FormerlyHemlock
Hero
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 wouldn't do any of these things. They have a small hoard of treasure, but per the DMG tables, treasure ramps up exponentially over time anyway as you kill bigger monsters (assuming those bigger monsters with big treasure hoards actually exist in your campaign, but that's on the DM to arrange). So they may be four levels ahead of the curve, but all that means is that for the present, money won't be the bottleneck on any of their ambitions. If they want to hunt down an NPC wizard and offer him oodles of cash to copy his spellbook, lack of cash won't stop them (but lack of knowledge/access could). If they want to hire Elmo as a hireling for 100 gp, they can. If they want to buy siege engines, they can. If they want six doses of purple worm venom for emergencies, they can have it, although it will drain them dry.
D&D isn't supposed to be a treadmill. As you increase in capabilities, you can take on greater challenges. Wealth is a capability. Give them a challenge and let them use their wealth as part of their strategy for meeting it. Or not.
After all, what's the fun in being rich if you never get to throw money at a problem? Or daggers. Daggers thrown by dozens of soldiers, paid with money.