Level Up (A5E) Spending gold

[ThatGuySteve]

What do people want to spend gold on at higher levels?

Previous editions had the magic item supermarket to sink gold into. 3E let you get them half price with the right feat and a little XP loss.

Domain management doesn't seem popular and doesn't fit a lot of campaigns which don't have extended periods of downtime. The only published adventure I've played or run that has the time between adventures for it was running Kingmaker, which is kind of the whole point of the campaign.

I'd like to be able to spend money on something because I don't think the treasure hoard is going to go away.

I'd rather get some kind of boon for completing high level adventures, to be honest. Absorb part of a dragons power for slaying it instead of dealing with 2000gp, 5000sp, 20,000cp and miscellaneous art objects and gems.

 

[Asisreo]

What do people want to spend gold on at higher levels?

Previous editions had the magic item supermarket to sink gold into. 3E let you get them half price with the right feat and a little XP loss.

Domain management doesn't seem popular and doesn't fit a lot of campaigns which don't have extended periods of downtime. The only published adventure I've played or run that has the time between adventures for it was running Kingmaker, which is kind of the whole point of the campaign.

I'd like to be able to spend money on something because I don't think the treasure hoard is going to go away.

I'd rather get some kind of boon for completing high level adventures, to be honest. Absorb part of a dragons power for slaying it instead of dealing with 2000gp, 5000sp, 20,000cp and miscellaneous art objects and gems.

Well, if you don't want to own anything and you don't have alot of time on-hand but you want it to directly contribute to power, you'll probably need to start buying magic items.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I am working on a book for crafting magic items. This will drain resources, but also require time and possibly even "quests" for some of the things you might need.

I remember in AD&D I had a player whose paladin quested for the things needed to craft his own Holy Avenger. I think that is much cooler and more memorable than simply finding one in a treasure trove.

Now, in our current main game, our party just got into tier 4 a couple sessions ago and our DM had "three years have gone by", so we repaired the ruined fortress and town, built a monastery, etc. all to the sum of over 500,000 gp, which we have been accumulating since level 5 or so...

I think domain construction and management, along with creating magic items, are the best places at higher levels.

At lower levels, just upgrading equipment, establishing a home base if you want, etc. takes care of a good amount of funds IMO.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gear upgrades is a good place to start. In 5e, you can pretty much start with any of the basic weapons, and depending on your armor proficiency will basically only need to make one or two upgrades that are affordable fairly early on. By about 5th level, you never have to worry about mundane gear again.

I think one way to make gold matter more at higher levels without introducing a magic mart is to introduce higher-tier mundane gear. If we decouple +X bonuses from magic and make them a property of (mundane) quality, we could reintroduce the function of money as an upgrade path, without making magic items too commonplace.

This probably wouldn’t solve the problem of money not being useful on its own, but I think it would be a big step in the right direction.

 

[Charlaquin]

Another way to make money matter more would be to give lifestyles more tangible mechanical benefits and drawbacks. As it stands in 5e, lifestyles only have roleplaying consequences, which is fine, but in my experience it means DMs don’t bother with them in campaigns where social standing isn’t a major concern. If you had a chance of a mishap or a fortuitous event every month and your lifestyle affected your chances (for example), players would be more incentivized to shell out more money every month for a better chance at a fortuitous event rather than just ignore lifestyle.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I'd rather get some kind of boon for completing high level adventures, to be honest. Absorb part of a dragons power for slaying it instead of dealing with 2000gp, 5000sp, 20,000cp and miscellaneous art objects and gems.

Place generic Skyrim quote here.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Oh, I forgot, two of the most important places to spend gold:

1. A TAVERN
2. TAXES

Preferably, in that order.

 

[aco175]

I always liked the idea of cool gear and enhancements to normal gear. The problem became when players liked only a couple things and then every one of their PCs had to get the same thing. I guess not much different than every fighter taking a certain feat or weapon, but felt bland. I liked 3e weapon enhancements where your +1 sword could be added to with flaming and keen and such. I did like to give these bonuses out as quest rewards though.

Investments and businesses feel bland and not everyone's style. Maybe some sort of mechanic where you spend money to build places or sponsor events that grant you benefits. Build an orphanage, gain advantage to charisma checks while in town. Build a library, gain 1/2 price spell research. This way players do not really need to track and chart a business, only spend GP to gain something.

 

[ThatGuySteve]

The options always seem to boil down to build a castle or buy/craft magic items (or masterwork mundane items).

I'm all for domain stuff if it fits the campaign. If it doesn't you are left with magic items, but 5E kind of assumes no magic mart.

For Crafting, people seem more excited by collecting rare ingredients as a special quest. You could do that without also requiring a big money dump at the same time.

I wish I could think up something else to do with it myself, but I'm probably going to stick with handing out alternative rewards like boons unless a player specifically wants gold for something.

 

[Zaukrie]

Meh, I don't care. I hope Level Up spends zero thought on this. I won't care if they do, but there is so much more I'm interested in.