Comparative gold piece values.

[Kanthalion]

So I like the fifth edition rules about building and maintaining property, and would like to integrate them into my 3.5 game. The problem is, I instinctively feel that gold pieces in 5th edition are worth more than gold pieces in 3.5. Has anyone worked out the comparative value of a gold piece from edition to edition?

[Kanthalion]

Oh, and I'm not meaning 1gp = 10sp and so on. I am meaning more in the sense of, if a 5th ed gp was a pound and a 3.5 gp was a dollar how many dollars would that pound be worth.

[Tvtyrant]

I think the easiest way to find out would be to look at the cost of items or worker wages. A worker in 3.5 D&D gets paid 1SP a day, so WBL is extremely high (200 GP is 5 1/2 years of labor).

[Kanthalion]

I think the easiest way to find out would be to look at the cost of items or worker wages. A worker in 3.5 D&D gets paid 1SP a day, so WBL is extremely high (200 GP is 5 1/2 years of labor).

I thought of that. and in 5th ed a worker gets paid 2sp a day. which would actually devalue a 5th ed gp compared to 3.5, but the system seems to be designed around giving players less gold and therefore having items be harder to get such that a 10gp 5th ed shortsword would be more valuable than a 10gp 3.5 short sword. Which seems to run counter to paying a worker 2sp a day.

Althought you just gave me an idea, Tvtyrant: I bet I could compare the recommended gp loot for equivalent encounters. say kobolds. or something that exists in every edition. and that way you would get an idea of the buying power of a gp in each edition.

[Dusk Raven]

I thought of that. and in 5th ed a worker gets paid 2sp a day. which would actually devalue a 5th ed gp compared to 3.5, but the system seems to be designed around giving players less gold and therefore having items be harder to get such that a 10gp 5th ed shortsword would be more valuable than a 10gp 3.5 short sword. Which seems to run counter to paying a worker 2sp a day.

Indeed. Though I'd suggest mostly looking at the price for equivalent pieces of equipment. That said, maybe they just closed the "wage gap" so to speak? Workers get paid more and adventurers get paid less, which is fine by me, since in 3.5 WBL gets pretty damn ridiculous, eventually reaching a point which I'm sure eclipses the actual amount of wealth in the setting.

[Kanthalion]

Indeed. Though I'd suggest mostly looking at the price for equivalent pieces of equipment. That said, maybe they just closed the "wage gap" so to speak? Workers get paid more and adventurers get paid less, which is fine by me, since in 3.5 WBL gets pretty damn ridiculous, eventually reaching a point which I'm sure eclipses the actual amount of wealth in the setting.

I think you're right about the "wage gap." That's why I think I'd need to adjust the values of the property building and upkeep up some degree. Otherwise, in a 3.5 setting they would feel ridiculously cheap.

[Milo v3]

1 gp in 3.5e is apparently worth $20 according to D20 Modern.

[Xervous]

1 gp in 3.5e is apparently worth $20 according to D20 Modern.

Though wasn't D20 modern written up a decade or so ago? What does that leave the real value at now? What will the real value be when someone reads these archived posts next decade?

[Kanthalion]

Though wasn't D20 modern written up a decade or so ago? What does that leave the real value at now? What will the real value be when someone reads these archived posts next decade?

That is a fun question. But I wasn't meaning real world value, I was just using real world currency as examples of the way I was wanting people to be thinking.

[Âmesang]

As of this writing, according to OnlyGold.Com (http://onlygold.com/Info/Value-Your-Weight-In-Gold.asp), the current price of gold is US $15,541.83 per pound (lb).

[Kanthalion]

1 gp in 3.5e is apparently worth $20 according to D20 Modern.


Though wasn't D20 modern written up a decade or so ago? What does that leave the real value at now? What will the real value be when someone reads these archived posts next decade?

Gods help me, I'm engaging the tangent: I suppose over time "D20 Modern" will become "D20 Late 20th/Early 21st Century."

[Chronos]

$20 per GP is the lowest estimate I've ever seen-- Do they show any of their work?

Most estimates I've seen based on the prices listed in the rules end up at about $200, give or take a factor of two depending on which prices you look at.

[Dusk Raven]

I saw one individual attempt to calculate the value of a gold piece based on the price of alcohol, which according to him remains more or less constant throughout history. Equate a mug of ale (4 cp in 3.5) with a can of bear ($2.49 in this calculation), and you get a value of $62.5 to the gold coin. I haven't done research since, but it's the standard I've used for some time.

[Kanthalion]

Okay, this is WAY different:

Max coins from a 3.5 cr 4 encounter is 80pp (800gp) Max for the same encounter in 5th ed is 120gp. That works out to a ratio of 20 to 3. That seems wayyy off to me. Am I doing my math right? Am I using the right tables?

[Kanthalion]

I used CR 4 because the 5th ed tables are for CR 0-4.

[Milo v3]

Okay, this is WAY different:

Max coins from a 3.5 cr 4 encounter is 80pp (800gp) Max for the same encounter in 5th ed is 120gp. That works out to a ratio of 20 to 3. That seems wayyy off to me. Am I doing my math right? Am I using the right tables?

You get a lot more money in 3.5e than in 5e because in 3.5e you have to buy a tonne of expensive magical items which you don't need to do in 5e. That doesn't mean that 800 3.5e gp = 120 5e gp

[Tvtyrant]

As of this writing, according to OnlyGold.Com (http://onlygold.com/Info/Value-Your-Weight-In-Gold.asp), the current price of gold is US $15,541.83 per pound (lb).

Yeah but we cannot make more of it, whereas in D&D that is fairly trivial.

[Kanthalion]

You get a lot more money in 3.5e than in 5e because in 3.5e you have to buy a tonne of expensive magical items which you don't need to do in 5e. That doesn't mean that 800 3.5e gp = 120 5e gp

Good point. Hmm. I have to figure a way to account for the cost of magic items then.

[dascarletm]

I'm going to go based off of the food, drink and lodging from the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#foodDrinkAndLodging).

So, ale has been done.

Loaf of Bread:
Cheese, hunk of: 1 sp (½ lb) - Half pound of cheese on average runs just about $2, but it's not a great comparison due to packaging, transport etc.
Inn stay (per day)
Good 2 gp - I'd say a "good" inn constitutes ~$200 a night
Common 5 sp - probably around ~$50. It seems the scaling is right within the category
Poor 2 sp - I've seen motels go for $10 a night. I'm sure there is cheaper.
Meals (per day)
Good 5 sp - Good meal is probably $20-40 a meal. Average $90.
Common 3 sp - $10 meals? $30 a day.
Poor 1 sp - Dollar Menu? $4?
Meat, chunk of 3 sp (½ lb) - this really depends on the cut.

[Fizban]

Which rules about building and maintaining property, or alternatively: what is 3.5 lacking? There are rough prices for buildings in the DMG, detailed construction rules in Stronghold Builder's Guide, there's general upkeep costs and specific values for food and lodging, Arms and Equipment Guide even has individual pieces of clothing, I don't see what's missing unless you want exact values for how much it takes to fix the roof. As for the value of gold, Milo already got it: in 3.5 you get tons of cash magic items that are worth tons of cash, so by mid-levels a small house can be quite affordable. Even so, a fancy house is a considerable fraction of your budget until very high levels, the budget that is supposed to be for not dying in combat. You could compare the prices from 5e with the expected wealth from 5e and get the level to house correlations, but then you might want to consider that 5e cuts the power level down quite a bit so top end 5e will be closer to mid-high 3.5 when comparing scale of effects to scale of housing aspirations.

Regarding wages: the assumption that unskilled laborers earning 1sp per day make up the majority of the populace has always been absurd. A medieval-ish economy is what, 90% farmers? And that is a trade requiring skill, specifically Profession (Farmer). But in general the dnd economy doesn't make sense and shouldn't be looked at too closely.

[Chronos]

Quoth Dusk Raven:

I saw one individual attempt to calculate the value of a gold piece based on the price of alcohol, which according to him remains more or less constant throughout history.
The thing is, you can take any commodity (well, at least, any that's been available for the relevant time), and assert that that particular commodity has remained constant in price throughout history (this is often claimed about gold, for instance). The only way you can ever see any changes is by comparing multiple items to each other, and even then, you can't say whether A is dropping or B is rising. At best, you can take some sort of average of a great many items (and how do you weight that average?), and then compare individual items to that overall average.

[BowStreetRunner]

Does 5th edition have an analogue to Table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level on page 135 of the 3.5 DMG? I would think that would be quite useful as a benchmark.

[ComaVision]

I'm not very knowledgeable about 5e so pardon if some of my assumptions are off.

In D&D 3.5e the characters are supposed to become epic heroes, along with literal dragons' hoards of treasure. Buying property should be a trivial matter compared to their God-created +69 Greatsword.

D&D 5e is a step back from that and player characters aren't filling demiplanes with pure gold. It's not so much that gold has a different value in the settings as it is that the player characters play different roles.

TL;DR Property should be fairly trivial to buy to stay in line with how the economy "works" in 3.5e.

[Milo v3]

Does 5th edition have an analogue to Table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level on page 135 of the 3.5 DMG? I would think that would be quite useful as a benchmark.

Not really, since even if they are same value 3.5e would have colossally more wealth than 5e.

[Chronos]

Yeah, the WBL table doesn't mean that you'll ever have literally that many gold pieces. It's just a shorthand for saying at what level you'll have a +1 sword or a Cloak of Resistance or a Headband of Intellect, or whatever. It's not the gold itself that's important; it's the equipment you can buy with it. And the conversion between gold and magic items is vastly different in different editions.

[Fizban]

Does 5th edition have an analogue to Table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level on page 135 of the 3.5 DMG? I would think that would be quite useful as a benchmark.
It does. Not level by level but by "tiers." Still, WotC always loves their random treasure tables and has once again provided a table for creating characters above 1st with a roughly equivalent amount of treasure.

[Kanthalion]

Which rules about building and maintaining property, or alternatively: what is 3.5 lacking? There are rough prices for buildings in the DMG, detailed construction rules in Stronghold Builder's Guide, there's general upkeep costs and specific values for food and lodging, Arms and Equipment Guide even has individual pieces of clothing, I don't see what's missing unless you want exact values for how much it takes to fix the roof.

I downloaded the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. It was perfect. Thanks for your help.

[Fizban]

One of the first DnD books I ever bought, just 'cause it was cool.