Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Thievery in 5e - still relevant?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9128118" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>No, 2e was pretty terrible about giving you a reason to really want to accumulate treasure after awhile. The fact that I never really noticed this is a combination of good DM's giving me reasons to want to have gold to spend, and DM's wanting to keep me miserably poor at all costs, lol.</p><p></p><p>For most characters, you had the simple loop of: buy necessary equipment > buy the best armor > buy a horse and maybe a cart, plus the necessary tack, barding, feed, what have you. Then maybe start sniffing around for high quality equipment (if being used in the campaign). Then almost invariably, once you had gold in the thousands, you started asking if it were possible to purchase potions or maybe even minor magic items.</p><p></p><p>Not only was the existence of magic shops rarely contested in my experience (I mean heck, in the TSR era, there were some actually canonical ones, like Chemcheaux, an extradimensional magic item chain, and of course, a cutter can always find what they need at Sigil, if they have the jink). </p><p></p><p>Granted, that's personal experience, and it's no surprise that once hordes of D&D players were using the internet, suddenly people railing about "Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppes" showed up on my radar (at the same time as the first edition of the game to make magic items standard, of course).</p><p></p><p>Even now, I'm a bit torn on the 3e-4e approach. I feel that magic items are a part of D&D, and it's good for their to be guidelines for what players can expect to have access to as opposed to not, but by the same token, magic items became less special- not for their quantity; I've played in some Forgotten Realms campaigns where you were soon dripping in magic items, but for their uniqueness. WotC decided that multifunction items should cost an arm and a leg (only relenting somewhat when the published a book on magic items later in the edition's lifespan), which meant that Rods of Lordly Might and Staves of Power were grossly overpriced to the point that you'd rather sell them (if possible) to get Greatswords +4 and Cloaks of Protection +3.</p><p></p><p>Thus there was suddenly a downside to magic item economy, and especially crafting. All the infinite money exploits inherent in the magic system went from being "cute, but not really relevant" to suddenly game breaking! And this led to the downfall of thievery, I feel, as suddenly, the DM was cautioned to absolutely not ever let players exceed the wealth by level guidelines, for fear of their game imploding!</p><p></p><p>If you can't be any more successful as a thief than as an adventurer, why be a thief?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9128118, member: 6877472"] No, 2e was pretty terrible about giving you a reason to really want to accumulate treasure after awhile. The fact that I never really noticed this is a combination of good DM's giving me reasons to want to have gold to spend, and DM's wanting to keep me miserably poor at all costs, lol. For most characters, you had the simple loop of: buy necessary equipment > buy the best armor > buy a horse and maybe a cart, plus the necessary tack, barding, feed, what have you. Then maybe start sniffing around for high quality equipment (if being used in the campaign). Then almost invariably, once you had gold in the thousands, you started asking if it were possible to purchase potions or maybe even minor magic items. Not only was the existence of magic shops rarely contested in my experience (I mean heck, in the TSR era, there were some actually canonical ones, like Chemcheaux, an extradimensional magic item chain, and of course, a cutter can always find what they need at Sigil, if they have the jink). Granted, that's personal experience, and it's no surprise that once hordes of D&D players were using the internet, suddenly people railing about "Ye Olde Magic Item Shoppes" showed up on my radar (at the same time as the first edition of the game to make magic items standard, of course). Even now, I'm a bit torn on the 3e-4e approach. I feel that magic items are a part of D&D, and it's good for their to be guidelines for what players can expect to have access to as opposed to not, but by the same token, magic items became less special- not for their quantity; I've played in some Forgotten Realms campaigns where you were soon dripping in magic items, but for their uniqueness. WotC decided that multifunction items should cost an arm and a leg (only relenting somewhat when the published a book on magic items later in the edition's lifespan), which meant that Rods of Lordly Might and Staves of Power were grossly overpriced to the point that you'd rather sell them (if possible) to get Greatswords +4 and Cloaks of Protection +3. Thus there was suddenly a downside to magic item economy, and especially crafting. All the infinite money exploits inherent in the magic system went from being "cute, but not really relevant" to suddenly game breaking! And this led to the downfall of thievery, I feel, as suddenly, the DM was cautioned to absolutely not ever let players exceed the wealth by level guidelines, for fear of their game imploding! If you can't be any more successful as a thief than as an adventurer, why be a thief? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Thievery in 5e - still relevant?
Top