word.
4. A character can also remove any one of the three components by using an action to "pre-cast" part of the spell. This can be combined with the focus, as above.
5. A character can also remove all components by using a slot one level higher, but gains no other benefits of doing so.
6. I would then introduce four types of "expensive" material components: Lore, Special Materials, Reagents, and Residuum. These cannot be purchased - they must either be created in downtime or found while adventuring. (I'll get to why there are four different ones later...)
7. Casters can optionally use an expensive component when casting a spell (the value consumed depends on the spell level). This allows the spell to be cast as if using a slot one level higher, to a maximum of the highest level slot the caster could normally use. (So a 7th level Wizard could use it to boost a fireball, but not an ice storm. Only one boost is allowed in this manner, and it is always added last.
8. But those same four types of components are also used to craft magic items, and Wizards use Lore to learn new spells. (Which is why there are different types, so different items can require different costs. Lore, as the name implies, is secret knowledge. Special Materials are things like meteorite iron, religious icons, or whatever. Reagents are similar but much more organic - unicorn horn, dragon's tears, mistletoe, etc. And Residuum is raw, unprocessed magic.)
9. Under this model, a captured spellbook provides a source of Lore that can be repurposed for any use, rather than a textbook allowing you to learn the specific spells therein. (Under this model, a spell is effectively a cheat code for reality, but they're encrypted for the specific caster. So you can't learn a spell directly, you have to learn the techniques to allow you to derive your own cheat code.)

There's more, but that's enough, and the whole thing would need some more fleshing out anyway. So I'll stop there.

 

[Burnside]

Lack of ready availability of rare/expensive components in campaigns such as Descent into Avernus, Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and others set in remote/unsettled regions is a feature, not a bug. Note that there ARE ways to get at least some of the things you need in all of those campaigns, but those can become a plot point in themselves.

I bet there's a devil who would be happy to get you some diamonds for the right price.

 

[MNblockhead]

I can't believe Identify is still a thing...

Why?

 

[Blue]

Inexpensive material components are just like weapons - you have a way to disarm people you capture instead of kill, and that once or twice a campaign adventure where you don't have any equipment.

Expensive material components on the other hand are supposed to act as a throttle. Spells that shouldn't be cast all the time because they lose any magicalyness. If every day you do three different divinations and a Heroes' Feast, that's becomes "standard".

I was a player in Avernus, and I knew that I would have precious little chances to get specific expensive components, so I took that into consideration when picking new spells every level.

In a campaign I'm currently running the players started as agents of the empire that can request any mundane equipment, get post horses, etc. And they all started with a Mask of the Imperium, an artifact that both showed their authority but also grew in power as they adventured. They were solving problems, not looting ancient tombs, and money would be a lot lower. So I cut the cost of all expensive material components to 1/3, and because it made sense in-world they could also substitute diamonds for any other specific component. Making it easy to have what they needed, while still keeping the appropriate throttle.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why?

Because it seems like such a wildly unnecessary extra step.

You go through the adventure, get the loot, but you then have to waste time and money to figure out what it does -- even if that should be obvious just putting it on, swinging the sword.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Spell compartments is actually one of my favorite parts of dungeons and dragons.

 

[iserith]

I can't believe Identify is still a thing...

It sees regular use in my games because it's faster to ritually cast identify than to take a short rest to figure out the item's properties. Time is a resource in my games and the challenges become more difficult if the PCs aren't making efficient use of their time. The 50 or so minutes saved means that the have more wiggle room when it comes to the doom clock and/or fewer wandering monster checks, get more mileage out of hour-long resources, etc.

If time doesn't matter as much and it's easy to rest, then I'd expect identify has less value.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Because it seems like such a wildly unnecessary extra step.

You go through the adventure, get the loot, but you then have to waste time and money to figure out what it does -- even if that should be obvious just putting it on, swinging the sword.

Often it is. Depends on the DM, I guess.

 

[ECMO3]

Protection from Evil and Good -1 gp silver dust & iron dust C, or
25 gp holy water C

Has this been errated to have a cost? The PHB I have does not list a cost, which has always caused problems with how much holy water or how much powdered silver is needed. We have generally played you must have some powered silver or holy water and just sprinkle it (so you never run out).

 

[jasper]

Has this been errated to have a cost? The PHB I have does not list a cost, which has always caused problems with how much holy water or how much powdered silver is needed. We have generally played you must have some powered silver or holy water and just sprinkle it (so you never run out).

No. But when I was creating the list way back in 2016 I made a guess at things which listed a material component but did not give a price. So some of the prices will need to be adjusted for your world.