Expenditure options/possibilities for characters

[Angelmaker]

Hello playground.

I am not sure if this has come up before in anyones game, if it even is an issue overall. But I am having a hard time to estimate a fair and sensible amount of loot that i should throw at my players.

With the possibility of buying magic items more or less gone, what options are there for players to spend their money on? Is there a recommended wealth by level as in 3.5 ?

Apart from estates, ships, palaces, jewelry, brothels or whatever, there are only a few big spending factors related to adventuring:

1) heavy armor
2) wizard learning spells from scrolls
3) healing potions

All of these kind of result in a "power increase" for the character. What options do other characters/classes have in terms of spending their gold that directly or indirectly relate to their power?

I am sure I am missing something. So what do your players spend their money on, except the points above? Please help me improve my game by expanding my horizon on this matter.

[Shaofoo]

Even though you can't buy magic items now like you could before you can have players be able to craft magic items and potions in their downtime. As a DM you can give formulas for specific items and the number of days and gold needed to create the item (the DMG has some stats on it already though I personally think it is too low).

As for other stuff, since it is your world you will have to think if you want money sinks in the game or not. There are also other things like running a shop or making lavish parties as well, not tied to directly increasing the power level of the player but can increase the social standing.

[Bubzors]

As for wealth by level there is nothing like a hard table from 3.5. On page 38 of the DMG is a guideline for starting wealth for PCs above 1st level. And I know that somewhere on this forums the people have used the random treasure table to extrapolate what you should generally get. In the end it doesn't matter however, since character power is no longer directly tied to wealth.


As for other options than heavy armor and magic it depends on the campaign you want to run. In mine I have one player who spent every spare opportunity he had getting in the know with the shadier side of the kingdom, buying off officials, or bribing servants to feed him information. Now near the end of the campaign he is widely known as THE information dealer around, giving him more power and more enemies.

Another player is a paladin who dumped all his money to help rebuild the local chapter of his church and to start a new paladin training school. He is now in charge of a small army of devoted followers of his god. Makes him able to throw his weight around in the politics of the land.

I would talk to your players and see what they want long term for their character then make certain avenues possible for this. Show them gradualgains in their investments. They start with a delapitated manor on a small plot of land that slowly turns into a place of power in the region. Having them invest in land/property is neat when you actually have retainers and others seeking an audience from your players.

[Socko525]

Yeah we've run into this in the game I'm playing in currently. We've already bought all the possible mundane equipment that we could want. We used our downtime to sell off a lot of useless magic items that we'd found as well.

We bought land and rebuilt a town that was destroyed early in the campaign. Built businesses, a fort, etc. and invited the various NPCs we'd encountered to come live and work there.

But mechanically that doesn't serve us to much, other than a slow steady stream of more gold. Which we all have a sever abundance of. I guess it come in handy if you have to pay off someone, like drop 500 gold in their lap or something. As a paladin I often end up using it to help people, but even still my pockets are overflowing.

Similarly to what Bubzors mentioned I've started taking payments now in secrets and favors, as they are more useful to me than any sum of gold.

It would be nice if there was some kind of gold sink in the game. Crafting magic items is great, but limited attunement slots and the amount of downtime required to craft them doesn't really fit into the campaign (taking 200 days to make a rare item, or 5+ years to make a very rare one)

So I'd be curious to hear what other ideas people have for spending gold

[PhantomRenegade]

A very good solution is to just give players something nice to fix up. Maybe in addition to the gold the local lord gives them a piece of land with a decrepit homestead on it and the players renovate it to have a cool hangout, maybe later on its a castle or something like that.

It won’t always be of use mechanically but the players will appreciate having those things none the less and it helps elevate character from murderhobo's to actual people when needed.


As a more short-term fix (depending on how much gold the party has) you might consider giving them a packhorse or mule. There's a lot of non-essential gear people don't get because its too heavy, stuff like tents, climbers kit's, etc.. Giving them a means of carrying that will incentivise your players to get those things.

[coredump]

And that 'something nice' could end up being a gold sink. Maybe one of the reasons the Duke was willing to part with such 'valuable' land was that he kept having to spend money on the land, more than it was making. And of course, still had to pay the Kings taxes.....

Now as time goes by, they will be able to do things to change the situation. But it might require a lot of gold, or a lot of quests to get favors (like druid spells), or it might mean taking out the bands of Hobgoblins and the dragon......

Money sink, long term goal, instigator for multiple quests.... and a nice place to retire to once it is all taken care of...

[Demonic Spoon]

Even if you don't open up magic items in the DMG to a 3.5-style "Buy what you can afford", you can still allow them for sale - maybe the players are aware of some high-class collectors shop selling certain specific magic items at high prices, and acquiring the wealth to buy it is something they work towards.

However, the conundrum you pointed out in the OP is very, very much intentional - by default, wealth does not equal mechanical power. DMs do not need to worry about the balance implications of a player saving up and buying items and messing with game balance (and potentially punishing players who don't have the mechanical knowledge to buy optimal items). Players aren't discouraged from using their money for RP-ish, flavorful things like a fort - something like that you would rarely see in 3.x because you fell behind the curve if you didn't add another +1 to your sword.



This also allowed WotC to be more brave with their magic item design - it's OK to have a ludicrously powerful stealth item in the game (cloak of elvenkind) if it's the DM's choice to make it available, for example

[Slipperychicken]

They could hire mercenaries to do some of the fighting for them. Of course, both the PHB and DMG give almost no guidance for how to adjudicate this beyond 0.2 gold/day for "unskilled" and 2 gold/day for "skilled".

[PhantomRenegade]

Well there are some mechanical eeeeh, sidegrades, i guess, you can get with money alone, and technically a very very wealthy party could hire a mage to build magic items for them, but yeah generally the way to make a good moneysink is to entice the roleplaying side with cool lookin stuff.

[ImSAMazing]

Hello playground.

I am not sure if this has come up before in anyones game, if it even is an issue overall. But I am having a hard time to estimate a fair and sensible amount of loot that i should throw at my players.

With the possibility of buying magic items more or less gone, what options are there for players to spend their money on? Is there a recommended wealth by level as in 3.5 ?

Apart from estates, ships, palaces, jewelry, brothels or whatever, there are only a few big spending factors related to adventuring:

1) heavy armor
2) wizard learning spells from scrolls
3) healing potions

All of these kind of result in a "power increase" for the character. What options do other characters/classes have in terms of spending their gold that directly or indirectly relate to their power?

I am sure I am missing something. So what do your players spend their money on, except the points above? Please help me improve my game by expanding my horizon on this matter.

Give them stuff, not money if you don't know how much money you should give them. You can also use the treasure tables, I believe they are sorted by level or something. also give them Magic Item formula's if you have a full spellcaster in your team.

But for your question,

We spend money on anything, oil for a war, beer for our magic items, weapons for our rogue, ink for our wizard, and silver for our weird sentient axe.

[Xetheral]

Players aren't discouraged from using their money for RP-ish, flavorful things like a fort - something like that you would rarely see in 3.x because you fell behind the curve if you didn't add another +1 to your sword.

My experience was the opposite... players in many of my 3.5 games were constantly using cash to buy things for RP reasons. Occasionally I'd have a problem convincing the party to buy portable stuff so they could stay mobile, leading to more than a few pre-bag-of-holding parties with a literal wagon full of fun stuff that was alternately guarded with great paranoia or conveniently forgotten like V's familiar.

This extended to not selling treasure that was intended as a GP-equivalent. Looted art objects in particular were often kept if I gave them a good description.

Numerical upgrades of anything less than two higher than currently possessed were usually ignored.

[DragonLordIT]

My experience was the opposite... players in many of my 3.5 games were constantly using cash to buy things for RP reasons. Occasionally I'd have a problem convincing the party to buy portable stuff so they could stay mobile, leading to more than a few pre-bag-of-holding parties with a literal wagon full of fun stuff that was alternately guarded with great paranoia or conveniently forgotten like V's familiar.

This extended to not selling treasure that was intended as a GP-equivalent. Looted art objects in particular were often kept if I gave them a good description.

Numerical upgrades of anything less than two higher than currently possessed were usually ignored.

Wow, this never happened to me, I am really struggling trying to let them understand that they can imagine something more than "find money --->buy magic items ----->Find more money ---->find better magic items"; does someone have advices on how to do this? I tryed to grant them inspiration when they interpret their character as thay should, tryed to let things happen from roleplaying and not only with dice rolling but .. . at the end. . . "which magic item do they sell here?" "How can it be that they don't sell magic items?" "How do I find magic items to buy?".....:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

[Ace Jackson]

Wow, this never happened to me, I am really struggling trying to let them understand that they can imagine something more than "find money --->buy magic items ----->Find more money ---->find better magic items"; does someone have advices on how to do this? I tryed to grant them inspiration when they interpret their character as thay should, tryed to let things happen from roleplaying and not only with dice rolling but .. . at the end. . . "which magic item do they sell here?" "How can it be that they don't sell magic items?" "How do I find magic items to buy?".....:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

Well, you might try starting with nonconventional magic items that really are mechanically appealing, like this, only with a +1 in it's useful form: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19024090&postcount=193

Or this if they happen to head out on the tundra: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19016167&postcount=183

Afterwards, you could try to let them have open plot hooks: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18952588&postcount=171

As another idea, let them see what they can do, a level nine cleric has stoneshape, let them tour the stronghold of an evil deity's cleric, let them see the treasure rooms, the traps, all the cool stuff, and the little things like the private shrine, the photograph/painting of older, simpler, happier times. Let them find out how it influences the region it's in, the lords scrambling to appease, the merchants offering tribute, the law hunting the party down reluctantly for trespassing on the overlord's territory as the people chafe under his iron rule. Show that the bases and such can have a large influence on the world. Show how they can be made, and then see what happens.

With this kind of stuff, you can't teach a man, you can only hope to make him wish to learn.

[Xetheral]

Wow, this never happened to me, I am really struggling trying to let them understand that they can imagine something more than "find money --->buy magic items ----->Find more money ---->find better magic items"; does someone have advices on how to do this? I tryed to grant them inspiration when they interpret their character as thay should, tryed to let things happen from roleplaying and not only with dice rolling but .. . at the end. . . "which magic item do they sell here?" "How can it be that they don't sell magic items?" "How do I find magic items to buy?".....:smalleek::smalleek::smalleek:

Don't get me wrong... most of the money was still spent on items. :) It was just extremely common for players to also use money for RP. It may simply be the players in question... if they want to buy magic items, I'd suggest finding a way to let them so long as it won't ruin your fun.

[coredump]

5E frees up my PCs to not care so much about hunting down every last GP. Heck, my Paladin gets to pretty much ignore any gold that doesn't fall into his lap.
I can also give it away, or leave it with the poor. I can give it to peasants to mess with the local Baron. (When half your peasants move away, it can really effect your taxes...)

I can buy horses, and let them go if I don't need them; or just about any equipment. I get to focus on the adventure/goal/quest/whatever, instead of worrying that I found every secret stash of GP.