Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
DMG pg. 135 says Legendary items are 50,001+ gp, Very Rare are 5,001 - 50,000 gp.
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D&D 5E What's the point of gold?
- Thread starter miatoromatic
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DMG pg. 135 says Legendary items are 50,001+ gp, Very Rare are 5,001 - 50,000 gp.
Hussar
Legend
The problem, however, of giving players free reign over magic items is, in very short time, everyone power games, because, even though they might pick that folding boat this time, they'll pretty quickly realise that they should have picked that +1 sword. Heck, again, you have people in this thread who have said that players who choose the folding boat over the +1 sword should be kicked from the group.
I mean, it's no secret that the Big 6 magic items were a thing. And they became a thing because you could buy and sell magic items. If players were "having fun" with magic items, wouldn't we have seen more diversity? Instead, we got character after character with identical equipment - everyone HAS to have that stat boost item, every HAS to have that AC boost and save boost and whatever boost item. Seven years of playing 3e/3.5 and not one player EVER asked to buy Sovereign Glue. About the most out there item I ever saw bought was a Lyre of Building and that's only because we were playing a naval based campaign and in that context, a Lyre of Building is insanely powerful - make your ship 100% impervious to all damage for an hour at no cost with the possibility of further 100% invulnerability with successful skill checks.
Thing is, in 5e, you don't NEED these items. That's the whole point of bounded accuracy, which, AFAIK, actually works. Your character doesn't need those bonuses just to keep up with the scaling monster stats because the monster stats DON'T SCALE. ((Well, other than HP anyway
)). [MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] asks if buying a castle comes with a title. Isn't that up to me, the DM to decide? Do I really need the DMG to give me permission here? Sure, the extra information he asks for, historical castles and whatnot, would be nice, but, jeez, can't I just open up Wikipedia and get the exact same information? It's not 1979 anymore. The DMG is not my primary source of setting information. That's not "make it up", that's DMing 101.
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It's a secret to me! What are the Big 6?
You do not need magic items to engage high CR foes, but unless you run a "Combat as sports, no deaths without the player consent with only balanced encounters" kind of game increasing your chances of winning life threatening encounters above the minimum baseline is still the most prudent thing to do if you intend to continue adventuring. If that is barred what else is there to do with gold? Saving for retirement? As people want to continue playing the game the PC wont retire. Throw it out of the window with carousing or financing whole armies of faceless orphans with it? That gets old very fast. Buy big ticket items with hardly any acknowledgement or existence in the rules except for the price tag to simply do something with the gold?
Thing is, in 5e, you don't NEED these items. That's the whole point of bounded accuracy, which, AFAIK, actually works. Your character doesn't need those bonuses just to keep up with the scaling monster stats because the monster stats DON'T SCALE. ((Well, other than HP anyway
[MENTION=2518]Derren[/MENTION] asks if buying a castle comes with a title. Isn't that up to me, the DM to decide? Do I really need the DMG to give me permission here? Sure, the extra information he asks for, historical castles and whatnot, would be nice, but, jeez, can't I just open up Wikipedia and get the exact same information? It's not 1979 anymore. The DMG is not my primary source of setting information. That's not "make it up", that's DMing 101.
As I said above, just because monsters don't scale all that much doesn't mean that the most logical thing is to not scale yourself either.
And what about the other points? It would be nice if you would address them, too. Or would you use the same answer for them?
How many hours of wikipedia surfing and the time needed to implement whatever you found there into D&D in a balanced (whatever your definition of that is) way for something put into the core books without any support for it do you find acceptable?
By your logic we could scrap the DMG and most of the other books and reduce the rules to "Roll a D20, high roll good, low roll bad, the rest is DMing 101. When it doubt look it up on Wikipedia" as rule books containing any form of advice is apparently only wasted space for something DMs should simply know. Just imagine how much space could have been saved if there would have only been a long list of magic item names without any rules attached to them, just like they did with strongholds.
No matter the motivation the PCs will in most games be professional adventurers who fight monsters again and again and again. You are free to call them soldiers, mercenary, questors of the holy order of the white rose or any other fancy name, but they will regularily fight enemies human and nonhuman ones and their lives depend on winning those fights. So the most sensible thing for them to do is to get better fighting, no matter if their enemies scale or not.
If that is not possible, which is the case without magic item economy and the lack of an equipment progression in D&D, gold loses much of its value. Their lifestyle costs are not that high and there is no real reason to save money. That leaves luxury spending or otherwise "waste" (donate, throw it into wells,...) money.
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FormerlyHemlock
Hero
I agree with the bolded part, and that's why I have no problem with mixing powergaming and roleplaying. (I also think AARs and combat tactics should be a constant subject of in-character conversation among PCs during their short rests, even if the players choose not to play it out.)
However, I cannot comprehend the "there is no real reason to save money" part. Arguendo, money without magic items doesn't help you survive. Poisons and hirelings don't exist. Since there is therefore no opportunity cost to spending money in other ways, why shouldn't they spend the money on something nice like buying slaves their freedom, or funding an orphanage, or helping widows in debt, etc., etc.?
In order for gold to be truly worthless, there has to be nothing interesting to spend it on, and it's a long way from "you can't just hand over 200,000 gp and buy a Girdle of Storm Giant Strength" to "you can't buy magic items at all, ever, anywhere" to "you can't increase your chances of survival in combat, ever, by throwing money at the problem" to "you can't do anything interesting with money, ever, in D&D". If your game focuses exclusively on dungeon crawling combat, and gaining XP is your primary satisfaction criterion, and your GM won't let you spend gold on up-armoring your animated skeletons or buying poisons or bribing monsters to join your party, then yeah, I agree, in that case you might as well leave the gold where you find it and kick down the door to the next 10' x 10' room full of green slimes and dragons. That's a valid way to play, and I personally could have a lot of fun with that style on occasion, if I'm in the mood to play IWD2-in-5E. But that's a pretty niche scenario and not what the base 5E rules assume, so instead they give you things to do with gold. I mean, just look at the equipment tables! Chickens are 1 cp apiece! My necromancer in one game buys whole strings of chickens for a fraction of a gold piece so that he can life drain them as needed via Vampiric Touch to heal 90+ HP with a single 3rd level spell. Or look at the spell tables! Glyph of Warding and Symbol are fantastic spells with the down side of costing a whole lot of money. What would you do with Glyphs of Warding if it had no materials cost? Well, that's what you can do too if you collect lots of gold! Planar Binding! Simulacrum! Even Revivification/Raise Dead/Resurrection! All of these are game-changing ways to use gold, even in combat! Buy poisons that add 12d6 damage and/or paralyzation to each of your attacks each round! Hire hobgoblins instead of killing them! Bribe guards! Bribe kings!
If your DM won't let you do anything fun with gold, that's a DM issue. If you can't think of anything to do with gold except buy magic items, and your DM won't let you do that, that's a player issue.
Salthorae
Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
- I agree this is better suited to wikipedia research than inclusion into a DMG
- This is going to depend entirely on each campaign and DM, why codify something like this?
- See point 2, though I agree on the seige mechanics and hope they are included in later publications
- I agree trade and merchant based money generation is woefullly short in 5e, but I enjoy games where it's almost entirely role playing/intrigue at least as much as I enjoy fighting encounters, so I like games where PC's have businesses
- Same as above
If you google "Big 6 magic items" you'll find a number of threads on the subject. Here is one for you to look at: What are the Big 6?
As I mentioned above, my 9th level Bard has spent over 6500 gp buying, furnishing, and staffing a home in the capital city. I'm currently negotiating with a high priestess of a completely RP True Resurrection my character would like to see happen that has no direct bearing or benefit to my character or his fighting ability. Even if my diplomacy is great it's still going to cost me >15,000 gp probably, which I don't even have yet, so I'll have to continue to adventure to earn that kind of coin. I have supplied books and invested in a burgeoning library an NPC friend would like to open. Other PC's and my character are rebuilding an abandoned keep and trying to draw farmers and such to generate a tax base, that costs gold. Maintaining a wealthy lifestyle isn't actually cheap, 4gp/day x 360-365 days depending on the game world is at least 1440 gp/year needed. I'm finding plenty of things to spend my money on without worrying about buying magic items.
So I am working with my DM to find ways to spend my gold, but also integrate my PC into the game world more, and tell a more full story than just "oh I totally killed stuff".
And there are other PC's in my group who have said on more than one occasion around the table, "what do you spend money on?" They are also the ones who complain that their characters aren't integrated into the world as much as my PC is so far. So yes, it takes a bit more work, but it is far more rewarding than just "I spend gold and now I have a +1 to attack & damage."
So talk to the DM or as DM, make sure you place items to help the characters in combat...
That's not even a fair assessment of what he was saying. I do know people who game that way, and they love it. They also have no need for the DMG. There are many general rules in the DMG that we need to run a game as a DM. But there are many things for games which are so specific to different settings that it would be almost impossible to genericize them and put them in the DMG.
There are enough rules to incorporate a magic item economy into a game world. It might take a DM a little bit of work, but the basics are there. If a DM doesn't think Sovereing glue or universal solvent should be legendary? Problem solved, they are now very rare items worth 5,001 gp. Great. IMO it's 80% of the way done if someone wanted to do magic item economy in their world.
That said, don't tell me there is nothing to use gold on... you're only limited by your imagination and yours and your DM's willingness to create a story that is more than just combat. If just combat is all you want, keep playing 3.x and/or 4e, those were great systems for gearing up and combat heavy games.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Heck, 3.0 had the whole Stronghold builder's Guide with all the nitty gritty you could want. 2e had a Castle Guide too with plots, etc.
5e is a different flavor, a different style, and currently it provides gaps and wiggle room for DM's that 3.x and 4e never did. that may not be your or other's balls of particular wax. Great, but it doesn't mean gold is useless or a throw away.
People need to keep in mind too, we're only the 3 core books into 5e right now. They may release a 5e Stronghold Builder's Guide complete with Trading post and siege rules next year we just haven't heard about it. For now? Yeah, make it up.
In our campaigns, no one PC has gotten more than 3 of those- usually armor, weapon & either a RoP or stat booster- resistance items have been rare, and I don't think we've seen an AoNA at all.
That is odd, since with the way purchasing magic items works in 3e/Pathfinder you would imagine everyone would make sure the had all that stuff all on their own. Not to mention in every published adventure I have seen mid level humanoids had these things falling off of them in droves, I remember in the Pathfinder AP Council of Thieves there was a thieves guild who ever single member had an amulet of natural armor and you fought dozens and dozens of them.
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