In an average world, how much is 1 gp?

[RPGaddict28]

How much is 1 gp in an average DnD world, and how much would a farmer make within a month.

By average, I mean standard high fantasy, i.e. not Tippyverse. And if anyone's wondering the intent of this thread(are they called threads here?) is to settle debate between a player and I. He thinks it would be reasonable that there would be a big market of "cheap" magic items in the hands of commoners. And by cheap, we're talking about +1 and 2 weapons.

Also, I should bring up why he thinks that would work. He believes it would be possible for an Eberron artificer to come to a town, sell +1 and 2 swords advertised as +5, then run away. I told him that, among other things, a few thousand GP would be way out of a commoners budget.

[Sian]

by current gold price (at 1238 per ounce, 50 gp = 1 pound of gold), a hair shy of $400 :smalltongue:

[Alabenson]

To answer your first question, I've seen calculations range from about 5 to 20 dollars, so probably somewhere between those amounts depending on the local economy.

As for the second question, assuming a level of 1, a wisdom score of 14-15 and Skill Focus (Profession (farmer)), a farmer would make an average of 39 gp per month, much of which will likely be spent on basic living expenses.

[Brookshw]

Check the dmg, a laborer earns 3sp a day so for a commoner 1gp is a bit over 3 days labor.

[Malroth]

Using the craft rules a middle age lv 1 commoner with max ranks, a set of masterwork tools and skill focus is bringing about 1.7 GP per day, Its entirely possible for one or two of them to spend 4 years of pay on a +1 weapon but its incredibly unlikely that practice is commonplace.

[Pinkie Pyro]

Honestly, that's more a problem of actually using gold instead of gear points.
the DMG says a level 1 NPC should have 900 gold, which seems like alot for a poor farming family, but overall is still not enough to buy a +1 weapon, though it is enough to buy a level 1 wand or such.

[Bakkan]

I believe at some point in the core books 1 silver piece was established as a day's wage for an unskilled laborer. Given that, our group thinks of a gold piece as being worth around $100, making a +1 weapon worth around $200,000 and a +2 weapon worth around $800,000. I would consider a common market for magical weapons to be quite unlikely in a standard setting; it would only make sense in a setting with a standard of living much much higher than our own (the Tippyverse probably qualifies).

[PotatoNinja]

I can only speak for 1700's era currency but...

http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_prices.pdf

1717 isaac newton sets the price of gold to L3 S17 (20 shilligns are a pound) and 10 pennies (12 to a shilling).

Lets call it even and say Newton set the price to 4 pounds per ounce. there are 14.58 troy ounces to a pound. One pound of gold would be 58.32 L of money.
http://www.whatsthecost.com/cpi.aspx

Shows us that 4 L in today's L is 659. One pound of gold would be L9,600~

Average salaries for jobs in 1710 ish.

http://pierre-marteau.com/wiki/index.php?title=Prices_and_Wages_%28Great_Britain% 29

The average unskilled worker took 15 working days to earn a single pound. Thats three weeks. so the average unskilled worker would make around 17 pounds a year. The average worker would make around 4.7 gold coins a year. The average government low paying job would make around 5.5 and the government higher paid jobs would rake in 15-19 or so.

it looks like the average worker, skilled, would make like 33-40 pounds a year. (10-11 gold pieces a year).

All of this is based on British coinage and economy, and it's later than the middle ages, but you get the point kinda.

I know this is only slightly related, but i hope it helps.

EDIT purchasing power (thanks tippy) for 1800's pounds.

http://footguards.tripod.com/08HISTORY/08_costofliving

Couldn't find a 1700's version.

[LibraryOgre]

I usually go with 1gp being worth about $20.

[Emperor Tippy]

Currency comparisons are usually done based on buying power in terms of common items. Food, clothing, shelter, etc.

I generally do an SP is equal to about 10 USD, so a GP is about 100 USD.

[skyth]

What's funny is that that is accurate, but for unrelated reasons :)

Minimum wage is 1sp/day. So 1 gp is 10 times minimum wage for a day...Minimum wage for a day is ~$65...so 1gp is roughly $650...In US equivalent at least.

[Bakkan]

I don't think minimum wage arguments are the best, because the U.S. has a much higher minimum standard of living than your default D&D setting.

[Sian]

I don't think minimum wage arguments are the best, because the U.S. has a much higher minimum standard of living than your default D&D setting.

and probably nowhere near either the median or average of minimum wages, both globally or first world countries

[Nirhael]

Disregarding real life comparisons, your typical Commoner still makes around 1 sp/day, an Expert might get 1-2 gp/day. If they need around half of that to at least keep themselves clothed, fed and possibly lodged, that doesn't leave much for miscellaneous items.

Unless you have some egomaniac who’s devoting his life’s savings to buying a single +1 item, your friend's going to have a very hard time selling his goods.

[ngilop]

I have just alwasy assumed 1 GP was the common mans monthly wage


and I have always taken the 900 gold for npc starting out not ot repsent if they have magicla item or a wand of cur elight wounds or nonsense like that but, the total of amount of stuff they have

like a cow, a handful of chickens plox, a donkey, maybe a couple of goats a field for growing some meager crops that kind of stuff is what i have alwasy assumed the 90 gold was for.


never really imagine the average guy saying' why do i need to eat, drink and have a place to live when i cna buy a wand of lesser vigor?'

[Lord Vukodlak]

Honestly, that's more a problem of actually using gold instead of gear points.
the DMG says a level 1 NPC should have 900 gold, which seems like alot for a poor farming family, but overall is still not enough to buy a +1 weapon, though it is enough to buy a level 1 wand or such.

Yeah there talking about NPC's using PC classes, not commoners, experts or other types the PC's aren't likely to be fighting.

[CRtwenty]

I usually eyeball a single gp as having the buying power of about $100.

[Tengu_temp]

DND prices are completely separate from real world prices, because they were pulled out of nowhere by the creators. As a result, you get stuff like food being too cheap in comparison to even simple, everyday weapons. No matter how much you set the value of 1 gp, something won't make sense.

Also, going with the logic of "good X costs Y dollars in real life and Z gold in DND, so obviously 1 gold is worth Y/Z dollars!" is extremely faulty, because you're using modern prices of things. Various things in the middle ages had completely different comparative prices than they do now.

[TheIronGolem]

He believes it would be possible for an Eberron artificer to come to a town, sell +1 and 2 swords advertised as +5, then run away. I told him that, among other things, a few thousand GP would be way out of a commoners budget.

No, your friend is absolutely right. In fact, he has inspired me.

I am now embarking on a foolproof scheme to make a ton of cash: I will painstakingly construct some BMW's by hand from scrounged parts, claim that they are brand-new Maseratis, and sell them to the employees of my local Wal-Mart at Maserati prices.

It's the perfect scam, I tell you! Enjoy going back to your jobs, suckers! I'll be laughing at you from the diamond skyscraper I'll be building on my own private island with all the money I'll be making from this venture! Mark my words, I'll be a millionaire by Monday!

[Emperor Tippy]

Frankly, you are better off scamming them with an Invisible Continual Flame spell cast on a regular old sword and a casting of Magic Weapon.

It sheds light like a torch with no visible fire and it makes you more skilled when you use it.

Buy a wand of Quickened, Stilled, Silent, Magic Weapon so that you can stealthily make the weapon magical when you need it to be so and then go sell them for a thousand GP per copy (half the market price of a +1 weapon).

[Deaxsa]

I think we should do it by price of bread loaf (or similar staple of a meal of carbohydrates), seeing as this is usually considered a (relatively) constant price, at least in terms of cost of living in a certain setting. It's something almost nobody does not buy on a daily basis (or for daily use).

In DnD, a bread loaf costs 2 cp, or 50 loaves to the GP. In the united States, where i live, a loaf costs an average of about $2.20. so, 50*$2.2=$110. so in the USA, 1 GP equates to about 110 dollars. Of course, there are many reasons why this could be an incorrect value, such as the fact that it may not be the same quality bread, the people who wrote the DnD books may not have gotten a reasonable price, etc.

[Gemini476]

I remember reading something a long time ago where someone compared the price of things in D&D vs. how it was in 14th century England, using a bushel of wheat as the common price. There were some strange things there, if I remember correctly.

Oh, and commoners probably pay 20% taxes and (voluntarily) 10% in tithe to churches, according to the DMG, so remember that for any calculation of how much they make.

COUNTERFEIT SWORDS:
According to the DMG, the amount of loose cash available in a given town for PCs to get in exchange for magic junk is equal to half the gp limit of the town times one tenth of the population. This goes for both buying and selling, incidentally, with the GP limit being the price of the most expensive item available. Once you have bought stuff equal to the amount of loose cash you can't buy anything more, and the same thing goes for selling.
By the rules, if the item costs less than the GP limit then it's basically a magic mart.

So the liquid cash in a town is:
C=0,5L*0,1P
Where L is the GP limit and P is the population.

Size|Population|GP Limit|Liquid Cash
Thorp|20-80|40|40-160
Hamlet|81-400|100|405-2,000
Village|401-900|200|4,010-9,000
Small Town|901-2000|800|36,040-80,000
Large Town|2001-5000|3000|300,150-750,000
Small City|5001-12000|15000|3,750,750-9,000,000
Large City|12001-25000|40000|24,002,000-50,000,000
Metropolis|25001+|100000|125,005,000+

There's also some upper limit where it turns into an Epic City, but I dunno.
Incidentally, a Metropolis has four level 12+4d4 Commoners, for a maximum of level 20. 93% of them have a level 20 commoner. 40% of Metropoli are also ruled by spellcasters (highest level, barring outliers, 1d4+12 for Wizards and 1d6+12 for Clerics). The More You Know!

So if you want to sell a "+5 sword" (That's 12,500gp, right?), you need to go to a small town (or bigger). You might need a Gather Information check to find a buyer, and even then it might just be an aristocrat or some young girl running an item store and looking to resell your sword for twice your price. Or a Merchant's guild looking to invest a third of their savings to get back a third more.
You might get the town guard on you once they figure out is isn't +5, though.

Tippy's idea for selling a "+1" sword is better, in a way, since any Village could buy it and the guards are fairly low level.

[Flickerdart]

Tippy's idea for selling a "+1" sword is better, in a way, since any Village could buy it and the guards are fairly low level.
I'm not sure a village of several hundred people would be willing to pool together a quarter of all the gold in town just to buy a single magic sword.

[Coidzor]

1 gp = 1/50th of a masterwork tool or potion of cure light wounds. 1/25th of a potion of cure minor wounds. 1/150th of a yearly casting of plant growth that, depending upon the size of the farms, one farmer might pay for several times over or multiple farmers might throw in for the shared benefit.

1 gp also = 100 pounds of wheat, 50 pounds of flour or a flock of 50 chickens, 10 pounds of iron, 2 pounds of tobacco or copper, 1 goat, 1/2 a sheep, 1/3 of a pig, (www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins) 1/8th of a mule or donkey (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#donkeyorMule), 1/10 of a cow, 1/15 of an ox (www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins).

1 gp also feeds two people well for an entire day or 10 people on gruel or 3 people on OK food and 1 person on gruel (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#foodDrinkAndLodging).

Meat is about 1/6th a pound to the SP, so 1 gp = 10/6th of a pound of meat or 1-1/3 pounds of meat or 1 pound 5.3 ounces of meat. Or 5 pounds of cheese. Or, as mentioned, 50 loaves of bread at half a pound each. Or, if made from the 1 pound sacks of flour, ~100 half-pound loaves of bread. or 150 loaves if one spends 2/3 of a copper piece for the raw materials of a loaf of bread and then uses the craft rules.

As for how much a farmer would make... It depends on how the commoner is making money. If they're a farmer that's doing it via the Profession Skill, then they can make some money that way, though if it's based upon actually producing X amount of grain or vegetable matter and then selling it to get a lump sum once or twice a year, it's entirely DM fiat aside from researching how much of X product Y amount of land could produce using Z agricultural techniques. On Terrain type A, B, or C. With or without Plant Growth cast by a Druid or Gleaner.

Growing, say, Black Lotus for processing into Black Lotus Extract is going to be quite different from growing wheat and selling it as a trade good. Or raising herd animals of various kines. Or working as a tinker using various craft skills.

Assuming the Profession Skill, a Farmer is going to have some level of assistance, so assume 1 main Farmer + 1-3 kinfolk to aid another. Eventually they should be able to save up enough for Masterwork Tools (50 gp a pop) or even casting Plant Growth 1/year (150 gp a pop at minimum). Let's say a Middle-Aged Farmer with a wife, young adult nephew, juvenile daughter, and too-young-to-aid-the-skill-check son. The Farmer is a level 2 Commoner due to having somehow gained experience, though his wife and nephew are level 1 commoners and his daughter is a level 0 commoner, whatever that actually is(assume for this case it means she can only have half-ranks in any skill).

So he has 5 ranks + 1 from Wisdom (if he had the standard array, an 11 in wisdom, the +1 to wisdom from being middle aged will bump him up to Wis 12) + 2 to 6 from aid another + 2 from a masterwork tool, and, IIRC, he can take 10. So, assuming only 1 of those aid anothers is successful, that's a +10 he's rocking (5+1+2+2) and taking 10 that means he's getting a 20 on his profession result, which is convenient, since that means that they make 10 gp a week through their combined efforts.

That's enough to fairly easily afford some untrained laborers to make aid another checks at ~55% success rate at 7 sp a week for an additional gold piece per successful laborer with a gross profit of 3 sp per successful aid another from an untrained laborer, though what the ideal number would be, I don't recall how to determine mathematically, and it's up to the DM how many characters could aid the profession check, though I imagine due to the size of farms that can be involved, it's probably got more leeway involved than most other such checks.

Additionally, the secondary members of the household may be able to make use of craft, handle animal, or other profession skills to bring in additional income.

More groundwork has been laid than this, however. (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-archive/threads/1084091)


DND prices are completely separate from real world prices, because they were pulled out of nowhere by the creators. As a result, you get stuff like food being too cheap in comparison to even simple, everyday weapons. No matter how much you set the value of 1 gp, something won't make sense.

Also, going with the logic of "good X costs Y dollars in real life and Z gold in DND, so obviously 1 gold is worth Y/Z dollars!" is extremely faulty, because you're using modern prices of things. Various things in the middle ages had completely different comparative prices than they do now.

Indeed, that way lies madness.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'm not sure a village of several hundred people would be willing to pool together a quarter of all the gold in town just to buy a single magic sword.

Not when they could just give a mouse a cookie (robot chicken version).

And it all makes just about as much sense as that sketch. As noted above, the value of goods in D&D was roughly eyeballed without any kind of systematic/rigorous approach. Thus, the value of currency often seems way off.

Add in that the value of gold itself in all but low-op games is readily trivialized by the powers of the characters. In an actual D&D world, it is magical power, not gold, that becomes the real driver of economies. Only backwaters would rely on anything approximating an actual supply/demand economy, and even then a single caster of even low level (5ish) could readily change that.

While some worlds avoid magic driving everything, they actually don't. Magic is the motive or cause or result of massive destruction, huge wars, rivalries, competition, cataclysms, and so forth. Pretty much all the big forces in D&D boil down to magic (or something implausible like orc hordes). This makes it doubly ludicrous that several classes in D&D have no magic whatsoever (and that several have nothing but magic in particularly potent doses).

Anyway, /rant.

[TuggyNE]

DND prices are completely separate from real world prices, because they were pulled out of nowhere by the creators. As a result, you get stuff like food being too cheap in comparison to even simple, everyday weapons. No matter how much you set the value of 1 gp, something won't make sense.

Also, going with the logic of "good X costs Y dollars in real life and Z gold in DND, so obviously 1 gold is worth Y/Z dollars!" is extremely faulty, because you're using modern prices of things. Various things in the middle ages had completely different comparative prices than they do now.

Quoted for much truth. No matter what time period and locale you compare D&D prices to, you will get a great many serious inconsistencies. Salt, for example, might cost thousands of times as much as it should, relative to full plate, if you use the same conversion rates.

A very rough approximation might be somewhere in the ballpark of $10 to $50, but that's only applicable for 80-90% of goods, and the others are mispriced badly. It's made worse by the complete inelasticity of demand that D&D assumes.

[Seerow]

1 gp = 1/50th of a masterwork tool or potion of cure light wounds. 1/25th of a potion of cure minor wounds. 1/150th of a yearly casting of plant growth that, depending upon the size of the farms, one farmer might pay for several times over or multiple farmers might throw in for the shared benefit.

1 gp also = 100 pounds of wheat, 50 pounds of flour or a flock of 50 chickens, 10 pounds of iron, 2 pounds of tobacco or copper, 1 goat, 1/2 a sheep, 1/3 of a pig, (www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins) 1/8th of a mule or donkey (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#donkeyorMule), 1/10 of a cow, 1/15 of an ox (www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#wealthOtherThanCoins).

1 gp also feeds two people well for an entire day or 10 people on gruel or 3 people on OK food and 1 person on gruel (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#foodDrinkAndLodging).

Meat is about 1/6th a pound to the SP, so 1 gp = 10/6th of a pound of meat or 1-1/3 pounds of meat or 1 pound 5.3 ounces of meat. Or 5 pounds of cheese. Or, as mentioned, 50 loaves of bread at half a pound each. Or, if made from the 1 pound sacks of flour, ~100 half-pound loaves of bread. or 150 loaves if one spends 2/3 of a copper piece for the raw materials of a loaf of bread and then uses the craft rules.

As for how much a farmer would make... It depends on how the commoner is making money. If they're a farmer that's doing it via the Profession Skill, then they can make some money that way, though if it's based upon actually producing X amount of grain or vegetable matter and then selling it to get a lump sum once or twice a year, it's entirely DM fiat aside from researching how much of X product Y amount of land could produce using Z agricultural techniques. On Terrain type A, B, or C. With or without Plant Growth cast by a Druid or Gleaner.

Growing, say, Black Lotus for processing into Black Lotus Extract is going to be quite different from growing wheat and selling it as a trade good. Or raising herd animals of various kines. Or working as a tinker using various craft skills.

Assuming the Profession Skill, a Farmer is going to have some level of assistance, so assume 1 main Farmer + 1-3 kinfolk to aid another. Eventually they should be able to save up enough for Masterwork Tools (50 gp a pop) or even casting Plant Growth 1/year (150 gp a pop at minimum). Let's say a Middle-Aged Farmer with a wife, young adult nephew, juvenile daughter, and too-young-to-aid-the-skill-check son. The Farmer is a level 2 Commoner due to having somehow gained experience, though his wife and nephew are level 1 commoners and his daughter is a level 0 commoner, whatever that actually is(assume for this case it means she can only have half-ranks in any skill).

So he has 5 ranks + 1 from Wisdom (if he had the standard array, an 11 in wisdom, the +1 to wisdom from being middle aged will bump him up to Wis 12) + 2 to 6 from aid another + 2 from a masterwork tool, and, IIRC, he can take 10. So, assuming only 1 of those aid anothers is successful, that's a +10 he's rocking (5+1+2+2) and taking 10 that means he's getting a 20 on his profession result, which is convenient, since that means that they make 10 gp a week through their combined efforts.

That's enough to fairly easily afford some untrained laborers to make aid another checks at ~55% success rate at 7 sp a week for an additional gold piece per successful laborer with a gross profit of 3 sp per successful aid another from an untrained laborer, though what the ideal number would be, I don't recall how to determine mathematically, and it's up to the DM how many characters could aid the profession check, though I imagine due to the size of farms that can be involved, it's probably got more leeway involved than most other such checks.

Additionally, the secondary members of the household may be able to make use of craft, handle animal, or other profession skills to bring in additional income.

More groundwork has been laid than this, however. (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-archive/threads/1084091)



Indeed, that way lies madness.

I like this. Also the linked thread at the end and the related thread (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-archive/threads/1087751) that gets linked in the thread you referenced.

The only thing I'd add is that people who are making only a few silver per day seem to be getting screwed, but so far as I can tell, the people hiring these hirelings are expected to provide for them, in addition to the straight up silver cost. So if you hire a half dozen extra hands to help you with your fields, you're expected to feed them as well as paying them that 1sp per day. And that kind of cost really can add up if you're not getting enough value out of it.

This also explains why you have soldiers/mercenaries willing to work for 3sp a day. Because they get that 3sp, but their weapons/armor are provided for them, horses are provided for them, and they get fed and their leader's take care of lodging if they're in a place where that's relevant and not on the road. (And if they are on the road, tents, blankets, etc, are supplied for them). Basically that 3sp a day is pure profit. The commoner family may be netting 250gp per year, but that's 4 adults all working constantly. By comparison, 4 hirelings at 3sp a day are making 438gp a year. Not quite double the farmers, but still a very comfortable lifestyle when you consider that's 100% disposable income.

[Sir Chuckles]

Honestly, that's more a problem of actually using gold instead of gear points.
the DMG says a level 1 NPC should have 900 gold, which seems like alot for a poor farming family, but overall is still not enough to buy a +1 weapon, though it is enough to buy a level 1 wand or such.

THat 900 gold goes to the farmer's FAMILY, as a whole. It's not what he has in his pockets.
It's his house, tools, land, clothes, etc. A Lv1 commoner is living in a hovel at best, unless his wife has an equal 900gp.

So to answer your question after all the other responses, in a standard high-fantasy setting, unless those Commoners are in large areas with a powerful dynamo of an economy, AND they're experienced enough to have achieved several levels, it is highly unlikely for Commoners to have +1 weapons just lying about.
If and when they can afford such things, it's more likely that they'll spend it on equipment to increase their primary stat or provide bonuses to Craft and/or Profession skills, not on a +1 Dagger that just makes him a target for a low level Rogue to Sneak Attack.

[Yahzi]

I did a lot of work trying to harmonize D&D prices, and they're not quite as bad as all that. The root is that 1 lb of wheat == 1 cp. Everything else follows.

A peasant family can grow about 6 tons of wheat on 40 acres, after setting aside seed for the next year. So that means your basic peasant family makes 60 gp a year. out of this they have to pay taxes (up to %50) and provide for their living (a minimum of 30 gp a year).

Craftsmen do better, but despite the DMG's suggestion that gold pieces fall from the sky when you make a skill roll, the base income of the peasantry limits the income of the craftsmen. Something between 50% and 95% of your population will be farmers; the rest will be craftsmen making around 120 gp a year. Master craftsmen, knights, wizards, etc. will make 400 gp per level every year.

So no, you can't sell a basket of +1 swords. You can maybe sell one to the local knight, if you're lucky, and if he likes the kind of sword it is.

But far more obviously, anybody that can afford a +5 sword can also afford to track you down when they find out they've been robbed. Open the DMG and show him the "Price per level for hiring an assassin." Inform him that if his crimes exceed that number, somebody will just hire a professional to come after him.

[Flickerdart]

Master craftsmen, knights, wizards, etc. will make 400 gp per level every year.
That seems really low. A level 1 wizard has at minimum 4 spells per day (if he's the worst wizard possible - a wizard with even the nonelite array will have +1 1st level spell, a specialist +1 more, and a focused specialist +1 beyond that). Assuming nobody ever needs cantrips and so the worst wizard in the world only casts his one spell per day, your scheme has a 1st level spell costing maximum 1.09 gp, half that for the decent wizard, and a quarter that for a focused specialist. This doesn't even include selling the spells in his book to be copied (a 50gp per instance fee) which doesn't come along every day but would certainly happen once or twice at least.

I mean, I guess there could be a 90-99% tax on spells, but that's just likely to get all the wizards to move somewhere else.

[Abaddona]

Yahzi -> yeah, which in metagame terms means "yay, additional encounter = more exp and loot". It's actually better to make the PC suffer using other means - for example hiring few bards who will ruin PC reputation (good luck negotiating anything when you are known as scammer who likes goats quite too much) and promising generous rewards for them (or their body parts) - good luck adventuring when other adventurers are only waiting for a chance to get you (well, this means more exp and loot but has potential to be more annoying than single instance of proffesional assasin).

Flickerdart - you are assuming here that every day someone buys this casting from him, which won't neccessarily be true.

[Yahzi]

That seems really low.
And here we run into a problem. The SRD under Spellcasting and Services says that a Remove Disease costs 150 gp (5th lvl x 30 gp). Any decent 5th level Cleric is going to be able to cast it twice a day. In any decent sized city, the number of people who want a Remove Disease is going to exceed two a day: not just cancer and infections, but colds and flu, too. So now we have an perfectly ordinary 5th level character making 9000 gp a year, and that's taking Sundays off. But the WBL for a 5th lvl character is... 9000 gp.

Unless your average 5th lvl cleric has a life-span of 1 year or less, we have a problem.

Spells cannot sell for the suggested price as normal practice. Instead, we have to assume those are prices for adventurers. You roll into town, nobody knows your name, you want a Remove Disease from the local cleric who isn't even of the same alignment... sure, he'll charge you 150 gp. If he does it at all. But for members of his flock, the price has to be much, much lower.

I derived 400 gp a year from a rough approximation of the "earn your skill level in sp per day" rule. PCs are not going to get rich selling their spells. The local casters already have the market locked up, it's probably illegal to cast without a license or tax payment to the local rulers, and nobody would trust you to do it anyway. But if your GM lets you sell spells for the listed price without any taxes, fees, or blowback, by all means break your WBL into tiny little pieces and make him cry. :smallbiggrin:

(Also, as Ab points out, most people simply can't afford to pay those prices. Peasants make 60 gp a year and craftsmen make at best 400; dropping 150 gp on a spell is a humungous expense for them.)

[Emperor Tippy]

And here we run into a problem. The SRD under Spellcasting and Services says that a Remove Disease costs 150 gp (5th lvl x 30 gp). Any decent 5th level Cleric is going to be able to cast it twice a day. In any decent sized city, the number of people who want a Remove Disease is going to exceed two a day: not just cancer and infections, but colds and flu, too. So now we have an perfectly ordinary 5th level character making 9000 gp a year, and that's taking Sundays off. But the WBL for a 5th lvl character is... 9000 gp.

Unless your average 5th lvl cleric has a life-span of 1 year or less, we have a problem.

Spells cannot sell for the suggested price as normal practice. Instead, we have to assume those are prices for adventurers. You roll into town, nobody knows your name, you want a Remove Disease from the local cleric who isn't even of the same alignment... sure, he'll charge you 150 gp. If he does it at all. But for members of his flock, the price has to be much, much lower.

I derived 400 gp a year from a rough approximation of the "earn your skill level in sp per day" rule. PCs are not going to get rich selling their spells. The local casters already have the market locked up, it's probably illegal to cast without a license or tax payment to the local rulers, and nobody would trust you to do it anyway. But if your GM lets you sell spells for the listed price without any taxes, fees, or blowback, by all means break your WBL into tiny little pieces and make him cry. :smallbiggrin:

(Also, as Ab points out, most people simply can't afford to pay those prices. Peasants make 60 gp a year and craftsmen make at best 400; dropping 150 gp on a spell is a humungous expense for them.)
...
Or that gold is spent. A fifth level cleric is a major religious power. Think Bishop or even Cardinal level.

Most of his gold is blown on things that don't translate into WBL. There are the salaries for his underlings, the upkeep costs of his church and manor, the PR costs, and tons of other expenses.

The 9,000 GP of WBL is pretty much just his personal collection of magic items and cash on hand.

[Abaddona]

It is quite safe to assume that clerics don't charge gold from believers (or local people) but rather take certain services from them. For example lawful good clerics will heal for free (to the limit of their capabilities) but people who were healed should volunteer to do some acts of good in return, lawful neutral clerics would require their "customers" to help city guard etc.
At the same time wizard would likely be hired for certain task (for example divining whereabouts of notorious criminals) and it's only up to him how many spell slots will he use for completing such task.
Organizations like temples or mages guild could work for free in exchange for things like tax exemption or make magical equimpment for city guards but in exchange guards will pay better attention to the crimes committed against members of such guilds.
Players tend to forget, that this city they are in, is not a collection of individual NPCs but rather a society - and so they are in for a nasty surprise when city guards show up with support from local temples and wizard guild.

[broodax]

And here we run into a problem. The SRD under Spellcasting and Services says that a Remove Disease costs 150 gp (5th lvl x 30 gp). Any decent 5th level Cleric is going to be able to cast it twice a day. In any decent sized city, the number of people who want a Remove Disease is going to exceed two a day: not just cancer and infections, but colds and flu, too. So now we have an perfectly ordinary 5th level character making 9000 gp a year, and that's taking Sundays off. But the WBL for a 5th lvl character is... 9000 gp.

Unless your average 5th lvl cleric has a life-span of 1 year or less, we have a problem.

Spells cannot sell for the suggested price as normal practice. Instead, we have to assume those are prices for adventurers. You roll into town, nobody knows your name, you want a Remove Disease from the local cleric who isn't even of the same alignment... sure, he'll charge you 150 gp. If he does it at all. But for members of his flock, the price has to be much, much lower.

I derived 400 gp a year from a rough approximation of the "earn your skill level in sp per day" rule. PCs are not going to get rich selling their spells. The local casters already have the market locked up, it's probably illegal to cast without a license or tax payment to the local rulers, and nobody would trust you to do it anyway. But if your GM lets you sell spells for the listed price without any taxes, fees, or blowback, by all means break your WBL into tiny little pieces and make him cry. :smallbiggrin:

(Also, as Ab points out, most people simply can't afford to pay those prices. Peasants make 60 gp a year and craftsmen make at best 400; dropping 150 gp on a spell is a humungous expense for them.)

And if this is the case, scores of clerics will travel to that town, and, guess what, now they'll each only be able to sell 1 Remove Disease each week or so. Supply and Demand is a thing (that occasionally actually has an effect on DnD).

Alternatively, 1 cleric cures all the diseases in the city over the course of a year, and, guess what? Now he is only hired by the city to cure the occasional sick new arrival because there is no disease in the city to spread around.

There are any number of rational reasons why the prices in the rules make sense (never mind that they were just chosen arbitrarily and did not in fact have any rational basis when written), so saying that they absolutely cannot be right is kind of off base.

[Phelix-Mu]

The prices in the core books and elsewhere, especially for services, are a bit of an abstraction. Based on how badly the books screw up the literal, it's hardly surprising they didn't factor supply/demand, tax bases, and cost-of-living into their price lists.

I'm sure if we take an average church and assume that each fairly religious person tithes (1/10th of income, a fairly standard practice, though largely modeled off of irl medieval stuff for no real reason). Let's say this amounts to 50% of people that ascribe to the faith. Well, even with an average distribution among economic classes and levels, this amount of money stacks up in a big hurry for the big churches (Pelor, Heironeous, the racial heads). Add in a realistic level of church social influence based on their spellcasting (which at least amounts to some fraction of the wealth they could earn if they charged for all spellcasting services), and that is a pretty heaping sum. Even if we leave out the average person, a few high-level npcs/pcs are all any organization needs to have a virtually unlimited bankroll.

Once we add in multiplanar organizations (and, properly speaking, all of the big churches are fairly multiplanar), there is a huge stack of coin out there, driven by, apparently, the fact that lots of monsters have more cash-on-hand than entire villages, and murdering them is extremely profitable.

It all probably boils down to some wizard or other caster having screwed things up sometime in days of yore. Some wizard on the coast, no doubt, putzing around making price lists while spamming wall of salt. Damn you, wizard on the coast.:smalltongue:

[Flickerdart]

Being able to make your WBL in a year is perfectly normal. Aside from expenses, one is gaining experience from casting all of these spells, so it's not unlikely that a cleric required to cast multiple spells a day will level up after a year, and the cash he gets from his customers brings him roughly up to where he should be WBL-wise.

[Zweisteine]

There is a whole section in the DMG on town's wealth limits and commoner's earnings. Not sure where in the DMG, though.


Even in Eberron, a commoner would never buy a magic sword. It would obliterate their life savings and then some, just as much as it would any first-level characters'.

If you want to sell a sword above +1, you're probably going to a wizard, artificer, or similar magic items dealer. They will check how strong it is, and pay the appropriate price. (Magic item dealers have eternal wands of Identify.)

If your characters want to try to con, make them play it. They'll have to actually find a willing buyer and make some negotiations and bluff checks, though it'll be hard to beat that identify with a bluff. You'd have to trick them into not checking (maybe say you're in a huge hurry, and sell them other stuff first so they can't check more items today). If they manage to sell it without having it checked, don't let them get full normal selling price, because the buyer doesn't want to take huge risks.

[Pickford]

Adventurers are in the small group of people who regularly buy things with coins. Members of the peasantry trade mostly in goods, bartering for what they need and paying taxes in grain and cheese. ... The most common coin that adventurers use is the gold piece (gp). With 1 gold piece, a character can buy a belt pouch, 50 feet of hempen rope, or a goat. ... The most prevalent coin among commoners is the silver piece (sp). ... A silver piece buys a laborer's work for a day, a common lamp, or a poor meal of bread, baked turnips, onions, and water. ... Copper pieces are common among laborers and beggars.

Commoners in D&D do not have enough money to purchase magic items.

[Chronos]

Actually, the creators of those cost tables did put a significant amount of thought into what the prices actually mean, as evidenced by the fact that most of the ways of estimating an exchange rate between gold pieces and dollars come out to close to the same rate (about $200 per GP, to within a factor of two or so). This is pretty remarkably good, given that even within the same world, there are going to be odd quirks in exchange rates between currencies.

Now, there are some definite outlier and inconsistencies in the prices, but they're all in places where adventurers have distorted the economy. For instance, there's the famous case where a 10' ladder actually costs less than a 10' pole. Why is that? Because plenty of common folk need ladders, but 10' poles are mostly just an adventuring supply, and 2 sp is so negligible to most adventurers that they won't even to bother to haggle over it. Charge what the market will bear, and all that. Meanwhile, in the odd circumstance where a commoner really does need a 10' pole, they're not going to actually pay that price for it, even if they get the exact same item the shopkeeper was hoping to scam off on some stupid rich adventurer, because the commoner isn't going to put up with that kind of BS.

Note, incidentally, that when I say that the writers put a lot of thought into this, I'm not referring to WotC. The mundane equipment tables in 3.x are copied almost verbatim from earlier editions of D&D. It was those guys who put in the actual effort.

[Icewraith]

In an average world, 1 gp is worth exactly 1 gp.

This is in the same vein as

"I talked the shopkeeper down to 400 gp for the rubies!"
"Great, but the spell requires 500 gp worth, so go buy some more."

I wouldn't be surprised if some rules-savvy gem purveyors (or all of them) sell tiny flecks of ruby (or a tiny pinch of diamond dust for instance) at the value the spell requires in order to maximize profit per resource traded.

As long as adventurers continue to forego the appraise skill for more immediate survival-oriented skills like spellcraft and 5 ranks in balance, their secret is safe. (Actually it may already be a well-known phenomenon, and explains in part why spell component pouches can be as tiny as they are.)

[Zweisteine]

I wouldn't be surprised if some rules-savvy gem purveyors (or all of them) sell tiny flecks of ruby (or a tiny pinch of diamond dust for instance) at the value the spell requires in order to maximize profit per resource traded.

But the ruby dust isn't actually worth 500gp. Sure, it's what he says it's worth, but civilization at large only values particularly large rubies or huge quantities of ruby dust that high.

(As for the pouch, it only holds costless components, so expensive things don't have to fit inside.)

[Coidzor]

Commoners in D&D do not have enough money to purchase magic items.

:smallconfused: There's some pretty cheap magical items out there, so your absolutist statement is easily falsifiable since you neglected to provide the exact list of caveats you're following.


Actually, the creators of those cost tables did put a significant amount of thought into what the prices actually mean, as evidenced by the fact that most of the ways of estimating an exchange rate between gold pieces and dollars come out to close to the same rate (about $200 per GP, to within a factor of two or so). This is pretty remarkably good, given that even within the same world, there are going to be odd quirks in exchange rates between currencies.

Now, there are some definite outlier and inconsistencies in the prices, but they're all in places where adventurers have distorted the economy. For instance, there's the famous case where a 10' ladder actually costs less than a 10' pole. Why is that? Because plenty of common folk need ladders, but 10' poles are mostly just an adventuring supply, and 2 sp is so negligible to most adventurers that they won't even to bother to haggle over it. Charge what the market will bear, and all that. Meanwhile, in the odd circumstance where a commoner really does need a 10' pole, they're not going to actually pay that price for it, even if they get the exact same item the shopkeeper was hoping to scam off on some stupid rich adventurer, because the commoner isn't going to put up with that kind of BS.

Note, incidentally, that when I say that the writers put a lot of thought into this, I'm not referring to WotC. The mundane equipment tables in 3.x are copied almost verbatim from earlier editions of D&D. It was those guys who put in the actual effort.

What was the value of gold back in 1999-2001 compared to current values? Back in the 1970s versus now? What I've been able to find on the subject suggests (http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_prices.pdf)that the cost of gold has sharply spiked/steadily risen since after 3rd edition was created and even when the 3.5 revision was created, and that it's not even funny to compare the values in the 70s to the values we have now.

Any mapping of those prices made back in the 70s or 80s to current gold prices is happy circumstance rather than indicative of future planning or the ability to divine the future unless they're playing a very, very long game indeed. :smallconfused:

[Lord Vukodlak]

But the ruby dust isn't actually worth 500gp. Sure, it's what he says it's worth, but civilization at large only values particularly large rubies or huge quantities of ruby dust that high.

(As for the pouch, it only holds costless components, so expensive things don't have to fit inside.)

RL civilization doesn't value ruby dust but if Ruby Dust has a use as a material component then it has value because spellcasters will buy it.

If there was a cure of [insert incurable deadly disease here] that involved powdered ruby you can bet there would be a market for powdered ruby.

[SassyQuatch]

Ah, the magic sword con. Memories.

So there was one town in the region that was raiding other towns. The adventurers hear about this and immediately get to plotting. Disguises are quickly made, and after observing that the majority of raiders were away the adventurers swoop in and silently kidnap a bunch of women and children, leaving behind ransom notes.

The town is sufficiently convinced that their families are in danger and only a handful of trained men are still in town. A rescue seems impossible so the townsfolk decide to pay the hefty ransom. After all, the raiding parties will soon be able to refill the coffers.

Well, they get doublecrossed by the adventurers who now want even more money since they see now that the town is not so put out by paying. The townsfolk are outraged but seemingly don't have much choice until the "wizard" from a very prestigious mage guild shows up in town (played by the adventurer's very talented bard).

The wizard doesn't feel confident in her ability to fight a ruthless gang of kidnappers, but does have in her possession a nice magic sword which she could sell for a modest price. The price is actually a bit more than what the town has left, but they barter a bit in exchange for a few other items of some value, like some of the town armory. While some want to rob the wizard they also know that to do so would be likely to enrage the mage guild. Again, they also realize that the sword will help them in the future to make even more money from raiding.

So off the party bard goes and the town arranges for a now unstoppable rescue party to be sent out. The bard changes disguises and rushes into the "kidnappers" camp acting the role of a scout, warning of a group of men with a powerful weapon. The adventurers run away before the rescue party arrives.

Soon thereafter the town realizes that the sword is not powerful and that they are now broke. The surrounding towns get quite a bit of their wealth back plus some extra weapons to fight off future raiders. And the party makes a tidy profit.

All thanks to the magic sword con.

[JusticeZero]

The other thing is that magical gear is actually comparable to upper end military hardware. Whenever someone starts talking about a suit of +5 armor, start thinking in terms of fighter jets, guided missiles, and the like. While there is indeed a market in low end rifles and land mines (Unenchanted weapons, possibly some low end potions for emergencies), the market for military vehicles and heavy weapons is decidedly more limited; it isn't something a villager might purchase.

[Chronos]

Quoth Coidzor:

There's some pretty cheap magical items out there, so your absolutist statement is easily falsifiable since you neglected to provide the exact list of caveats you're following.
No, there really aren't. I don't think there's any permanent magical item in the game cheaper than 900 GP, which is worth as much as a fairly nice house. A commoner might have that much in total net worth, but most of it is going to be taken up in his house, agricultural tools, livestock, and other things he absolutely needs-- He certainly can't afford the equivalent of another house on top of all of that.

Unless you're talking about consumable items, but those are if anything even harder for the commoner to justify. Is he really going to spend a quarter of the price of a house, just to be able to make someplace look old and abandoned?

[Coidzor]

No, there really aren't. I don't think there's any permanent magical item in the game cheaper than 900 GP, which is worth as much as a fairly nice house. A commoner might have that much in total net worth, but most of it is going to be taken up in his house, agricultural tools, livestock, and other things he absolutely needs-- He certainly can't afford the equivalent of another house on top of all of that.

Unless you're talking about consumable items, but those are if anything even harder for the commoner to justify. Is he really going to spend a quarter of the price of a house, just to be able to make someplace look old and abandoned?

He said they couldn't afford magical items. Full stop. :smalltongue: Not that RAW magical items would be impractical for most commoners. Not that spending their wealth on magical items or consumables would be too difficult to justify in the face of more mundane expenditures.

Further the premise is complicated by the necessity of determining what sort of possessions a commoner actually has and who in society actually are commoners and who are experts or aristocrats or warriors instead.

[Flickerdart]

Further the premise is complicated by the necessity of determining what sort of possessions a commoner actually has and who in society actually are commoners and who are experts or aristocrats or warriors instead.
It seems pretty reasonable to suggest that commoners are peasants, drifters, menial labourers, and others without anything resembling training or education. The difference between Expert and Commoner would largely be one of auxilliary skills - a level 1 Commoner farms, but a level 1 Expert can have knowledge of farming in addition to a whole host of other skills, which may help him adopt the role of an agricultural advisor to the local baron or some such.

[Gemini476]

There is a whole section in the DMG on town's wealth limits and commoner's earnings. Not sure where in the DMG, though.
I posted a summary on the last page, but it's in the town creation section. Page 137, to be exact.
I'm fairly certain that there's also a Web Enhancement with some extra town-building rules.

No, there really aren't. I don't think there's any permanent magical item in the game cheaper than 900 GP, which is worth as much as a fairly nice house.
Beyond some cheesy stuff (like individual enchanted Shuriken)?

Going by the DMG, competence bonuses to skills go for (bonus squared)*100 and could possibly pay for themselves one day.

Magic Item Compendium has:
two +500gp armor properties (+1 fort or ref),
14 armor and shield crystals between 200 and 500gp (including constant Endure Elements!),
the Illuminating weapon property for +500gp,
four special bolts and arrows between 132 and 506gp,
ten weapon crystals between 100 and 600gp,
the Armband of Elusive Action (1/day avoid AoO) for 800gp,
Lenses of Bright Vision and Pearl of Speech for 600gp,
three magic boots between 500 and 600gp (including one for -2d6 falling damage!),
three 500gp gloves,
the Watch Lamp for 500gp (basically a mining helmet),
fifteen amulets between 400 and 800gp (including Purify Food and Drink 3/day for 500gp),
two torso slot items between 500 and 800gp (shiftweave is awesome and any Aristocrat worth their salt should get one),
Healing Belt for 750gp (!),
Eternal wands of 1st level spells are 820gp (might have missed some other permanently magical tools),

There might be some other things as well, like getting a spellcaster to sell a spell (5gp for first level, 10gp for first, 60gp for second, 150gp for third, etc.)
I'm told that Continual Flame is useful, for something costing 110gp.

[Icewraith]

Commoners in a D&D world should own no easily transportable items with significant material worth. Why?

Because they have issues protecting themselves from housecats, never mind heavily armed roving bands of murderhobos or the local thieves' guild.

[jedipotter]

I usually go with 1gp being worth about $20.

I like this in theory, but 1 gold coin does not equal $20. Just look what you can buy with both. $20 can get you and a date into see a movie(but two drinks and a medium popcorn will cost you $20 more), $20 feed you for a week(trust me I do this weekly), $20 is more then enough to buy any 'simple' entertainment such as a book, DVD or such (even more so if you don't go to say a Truck Stop and buy a paperback of The Hobbit for $35, and more go to half price books and get a copy for $1).

But then look at what a gold piece buys. A stay at a good inn is two gold. And you won't find a room at a good inn for $40. Or a common inn for $10? (not even Motel 6 is that cheep). Backpacks are two gold...and I know I can buy a backpack for less then $40. And fifty feet of rope for $20! I know I can buy fifty feet of rope at Wal Mart for $3.99. Or $20 for a bell? The same bell at Everything is a Dollar...that cost $1.

And spellcasting really throws things off. A first level caster can get 25 gold a day casting his spells, and that adds up quickly.

[Flickerdart]

I can see the lower classes buying permanent spells (since those tend to be cheaper than items, and dispelling isn't a concern). All I could find is create spring, but it is very useful - 60gp to have a permanent source of water anywhere? An adult human needs 2 quarts (half a gallon) of water per day to live, so at 12 humans per hour and 24 hours in a day a single casting of this spell can support a village of 288 people, and each one only needs to pony up 2 silver.

[Seerow]

Backpacks are two gold...and I know I can buy a backpack for less then $40

You could. But if you were an adventurer looking for a sturdy backpack that will hold everything you own while living out on the road, would you want to?

Personally, I spent nearly 100 dollars on my backpack, and I'm not even an outdoorsman type. I just wanted something more durable and water resistant to protect my laptop. You can always get shoddy quality stuff much cheaper than what it's actually worth.



Edit: Also the discussion of casters bankrupting the economy by setting up shop and selling their spells is kind of silly. Sure, if you find someone willing to pay for your spells, that's the standard cost to expect. Now how many people are going to be wandering around town looking for someone to cast read magic or prestidigitation for them? For first level spells Wizards don't have much that is of particular interest to your average person. The best bet is Alarm, but something like that you're going to want a higher level caster to get it permanencied (so it's still a relatively cheap 1 time sale) or at least be able to keep it up constantly by coming by and casting 1-2x a day.

No, casters aren't going to make money selling all of their spell slots. The real money comes from stuff like Wall of Iron at high levels, giving you the ability to trade your spell slots for real material goods that normal people actually care about.

[Lord Vukodlak]

I've actually looked into some medieval pricing and found that quite a few prices for mundane goods in the PHB match the cost of similar items from the middle ages in Shillings.
Backpacks are two gold...and I know I can buy a backpack for less then $40. And fifty feet of rope for $20! I know I can buy fifty feet of rope at Wal Mart for $3.99. Or $20 for a bell? The same bell at Everything is a Dollar...that cost $1.Does the industrial revolutions effect on the cost of manufactured goods mean anything to you. Things that would take days or even weeks to manufacture by hand are made in minutes or even hours.

[Flickerdart]

I've actually looked into some medieval pricing and found that quite a few prices for mundane goods in the PHB match the cost of similar items from the middle ages in Shillings.Does the industrial revolutions effect on the cost of manufactured goods mean anything to you. Things that would take days or even weeks to manufacture by hand are made in minutes or even hours.
Also, decentralization is a major issue in price. The goods at that Everything is a Dollar are manufactured in millions using automated processed and shipped all over the world, with the volume of units covering the expensive machinery. The D&D equivalent would be goods produced by fabricate and wall of iron spell clocks and then teleported by bound imps to where the goods need to go. But the default is that a blacksmith in a village makes it by hand, and has neither specialized tools not volume to reduce the price.

[Chronos]

OK, I was only looking at the DMG items, not the Magic Item Compendium. Still, though, the MIC items only go as low as a 400 GP amulet (ammunition is single-use, and weapon/armor crystals require at least a masterwork item to stick them in, which adds 150-300 GP to the real price). And if your choice is "I can afford that if I don't mind starving to death out in the cold", then you can't afford that.

[Gemini476]

OK, I was only looking at the DMG items, not the Magic Item Compendium. Still, though, the MIC items only go as low as a 400 GP amulet (ammunition is single-use, and weapon/armor crystals require at least a masterwork item to stick them in, which adds 150-300 GP to the real price). And if your choice is "I can afford that if I don't mind starving to death out in the cold", then you can't afford that.
Not all ammunition is single-use. Or rather, it's only single-use if you throw/shoot it.
And Shuriken (PHB) cost 1gp (6gp wasterwork), are enchanted like ammunition (1/50th the price for each one), and can use weapon enchantments.

In other words, a +2 equivalent Shuriken is 166gp, and you divide the cost of any special material by 50.
There's a reason I didn't mention it, although I guess I technically did by including Augment Crystals since those require +1. My bad.

A +1 Shuriken is 46gp, by the way.

...But yeah, I guess there aren't that many magical items below 500g. There are some, but I think the lowest you get is 46gp for a single +1 unit of ammunition. And that's still 23 nights in a good inn.

I'll hold that Continual Flame for 110gp is a bargain, though. It's even better if you can get your adventurer level 3 son to cast it for just 50gp (hey, not all adventurers need to be hobos), but you can't rely on that in any way, shape, or form. Not to mention that bringing yourself to the attention of the GM will invariably lead to you being kidnapped, held hostage, and/or killed.



(Then again, the DMG says that tithes+maximum taxes is 30%. 4 rank Profession(Farming) during half of the year (?) gives you 7,25gp*26 weeks*70%=131,91gp. Common meals during that year add up to 106,8gp. He has a profit of 25,15gp/year, in other words (mostly in copper and trade goods). If he expands to working during the winter (say, by keeping animals,) he earns 157,1gp/year. (The level 7 commoner that's the average highest-level commoner in a Thorpe earns 102,5gp by working half the year, incidentally. His level 3 cronies earn +1gp/week more than you, or +26gp/year.)
A sheep is 2gp while a cow is 10gp, for instance.

Also, Aid Another is not worth it for Profession() checks. If they rolled 10 or higher, Aid Another would give you +1gp/week. If they rolled 10 by working themselves, however, that's +5gp/week.
Have your wife bake bread while you farm, make your mother-in-law sow while your grandfather makes alcohol, put the kids to work selling rocks with painted faces on them, whatever. The point is, everyone is bringing in money to the family and the only deadweights are young children.
It's a minimum of 7sp/week to feed people, with 21sp/week being "common". You want people to bring in more than 1gp/week, basically.)

Also, the description of "poor food" is "Poor meals might be composed of bread, baked turnips, onions, and water." Do these people want to die of dysentery?

[Flickerdart]

I'll hold that Continual Flame for 110gp is a bargain, though. It's even better if you can get your adventurer level 3 son to cast it for just 50gp (hey, not all adventurers need to be hobos), but you can't rely on that in any way, shape, or form. Not to mention that bringing yourself to the attention of the GM will invariably lead to you being kidnapped, held hostage, and/or killed.


Continual Flame is not a "bargain" by any means, given that 110gp is actually a huge cost. Your typical commoner rises and falls with the sun, because there's nothing to do during night time. When he needs light, he lights a 1cp torch. He would need to completely use up 11,000 hours of torchlight to break even on the spell. That's over 15 months of non-stop torch fire.

[Rogue Shadows]

Backpacks are two gold...and I know I can buy a backpack for less then $40.

To be fair, given that those particular backpacks are listed under adventuring gear, it's probably safe to assume that they're the localized equivalent of a decent hiking backpack, which a Google search puts at around $50-$60 as a start (and some range up to several hundred dollars). If anything, you're getting them at a discount.

[Gemini476]

Continual Flame is not a "bargain" by any means, given that 110gp is actually a huge cost. Your typical commoner rises and falls with the sun, because there's nothing to do during night time. When he needs light, he lights a 1cp torch. He would need to completely use up 11,000 hours of torchlight to break even on the spell. That's over 15 months of non-stop torch fire.
Beyond going all Unlimited Blade Works with cheesing Craft DCs, wooden clubs are completely free if you want miserly lighting.
However, a Continual Flame works in places where a torch might be a bad idea - anywhere flammable or in mines, for instance.
Or anywhere you want permanent lighting. (Let's face it - in a lot of cases it's probably less individual commoners that buy magic items than it is villages that buy them communally.)

However, I think that you are vastly underestimating how much a commoner is likely to earn. The DMG has a variant for upkeep on page 130, and self-sufficient living (that is, you make everything yourself) is 2gp/month.
A commoner working half the year (and hence earning half as much) earns roughly 2,5gp/week if he's running Profession checks with Jack of All Trades. That's roughly 10gp/month, or 7gp/month with taxes and such, so he earns 5gp/month.

5gp/month adds up! And even just having some actual ranks in Profession(whatever) gets 'em quarter of that per week, everything is doubled if the commoner finds some way to work all year (mining, woodcutting, animal husbandry...), Skill Focus (only works with one job, though) gives some money, being middle-aged with an 11 in Wis gives some money...

The "optimized" level one farmer has 1(Wis)+4(Ranks)+2(MW Item worth two years work)+3(Skill Focus)=+10 to their check, that being worth +1,75gp/month for half a year or +3,5gp/month if you find a way around that, including taxes. So that's up to 85sp in profit every month, for 102gp/year.

And sure, a Continuous Flame seems kind of expensive. But if you either live somewhere dark - and I have four or so hours of light here, so I know - or you work with something that requires light, like a mine (never use warm fire in mines, seriously)? Yeah, it might be a tad expensive.
But have you considered that you can give it to your son, some day? 15 months of light might seem like a lot, but if you use it an average of four hours per day you've payed it off after four years. Or, if you use it a single hour a day, 30 years. And some of those years might not need to be yours.
I guess I just see it as worth more since I live up in the dark and cold northern Scandinavia or something.

[Another_Poet]

To the OP's question, it's not so much a matter of a gp's value as priorities. Think of the real world for a minute. Relatively few civilians spend the money to get military-grade assault rifles, and almost no one would spend the money to get something even more powerful, like a grenade launcher, regardless of how charming the local salesman is.

It doesn't matter whether a +2 weapon is the equivalentof $500 or $800,000, the point is those peasants will spend there money elsewhere.


the DMG says a level 1 NPC should have 900 gold, which seems like alot for a poor farming family, but overall is still not enough to buy a +1 weapon, though it is enough to buy a level 1 wand or such.

If a peasant family (or village) is going to pool their money for a magic item, I definitely would put a wand of CLW or similar at the top of their list. It would be of enormous utility, as long as they had one son or daughter who could shake it and make it work (a couple UMD ranks?).

[Gemini476]

To the OP's question, it's not so much a matter of a gp's value as priorities. Think of the real world for a minute. Relatively few civilians spend the money to get military-grade assault rifles, and almost no one would spend the money to get something even more powerful, like a grenade launcher, regardless of how charming the local salesman is.

It doesn't matter whether a +2 weapon is the equivalentof $500 or $800,000, the point is those peasants will spend there money elsewhere.



If a peasant family (or village) is going to pool their money for a magic item, I definitely would put a wand of CLW or similar at the top of their list. It would be of enormous utility, as long as they had one son or daughter who could shake it and make it work (a couple UMD ranks?).
You're better off with a Healing Belt (assuming they are conscious enough to use it) or an Eternal Wand of CLW.
Or an Eternal Wand of Lesser Vigor.
Actually, Lesser Vigor is probably the better bet.

[Flickerdart]

But have you considered that you can give it to your son, some day? 15 months of light might seem like a lot, but if you use it an average of four hours per day you've payed it off after four years. Or, if you use it a single hour a day, 30 years. And some of those years might not need to be yours.
I guess I just see it as worth more since I live up in the dark and cold northern Scandinavia or something.

I think my son would rather have a horse, since the horse would let him ride it to somewhere that gets enough sun to farm.

[Gemini476]

I think my son would rather have a horse, since the horse would let him ride it to somewhere that gets enough sun to farm.
That "somewhere" doesn't have a house for him to live in, fields to plow, animals to breed, etc.
All those are something that might be reasonably inherited.

Really though, moving away from the village/county you lived in wasn't that common before what, the First World War? I know there was a bit of emigration to the Americas and such before, but that wasn't quite common, y'know?
I guess I'm assuming something roughly like Medieval Europe+Fantasy, though, which is pretty wrong given the high-level magic available.

But yeah, people tended to stick around in the same house for generations. The kids grew up and took care of their parents, their kids grew up and took care of them... You have less of that over in the Americas, since they're so young, but there are some quite old buildings lying around in Europe.
For instance, the village where I grew up had a church from the 13th century. That's pretty old!

[Flickerdart]

That "somewhere" doesn't have a house for him to live in, fields to plow, animals to breed, etc.
Yes it does. Sure, there are other people living there right now, but with the change from the horse I can also buy him a sword. :smallamused:

[CRtwenty]

If a peasant family (or village) is going to pool their money for a magic item, I definitely would put a wand of CLW or similar at the top of their list. It would be of enormous utility, as long as they had one son or daughter who could shake it and make it work (a couple UMD ranks?).

Most villages that would be large enough to pool their money for something like that likely also have a low level Cleric or Adept in the community who could use it normally.

[Abaddona]

Flickerdart - considering that simple house costs about 1000 gp then it must be pretty valuable horse. Of course he can stay in inn (or build some sort of hut and hope that weather will be good) but it will cost him quite a lot in the long run. If he just takes random piece of land he will need to stay in this inn several months until je plow and sow it. We should also remember that new face in town - especially face which takes for himself some part of the land - may not be welcomed warmly if he tries to stay for prolonged time (after all foreigners = trouble). Also random encouters - when you are in the wilderness some source of fire to fend off wolfs etc. (yeah, I know that in DnD random enouters dont quite work like that and there is nothing strange with encoutering single healthy wolf who will fight to the death...) is quite valuable.
And one more thing: "son of a simple farmer setting out into the world from a small village in the middle of nowhere in hope of better life" - isn't that one of the standard adventurer background? He will definetely need this continous flame, and a 10ft pole too.

[Grek]

If we assume that an average commoner has 10 wisdom and has four ranks in Profession (hog farmer) or whatever it is he does, then he has an average skill bonus of +4. This translates to an average of 725cp every week. Buying a Masterwork Hog Farming Tool costs 5000cp and increases his weekly wages by an average of 100cp. It takes an average of 7 weeks, or a about half a season to save up enough for one and an average of 50 weeks or a little under a year for the tool to pay for itself. Most commoners are going to take that offer, I think. Likewise for an extra 150cp a week from taking Skill Focus: Hog Farming.

So final answer: A single peasant makes an average of 39gp per month and will probably never be buying a magic sword using his own funds.

[Chronos]

Even if a Continual Torch pays for itself after five or ten years, part of the curse of poverty is that when you're poor, you can't afford to think in the long term that way. Saving money ten years from now is nice, but not if you've already starved to death before you get there. You might be able to justify something that pays for itself in a month, but years? Not a chance.

Now, some people in a D&D world do decide to risk it all, sell their inheritance, buy some adventuring gear, and see if they can make back their investment before they starve. They're the first-level adventurers, and a for a lot of them, the gamble doesn't work, and they avoid starvation only by helping some monster with big teeth avoid starvation first. But even with the risks, you can see why some would choose that life when you realize that that's really their only way of getting ahead in life.