D&D 5E What's the point of gold?

[Riley37]

Well, in historical Middle Ages Europe, what use did anyone have for gold, other than buying magic items?

Why was Thorin and his gang interested in recovering Smaug's hoard? What did Bilbo do with his share?

Did Conan buy magic items? Did he like acquiring gold?

Did Robin Hood ever go out of his way to acquire gold? Did he buy magic items?

 

[Beedo]

Keeping score.

I actually have a scoreboard in my campaign. It's at the Adventurer's Guildhall. It lets them see how they're against the NPC rival adventurers exploring the same mega dungeon.

 

[Derren]

I have only DM'ed one session, but at the end of that session, people asked me what the point of gold is, I point them to the purchasable items, but they said that the items seem pretty cheap and they're likely to fill out their gear sooner or later.

Since I haven't ran a game for long, I want to ask about gold use in the later levels, what do you use it for?

Nothing really. WotC failed to adjust the rewards for adventuring or the prices of mundane equipment so gold is pretty useless once people have their plate mail. Once they realized how useless gold has become they threw in one liners about strongholds and boats without any explanation as gold sinks and expect the DMs to make it work somehow.

 

[Sailor Moon]

Nothing really. WotC failed to adjust the rewards for adventuring or the prices of mundane equipment so gold is pretty useless once people have their plate mail. Once they realized how useless gold has become they threw in one liners about strongholds and boats without any explanation as gold sinks and expect the DMs to make it work somehow.

You have gotten too used to the magic item treadmill of the previous editions. Gold is not useless in this edition at all. You just have to use a little imagination.

 

[delericho]

Nothing really. WotC failed to adjust the rewards for adventuring or the prices of mundane equipment so gold is pretty useless once people have their plate mail.

To be honest, the 3e/4e approach was pretty absurd too: you went adventuring to buy gold in order to get gear to go adventuring? Why not just stay at home where it's safe if all you're getting for the risk are the tools to do the job.

At this point, the thing to do is to remove gold as the default 'reward' from the game. Let each adventurer find his own motivation: some will do it purely to become Big Damn Heroes, some will do it for the fame, some to accumulate noble titles and political favour. And some will choose to do it for gold... but in that case they don't need to ask "what's the gold for?" Presumably, they decided that when they decided their PC wanted gold!

 

[Paraxis]

Rules Cyclopedia and 1st edition had formulas for crafting individual items, 2nd/3rd/& 4th all have individual magic item prices it is just sad to see that go, it would have been nice to have what was built into the other editions.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm just throwing an idea out - is it reasonable for the DM to say that 10% of their monthly "earnings" is scraped off the top for group lifestyle expenses? And all the piddly stuff like equipment upkeep....

 

[delericho]

I'm just throwing an idea out - is it reasonable for the DM to say that 10% of their monthly "earnings" is scraped off the top for group lifestyle expenses? And all the piddly stuff like equipment upkeep....

Sure, though since the Basic rules (and PHB) include lifestyle costs, your players might object.

IIRC, the 1st Ed DMG had a rule that PCs had to pay 1% of their XP total in gold as a lifestyle expense each month. One of those tiny rules tucked away in 1st Ed that I suspect nobody much used.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Rules Cyclopedia and 1st edition had formulas for crafting individual items, 2nd/3rd/& 4th all have individual magic item prices it is just sad to see that go, it would have been nice to have what was built into the other editions.

I think I'm misunderstanding something. 5e does have magic item formulas, which allow you to craft those items.

If you're referring to recipes for individual items, I don't recall seeing that in any of the earlier editions. Just examples of magic item crafting that involved making deals with dwarves (or something like that, it's been a while).

 

[Staffan]

I think I'm misunderstanding something. 5e does have magic item formulas, which allow you to craft those items.

If you're referring to recipes for individual items, I don't recall seeing that in any of the earlier editions. Just examples of magic item crafting that involved making deals with dwarves (or something like that, it's been a while).

2e required that you figure out the recipe for making individual items, or at least the expanded rules in Spells & Magic did. I think the core rules did too, but I'm not sure. I don't think they called it a "recipe" though.