Way to have a common money bank

[jokeaccount]

Hey there playground, I was playing a part of our campaign recently and I happen to be soloing atm since it is a "personal" mission I have to accomplish. A problem I happened to stumble upon was my accessibility to our group gold/wealth. You can always say that "my character keeps a couple thousand gold for his personal use" etc. but what if you happen to need more in the mean time? That's when I figured that we need a way to be able to access a "common money bank" regardless of our whereabouts. Is that possible? Maybe with the personal chest spell thingy but what about the non-caster characters? (i happen to be a rogue/fighter type). Maybe on a commonly accessible custom plane? But again how to access it? Has anyone ever encountered this problem and if yes how did you tackle it?

[Morphie]

I never actually faced such a situation, but my suggestion would be to create a special portable hole just for gold, gems and art objects, whose extradimensional space could be accessed from each of the party members. Each one would carry a piece of the cloth on his pocket, and they could stash it all there and retrieve what they need by unfolding it.

[Slipperychicken]

Just split the gold between you. If you need more finances than than your share on such short notice, you really ought to consult them first.

[Rubik]

I never actually faced such a situation, but my suggestion would be to create a special portable hole just for gold, gems and art objects, whose extradimensional space could be accessed from each of the party members. Each one would carry a piece of the cloth on his pocket, and they could stash it all there and retrieve what they need by unfolding it.I like this.

Hmm. I'd suggest everyone in the party purchase a pair of planar ring gates from the Planar Handbook, one ring of which goes into an enveloping pit from the Magic Item Compendium, but those things are INCREDIBLY expensive. Heck, REGULAR ring gates are quite expensive.

Otherwise, I'm not sure how to do this without homebrewing it. Ask your DM.

[Gnoman]

How well known is your party? If you are of a certain level of fame, and are well trusted, you may be able to set something up with contracts. Have the group store the party gold somewhere, and simply make a contract with the merchant that the keeper of the gold will deliver the stated amount upon request. This could be improved by having the casters research a homebrewed spell that makes the contracts unequivocally binding, or actually teleports the gold in question when signed.

[jokeaccount]

The homebrewed portable hole is one solution but the DM will probably not allow it in order to actually prevent us from having such an easy way to access funds.

Equally splitting the gold was done in the past but we've run into problems where 1-2 people get captured and their possessions are taken away and then the gold is lost (yes the guards distribute it among themselves). We solved this by letting everyone carry a really small amount (i.e 1-2k gold) and the rest is carried by the wizard of the team.

The party isn't THAT well known, especially since the kingdom is comprised of different far away towns and we're travelling between them. The idea of using the central bank however isn't bad although I doubt any bank would waste Teleport Object spell slots for free :(

[Story]

Well every bank charges fees. They're not a charity (usually).

Also, is it me, or is Teleport Object nearly useless? A regular Teleport lets you carry stuff with you anyway.

[jokeaccount]

Well every bank charges fees. They're not a charity (usually).

Also, is it me, or is Teleport Object nearly useless? A regular Teleport lets you carry stuff with you anyway.

We shouldn't be charged when WE offer the bank our money. Do banks charge you when you store your money within their vaults? No. Also teleport object exist for the rare occasions where you want to send someone something but you yourself want to stay put. Otherwise you would have to teleport yourself once then back again wasting 2 spell slots (though 5th lvl instead of 7th)

[Oscredwin]

We shouldn't be charged when WE offer the bank our money. Do banks charge you when you store your money within their vaults? No. Actually they do. In modern western culture, they charge by offering your money to other people as a loan which pays interest. THey keep most of the interest and give some to you, the depositor. Absent fractional reserve banking or some other loan structure (which would make your money not available for withdrawal at all times) they will charge you to guard your money.

[Flickerdart]

Gold coins are 50 to a pound - carrying even 1000gp is a pretty hefty 20lbs load. That's not to say it should be described as small - 1000gp is worth 100 cows!

[JeenLeen]

The homebrewed portable hole is one solution but the DM will probably not allow it in order to actually prevent us from having such an easy way to access funds.

Equally splitting the gold was done in the past but we've run into problems where 1-2 people get captured and their possessions are taken away and then the gold is lost (yes the guards distribute it among themselves). We solved this by letting everyone carry a really small amount (i.e 1-2k gold) and the rest is carried by the wizard of the team.


If the DM wants that to be an aspect of his game, it might be hard to get around. In the D&D I've played, our gold and equipment was usually left alone (or, if stolen, we were rather quickly able to reclaim or replace it) since it's almost as important as levels for power/equality purposes. (The game leaned more min-maxy than is ideal.)

Is the problem that you get seperated from the party wizard and thus can't retrieve your gold from him?

If you want to carry more gold on your safely, Complete Scroundrel has some neat ideas about hiding places in your equipment. Even if your equipment gets taken, the gold might stay hidden and you can retrieve it. Guards may have spent or distributed your gold far and wide, but your gear is likely either in a storage room, on their person, or locked in a specific place. That wouldn't help accessing your group account, but it could help with letting you have more on you at a given moment.

Another homebrew option I could see is taking apart a Haverd's Handy Haversack, and piecing parts of it into mundane backpacks, letting that somehow link them. But, really, if that were done and someone was captured, the enemy could steal *all* the gold, not just that which that person was carrying.

[jokeaccount]

Generally the main reason to split is:

1. We are at the point where people start getting their PrCs and many side quests start kicking in and the DM makes them be individual and solo some times (that helps with our troubles of getting all together some times).

2. Personally I have taken the Shadow Lord PrC and the DM wants me to undertake some solo missions for the guild. Thus I am required to play solo some times and I can't contact my party since they technically do not know where I am and what I am doing.

[Story]

Getting your money changed into Platinum makes it easier to carry and hide from guards.

[phlidwsn]

Ask you DM if his world's banks and/or merchant guilds will work with Letters of Credit (see Eberron campaign setting p 122 for an example of their use in D&D)

[Tvtyrant]

Drop it off in a bank and write checks. If there are no banks drop it off with a goldsmith. According to some history books the check originated with IOU's, where the gold was held with a goldsmith.

You could even buy debt from some government and use the bonds as portable money.

[HalfQuart]

Platinum, gems, and jewelry are your friend in this case. Page 112 of the PHB has rules for "selling loot" that specifically say that gems, jewelry, and other "trade goods" can generally be exchange for face value with out taking a conversion hit.

Also, I don't know if I've played in a campaign that explicitly had them, but it's hard to imagine a world functioning well without some sort of network of banks at least in major cities. Maybe some temples have a side businesses providing this function... it would kind of make sense for a deity with the domains of Protection, Trade, or Wealth. Dunno.. you'd of course have to involve your DM in that.