D&D 5E Starting Gold for Higher Levels - 5th Edition

[Tony Vargas]

It has occurred to me that, without the need for magic treasure purchases, the question of wealth comes down to:

1) What lifestyle can the characters afford to lead? Do I want them to struggle or be affluent?

I quite like the concept of lifestyle expenses (I quite liked it when I first saw it in Shadowrun, many years ago, too). Of course, the DM could use these as a guideline for how much gold constitutes a fortune - or he could adjust the costs to suit his idea of how 'rich' the world should be (the way we used to put AD&D games on the 'silver standard' simply by swapping all the inflated gp costs for sp).

(Oh, and speaking of Shadowrun, the option of 'buying a permanent lifestyle' would be a cool idea, too. So you can have a greedy character whose goal is to be 'set for life.')

I also really like the flexibility to have a campaign where the party struggles with poverty - as hard-bitten mercenaries or just struggling adventurers who have never gotten that 'big score' - instead of necessarily becoming magic-item rich or falling behind the power curve. (I also liked that possibility when 4e and late 3.5 did it via 'inherent bonuses,' even if it didn't work too well in the latter case, or when BoED compensated for it with the VoP feat.)

2) Can they afford raise dead in an emergency? At what level do I want them to have access to this?

Presumably the level at which a PC can cast the spell is a broad hint as to when it should be available. Whether casting it once banckrupts the party, or everyone can get raised every other day would vary with the campaign.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Presumably the level at which a PC can cast the spell is a broad hint as to when it should be available. Whether casting it once banckrupts the party, or everyone can get raised every other day would vary with the campaign.

I'm not sure. It's always been a DM's option sort of thing, but for most editions that I've played the point at which you could scrape together the gold for a raise was long before the point where it was a castable spell.

Now that I think about it, it comes down to "at what point do my players stop being happy to roll up a new character"?