Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 5901310" data-attributes="member: 40166">I acknowledge upfront the difference between a medieval economy and a modern one, but I was surprised by how much a copper piece was in practical terms. A low-level laborer makes 10 cp per day, as per 3.5 DMG 105 or PF 159 or 2ed DMG xx. So relatively stable over the editions. That's 3650 cp a year. A US full-time minimum wage laborer makes 15,000 USD a year, so a cp is about 4 USDs. That doesn't tells us buying power, but it should equate roughly to how they feel in the hands of the poor. Imagine how it should feel to your character raised from the slums looking at a pile of copper... that is, like looking at a pile of dollar bills. Tossing out gp to beggars should be like handing out hundred dollar bills. A longsword is worth 15 gp, or $6,000; you leave it in a saddle bag, you should expect it to be gone when you get back. A "mere" +1 weapon is 2000 gp, or $800,000; you leave that lying around in a temple of a LG god, I'm not sure you should expect to find it there when you get back. PF character wealth by level says that each 3rd level character is carrying 3000 gp, or over a million USD. In some ways, our comparison has long broken down by that point, but any way you cut it, that's 55 years of an average man's salary. If a bunch of thugs manage to jump a party of four 3rd level characters and kill them, they can live the rest of their lives with all the alcohol, food and whores they want even after whatever the fence takes.The reason I thought about this is that in my Ptolus campaign, there's going to be a curse during pregnancy that horribly mutates the child (i.e., makes them tiefling, aasimar, or any one of a number of planetouched races I have or will make). There's a magical charm, such that if it's worn during pregnancy, the child will be fine. But I wondered how much to make that charm to put it out of the reach of the lower classes but easily feasible for upper classes. Depending on how low and high, I'm thinking 5-50 gp.This has larger ramifications. One argument is that D&D's economy is creaky, and don't shine a spotlight on it. On the other hand, maybe pressing it would be fun. As narrator or NPC, why, yes, you can buy a periapt of wisdom + 4, or you feed and clothe most of the poor in the city. In Ptolus, I suspect there's a lot of bodies that may or may not be returned to the surface of people who decided their life was worth any shot at a million dollars. Maybe they had to hock everything they owned to buy a long sword, but they were going to try it.</blockquote>

Verification