D&D 5E (2014) Thoughts on spending gold ...

[EvanNave55]

I'm afraid you are making it out to be more difficult than it really is.

All you have to do is set up prices for items and then adjust the gold you hand out to your player's. A +1 sword could cost 4000. Now just setup your adventure to where a party of 4 players find a combined total of 16,000 gold during a span of level 1 to 4.

This was just a quick two second example I came up with on the fly.

It's not complicated nor does it half to be. The only way it becomes hard or impossible is if you make it that way.

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.

 

[Sailor Moon]

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.

That was just a quick example. It's the same principle no matter how many items you add. Take three items that cost 6k each, that's 18k. With a party of four wanting three each, that takes you to a total of 72,000 gold spread out over several levels, plus a few extra for ammo, food, etc...

My god it's not that difficult.

 

[EvanNave55]

One solution I recently came up with for this is having the price off by a percent of its price rolled at random. I haven't put it into use yet but I'm planning on it next time I have a meet. It's a little complicated but take 3d10 of one color which you assign as positive and 3d10 negative. Then change the price by a percentage equal to the sum rolled. So there's a maximum of 27% price range more or less than the base price, though most of the time it will be close to the original price.

 

[EvanNave55]

That was just a quick example. It's the same principle no matter how many items you add. Take three items that cost 6k each, that's 18k. With a party of four wanting three each, that takes you to a total of 72,000 gold spread out over several levels, plus a few extra for ammo, food, etc...

My god it's not that difficult.

Where are you getting that I 6000 from? Are they all the same item? What sort of prices are for other items comparatively. How rare would this item be in general? Should it be rarer or more common based on the region you're in. What sort of effect could this have on the campaign? Also you shouldn't just decide you want to give them so and so items and base the gold given on that. Take difficulty of setting and tone of the campaign into account the have a set amount of gold from that. If you want to give them some item just have them find it in a dungeon not give gold based on it.

 

[PnPgamer]

Buying magi items can be fun too. 3e and pf gave us so much nifty and spiffy stuff that were still unusual. Sure, +1 weapons were like held by every gang boss and goblin chieftains, but after that things got expensieve and rare.

 

[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.

It's not exponential, it's linear, but nevermind that. As DM it's up to you to decide how many magic items are in your campaign. I'd never allow 200+ different magic items, not counting mundane items, but if that works for you - great. It's still not exponentially harder to assign values.

 

[Werebat]

Perhaps to some, or many. But in my world, I like that powerful magical items a rarity and can't be purchased in a store. I like that in each campaign, with random rolls, you never know what you might come upon in a deep dungeon. So for me, it adds to the game. To each their own.

But if I wanted to allow the purchase of magical items, I think I could pretty easily backward engineer the 5e rules for selling magic items. And I'd probably just allow +1 weapons and armor to be bought, but anything else had to be found while adventuring.

I think a clever GM will present the party with magic item auctions just often enough to give them a reason to worry about all that gold. All it takes is a dozen or so hand-selected items, a couple of which you KNOW one or two PCs will want. Maybe they even have to go on a quest to get a patron to admit them to the auction.

 

[EvanNave55]

It's not exponential, it's linear, but nevermind that. As DM it's up to you to decide how many magic items are in your campaign. I'd never allow 200+ different magic items, not counting mundane items, but if that works for you - great. It's still not exponentially harder to assign values.

I'm not saying to give your players every magic item in the game, I'm saying if you want to make a list with the prices of all the magic items it's exponentially more difficult.
Also it would be that diificult because with each new item you have to judge and compare with everything else. If you have items W and X to add Y you need to compare W and X already then add Wand Y as well as X and Y. Then if you want to add Z there are that many more things to compare it with. Now imagine that with over 200 items plus everything mundane, and trying to balance by player leve,l monster difficulty, etc, etc.

 

[Gecko85]

I'm not saying to give your players every magic item in the game, I'm saying if you want to make a list with the prices of all the magic items it's exponentially more difficult.
Also it would be that diificult because with each new item you have to judge and compare with everything else. If you have items W and X to add Y you need to compare W and X already then add Wand Y as well as X and Y. Then if you want to add Z there are that many more things to compare it with. Now imagine that with over 200 items plus everything mundane, and trying to balance by player leve,l monster difficulty, etc, etc.

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

It's not exponential.

 

[Gecko85]

Also, you don't have to come up with values for 200 items. Your players aren't ordering items off a menu. Pick a dozen or so items...heck, even 2 dozen, and do those. You're the DM. You decide.