D&D General Why would a Druid want money in a “gold for XP” game?

[CapnZapp]

"gold for xp" pretty much assumes characters with a mercenary outlook.

So tell your players to create characters that are greedy enough to personally risk life and limb in order to get rich.

What says a Druid can't want material possessions? Or maybe he wants to populate the lands - in person? Maintaining thirteen wives is not cheap! (Especially when #11 is a silver dragon in elf maid form - she will want you to supply a pretty large hoard if she's gonna stay around!)

In short: if the player can't come up with a reason why a particular class or subclass would enter dungeons in search of gold, then the proper solution is to ask that player to play something else.

It's not like every possible class option must fit every campaign. Just like your idea of playing an angsty dark elf might not work in the DMs campaign world, playing an idealistic nature lover does not easily lend itself to an xp for gold campaign

 

[Don Durito]

Paladins may be an issue also.

 

[CapnZapp]

Paladins may be an issue also.

Yes, but again: instead of just assuming Paladins never want money, invent a reason! Maybe the Paladin is an heiress to a far-away kingdom that was devastated by a magical cataclysm, and now needs lots of funds to rebuild.

The details don't matter, and the kingdom will never feature in the campaign, but suddenly the Paladin is prepared to bend (or break!) her ideals for a greater cause! (A cause that just so happens involves gold by the truck-load )

Again, any player that goes "eww, I don't want to play that kind of Paladin" should be gently directed to play a greedy rogue, or greedy dwarf, or greedy rogue dwarf. Point is: there's no reason to automatically exclude any class or assume there will be problems.

Just be clear what the campaign motivations will be, tell the players its on them to supply the right kind of personalties, and you'll be fine!

 

[Eubani]

They may want to beat civilization at it's own game by for example buying up land so it has legal protections due to the druids ownership.

 

[Hriston]

Ancient Celtic people sacrificed gold and other precious things to their gods by throwing them into lakes and bogs. Maybe have that count as “spending frivolously”?

 

[Shiroiken]

Some ideas:
Buy land for a sanctuary
Hire mercenaries to defend sacred land
Import dangerous beasts to defend sacred land
Pay villagers to import wood, rather than logging

 

[Fanaelialae]

The simplest option might be to donate it all to his Druidic order (if there is one) and let them worry about what it's for. Maybe they use it for conservation, maybe they simply put it back in the ground "where it belongs".

That said, there's nothing to say that a druid couldn't enjoy spending all that gold frivolously by throwing a drunken party (possibly in the woods).

 

[akr71]

Some ideas:
...
Pay villagers to import wood, rather than logging

How about teaching them to sustainable harvest the wood & other resources from the forest. I mean importing wood still requires trees to be cut down somewhere. Or does the druid only care about this particular forest?

 

[Maestrino]

The druid can collect the gold and "spend" it by hoarding it in a bog. And then use it at an appropriate time to flood the market and tank the local kingdom's economy, returning "civilization" to a state of nature.

 

[lowkey13]

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