D&D 5E Thoughts on spending gold ...

[EvanNave55]

So, using your previous example, it would take someone 5 x 10^52 years to do 200 items. Hilarious.

It's not exponential.

Where are you getting that from?

 

[Gecko85]

Making one magic item with no context? Sure that's easy but when you add in all the other items in the game it becomes exponentially harder. Two items- twice as hard. Three items four times as hard. Even ignoring all the mundane things in the game there's still maybe 200 magic items. That means the difficulty becomes 1.6 followed by 60 zeros.

1.6 x 10^60 difficulty. The post you quoted here said it took 2 seconds to do 1 item. I did some quick back of the napkin math. I may be off by a few million years, but I don't think exact numbers are important here.

 

[EvanNave55]

I was exaggerating some to make a point. Using exact math yes it would be. Fortunately as you create more you can remember and get the feeling of how some things are so that the time span is measured in months as opposed to eons. The point was that it is not some easy snap of the finger thing to create an entire good realistic market system for anything- including magic items.

 

[Celtavian]

We haven't found much of a use for gold save buying healing potions. You can do some fluff stuff like purchase keeps or retainers. We haven't kept track of gold like we did in editions we had a use for it purchasing magic items.

 

[Paraxis]

We haven't found much of a use for gold save buying healing potions. You can do some fluff stuff like purchase keeps or retainers. We haven't kept track of gold like we did in editions we had a use for it purchasing magic items.

Thats pretty much my whole point. Without set prices for things that improve or expand character power gold is pretty pointless.
The DM sets the cost of fluff items like castles, shops, temples, taverns, slaves, servants, farms, ships, flying ships, pegasi, .......whatever and he also controls the amount of gold earned. So why bother keeping track, the DM should hand out cookies when he wants them to have them.

I much prefer a system where gold is another thing that provides options and choices for optimization. With expected wealth by level or treasure parcels, random treasure and nothing to spend it on that matters makes treasure pointless.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Thats pretty much my whole point. Without set prices for things that improve or expand character power gold is pretty pointless.
The DM sets the cost of fluff items like castles, shops, temples, taverns, slaves, servants, farms, ships, flying ships, pegasi, .......whatever and he also controls the amount of gold earned. So why bother keeping track, the DM should hand out cookies when he wants them to have them.

I much prefer a system where gold is another thing that provides options and choices for optimization. With expected wealth by level or treasure parcels, random treasure and nothing to spend it on that matters makes treasure pointless.

Why do you need WoTc to tell you how to spend your gold?

There is plenty to spend money on, your DM just needs to take some initiative and come up with prices.

 

[Eejit]

The DM sets the cost of fluff items like castles, shops, temples, taverns, slaves, servants, farms, ships, flying ships, pegasi, .......whatever and he also controls the amount of gold earned. So why bother keeping track, the DM should hand out cookies when he wants them to have them.

Terrible argument.
DM sets the cost of those things, the party can then decide what they want to buy individually or pooling the gold of individuals together, or whether to save that gold for a later opportunity.

 

[Paraxis]

Why do you need WoTc to tell you how to spend your gold?

There is plenty to spend money on, your DM just needs to take some initiative and come up with prices.

WoTC should have taken the initiative and done the work. Why give them the pass on being lazy? They are the game designers.
Might as well say the DM just needs to take some initiative and create the monsters you don't need stats for any of them. We need wealth by level and individual item prices the same way we need a monster manual.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

WoTC should have taken the initiative and done the work. Why give them the pass on being lazy?

Now I think you're being deliberately obtuse. You may not agree with WotC's decision, but by now it's pretty clear that not including individual item prices was a conscious choice, one that seems to be embraced by many people. Feel free to disagree but calling it "lazy" is simply incorrect. They were not "lazy" when they decided not to include said list, and they were not any more "lazy" when they decided not to include a thief-acrobat or a warlord class in the PHB.

 

[CapnZapp]

The group I DM has been playing since the playtest, and they are about to reach 10th level.

I, like others, was worried about whether they would have something to spend their gold on now that they have acquired a good amount. But I'm no longer worried. I think the issue of what to spend gold on is solved after considering a few things. You can tell me your thoughts and whether you think I'm right or not.

My players were shipwrecked on the Isle of Dread. This made up the last three months or so of adventuring. They finally found a pirate base on a nearby small island. They also came across some pegasi while adventuring on the main island, and they want to keep the pegasi as mounts. I'm going to allow them to do so. Once they defeat the pirates and acquire the pirate ship, I realized they would have a lot of costs coming their way.

First, they'll have the docking fee (which can add up over time) for their new ship. They'll also have to pay for a crew if they want to use the ship to sail to other places. They'll also need to pay for the care and upkeep of the pegasi.

Ideally, they'll need to pay to build some kind of manor home or fort to keep someone from stealing or harming the pegasi. They'll also have to pay for saddling and barding (if they wish) for each of them. Of course, you also having living expenses, and the expense of owning shops if they choose to do so.

In addition, I decided that going forward I will be using the optional carrying capacity rule. This means that for characters, particularly low level characters, they will need to consider buying horses and possibly horse-drawn carts to carry a lot of their gear, and a lot of the treasure they find. Again, more costs that low level characters will need to consider.

I think that when considering all of these issues, my characters will not face the problem of having too much gold and not enough to spend on. Once they get to level 15 and above, sure at that time they may start to have more gold than they can spend, but such is the life of a high level adventurer.

Yeah, this is a good example: some of us simply aren't interested in doing all that work.

Downtime activities should be optional.

Right now, they're not, since WotC hasn't provided any options like the elaborate magic item economy of previous editions.

So if you only care for adventures, with minimal downtime, 5th ed really isn't compatible. There's nothing to spend your gold on.

Yet.