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

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Does my explanation answer your question?

It is certainly an answer to the question I ask, there is no denying that.

I don't, however, agree with your reasoning because it doesn't match my experience. People will be dissatisfied with dissatisfying rules, regardless of their source. At a table that is "official rules only" the expression of that dissatisfaction ends up being either sit and be dissatisfied by the rule in question (try to avoid it coming up), or to say "I don't want to play that game anymore." But at a table that is willing to implement house-rules, the expression of dissatisfaction can be "Can we change this rule?" and a player is, in my experience, more likely to ask because the existence of any house-rules at the table implies that the DM isn't opposed to altering rules that don't perform as desired.

What you describe, the scenario of the DM requiring "buy in" from players for the house rules is also one that I don't find to be inherently the case. It may well be the case with a DM that believes they make the rules and what they say goes, and players get no input at all beyond taking it or leaving... but in any group where the DM realizes that the goal, for everyone to have fun playing the game together, is more readily achieved by letting the players opinions on how the rules should work actually be part of the house-ruling process, the player's aren't so much "buying in" as they are being "paid out" - they aren't putting up with the DM's rules, they are being given respect for their opinions, and so there is actually a net gain of the "social capital" you mention.

...Or maybe I'm just a DM with social capital like Bill Gates has money. Either way, I definitely don't get how someone would prefer an official rule they really don't like over a house rule they kinda don't like.

I'd actually figure the official rule would be judged even more harshly than a house-rule because currency was exchange for it and/or a "professional" made it up.

I'm going to have to give it all a big shrug, I think.

 

[Uller]

The bit I highlighted. What does that even mean?

An over-supply of gold and under-supply of stuff to spend it on isn't a 'problem' caused by the rules, it is perhaps one engendered by the narrow modus operandi of APs.

The two should not be conflated and then labelled a game rules 'problem'. It is a limitation of this mode of play, which is practiced by the minority and I would contend is in no way seen as the 'official' way to run D&D 5th Edition - it is merely the official way to run APs.

Mixing this up creates a problem out of nothing.

Hey awesome. It's not a problem for you.

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[Jester David]

Eberron was created for 3e, so it didn't exactly 'change,' and the Realms have always been decidedly high-magic. Greyhawk, perhaps, changed and changed back in that sense.

The Realms was always high magic, but the amount of magic items that were bought and sold varied depending on campaigns. It happened, but it increased dramatically with 3e. The amount of expected magic in that game is kinda ridiculous.

Well, removing them, and replacing them with the more powerful/higher-impact items and spells of the traditional game.
A quick read-through of rituals might give you that idea - Disenchant Item is an heroic-level ritual, readily available, there's little use for a +2 weapon at Epic, etc - but the prices of items scaled so rapidly with level that rendering your old stuff for residuum (at 20% efficiency, remember) wouldn't net you enough for even one item of your new level. Unneeded items might get rendered for ritual components or consumables of your level, though - which fits the logic that much better, as they're just gone after they've been used.

I recall the 1/5th sell/disenchant price. Which makes this so interesting, as the "magic item economy" of 4e was pretty funky. The whole system was designed to discourage you selling items (IIRC, that was explicitly the point, and the designers commented as much at one point). Which makes sense, as 4e was also trying to move away from the Christmas Tree of magic items from 3e into a more regimented 3-4 items per character. Similarly, buying magic items wasn't nearly as much of a thing in 4e, since you could make them for the same price as you could buy them, and were expected to find 4/5ths of them in treasure parcels.

And there was the inherent bonuses optional system in one of the books, where you could also dump magic items from the game.

So it's odd that 5e gets called out for not having a robust magic item economy when 4e didn't really either.

Other 'new' editions weren't conceived (indeed, even justified) with the idea that they were for fans of each and every prior edition. Ironically, 5e is new & different in that regard.

Emphasis added.
The thing is "magic item economy" is not an edition. Neither is "Eberron". The edition is meant to have *some* appeal for fans of past editions, but it was never going to do everything or completely replicate past editions. There were always going to be elements that didn't make the transition, or that couldn't work for balance reasons or because their inclusion didn't work with other editions.
I think a lot of 5e appeals to fans of 3e, even without the magic item Christmas trees. That was a small part of the edition.

There really is. You may not feel that it's right, but it's very much a thing. Players are more likely to be aware of PH rules than DMG rule than supplemental rules than 3pp rules than UA rules than DMsG rules.

Your mileage will vary with that. Not all players have read the entire PHB, let alone the DMG as well. Some players will only know the rules as taught to them by the DM or the rest of the table. They'll learn by playing.

How many players own the PHB at your table? Do they all own a copy? Have the all read it cover to cover? Do they all know all the rules?

But much greater hesitation if it's his own home-brew, and much less if it's a well-known WotC-produced option, surely.

I think you underestimate the amount people homebrew. Gamers love to mod and hack and customize. The Unearthed Arcana reddit is always showing off something new. https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/
I just don't see "because it's not official" being a reliable or reasonable hurdle. Let alone some insurmountable obstacle.

That aside, any new rule, be it official, downloaded from the Guild, or created by the DM will be less widespread than content in the core rules. The majority of tables will not adopt that content. There will ALWAYS be hesitation and people that will need to be won over. The WotC logo on the cover changes nothing. It's not a magic seal that makes it approved on every table everywhere. WotC published a tonne of content for 2e, 3e, and 4e and most tables ignored the vast majority of that content.
New character content will have a higher rate of usage than new house rules, because the former are harder to add to the middle of a campaign. But it's easy to add a new race or subclass.

A DM will have greater hesitation allowing homebrew than not, but the players are unlikely to experience that to same degree. Especially if it benefits them, which magic item crafting would.
Are player's *really* going to say "no" to something that makes them more badass?

Which is probably an issue. A magic item economy optional rule will create more work for the DMs and benefit the players by increasing their power levels dramatically. That's the kind of rule that if many DMs saw in an official book would be very, very hesitant to use.

 

[Uller]

If the game world either contains enough magic items lying around in ruins that wealthy or powerful NPCs are able to hire adventurers to go find acquire them or NPCs are crafting magic items for others to use then there is a magic item economy. To tell a player that their PC can't engage in a market that obviously exists in the game world is an artificial constraint on the PC. If the game world is such that no NPCs (or a vanishingly small number) can create magic items, the PCs can't create them and magic items are so rare that seeking to find them is hopeless then there would be no magic item economy. But them finding one in a random treasure hoard would not occur.

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[AaronOfBarbaria]

If the game world either contains enough magic items lying around in ruins that wealthy or powerful NPCs are able to hire adventurers to go find acquire them or NPCs are crafting magic items for others to use then there is a magic item economy. To tell a player that their PC can't engage in a market that obviously exists in the game world is an artificial constraint on the PC. If the game world is such that no NPCs (or a vanishingly small number) can create magic items, the PCs can't create them and magic items are so rare that seeking to find them is hopeless then there would be no magic item economy. But them finding one in a random treasure hoard would not occur.

None of that quite tracks.

That people exist in the setting who have the requisite sums of money to hire adventurers to hunt down magic items for them, or possess the requisite talents to create magical items on their own, does not mean that Player Characters within that setting necessarily will have those same sums of money or requisite talents.

Just like dragons existing in the setting doesn't necessarily mean players can be or become dragons - and that's not an artificial constraint, at least not one that is more constraining than the default assumptions of the game.

Of course, if you are meaning to say that extremely rare and/or expensive interests in even a handful of individuals within a setting constitutes an economy for those interests, I'd only say that I think that isn't a fitting usage of the word.

As for the world in which nearly zero NPCs can create magic items, that has zero bearing on whether or not the PCs can make them, and also no bearing on how likely it is or isn't that someone could go find one or more. Player characters are, as a default assumption of the game, assumed to be special in some way - that way could be their ability to craft magical items, if someone felt like that being an aspect of their world. And people not making a thing... yeah, I don't know anybody that can make rocks, but I know I can go find all sorts of them if I want to. Plus, there have already been a number of fantasy settings in which certain ancient crafts have been lost to the ravages of time, including ones where producing magical items is such a lost ancient craft, and yet scavengers can go out and find the products of these ancient crafts (read: magic items) in serviceable condition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The whole system was designed to discourage you selling items (IIRC, that was explicitly the point, and the designers commented as much at one point).

Yep. The idea was to support PC adventurers, rather than PC merchants or manufacturers. Selling just about anything was 1/5th, while making was the same cost as buying. You could go broke really, really quick by trying to be a merchant or set yourself up making stuff. Any hypothetical 'rules' governing NPCs weren't even hinted at: as in 5e, if the rules didn't cover it, the DM just decided what was what.

And there was the inherent bonuses optional system in one of the books, where you could also dump magic items from the game.

Nod. I seem to remember something like it in 3.5, too, though 3.5 assumptions extended to other capabilities than just enhancement bonuses. And, of course, 5e goes the opposite direction, assuming no items.

So it's odd that 5e gets called out for not having a robust magic item economy when 4e didn't really either.

Not sure where you got that. 4e's handling of magic items was /very/ robust. Oh, but I guess calling it an 'economy' would be pushing it. Yeah, OK.

The thing is "magic item economy" is not an edition. Neither is "Eberron". The edition is meant to have *some* appeal for fans of past editions, but it was never going to do everything or completely replicate past editions.

It doesn't have to 'do everything' - just the things past editions have supported you doing. It doesn't have to 'replicate' past editions, either, just support the same things and same styles. Again, there's tons of overlap among the past editions, so that's not as crazy as it sounds. (Probably not entirely possible, but something it can continue working towards.)

Think about how much 5e delivered, just in the PH. Every full-class in a past PH1 except the Warlord. Every type of character possible in a past PH1 but the Psionic. Classsic-game style Fighters (the Champion), Thieves, and Clerics (the Life Cleric), even a faint stab at the classic fighter/magic-user in the EK. 3.5/4e Warlocks, the 3.5 Sorcerer (OK that's debatable). A Bard that doesn't exactly fail at emulating the various prior-edition bards (mostly it's just better than prior-edition bards) with the possible exception of the PH1 appendix Bard-as-proto-PrC. Very nearly as thorough a handling of the Druid. A Paladin that does justice(npi) to both the original LG PITA, and two non-G alternatives that even incidentally hint at the PH2 Warden and HotFK Balckgaurd. Every race ever in a PH1 (I suppose we could quibble over the odd sub-race). And, proficiencies & Backgrounds cover the same ground as ranks, training, NWPs, Kits, NPC classes, Backgrounds & Themes.

What's missing isn't really /that/ voluminous or intimidating, especially if that start at PH1's, and work our way out through Core rather than skipping ahead to obscure supplements or setting-specific stuff (though there's also already plenty of setting-specific stuff!).

Some of that's even in the works. The Psionic, present though not as a class in a PH1, in the form of the Mystic has been in the pipeline a while.

There were always going to be elements that didn't make the transition, or that couldn't work for balance reasons or because their inclusion didn't work with other editions.

If 5e cut things for balance reasons it wouldn't have half the classes it does. ;P Similarly, you could argue that a lot of things "didn't work" in D&D in the past - especially the early days when it was all pretty haphazard, mechanically - but you probably couldn't get a lot of agreement. If people got some broken bit of crazy working back then, why begrudge them some less-broken bit of crazy as a starting point in 5e? (I know, space, pace of publication - fine, pencil it in for the 2020's)

I think a lot of 5e appeals to fans of 3e, even without the magic item Christmas trees. That was a small part of the edition.

Item crafting and assumed wealth/level were huge parts of 3e. There were myriad items, and the expectation of them was baked into progression. So, no, it's not a small thing to be missing.

There are plenty of magic items, though, and running a high-magic-item campaign doesn't, IMHO, require a lot of totally new or extensive rules.

How many players own the PHB at your table? Do they all own a copy? Have the all read it cover to cover? Do they all know all the rules?

No player at a 5e table I've ever met was unaware, say, of the existence of character classes, or feats, for instance. Awareness of PH content is going to be greater than that of other core books, which in turn will be much greater than non-core. That's inevitable given the presentation of the edition. It's not like UA content is sitting on store shelves.

I think you underestimate the amount people homebrew. Gamers love to mod and hack and customize.
I just don't see "because it's not official" being a reliable or reasonable hurdle. Let alone some insurmountable obstacle.

I agree, tons of homebrewing happens. I don't agree that someone, somewhere, homebrewing something you might want to play helps you in the least.

That aside, any new rule, be it official, downloaded from the Guild, or created by the DM will be less widespread than content in the core rules. The majority of tables will not adopt that content.

IDK about majority. But I'd think far more tables would be open to a Bladesinger (recalling 2e) from SCAG, than J.Random Homebrewer's off-the-wall Millipede* race. Both because the Bladesinger /was/ in D&D in past editions, and because trees were sacrificed to it in the form of the official hardcover SCAG supplement.

A DM will have greater hesitation allowing homebrew than not, but the players are unlikely to experience that to same degree. Especially if it benefits them, which magic item crafting would.
Are player's *really* going to say "no" to something that makes them more badass?

Nod. A player's concerns are narrow than the DMs.

Which is probably an issue. A magic item economy optional rule will create more work for the DMs and benefit the players by increasing their power levels dramatically. That's the kind of rule that if many DMs saw in an official book would be very, very hesitant to use.

Don't see how that's a bad thing.














* Not a thing, AFAIK, but FWIW, I did play a millipede once. In the 80s. In a Champions! game.

 

[Darkness]

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[Jester David]

Don't see how that's a bad thing.

Would you allow a rule where players could spend downtime days training to increase their attack bonuses or AC?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Would you allow a rule where players could spend downtime days training to increase their attack bonuses or AC?

If you mean that as an analogy to rules allowing downtime to be spent making items (that might impact BA by +1 to +3), then, hmm...

... probably not*, but then I'm not the one wanting more detailed magic-item creation rules, either... heck, I tend not to place magic items when running 5e, at all, unless it's an AL event.

But, aside from my being the wrong DM to use that analogy on, it also seems like it's off on another level. You /have/ been able to make magic items in several past editions of D&D, and in two of them at least, do so using fairly concrete rules. In one of those, there's even an implied, if not terribly rational, 'economy' of item-creation (essentially a mill that burns exp to make money).
I'm not aware of any past edition where you could gain bonuses out of the blue for downtime training. Train for levels once you had the exp, yes...










* OTOH, using a downtime 'training montage,' to gain a more specific bonus in a re-match against a Big Bad that previously defeated you; or something like Grandmaster Training (maybe adding a unique maneuver or something, if you have the CS die to ever use it)? That could have some potential.

 

[Igwilly]

Would you allow a rule where players could spend downtime days training to increase their attack bonuses or AC?

As long as there is a limit to how much you can improve by that way (just like magic items) and require some form of substantial campaign cost (like magic items), I would.
Number bonuses are not quite the problem, since they are easy to counter them (raising monsters stats when it fits).