What do you spend your GP on?

[Endarire]

I assume your characters get gold (GP) and are able to buy valuable things with it. Where does this money usually go?

As I play casters most often, my money goes toward boosting these stats:

-DEX
-CON
-Primary casting stat
-Saves
-Number of spells known/per day (Scribing scrolls, Pearls of Power, Knowstones, psionic power research, etc.)

I also go for the occasional other item:
-
-Healing Belt
-Belt of Battle
-Wand of cheap healing (cure light wounds/lesser vigor)

[NNescio]

Rods are nice for casters. Especially the Lesser Metamagic Rod of Extend.

Handy Haversacks are also a near necessity for most classes.

[LordBlades]

casting stat>casting stat>casting stat>utility items>metamagic rods

No, I don't really play non casters much.

[ffone]

Ring of Blink for a sneak attacker.

Bonus to primary stat, and maybe Con.

Vest of resistance.

[Doc Roc]

Glyph seals
Belt of battle
A couple eternal wands
A runestaff I like
Empowered spellshard, because it is cheap and that extra push matters now and then
My signature lyre of building
Feathered wing grafts if I am not dragonborn
Two or three third eye, clarity instances, for celerity
Various character specific oddments.
Boccob's aethenium
Otyugh pit
A scroll of MDJ at lowest CL
A scroll of mindrape

[Alleran]

Beyond simply boosting power, I always invest my wealth.

A little trading consortium one of my characters bought into when he was about 5th or 6th level is now a dominant trading empire in the entire campaign setting, and my character has become far wealthier than most of the others in the party (plus the trading network can be used as an intelligence-gathering device). Of course, he leaves the day-to-day running of his empire to subordinates now.

[Feytalist]

I have always wondered, from an IC perspective, why PC's - characters with ludicrous amounts of wealth - never buy houses or some sort of permanent residence. I mean, at 10th level, one could easily buy a fully staffed country estate with armed guards, gardeners and a personal cook with the money left over after buying that all-important +4 greatsword of awesomeness.

Sure, you could sleep in your bedroll and eat trail rations for weeks at a time, but why would you want to?

As with most players (I assume), most magic items go into boosting stats, saves and skills. I like rods (metamagic et al.), and utility items like feathered boots. I don't really like fidgety items that need extra actions to be activated. Oh and handy haversacks for the aforementioned wealth.

[riddles]

Beyond simply boosting power, I always invest my wealth.

A little trading consortium one of my characters bought into when he was about 5th or 6th level is now a dominant trading empire in the entire campaign setting, and my character has become far wealthier than most of the others in the party (plus the trading network can be used as an intelligence-gathering device). Of course, he leaves the day-to-day running of his empire to subordinates now.

This. Most of the campaigns I play are quite involved with the setting (I.e. Not hack and slash dungeon crawls), so once I've got a few key essentials (handy haversack, lesser rod of extend, +casting stat), I'll look to invest in something that will gain me wealth/influence/information or any combination of the above. At the very least a house or base of operations. Owning taverns, for example is useful for recruiting meatshields, getting local rumours, having a place to stay. Hirelings can run it for you. its rare that I'm playing the type of character who wouldn't have an ic reason for doing such a thing.

[paddyfool]

I have always wondered, from an IC perspective, why PC's - characters with ludicrous amounts of wealth - never buy houses or some sort of permanent residence. I mean, at 10th level, one could easily buy a fully staffed country estate with armed guards, gardeners and a personal cook with the money left over after buying that all-important +4 greatsword of awesomeness.

Sure, you could sleep in your bedroll and eat trail rations for weeks at a time, but why would you want to?


Because there is no mechanical advantage. However, stick a bonus to some social skills for not being a wandering vagrant in, and you might at least get the diplomancers buying mansions (which the rest of the party can then stay in too).

[Canarr]

I'm also one for investing the wealth, do something creative with it. Getting a nice residence is only the first step, then figure out what to do with the rest.

One campaign we played fell a bit outside the usual WBL rules; it's heavily human-centric, so we hardly ever fought anything with DR or SR, which reduced the usual need for special magic items. Since our party lacked both a cleric and a heavily-armored fighter, and at the same time we fought an invading army with higher-level clerics and fighters in positions of authority, we often ended up with magical armor and weapons that none of us could use. My wizard character either used those to pay meat shields for him, or donated them to temples of the local goddess of war, in order to ingratiate himself with their priests.

In another campaign, my character is a fighter/warlord type who managed to score a small county and the noble title to go with it. There, quite a bit of my money goes towards renovating and extending the estate - put in a Bardic College or a Fighter Academy, finance a spy network, that sort of thing.

[Feytalist]

Because there is no mechanical advantage. However, stick a bonus to some social skills for not being a wandering vagrant in, and you might at least get the diplomancers buying mansions (which the rest of the party can then stay in too).

As I said, from an In Character perspective, not from a mechanical perspective. Although I do like the social bonus idea. Like a bonus to Intimidate while on your own grounds (Cue Scarface scene: "You come into my own house and say that to me?")

Or perhaps a small bonus to crafting/enchantment/etc for "in a familiar area"?

[big teej]

first things first

assuming sufficient funds for any purchase.

magic arms and armor, enchanted and made of materials that fit whatever concep the character concept.


after that, I'll pick up any items that seem outrageously fun to use.

after THAT
anything that I think would fill in any glaring gap in my capabilities.

[Gwendol]

Booze, women... food. Invest in houses of disrepute and taverns. All other stuff should be spoils of war.

[Zodiac]

As I said, from an In Character perspective, not from a mechanical perspective.

Adventurers go up against challenging odds on a regular basis and could use every edge they get. Most characters would like to both continue adventuring and living (and generally have different long term goals than living comfortably). Thus a +4 sword is a more pragmatic investment than a mansion in 3.5 (stupid, but true).

EDIT: On topic, I like lots and lots of wands (the only classes I play without magic or UMD are the ToB classes). Magic is definitely the best toy money can buy. Of course this is after the "requisite" stat boosting and weakness covering items (i.e. rings of blink, flying items).

[ericgrau]

Casting stat is overrated. I've played a lot of casters where most of their spells had no save. It's nice for the bonus spells and save on some spells though. Ya basically more spells is what I like. Scrolls, pearls of power, staffs, metamagic rods, wands, etc. Con is important too, sometimes dex if I'm firing rays. I may also boost my touch AC and saves a little.

[Keld Denar]

Generally, as many items on this list as I can afford. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851)

[CTrees]

Festhalls.

Thank you, Volo!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Upgraded weapons and armor. I'll typically go for straight bonuses, but I get the keen weapon property as soon as possible.

[prufock]

Sovereign Glue. Never leave home without it.

[Zaq]

I often buy stuff that gets me better info-gathering abilities. I look back fondly on a character who had Gloves of Object Reading (Object Reading at will), a Third Eye Sense (Clairvoyant Sense at will), and an item (I don't recall the name offhand) that gave him Know Direction and Location at will. (I wonder if it's a coincidence that those are all clairsentience powers? They're from different sources.)

[NichG]

For casters, I tend to go heavy on scrolls and material components rather than permanent magic items. I also tend to play characters that are amused by the idea of uplifting those less powerful than them in various ways, so I might give 10k gold or an item worth that to a random level 1 farmboy just to see how it plays out.

One character I played who had become obscenely rich through crafting and selling the results collected Mirrors of Opposition for awhile and would drop up to 4 times their normal price for them, since he had bought out the local market. The same character had a trick to harvest xp from items and would buy cursed items from people at much reduced cost, but occasionally ended up having to deal with cursed pseudo-artifacts that slipped into the usual fare. He briefly had a shop right next-door to a shop that specialized in selling cursed items, since he'd take returns that the curse shop wouldn't.

[Chilingsworth]

I have always wondered, from an IC perspective, why PC's - characters with ludicrous amounts of wealth - never buy houses or some sort of permanent residence. I mean, at 10th level, one could easily buy a fully staffed country estate with armed guards, gardeners and a personal cook with the money left over after buying that all-important +4 greatsword of awesomeness.

Sure, you could sleep in your bedroll and eat trail rations for weeks at a time, but why would you want to?

Well there are two reasons I can think of:

1. If you have a home, you have something you enemies can attack.
2. There are spells and items that offer almost as much comfort, without said vulnerability.

[erikun]

I have always wondered, from an IC perspective, why PC's - characters with ludicrous amounts of wealth - never buy houses or some sort of permanent residence. I mean, at 10th level, one could easily buy a fully staffed country estate with armed guards, gardeners and a personal cook with the money left over after buying that all-important +4 greatsword of awesomeness.
In my case, it's generally because I can't. Nearly every game that I have participated in as a character involved either the characters wandering from town to town, never visiting the same place once, or only remaining in their "main base" for two or three days before storyline events kicked them back out again.

While I could buy a house, owning a place that takes taxes (and DMs love taxes!) and is only visited one week out of a year just isn't practical. I might as well buy a bed and put it in a nearby cave. Or just cast Magnificent Mansion every night.

Plus, even a minor magical item helps me live longer. Dead men need no housing.

[Marnath]

A tavern/inn, one of the really nice big ones that sit along major trade roads. Hirelings to run it, and a few ranks in profession: innkeeper and maybe craft: brewing if the character has points to burn. That way they have something to do when not adventuring.

[Doc Roc]

In my case, it's generally because I can't. Nearly every game that I have participated in as a character involved either the characters wandering from town to town, never visiting the same place once, or only remaining in their "main base" for two or three days before storyline events kicked them back out again.

While I could buy a house, owning a place that takes taxes (and DMs love taxes!) and is only visited one week out of a year just isn't practical. I might as well buy a bed and put it in a nearby cave. Or just cast Magnificent Mansion every night.

Plus, even a minor magical item helps me live longer. Dead men need no housing.

Also. It's a Magnificent Mansion that says very loudly to your guests, "Hallo, I'm a full caster. Don't pee in my shrubbery."

[faceroll]

Buying property is just asking to get it ruined by the DM.

Back in high school, we all had like 3 or 4 characters and had 3 campaigns running at once in Grayhawk. The first group of characters we had bought a tavern in some city, and from there, adventures were staged, our new characters met up with our old ones, would run errands/quests for them, swap loot, run support for low level characters. It was actually kinda cool.

My first ever character, a half-orc barbarian (who was a total baller), was involved in some inter-gang war in the city. He ended up burning down a city block after killing the owners, then bought the property for cheap, got it cleaned up, rented to new tenants.

[Pentachoron]

Generally my characters don't buy homes and things of that nature because I didn't start out playing a hobo...so they already have a home and family and whatnot.

I do sometimes have them send a few hundred gold home regularly, but why would they buy a super nice home when they have a perfectly good one, and they need to be putting as much money as possible towards being able to complete whatever goal they have so they can go home.

[Alleran]

Buying property is just asking to get it ruined by the DM.
Really? The character I mentioned earlier managed to get himself a grant of nobility, and while there was the natural stuff like fending off bandits, keeping order, and so on and so forth, it was hardly something the DM went out of his way to "ruin" or anything to that effect.

Having a base of operations is really pretty useful.

Although I must admit that using the castle as a front and having a portal to a private demiplane where I do most of that character's private research and study is probably more effective in terms of privacy.

[faceroll]

Really?

Unless the game centers around castle building, any level appropriate threat is going to cause serious damage to your 2 HD servants, 3 HD warriors, and castle walls. By level 10, a castle offers no defense against most CR appropriate opponents, and by level 20, it's rather trivial to slag or disappear or destroy fortresses.

The exception would be 100 million gp castles that become dungeon complexes, but then, why not DM and let me be the player?

The cost of a self-defending castle is expensive, and collateral damage also expensive. It's just not worth the investment, given the nature of D&D, imo. I'd rather have +3 inherent bonus to my main casting stat.