D&D 5E Is there too much gold/reward?

[mevers]

The items/weapons that a character can buy - just like how it is now, but in a more expanded, fuller sense - for starters.

I'm glad that there is NOT a functioning Magic Item Economy in the game. It avoids the absurd situation I had in a 3.5 Eberron campaign. My Druid Character returned to his home village at about level 8 or so. The money he had spent on Magic items, was more than enough to set the entire VILLAGE up for life. Really messed with my suspension of disbelief that he wouldn't just sell the items, and provide for his family.

Now, with Magic items unavailable to buy (and likewise just as difficult to sell), I avoid that situation. Especially since magic items DON'T have a set GP price. You can have characters covered in Magic Items if you like, while still being dirt poor, and unable to provide for their family, giving them a reason / motivation to go adventuring.

The same way that there is a tiny economy for buying basic weapons, armor, healing potions, etc... This wouldn't need to depend on basic rules/PHB (fyi I've yet to see an AL table that didn't allow all available rules).

But as soon as you assign rules, they become expected, and we are back to the "Wealth by Level" guidelines or 3.5/4 edition. Once you can spend gold to increase your character's adventuring effectiveness, then those characters that choose to spend their money on other things (providing for family, building a temple, bribes, buying a keep, climbing the social ladder), quickly fall behind the power curve.

As far as I can see, Either gold can be spent to make you better at adventuring, in which case for most (many, lots, at least some significant amount) tables, will become you MUST spend at least most of your gold on getting better at adventuring, OR Gold has no impact on your effectiveness at adventuring.

Any position you try to establish in the middle, quickly defaults to requiring magic to be successful. I'm actually glad there is very little to spend my Gold on to make me a more effective adventurer. Means my PC doesn't have to go chasing every single Gold Piece.

 

[CapnZapp]

But as soon as you assign rules, they become expected, and we are back to the "Wealth by Level" guidelines or 3.5/4 edition.

No, since any such rule won't magically appear in your PHB or DMG.

Any such rules would appear in a supplement, or perhaps as Unearthed Arcana.

It would only apply to the DM's that choose to use it.

 

[mevers]

No, since any such rule won't magically appear in your PHB or DMG.

Any such rules would appear in a supplement, or perhaps as Unearthed Arcana.

It would only apply to the DM's that choose to use it.

You're right, and it would probably make a pretty good Unearthed Arcana article. I just don't want the game to be designed the expect PCs to spend all (or at least most) of their Gold on items (magic or otherwise) to make them more effective in combat.

I would just prefer the game to be designed around no / low magic items, so that everything still works for my level 20 fighter with 100gp in his pocket, standard (non-magic) armour, and maybe a flaming sword that does an extra +2d6 fire damage on a hit. As long as I can still hit the CR20 Dragon 50 - 75% of the time, and that same dragon misses me at least a fifth of the time, then I will be happy.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think it is possible to buy and sell magical items in 5e... but each sale is an adventure because the stakes are high and the origins of the goods may be shady...

 

[nswanson27]

I'm glad that there is NOT a functioning Magic Item Economy in the game. It avoids the absurd situation I had in a 3.5 Eberron campaign. My Druid Character returned to his home village at about level 8 or so. The money he had spent on Magic items, was more than enough to set the entire VILLAGE up for life. Really messed with my suspension of disbelief that he wouldn't just sell the items, and provide for his family.

Now, with Magic items unavailable to buy (and likewise just as difficult to sell), I avoid that situation. Especially since magic items DON'T have a set GP price. You can have characters covered in Magic Items if you like, while still being dirt poor, and unable to provide for their family, giving them a reason / motivation to go adventuring.


But as soon as you assign rules, they become expected, and we are back to the "Wealth by Level" guidelines or 3.5/4 edition. Once you can spend gold to increase your character's adventuring effectiveness, then those characters that choose to spend their money on other things (providing for family, building a temple, bribes, buying a keep, climbing the social ladder), quickly fall behind the power curve.

As far as I can see, Either gold can be spent to make you better at adventuring, in which case for most (many, lots, at least some significant amount) tables, will become you MUST spend at least most of your gold on getting better at adventuring, OR Gold has no impact on your effectiveness at adventuring.

Any position you try to establish in the middle, quickly defaults to requiring magic to be successful. I'm actually glad there is very little to spend my Gold on to make me a more effective adventurer. Means my PC doesn't have to go chasing every single Gold Piece.

Maybe I just have a different set of ideals for playing d&d than you, but how is a system where you want to be "chasing every single Gold Piece" a bad thing? As opposed to "oh look... gold, that pointless stuff that I barely care to figure out how much of it I have...". If you apply the same reasoning to getting xp - I "enjoy" getting every single bit of xp. Why? Because it matters. Gold? Nope. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
I guess my point is that this "bad" thing that you are describe I consider to be an improvement over what exists now. But again, I think we just have a different set of ideals for adventuring.

 

[delericho]

My Druid Character returned to his home village at about level 8 or so. The money he had spent on Magic items, was more than enough to set the entire VILLAGE up for life. Really messed with my suspension of disbelief that he wouldn't just sell the items, and provide for his family.

How do you feel about Batman? Because he's in a similar position - he'd do much more good for the world if he gave up his vigilante crusade and instead dedicated himself full time to philanthropy. Heck, if the Wayne Foundation is indeed funded from the profits of Wayne Enterprises (as in TDKR) he'd do more good just by dedicating himself to maximising profit.

But as soon as you assign rules, they become expected, and we are back to the "Wealth by Level" guidelines or 3.5/4 edition.

Actually, those guidelines already exist in 5e, they're just hidden.

The "Wealth by Level" tables in the 3e DMG were widely misinterpreted - they weren't a guideline to how much treasure the DM should give out, but were rather the average results if you used the expected 13.3 encounters per level coupled with the random treasure tables in the same book. What the 3e DMG didn't say (and should have done) is that the DM was free to ignore those guidelines, which would obviously lead to a different result.

The 5e DMG also has an expected number of encounters per level (though it's rather more complex than 3e's 13.3 per level) and also has a set of random treasure tables. So someone who was sufficiently motivated could work through the numbers and hack out a set of "Wealth by Level" tables for the edition in just the same way that Cook, Tweet, or Williams did for 3e. (I would, but I'm in agreement with you that the game is better off without.)

 

[Mephista]

The problem isn't that there's too much gold. The problem is that there isn't enough things to spend said gold on. Used to be that you had to spend money on training, or building a stronghold, or something to that effect. In 3e and 4e, it became that you needed gold to walk the magic item treadmill. In 5e? You don't need money. At all. Unless you have a specific need for gold, that kind of treasure is meaningless.

 

[mevers]

How do you feel about Batman? Because he's in a similar position - he'd do much more good for the world if he gave up his vigilante crusade and instead dedicated himself full time to philanthropy. Heck, if the Wayne Foundation is indeed funded from the profits of Wayne Enterprises (as in TDKR) he'd do more good just by dedicating himself to maximising profit.

Assuming Batman is a PC in a someone's game, then that is something for the PLAYER of batman to deal with. Personally, I would not really enjoy playing Batman as a character, since as you say, he could do much more good simply focussing on philanthropy. But if someone else enjoys playing that character, then who am I to stop them?

Actually, those guidelines already exist in 5e, they're just hidden.

The "Wealth by Level" tables in the 3e DMG were widely misinterpreted - they weren't a guideline to how much treasure the DM should give out, but were rather the average results if you used the expected 13.3 encounters per level coupled with the random treasure tables in the same book. What the 3e DMG didn't say (and should have done) is that the DM was free to ignore those guidelines, which would obviously lead to a different result.

The 5e DMG also has an expected number of encounters per level (though it's rather more complex than 3e's 13.3 per level) and also has a set of random treasure tables. So someone who was sufficiently motivated could work through the numbers and hack out a set of "Wealth by Level" tables for the edition in just the same way that Cook, Tweet, or Williams did for 3e. (I would, but I'm in agreement with you that the game is better off without.)

The difference is, that 5e doesn't assume that you have spent all that money on increasing your combat effectiveness, so it is easy to change the wealth level of the campaign, without affecting the relative power level of the class. 3.5 was designed around PCs spending all their money on magic items (especially the "Big 6) Armour, Weapon, Natural Armour Amulet, Stat Booster, Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Protection), and if you tried to adventure without those items, you were in for a very rough ride. As it is now, in 5th ed, I can easily reduce the monetary rewards, without impacting the ability of the PCs to deal with threats appropriate to their level.

Why should I HAVE to be an insanely RICH adventurer to be able to deal with dangers that threaten the world? Why can ONLY batman save the world?

As I said earlier, you either design the game around spending (ever increasing) amounts of Gold on magic items to maintain combat effectiveness, or you don't. I don't see how you can have a middle ground - 5th ed probably actually gets as close to the middle ground as you can. You can easily remove ALL gold from 5th ed, and not effect the combat mechanics too much, likewise, yo can flood the PCs with Gold, and it won't break the game.

 

[Libramarian]

Maybe I just have a different set of ideals for playing d&d than you, but how is a system where you want to be "chasing every single Gold Piece" a bad thing? As opposed to "oh look... gold, that pointless stuff that I barely care to figure out how much of it I have...". If you apply the same reasoning to getting xp - I "enjoy" getting every single bit of xp. Why? Because it matters. Gold? Nope. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
I guess my point is that this "bad" thing that you are describe I consider to be an improvement over what exists now. But again, I think we just have a different set of ideals for adventuring.

The simplest way to make gold matter is to give 1 XP per GP acquired. This is an easy house rule in 5e.

 

[delericho]

3.5 was designed around PCs spending all their money on magic items (especially the "Big 6) Armour, Weapon, Natural Armour Amulet, Stat Booster, Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Protection), and if you tried to adventure without those items, you were in for a very rough ride.

Actually...

3.0e appears to be have designed with the assumption that PCs wouldn't buy or craft (many) items, and that therefore they wouldn't have any specific items at any given levels. 4e most certainly appears to have been designed with the assumption that the PCs absolutely would - and indeed recommended that the DM gather "wish lists" of items from the players to help place treasure.

3.5e appears to be somewhere in between - it inherited a great deal from 3.0e while also incorporating some of what was found about how the game was actually played in practice (where buying/crafting items had become common). Thus, earlier books assume a much lower level of item optimisation than later ones, especially as the later adventures also assume fewer, more deadly, encounters than is the case in earlier ones. This is, of course, the worst of all worlds, since you can adapt away from one end point or the other but not from an ever-shifting middle ground.