D&D 5E Wealth by Level

[pemerton]

Putting expected wealth and the like in previous editions led to a tremendous sense of entitlement on the part of certain players, and without those "expectations" in the books, groups are far more likely to tailor their campaigns to their individual tastes.

I hope this isn't true!, in the sense that I hope that gaming groups are capable of making of the game what they want. I have run RM games, for instance, with very different distributions of wealth between them, and also within a campaign with different PCs having quite different levels of wealth.

In 1st ed AD&D, the wealth requirement is somewhat dictated by the XP rules. I can't really comment on 2nd or 3rd ed, but in 4e wealth is very flexible provided the "big 3" enhancement bonuses are covered (via loot drops, spontaneous item upgrades (which is what I use in my game) or inherent bonuses). I'm not surprised that 5e aims to be at least this flexible - though it does have creatures with resistance to normal weapons, which suggests that magic weapons of some sort will probably be a requirement above low levels in most campaigns.

I like the notion that WBL doesn't grow as it did in previous editions for new characters. Even were a character to be introduced at a higher level, one presumes that they'd be adventuring less, if at all (else they would already be a PC), so they'd have less of a steady surplus of gold to enter into the economy (while the game's economics aren't true to medieval economics by any means, it is more realistic that Total Wealth in a population doesn't grow within a bullion-standard the way it does in a fiat-standard unless new bullion (like hoards of dragon treasure!) is introduced – it's actually a pretty decent concept of mercantile economics after a fashion!

I think inflation is a pretty big issue in mediaeval economies, insn't it (though not one that D&D models).

 

[Lanefan]

I'm glad there is no wealth by level table.

It just leads to DMs feeling pressured to abide by the table. If I want my PCs to get a castle at level 3, then they get a castle at level 3!

Couldn't agree more!

By the same token, if a 10th-level party laden with magic gets hit with a Mordenkainen's Disjunction (or equivalent) and loses it all it's not a game-ender, where in some previous editions it would be.

Easy come, easy go.

Lan-"but I'd put the idea of buying or trading magic items back in, there's too much in-game logic in its favour that banning it is plain unrealistic"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

In 1st ed AD&D, the wealth requirement is somewhat dictated by the XP rules.

Only to a point, particularly if you ditch the xp-for-gp rule (as everyone I know did).

About the only wealth requirements in 1e are that you need magic weapons at low-mid level to hit some creatures, and some capital stashed away by name level so you can build your castle/laboratory/temple/whatever. Other than that, anything goes!

Lan-"I suppose one of these days I really should get on with building a castle"-efan

 

[Li Shenron]

I want it. Why is it missing in the DMG? Doesn't need to be hard and fast. I would just like a guideline.

Because not only it is unnecessary, but it is actually detrimental to the game.

It creates fixed expectations and assumptions on what the PC can achieve in the economy due to their adventures, thus creating fixed associations between adventures completion and social advancement.

It is detrimental not because of the association, but because it is fixed. Even if it is a guideline and not a hard rule, it is still potentially detrimental, because really there is no average that makes sense, there is no guideline that works better than another, so having no guideline is actually better than any guideline.

Without any guideline at all, it is simply up to the gaming group to decide if they want to play characters who can afford anything at level 1 maybe because they are all nobles or kings (Birthright?) and because money doesn't buy what you really need in the game, or if they want to play mythic heroes who have absolutely no interest for money. Or anything in between.

Without any guideline at all, you can even have a king and a beggar adventuring in the same group, for completely different reasons, or have some PCs that leave all their treasures to the other PCs.

Any guideline is either just going to be disregarded (so why have a guideline at all?) or adopted (so indeed creating a common expectation that just shouldn't exist).

It's a problem similar to setting expectations on how many monsters or how many dungeons exist in each world. Why the hell should the books tell you that? If they do, they only force you to feel like you need them as a starting point, but the truth is that you don't need any starting point at all, what the hell does it even mean? You probably know better what is the ending point you want, so just start from there already!

 

[delericho]

I want it. Why is it missing in the DMG? Doesn't need to be hard and fast. I would just like a guideline.

Unfortunately, what should have been a useful DM guideline in 3e turned into a straightjacket for an awful lot of groups. (It also wasn't terribly useful, since the raw value of items actually matters a lot less than the nature of those items - the "Big Six" items were always better bang for their buck than almost any other items.)

It's also worth noting that the 3e WbL table wasn't actually derived from some clever formula - instead, it was just the sum of the average treasures from the encounters that the group was expected to face that level. (Assuming every encounter was "level appropriate" and gave "standard" treasure.) 3e assumed a party of 4 PCs, and 13.33 encounters per level (and subtracted a bit, both to get nice round numbers, and also to account for the use of expendable items along the way).

IMO, a much better approach would have started from "WbL is 1gp per XP", and built the treasure tables from there. But even by the time the 3e DMG was released it was too late to make that change - it would have been lots of work for almost no real gain.

So, somewhere in 5e there will be assumptions about the number of PCs in the group, the number of encounters per level, and the average treasure results for encounters of those levels. Hopefully, the DMG will spell all those numbers out somewhere, ideally in the context of "here's how to change things if your group doesn't fit our assumptions". If you were keen, then, you could probably reverse-engineer yourself some WbL tables.

Or you could take pleasure in the freedom that 5e doesn't seem to rely on them, and just give out whatever treasure seems good to you.

 

[delericho]

Without any guideline at all, it is simply up to the gaming group to decide if they want to play characters who can afford anything at level 1 maybe because they are all nobles or kings (Birthright?) and because money doesn't buy what you really need in the game...

This only works if money really doesn't buy what you really need in the game.

If the game uses the 3e/4e/PF assumptions that magic items are generally available for sale, and certainly can be crafted, then you need to keep wealth (and thus magic items) in check. In which case guidelines are useful.

(And, yes, 5e does indeed use different assumptions, where items can't be easily bought or crafted. So that's a good thing.)

 

[Thunderfoot]

Because not only it is unnecessary, but it is actually detrimental to the game.<SNIP>

That had to be the dumbest edition to 4e from a DM's perspective - In my campaign the characters will get 5 cp a monster and LIKE IT!!
Seriously though, I hated the idea that magic items were purchasable and were part of the expected treasure haul. I can still remember getting my first magic item as a player, it was special, I had it until I retired my character, it was a +1 dagger; according to 4e, it was all but worthless by 4th level and should be "traded in" on something else. *shudder* (Wal-Magic is the real demon of D&D.) I prefer my games to be grittier and lots of available cash tends to wreck that.

 

[Li Shenron]

If the game uses the 3e/4e/PF assumptions that magic items are generally available for sale, and certainly can be crafted, then you need to keep wealth (and thus magic items) in check. In which case guidelines are useful.

(And, yes, 5e does indeed use different assumptions, where items can't be easily bought or crafted. So that's a good thing.)

Well yes, in 3e or 4e I could not have claimed that guidelines are unnecessary!

This only works if money really doesn't buy what you really need in the game.

It was just an example of one possible campaign setup, with emphasis on an extreme case.

Even if money (as normally) can be used for something needed/useful for the game, IMO there is no standard measure for that.

Fundamentally, the reason is that wealth does not equate to character level in one single standard way. In 3e, monsters and non-combat challenges were designed with strong assumptions on PC's capabilities, and equipment was largely involved in those capabilities. The creation of the controversial Vow of Poverty feat epitomized the issue.

Going that way frames the game into a certain type, traditional of course but still limited and hard to deviate from. When 500,000gp can buy you either a kingdom or a +5 sword, the two items are essentially not comparable in general game terms.

 

[delericho]

Well yes, in 3e or 4e I could not have claimed that guidelines are unnecessary!

... snipped for brevity...

Yep, agreed on all counts.

 

[FireLance]

I just spent the morning keying the magic item tables and the treasure hoard magic item distribution into a spreadsheet.

Based on my observation, Magic Item Tables A to E tend to be consumables (potions, scrolls, ammunition) while Magic Item Tables F to I tend to be permanent items. To simplify matters, I shall assume Tables A to E generate consumable items and Tables F to I generate permanent items.

Based on the stated assumption on page 133 of the DMG that a typical campaign will have 7 rolls on the Challenge 0-4 table, 18 rolls on the Challenge 5-10 table, 12 rolls on the Challenge 11-16 table, and 8 rolls on the Challenge 17+ table, over the course of a campaign, a party would be expected to find the following magic items:

18 Common consumables
20 Uncommon consumables
19 Rare consumables
18 Very rare consumables
3 or 4* Legendary consumables

9 or 10* Uncommon permanent items
5 or 6* Rare permanent items
5 Very rare permanent items
4 Legendary permanent items

* These expected numbers were close to [N and a half], so I have chosen to express them as [N or N+1] instead.

I am leaving for a game shortly, but I will find some time to do more detailed analysis, including a possible treasure distribution over 20 levels.