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

[CapnZapp]

Let me add a fairly important point about having magic item pricing formulas that I haven't seen being discussed here.

When you create a brand new item, having price lists for existing items will not help you beyond a most general "look at similar items" advice.

If, on the other hand, you have pricing formulas for every component of a magic item, you get a much more specific starting point no matter how esoteric or strange the item.

Obviously, the DM still needs to look it over so it makes sense and isn't abusive, but the point of those pricing formulas isn't to get rid of the DM, it is because it adds a fun layer of crunch to the gold-spending phase.

TL;DR: Price lists do nothing for items not in the lists, formulas do.

 

[Kaychsea]

My only quibble with your approach is that there are very few other aspects of the game that have hard and fast rules cast in stone, it seems odd to be so strident in demanding one in this part of it.

 

[Riley37]

My only quibble with your approach is that there are very few other aspects of the game that have hard and fast rules cast in stone, it seems odd to be so strident in demanding one in this part of it.

"ONE LAW FOR ALL! Ambiguity leads to flexibility! Flexibility is BADWRONGFUN!"
- Modrons for Uniform Magic Item Pricing

If you had a fully stocked Thaum-Mart, and you gave gift certificates worth 100,000 GP to each of 100 adventurers, and they each used up all their certificates...

...of the 10M GP worth of magic items they bought, how adventurers bought how many of each item?

Did any of them buy +1 swords? I'm gonna guess that most of them either don't buy a sword, or they buy a +2 or +3 sword, or a sword with a specific power such as vorpal, sharpness, wounding, etc.

If you also gave 10,000 GP worth of gift certificates to a second group of 100 adventures, then of the 1M worth of magic items *those* adventurers bought, how many adventurers bought how many of those items?

Did any of them buy +1 weapons? I'm still guessing no; maybe some daggers of venom.

If you also gave 1000 GP worth of gift certificates to a third group of 100 adventures, then of the 1M worth of magic items *those* adventurers bought, how many adventurers bought how many of those items?

Did any of them buy +1 weapons? At this point, I'm guessing yes, many of them did, because buying a +2 weapon has a larger opportunity cost, as a percentage of the certificates.

Is there a Master of Business Administration in the house, who might evaluate this thought experiment?

 

[KingsRule77]

Is this a real question? The point of gold is to amass enough that you can Scrooge McDuck dive into the fortune you've earned.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Is there a Master of Business Administration in the house, who might evaluate this thought experiment?

Yes- not enough information to draw any conclusions.

 

[CapnZapp]

My only quibble with your approach is that there are very few other aspects of the game that have hard and fast rules cast in stone, it seems odd to be so strident in demanding one in this part of it.

That is a reasonable quibble I'd say.

I would first point out how this would never be a core rule (go check your DMG, I can guarantee it's not there), then underline how important a robust magic pricing model is to any playstyle that has magic marts.

I see it as part of any effort to provide previous-edition support. (Not that much of this sort has materialized yet...)

At least to me, it's the only truly crucial subsystem needed for 5e to offer full 3e/d20 support (that I can't easily fix myself).

 

[S'mon]

IMC:

The Arneson Rule: Typically XP per gp spent on ale, whores, creative fripperies, gifts & tithes, etc. Maximum advancement from carousing is equal to the XP needed to level up, eg a 1st level PC who spends enough can gain 300 XP. Carousing typically lasts 1 week, but maybe longer at high level if vast sums are spent, or shorter if the expenditure is modest, to a minimum of 1 day.
Tier/ gp per 1 XP spent / Time
Lvl 1-4 1:1 1 week
Lvl 5-10 2:1 2 weeks
Lvl 6-16 5:1 3 weeks
Lvl 17-20 10:1 4 weeks

This is a low magic campaign, no way are the PCs buying items beyond healing potions and maybe the
occasional scroll or other potion.

 

[Tellerian Hawke]

I don't want to sound condescending, and it is certainly not my intention to offend, but if your players are asking what gold is for, then you're not being strict enough.

I'm not playing 5E, so I can't speak to how that edition handles things, but...

I am currently running an epic (3.0 Ed) game, where the players have ALL KINDS of expenses:

(Yes, I realize low-level characters will not have many of these expenses, but there's still a lot of stuff for them to pay for, as well.)

There are 5 players in my epic game, hence their group name, "The Fearless Five."

Their lifestyle (3 good meals per day) costs them a lot of money. (a good meal is defined as a meal that features meat, and a good drink, such as wine, beer, coffee, or tea.) That comes to 5 gold per player per day. That means that the group pays 750 gp. per month for that lifestyle. That in and of itself is a FORTUNE in a world with a medieval-style economy. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I don't remember all of the following costs off the top of my head, but here's ROUGHLY what they pay for:

They jointly own a castle (formerly, Maure Castle) and they pay upkeep for it.

Two of the five have armies that they maintain.

One of the five has a monastery, and pays upkeep for it.

One of the five has a small fort, and pays upkeep for it.

One of the five has a MAJOR temple in the City of Greyhawk, and pays upkeep for it.

One of the five has two ships (a sloop, and a barque) that he pays upkeep and docking fees for.

The guy with the ships also pays a skeleton crew to live on the sloop, so that when he wants to go somewhere, he has a crew to command.

All members of the group are Barons; they purchased the westernmost part of the Duchy of Urnst for a cool 3 million gold, and signed trade agreements with both the Duchy and with Greyhawk.

They also paid 1 million each to Greyhawk and to the Duchy of Urnst, as a "Sovereignty Recognition Fee," i.e., their barony is now an officially recognized political entity, with two allies and trading partners.

As part of the trade agreement, the new Barony has agreed to waive import taxes for both Greyhawk and Urnst for the first 25 years of its sovereignty.

The party always does their homework before setting off on dangerous quests; they drop an average of 10,000 gold per adventure on the use of their "Gather Information" skill checks in order to prepare themselves.

Oh, and then, they have to buy material components for spells, and for any magic items they might want to create, as well as paying for incidental expenses, such as bribing NPCs and what-not.

And then there's the cleric, who just bought a 500-volume reference collection of books about spellcraft and religion, so that he could get a +5 to spellcraft and religion checks made while at his temple. That set him back half a mil. (1,000 gp. per book.)

There's more that I'm missing, but like I said, I am working from memory here.

 

[airwalkrr]

I absolutely LOVE that magic items do not have standard market prices in 5e (the same with spellcasting services), and that the DM is encouraged to keep the concept of magic item marts rare via this mechanism. Does it lead to less uniformity in the D&D experience? Sure. But that's the point! Every DM ought to make the world his own. And if a magic item has a price tag on it in a book somewhere then a player is going to feel cheated if the DM charges more or possibly offended if the price is significantly less. (As an aside it is also fantastic that magic items are not an assumed part of the player character's power which leads to a more balanced game within the bounds of what the DM desires.) The entire concept is very empowering to DMs. A DM who loves a fantasy world rich with magic items can set prices for magic items and have magic item shops, even if the prices are decided more or less on the fly. Long-time DMs will eventually have tables or guidelines on pricing in their campaigns. Meanwhile a DM who wants to keep magic items rare and wondrous in his campaign can make each one special and unique, and keep the concept of price tags out.

Personally, as a DM, I think rare magic items are a great chance to set the tone for the setting. And even when I am a player I think the notion of tracking 20 or so magic items on my character sheet is something that gets a little ridiculous. It takes the "magic" out of magic items. I am reminded of a memorable scene in Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue novel, Saga of Old City where Gord enters a dwarf's shop in Greyhawk with much of his ill-gotten coin to see what the dwarf has for sale and is jaw-droppingly astonished that the dwarf has a magical dagger for sale! The two haggle back and forth, especially when the greedy dwarf discovers that Gord is much wealthier than he first seems (I suppose Gord rolled low on his Persuasion check). You get the sense from the scene that the dwarf might have accepted a much lower amount if Gord had failed to show the dwarf how much coin he truly possessed. Not only did the scene reinforce the notion of dwarven green, it showed that magic items for sale in Gary's world of Greyhawk were a truly rare occurrence that mandated a very drawn out negotiation.

By contrast, I recall a scene from one of the Drizz't novels where one of the dark elf's companions (I forget which one), enters a magical shop in Waterdeep and is fascinated by the variety of magic items for sale. This introduces the idea that magic items are plentiful in the Forgotten Realms, if one only knows where to look, but that they are also fantastic, as the shop seemed to be rather unique in Waterdeep. Even further, the shop dealt with a large number of magical tools for adventurers, so the relative oddity of the shop spoke to the rarity of demand for such things in the Forgotten Realms, meaning that adventurers were special, unique, uncommon individuals. It wasn't "Big Box Magic Mart" where numerous adventurers strolled down the isle, rather a hole-in-the-wall affair with an eclectic specialty. Truly Drizz't and his companions were important heroes filling a niche that not many in the Forgotten Realms can fill. It makes heroes much greater by comparison and answers the question: "why can't some other group of adventurers take care of the manticore harassing the village?" Because there aren't that many around! Your character is a unique and powerful individual in the world!

 

[Sunseeker]

TL;DR: Price lists do nothing for items not in the lists, formulas do.

To touch on this, what's problematic is that "magic items" outside of simple things we've all seen a million times before, do non-standard things in game. You can't really create a set of standardized prices for non-standard features. It's like walking into a car dealership and asking how much it would cost to get a cannon or jet engines added on.