D&D 5E In fifth-edition D&D, what is gold for?

[MechaPilot]

And how many adventurers does our world have?

That depends on how you consider NPCs. If every soldier or town guardsman is at least a first level fighter, then you could count the entire armed forces and law enforcement population of the planet as classed adventurers in the service of regional rulers.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Meld ACK (Adventurer, Conqueror, King) into your game. You'll have plenty of use for gold.

 

[Li Shenron]

Gold is mostly for narrative, and potentially for long-term strategic investments, which can change the way the PCs influence the world but are mostly unrelated to quest-like adventures.

In previous editions, you had to grant balanced amounts of gold to the PCs, and they had to spend it on equipment. Not spending gold on equipment back then was shooting yourself in the foot. Gamewise it worked, but I can't remember how many times I've had players disappointed by the fact that their PC narrative was restrained by this. Think about the real-life equivalent: it would be as if you were forced to spend everything you earn from your job (except a small share for food and rent) to more or improved working tools, which in turn would allow you to earn even more money to spend in even more working tools...

 

[CapnZapp]

3.5e is just not a system that leads to a logical economy in any way. The world is based around commoners earning silver pieces for days of work and from second or third level players have enough wealth to sit around and relax for years.

Sure, but the point is that this is not just 3.5.

All editions of D&D have given exponential monetary awards in order to lure you back down the dungeon.

Including 5th edition - at least if you use the loot tables of the DMG. A tier I hoard is worth 412 gp on average, a tier II hoard is worth 4507 gp on average and so on, roughly multiplying the loot value by ten each tier.

The series of blog posts is interesting to me precisely because they break down exactly what assumptions this treasure system are based on.

And then explain that by now, all three assumptions are broken.

In effect, 5th edition still hands out vast amounts of treasure. Only, it does not provide any good answers on what to spend it on. Hence the title of this thread: what is gold for?

Let me point to a specific example: playing Storm King's Thunder. Much like every previous official 5E campaign it takes place during a limited time. There is no notion of taking a break for months and years, to spend money on castlebuilding or other long-term downtime activities that could explain where all the gold goes. And yet, it relies on the DMG random treasure tables.

To me, this is highly problematic. What is gold for?

It's clearly not meant to build castles, since there is no time for that if you play official adventures. (WotC is clearly aware most players aren't interested, and just want to keep adventuring)

In 3rd edition we had a system with a wonderful ambition: to provide the framework that let players convert all that gold into actually useful items that helped them on their next adventure. Sure it wasn't perfect, but did 5E try to improve this system? No.

5E instead has chosen to provide no answer to this question - what is gold for?

Yet, it clearly keeps supplying all that gold.

This is why I posted the blog link. There are three suggested solutions.

I can't say I'm overly pleased with any one of them, but I appreciate the frank clarity in actually adressing the problem. As well as the clear outline of why it exists, how it came about, and perhaps most fundamentally: that there is a problem.

 

[Azzy]

And how many adventurers does our world have?

Relevance?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Must. Have. SHINIES!

I mean, why else are you plundering ancient rules and slaying monsters, if not to bring home the treasure? Sure, silver is OK I guess, and platinum's pretty neat, and those rare magic items certainly knock me off my feet. But what keeps me coming back for more is gold, shiny gold.

 

[CapnZapp]

Must. Have. SHINIES!

I mean, why else are you plundering ancient rules and slaying monsters, if not to bring home the treasure? Sure, silver is OK I guess, and platinum's pretty neat, and those rare magic items certainly knock me off my feet. But what keeps me coming back for more is gold, shiny gold.

Sure, but most players want and expect to be able to use their gold.

Money has no Value Unless it is Spent and all that.

Sure if you're a dragon, or perhaps a greedy dwarf it's special.

My favorite way to motivate myself to go out there to risk life and limb for the gold, is to be able to buy magic items. One alternative idea I would like to explore is xp-for-gold.

What I don't like is how 5E essentially does not provide any options for those of us that aren't interested in the downtime game; just like the blog says. The idea of castles and armies and domains simply doesn't appeal to many gamers - there should be a codified alternative right in the rulebooks, just like there were in 3E.

Sure I can play an idealistic do-gooder not in it for the money. But that still doesn't answer the question:

What is gold for?

 

[Wednesday Boy]

In fifth-edition D&D, what is gold for?

Diving around in it like a porpoise, and burrowing through it like a gopher, and tossing it up and letting it hit you on the head!

 

[Li Shenron]

In 3rd edition we had a system with a wonderful ambition: to provide the framework that let players convert all that gold into actually useful items that helped them on their next adventure. Sure it wasn't perfect, but did 5E try to improve this system? No.

5E instead has chosen to provide no answer to this question - what is gold for?

Yet, it clearly keeps supplying all that gold.

This is why I posted the blog link. There are three suggested solutions.

I can't say I'm overly pleased with any one of them, but I appreciate the frank clarity in actually adressing the problem. As well as the clear outline of why it exists, how it came about, and perhaps most fundamentally: that there is a problem.

I don't think so, sorry to be blunt but it's more like you have a problem with not having rules to turn gold into character power, but that is not everybody's problem

I can only go as far as acknowledging that the treasure tables are a wasted design effort, because if we don't have a detailed pricing system for spending gold, then we also didn't need a detailed pricing system for earning gold, which is what the tables are about. In fact, I have learned to mostly ignore those tables after the early adventures. But this is not a problem as such.

It was discussed openly (tho probably not extensively and interactively enough) during the 5e playtest about why the equipment-by-level principle was going to be dropped from 5e. The main reasons were that it was hard to balance and too restrictive for a fair number of gaming groups. Hard to balance because of the sheer variety in magic items, which makes them impossible to price fairly when their usefulness is so vague and circumstantial, not to mention dependent on the character concept. Restrictive because it implied strong elements to everybody's fantasy setting, from magic item general commonality to buying/selling availability. And then, spending money on something else than useful items becomes even more impossible to price because there is just no way to compare them.

It was one of the greatest achievement of 5e to make magic items optional. What can be argued however, is why they didn't anyway offer an optional system of pricing for those who still wanted to continue with previous editions approach. And here IMHO the true reason is simply that it was such a huge effort that WotC decided they didn't have the design resources to go through. They could have settled for a partial job (i.e. pricing only some magic items, ignoring all those that aren't easy to evaluate) or for an approximate job (e.g. re-using old edition prices), but considering how bounded accuracy and monsters simplifications have affected the balance of the game overall, pricing magic items + setting wealth-by-level tables probably required to be a work from the ground up.

But maybe it's not as difficult as I think it would be... Have you tried to consider what would happen, if you just used exactly the same prices in the 3e DMG (and then hand out treasure based on 3e wealth-by-level tables)? You know, the whole point of balancing 5e on the assumption of no magic items, was that it should always be easier to add than to remove. This way, each gaming group is supposed to decide what is their preferred amount of magic items, and then the DM adjusts the adventures difficulties.

 

[Capn Charlie]

In a recent game of mine, we are playing super gritty and low magic, the players had a pile of gold and used it to buy better weapons and armor. I have instituted a system where upgraded items can be crafted, and they gleefully piled gold into the hands of craftsmen to make their items better, but not magical.

They could have bought castles and horses and men, but decided that better personal arms and armor were more important, after setting aside a good chunk towards their upkeep (they fear hungry winters). They are considering buying a town and market charter and founding a town. Or buying a dilapidated fief and trying the whole lords of the manor thing. Unfortunately they keep blowing their silver on ale and whores... and chasing every sound of jingling coin they hear. Good times.