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

[Dannyalcatraz]

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.

Well, first of all, as I mentioned upthread, just because something has a price in a game book, doesn't mean it is for sale where you are at a price you can afford. Mundane or magical. And even if it is, you may not be able to buy it for other reasons.

That's not just me, that's the way every guy (at least 6 people, by my recollection) in our group who has run D&D has run his campaigns.

Second, but for one story arc- RttToEE- most adventures in our group are written by the DM.

Other variables factor in as well.

 

[Paraxis]

Well, first of all, as I mentioned upthread, just because something has a price in a game book, doesn't mean it is for sale where you are at a price you can afford. Mundane or magical. And even if it is, you may not be able to buy it for other reasons.

That is a perfectly fine house rule when running 3e/Pathfinder but it is not the rules as written in the book. By the book in large cities you could find almost any magic item for sale.

 

[Wicht]

I disagree - the rich will buy them every time, as will successful businesses, because you could make them 1000gp a pop and they're still cost effective - to the second or third generation. It's not like machines or software, and they break or go obsolete - that magic lantern is till burning 100 years later.

“After the electric light goes into general use, none but the extravagant will burn tallow candles.” - Thomas Edison.

Technology becomes widespread when it becomes the purview of the poor. The same would be true of Magic. Only if Magic was able to be done in a cost effective way, would it become widely available.

That being said, the ability of the rich to buy magic torches does lead into a secondary economic situation, what Terry Pratchet called the 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That is a perfectly fine house rule when running 3e/Pathfinder but it is not the rules as written in the book. By the book in large cities you could find almost any magic item for sale.

1) Basic economics is not a house rule.*

2) Who said the party was in large cities all the time?

3) Just because you are in a large city, it does not mean you know who has what you want to buy.

To return to an example I posted upthread, I play guitar and live in one of the 10 biggest metropolitan areas in the USA. I have over 300 guitar makers (G), a few dozen amp makers (A), and maybe 50 effects pedal makers (P) bookmarked in my iPad. None of those lists is even close to exhaustive.

I can guarantee you that I cannot go into stores here and find any more than 10G, 5A and 12P in any given store. And most overlap their inventories. Sure, se of these companies are small, but many are multinational corporations.

And even so, much of what is out there is only available HERE because of the Internet...even within a brand. Looking at the 2 biggest G brands in the world, Fender and Gibson, perhaps only 33% of the guitar models in each of their production lineups are hanging on a shelf somewhere in this area.

Spinning this back into a campaign world, even in the biggest city of "Fantasy Realm X", no seller's inventory will be complete. And even if he knows someone who DOES have what you want, he may not be interested in telling you where to go to get it.

4) Just because you have the money, doesn't mean you have the legal right to purchase anything you want. Admittedly, this IS a house rule of sorts, but it is one with a strong foundation in the kinds of societies typical of FRPG game worlds. This could result in hugely inflated costs as the party resorts to the black market, or even outright unavailability.

5) Just because it is in a sourcebook, it doesn't mean it exists in the campaign world.









* except, insofar as was pointed out by another enlightened ENWorlder, even gravity is a house rule.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That being said, the ability of the rich to buy magic torches does lead into a secondary economic situation, what Terry Pratchet called the 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

I've lived this in real life. With footwear. Bowling shoes, to be precise.

When you bowl in leagues, you typically buy all the gear you need- shoes & a ball, at least- so you don't have to rent them anymore. However, whereas many of my friends would buy a set of shoes for $20-45 dollars a year, I bought one pair of $120 shoes that have lasted more than a decade.

Hell- I have cowboy boots that are past the 2 decade mark. All I have to do is pay for the occasional re-sole.

And my mom? She is contemplating getting rid of some of her Margaret Jerrold shoes, and I don't think they've been sold in the USA in a quarter century.

 

[Henry]

I've lived this in real life. With footwear. Bowling shoes, to be precise.

When you bowl in leagues, you typically buy all the gear you need- shoes & a ball, at least- so you don't have to rent them anymore. However, whereas many of my friends would buy a set of shoes for $20-45 dollars a year, I bought one pair of $120 shoes that have lasted more than a decade.

Hell- I have cowboy boots that are past the 2 decade mark. All I have to do is pay for the occasional re-sole.

And my mom? She is contemplating getting rid of some of her Margaret Jerrold shoes, and I don't think they've been sold in the USA in a quarter century.

Mason Brand Shoes. I haven't thought about them in 15 years, but it was a brand my dad used to buy, and they lasted him for a decade at a time - real leather, and ffreakin' bulletproof. Your thread made me think of them, and it's time for me to get new shoes. Thanks!

 

[Wicht]

A wise lady shared a rule of shopping that has stuck with me for years: "Cry now or cry later. " Meaning it's often better to cry now over the high price of genuine quality than it is to cry later when the inferior product lets you down.

 

[Ahrimon]

The problem is that 3e let the cat out of the box.

Your attempts to make dnd into a game without a solid magic item economy are cute, but doesn't really change anything.

So your saying that because 3e intruduced a new way of playing the game that we can never change the game? It must be the 3e way from here on out? Sorry, but I don't buy that. 5e is a broader game that supports more players and gives more freedom to the DM to run the game that they want. It goes back to the roots of the story game while keeping modern mechanics. I'll readily agree that it puts more work onto the DMs shoulders, but if that's what it takes to untie the DMs hands then I'll happily accept that burden.

Your attempts to tell everyone that there is only one way to play DnD are cute, but doesn't really change anything.

 

[Ahrimon]

Nope, there is nothing worse than sovereign glue/universal solvent for cost/benefit ratio. There are some things much, much better than it, as mentioned, but if your players are really bad at math and tactics you'll never have to worry about them abusing those items even at DMG prices. (And if you roll the items in the shop from the treasure tables instead of putting everything in the DMG up for sale simultaneously, even those too-cheap items won't cause problems before they won't be available very often.)

If you're bad at encounter guideline math you can use kobold.com. But tossing them entirely is valid too (I do it), as long as you let the players self-pace their encounter difficulty.

If I was running a game where one player acquired a magic sword and another acquired a folding boat I would build the occasional encounter where the sword helped out, and the occasional situation where the boat came in really handy. That way both players see their characters shine due to what they have. Even if all you ever run are published adventures it's not too difficult to alter something a little to let everyone have their moment in the spotlight.

I think too many people approach this from a combat situation as well as a meta situation. A magic sword (+1) may have a 5% more chance to hit, but does the character really know that? Sure it's sharper, lighter, better balanced and an all around better sword, but from an in-game point of view, is it really worth 500 to 2000 gp? If I had 10k gp to spend, sure I'd buy one. But if I've only scrapped together 2k over the last 6 months, I'm not about to blow all of my money on a slightly better sword.

Some keep bringing up the example of how an adventurer would save every cp to always have the best stuff to maximize their lifespan. And while true to a point, there are realistic limits. I work with people every day that are putting their life on the line and while some purchase enhancements to their weapons and their own body armor, they're not the absolute top of the line, they're effective for what they need though. They're still saving money for their family or saving up to buy a house or car though. Sure that $20k weapon may be the absolute best there is, but if they can get 90% of the effectiveness for $5k you can be darn sure that they're only spending $5k. That's why I think the argument that any character would spend everything they have for combat gear falls flat on it's face. The argument is that it's realistic, but then purposefully leaves out every other realistic aspect of a living breathing character.

 

[billd91]

Hmmm...not quite unanimity, but:


Interesting...

Yeah, but pretty easy difference to explain. The former, which includes a weapon, fits the martial character Big 6 and the latter, which doesn't include a weapon but doubles up on the stat booster, fits the single-stat caster.

I strongly suspect the whole "Big 6" thing was an unexpected, emergent aspect of play in the 3e family. While some price differences were clearly planned and calculated to favor defense (resistance bonuses being a lot cheaper than stat bonuses, armor bonuses being half the price of weapon bonuses), I don't think WotC planned on the Big 6 being such a big issue. And I think it all comes down to the magic item/wealth system. The wealth by level expectation put pressure on the players, who particularly wanted to do well in combat with their PCs, to get as much bang out of their buck when equipping themselves - and what better way to do that than investing in a frequently used, constantly functioning bonus?