What Should I Spend Tons Of Gold On?

[Sammy9300]

So my DM is offering a reward of 150 million gp if we find the guy who killed the king. We just caught him and my party and I are on our way to collect the reward. The thing is, what am I supposed to do with so much money?!

[Kane0]

Break open the downtime rules and have a look over what sort of palace you want?

[Solusek]

Looks like it's time for the party to get Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers book! You could buy a few mighty fine castles with that kind of money.

[Eriol]

Buy yourself into a Lordship somewhere. And/or destabilize a nation. Or both.


Or maybe find the best way to KEEP the money, as your DM may "find a way" to relieve you of it. Or other NPCs might plausibly be doing that too.

[Asmotherion]

Find out who's next in line and befriend. it's the middle ages and you're wealthy heroes. Who's best suited to be nobles than you guys?

invest in Land. People trust you more if you say "see that tower; i live there" than if you say "eh i occasionally rent from inn to inn".

invest in a farm; This way your land can actually give you money.

Be a Necromancer; Cheap working hands that won't unionise and won't complain about work conditions.

Dubble as an illusionist; This way you won't have to face a pitchforck wielding crowd for employing out of the cemetery.

Transparency in your transactions; For you it means "don't forget to memorise greater invisibility" every day.

[LordNibbler]

We just caught him and my party and I are on our way to collect the reward.

I think this is where the villain’s band helps him escape or the devil he sold his soul to shows up to claim it.
In short, don’t count your millions of gold coins until they’re collected.

[Malifice]

What I'd do with the money.

It involves cocaine, hookers and a very large boat!

[Sigreid]

I believe Ale and Whores is the traditional answer.

[Zhorn]

What I'd do with the money.

It involves cocaine, hookers and a very large boat!

Airship. The third choice is always airship.

Wait, first choice! Become your game's Julio Scoundrél.

Anyway, the limitations of buying a castle are set in stone. With an airship, the sky's the limit :smallbiggrin:

[Corran]

Ideas:

1) Have something big built and give it your name (castle/ statue/ bridge/ etc).

2) Set up a spy network or build a private army/fleet. Paying wandering bards to spread false rumors among other things.

3) Fund researchers to promote technological and/or magical innovations (guns/ rocket ships/ homebrew spells/ etc).

4) Charity. Poverty? What's that? Many problems can be (temporarily) solved if you throw a lot of money at them.

5) Hand out quests to adventurers (usually that requires taking an arrow to the knee first, other than having lots of gold to pay them).

6) Promote a certain faith by donating gold that will be used to build temples and otherwise spread that faith's influence.

7) Gamble with the high rollers. Or better yet, open a casino.

8) Find a cause and promote it. Wether it is hunting down necromancers (fund the proper organization, and if it doesn't exist, create one), making magic more accessible to the people (for example by opening up wizard schools where commoners can get free lessons), or anything else depending on your character's goals and motivations.

[JackPhoenix]

150 millions is suspiciously much. That's 1360 TONS of gold.

[Aidan305]

Your GM is planning something. You likely won't get all the gold. Roll with it, have fun. Let there be a wailing a gnashing of teeth, let the cries for revenge be heard from the heavens, and afterwards have a laugh about it with the GM.

[johnbragg]

So my DM is offering a reward of 150 million gp if we find the guy who killed the king. We just caught him and my party and I are on our way to collect the reward. The thing is, what am I supposed to do with so much money?!

Yeah, you're not going to see that gold.

So my best idea is to write up contingent donation contracts with any good to neutral or lawful not-too-evil group you can find, and find hopefully 9 of them, agreeing to donate 10% of the reward to each of them, the reward that the PCs have so nobly earned and everything like that.

That way, whoever the next BBEG of the campaign is (whoever's going to screw you out of the money) has to answer questions from the Knights of Solamnia, from the Star Robes mage guild, the Harpers, the totally-reformed-and-only-kinda-evil Zhentarim of 5th edition, AND the Sovereign Host.

Side note: Exactly how are you going to prove that THIS is the guy that killed the king? How are you going to prevent his dramatic escape on the way to the capital? etc

[Spore]

Your GM is planning something. You likely won't get all the gold. Roll with it, have fun. Let there be a wailing a gnashing of teeth, let the cries for revenge be heard from the heavens, and afterwards have a laugh about it with the GM.

Maybe slap the king stand-in for the king in the face with a preposition instead: Yeah no. We realize you do not have more gold than an ancient dragon, so we just want the crown and the kingdom instead. We will rule it fairly. If you want to be our advisor, you can stay here, or we will arrange a small castle on the outskirts of your kingdom. You have earned your retirement.

[JackPhoenix]

Now that I'm back from work, I can do some googling and math.

1360 tons of gold is 84.4 cubic meters of gold. That's a cube 4.4 meters (or over 14.4 feet for the barbarians) on side.
It's about the half of the gold mined in the whole world in 2017.
1360 tons of gold is 3.5 times the total amount of gold mined in Klondike until 2013.
You would need 5556 draft horses to transport that amount of gold. Those would cost 277 800 gp, or 0.19% of the total reward.
You could build 300 large palaces or castles with that, or build one and pay its upkeep for over thousand years.
You could buy 6000 warships.
You could hire 20 000 men strong army for 10 years.
With 2 gp daily wage for skilled hirelings, you could pay one man for 205 480 years.

Your GM propably made a mistake somewhere. No way you're seeing that much precious metal.

[Rukelnikov]

I'd be extremely suspicious of such an offer. I doubt he's gonna just hand the money. Did he say "150 millon gp" or "150 millon coins", cause those could be copper coins, still an absurd amount of money, but within what's reasonable for what's essentially a king's ransom.

Assuming he makes good on the offer, think of the future, you can shape some aspects of the setting. When my party was in a similar situation we started a Knightly order, in the following campaigns the order became part of the setting, and friend and myself played characters that belonged to said order.

It felt specially rewarding getting to see how the order we started with our old characters developed.

[KorvinStarmast]

What I'd do with the money.

It involves cocaine, hookers and a very large boat! this.


I believe Ale and Whores is the traditional answer. this 2


Airship. The third choice is always airship.
This 3

[Tvtyrant]

I'm on the "found a knightly order" bandwagon. The best way to avoid getting robbed or murdered for your money is to invest it in something difficult to take, ie a bunch of forts and the land around them. Renting the land pays for the fort and its garrison, then adventurers are brought in by the glory of it all.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Well, you definitely don't have any reason to be an adventurer with that kind of gold, so you probably retire and buy up several small countries.

Or less sarcastically, you're probably not going to see that much money. If you actually are given that much money there's really nothing to spend it on. You're living costs are funded for your life, even up to an aristocratic level (likely for any long-lived races like Elves even) and the most expensive thing you can buy that isn't a magic item from the Xanathar's Guide downtime section is a Galley at 30,000 gp (you could buy 5000 of these).

Legendary magic items price range of 50k-300k when rolled using the Xanathar's guide purchasing rules so you'd be able to outfit a small army with them, assuming there's a small army's worth of Holy Avenger's lying around somewhere.

It's not realistic to expect to actually receive this money, I'd be pretty surprised if it wasn't simply a plot device.

[GlenSmash!]

True Polymorph into a Dragon and sleep on it.

Eat adventurers as needed.

Get kobolds to run your errands.

[KorvinStarmast]

True Polymorph into a Dragon and sleep on it.
Eat adventurers as needed.
Get kobolds to run your errands.

This 4 .

[No brains]

What should you do when 150 million gold is promised in your near future?

Be very suspicious of plot twists.

[Bjarkmundur]

Have a challenge dungeon be made. That ensures your next adventure will be a spectacular dungeon crawl with no regards to realism, designed to be fun to explore!

Or a similar thing, have messengers run all over the world to tell you about dragon and Lich lairs and fantastic treasures in magical Ruins.

Invest in the future, not the present!

[Yunru]

I once gave my players all the gold they could carry. Literally. They had no way back to it, no way to retreat and come back later, just a massive pile of gold from some fallen and forgot empire's vault.

You never forget when the Moon Druid drops out of wildshape and can't move because of the amount of gold he was carrying.

What I'm eventually getting to is he might just know where the gold is, and is keeping it a secret for the prize winner. Then you have to try and collect it.

[ImproperJustice]

1. Rejoice in the inevitable betrayal heading your way.

Or

2. Build a sprawling mega dungeon full of traps and riddles to keep your newfound riches safe.

[Sammy9300]

Side note: Exactly how are you going to prove that THIS is the guy that killed the king? How are you going to prevent his dramatic escape on the way to the capital? etc

The assassin has a specific mark that he leaves when he kills someone. It was found on the king and my party tracked him down. He fled into a ship and dove off to get picked up my his goons but we jumped after him. We knocked him out and are making our way back to the capital where the ‘high council’ will pay us the reward.

[stoutstien]

If my math is right you actually have over 1300 tons of gold.
I hope he's giving a pocket dimension to put it into.

[theMycon]

Found several orphanages, schools, and hospitals, across the entire continent.

Develop technology to the point where you can make a fleet of airships.

Ensure nobody in your empire of good goes hungry again.

[Sigreid]

What alignment are you? You could find poor people and offer them money in exchange for...things. Offer to buy their daughters. A few gold to sleep with their wives. Maybe try to purchase a soul or two. Just go full on devil's bargain and see what happens.

[Rukelnikov]

What alignment are you? You could find poor people and offer them money in exchange for...things. Offer to buy their daughters. A few gold to sleep with their wives. Maybe try to purchase a soul or two. Just go full on devil's bargain and see what happens.

Like you need millons for that, my GOOLock got himself a good slave in Mulhorand for less than 200 gp. Btw I specifically looked for mute slave and I bought her.

[JoeJ]

Like you need millons for that, my GOOLock got himself a good slave in Mulhorand for less than 200 gp. Btw I specifically looked for mute slave and I bought her.

Will I be happier if I don't ask why you wanted a slave who is mute?

[Rukelnikov]

Will I be happier if I don't ask why you wanted a slave who is mute?

As a merchant who brings his slave to meetings with wealthy patrons, I can't risk her opening her mouth.

[Yunru]

There's also the fact a mute slave is less likely to be a spellcaster assassin.
...
That makes it more likely doesn't it?

[Sigreid]

Like you need millons for that, my GOOLock got himself a good slave in Mulhorand for less than 200 gp. Btw I specifically looked for mute slave and I bought her.

It's a matter of scale.

[mephnick]

There's also the fact a mute slave is less likely to be a spellcaster assassin.
...
That makes it more likely doesn't it?

But makes it much more likely she's a cool regular assassin.

[Rukelnikov]

But makes it much more likely she's a cool regular assassin.

Actually she ended up as my bodyguard (basically a cohort) after a while, when the party was around lvl 10 she was Ftr2/Rog2, so... she wasn't that far from it actually :P

[Finback]

Realistically, that much gold would completely destabilise the nation's economy, leading to overinflation. One minute it's, "you're the hero!, the next "hey there's the jerk who made it so now we need a 50000gp coin to buy a loaf of bread!"

meanwhile, every dragon in the world who's heard of this is making a bee-line..

[JackPhoenix]

Realistically, that much gold would completely destabilise the nation's economy, leading to overinflation. One minute it's, "you're the hero!, the next "hey there's the jerk who made it so now we need a 50000gp coin to buy a loaf of bread!"

meanwhile, every dragon in the world who's heard of this is making a bee-line..

That much gold propably *is* the nations's economy. As in, you could easily run a kingdom on that kind of budget.

[Vogie]

That much gold propably *is* the nations's economy. As in, you could easily run a kingdom on that kind of budget.

Heck, for that amount of money, you could probably create an Instant Kingdom, that you can shrink and bring with you.

[Lunali]

I once gave my players all the gold they could carry. Literally. They had no way back to it, no way to retreat and come back later, just a massive pile of gold from some fallen and forgot empire's vault.

You never forget when the Moon Druid drops out of wildshape and can't move because of the amount of gold he was carrying.

What I'm eventually getting to is he might just know where the gold is, and is keeping it a secret for the prize winner. Then you have to try and collect it.

One thing to remember if you're the druid, carried items become part of the wildshape, so pick up gold to your max carry, wildshape into the strongest thing you can, have the party load you up from there if you can't do it yourself.

As for the OP, even if that much gold exists in the country, it's enough for a country to go to war to get. A country such as the one you are currently in, whose elite troops are probably in the vicinity of the massive amount of gold at the time you take custody of it.

[Yora]

50 gp is one pound. You can carry 15 pounds per strength score, which is 750 gp. For a Str 15 character with no weapons, armor, or supplies, that would be a maximum of 11,250 gp. Not actually that huge an amount.
But you wouldn't crawl around the wilderness with heavy encumbrance and no weapons and supplies, so in reality you could probably carry much less than that.

Players won't be too happy when they find out that all the gold they can carry is 5,000 to 10,000 gp per character. :smallsmile:

Mules are a gift from the gods.

[Master O'Laughs]

Looks like it's time for the party to get Matt Colville's Strongholds & Followers book! You could buy a few mighty fine castles with that kind of money.

I was just about to suggest the same thing!

[Mercurias]

So my DM is offering a reward of 150 million gp if we find the guy who killed the king. We just caught him and my party and I are on our way to collect the reward. The thing is, what am I supposed to do with so much money?!

Firstly, I reallllly think something is going to go down that will relieve your party most or all of that reward.

Secondly, I'd personally begin to build up a large, self-sufficient city in a neighboring country, where it'll be hard for the new ruler to find ways to take your cash. I'd make sure to build temples for clergy who are influential with both the kingdom of your new city and the new ruler of the nation that paid you, and I'd donate to those clergy generously enough for them to have your back.

I'd also import all of your favorite NPCs your DM hates doing the voices for (Note: Only do this is your DM appreciates being trolled, because DMs are players too and deserve to have fun).

Thirdly, I could build your city all on a single large foundation, with the end goal of eventually turning your city into a giant airship. Because why the fudge not make a self-sufficient sky-fortress to adventure in if you've got 150,000,000 gold?

[jaappleton]

Open your own theme park!

With blackjack, and hookers!

Know what? Forget the theme park.

[tchntm43]

I think that it's extremely likely that the DM made a mistake, or that the king is outright lying in his promise. This is because it is, or should be, unlikely that the king even has access to that much money. The value of his entire kingdom is probably substantially less than that.

[JackPhoenix]

I think that it's extremely likely that the DM made a mistake, or that the king is outright lying in his promise. This is because it is, or should be, unlikely that the king even has access to that much money. The value of his entire kingdom is probably substantially less than that.

The king is dead. The characters were hunting his murderer.

Which kinda makes you wonder why something of that sum wasn't used to simply resurrect (or TR) the king. I would be very wary of the "high council".

[JoeJ]

Which kinda makes you wonder why something of that sum wasn't used to simply resurrect (or TR) the king. I would be very wary of the "high council".

Maybe they tried and it didn't work. Maybe they don't really want the king back, but also don't want a murderer walking around free.

[greenstone]

Hire bards to sing songs in all the inns and taverns in the land, telling lies about the exploits of your enemies.

[Sigreid]

Hire bards to sing songs in all the inns and taverns in the land, telling lies about the exploits of your enemies.

When danger reared it's ugly head, brave Sir Robbin Turned and fled.

[PastorofMuppets]

You could always just RP the money away the classic way



https://imgur.com/a/eVTW7hn

[Finback]

Maybe they tried and it didn't work. Maybe they don't really want the king back, but also don't want a murderer walking around free.

Or more likely, they had the king assassinated ("oh no, our attempts to revive him failed welp back to work"), and now they want the assassin silenced.

But really, that's a CRAZY amount, since somewhere, a bounty hunter would totally undercut it. "I'll do it for 1 million". "I'll do it for 500,000".