D&D 5E I gave my players too much gold

[redrick]

We started our campaign right when the PHB dropped, running converted basic D&D modules. I had the good sense to strip out a lot of magic weapons, but, lacking any suggestions about gold levels in 5e, left the monetary treasure alone. (We also ran things gp=xp for the first few sessions before my players threatened mutiny, so the gp rewards seemed very much in line with the 5e leveling curve.) We then spent way too long trapped in Castle Amber, where all that money was no good to anybody, but now we're dropping back into Glantri with a real economy and, since Glantri is a high-magic setting, some magical items for sale. My party of 4 has accumulated something like 12,000 gp, which gives them a lot of loot to throw around.

So, my question is, how would you deal with early-game inflation? Would you just raise the prices on everything? Would you find some way to bleed the characters of a few thousand gp and then get things back to normal? Would you just tell the players that they wake up in the tavern and, darn, all your gold is gone!

I'm leaning a little option A and a little option B. The current location is fairly remote, so there will be a few magic items for sale, but at exorbitantly high prices. Hopefully, I can get the players to take the bait and buy some grossly overpriced potions, before they get to a more centralized city, where I can just start using more standard prices and treasure values.

Of course, another option is for a shady halfling to approach them with an investment opportunity that cannot be beat.

 

[iserith]

I'd consider a few options and discuss it with my players:

1. Give them a list of magic items they can buy or commission. This doesn't have to be a "direct sale" from Ye Olde Magick Shoppe. For example, the acolyte cleric can give up a donation to the church and be entrusted with a holy relic of some kind. Or the criminal rogue can get his by making shady deals on the black market.

2. Next, I'll ask, "How might you change the world with your wealth that gives you and the party a direct benefit to be used now or later?" Bankrolling a festival might give them serious street cred with the locals and thus advantage on checks that come up during social interaction with commoners. Or building a property might give them a safe place to store valuables so that shady halflings can't rob them. Whatever they want within reason. Once I've heard the benefit they want, I'll name a price.

3. Finally, I'll say, "This kind of wealth can bring on interesting complications that will help us tell interesting stories. What sort of problems might you imagine dealing with now that you have a lot of gold?" Whatever they tell me comes with their buy-in and is useful for me to create future conflicts and scenarios.

 

[Cristian Andreu]

Rust Monsters!

 

[jgsugden]

20th level rogue in the community solves the problem. Or, if they have moved to a new region, just introduce different currency and explain that the 'foreighn coins' they've accumulated are worth less in the current region.

 

[Zaran]

I'm not really understanding. 12000 gp is not that much when magic items are for sell as you have established. ARe the PCs only adventuring for the money? Then ask them what they want to do with it. If they aren't, then let them figure out what to do with it on their own and give them another reason to adventure. Have each them tell you what they want to do with their money, if what they want seems feasible let them. I bet their ideas will give you ideas of your own. For example, maybe one of them wants to create a shipping company. This might anger an already established company. Maybe the PC's caravans are hit by bandits.

Maybe another PC wants to build a stronghold. That will take much more gold in the long run as well as dealings with local governments. Perhaps they want to spend it on a pony made of diamonds.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Don't really see the problem. The heavy-armor-dependent characters will get to upgrade early, but that shouldn't wreck the campaign (and someone already mentioned rust monsters, just in case you feel it does). They can live it up for a while, or fund something happening in the campaign that they care about (like refurbishing an old castle in another thread), or whatever. Unless they decided they don't want to adventure anymore, they just get to be comparatively rich, and the campaign continues with motives other than treasure-hunting.

Buying magic items - at any price - doesn't have to be possible. Even if it's a 'high magic' setting, the kinds of items available are entirely up to you as the DM. Offer up items that you think will help a struggling PC catch up to the rest of the party, or round out the party's abilities, or open up a new avenue of adventure you'd like to explore. You can make acquiring an item into an adventure, in itself, you don't just have to have the cash, you have to make contact with the seller and deal with other bidders who might be willing to do more than just offer a higher price...

 

[redrick]

Rust Monsters!

Yeah, I've already let it be known that, for those players who like to read the Monster Manual, many monster features which claim to ignore magic items will not be ignoring them in my world. What's the point of a weapon-dissolving ooze that won't dissolve the one piece of metal you actually care about?

(I'm removing most of the magical exceptions regarding monster damage as well. If a monster is resistant to slashing damage from non-magical weapons, I'm saying it's resistant to slashing damage from all weapons. If it's immune to slashing from non-magical weapons, I'll make it resistant to slashing from magical weapons. Since, for better or worse, pretty much everybody has a magic weapon at this point (level 6), I want those resistances to still have some meaning.)

 

[Dausuul]

12K among the whole party isn't really that much. Between plate armor for the heavy melee guys, high-end spell components, and magic items for four people, it'll go fast; particularly if you throttle back the amount of loot for the next few levels. I wouldn't worry about it. But if it still concerns you, I suggest a couple of solutions, used in tandem.

First, curate the list of magic items available in Glantri. Even in a high-magic setting, you can't necessarily walk into a shop and find a rack of holy avengers.

Second, provide the players with an extraordinary opportunity at an exorbitant price. For example, they have a chance to purchase a clue to the location of a legendary item or an artifact. They should know going in that this only gets them a clue, not the item itself. If they follow it up, it's the start of a quest that could keep them busy for a nice long time. If they don't follow it up now, it later becomes crucial information to help them stop a villain in pursuit of the same item.

Either way, be sure they get value for their money. The goal is to turn money into story material, not to cheat the players. At the same time, they should know that the opportunity is a time-limited offer. They can't go away, adventure some more, and then come back to find it still waiting.

 

[Mistwell]

Give them the option to buy some cool interesting things that are more plot hooks than anything else. A ship. A tower. A tamed purple worm with harness and saddles. A dirigible. A bar. A guildhall. A headquarters. All stuff that you can turn into a side adventure and which they will have fun with but ultimately it won't impact game balance.

 

[redrick]

I'm not really understanding. 12000 gp is not that much when magic items are for sell as you have established. ARe the PCs only adventuring for the money? Then ask them what they want to do with it. If they aren't, then let them figure out what to do with it on their own and give them another reason to adventure. Have each them tell you what they want to do with their money, if what they want seems feasible let them. I bet their ideas will give you ideas of your own. For example, maybe one of them wants to create a shipping company. This might anger an already established company. Maybe the PC's caravans are hit by bandits.

Maybe another PC wants to build a stronghold. That will take much more gold in the long run as well as dealings with local governments. Perhaps they want to spend it on a pony made of diamonds.

Don't really see the problem. The heavy-armor-dependent characters will get to upgrade early, but that shouldn't wreck the campaign (and someone already mentioned rust monsters, just in case you feel it does). They can live it up for a while, or fund something happening in the campaign that they care about (like refurbishing an old castle in another thread), or whatever. Unless they decided they don't want to adventure anymore, they just get to be comparatively rich, and the campaign continues with motives other than treasure-hunting.

Buying magic items - at any price - doesn't have to be possible. Even if it's a 'high magic' setting, the kinds of items available are entirely up to you as the DM. Offer up items that you think will help a struggling PC catch up to the rest of the party, or round out the party's abilities, or open up a new avenue of adventure you'd like to explore. You can make acquiring an item into an adventure, in itself, you don't just have to have the cash, you have to make contact with the seller and deal with other bidders who might be willing to do more than just offer a higher price...

I'm totally on board with them buying magic items. I'm setting the list at the shops, but this is a high magic setting, and, as long as it doesn't break the game, I'm ok with most items outlined in the DMG showing up at some point or another. At the moment, I'm using random treasure tables to determine a few uncommon items available for purchase at each store. That is faster and easier for me, and it also means that there's a little bit of "wonder what they'll have this week?" on both my part and the part of the PCs. Of course, if players want a specific item, they're welcome to ask for it and I'll decide whether or not the shopkeeper can procure it, probably with a mark-up and delay.

The prices outlined in the DMG are super low, though. Uncommon items are set at 101-500 gp. The party could buy out all the shop's uncommon items and still have enough gold left over to buy a tavern. Of course, I can raise the prices (which I'm doing), but then we get into the whole problem of having to recalibrate an entire economy in my spare time, which goes a little beyond my time and interests. Wherever possible, I'd rather be able to use prices more less as presented in the PHB and DMG, maybe with slight fluctuations for flavor reasons alone. (There's only one inn in this town and it's run by a greedy bastard, so prices are all double.)

Players aren't adventuring solely for gold, but treasure is definitely a driving factor in many adventurers, so having it have some value is meaningful. If players decide they want to buy a stronghold or make any other extravagant expenditures, that's great. I'm all for it and it gives me hooks, but I can't really force them to spend their money that way. I'd like there to be a variety of ways to spend their coin.