Level Up (A5E) Spending gold

[tetrasodium]

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.

I've tried several options & written a couple things for it, but really a big problem stems from 5e thwarting it by not having enough headspace within the design to have items that are slightly better or differently better so you wind up with a system the players might use once or twice & then are not likely to use the rest of the campaign.

I suppose the answer in the end will depend on what sort of designspace gets added to weapons/armor/gear

 

[Undrave]

I wish we'd have more alchemical items and magical whetstone to spend money on. Alchemist Fire, Tanglefoot Bags, etc. Especially if they could as regular items for the Thief's cunning action.

 

[Stalker0]

If you don’t want to open up the magic time shop you could go with the idea of super expensive schooling

aka buy feats and epic boons With gold.

it’s effectively magic items but less of a supermarket feeling and some people enjoy the more of an “innate” improvement over acquiring items

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you don’t want to open up the magic time shop you could go with the idea of super expensive schooling

aka buy feats and epic boons With gold.

it’s effectively magic items but less of a supermarket feeling and some people enjoy the more of an “innate” improvement over acquiring items

That's a great idea as long as the campaign allows enough down time for it. Of course, most the other options to spend gold require down time as well. I guess that's why people fall back on magic mart.

 

[Giauz]

Surely, preparing for a long quest takes quite a bit of fundage including hiring carts to carry and guards to guard all that gold? When I was growing up half the fun of planning for a road/fishing trip vacation was the weeks of buying stuff and planning leading up to the vacation. Part of the adventure should be planning for it, budgeting and buying supplies.

 

[Imaculata]

One big gold sink that I added to my 3E pirate campaign, was the ability to buy and upgrade a sailing vessel. I also encouraged my players to visit new locations, by giving each important location their own specific ship upgrades.

I think a similar idea could be used for other modes of transport, or perhaps to a keep.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

It is a huge loss that WotC decided to crap all over the idea of utility-based magic item pricing.

In any campaign with no significant downtime (and players only caring about how to defeat the next dungeon) gold is simply worthless.

Official adventures still hand it out in bucketloads, but there's no point to it.

Probably the biggest flaw of 5E.

The obvious solution is to follow in Paizo's footsteps (who takes magic item pricing very seriously) and publish an Magic Item Compendium-like supplement that gives us robust item pricing to readd back the fun and wonderful minigame of how to spend your gold on character power ups!

 

[CleverNickName]

I'd like to see lots of new ways to spend money in the game.

• Houses, apartments, homesteads, strongholds, castles...how about a place to live? Not every D&D character needs to be a homicidal vagrant. Houses can have upgrade-able rooms and unique features ala Skyrim: add a forge for X gp, add an alchemy lab for Y gp, add an apothecary for Z gp, etc. Even a cottage in the woods outside of town would be better than sleeping in a rope trick every night.
• Armies, Naval forces, etc. (to go with some Mass Combat rules that are hopefully going to be included in the Level Up project someday) Some of us want to build a kingdom!
• Larger variety of ships and naval weapons
• Speaking of armies and castles: Siege Equipment
• Speaking of ships and naval weapons: Cannons and Firearms
• Ale and Wenches
• Prices and gear (along with some new rules) for flying mounts.
• Private Tutors, Professional Trainers, Night Classes at Waterdeep Poly-Tech, etc. I'd love for there to be a way to turn downtime and money into permanent abilities like proficiencies, spells, and feats.
• and yes, I guess, magic items. If you absolutely must. (I prefer to get my enchanted relics in long-forgotten tombs, but I guess some folks need to pick them up at Costco.) Ideally this would be done very carefully and sparingly so that magic items don't just become the dull, default currency of the game like they did in 3.X Edition. Not every magic item in the game should be available for purchase...I'd draw the line at Uncommon, myself.

 

[Derren]

Stretch out mundane gear more with different quality levels etc. and reduce the amount of gold you get.

 

[CleverNickName]

Stretch out mundane gear more with different quality levels etc. and reduce the amount of gold you get.

Good call. Bring back Masterwork weapons and armor, for a matching price tag.
It would be rad if there was an expanded list of rare materials to make our equipment out of, too. Mithral, silver, and adamantine are a great start...how about darkwood, bronzewood, emberite, spider silk, gossamer, chitin, dragon hide, gorgon plate, etc.