Especially strongholds! I've found that players generally love having a home base to call their own and customize to their liking. It gives them a tangible connection to the setting, and opens up all kinds of storytelling hooks.
As a forever Wizards, all my money goes to scribing spells and buying scrolls to scribe into my spellbook. Also, for rare and valuable spell components. I love spendable treasure.
Give them a small keep that owes tax's to the local Lord or a ship. Remember boat means break out another thousand. It also increases quest line possiblities.
Let PCs buy potions but nothing more powerful. However, let them donate a fat stack to their temple and get a vision of where to find the item they want. Also, give them XP for buying big-ticket items, like a house, ship, or carriage. You can even give them a bonus to reaction rolls with NPCs by upgrading their lifestyle (a flat cost per adventure)--wearing fancy clothes, staying in fancier inns, eating fancy food, being accompanied by a servant, etc--because that sort of thing makes people like you better.
I once ran an M.I.B. game (using GURPS), where the PCs didn't have to worry about money. Instead, each character had a certain allowance of "credits" that they used to check out equipment. These credits weren't "spent", they were just the total value of equipment they were allowed to have a given time, and they could swap out between missions. If their equipment was lost or destroyed, they would incur a temporary penalty to their allowance. Instead of regular "loot", they would discover alien tech that they could then turn in to be examined and reverse engineered, thus increasing the library of available equipment for the whole team, as well as the organization. Bringing in valuable new tech would be rewarded with an increase in allowance. This could probably be adapted to other settings with a bit of thought.
Great video! I really like your idea of each player putting money into a goal and then getting a feat as a reward from it! I might implement this into the sandbox campaign I'm planning because I was already going to ask every player to come up with some goals for their character.
Ive been thinking of having the players starting equipment be "shoddy", a new equipment modifier that means that anywhere the proficiency bonus is added, it is either halved or not added at all (not sure which yet). So attack rolls and the DC of saving throws. They can also break on a nat 1 but can be repaired easily for a -1 bonus. This should do a few things. First, it incentivises going to a blacksmith to buy a good weapon, or just repairing your shoddy weapon to remove those -1s that might stack up. Secondly it also sometimes forces players to switch to unarmed attacks when they're out of options, maybe the wizard accidentally tore their cheap component pouch and has to resort to fists instead, or the fighter would rather have a higher chance of dealing a small amount of damage so decides to try and kick the kobold instead of swinging their shoddy axe. Finally in relation to this video it also means that the players have an early target for buying things with gold, either to get new weapons or to just remove the shoddy modifier from their current ones I haven't playtested it yet but i feel like it could be fun
I do think player's starting equipment is too good. Instead of adding new mechanics to the game, one thing I sometimes do is start the players out with nothing. For example, starting out shipwrecked, prisoners, or as commoners. That way they can find/buy better and better mundane equipment, which i think feels really cool.
@@beefcereal yeah thats a fair way of doing it but i feel it pigeon-holes the start of a campaign a bit. If that's how your campaign is starting then it makes sense but I wouldn't want it to be prescriptive. Id rather think "im doing a shipwreck start, therefore the players wont have starting equipment" Than "i dont like how strong starting equipment is, therefore im doing a shipwreck"
As Geoffchurchill states below, in 2nd edition AD&D the primary purpose of gold was 1. Henchmen and Followers, Strongholds, Keeps, Wizard Towers, Temples and Druid Groves, and leveling and training your character. I really like your idea on gold for feats, it matches the training idea especially if you use a time element to it. Gold as you said can be used for magic items but I usually only allow one shot or limited use items for buying and selling. Taxes and Cost of living expenses are only done once a month based on how each pc states they want to live. Live like a beggar 1gp a month [% chance of contracting disease or being arrested for being a vagrant], Live frugally, 10 gps per week, Live in high society 10gps per week per level. or Live like a king 25gps per wk per level. This includes taxes, food, lodging and upkeep on equipment and normal steeds. Lastly, Gold was used for XP pack in the day though I never really cared for that aspect of it.
Build a castle, rebuild a town destroyed by a dragon, bribe a free company, become a spymaster, buy a ship, buy an island, hire servants, build an army.
As a wizard, spending it on learning spells from scrolls (please let there be scrolls, or have the enemy wizard carry their spellbook with them), or all the good spell components, especially later a lot of spells randomly cost hundreds, if not thousands of gold.
I found that my players love role playing at restaurants and taverns and will spend ludicrous amounts of money doing that. Enough so I got plastic pirate coins to represent the in-game money (it comes in copper/silver/gold). It helps reduce the amount of math they need to do and let me actually enforce them paying for stuff. The downside though is that you have to be creative with large sums of money. So I’ve been making trade bars and writs of credit like the DMG talks about too.
One thing I've done to increase the value of coin (literally), is add a zero to the conversion rate. 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold. Almost everything in the PHB stays the same listed price, bot is now that much more valuable. The PCs also have the option of buying or renting their own housing instead of paying for rooms at inns. I also agree with "no magic item shops". Earning magical items from adventuring and exploration is much more memorable and rewarding than purchasing them from the local store.
"Earning magical items from adventuring and exploration is much more memorable and rewarding than purchasing them from the local store." sure if your DM is good at choosing magic items to give...i've never had one that was. usually they make it something they personally think is cool, rather than something that would help their players out (well...there was one time when the DM gave me an arcane grimoire +2 from a night hag's library. i made heavy use of that and he lamented that he could almost never beat my save DC...he eventually had some guards take it from me to try and placate the night hag who was now killing random people and leaving notes implicating me...i miss that book...but i woulda felt the same if i bought it i bought my all purpose tool and i frikken love it...i want a +2 version)
Good points. Two more outlets for gold I personally like are logistics (similar to taxes, but here with the addition of choice or challenge) and luxury.
Honestly encourage them to set up domains like a keep, tavern, temple, or something appropriate to their background. It's a money sink since they'll need to improve it and pay staff and it's something they can enjoy designing/creating. It also provides potential future plot hooks with things like the keep being threatened, stuff going behind the scenes in the tavern, etc.
Originally D&D was an addendum to a wargaming campaign sapping player's resources with troop costs, henchmen, hirelings, fortifications costs, stewards, etc. Also raiding a dungeon involved bringing a large retinue of camp followers & fighter/guards who would be looking after animals, armour, weapons, getting you onto your horse, patching you up afterwards. An endless sink.
Check out the rules in Shadowdark for Carousing. It shouldn't be too hard to translate over to any D20 game. The carousing rules actually give the players reasons to look forward to blowing money in a tavern, church, brothel, or what have you. It's even got rules for players that want to donate money to a cause. Basically it gives mechanical and story based events for the players to encounter while partying. Depending on what they're doing, how much they spend, and how they roll, they could gain XP, a follower, a favor, or a mysterious item. Not all results are positive, and carousing can land the players in hot water with the local rulers, or a duel, etc. It can make for really fun and memorable events if handled well, gives players neat stories or roleplay challenges, and encourages them to spend money.
Ive slapped a whole colony sim element onto my game that both gives the players something to do during downtime, as well as something to do with their gold. Ive basically kit bashed "Strongholds and Followers" with the Noble House rules from the "Song of Ice and Fire RPG"
The hard part is martial classes. Making casters spend money is easy. If the martial character refuses to build a castle or fortress, they just wind up with so much money. I've taken to making them worry about security more--ruthlessly enforcing encumbrance, minimizing easily accessible portable; holes, nags of holding. A platinum piece shortage helps make the 'gold storage' problem even more pronounced. Developing your own horde of treasure attracts thieves. Banks--well, they charge money in these settings. Land, goods, property is the best way to secure money. Titles, influence, standing forces also eat money.
A lot of the issue with treasure is that the DM gets the bright idea to have the nearest seller of +1 weapons be 40 days travel away, and doing the variant encumbrance rule so the 8 strength wizard can only carry 40 lB (or 2,000 GP) AND have the adventure in a marshland, where wagons can not travel.
You have to be careful with this one, but as another "tax" you can require upkeep, maintenance/repairs for equipment. Depending on the setting and style of the game this might even extend to the PC's vehicles (wagons, ships, etc). Ideally, they should have more things that they want to spend money on than they have money for. This way, they constantly have to decide what is more important. Maybe, instead of giving +2 weapons/armor, give them +1 weapons and let them buy expendable charms that can temporarily boost a bonus by +1. This is similar to buying potions or scrolls.
There's all sorts of things the players can do with their gold. I link it to downtime activity. They can use gold to pay an expert or master to train them in new skills. They can become entrepreneurs. If they are powerful and influential they can build a stronghold. They can use it to pay for henchmen who travel and explore with them.
I usually solve this problem for my DMs. A "base" is not nearly enough for me, so instead of a mansion, castle or tower, I will spend ludicrous amounts of gold to build actual settlements around my base. You can customize access to certain resources that way. One of my characters accidentally became a king like this
My Pathfinder ex-slave Rogue/Swashbuckler likes to buy a share of an inn as a silent partner, to give his some income and gave bolt holes to hide if people come after for him!
I like to give them a base to keep up or rebuild. If a character is charitable they will often get a bonus or boon after several sessions of donations or work. I like the feat idea, I'll probably use that next.
They can spend money to buy : - a magical rune or spell to upgrade their gear. - they can buy resurrection spells, stones, runes. - they can bribe people to their advantage. - they can buy a ship. - they can buy a house. - buy a castle. - buy a royal title. - help the poor. - rise and army. Obviously all those things will be super expensive and need a lot of hard work to get. An alternative for money is money = victory points at the end of the campaign.
I, personally, provide more things for my players to spend gold on. Houses, businesses, vacations, servants, airships, planar travel, information/services... at the end of the day, gold is a utility just like spell slots or hit points. They are there to be spent on something, you just need to provide things for it to be spent on that make sense in the game. Just like with hit points and spell slots, the thing it's used on doesn't have to last forever. Did they buy a mansion? Have a BBEG destroy it in a revenge plot against the players. Have them need to travel to a plane that doesn't technically exist and need a bunch of expensive things that are consumed in the ritual to open the portal. Even have a temporary army able to be purchased for your players to use against the BBEGs army. Their amount of gold should be a thing that constantly increases and decreases and it's up to you, the DM, to make sure that happens. The other thing I'd like to do, but haven't done because my players are against it, is decrease the value of money so that 100 copper makes up a silver piece and 100 silver makes up a gold piece, etc.
Many spells have a one time material component. That alone won’t solve all the excess gold problems but it’s a first step. Enforce material component ESPECIALLY when the component is consumed. Revivify is 300 gp diamond a pop. Find Familiar is 10 gp plus you specify need a brass brazier. Greater Restoration (one of the few ways to clearing exhaustion, curses, and petrification) costs 100 gp. If a character is dead longer than one minute then you’ll need anywhere from 500 to 25,000 gp. Wizards can be also a massive money sink if you play them RAW. It takes money to buy the scrolls and spell books. It takes money to transcribe those scrolls and books. Many spell have costly material component. PHB 187 has ideas for downtime. Training costs 1 gp per day at like 250 days. They would also need to spend money on rent/lodging and food during that time. But the biggest money sink is buying property/building. Stuff (DMG 128). A simple Guard haul costs 5,000 gp. A small castle, keep, or a temple cost 50,000 gp. While as a palace or large castle costs a WHOPPING 500,000 gp.
I play cyberpunk red at my table. My players love money. Money is substantially more useful in Red than DnD. There's rent to pay, therapy to go to, properties to buy. Tons of important, meaningful money sinks. Money is very temporary and it's hard to accumulate lots of it.
@beefcereal yeah lmao. That is kinda funny if you're not familiar with cyberpunk. Most characters in cyberpunk are some degree of cyborg, and every time you install new cyberware it brings your "Humanity" level down. You do therapy to raise it back up, which takes time and money. If your humanity stat lowers to 0, your character goes "cyberpsycho" and you lose your characger, and the game master gets to play them as a crazy person now loose in the city
@@henryrice9263 until he said something i didn't even think it was odd. but i've played cyberpunk 2020 and cyberpunk red, so i'm familiar with the mechanic.
Titles of nobility. Each title has 20lvs that can only be leveled up by spending gold and to advance to the next title you need a certain amount of gold in your treasury and control over a certin amount of land. The land may be obtained through any means but must be held for at least a year before advancing to the next rank of nobility. Also each title grants a boon of some sort. (Most of my players choose to conquer the wilderness instead of making enemies in court.)
Gold may seem like one of those things that's too much trouble to keep up with, especially in these math-averse times, but it can be really *rewarding* if you're willing to work to make it meaningful. But I understand that resource management (the hidden pillar of D&D) is not for everyone. And maybe let them buy magic items, but only on a custom basis. They'd have to place an order and wait days/weeks/months for it to be made. It will keep them from being frivolous, and you can guarantee they'll value that item much more than anything off the shelf. Love the goal idea btw.
Give the players a magic item that costs them gold/silver. This statue can answer any question they ask, but only after they put a coin in. Now if the players meta game it won't/can't answer. "Who is the Big Bad Evil Guy?" it won't answer. "Where is X from my backstory" They're in the town of Grey harbor. "Where is grey harbor?" The statue says "travel 1.82 million steps south east, and 57.2 million steps south." So some answers will be near useless/waste of money, but some answers super valuable.
The 100GP x Level doesn't work after level 5, because at the level 5, level 11, level 17 tier of play changes, things become exponentially more expensive and the amount of gold ends up not affording much. Treasure tables account for this already. What I do for gold is bring back the rule of getting XP for each equivalent GP retrieved and split evenly amongst the party of old school D&D, while cutting monster XP in half. This incentivizes earning treasure and exploring over killing monsters, making the treasure objectives for dungeons as well as treasure encumbrance a little more fun as players try to retrieve as much as they can while assessing risks and challenges. Originally this was 1XP per GP, but because of how much XP is needed on a level up in comparison to treasure table I switched it to 2XP per GP. Now Gold is exciting because it can represent their experience in dungeoneering and their ability to level up. When they have enough to level up they also have to spend an amount of gold and a week of downtime, which scales by tier of play, representing all their training, studying, carousing, and component expenses for the next level of features and spells as well as spreading renown of their adventuring deeds. This built in downtime training to level up also paces the campaign automatically to allow other downtime activities which all are good expenditures of treasure.
My method of stocking treasure is a budget to give out through a single dungeon level based on the total XP needed to level up. - 1-2: 1/2 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level (before division) + 25% of that in headroom (to accommodate not finding it). The other 1/2 is spent on total monster XP. - 3-4: 1/4 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level + 25% headroom + 1/4 Total XP spent on total monster XP - 5-8: 1/5 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level + 25% headroom + 1/5 Total XP spent on total monster XP - 9-10: 1/6 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/6 Total XP spent on total monster XP - 11-16: 1/7 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/7 Total XP spent on total monster XP - 17-20: 1/8 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/8 Total XP spent on total monster XP I typically make dungeon levels 12-20 rooms (20-40 if it's a megadungeon), 1/3 of them being monsters (1/2 with treasure), 1/3 being empty (1/6 with treasure), 1/6 being traps (1/3 with treasure), 1/6 being special. I still use treasure tables to generate what is in the treasure using the above guidelines for my total budget. If the monster budget XP makes the dungeon level too difficult for the number of rooms it has, I just turn the remainder to treasure or use it as a budget for restocking monsters on multiple visits. It maps roughly to session-based advancement but to dungeon levels, rewarding those that explore more with faster level up.
Maybe let them pay for training on skills as well? Give them bonuses to their skill checks after they spend say... 200 gold to pay for a mentors training. Give them an the ability to get up to +3 in a skill via training at different costs, likely 200, 400 and 600 (novice, apprentice, expert) and you could capstone it with an expertise at 1000 but require all previous costs first?
I am about to start a campaign where in order to earn XP, the PCs must spend gold. 1 GP spent = 1 XP. Gold spent on Lifestyle and gambling do not contribute to XP.
I've found the secret to making players less like to want to buy those powerful magic items. In my world the elven city has a shop called "Magigal's Magical Menagerie" it is an adult themed magic shop not suitable for younger races!
It's not a full-on solution but having things cost more or less than listed. Like if you make a d6 table with things like 'workers strike - costs 10% more' and 'surplus - costs 5% less'.
@@tuseroni6085 That sounds cool. Now I'm thinking maybe rolling and adding a d8 or 10 (or d100 on big purchases?) might be even faster than doing the math. I might have to try this
Insert the critical gold horizon (I think that was what it was called) once someone has amassed too much gold a dragon will decend upon them to take it for their hoard. And this isn’t just a problem for the players, have cities be very carefull about how much gold is within its walls 😂
This is more of a system issue. You dont run into the problem of having too much money in pathfinder, 3.5, and earlier editions. However, 5e presents a pretty specific type of game, heroic fantasy. Nearly superhero like in their adventures and abilites lots of characters could easily be compared to someone like Thor...when does Thor ever go and spend lots of gold? He doesn't. Hes got his magic gear and fights giant monsters.
PC not DM, gold is so meaningless in every campaign I've done, I've started writing my characters completely uninterested in it. I've done 2 evil character, one who was a monk from a monastery who only cared about gaining favours and being praised by others. Whenever a quest giver offered gold I rejected it, instead I sought out powerful items and stuff. Second character was similar, except she'd spent her life surviving a dangerous jungle, any money I did get and the DM asked what stalls or ships I was looking for to spend, Id ask for the shadiest scammiest looking vendor and just drop hundreds of gold on literal crap.
Good luck paying taxes on the fancy gear you own. The tax collector would just take some. Nice magic boots. Can you pay for them? No? That is a shame. Take his boots.
@@benniguds Great! I love that game! The players are outlaws and the king is hunting them. Every town has a wanted board with their faces and names! Wizards track them using magic. Heroes attempt to capture or kill them. Other bandits treat them like brothers, or turn them in for the insane bounty!
Gold? Most treasure is in silver and copper. Gold is rare. 90% of transactions are in silver and copper. A barrel of silver weighs about 250lbs and is worth about 1150gp. That same barrel of Copper is worth only 115gp! Imagine having 2 barrels of silver and 5 barrels of copper. Less than 3k in gold! Weights 1750lbs. Give them the treasure. They can always trade coper for silver. -10%. Then from silver to gold. -20%. Then tax them. Taxes on copper is only 10%. Taxes on silver is 20%. Taxes on gold is 10%. Magical items are 10% (of actual value) Gems are 5%. Gear is only 2%. Weapons and Armor are special. For adventurers it is 50%. For everyone else it is only 2%. Taxes are subject to change and do not apply to nobles. They pay different taxes. I did not write the rules. Blame the nobles. I just enforce them. At spearpoint if necessary. Just pay what you owe. The crown thanks you for your service in these difficult times.
You never even covered spending gold on property, a home base. be it a tavern or a castle. anything works. Let the players spend all thier money into having the most awesome tavern and have it generate a little gold over time, not more than they spend on it but it gives the players the idea that their characters are set for life with that income.
2:14 "each character should earn gold equal to their level * 100." The implication here is that this is the total money PCs earn per level, not per adventure, not per day, not per X days or X dungeons, just gold per level. Now the question is how fast to they level? The leveling rate in essence effects the value of gold and money, which is very absurd. I think GMs aspiring to create a believable setting must consider the value of a day's work in their game setting's economy and base rewards off that. For a (sort of) real world example, let's say I earn $100.00 per day as a first level employee, but a tenth level employee makes $1,000.00 per day. Assuming 260 workdays in a year, the first level employee earns $26,000.00 a year, and the tenth level employee earns $260,000.00 per year. Ask yourself what does this say about your economy? What does this say about the difference between a first level and tenth level character, and the rarity of such characters? Does it sound reasonable for a fourth level employee to be earning 100k a year? That means in just three promotions, you're going from not quite minimum wage to six figures. Those are some pretty meaty pay raises. Ask yourself if 26k a year sounds like much incentive for you personally to go crawling into caves to fight goblins to the death. Is 260k a year worth a fight against a dragon and his cult of dragon fanatics?
I think we are thinking about money a bit differently in D&D. One thing you seem to be assuming that a single gold piece is roughly equal to one modern day US dollar, which is not the case in my world, and I don't think makes sense based on the prices given by the player's handbook. As an example, look at a heavy crossbow, which would be the height of military technology in the late medieval ages. The modern day equivalent is probably something like an elephant gun, which could cost you several thousand dollars, not fifty dollars. Based on this and some other comparisons I've looked into, a better exchange rate would be closer to 1 gp = $100. It's not a perfect exchange because D&D's economy is very different from our own, but it does the job well enough. I also do not level up my party at a rate of once per in-game day. Maybe I'm misreading that, but that's what it seems like you're implying with your employee salary example. In my games it's more like one level up every two to four weeks, sometimes longer. With these numbers, a first level adventurer would make over $150,000 a year. If anything that might actually be too much. Of course you can do whatever you want at your table, I'm not trying to tell you how to play your game, just letting you know what worked for me. My rule of thumb is also based more on making the mechanics of the game work properly, with the realism of the economy being the second priority.
@@beefcereal I am definitely not comparing *the value* of gold to *the value* of a US dollar. My use of US dollars is for demonstrative purposes only and is indented to show how awarding money per level gets extreme very rapidly, and as an example, US dollars only works if you have a concept of the value of a US dollar anyway. All trade comes down to the value of the labor and scarcity of resources. My main point was that a GM should consider the value of a day's labor when establishing how money works in their setting. If your setting uses GP, then the value of gp needs to feel fair for one day's labor. That means that the cost of food, water, and shelter for one day needs to be less than one day's worth of labor or else no one would participate in the system and society would collapse utterly. In the 5e PBH, there is no line item that I can see that says 1 day's labor = X gp, but the Services table on page 159 shows that a skilled hireling earns 10 times more per day than an unskilled hireling. The Lifestyle Expenses table on page 157 shows that if your cost of living amounts to 2 gp per day, then you're living comfortably, which means a skilled hireling can live comfortably, but can't earn a savings, and I don't see the cost of living for their family. This makes me start to question the economics of the game which challenges my suspension of disbelief and my immersion. I can only conclude that MOST people in D&D settings are DEPRESSINGLY BROKE. If you're awarding players 100 gp * their level over the entire course of that level, then there's still an economy breaking amount of money being thrown around depending on the value of a day's labor. Let's say you award each player 100 gp * their level. By level 10, the player has earned 55,000 gp. If it takes them 1 year to get to level 10, this works out to a 150 gp per day. If the average laborer earns 1 gp per day, then the PCs earn 150 times the average income of people in the setting. If I use US dollars again for a moment, the average earnings in America are $60,000 per year. A person who earns 150 times that is earning $219 million a year. This should put your adventurer's wealth into perspective. In other words, if you really think about the money in your make-believe elf game, you're going to drive yourself mad like I have. The purpose of all this is to consider how filthy effing rich a party of adventurers are and why your world governments should be lining up to smite them so that they don't buy all the debt and own everything and everyone. Your proposed gp * level solution is actually MORE TAME than in legacy editions of D&D.
You could make a _real_ whacky slope by using the old school rules where you got an experience point for each gold piece of treasure acquired on top of scaled gold
One word, roleplay. But gamers never want to buy a cool new house. Never want to go out and eat fine foods. No reason to get cool clothing. Like in the real world. No chance to go on great vacations. Nothing to buy like games and stereos. And that's sad.
the old school way to spend money - Strongholds and Followers
Was just about to introduce some hirelings to my party. Now I will make them money sinks :)
i was just about to comment this.
@@tuseroni6085 I remember saving up in Basic for sailing ships
Especially strongholds! I've found that players generally love having a home base to call their own and customize to their liking. It gives them a tangible connection to the setting, and opens up all kinds of storytelling hooks.
As a forever Wizards, all my money goes to scribing spells and buying scrolls to scribe into my spellbook. Also, for rare and valuable spell components. I love spendable treasure.
Give them a small keep that owes tax's to the local Lord or a ship. Remember boat means break out another thousand. It also increases quest line possiblities.
Let PCs buy potions but nothing more powerful. However, let them donate a fat stack to their temple and get a vision of where to find the item they want. Also, give them XP for buying big-ticket items, like a house, ship, or carriage. You can even give them a bonus to reaction rolls with NPCs by upgrading their lifestyle (a flat cost per adventure)--wearing fancy clothes, staying in fancier inns, eating fancy food, being accompanied by a servant, etc--because that sort of thing makes people like you better.
I once ran an M.I.B. game (using GURPS), where the PCs didn't have to worry about money. Instead, each character had a certain allowance of "credits" that they used to check out equipment. These credits weren't "spent", they were just the total value of equipment they were allowed to have a given time, and they could swap out between missions. If their equipment was lost or destroyed, they would incur a temporary penalty to their allowance.
Instead of regular "loot", they would discover alien tech that they could then turn in to be examined and reverse engineered, thus increasing the library of available equipment for the whole team, as well as the organization. Bringing in valuable new tech would be rewarded with an increase in allowance.
This could probably be adapted to other settings with a bit of thought.
The credits system sounds a lot like the License Levels from the Lancer TTRPG
Great video! I really like your idea of each player putting money into a goal and then getting a feat as a reward from it! I might implement this into the sandbox campaign I'm planning because I was already going to ask every player to come up with some goals for their character.
Ive been thinking of having the players starting equipment be "shoddy", a new equipment modifier that means that anywhere the proficiency bonus is added, it is either halved or not added at all (not sure which yet). So attack rolls and the DC of saving throws. They can also break on a nat 1 but can be repaired easily for a -1 bonus.
This should do a few things. First, it incentivises going to a blacksmith to buy a good weapon, or just repairing your shoddy weapon to remove those -1s that might stack up. Secondly it also sometimes forces players to switch to unarmed attacks when they're out of options, maybe the wizard accidentally tore their cheap component pouch and has to resort to fists instead, or the fighter would rather have a higher chance of dealing a small amount of damage so decides to try and kick the kobold instead of swinging their shoddy axe. Finally in relation to this video it also means that the players have an early target for buying things with gold, either to get new weapons or to just remove the shoddy modifier from their current ones
I haven't playtested it yet but i feel like it could be fun
I do think player's starting equipment is too good. Instead of adding new mechanics to the game, one thing I sometimes do is start the players out with nothing. For example, starting out shipwrecked, prisoners, or as commoners. That way they can find/buy better and better mundane equipment, which i think feels really cool.
@@beefcereal yeah thats a fair way of doing it but i feel it pigeon-holes the start of a campaign a bit. If that's how your campaign is starting then it makes sense but I wouldn't want it to be prescriptive. Id rather think "im doing a shipwreck start, therefore the players wont have starting equipment" Than "i dont like how strong starting equipment is, therefore im doing a shipwreck"
As Geoffchurchill states below, in 2nd edition AD&D the primary purpose of gold was 1. Henchmen and Followers, Strongholds, Keeps, Wizard Towers, Temples and Druid Groves, and leveling and training your character. I really like your idea on gold for feats, it matches the training idea especially if you use a time element to it. Gold as you said can be used for magic items but I usually only allow one shot or limited use items for buying and selling. Taxes and Cost of living expenses are only done once a month based on how each pc states they want to live. Live like a beggar 1gp a month [% chance of contracting disease or being arrested for being a vagrant], Live frugally, 10 gps per week, Live in high society 10gps per week per level. or Live like a king 25gps per wk per level. This includes taxes, food, lodging and upkeep on equipment and normal steeds. Lastly, Gold was used for XP pack in the day though I never really cared for that aspect of it.
Build a castle, rebuild a town destroyed by a dragon, bribe a free company, become a spymaster, buy a ship, buy an island, hire servants, build an army.
As a wizard, spending it on learning spells from scrolls (please let there be scrolls, or have the enemy wizard carry their spellbook with them), or all the good spell components, especially later a lot of spells randomly cost hundreds, if not thousands of gold.
I found that my players love role playing at restaurants and taverns and will spend ludicrous amounts of money doing that.
Enough so I got plastic pirate coins to represent the in-game money (it comes in copper/silver/gold). It helps reduce the amount of math they need to do and let me actually enforce them paying for stuff. The downside though is that you have to be creative with large sums of money. So I’ve been making trade bars and writs of credit like the DMG talks about too.
One thing I've done to increase the value of coin (literally), is add a zero to the conversion rate. 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold. Almost everything in the PHB stays the same listed price, bot is now that much more valuable. The PCs also have the option of buying or renting their own housing instead of paying for rooms at inns.
I also agree with "no magic item shops". Earning magical items from adventuring and exploration is much more memorable and rewarding than purchasing them from the local store.
50 coins weigh a pound. A gold piece in your games in copper coins weighs 200lbs! lmao
"Earning magical items from adventuring and exploration is much more memorable and rewarding than purchasing them from the local store." sure if your DM is good at choosing magic items to give...i've never had one that was. usually they make it something they personally think is cool, rather than something that would help their players out (well...there was one time when the DM gave me an arcane grimoire +2 from a night hag's library. i made heavy use of that and he lamented that he could almost never beat my save DC...he eventually had some guards take it from me to try and placate the night hag who was now killing random people and leaving notes implicating me...i miss that book...but i woulda felt the same if i bought it i bought my all purpose tool and i frikken love it...i want a +2 version)
@@davidbeppler3032Add up & weight how many copper pennies it would take to buy one gold coin in real life. Inflation rears its ugly head 😅
Xp for gold is a solution.
Good points. Two more outlets for gold I personally like are logistics (similar to taxes, but here with the addition of choice or challenge) and luxury.
Excellent idea about the goals, will be implementing it in the next campaign I run
Honestly encourage them to set up domains like a keep, tavern, temple, or something appropriate to their background. It's a money sink since they'll need to improve it and pay staff and it's something they can enjoy designing/creating. It also provides potential future plot hooks with things like the keep being threatened, stuff going behind the scenes in the tavern, etc.
Originally D&D was an addendum to a wargaming campaign sapping player's resources with troop costs, henchmen, hirelings, fortifications costs, stewards, etc. Also raiding a dungeon involved bringing a large retinue of camp followers & fighter/guards who would be looking after animals, armour, weapons, getting you onto your horse, patching you up afterwards. An endless sink.
Check out the rules in Shadowdark for Carousing. It shouldn't be too hard to translate over to any D20 game. The carousing rules actually give the players reasons to look forward to blowing money in a tavern, church, brothel, or what have you. It's even got rules for players that want to donate money to a cause. Basically it gives mechanical and story based events for the players to encounter while partying. Depending on what they're doing, how much they spend, and how they roll, they could gain XP, a follower, a favor, or a mysterious item. Not all results are positive, and carousing can land the players in hot water with the local rulers, or a duel, etc. It can make for really fun and memorable events if handled well, gives players neat stories or roleplay challenges, and encourages them to spend money.
Ive slapped a whole colony sim element onto my game that both gives the players something to do during downtime, as well as something to do with their gold. Ive basically kit bashed "Strongholds and Followers" with the Noble House rules from the "Song of Ice and Fire RPG"
The hard part is martial classes. Making casters spend money is easy. If the martial character refuses to build a castle or fortress, they just wind up with so much money. I've taken to making them worry about security more--ruthlessly enforcing encumbrance, minimizing easily accessible portable; holes, nags of holding. A platinum piece shortage helps make the 'gold storage' problem even more pronounced. Developing your own horde of treasure attracts thieves. Banks--well, they charge money in these settings. Land, goods, property is the best way to secure money. Titles, influence, standing forces also eat money.
A lot of the issue with treasure is that the DM gets the bright idea to have the nearest seller of +1 weapons be 40 days travel away, and doing the variant encumbrance rule so the 8 strength wizard can only carry 40 lB (or 2,000 GP) AND have the adventure in a marshland, where wagons can not travel.
Very cool thumbnail. A great thumbnail, probably one of the best I’ve seen. No one does better thumbnails. Hey nice thumbnail
Thanks! We fired our last thumbnail guy and replaced him with an AI model trained on repeated viewings of Tommy Wiseau's The Room.
You have to be careful with this one, but as another "tax" you can require upkeep, maintenance/repairs for equipment. Depending on the setting and style of the game this might even extend to the PC's vehicles (wagons, ships, etc).
Ideally, they should have more things that they want to spend money on than they have money for. This way, they constantly have to decide what is more important.
Maybe, instead of giving +2 weapons/armor, give them +1 weapons and let them buy expendable charms that can temporarily boost a bonus by +1. This is similar to buying potions or scrolls.
There's all sorts of things the players can do with their gold. I link it to downtime activity. They can use gold to pay an expert or master to train them in new skills. They can become entrepreneurs. If they are powerful and influential they can build a stronghold. They can use it to pay for henchmen who travel and explore with them.
I usually solve this problem for my DMs. A "base" is not nearly enough for me, so instead of a mansion, castle or tower, I will spend ludicrous amounts of gold to build actual settlements around my base. You can customize access to certain resources that way. One of my characters accidentally became a king like this
My Pathfinder ex-slave Rogue/Swashbuckler likes to buy a share of an inn as a silent partner, to give his some income and gave bolt holes to hide if people come after for him!
Jewelry, clothing, mounts, food, entertainment, vehicles, land and titles, businesses, castle/keep, artwork, magic items, spells, etc.
I like to give them a base to keep up or rebuild. If a character is charitable they will often get a bonus or boon after several sessions of donations or work. I like the feat idea, I'll probably use that next.
They can spend money to buy :
- a magical rune or spell to upgrade their gear.
- they can buy resurrection spells, stones, runes.
- they can bribe people to their advantage.
- they can buy a ship.
- they can buy a house.
- buy a castle.
- buy a royal title.
- help the poor.
- rise and army.
Obviously all those things will be super expensive and need a lot of hard work to get.
An alternative for money is money = victory points at the end of the campaign.
I, personally, provide more things for my players to spend gold on. Houses, businesses, vacations, servants, airships, planar travel, information/services... at the end of the day, gold is a utility just like spell slots or hit points. They are there to be spent on something, you just need to provide things for it to be spent on that make sense in the game. Just like with hit points and spell slots, the thing it's used on doesn't have to last forever. Did they buy a mansion? Have a BBEG destroy it in a revenge plot against the players. Have them need to travel to a plane that doesn't technically exist and need a bunch of expensive things that are consumed in the ritual to open the portal. Even have a temporary army able to be purchased for your players to use against the BBEGs army. Their amount of gold should be a thing that constantly increases and decreases and it's up to you, the DM, to make sure that happens.
The other thing I'd like to do, but haven't done because my players are against it, is decrease the value of money so that 100 copper makes up a silver piece and 100 silver makes up a gold piece, etc.
Many spells have a one time material component. That alone won’t solve all the excess gold problems but it’s a first step.
Enforce material component ESPECIALLY when the component is consumed.
Revivify is 300 gp diamond a pop.
Find Familiar is 10 gp plus you specify need a brass brazier.
Greater Restoration (one of the few ways to clearing exhaustion, curses, and petrification) costs 100 gp.
If a character is dead longer than one minute then you’ll need anywhere from 500 to 25,000 gp.
Wizards can be also a massive money sink if you play them RAW. It takes money to buy the scrolls and spell books. It takes money to transcribe those scrolls and books. Many spell have costly material component.
PHB 187 has ideas for downtime. Training costs 1 gp per day at like 250 days. They would also need to spend money on rent/lodging and food during that time.
But the biggest money sink is buying property/building. Stuff (DMG 128). A simple Guard haul costs 5,000 gp. A small castle, keep, or a temple cost 50,000 gp. While as a palace or large castle costs a WHOPPING 500,000 gp.
I play cyberpunk red at my table. My players love money. Money is substantially more useful in Red than DnD. There's rent to pay, therapy to go to, properties to buy. Tons of important, meaningful money sinks. Money is very temporary and it's hard to accumulate lots of it.
I'm sorry, you have to go to therapy in game?
@beefcereal yeah lmao. That is kinda funny if you're not familiar with cyberpunk. Most characters in cyberpunk are some degree of cyborg, and every time you install new cyberware it brings your "Humanity" level down. You do therapy to raise it back up, which takes time and money.
If your humanity stat lowers to 0, your character goes "cyberpsycho" and you lose your characger, and the game master gets to play them as a crazy person now loose in the city
@@henryrice9263 until he said something i didn't even think it was odd. but i've played cyberpunk 2020 and cyberpunk red, so i'm familiar with the mechanic.
Titles of nobility.
Each title has 20lvs that can only be leveled up by spending gold and to advance to the next title you need a certain amount of gold in your treasury and control over a certin amount of land. The land may be obtained through any means but must be held for at least a year before advancing to the next rank of nobility. Also each title grants a boon of some sort. (Most of my players choose to conquer the wilderness instead of making enemies in court.)
Gold may seem like one of those things that's too much trouble to keep up with, especially in these math-averse times, but it can be really *rewarding* if you're willing to work to make it meaningful. But I understand that resource management (the hidden pillar of D&D) is not for everyone. And maybe let them buy magic items, but only on a custom basis. They'd have to place an order and wait days/weeks/months for it to be made. It will keep them from being frivolous, and you can guarantee they'll value that item much more than anything off the shelf. Love the goal idea btw.
Give the players a magic item that costs them gold/silver. This statue can answer any question they ask, but only after they put a coin in. Now if the players meta game it won't/can't answer. "Who is the Big Bad Evil Guy?" it won't answer. "Where is X from my backstory" They're in the town of Grey harbor. "Where is grey harbor?" The statue says "travel 1.82 million steps south east, and 57.2 million steps south." So some answers will be near useless/waste of money, but some answers super valuable.
Eh... No
The 100GP x Level doesn't work after level 5, because at the level 5, level 11, level 17 tier of play changes, things become exponentially more expensive and the amount of gold ends up not affording much. Treasure tables account for this already.
What I do for gold is bring back the rule of getting XP for each equivalent GP retrieved and split evenly amongst the party of old school D&D, while cutting monster XP in half. This incentivizes earning treasure and exploring over killing monsters, making the treasure objectives for dungeons as well as treasure encumbrance a little more fun as players try to retrieve as much as they can while assessing risks and challenges. Originally this was 1XP per GP, but because of how much XP is needed on a level up in comparison to treasure table I switched it to 2XP per GP. Now Gold is exciting because it can represent their experience in dungeoneering and their ability to level up.
When they have enough to level up they also have to spend an amount of gold and a week of downtime, which scales by tier of play, representing all their training, studying, carousing, and component expenses for the next level of features and spells as well as spreading renown of their adventuring deeds. This built in downtime training to level up also paces the campaign automatically to allow other downtime activities which all are good expenditures of treasure.
My method of stocking treasure is a budget to give out through a single dungeon level based on the total XP needed to level up.
- 1-2: 1/2 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level (before division) + 25% of that in headroom (to accommodate not finding it). The other 1/2 is spent on total monster XP.
- 3-4: 1/4 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level + 25% headroom + 1/4 Total XP spent on total monster XP
- 5-8: 1/5 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to next level + 25% headroom + 1/5 Total XP spent on total monster XP
- 9-10: 1/6 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/6 Total XP spent on total monster XP
- 11-16: 1/7 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/7 Total XP spent on total monster XP
- 17-20: 1/8 Total XP Needed for Party Level Up to Next Level + 25% headroom + 1/8 Total XP spent on total monster XP
I typically make dungeon levels 12-20 rooms (20-40 if it's a megadungeon), 1/3 of them being monsters (1/2 with treasure), 1/3 being empty (1/6 with treasure), 1/6 being traps (1/3 with treasure), 1/6 being special. I still use treasure tables to generate what is in the treasure using the above guidelines for my total budget. If the monster budget XP makes the dungeon level too difficult for the number of rooms it has, I just turn the remainder to treasure or use it as a budget for restocking monsters on multiple visits. It maps roughly to session-based advancement but to dungeon levels, rewarding those that explore more with faster level up.
Maybe let them pay for training on skills as well? Give them bonuses to their skill checks after they spend say... 200 gold to pay for a mentors training. Give them an the ability to get up to +3 in a skill via training at different costs, likely 200, 400 and 600 (novice, apprentice, expert) and you could capstone it with an expertise at 1000 but require all previous costs first?
I am about to start a campaign where in order to earn XP, the PCs must spend gold. 1 GP spent = 1 XP. Gold spent on Lifestyle and gambling do not contribute to XP.
I've found the secret to making players less like to want to buy those powerful magic items. In my world the elven city has a shop called "Magigal's Magical Menagerie" it is an adult themed magic shop not suitable for younger races!
It's not a full-on solution but having things cost more or less than listed.
Like if you make a d6 table with things like 'workers strike - costs 10% more' and 'surplus - costs 5% less'.
my dm rolls a markup...i think on a d%...
@@tuseroni6085 That sounds cool. Now I'm thinking maybe rolling and adding a d8 or 10 (or d100 on big purchases?) might be even faster than doing the math. I might have to try this
Don't forget about taxes
Offer it as tribute to the local dragon in return for favors.
Insert the critical gold horizon (I think that was what it was called) once someone has amassed too much gold a dragon will decend upon them to take it for their hoard. And this isn’t just a problem for the players, have cities be very carefull about how much gold is within its walls 😂
This is more of a system issue. You dont run into the problem of having too much money in pathfinder, 3.5, and earlier editions. However, 5e presents a pretty specific type of game, heroic fantasy. Nearly superhero like in their adventures and abilites lots of characters could easily be compared to someone like Thor...when does Thor ever go and spend lots of gold? He doesn't. Hes got his magic gear and fights giant monsters.
PC not DM, gold is so meaningless in every campaign I've done, I've started writing my characters completely uninterested in it. I've done 2 evil character, one who was a monk from a monastery who only cared about gaining favours and being praised by others. Whenever a quest giver offered gold I rejected it, instead I sought out powerful items and stuff. Second character was similar, except she'd spent her life surviving a dangerous jungle, any money I did get and the DM asked what stalls or ships I was looking for to spend, Id ask for the shadiest scammiest looking vendor and just drop hundreds of gold on literal crap.
Good luck paying taxes on the fancy gear you own. The tax collector would just take some. Nice magic boots. Can you pay for them? No? That is a shame. Take his boots.
@@davidbeppler3032tax collector can't take shit when his head is on a pike
@@benniguds Great! I love that game! The players are outlaws and the king is hunting them. Every town has a wanted board with their faces and names! Wizards track them using magic. Heroes attempt to capture or kill them. Other bandits treat them like brothers, or turn them in for the insane bounty!
Hahaha, marvelous
Politics... as we all know requires LOTS of gold. It's the grease that keeps things moving.
Gold? Most treasure is in silver and copper. Gold is rare. 90% of transactions are in silver and copper. A barrel of silver weighs about 250lbs and is worth about 1150gp. That same barrel of Copper is worth only 115gp! Imagine having 2 barrels of silver and 5 barrels of copper. Less than 3k in gold! Weights 1750lbs.
Give them the treasure. They can always trade coper for silver. -10%. Then from silver to gold. -20%. Then tax them. Taxes on copper is only 10%. Taxes on silver is 20%. Taxes on gold is 10%. Magical items are 10% (of actual value) Gems are 5%. Gear is only 2%. Weapons and Armor are special. For adventurers it is 50%. For everyone else it is only 2%.
Taxes are subject to change and do not apply to nobles. They pay different taxes.
I did not write the rules. Blame the nobles. I just enforce them. At spearpoint if necessary. Just pay what you owe. The crown thanks you for your service in these difficult times.
You never even covered spending gold on property, a home base. be it a tavern or a castle. anything works. Let the players spend all thier money into having the most awesome tavern and have it generate a little gold over time, not more than they spend on it but it gives the players the idea that their characters are set for life with that income.
1 Gold = 1 xp. As It should be..
Make the players spend their gold to level up. An AD&D thing.
Yes I've brought this back to my Saltmarsh campaign, we wanted 5e but with a slightly more old school feel
2:14 "each character should earn gold equal to their level * 100." The implication here is that this is the total money PCs earn per level, not per adventure, not per day, not per X days or X dungeons, just gold per level. Now the question is how fast to they level? The leveling rate in essence effects the value of gold and money, which is very absurd.
I think GMs aspiring to create a believable setting must consider the value of a day's work in their game setting's economy and base rewards off that.
For a (sort of) real world example, let's say I earn $100.00 per day as a first level employee, but a tenth level employee makes $1,000.00 per day. Assuming 260 workdays in a year, the first level employee earns $26,000.00 a year, and the tenth level employee earns $260,000.00 per year.
Ask yourself what does this say about your economy? What does this say about the difference between a first level and tenth level character, and the rarity of such characters? Does it sound reasonable for a fourth level employee to be earning 100k a year? That means in just three promotions, you're going from not quite minimum wage to six figures. Those are some pretty meaty pay raises.
Ask yourself if 26k a year sounds like much incentive for you personally to go crawling into caves to fight goblins to the death. Is 260k a year worth a fight against a dragon and his cult of dragon fanatics?
I think we are thinking about money a bit differently in D&D. One thing you seem to be assuming that a single gold piece is roughly equal to one modern day US dollar, which is not the case in my world, and I don't think makes sense based on the prices given by the player's handbook.
As an example, look at a heavy crossbow, which would be the height of military technology in the late medieval ages. The modern day equivalent is probably something like an elephant gun, which could cost you several thousand dollars, not fifty dollars. Based on this and some other comparisons I've looked into, a better exchange rate would be closer to 1 gp = $100. It's not a perfect exchange because D&D's economy is very different from our own, but it does the job well enough.
I also do not level up my party at a rate of once per in-game day. Maybe I'm misreading that, but that's what it seems like you're implying with your employee salary example. In my games it's more like one level up every two to four weeks, sometimes longer. With these numbers, a first level adventurer would make over $150,000 a year. If anything that might actually be too much.
Of course you can do whatever you want at your table, I'm not trying to tell you how to play your game, just letting you know what worked for me. My rule of thumb is also based more on making the mechanics of the game work properly, with the realism of the economy being the second priority.
@@beefcereal I am definitely not comparing *the value* of gold to *the value* of a US dollar. My use of US dollars is for demonstrative purposes only and is indented to show how awarding money per level gets extreme very rapidly, and as an example, US dollars only works if you have a concept of the value of a US dollar anyway.
All trade comes down to the value of the labor and scarcity of resources. My main point was that a GM should consider the value of a day's labor when establishing how money works in their setting. If your setting uses GP, then the value of gp needs to feel fair for one day's labor. That means that the cost of food, water, and shelter for one day needs to be less than one day's worth of labor or else no one would participate in the system and society would collapse utterly.
In the 5e PBH, there is no line item that I can see that says 1 day's labor = X gp, but the Services table on page 159 shows that a skilled hireling earns 10 times more per day than an unskilled hireling. The Lifestyle Expenses table on page 157 shows that if your cost of living amounts to 2 gp per day, then you're living comfortably, which means a skilled hireling can live comfortably, but can't earn a savings, and I don't see the cost of living for their family. This makes me start to question the economics of the game which challenges my suspension of disbelief and my immersion. I can only conclude that MOST people in D&D settings are DEPRESSINGLY BROKE.
If you're awarding players 100 gp * their level over the entire course of that level, then there's still an economy breaking amount of money being thrown around depending on the value of a day's labor. Let's say you award each player 100 gp * their level. By level 10, the player has earned 55,000 gp. If it takes them 1 year to get to level 10, this works out to a 150 gp per day. If the average laborer earns 1 gp per day, then the PCs earn 150 times the average income of people in the setting.
If I use US dollars again for a moment, the average earnings in America are $60,000 per year. A person who earns 150 times that is earning $219 million a year. This should put your adventurer's wealth into perspective.
In other words, if you really think about the money in your make-believe elf game, you're going to drive yourself mad like I have. The purpose of all this is to consider how filthy effing rich a party of adventurers are and why your world governments should be lining up to smite them so that they don't buy all the debt and own everything and everyone. Your proposed gp * level solution is actually MORE TAME than in legacy editions of D&D.
You could make a _real_ whacky slope by using the old school rules where you got an experience point for each gold piece of treasure acquired on top of scaled gold
@@Ryu1ify the goal was to start your own Barony, thieves guild, wizards tower, Or church at level 10.
One word, roleplay. But gamers never want to buy a cool new house. Never want to go out and eat fine foods. No reason to get cool clothing. Like in the real world. No chance to go on great vacations. Nothing to buy like games and stereos. And that's sad.
5E lacks customisation? What game are you playing?
Why limiting to treasure? Every other aspect, exploration, combat, interactions, etc. Should be made more interesting and cool.