Money in 5th ed and it's uses

[oxybe]

So I managed to get wednesdays off and was able to rejoin my old gaming group to find that in my absence they had ended a campaign and started a new one, a 5th ed one.

So I rolled up a quick level 4 wizard, GM had him bamf in suddenly and the Party now has a fish out of water scenario where some preppy college kid basically wakes up in the absolute worst neighbourhood (the underdark).

So my wizard's main motivation for going along with the party is finding a way home and these dirt-covered vagabonds are the first friendly faces he's seen since dropping into the caves.

After travelling with them (in-game) for months, we finally hit level 5 and he grabs sending, allowing him to finally contact his college and letting them know that, no, he hasn't been just skipping class, magic just kinda happened and now he's in the underdark. after a week's worth of back-and-forth between him and his college, explaining to the dean and his teachers what's been going on in the underdark, they advise him of a way back to the surface... the exact opposite way the party is heading :smalltongue:

So our poor wizard just kinda gives up and accepts his lot in life. His notes go from the more formal collegiate tone to almost diary-esque, he stops maintaining his clothes and looks through prestidigitation and starts looking more dishevelled with matted hair and tattered robes and he just kinda goes with the flow.

Then last session happened: we arrive to a rather large dwarven town, the hometown (or at least where he currently lives) of our rogue. Which has an exit to the surface. To say my poor wizard breaks down is an understatement. after cleaning up at the inn he watches his first sunrise in months then leaves to go back to the college.

which coincides with the GM giving us downtime and telling us to level up to level 8.

Now, the initial wizard I made wanted nothing to do with the campaign itself: I made him in 10 minutes using borrowed books before the session started as a placeholder. he just wanted to go home and adventuring with the party and helping them was his ticket out of there, basically a filler PC until i got a better idea of the party makeup/dynamic and roll up another PC. I had a 4th level PC made using level 1 starting gear but little else.

Now when it came time to level up the backup character I'm bringing in to 8th, I asked what the starting gold and whatnot for a level 8 PC was, no one could really give a concrete answer. I got the "well magic items aren't needed" response but that doesn't really answer my question... does a fresh level 8 PC really start with just basic adventuring gear and a handful of gold? I didn't ask when I getting my wizard because I had like, 10-15 minutes to write one up and wouldn't have had time to go shopping, but this time I have a week or so to get ready.

I feel like 5th ed has basically made money useless outside of obtaining basic necessities and some traveling gear, but does a fresh level 8 PC really just start off with a sword, some chainmail & 15gp? I couldn't find any mention in the PHB of starting gold/items for higher level characters, which in previous editions is in the DMG (i don't have the 5th ed DMG). I checked but couldn't find it in the SRD either.

I know 3rd had WBL and 4th had level-1, level, level+1 & GP equal to an item of level-1, but what does 5th ed have?

And this got me thinking further: is there really nothing outside of mundane expenditures to look forward to when it comes to gold spending, like getting a better suite of armor, trail rations and the occasional healing potion?

Not every PC wants to raise the funds needed to run a guildhall or put aside the D&D books and instead play Civilization 4 by owning his own fortress town and managing it. Some are just out there to get rich, while others are out for the adventure of it and many have a personal reason to adventure, but one of the main reasons to want money is that there is stuff you want to spend money on and 5th ed seems really sparse in that area.

one thing i loved were the magic items that were quality of life based: clothing that could change to your preference and cleaned itself, mugs that were always full of fresh water or cheap ale/wine, bags of rations that kept themselves full, sleeping bags that made sure you were well rested, reusable campfires that could light themselves off/on, tents that would protect you from weather and hazards (larger branches that could collapse normal tents or animals poking at it with claws/bandits trying to break in), spools of rope that never seemed to end, chalk that could be used to write messages in mid-air, in addition to the famous haversacks & bag of holding, etc... things that wouldn't break the game but would almost indicate "that guy's either a pro or a wealthy noble-born". Things adventurers would likely buy to help ease the burden of adventuring.

but these sort of items seem to be gone from the adventurer's repertoire in 5th ed and that saddens me. high level adventurers still seem to be using the same basic gear they used at the start of their career without any real way to get better goods.

so to stop rambling i'll TLDR my 2 questions:

1- what's the starting gear of an 8th level PC?

2- outside mundane expenditures (rations & equipment), what can characters spend their money on?

[CoggieRagabash]

Currently playing a wizard, I know I've got gold sinks built in. Copying over spells, making backup spell books and summoning that darn familiar back from the dead. Also, expensive spell components.

[Atalas]

it depends on how high a concentration of magic exists in the campaign. If it's normal, and it sounds like it, the starting gear for a level 5-10 PC is 500 gp + 1d10x25 gp plus normal starting equipment. If your DM classifies it as a high level campaign, add an uncommon magic item to that (like the ever-popular and absurdly useful Bag of Holding, or Decanter of Endless Water).

Its in page 38 of the DMG. But that sounds like a good campaign to play in and some well rounded RPing to boot.

[RickAllison]

If the whole idea is you don't want to manage a fortress town, don't. This is obviously advice geared to higher levels, but you can get a large estate and then hire someone else to manage it for you, your steward. Rather than micro-managing, you can invest your gold in what you are interested and then have the steward handle the money management of the area while you commit to your adventures. Build an astronomy tower, a greenhouse to grow various herbs for alchemy, stockpiles of rare ingredients so you always have them handy. You reap all the benefits of spending to get that wonderful castle, but don't have to bother with logistics.

[Skeller]

So no you cannot buy magic items. That being said there are a couple things to buy like full plate and some other things. Also there is sort of wealth by level. At 8th in a standard magic campaign it is 500 GP + 1d10 x 25 GP plus normal starting gear. You actually start with nothing magical until 10th. This is assuming your DM uses those rules and the standard assumptions. It is all optional.

[Addaran]

Already mentionned, but copying spells for a wizard!

Aside from that, potions and costy material components for your casters (having 25 diamonds ready for ressurection!) Special metal items (silver, cold iron and possibly mithrial/adamantine)

Buying a ballista for your Eldritch Knight to bound as his weapon...:smalleek:

[Flashy]

1- what's the starting gear of an 8th level PC?

The starting equipment table for higher level play is on page 38 of the DMG. Ask your DM whether you're playing in a low magic, standard, or high magic campaign. Only the high magic campaign sees you starting with a magic item at this level, otherwise it's just 500+(1d10*25) gp on top of your normal starting equipment.

Edit: Shadowmonk'd!


2- outside mundane expenditures (rations & equipment), what can characters spend their money on?

I guess it depends what you classify as mundane. As you said you can play sim city, try to build an army, establish a chain of brothels, or really whatever, but you don't seem interested in that. In general the assumption in 5e is that magic items cannot be bought or sold, but there ARE rules for buying and selling magic items in the downtime section of the DMG (page 130). There are also rules for crafting magic items, but it's pretty generally agreed that they're terrible and you shouldn't use them. If you decide that's a thing you want to try I'd point you at Ninja Prawn's crafting supplement over in the homebrew forum.

At the end of the day magic item availability is what your DM makes it. There's certainly no real balance reason why the quality of life items you're talking about couldn't be bought or sold.

5e is honestly a really flexible system when it comes to magic item availability. As long as you don't start stacking a dozen different static modifiers there's not really all that much you can do to ruin it. If you and your table decide that you want to bring back magic item marts you probably can so long as your DM is even faintly careful about curating the stock in trade.

[mephnick]

2- outside mundane expenditures (rations & equipment), what can characters spend their money on?

Power, just like the real world. A magical axe is cool and all, but having the High Council of Humanville on your payroll is way, way more powerful.

Even if you're only interested in mechanical power, set up a spy network or a trading cabal that will give you access to information on powerful items. Hire NPCs that can grant you travel between planes, granting you access to more things to discover. Bribe genies and dragons to craft cool things.Throw money into inventors to create new modes of travel or technology that open up new adventures. Ask your DM to add all those cool items you listed to the game world, it's pretty damn easy.

This all assumes you have a DM that will let you have fun.

[RickAllison]

Ooooo. If you get a portable hole and if you have someone with high strength, you could purchase small siege weapons to take with you! Dragon in your path? Have your assassin Sneak Attack crit him with a ballista! He'll be half-dead before you even get to the fight.

[oxybe]

It's a bit saddening that the only thing to do with money is "ask your gm", but i'll see about how he feels about the 500+1d10x25 GP. at least that can afford me better gear then the starter chain mail and some components.

the main reason things like keeps, houses and political power in Townsville don't interest me is that my group generally doesn't stay in one location for any amount of time. Our characters go out for months and months on end, return to resupply or do a few things in a town then leave again to another town... any sort of "investment" would likely only see fruition if my character retires from adventuring with the group as I don't expect to be returning to a given town anytime soon or staying there long enough for it to matter.

[MaxWilson]

Planar Binding, purple worm venom, and hobgoblin mercenaries are all excellent uses for gold. Stoneskin, Glyph of Warding, too. Spell research if your DM has rules for it.

Honestly, Planar Binding is way more powerful than magic items anyway--even if there were magic item shops you'd still be better off with five air elementals than a jar of keoghtom's ointment even if they both cost 5000gp.

[RickAllison]

If you can get a Portable Hole, you could probably convert it into a small study. Even better, get two and you can have one functioning as a library to consult for any issues you are having and the other as a depository for various alchemical ingredients for experiments. Effectively, you would be using the gold that would normally furnish a mansion to create portable rooms for your personal academic purposes.

[Flashy]

It's a bit saddening that the only thing to do with money is "ask your gm", but i'll see about how he feels about the 500+1d10x25 GP. at least that can afford me better gear then the starter chain mail and some components.

Yeah, 5e is written from the ground up as a hugely configurable system. Even feats and multiclassing are officially optional rules, though most people seem to use them. The system can readily represent a lot of different styles of play, but the price you pay for that is that people can't instantly show up to any home table knowing what rules will be in use.

Again though, if the DM considers that it's a high magic game then you're arguable qualified for an uncommon magic item on top of the 500 and change gp. At least, according to the table.

[Laserlight]

iIf it's normal, and it sounds like it, the starting gear for a level 5-10 PC is 500 gp + 1d10x25 gp plus normal starting equipment.

Wellllll....that's what the DMG says on that page. But I went to pg 133, where it says how many hoards you're expected to find per tier. (Rather than work out the additional stuff from non-hoard loot, I'm assuming all that got used or spent). A party which has made it to mid 6th level (which is where our campaign started) should have found something like 26000gp, which divided by 4 party members = 6500 per person in coin, gems and art objects. The hoards also include a certain amount of potions and magic items. Note that a Level 6 monk's hands count as a "magic weapon" for purposes of defeating resistance; that implies that by L6, you're expected to need at least some magic weapons in the party.

[VoxRationis]

Wellllll....that's what the DMG says on that page. But I went to pg 133, where it says how many hoards you're expected to find per tier. (Rather than work out the additional stuff from non-hoard loot, I'm assuming all that got used or spent). A party which has made it to mid 6th level (which is where our campaign started) should have found something like 26000gp, which divided by 4 party members = 6500 per person in coin, gems and art objects.

That assumes that A) your character got to that higher level through adventuring with level-appropriate rewards, and B) your character never spent any of that money.

The more gold-independent aspect of 5e reminds me of the finances of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who were almost always broke, in spite of frequently coming across fist-sized gems and chests of gold, simply because they wined and whored their way through life. If your character is "preppy," they may have expensive habits indeed—the best clothes, the best food, the best lodgings they can possibly afford. Hire a manservant or three. Get a carriage—what wizard wants to walk everywhere? If you have to teleport, just buy a new carriage wherever you teleported to!

[Anonymouswizard]

That assumes that A) your character got to that higher level through adventuring with level-appropriate rewards, and B) your character never spent any of that money.

The more gold-independent aspect of 5e reminds me of the finances of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, who were almost always broke, in spite of frequently coming across fist-sized gems and chests of gold, simply because they wined and whored their way through life. If your character is "preppy," they may have expensive habits indeed—the best clothes, the best food, the best lodgings they can possibly afford. Hire a manservant or three. Get a carriage—what wizard wants to walk everywhere? If you have to teleport, just buy a new carriage wherever you teleported to!

This, is pretty important. I'm going to be joining a 5e game where, now I finally know what roles everybody else is playing, I'll be running a female noble rogue who works as a 'spy' (although she does as much wetwork as intel-gathering), and so I'm going to have quite a bit of expenses as I level up. Looking at my concept and starting equipment, buy level 5 I'll need to have bought at least:

3 hand crossbows refluffed as flintlock pistols. 225gp
at least 6 more sets of fine clothing, plus one more for every adventure in high society. 90gp+
traveller's clothes. 2gp
disguise kit. 25gp
poisoner's kit. 50gp
dragonchess set. 1gp
horse and carriage. 150gp
spyglass. 1000gp
lots of antitoxin, at least 10 vials of the stuff. 1000gp
several chests to store my spare equipment in. 25+gp
various pieces of expensive jewlery. however much my DM charges
various sets of clothing, bought on the fly and discarded as identities are assumed/dropped. various amounts of gold.
a townhouse. could drop a couple of thousand here easily.
driver. 2gp per day
maid. 2sp per day
bodyguard. 2gp per day (what? she wants people to underestimate her)
Aristocratic lifestyle. 10gp+ per day

items: 2568gp+
expenses/day: 14.2gp+

So after getting basic starting equipment from my class, and my shopping list accounts for the first 2600gp+ of my character's income, and that's assuming I don't manage to outright buy a townhouse or add more servants to the list (gotta maintain a public identity). Long downtimes will also drain my gold fast, even without restocking ammunition or buying new clothes/rapiers. I predict I'll end up strapped for cash compared to the barbarian (who I think doesn't have anything other than drinking and whoring as a cash drain) and cleric (who doesn't even have that), and possibly even moreso than the wizard if my character's planned contact network (boy, that's going to take a lot of gametime and money) has to start digging up rare spells.

Long story short, there's not a lot outside of mundane expenses to spend money on, but even mundane expenses can add up fast if your concept calls for it. (I expect as levels increase a lot of my money will be going on antitoxins, potions of healing, and other such consumables)

[Rhaegar]

What to spend money on can very much depend on your DM. While DMing my current adventure I put in a black market magic item vendor that has a few specific items for my players to potentially purchase using the pricing guide from http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424243-Sane-Magic-Item-Prices Each time they visit a couple of the previous items are gone, and a couple new items appear.

[Vogonjeltz]

And this got me thinking further: is there really nothing outside of mundane expenditures to look forward to when it comes to gold spending, like getting a better suite of armor, trail rations and the occasional healing potion?

Not every PC wants to raise the funds needed to run a guildhall or put aside the D&D books and instead play Civilization 4 by owning his own fortress town and managing it. Some are just out there to get rich, while others are out for the adventure of it and many have a personal reason to adventure, but one of the main reasons to want money is that there is stuff you want to spend money on and 5th ed seems really sparse in that area.

Well, for a wizard there's the fairly large expense of scribing spells, but if you want to define mundane as "Not magic items or Spells" than, sure, there's only (note: If saying this sentence aloud, the word only should positively drip with sarcasm) mundane expenses.

Which tend to include your lifestyle, so: Not being a disheveled bum infested with fleas and lice, prone to disease and having your nice equipment stolen by all those other filthy peasants who recognize even the cheapest magic item as something worth a veritable kings ransom of a fortune. Lifestyle expenses have no real cap, and being part of the upper crust with money to fritter away comes with a variety of handy perks for our erstwhile adventurer. You get invited to nice parties, You make rich and powerful contacts who might assist you in need and provide as points of contact for the good adventures. Read: Profitable ones. You can afford to have a well paid staff who make sure nobody robs your home and burns it down while you're out risking life and limb for a few more coppers.

Other uses for the gold can be found in Downtime Activities on PHB page 187: Crafting, Researching, Training; You could also gamble, buy a business, go on a drunken bender (carousing), etc...

[Laserlight]

That assumes that A) your character got to that higher level through adventuring with level-appropriate rewards, and B) your character never spent any of that money.

A) is at least a plausible possibility; and
B) i. Note that I assumed that the character spent/used all her non-hoard loot, so that's not included in my calculation.
B) ii. "spent it on stuff which she still has, such as this Magic Armor".

The point being that the DMG's suggestion on starting gold is an arbitrary number, and probably intended if the whole party is starting together. If your new character is joining an existing party, and if the DM wants (or "is willing for") you to be on par with the rest of the group, there is an argument to be made for a higher amount and an approach to figuring out what that higher amount might reasonably be.