Wealth Rank - an economy simplifier!

[Bjarkmundur]

Update 24.06.19
Ive stopped updating this thread. You can see my current version in the Houserules document in my signature.


This is my attempt of removing coin-counting from 5e, without removing commerce, trade and wealth entirely. The goal is to make a linear path to the aristocracy, with purchase suggestions and lifestyle changes that give a player more narrative support. Learning the economy of 5e can be a feat in and of itself, and knowing just how rich your character is can be tricky. What follows are the first few different ranks of wealth, rated from surviving off scraps to having your own mansion and self-sustaining business. While adventuring you will constantly increase your rank, allowing you to continue making meaningful purchases. Once you stop, however, you still have your savings and remain at your rank for roughly 1 year, but lose the ability to make larger purchases.
This houserule does not change or replace magic item rewards, only monetary rewards. What goods your players receive is therefore a combination of their magic item loot and their wealth ranks.

Working from this post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?588952-PC-Wealth-Milestones) I think I have a pretty good idea on where to place the tiers. Please comment on that thread for any additional meaningful ways of spending money.
Progressing through the Wealth Ranks is a matter of setting and completely based on the narrative. A group might jump up a couple of Wealth Ranks with the acquisition of a Dragon's Hoard, or lose rank in a city-fire or a raid. A DM has complete authority over his group's Wealth Rank progression, meaning some rewards might not increase your Wealth Rank, but isntead refresh your current Rank to allow for additional purchases. Refreshing your wealth rank is exactly the same as being re-rewarded with your current rank. If you're at a rank that allows for one purchase of 100gp (which you've already done), after your rank is refreshed you can make the purchase again, even though you're at the same rank as before. I can see how a typical adventuring group might progress at roughly the following rate.

Level 1 = Poor
Level 2 = Modest
Level 3 = Modest+
Level 4 = Comfortable
Level 5 = Comfortable+
Level 6 = Comfortable+
Level 7 = Wealthy
Level 8 = Wealthy+
Level 9 = Wealthy+
Level 10 = Wealthy+
Level 11 = Wealthy+
Level 12 = Aristocratic (coming soon tm)

According to the DMG, a player will afford a year of Aristocratic lifestyle starting between levels 9 and 12.
According to the DMG, over the course of a typical campaign a party finds treasure hoards amounting to seven rolls on the Challenge 0 - 4 table, eighteen rolls on the Challenge 5 - 10 table, twelve rolls on the Challenge 11 - 16 table, and eight rolls on the challenge 17+ table. = 45 overall hoards.


How to use:
As a DM, you supply the group with loot. When it comes to giving rewards, you have the following options, that still line up with this systems design goal.

Skip the middle man, and give the players the item's they'd eventually spend their money on as loot. This is especially true for healing Potions and healer's kits.
Award gems with a set value: "You find a single gemstone which can be used to make one purchase of 30gp or less".
Refresh your player's current Wealth Rank.
Increase your players Wealth Rank.





Wealth Ranks
Wealth Ranks is an optional rule for the 5th edition of dungeons and dragons and replaces all monetary rewards. Your wealth rank at 1st level is determined by your level, class, and background, as well as your campaign modifier, set by your DM. Whenever you receive a sizable sum of currency, your wealth rank increases. Your wealth rank determines what items you can buy, which goods and services you can afford and your quality of life. Sometimes a reward is not great enough to increase your wealth rank, but might reset your current wealth rank instead.

Wretched
You have no wealth and can afford no goods or services. You survive on the charity of others and your wits alone. You might steal, beg, or volunteer at a temple for food or shelter.

Squalid
You have no wealth and can afford no goods or services. You've managed to find a place of shelter, but it cannot be considered a home.

Poor
You can afford cheap lodgings, such as a commune or a bedroll in a shared loft at an inn, and simple food, but no other goods or services.

Modest
You can now afford a modest lifestyle. This means you can stay at an inn, or purchase simple housing. All goods and services worth 1gp or less are freely available to you, such as tolls, coach rides and hiring commoners for manual labor.

Modest +1
You can make one purchase of up to 5gp while at this rank, such as a healer's kit, a skilled hireling or payment for a personal service.

Modest +2
You can make one purchases of up to 5gp while at this rank, and one purchase of 30gp or less, such as a flask of acid or hiring a spellcaster to cast a 1st level spell.

Modest +3
You can make one purchases of up to 5gp while at this rank, and one purchase of 50gp or less, such as a healing potion, studded leather, hiring a spellcaster to cast a second level spell, or alchemist’s fire.

Comfortable
You can now afford a comfortable lifestyle. This means you can a prepay room at an inn, with meals, purchase a comfortable home, or a simple home and a small business with employees. All goods and services worth 5gp or less are freely available to you.

Comfortable +1
You can make two purchases of 50gp or less while at this rank.

Comfortable +2
You can make two purchases of 50gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of up to 100gp, such as a common magic item, a riding horse or a basic poison.

Comfortable +3
You can make two purchases of 50gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of up to 150gp such as truth serum, a bomb or Assassin’s Blood.

Comfortable +4
You can make two purchases of up to 50gp and one purchase of up to 200gp, such as Splint Armor or a Greater Healing Potion.

Wealthy
You can now afford a wealthy lifestyle. This means owning a self-sustaining business, a small mansion, and having multiple skilled and unskilled hirelings. All goods and services worth 50gp or less are freely available to you.

Wealthy +1
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank.

Wealthy +2
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 400gp or less, such as a Warhorse or a Breastplate.

Wealthy +3
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 500gp or less, such as an uncommon magic item.

Wealthy +4
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 750gp or less, such as a Half-Plate.

Wealthy +5
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 1500gp or less, such as Plate Armor.

Wealthy +6
You can make two purchases of up to 200gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 2000gp or less, such as a Superior Healing Potion.

Aristocratic
You can now afford an aristocratic lifestyle. It's quite like being wealthy, except everything is bigger. All goods and services worth 100gp or less are freely available to you.

Aristocratic +1
You can make two purchases of up to 2000gp or less while at this rank

Aristocratic +2
You can make two purchases of up to 2000gp or less while at this rank, and one purchase of 5.000gp or less, such as a Rare Magic Item.

Playtesting note: This is just the first few of the total ranks I intend to create, to support all levels of play. Supreme Healing potions is valued at 20.000gp, so there are plenty of ranks to be made.


Sidenote: Hiring an adventurer NPC will most likely have the following clause "You can pay an available NPC to join you on your adventures. While accompanied by an NPC, whenever your wealth rank would increase, it instead resets your current rank. This represent you getting a smaller cut of the bountey, due to the extra person to share the loot with."

[Bjarkmundur]

As the system is now, a rank higher than Modest +1 isn't suitable for a level 1 character. After playtesting I might add separate starting ranks. It's assumed that eventually the entire party reaches the rank of Comfortable at the same time, but maintain their relative wealth gaps until then.


Starting Wealth by Class
Monk.........Squalid
Barbarian...Squalid
Druid.........Squalid
Sorcerer....Squalid

Rogue.......Poor
Warlock.....Poor
Wizard.......Poor

Paladin......Modest
Ranger......Modest
Bard..........Modest
Cleric.........Modest
Fighter......Modest

Additional modifier are then applied, such as +1/-1 from backgrounds and your campaign modifiers.

[Moxxmix]

Purely a semantics issue, but I don't feel that your naming tiers match up with your description tiers.

The game has two living conditions below poor — wretched and squalid — and wretched seems to better match what you describe as "poor". I would probably call it "destitute", though, and only keep that one level below poor. Beyond that, modest sounds poor, comfortable sounds modest, wealthy sounds comfortable, and aristocratic sounds wealthy. You don't have anything that sounds like it actually reaches aristocratic levels.

~~~

It's hard to get a solid translation into "wealth ranks", though I can appreciate what you're trying to do.

I did some calculating to figure out "spending wealth" based on lifestyle costs, and the presumed saved wealth each tier would need to have (a few days for squalid [3-5 sp], a couple weeks for poor [3-5 gp], a couple months for modest [60 gp], several months for comfortable [240 gp], half a year for wealthy [720 gp], and a year for aristocratic [3600+ gp]). Assuming a stable income to maintain that lifestyle level, I would consider those values to be roughly how much a person at that wealth level could spend per month. And, obviously, they could double that if they burned through all of their savings, leaving themselves on the verge of destitute.

Moving up a level in living conditions is not easy, particularly as you go higher up. It's not just a matter of having the money; you have to find a new place to live, update your wardrobe, and integrate with the new neighbors. And that's not even counting getting newer, better gear. Going down wealth levels, meanwhile, is much easier, but far more disruptive. If you get kicked out of your fancy manor because you have no more money, you lose reputation not only because you're now poor, but because all the people that used to associate with you know that you're now poor, and will actively want to distance themselves from you (as opposed to all the other poor people who are just nameless faces).

On an initial pass, I probably wouldn't bother with all the +n ranks attached to the wealth levels. Just say that a given wealth level has a certain budget per month (and the numbers I came up with, above, basically match what you proposed, anyway). It's possible to go up a wealth level, but it involves not just adding up accumulated savings, but actively changing your lifestyle at the same time. If you do that, you now have a higher budget you can spend per month. Any attempt to spend money without having the appearance of being legitimate (eg: a beggar hauling out a bag of 5000 gp) would be rejected as illegal. You'd have to go through the black market to spend that.

That still leads to conceptual issues of how to present treasure to the players, particularly if they live at different lifestyle levels. If they find the equivalent of 50 gp, a poor person could improve her station, but it wouldn't even budge the needle for an aristocrat. How many "modest" rewards would you need to be ready to move from a poor lifestyle to a modest one? If the rewards are below the station of the adventurers, does that drain them relative to expectations? If a modest lifestyle player gets a modest reward, does that mean they have more to spend? Or is it just upkeep?

Perhaps that's the purpose of the +n ranks, but it still feels like it doesn't really help.

The other problem is that, while you're trying to remove "coin counting", the table that you need to consult to figure out whether you can buy anything seems far more complex to track. If you have 250 gp, you know exactly how much you can buy. If you're Comfortable +4, you have to look up how much you can buy before you drop a level, and then how much that level can buy, and then the next, and so forth. It seems like a lot of hassle just to get rid of a number.

~~~

Not even sure I figured anything meaningful out from this musing, but will go ahead and make my comments.

[Potato_Priest]

I do take issue with the idea that you can never purchase full plate armor, or anything else worth over 750 gp.

[Bjarkmundur]

I don't feel that your naming tiers match up with your description tiers.
You're absolutely right, it's a mix up on my end. I'll edit it shortly


It's hard to get a solid translation into "wealth ranks", though I can appreciate what you're trying to do. And I love the feedback! <3


Moving up a level in living conditions is not easy, particularly as you go higher up. It's not just a matter of having the money; you have to find a new place to live, update your wardrobe, and integrate with the new neighbors. Going down wealth levels, meanwhile, is much easier, but far more disruptive. If you get kicked out of your fancy manor because you have no more money, you lose reputation not only because you're now poor, but because all the people that used to associate with you know that you're now poor, and will actively want to distance themselves from you

You are absolutely right! Your accumulated wealth affects everything you do! Wealth and status are an adventure on its own, which is why I'd love to create these sets of guidelines. How wealth is handled is very DM-dependant, and I'd like to think my players find some comfort in consistency, like writing out house rules and talking to the forums before implementing it out of the blue. 'Hard' is also a relative term, meaning it's not a problem if your DM is willing to go through the events of purchasing a house and hiring staff etc. This is exactly what downtime is for, and I'd like to get more practice doing it. Many players only see the possibilities presented to them. Many players might get excited about becoming members of the aristocracty, when they see it's a part of their character's natural progression.


I probably wouldn't bother with all the +n ranks attached to the wealth levels. Just say that a given wealth level has a certain budget per month. It's possible to go up a wealth level, but it involves not just adding up accumulated savings, but actively changing your lifestyle at the same time. If you do that, you now have a higher budget you can spend per month. Any attempt to spend money without having the appearance of being legitimate (eg: a beggar hauling out a bag of 5000 gp) would be rejected as illegal. You'd have to go through the black market to spend that.

I'd actually rather remove the lifestyles, and introduce them as purchases. I kinda did it with my wealth ranks, where you can see there are points where nothing changes except your lifestyle. You can see this going from Modest +5 to Comfortable. I also decided not to allow any big purchases at the first rank of Comfortable, since I want the players thinking about their new lifestyle, rather than the gear they can afford.


That still leads to conceptual issues of how to present treasure to the players, particularly if they live at different lifestyle levels. If they find the equivalent of 50 gp, a poor person could improve her station, but it wouldn't even budge the needle for an aristocrat. How many "modest" rewards would you need to be ready to move from a poor lifestyle to a modest one? If the rewards are below the station of the adventurers, does that drain them relative to expectations? If a modest lifestyle player gets a modest reward, does that mean they have more to spend? Or is it just upkeep?

I'm replacing monatery rewards, so this would never happen, at least not presented to the players as spending money. Once I've done calibrating, you move up a wealth rank once for each Treasure Hoard.


The other problem is that, while you're trying to remove "coin counting", the table that you need to consult to figure out whether you can buy anything seems far more complex to track. If you have 250 gp, you know exactly how much you can buy. If you're Modest +4, you have to look up how much you can buy before you drop a level, and then how much that level can buy, and then the next, and so forth. It seems like a lot of hassle just to get rid of a number.

Well, I wouldn't have bothered with this system unless I thought it would help. Imagine acquiring a treasure hoarde. Your DM reads to you "can can make so and so purchases". This almost always means you make those purchases that session. The only thing you have to remember after that is... nothing. You just have it written on your characters sheet "Everything under 10gp", and that's it. I as a DM deal out the rewards, so a player would no more have to "remember" his wealth rank, more than he has to remember his constitution score. It's written right there.

Wealth Ranks are supposed to replace monetary rewards, mainly "Treasure Hoards". I'm still working on this aspect, but the DMG suggests 7 hoards at levels 0-4, and EIGHTEEN additional hoardes of treasure before level 10. This means I'd need 22 ranks to account for the first half of the player's career, and some more to account for campaigns that start out with the players being rich. The DMG implies a player should reach aristocracy-levels of wealth between 9th and 12th level, so all of these 22+ ranks will have to be below aristocratic. If the players are meant to be constantly progressing like this, each step of the progression has to be small. This is, unfortunately, something I have little control over. I could do an entire economy overhaul, but I don't think its strictly necessary. I want my players to get comfortable with the economy of 5e, and practice makes perfect, so pracicing buying items as many times as possible seems like the way to go. This is why the purchase amounts are set, and they don't carry over when their rank is increased again. A purchase never made is a purchase wasted.

I'm curious how you'd adjust your approach with the inclusion of these design goals.

[Bjarkmundur]

I do take issue with the idea that you can never purchase full plate armor, or anything else worth over 750 gp.

WIP, my friend. But to ease your soul, I added one rank at the end to accommodate you :)
I do aim to please, after all.
I have probably yet to make one last overhaul, to make sure everything is DMG-compatible, and then more tweaks once I start playtesting.

I also clarified that the first 10 levels happen before a player can afford an aristocratic lifestyle, which in turn means that what you see in the OP is less than half of the final number of Wealth Ranks.

[Moxxmix]

I'm replacing monatery rewards, so this would never happen, at least not presented to the players as spending money. Once I've done calibrating, you move up a wealth rank once for each Treasure Hoard.

I was just trying to give an example to measure with, not suggesting that you'd give an actual monetary reward. Perhaps another way of saying it would be, your party of adventurers who have Modest wealth gain a treasure hoard from a small group of goblins. How would that affect their wealth? What if they started with Wealthy wealth levels? What if they'd gotten a hoard off of a dragon?


Wealth Ranks are supposed to replace monetary rewards, mainly "Treasure Hoards". I'm still working on this aspect, but the DMG suggests 7 hoards at levels 0-4, and EIGHTEEN additional hoardes of treasure before level 10. This means I'd need 22 ranks to account for the first half of the player's career, and some more to account for campaigns that start out with the players being rich. The DMG implies a player should reach aristocracy-levels of wealth between 9th and 12th level, so all of these 22+ ranks will have to be below aristocratic. If the players are meant to be constantly progressing like this, each step of the progression has to be small. This is, unfortunately, something I have little control over. I could do an entire economy overhaul, but I don't think its strictly necessary. I want my players to get comfortable with the economy of 5e, and practice makes perfect, so pracicing buying items as many times as possible seems like the way to go. This is why the purchase amounts are set, and they don't carry over when their rank is increased again. A purchase never made is a purchase wasted.

I'm curious how you'd adjust your approach with the inclusion of these design goals.

Well, my first thought is that, even if the players receive 22 treasure hoards by level 10, they're also expected to be spending that money along the way, so actual 'growth' is much less than 22 ranks of wealth.

If the fighter saved up 1500 gp by 7th level (or whatever), and bought a suit of plate mail, he's back down to 0. Often enough, being at 0 gp doesn't have a significant impact on a player, even if it means they shouldn't be able to afford food or a place to stay. Having wealth levels keeps things a bit more restrained, in that you will presumably pay for food and a place to stay before dumping all your remaining cash on a fancy piece of metal.

Anyway, using my estimates for required savings to reach various living quality tiers, and very loosely basing this on the individual treasure tables (p.136) rather than the treasure hoard tables, for a single individual (ie: if you split the non-magic item loot from the hoard tables into 4 or 5, you'd approximately get the results of a single creature reward on the individual tables, so it's workable on a per-person basis):


Starting points:

1 Tier 1 hoard:
Wretched → Poor. At tier 1 play, any hoard would boost you to a minimum of Poor, so that's the new baseline.

1 Tier 2 hoard:
Wretched → Modest. At tier 2 play, any hoard would boost you to a minimum of Modest, so that's the new baseline.

1 Tier 3 hoard:
Wretched → Wealthy. At tier 3 play, any hoard would boost you to a minimum of Wealthy, so that's the new baseline.

1 Tier 4 hoard:
Wretched → Aristocratic. At tier 4 play, any hoard would boost you to a minimum of Aristocratic, so that's the new baseline.

So you can start with nothing, and reach the above levels with a single hoard. That should help ensure that everyone in the party can quickly reach the same baseline, and expect to remain there. That is, a 1st level player might start at Wretched or Squalid, but it should only take one adventure to get them up to Poor, and most everyone can be on mostly the same page.


Progression:

In Tier 1:
1 hoard to reach Poor if you're below that.
5 hoards to improve from Poor to Modest.
Impractical to reach Comfortable (~15 hoards).

In Tier 2:
1 hoard to reach Modest if you're below that.
2 hoards to improve from Modest to Comfortable.
5 hoards to improve from Comfortable to Wealthy.
Impractical to reach Aristocratic (~30 hoards).

In Tier 3:
1 hoard to reach Wealthy if you're below that.
5 hoards to improve from Wealthy to Aristocratic.

In Tier 4:
1 hoard to reach Aristocratic if you're below that.


Note: While it's impractical to reach certain wealth tiers from hoards alone, it may be possible to live at that comfort level if you have other means of income (eg: plenty of downtime, and doing various crafting or performance jobs).


So, 1 hoard to reach the minimum of each tier, and 5 hoards to reach the maximum for each tier, with an extra 2 hoards to reach Comfortable in Tier 2.

Each wealth tier allows you free reign to purchase items at that wealth level (eg: under 5gp for Modest, under 10gp for Comfortable, etc), and each + allows you to make a moderately expensive purchase of that level. You can also sacrifice most of your wealth (one or more wealth levels) to make a truly major purchase (eg: something costing two or three times the basic savings expected for that level).

[noob]

so essentially you made a system so that adventurers are poor all their lives even when on "aristocrat final ultimate 899291932993++++++++++"

[Bjarkmundur]

so essentially you made a system so that adventurers are poor all their lives even when on "aristocrat final ultimate 899291932993++++++++++"

I did? I made a system of gaining wealth resulting in no wealth? I thought the "everything under x is freely available to you" allowed players to spend even more money than normal, just in smaller purchases. I can imagine that at wealth rank 500 you'd basically be able to buy a kingdom on a whim :/

I'm going to bed now, I'll take a better look at your reply tomorrow MoxxMix.

[noob]

I did? I made a system of gaining wealth resulting in no wealth? I thought the "everything under x is freely available to you" allowed players to spend even more money than normal, just in smaller purchases. I can imagine that at wealth rank 500 you'd basically be able to buy a kingdom on a whim :/

I'm going to bed now, I'll take a better look at your reply tomorrow MoxxMix.

example from your wealth table(the highest value of your table):



Wealthy +3
You can make one purchase of 1500gp or less while at this rank, such as Plate, Midnight Tears or Wyvern Poison.
All services worth 200gp or less are freely available to you.
so since a quiver of 20 arrows is not a service it spends the purchase of the rank then you can not buy anything else except for services.

[Bjarkmundur]

so since a quiver of 20 arrows is not a service it spends the purchase of the rank then you can not buy anything else except for services.

Ah, I see misunderstanding. It was designed to be "goods and services", my poor English didn't realized there was a difference :0. My bad, thanks for pointing that out :)

This looks like it could break the game if the values are wrong. I'll fine tune it in playtesting, and of course the players can also be discouraged from hoarding via limited supply of magic items. So using your wealth rank to buy 5000 healing Potions shouldn't be an issue

Did some more digging: The final count for wealth rank will be 50. I'll stick to these while playtesting.

[Bjarkmundur]

I was just trying to give an example to measure with, not suggesting that you'd give an actual monetary reward. Perhaps another way of saying it would be, your party of adventurers who have Modest wealth gain a treasure hoard from a small group of goblins. How would that affect their wealth? What if they started with Wealthy wealth levels? What if they'd gotten a hoard off of a dragon?

You're right. You can't simply introduce this system without making a few tweaks. For example, all 'quests' will have to have level-appropriate hoards, and most smaller monetary rewards will have to be changed into items of similar value, or alternatively, they can refresh your current wealth rank. A DM could also give "credit" such as "You can afford one 50gp purchase each, in addition to the purchases granted by your wealth rank". The intended use is that after each level-appropriate hoard, each character's wealth level increases by 1. But, the idea is also that the jump up to comfortable and wealthy lifestyles are bigger, and happen at a milestone decided by your DM. A DM can decide to refresh the last Modest or Poor rank instead if that's the level of wealth he has intended for his players. This is done just like in normal games, where the DM decides the loot. Going up a lifestyle is a big transition, and the campaign's atmosphere will likely change as a result. That's why it is recommended that the entire party reaches a new lifestyle simultaneously. Hopefully, this answers your questions.


Well, my first thought is that, even if the players receive 22 treasure hoards by level 10, they're also expected to be spending that money along the way, so actual 'growth' is much less than 22 ranks of wealth.

You're right, but also wrong. The player will get 22 rewards, which means I have to create 22 rewards. I just have to make them small enough that they don't break the game.
I will adjust each rank until it feels 'just right', and then encourage DMs to make it their owns. But like before, the DM decides how the players progress. A DM that feels like 1 wealth rank per hoard is too little can just grant 2 hoards instead, or throw in magic items. I'd rather have to many small wealth ranks, and allow DMs to skip ranks than having too few. This is loot we're talking about, it's all very DM dependent, and there's no way for me to make a loot system that works perfectly for every DMs little nuances. I'm still thinking whether I should tailor it to my personal style, or make it as compatible with the DMG as possible. Both have merits and flaws, I feel.


If the fighter saved up 1500 GP by 7th level (or whatever), and bought a suit of plate mail, he's back down to 0. Often enough, being at 0 gp doesn't have a significant impact on a player, even if it means they shouldn't be able to afford food or a place to stay. Having wealth levels keeps things a bit more restrained, in that you will presumably pay for food and a place to stay before dumping all your remaining cash on a fancy piece of metal.

This is an optional system. An optional system doesn't really have any appeal if it changes nothing. The main change is that you can't save money, and players are encouraged to continuously spend their money on increasingly big purchases. So yeah, you're absolutely right.


Anyway, using my estimates for required savings to reach various living quality tiers, and very loosely basing this on the individual treasure tables (p.136) rather than the treasure hoard tables, for a single individual (ie: if you split the non-magic item loot from the hoard tables into 4 or 5, you'd approximately get the results of a single creature reward on the individual tables, so it's workable on a per-person basis):

I don't really understand all this. You're suggesting that I tweak something regarding my system?


Each wealth tier allows you free reign to purchase items at that wealth level (eg: under 5gp for Modest, under 10gp for Comfortable, etc), and each + allows you to make a moderately expensive purchase of that level. You can also sacrifice most of your wealth (one or more wealth levels) to make a truly major purchase (eg: something costing two or three times the basic savings expected for that level).

That's exactly the idea! :D
But you also must see, this will never end up being that clean. I've playtested enough theorycrafted material to know that what looks very clean in theory can feel very messy in practice. So right now we can only work on the implementation, and review the values once I start playtesting.
There are so many aspects that need to be kept in mind, and then, of course, it's all gonna be taken apart by any DM who uses it. There's a reason why the DMG only gave us "loot guidelines".

Thanks for tackling this system with me, it's nice to have company for homebrewing :)

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm also going to have to make guidelines for campaigns that don't intend on its heroes becoming Saers and Goodwomen, just in case.

Also found this:


Over the course of a typical campaign a party finds treasure hoards amounting to:
7 rolls on the Challenge 0 - 4 table.
18 rolls on the Challenge 5 - 10 table.
12 rolls on the Challenge 11 - 16 table.
8 rolls on the challenge 17+ table.

I also found this


1|0
2|140
3|280
4|420
5|560
6|4500
7|8400
8|12,300
9|16,200
10|20,100
11|24,100
12|42,400
13|60,700
14|79,000
15|97,300
16|116,000
17|134,000
18|362,000
19|590,000
20|818,000
This shows how much gold one character in a group of four would acquire each level. This only calculates Hoard money and expects players to use all single-creature rewards for things like bribing guards, replenishing supplies, lifestyle, carousing, etc. This means the numbers above are all "meaningful purchases". In other words, goods, and services found on my shopping list. It's interesting that someone already thought of splitting the money into "daily allowance" and "big purchase" money before me.

I've yet to adjust the number of ranks, and the steps between them to accommodate this. My first few overhauls were pretty much just based on feel, and giving the players some new options each rank (based on my PC Shopping List in my signature). I've yet to decide which approach I take. I felt this was an important aspect, to keep each rank meaningful. I originally intended the Wealth Ranks and the Shopping List to be used together. So my players would go up a wealth rank and then look at the shopping list for suggested purchases. This helps in showcasing more of 5e's items and economy, which theoretically increases immersion.

Which do you think is more important?
a. Each wealth rank increase has a meaningful impact on what the PCs can purchase, making each wealth rank an exciting milestone to reach, adding something to the world each time.
b. Ensuring that the wealth ranks line up perfectly with the DMG guidelines, resulting in some "boring" wealth ranks.

To further emphasize, here is an overview that shows how each wealth rank opens up new options for the players:


0:
1: Shelter
2: Food
3: Safety
4: Healer's Kit / +1gp
5: Hire a spellcaster / +2gp
6: Healing Potions, Studded Leather
7: Unlimited Healer's Kits an Permanent hireling
8: Unlimited mundane purchases
9: Lifestyle upgrade
10: Common Magic Item, The first poison becomes available to players.
11: Unlimited access to a 1st level spellcaster
12: Truth Serum
13: Splint Armor
14: This rank is probably too big. Unlimited Healing Potions and an uncommon magic item / breastplate
15: Lifestyle upgrade
16: Half-Plate AND unlimited common magic items, also a pretty big rank.
17: Unlimited supply of 6 different poisons
18: Plate

At this point we're only at 1500gp / 200gp for Big Purchase / Petty Cash. Based on the cost of rare magic items, the rank probably go all they way up to 5000 / 750 . So there are plenty of ranks left.



So yeah, I'll probably split rank 14 and 16 into two seperate ranks each. But yeah, as you can see, something HAPPENS at every rank. I'm inclined to keep this system, and have just DMs decide when they want their players to go up a rank, and when they want to refresh a rank.

[noob]

Well so we have a system that massively favours dex based characters over str ones according to your table.
Is it intended that most adventurers would either take a dex based class or a class that does not needs armour(ex: arcane spell-caster or moon druid)?

[sigurdur130]

Well so we have a system that massively favours dex based characters over str ones according to your table.
Is it intended that most adventurers would either take a dex based class or a class that does not needs armour(ex: arcane spell-caster or moon druid)?

If by favoring dex-based characters over strength ones, you mean strength-based characters' reliance on expensive armor for their AC, then yeah, this system does favor dex-based characters or ones who don't need armor. But so does the RAW system with coin counting, in exactly the same way.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something?


Bjarkmundur, this is a very interesting system you've laid out. I'm curious how you would prevent players from abusing their "infinite gold, just a bit at a time" perk. Like when a player can afford healing potions, what's to stop them from abusing infinite healing potions?

[Bjarkmundur]

You'd think so. You'd think that because you can't save up your money for multiple levels you can't buy plate armor until way too late. But I encourage you to look better at the information I've provided and you'll see:

That saving all your hoard money between levels 1-5 grants you too little money to purchase Plate (1400gp).
If you start level 6 with 0gp, you'll still have enough gold to buy plate after just a couple of sessions.

So whether you save all your money or not, level 6 is still the earliest you'll ever purchase Plate. Now compare this to my Wealth Ranks.

At 5th level, you'll be at Wealth Rank 10
At 10th level, you'll be at Wealth Rank 28.
Plate can be purchased at rank 18, roughly 7th level.

Sooooooooooooooo, we just did a surprise-comparison between the strictest of strict loot rules, and my "made-by-feel" WIP wealth system, and we are within one level. I'd call that a win ^^

Of course you could get 100gp extra from a teammate to get Plate one level earlier. But then again, I wouldn't say no to a player that wants to "give" another character his wealth-rank increase for the same effect.

But I'd also like to point out the extreme rarity of Plate in general, that most people never realize. Plate is in the same price range as a Rare Magic Item. Meaning you'd most likely have to go through some hassle to locate it and do a small quest to receive it.

You can see examples of the extreme rarity of Plate and Half-Plate compared to other armors within the Magic Item Tables of the DMG. Notice how magic chain mail, chain shirt, and scale mail are muuuuuch likely to drop than the coveted Plate and Half-Plate.

Adamantine Armor (chain mail, chain shirt, and scale mail) can be found in Magic Item Table F
Adamantine Armor (Breastplate and Splint) can be found in Magic Item Table G
Adamantine Armor (Plate and Half Plate) can be found in Magic Item Table H

Table H is the second rarest collection of loot in the game, so yeah.

I'd also like to point out that based on the Magic Item Tables, a +1 Plate Armor is listed next to a +3 Leather Armor. +3 is considered a Legendary Item, which implies that a +1 Plate Armor is also legendary, making mundane Plate the equivalent of a very rare magic item.

Essentially, you're just as likely to see a person walking around with 18 AC from a +1 Splint Armor or +2 Chain Mail than from a mundane Plate armor.

I would love the see a results of the survey "How did you acquire your plate armor?"

Did you buy it for 1500gp at level 5 or earlier?
Did you buy it for 1500gp at level 6 or later?
Did you get is as loot?
Did you do a quest specifically to get it?
Do you play a warforged?

[noob]

If by favoring dex-based characters over strength ones, you mean strength-based characters' reliance on expensive armor for their AC, then yeah, this system does favor dex-based characters or ones who don't need armor. But so does the RAW system with coin counting, in exactly the same way.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something?


Bjarkmundur, this is a very interesting system you've laid out. I'm curious how you would prevent players from abusing their "infinite gold, just a bit at a time" perk. Like when a player can afford healing potions, what's to stop them from abusing infinite healing potions?

With raw and coin counting you buy a plate then you have nearly nothing more to buy and you buy that plate way earlier.
With your system you wait until something like level 11 to get your plate which would have helped way more at level 3(which is possible for example if you are a cleric and so that the team pool up their money for your plate armour)
Also buying magical items is the last concern: I am way more concerned with someone becoming the chicken overlord by buying all the chickens then later becoming the chicken god by paying each and every person of the world 200 gp for them to worship him and his chicken swarm.(god in title not power of course but it is still a huge influence)
Or yet pay thousands of teams of adventurers full sets of equipment with each part under 200 gp and full spell-books(the service of writing each individual level 1 or lower spell is under 200 gp) and full trainings in varied classes(pay the independent services of each teacher) and then pay them to clear dungeons.

[Bjarkmundur]

Bjarkmundur, this is a very interesting system you've laid out. I'm curious how you would prevent players from abusing their "infinite gold, just a bit at a time" perk. Like when a player can afford healing potions, what's to stop them from abusing infinite healing potions?

Healing Potion is a magic item -> Limited Supply

Adventurer: *Buys 4 healing potions, asks shopkeep if she has any more*
Shopkeep: "oh sorry, no. We only maintain a stock of 4 potions of each type. We do have Greater Healing Potions available if you want?"
Adventurer: *Looks into coin pouch, looks at the shopkeep, then back at the coin purse*. "How much?"

[Bjarkmundur]

Also buying magical items is the last concern: I am way more concerned with someone becoming the chicken overlord by buying all the chickens then later becoming the chicken god by paying each and every person of the world 200 gp for them to worship him and his chicken swarm.

Finally someone brings this up. Having access to unlimited amounts of mundane goods and services leads to some cheesy stuff. Mostly I just find it hilarous. WotC can publish something cheesy, and when one asks the forums about it everyone just replies "just ask your players not to do that, then".

Well, my dear Noob, if you don't like addressing your Half-Orc Ranger as Saer Chicken Overlord, I too can answer your comment with "just ask your players not to do that, then".

But yeah, right now I'm more focused on Implementation rather than the Balance of the values. Like I said before, it'll all change drastically with playtesting. I think the first few Wealth Ranks are pretty OK than, which is good enough to start playing and get a feel for the whole thing. This is meant to be a simplification, an optional variant. So please, use a mindset of someone who is comparing Gritty Realism vs. Standard Rest rules, and not someone comparing two different brands of oranges, and expecting them to taste the same. It has quirks, it has flaws, but it has clear intent and design goals. A variant rule loses its appeal if it changes nothing.

[noob]

Finally someone brings this up. Having access to unlimited amounts of mundane goods and services leads to some cheesy stuff. Mostly I just find it hilarous. WotC can publish something cheesy, and when one asks the forums about it everyone just replies "just ask your players not to do that, then".

Well, my dear Noob, if you don't like addressing your Half-Orc Ranger as Saer Chicken Overlord, I too can answer your comment with "just ask your players not to do that, then".

But yeah, right now I'm more focused on Implementation rather than the Balance of the values. Like I said before, it'll all change drastically with playtesting. I think the first few Wealth Ranks are pretty OK than, which is good enough to start playing and get a feel for the whole thing. This is meant to be a simplification, an optional variant. So please, use a mindset of someone who is comparing Gritty Realism vs. Standard Rest rules, and not someone comparing two different brands of oranges, and expecting them to taste the same.

Well in one case you have an adventurer wearing most of the possessions of four persons(in value) on his shoulders and in the other case it is chickens for the chicken god, 200 gp diamonds for the diamond stack.
Both presents their own kind of silly which can be all interesting.
Regular rest vs hardcore rest presents a similar kind of silly: in one case you wait one hour and you suddenly go from the brink of death to full health and in the other case you need to wait a full week for the party to restart moving because the party long rester had to spend one of its long rest resources but which was critical for advancing.

[Bjarkmundur]

You could almost say that sitting together at a table and just imagining stuff for hours on end is bound to get a little bit silly ^^

[Bjarkmundur]

So, can we tally up some issues, so we know what we are looking at?

1. Make sure that the "freely available" part is managed correctly and has the desired effect.
2. Make sure that the Big Purchases are level-appropriate
3. Make sure lifestyle changes are in a good place within the Wealth Rank progression
4. Increase the price of chicken





(a single hen provides 560 eggs in a lifetime. a meal is 3 eggs. 1 meal is 1sp. That's 18gp for 1 chicken, but varies with demand and age. But we have to account that some of that 1sp goes to the cook, so maybe 9gp for a chicken is more reasonable. We'll raise the value of chickens to 600gp, just to be safe.)

[Potato_Priest]

(a single hen provides 560 eggs in a lifetime. a meal is 3 eggs. 1 meal is 1sp. That's 18gp for 1 chicken, but varies with demand and age. But we have to account that some of that 1sp goes to the cook, so maybe 9gp for a chicken is more reasonable. We'll raise the value of chickens to 600gp, just to be safe.)

Have you accounted for the value of the feed? A quick google search says a chicken will eat 1/4 pounds of grain in a day, (and they also need calcium supplements to lay strong eggs frequently, which will add a little bit to the price.)

[Bjarkmundur]

Made some minor tweaks. Nerfed the "freely available" parts, and moved some values around. Small tweaks like this are likely to happen a lot, so I will not be announcing every little fix I make. I also removed a few of the higher ranks, since it'll take some playtesting to know where exactly to place the appropriate values for a higher tier of play.

I have decided to not line this system up with the DMG. A DM can easily control the progression pace by resetting his player's current rank after a hoard instead of increasing their wealth ranks, or by using magic items as loot instead of increasing Wealth Ranks.

Between levels 5-10 a player is expected to gain 18 big rewards, and go from Wealthy ot Aristocrat. Between Wealthy and Aristocrat are probably no more than 9 Wealth Ranks, so every other reward will simply reset the players' current Wealth Rank.

[noob]

I still find quite weird you have to loot 2 piles of treasure before being able to buy your first healing kit.(I mean in real life people would be a lot more worried about buying a healing kit fast and would be ready to make some efforts on their life quality to get such an useful thing when you get wounded all day)

[jayem]

I still find quite weird you have to loot 2 piles of treasure before being able to buy your first healing kit.(I mean in real life people would be a lot more worried about buying a healing kit fast and would be ready to make some efforts on their life quality to get such an useful thing when you get wounded all day)

At those ranks you are literally too poor there is no life quality you can really easily sacrifice.
Perhaps you could (semi-permenantly) trade your rank down for a one time bonus (about that of the rank above)?
That way you could fail to pay the rent to get the healing potion you desperately need.

Although at that point you probably should scale what a 'hoard is', and at that point it gets a bit awkward to match over a split group.

[noob]

At those ranks you are literally too poor there is no life quality you can really easily sacrifice.
Perhaps you could (semi-permenantly) trade your rank down for a one time bonus (about that of the rank above)?
That way you could fail to pay the rent to get the healing potion you desperately need.

Although at that point you probably should scale what a 'hoard is', and at that point it gets a bit awkward to match over a split group.

exemple hoard: you kill 13 bandits(not in one encounter of course unless you are really bad at tactics) and then get loot their leather armor and their bows or daggers depending on the bandits and they somehow had no other treasure(they were starving bandits without any other clothing or food and without any coin on them or anything).
With their leather armor(or linen armor), bows and daggers you probably have a total resell value a bit under 100 gp due to how the armours might be heavily damaged by the impacts of the adventurers weapons(and so needs repairing).(the cheapest bow are worth 25 gp each and so probably have a resell value of approx 10 gp(unless you have a skilled mechant in your team) and the armour is worth 10 gp but probably only 5 on resell due to how battered it is)
Then with those 100 gp in normal dnd you would have enough funds to buy one healing kit and have enough gold left to travel up to the next plot important location.
Here you have the money vanish to turn into half the progression toward the next wealth rank and get nothing of value(not even a rank since you did not even get a level since I assumed the party was level 2).

[Bjarkmundur]

Remember that you have a starting wealth rank based on your class, your background, and your campaign setting.

Level 1 is usually 1-2 sessions, and in that time all characters will have reached modest or higher.

Also remember that a group usually consists of four character's, so all purchases can be multiplied by 4 in regards to party resources. Four characters that each have 1 purchase of 5gp can afford 40 charges of a healer's kit.

Did some more tweaks. Looks like earlier ranks have a fast progression, while later ranks will have more resets.

I as a DM will probably always make my group start at modest, and reach +1 at the end of the first session.
If you roll for starting gold you'll almost always have some money left over for cheap supplies.
With this system, you'd probably just drop the middle man and have the adventurers loot the bandits and find one healer's kit and a healing potion, and some mundane gear. I'm very clear about it on my OP that items should still be a part of loot, and that this only replaces monastery rewards from treasure hoards. Aka quest rewards.

You as a DM control the loot. So if you want a couple of kenkus to qualify as 5 wealth ranks worth of coins, then do it.

You'll also see that the equivalent monastery value needed to jump up a rank is quite small in the early ranks. Going from Modest to Modest +1 is the equivalent of earning 20gp as a reward for clearing out zombies from a family crypt. Modest +1 to Modest +2 is the equivalent of 150gp as loot. This assumes that the heroes will be doing increasingly fantastic Feats, or alternatively the DM refreshes their current Wealth Rank instead of progressing it.

This trend is prevalent throughout the system: Great rewards increase rank, medium rewards refresh your current rank, and small rewards are just some minor items. For niche cases, like a couple of cultists, I'd just say "you find one gem, which can be traded for an item with a market price of 50gp or less".

If you like, you can reflavour this whole system as a "gem based money system to remove coin counting"

I actually like that flavour. Its like coins holds so little value, and can usually only be used in the city it was minted. This would mean that the only currency that has any real value in the world are those that are indisputable, such as gemstones.

I added a "How to use" section in the OP to prevent any further misunderstandings. Let me know if something else isn't quite clear.

[Bjarkmundur]

I'm writing up the rules and guidelines in my houserule document for this system, and there are one thing that bugs me.

WHY can't a player save up money in game?

The design goal is to have item availability scale with the player, just like class features. This requires item availability to be capped. I just can't find any good reason to make it make sense why a player can't take 2 50gp gems and buy a 100gp item.