With Gold You Be Awesome Too! House Rule

[Sigreid]

I've been seeing the threads about both perceived uselessness of gold and the caster supremacy and I had a couple of thoughts and thought I'd see what people think.

First, I'm considering adding alchemy shops to the campaign world with bonified alchemists that can produce really desirable potions, not just the healing ones.

Second, I'm considering letting any character use scrolls, which would be available in shops.

Now, not every potion or scroll would be available in every shop or every town, and it would be DM choice what was there and what wasn't. What I'm thinking, is this gives the party a really useful gold sink into magic; and lets the non casters in on some of the caster fun...for a price. I'm thinking it won't wreck the game the way purchasable permanent magic items would since potions and scrolls are one use items.

As an example, a party that was all rogues, fighters and barbarians could, in addition to buying a stock of healing potions, purchase a scroll of comprehend languages to decipher that warning or fly so the barbarian can get to the flying dragon.

How badly do you all think this would trash the game?

[LudicSavant]

I did something fairly similar in a campaign I ran for ~2 years; players were free to rather casually buy a wide variety of desirable potions (going through a consortium they were associated with) but not permanent magic items (the technology to create which had been lost). Didn't have any problems. Fighter liked their Potions of Growth quite a lot.

[Blood of Gaea]

Be careful about what spell scrolls you allow Wizards to get their grubby hands on, and be aware of any Tomelocks you have in the party. Besides that, I see nothing wrong with it.

Though I generally only make higher tier consumables available for purchase as the players go up in levels and forge connections with stronger entities.

[Bjarkmundur]

I tried this, but funnily enough, the players that decided against playing a spellcaster didn't have much interest in casting spells :/
Should definitely try it though.

[Sigreid]

Thanks. I generally dont see scrolls of fireball being common. There would be a pretty big market for things like create water for crossing a desert as a safety backup and such.

[Wizard_Lizard]

This sounds cool!

[Yakk]

Turning everyone into a caster-for-gold sort of gets rid of the "I want to be awesome and a non-caster" option, no?

[Sigreid]

Turning everyone into a caster-for-gold sort of gets rid of the "I want to be awesome and a non-caster" option, no?

I think the non casters are already awesome, actually. This grew out of a thought last night about how in AD&D 1e protection. Scrolls could be used by anyone. From there and some of the recent discussions about the value of gold I thought, what would be the effect on the game if people could buy a one off ability occasionally.

The title was a bit of hyperbole to get people to at least look and maybe respond.

[darknite]

"Wealth is it's own superpower." - Bruce Wayne

I think this is fine. Be sure that such availability is extended to villains, too. They should be swigging potions of flight and giant strength along with reading scrolls of stoneskin and revivify, too.

[The Big Bear]

My SKT group has a Glamour Bard, Arcane Trickster, Frenzy Barb, and Celestial Tomelock. They find plenty of gold but I didn’t want it just piling up with no use, so I make potion/scroll shops available in most major towns.

It gives them a nice outlet for their gold and gives them access to things they normally wouldn’t have. The barb can buy ways to increase their size or strength for one fight. Others buy potions of water breathing, fire breath, etc.

To answer OP’s question: I don’t think it’s trashed the game at all. I’m a bit careful not to offer stuff that would make choices useless: some of the casters have Invisibility, so I offer that in limited quantities.

It gives the PCs more to do and opens up more tactical options. If they want to speak to an animal then they’ll read the scroll and get a limited chance. I give the tomelock plenty of opportunity to take ritual scrolls for their book, since I want that choice to mean something.

My players have fun when they feel powerful, not when they’re rich, so I give them the option to spend gold on potions, scrolls, and limited magic items (+1 armors and such).

[KOLE]

Question to you all, I really like this idea. Did you all use the DMG prices in your implementation?

[Bjarkmundur]

Question to you all, I really like this idea. Did you all use the DMG prices in your implementation?

I use the Xanathar rule; consumables are magic items at half price. So they are priced like healing potions, with rarity based on spell level:


Cantrip-1: Common
2-3: Uncommon
4-5: Rare
6-8: Very rare
9: Legendary

This works well for me, although I've only offered spells scrolls for sale once or twice.
I think I should also mention that I give the equivalent of a treasure hoard every 2-3 sessions, but without the coins. This removes ca. 200gp from each treasure hoard, but seeing how the 0-4 treasure hoard grants 70-350gp in gems, this pricing works perfectly for me. If you give the extra coins, you might want to increase the price, just so spell scrolls don't become a 'small' purchase'. Spells are supposed to be cool, and if they are too cheap, it makes them feel... cheap.

[The Big Bear]

Question to you all, I really like this idea. Did you all use the DMG prices in your implementation?

Not at my home computer right now but I believe the document I use is titled “Sane Magic Item Prices” that I found either by google or on this forum. I don’t offer everything and change up the prices slightly every now and then to account for different rarities among other things (maybe the dwarf shopkeeper is a shrewd businessman and the gnome apothecary just wants to drum up business with good prices, stuff like that).