D&D 5E What could 5E do to make wealth worthwhile?

[Micah Sweet]

To paraphrase Don Draper... that's what the experience points are for! You're learning in the field. It's not like fighters need to pay for a license to hit some guy twice in a round.

As for worldbuilding, I guarantee that the DM 's who like this wouldn't let a PC take a week off and rake in thousands of gold risk free training lower level NPC's.

Challenge accepted. All you are talking about is your preference not to use training.

 

[Lanefan]

To paraphrase Don Draper... that's what the experience points are for! You're learning in the field. It's not like fighters need to pay for a license to hit some guy twice in a round.

The way I see it, you learn the "classroom theory" during training and then spend that next level putting that theory into practice. Once you've mastered that (as evidenced/abstracted by bumping into the following level) you come back for another round of theory training. Lather, rinse, repeat.

As for worldbuilding, I guarantee that the DM 's who like this wouldn't let a PC take a week off and rake in thousands of gold risk free training lower level NPC's.

That's why the trainer gets very little of the money spent in training costs; most of it goes to supplies, hired goons, facilities and upkeep, sacrifices-tithes-donations, guild dues, etc. etc. depending on class. At most, the trainer gets to keep maybe 10% of what the student pays.

Also, it's worth noting that I always assume one-on-one training, i.e. a trainer tutors only one student at a time.

 

[Sorinth]

A bit of a weird idea but how about tying XP to gold spent as part of Lifestyle Expenses with maybe a factor of say 10 XP per gold spent. So in order to actually actualize the XP you have to spend money and the more pampered the lifestyle the faster it is to get that XP. So to actualize 1000XP you need to spend 100 GP which is 10 days at the fancy spa and the assoicated aristocratic lifestyle but 50 days if you return to your home in a village somewhere and live a Comfortable lifestyle.

Since this doesn't strictly have to be downtime, it gives an incentive for players in the middle of an adventure to spend the night at the fancy inn instead of roughing it because it can mean the difference between levelling up during or after the adventure. You are pretty much guaranteed to end up with a lot of XP that needs to be actualized at the end of the adventure, not least because you'll have earned a bunch in the final battle. So there's a strong incentive to take a post-adventure break.

 

[Scribe]

 

[Reynard]

View attachment 397861

Carousing is one way to encourage spending for XP but I don't think it is sufficient for what we are talking about here. I am more interested in robust, meaningful uses for wealth in 5E specifically.

 

[Scribe]

Carousing is one way to encourage spending for XP but I don't think it is sufficient for what we are talking about here. I am more interested in robust, meaningful uses for wealth in 5E specifically.

Yes, I bring it up because its fundamental to the system, Shadowdark, while its an afterthought in 5.0.

Bastions
Magic Gear/Consumables
Carousing
XP for Gold

Honestly the first 3 should absolutely be baseline systems that are robust and meaningful in 5.5, while XP for Gold is more a foundational assumption that wouldnt fit anymore in the 5.0/5.5 family, the horse has already bolted and its a different game at this point.

 

[GrimCo]

Remember, lot's of tables don't use xp. Milestone leveling has become more mainstream, specially with newer generations. So tying gold and xp is out of the picture.

While 3.x went into other extreme with magic market, at least it gave you something tangible for money. That and some sweet templates. That 100k for lich template is big money sink (or that sweet sweet grave knight template from PF1 that costs 25k + cost of magical heavy armor, at lest 2500 for +1 full plate).

 

[MGibster]

Go back to AD&D 1e. Training costs, downtime costs, keep costs, hireling (sages, etc) costs, etc.

It's either that or simply stop handing out gold and treasure like it's candy. While I despise keeping track of every gold piece, it would be nice for all that treasure to mean something. There's at least one fantasy game, I forget which one, that assumes the PCs blow all their treasure on living the high life between adventures. It might be nice to see some sort of mechanical advantage for pumping money into the local economy. Maybe the PCs get advantage of gather information or persuasion rolls?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Wealth to XP is fun in Dark Souls and I don't quite understand why it was dropped from older editions, but I admittedly have never played full campaigns in them.

Being able to destroy or jeopardize the player's treasure or have puzzles with getting their gains back home or somewhere they can convert it into XP ads a new level of failure for the players beyond "death". If you don't wanna do a TPK maybe you force them to drop 3000 GP to distract the bandits and skedaddle, and they've still got their lives but now they're in debt and it'll take longer to get to level 10 or whatever.

 

[Yaarel]

For me the answer is Bastions.

Use the extra gold to trick it out, beyond what one gets because of level.