How do yall handle the economy of your world. Full question down below.

[Throne12]

I was thinking about the gold cost of magic items be they weapons potions or scrolls. So this depends on how Available they are. If your playing in a low/rare magic game I can see the normal gp prices. But I feel for games like eberron or setting with more available magic. I dont think the prices are right.

[stoutstien]

I've found the actual monetary cost of items are of little consequence after the first few levels of play. depending on play style gold quickly becomes meaningless.

[Throne12]

I've found the actual monetary cost of items are of little consequence after the first few levels of play. depending on play style gold quickly becomes meaningless.

That's only because the DM hand waves everything. I can count on my hand how many times a DM has ask "how many rations do you got" on one hand. Or when theres down time I dont ever hear about. What living conditions everyone is living in during the down time. So then there gambling or buying new clothes or mundane items.

So there is a lot of things that require money but get so handwave.

[Demonslayer666]

As a DM, you need to add in things that are available to buy with gold. You have to give money a use.

Fancy cloths, jewelry, titles, land, businesses, vehicles, keeps, art, personalized gear, information, political influence, etc.

As well as consumables like fancy food, drink, casting of spells, and of course entertainment.


My players complained in my last campaign that they had gold, but nothing to spend it on. At first I blamed them for lack of imagination, but that was only a minor part of it. It really was my fault for not presenting stuff to buy.

[Yakmala]

Gold quickly becomes inconsequential. The things that really matter, such as magic items, spell books, quest objectives, trust, loyalty and alliances cannot be easily purchased.

The player's wealth usually unfolds in stages over the course of the campaign:

1: Just starting out: You have your starting gear and a few coins. Spell/Healing services are outside of your price range and you are not famous enough to get such services for free, so be careful!

2: Some success: You have defeated some low level baddies, collected some bounties or rewards, found a bit of treasure. You are staying at the nice inns now. You maybe upgraded your armor or bought an extra healing potion. You are still dreaming about plate armor. Dying is still a bad idea as high level temple services are outside of your reach.

3: Well off: You are experienced adventurers. You have earned/looted enough to live comfortably for years, at least far as any non-royals in your campaign would measure it. You can afford most mundane equipment and even get some special orders made. You can make simple problems go away with money. You might be able to afford a raise dead if everyone pitches in. You can afford a greater variety of potions and scrolls but are still not rich enough to convince anyone to sell you an uncommon or better magic item.

4: Wealthy: You don't really bother keeping track of your wealth anymore, unless it's for something major such as buying a magic item, getting resurrected, bribing a lord, buying a tavern, galleon or mansion. Your wealth may make you and your party the target of others both for benevolent and nefarious purposes.

[Man_Over_Game]

In my games, I reward my players with stuff, not gold. Having 300g in coin isn't going to help a bandit, but 300g worth in equipment definitely will. With 300g worth of equipment, they should be able to earn it back that much faster and so on.

Merchants need to make a profit and aren't in the business of buying things, so they might buy it at 1/3 the normal price.

So instead of giving your party 300g for 300g worth of equipment of their choice, they get 300g worth of equipment for 100g worth of gold, which equates to 100g worth of equipment of their choice. 100g on a "big haul" doesn't get you very far with buying magic items.

[MoiMagnus]

I was thinking about the gold cost of magic items be they weapons potions or scrolls. So this depends on how Available they are. If your playing in a low/rare magic game I can see the normal gp prices. But I feel for games like eberron or setting with more available magic. I dont think the prices are right.

Yes, fixed prices like the one described only works if you're in one of the two extremes:
1) You're so low magic that there is no market for them.
2) You're so high magic that they are so common the market is only constrained down by incompressible costs for creating them, and up by lack of demands compared to potential production. (If I remember correctly, that's the 4e approach where essentially everyone can craft any magic items from the magic powder which is use as currency for magic items. And recover 1/5 of this powder by destroying said magic items.)

When you're at the middle, an answer to get consistency is "it averages out". The prices subtracted by the players on the character sheet are not the real prices paid by the PCs in-universe. They are just gross approximations of:
+ The actual price of the item, following the market.
+ The conversions issue (no universal money since their is not the institutions to back them up at international level). For expensive items, it's likely that they are in practice traded for other powerful items or expensive possessions rather than against actual money, but you don't want the players to explicitly hand that.
+ Discount, taxes and bribery. (bribery being possibly in the other way around)
+ Etc.
This gross approximation is wrong, but is assumed to average out over multiple magic items as long as the players are still playing D&D and not Market Place & Tax Collectors. In the latter case, you probably want to design an entire economical system for them, and good luck.

[Lunali]

That's only because the DM hand waves everything. I can count on my hand how many times a DM has ask "how many rations do you got" on one hand. Or when theres down time I dont ever hear about. What living conditions everyone is living in during the down time. So then there gambling or buying new clothes or mundane items.

So there is a lot of things that require money but get so handwave.

While that could be a factor, in my experience the more important factor is the difference in earning potential between a level 5 adventurer and a commoner. When you have pieces of gear that are individually worth enough for year at wealthy lifestyle, anything non-magical becomes practically zero cost.

[Kalashak]

I ignore it, by and large. For the most part players can't just buy magic items in my games so it rarely comes up.

[stoutstien]

That's only because the DM hand waves everything. I can count on my hand how many times a DM has ask "how many rations do you got" on one hand. Or when theres down time I dont ever hear about. What living conditions everyone is living in during the down time. So then there gambling or buying new clothes or mundane items.

So there is a lot of things that require money but get so handwave.

It more of the factor of once magical items are available for purchase then they are also available by other means that aren't based on wealth.