Thinking about money and the value of a GP [Archive]

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-23, 11:26 PM

Starting with the 5e PHB to get a better handle for what a gold piece means. Note: This is only a very minimal starting point. I plan to do more thinking/calibrating later. Just...starting somewhere.

Note: my setting uses 8 day "weeks" with 32 days/month and 12 months/year.

Expenses

Lifestyle
Cost (decimal GP/year)

Squalid (ie slums)
38.4

Poor (housed, but hungry)
61.44

Modest ("normal")
307.2

Comfortable
499.2

Wealthy
1075.2

Aristocratic
2304

Incomes

Skill
Income/year, working 100%

Unskilled
76.8

Skilled
>768

Other (selected) costs:

1st/2nd level spell : 10-50 gp
healing potion : 50 gp
horse, draft | feed/year : 50 gp + 211.2 gp/year stabling and feed
100 sheets of paper & ink (assuming 1 bottle/100 sheets) : 30 gp
fine wine (bottle) : 10 gp
"meat", 1 hunk : 0.3 sp
messenger : 0.02/mile
common clothes: 0.5
scholar's pack : 40 gp.
oil light: 0.5 gp (lamp) + 0.1/6 hours (oil)

If they work 100% of the time, a base unskilled laborer can afford a poor lifestyle with 15.36 gp net savings over the year. Note that at that level, a single hunk of meat costs ~2 days of lifestyle expenses, and needing a single cure wounds (making the assumption that that's on the cheap side) basically burns their entire years savings.

A skilled laborer can (at minimum) afford a comfortable lifestyle with 268.8 gp left over. That's a major difference.

One wrinkle--people, especially untrained hirelings (hired for day labor, for instance), can't count on working 8 days a week. Religious holidays, down seasons, getting sick, etc. So I recalculated assuming that the person would miss X days per week, averaged out over the year (so working 100% one week and 0% the next would average out to working 50% of the time). Not only that, but if a pair of laborers have a kid, that means they're paying 3x lifestyle expenses on 2x the income (roughly equal to a solo working 66.6% of the time). Even assuming that economizing/lower food costs for the kid can get that to 75% equivalence, that's bad news.

Even missing a single day's work per week (on average) cuts the yearly savings for an unskilled worker at a poor lifestyle down to 5.76 gp. Hope they don't need any services. Working 6/8, they're in the negative by 3.84 gp/year trying to maintain a poor lifestyle. Two married, unskilled laborers with a kid can't support a poor lifestyle unless they can basically work 100% of the time, assuming expenses for the kid.

Skilled laborers are in a much better boat--they can maintain a comfortable lifestyle (netting 76.8 gp/year) at the 75% effort level, or a modest lifestyle (same net) at 50% work. So a married pair without kids could survive at a modest lifestyle on one income, while netting basically an unskilled laborer's entire, 100% income. And the skilled wages are explicitly only a floor.

----comparing to adventurers
A T1 treasure hoard (CR 0-4 monsters) averages 376.95 gp in cash and art objects only. And the DMG recommends awarding 7 such hoards in T1, so something like 1 at level 1 and 2/level after that. Since (stock), T1 takes a total of ~(1+2+3+3 = 9) adventuring days, that's 2638.65 gp for roughly a week's work for a party. Assuming 4 people, that's 659.66 gp each, or roughly what a skilled hireling makes in a year gross if they work 87.5% of the time.

T2 hoards average 1.1k per PC, or roughly 1.5x a skilled hireling's 100% uptime yearly wage. And again, that's not counting any magic items, just cash and cash equivalent. And it gets more ludicrous from there. A T4 hoard averages 84k per PC, enough to sustain an aristocratic lifestyle for 29 years.

----my point?
I don't really have one yet. Just musing with some math.

Kane0

2021-05-23, 11:34 PM

----my point?
I don't really have one yet. Just musing with some math.

I appreciate your candour and would like to see where this goes.

Edit: For purely selfish reasons, i'm interested if you can find or run numbers on anything relating to Noble PCs or the costs of a noble estate.

Tanarii

2021-05-23, 11:52 PM

The adventurer's income makes sense from the perspective of why they'd risk life and limb, and T2 adventurers basically being aristocracy.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-24, 01:05 AM

Honestly the unskilled numbers make sense, when I think unskilled worker in a pseudo-medieval setting those people are probably working someone else's land and living hand to mouth (or near it).

Something that I think is missing from this picture though is child labour, people growing their own food and work to live. You can be housed and allowed to grow food for your family as long as you tend the lord's lands etc.

I think where the GP most breaks down is lack of a taxation system to be honest (there might be an example in the DMG, I can't remember). Introduce taxes on the hyperwealthy adventurers and suddenly the gold problem goes away (though ime just making sure lifestyle expenses are paid for and offering the chance to buy consumables every now and then keeps things in check unless you're giving out a lot of cash).

Mork

2021-05-24, 02:09 AM

I think where the GP most breaks down is lack of a taxation system to be honest (there might be an example in the DMG, I can't remember). Introduce taxes on the hyperwealthy adventurers and suddenly the gold problem goes away.

Oh I like this idea, it's a bit like dungeons are natural research and if you want to loot them you'd have to pay the tax, the same as if you are going to chop down a nearby forest. Might include it in my next campaign, untill they reach the level where they own the local land.. but at that point they probably have enough expenses in keeping their domain running.

As for the the earnings of adventures, I have heard at some point (I think in matt colville's livestreams?) that proffesionals mercenaries basically make a year or 2 years of money during a single mission. So that's in line with what adventures make I guess. A lot of risk is involved and it requires specialised skills. (the real world mercenaries often blow their money in a couple of months and then need to go back on a different mission instead of retire)

Also the "living expenses" in the PHB probably does a lot of heavy lifting. I wouldn't be surprised if that also includes the money to feed and take of your kids for example (and the amount given is the average for having 8, 1 or 0 kids)

prototype00

2021-05-24, 02:16 AM

Back in 3.5, I recall some discussion (though don't ask me to pull it up now) that a good rule of the thumb is 1gp = $100, if you wanted to have a modern person's eyeball of DND finances. So a dragon hoard with 10,000gp? A cool million.

I wonder if that would still apply in 5e?

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 02:47 AM

I wonder if that would still apply in 5e?

The main rule is that 50 coins = 1 lb. of that coin type.

Actually, the PHB has some standards you can go off of:

1cp = 1 lb. of wheat
2cp = 1 lb. of flour, or one chicken
5cp = 1 lb. of salt.

1sp = 1 lb. of iron, or one sq. yd. of canvas
5sp = 1 lb. of copper, or 1 sq. yd. of cotton cloth

1gp = 1 lb. of ginger or one goat
2gp = 1 lb. of cinnamon or pepper, or one sheep
3gp = 1 lb. of cloves or one pig
5gp = 1 lb. of silver or one sq. yd. of linen
10gp = 1 sq. yd. of silk or one cow
15gp = 1 lb. of saffron or one ox

50gp = 1 lb. of gold
500gp = 1 lb. of platinum

Now, obviously there's a lot to go on, here. Especially when you look at IRL costs of copper, gold and platinum. But of course in another thread, the main point I wanted to make about adventurers and 'normal people', is that if a Greatsword is 50gp...Your average farmer could buy 5 cows from market for the price of that single sword.

WTF!? Now the story of Jack and the Beanstalk makes more sense. Take your cow to market...Instead of coming back with 10gp...You come back with beans. Beans!?

Blacksmiths are also making a killing.
A Longsword is 3 lb.
Using the above, he buys his raw iron for 3sp. Then sells the Longsword for 15gp...Or, 150sp. For x50 profit. Well played Mr. Smith.

Dark.Revenant

2021-05-24, 02:48 AM

A copper piece is about a dollar. Obviously, the economy of D&D is not remotely realistic to modern standards, and isn't even realistic to medieval standards, so this is just a very rough estimate of value.

Unskilled laborers who have no other support structures or alternative means of gaining money (or at least a slightly better paying job) are, indeed, in deep ****. Life sucks when you're poor. It sucks even more when you're poor in the middle ages.

Edit: Post above: raw iron is far from the only material you need to make a sword, especially if it's good steel.

MrStabby

2021-05-24, 04:11 AM

A few years ago I tried to build an economic model for D&D. A few heroic assumptions and then a general equilbrium framework - part of my trying to build foundations for a sensible consistant world. The whole thing was a mess.

I had esimated interest rates of about 12,000% PA, skilled labour almost non existant (magic being so much more efficient), transport costs being really high, cities being non-existant with much more of the population being pushed into small towns... it was a fun excercise for a while but not that useful for building an actual fun fanatasy setting.

Anyway, I guess my point is to not worry about the detail too much. Consistancy is nice but unless you have a really big abusable arbitrage opportunity for the players I would handwave a lot of it away. Work out what the important bits are to have working and let the other bits float as needed.

Justin Sane

2021-05-24, 05:58 AM

I've always eyeballed it at 1gp = 50$. Mostly to adjudicate what kind of stuff costs a couple coppers, is 1sp an acceptable tip, is opening a pouch full with gps and pps in a seedy bar a good idea, etc.

hifidelity2

2021-05-24, 06:09 AM

Rynjin

2021-05-24, 06:11 AM

Edit: Post above: raw iron is far from the only material you need to make a sword, especially if it's good steel.

It also doesn't take into account labor. Even assuming that's accurate (he makes a 150 times profit), that's still only 15 gp. It takes the blacksmith, assuming he's a level 2 Expert with a +12 modifier (+2 Int, +3 class skill, +2 rank, +3 Skill Focus, +2 Masterwork tools) taking 10 for a 22 vs the DC 15 about 3 days to make a sword, so he's making about 30 gp a week.

Of course, this isn't quite accurate; you pay 1/3 the cost in materials, not just raw ore. So he's spending 5 gp to make each sword, so he's really averaging 20 gp a week in profit, maximum. This isn't of course taking into account the difficulty of selling a sword outside of wartime, and that he'd likely have a lot of less lucrative, but steadier orders (horseshoes, nails, etc.) taking up that time, so he can't realistically make two swords a week, and you're looking at less.

Decent living? Absolutely. Breaking the economy? Not by a long shot.

Edit: I've been bamboozled into the 5e forums once again. I have no idea what the crafting rules for 5e are.

MrStabby

2021-05-24, 06:24 AM

I think that the Poor cost of living does not double if there are 2 people living together. After all they don't need 2 "houses" / or if they are in a room in a shared house then they can share the room.

Its reasonable to assume that the 2nd persons cost of living is between 50% to 75% extra rather than double.

A child will be the same and their costs will start low (doesn't eat much) and once they get to 10+ then they are probably working (plenty of chimneys need sweeping) :smallsmile:

Well it might. The poor cost of living could be reflecive of a shared bed in a flophouse somewhere, especially in a city.

But yeah, once you are affluent enough to have your own room the cost probably doesn't double with two of you.

Unoriginal

2021-05-24, 07:06 AM

Edit: I've been bamboozled into the 5e forums once again. I have no idea what the crafting rules for 5e are.

For regular item, it's (cost in gp/50) weeks of work per item, further divided by the number of people working on it.

In other words, a smith with an apprentice can craft a 15gp sword in about 1 to 1.5 days.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 07:08 AM

Note: my setting uses 8 day "weeks" with 32 days/month and 12 months/year. Nice, easy to parse, and it makes that old Beatles song fit.

A T4 hoard averages 84k per PC, enough to sustain an aristocratic lifestyle for 29 years. It will also attract the attention of the local thieves guild ... :smallwink: ... or thieves from somewhere across the sea who hear the story of some band of fools who took on a dragon and got the loot. "They did the hard work, all we have to do is kill them and take their stuff"

The adventurer's income makes sense from the perspective of why they'd risk life and limb, and T2 adventurers basically being aristocracy. Bingo. Locally important. High risk, high reward.

Oh I like this idea, it's a bit like dungeons are natural research Did you mean natural resource?

I have heard at some point (I think in matt colville's livestreams?) that proffesionals mercenaries basically make a year or 2 years of money during a single mission. A RL friend of mine was 'a contractor' a few years back; he made enough in a 90 day mission to live off of for the rest of the year. His team had to rotate out after 90 days since the company he worked for found out that people began to get unreliable / flaky after about 90 days on task. He did two rotations a year for three years, and then decided that he'd used up all of his luck and stopped doing it. (IMO, a very smart move)

Obviously, the economy of D&D is not remotely realistic to modern standards, and isn't even realistic to medieval standards Yeah.

Post above: raw iron is far from the only material you need to make a sword, especially if it's good steel. Also, there is the overhead for getting coal, maintaining a forge, getting a couple of apprentices to work the bellows, and so on.

I think that the Poor cost of living does not double if there are 2 people living together.
Yep. The other problem with the money adventurers accrue is "Vegas baby!" mindset some of them will have. Expensive components for various spells (Heroes' Feast costs me a 1,000 GP jeweled bowl per casting!)

da newt

2021-05-24, 07:33 AM

Interesting stuff. Is there a particular question you are looking to answer, or just general musings?

My personal trigger is all the adventurers walking around with literally 50 lbs of gold on them at all times (2500 gp - go ahead imagine lugging that around all the time), and then just strolling through normal towns without a mob of folks begging, stealing, conniving, selling, and the local church and government demanding their taste ...

Xanthar's and such recommend that magic items are very hard to find for sale and are often marked way up - but I'd think any magic item merchant would be falling all over themselves to get his stuff in front of some adventurers ... how else are they going to make a profit / stay in business?

Rynjin

2021-05-24, 07:40 AM

For regular item, it's (cost in gp/50) weeks of work per item, further divided by the number of people working on it.

In other words, a smith with an apprentice can craft a 15gp sword in about 1 to 1.5 days.

That's pretty neat. Cuts down a bit on the frankly unreasonable time scales required for mundane crafting in 3.PF.

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 08:05 AM

I didn't think about this far enough...

In other words, a smith with an apprentice can craft a 15gp sword in about 1 to 1.5 days.

Half the cost of the item in raw materials; 7gp 5sp.

15gp Longsword takes 3 days to craft by one person.
- Modest Living Expenses; -3gp.

For a total of 10gp 5sp, to craft a 15gp Longsword, making a profit of 4.5 gp per Longsword.

However, we know that a Blacksmith isn't exactly the average craftsman.

Comfortable. Choosing a comfortable lifestyle means that you can afford nicer clothing and can easily maintain your equipment. You live in a small cottage in a middle-class neighborhood or in a private room at a fine inn. You associate with merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military officers.

This increases his living expenses to 2gp per day to maintain his stuff and his business. Or 6 gp to craft a Longsword for 3 days.

7.5 + 6gp = 13.5 gp to craft a 15gp Longsword for a profit of...10%... That's pretty bad.

Meanwhile, the adventurers he sold the Longsword to, tripped over 50gp in a box two hours later.

Unoriginal

2021-05-24, 08:09 AM

It will also attract the attention of the local thieves guild ... :smallwink: ... or thieves from somewhere across the sea who hear the story of some band of fools who took on a dragon and got the loot. "They did the hard work, all we have to do is kill them and take their stuff"

Sounds like the PCs will have to get some kind of protected building to house their treasure. Also hire people to guard it when they're not here, get a security system including both mechanical and magical contraptions, and then kill all the half-brained bravos, two-bit magicians and clueless gods-botherers who dare try to brave their stronghold.

Wait...

Joe the Rat

2021-05-24, 08:12 AM

A couple of other musings and perspectives:

- I will often use the bread and eggs approach to costing - use the price of a loaf of bread in D&D (2cp) and compare to what it runs in your local markets and currency. I've been using copper to the dollar based on that. Giving your players that mindset, it makes Dragon Heist into a $50,000,000 jackpot. No wonder everyone is nuts for it.

- Many of our prices are inherited from of old, and prices were kind of janky then too. Whether the steep price of eggs was intentional, we were given the rationale of a Boom Town economy, that the influx of wealth created by adventurers doing their grave robbing and freelance peace-keeping is akin to the gold strikes of the 19th century. A market flush with currency (minted or dusted) will see a spike in prices.

- One solution I've seen for heavy coinage comes out of Basic Fantasy's Morgansfort campaign (https://www.basicfantasy.org/downloads.html#sn_modules). Adventurers are delving out into the lost civilizations and bringing loot back to the one place that is relatively safe, and maintaining a fortified holding can get expensive. To cover this, there is a 10% tax on recovered coinage (the ancient metals are stamped to show they have been accounted). If you aren't running a Borderlands style game, any sort of backing organization (Adventurer's Hall, Faction, etc.) might expect a cut of anything they helped you uncover.

Unoriginal

2021-05-24, 08:17 AM

I didn't think about this far enough...

Half the cost of the item in raw materials; 7gp 5sp.

15gp Longsword takes 3 days to craft by one person.
- Modest Living Expenses; -3gp.

For a total of 10gp 5sp, to craft a 15gp Longsword, making a profit of 4.5 gp per Longsword.

However, we know that a Blacksmith isn't exactly the average craftsman.

This increases his living expenses to 2gp per day to maintain his stuff and his business. Or 6 gp to craft a Longsword for 3 days.

7.5 + 6gp = 13.5 gp to craft a 15gp Longsword for a profit of...10%... That's pretty bad.

The PHB mentions that while crafting, the crafter can benefit from a modest lifestyle for free or have the cost of the comfortable lifestyle divided by 2.

Meaning that the smith would make 4.5gp of benefit per longswords, while living comfortably.

Meanwhile, the adventurers he sold the Longsword to, tripped over 50gp in a box two hours later.

Well, the adventurer may have had their head broken tripping on that gold. Metaphorically speaking.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 08:31 AM

Sounds like the PCs will have to get some kind of protected building to house their treasure. Also hire people to guard it when they're not here, get a security system including both mechanical and magical contraptions, and then kill all the half-brained bravos, two-bit magicians and clueless gods-botherers who dare try to brave their stronghold.

Wait... *chuckle*
Back in AD&D 1e days, we had finally gotten a small strong hold built (our cleric's) and decided to stash a bunch of our loot there. (Hidden, buried, a few protections).
We went on a couple more adventures. Got back to the stronghold.
Blood everywhere, only one small cache of our stuff wasn't gone.
Finally figured out that a thieves guild from a nearby city (we did a bunch of investigating and role play to arrive at this conclusion) had decided to knock over this new stronghhold once we were out of town. Come to find out, the guy who gave us the tip for the second adventure (knocking over a Frost Giant lair) was the deputy of the thieves guild (and an assassin PC, stat wise)

We ended up trying to destroy the thieves guild. Three PCs left alive when all of the dust settled, including the cleric. And a bounty on our heads for burning their HQ to the ground. (I think that one of the thieves guild's ranking members was the Lord Mayor's finance minister - but I may be recalling a different NPC. Been a few years)

So off we went, to another country, finding a couple of re rolled PCs along the way as players replaced their dead PCs.

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 08:36 AM

The PHB mentions that while crafting, the crafter can benefit from a modest lifestyle for free or have the cost of the comfortable lifestyle divided by 2.

Considering that the numbers are constant;
- It's always half the cost of materials
- It's always a number of days equal to (gp/50)*10. ...Assuming a 10-day workweek.
- And the amount of living expenses used is always proportional to the number of days used, which is proportional to the value of the item...

Crafting has a profit margin of 30% on your own. Regardless of the item being crafted... And of course providing you always have a buyer.
You can halve the time with an apprentice, and then pay them less for their work...Which...Y'know...Happens. Which would increase your rate of work, and thus, increase your profit margin.

Same as the OP, I don't know what I would do with this number. But there it is.

Unoriginal

2021-05-24, 08:55 AM

Considering that the numbers are constant;
- It's always half the cost of materials
- It's always a number of days equal to (gp/50)*10. ...Assuming a 10-day workweek.
- And the amount of living expenses used is always proportional to the number of days used, which is proportional to the value of the item...

Crafting has a profit margin of 30% on your own. Regardless of the item being crafted... And of course providing you always have a buyer.
You can halve the time with an apprentice, and then pay them less for their work...Which...Y'know...Happens. Which would increase your rate of work, and thus, increase your profit margin.

Same as the OP, I don't know what I would do with this number. But there it is.

Crafting a plate armor costs 750gps. With three apprentices, a smith can craft one in 75 days, for a benefit of 750gps- 75gps (living expense for the smith) - apprentices' salaries. If the apprentices are paid 1 gp a day, that means the smith can pocket 300 gps per plate armor.

This armorsmith could craft 4 plate armor a year, for an end result of 1200gps of benefit.

Sigreid

2021-05-24, 09:06 AM

It's actually pretty normal and realistic that if you're hand to mouth poor it is really hard to move up.

Crafting rules are really simplistic and unrealistic as the way the crafting rules work the blacksmith making horse shoes is getting the same value for his labor as the skilled jeweler making ornaments for the king.

In 1e they explained that everything in the Players Handbook was listed in what are effectively gold rush prices, meaning everything is overpriced to fleece adventurers of as much gold as possible and that in an area with no adventurers to take advantage of everything would be a fraction of the listed price.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 09:16 AM

n 1e they explained that everything in the Players Handbook was listed in what are effectively gold rush prices, meaning everything is overpriced to fleece adventurers of as much gold as possible and that in an area with no adventurers to take advantage of everything would be a fraction of the listed price. Kind of like in Vegas, New York, or Tokyo ... (or pick any other major city) - prices are what the market will bear.

Kurt Kurageous

2021-05-24, 09:45 AM

A few years ago I tried to build an economic model for D&D. A few heroic assumptions and then a general equilbrium framework - part of my trying to build foundations for a sensible consistant world. The whole thing was a mess.
Anyway, I guess my point is to not worry about the detail too much. Consistancy is nice but unless you have a really big abusable arbitrage opportunity for the players I would handwave a lot of it away. Work out what the important bits are to have working and let the other bits float as needed.

DnD is not and has never been a realistic simulation of anything, and especially not that of an actual economy that follows market forces. Trying to reconcile DnD to real economics will only lead to insanity.

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 09:55 AM

It's actually pretty normal and realistic that if you're hand to mouth poor it is really hard to move up.

A Commoner has Intelligence 10 (+0).
It therefore takes ten workweeks (100 days, ~3 months) to learn Smith's Tools.
...It just costs 250gp.

Where does the 250gp come from? Using the Work table, a character that doesn't have at least a +1 in any stat, can never roll a profit on their current Lifestyle Expenses.

The 250gp has to come from a Master who is willing to eat into their ~30% profits to Apprentice you. They should. Because having an Apprentice actually increases their profits, by halving the Crafting time.
Once you've done your 100 days Apprenticeship, you can then start earning 30% on everything you do. Remember, that 30% is after living expenses are paid for.

the crafting rules work the blacksmith making horse shoes is getting the same value for his labor as the skilled jeweler making ornaments for the king.

That's actually really good. Because, as mentioned, no matter what you Craft, your profit is 30% minimum. If you can afford the upfront materials to craft a 500gp ring...Do that. If you can only afford to craft Rations...Do that. All's you - the worker - has to do, is make sure that the work is constant, and that you always have a buyer. But, as mentioned, if you're making a guaranteed profit of 30% off of everything that does sell, or off of your comissions (remember, that's 30% after living expenses are paid for)...You should be okay when things you make don't sell.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 09:59 AM

A Commoner has Intelligence 10 (+0).
It therefore takes ten workweeks (100 days, ~3 months) to learn Smith's Tools.
...It just costs 250gp.

Where does the 250gp come from? Using the Work table, a character that doesn't have at least a +1 in any stat, can never roll a profit on their current Lifestyle Expenses.

The 250gp has to come from a Master who is willing to eat into their ~30% profits to Apprentice you. They should. Because having an Apprentice actually increases their profits, by halving the Crafting time.
Once you've done your 100 days Apprenticeship, you can then start earning 30% on everything you do. Remember, that 30% is after living expenses are paid for.

That's actually really good. Because, as mentioned, no matter what you Craft, your profit is 30% minimum.
All's you - the worker - has to do, is make sure that the work is constant, and that you always have a buyer. But, as mentioned, if you're making a guaranteed profit of 30% off of everything that does sell, or off of your comissions (remember, that's 30% after living expenses are paid for)...You should be okay. Great post, but to add a little context, there's another realistic (verisimilitude-ish) cost that is contextual: (1) guild fees and taxes (2) paying the local thieves guild some 'protection money' to avoid being fleeced (call it what it is, insurance) if one is in an urban area (not as big of a deal if not in an urban area I suspect) and the ever few years "one time" levy made by the local Lord because he needs to raise an army for his liege lord; scutage, if you will ... :smallcool:

You can still keep some, sure, and then there's the alcoholic brother in law who you have to keep bailing out of jail because you love your sister even though she married a cad ...

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 10:02 AM

You can still keep some, sure, and then there's the alcoholic brother in law who you have to keep bailing out of jail because you love your sister even though she married a cad ...

What's the point in paying Guild Fees if you can't have your brother-in-law's legs broken from time to time? :smallamused:

Sigreid

2021-05-24, 10:12 AM

A Commoner has Intelligence 10 (+0).
It therefore takes ten workweeks (100 days, ~3 months) to learn Smith's Tools.
...It just costs 250gp.

Where does the 250gp come from? Using the Work table, a character that doesn't have at least a +1 in any stat, can never roll a profit on their current Lifestyle Expenses.

The 250gp has to come from a Master who is willing to eat into their ~30% profits to Apprentice you. They should. Because having an Apprentice actually increases their profits, by halving the Crafting time.
Once you've done your 100 days Apprenticeship, you can then start earning 30% on everything you do. Remember, that 30% is after living expenses are paid for.

That's actually really good. Because, as mentioned, no matter what you Craft, your profit is 30% minimum. If you can afford the upfront materials to craft a 500gp ring...Do that. If you can only afford to craft Rations...Do that. All's you - the worker - has to do, is make sure that the work is constant, and that you always have a buyer. But, as mentioned, if you're making a guaranteed profit of 30% off of everything that does sell, or off of your comissions (remember, that's 30% after living expenses are paid for)...You should be okay when things you make don't sell.

What your missing is the way it works as written is that the blacksmith makes something like 1000 horseshoes (I didn't do the math, just trying to make the point) in the same time it takes the jeweler to make the ring for the king. So they're making the exact same profit over a period of time when logically, the jeweler isn't spending 500 hours to make one ring and should be making more profit off less hours invested. I can understand why you'd set it up this way from a game perspective to avoid it turning from D&D into Merchant Wars but it doesn't make any sense.

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 10:15 AM

What your missing is the way it works as written is that [...] it doesn't make any sense.

Nope. I'm not missing that at all.

I'm not coming up with ways it should work. I'm coming up with the way it does work.

Kurt Kurageous

2021-05-24, 10:52 AM

See? It's already led to insanity!

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-24, 11:17 AM

Wow, this blew up more than I expected for some idle musings.

As to purpose: I mainly want to be able to answer for myself questions like
1. How should a guard react to various sizes of offered bribes? Or a waitress to various sizes of tips?
2. What kinds of lifestyles are people in setting living? How does that translate between "wealthy" and "poor" areas?
3. What kind of additional costs are there? Less for adventurers (as the setting has some fixed constraints there) than for things like fortresses they want to build, ancillary support services, etc.
4. How many guards do I need to support a certain shift rotation schedule (ie how frequently do guards need to be on-shift? Are they likely to be moonlighting?)
5. What kind of cash flow is a polity (city, region, nation) looking at? This helps me determine how kings (and other nobles) are going to react to newly-wealthy adventurers flashing buckets of cash.
6. What kinds of costs are we looking at to hire large groups of mercenaries (less the adventurers directly than other actors in the system).

As to crafting: I do not assume that the rules for crafting apply (per se) to NPCs. Adventurers are not professional smiths (or anything else), even if they had the Guild Artisan background. They may have been professional artisans, but adventuring is now taking up a large part of their time and effort. And there's a lot of simplifications (and added complexities) for people who do nothing but craft. So the actual economics of crafting are (for now) out of scope.

As to carrying around bags of cash: an earlier adventuring group, as part of their "after-story", created an international banking cartel run by paranoid goblins, backed by a nation state that is fully willing to go stomp on anyone who tries to rob/scam the banks. Basically Switzerland with muscle and no compunctions. They have branches in most of the larger cities. Since there's also a (partial) fixed-point portal network, plus they hire casters with communication spells, I can handwave that the bank balances get updated in (more or less) real time. So they can carry bank drafts (basically cashier's checks).

More later...

Sigreid

2021-05-24, 11:27 AM

Fun side thought, your average adventurer in your average campaign by level 3 or so is absolutely in a position to permanently change someone's life for the better if they're so inclined.

DwarfFighter

2021-05-24, 12:35 PM

Tvtyrant

2021-05-24, 12:45 PM

Unoriginal

2021-05-24, 12:53 PM

Also worth noting that the books give the cost of maintainance for several buildings.

A palace/large castle costs 146000 gp a year. A farm costs 182,5.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 12:57 PM

What's the point in paying Guild Fees if you can't have your brother-in-law's legs broken from time to time? :smallamused: But only if your union guild dues are paid up! :smallbiggrin:

As to purpose: I mainly want to be able to answer for myself questions like
1. How should a guard react to various sizes of offered bribes?
2. Or a waitress to various sizes of tips?
Those are two different transactions. Guard isn't supposed to earn a living by taking bribes, waitress is making money off of tips IFF you apply a 20th century economic model to tavern servers in a fantasy setting. There is not requirement to do that: we are engaging in an anachronism if we assume that, to a certain extent. (On the other hand, paying the server to "meet me upstairs after your shift" is a whole different revenue stream, and perhaps a form of moonlighting).

2. What kinds of lifestyles are people in setting living? How does that translate between "wealthy" and "poor" areas? Many swords and sorcery pulp writing and setting assume the existence of beggars, urchins, thieves guilds, etc. Those are generally drawn from the lower socioeconomic spectrum, in fiction.

4. How many guards do I need to support a certain shift rotation schedule (ie how frequently do guards need to be on-shift? Are they likely to be moonlighting?) a. moonlighting guards are a security risk. b. I'd set up a watch rotation, and I usually use the Navy watch system as a model since I spent a lot of years in the Navy. It works well enough.

5. What kind of cash flow is a polity (city, region, nation) looking at? This helps me determine how kings (and other nobles) are going to react to newly-wealthy adventurers flashing buckets of cash. You need an independent economic model for this, and I tend to and wave this based on world events. In other words, if there was a good harvest, cash flow isn't a problem. If there was a bad harvest, or the mine collapsed, or all of the fish suddenly deserted a large area normally fished, then cash flow becomes a problem.

6. What kinds of costs are we looking at to hire large groups of mercenaries (less the adventurers directly than other actors in the system).
What quality level? Mercs come in a lot of shapes and sizes.

As to crafting: I do not assume that the rules for crafting apply (per se) to NPCs.
Agree. there are whole professions who dedicate themselves to this.

Adventurers are not professional smiths (or anything else), even if they had the Guild Artisan background. They may have been professional artisans, but adventuring is now taking up a large part of their time and effort. And there's a lot of simplifications (and added complexities) for people who do nothing but craft. So the actual economics of crafting are (for now) out of scope. Yeah.

As to carrying around bags of cash: an earlier adventuring group, as part of their "after-story", created an international banking cartel run by paranoid goblins, backed by a nation state that is fully willing to go stomp on anyone who tries to rob/scam the banks.

Basically Switzerland with muscle and no compunctions.
I hope that you realize that this poses an immense temptation for some, shall we say, piratical sorts .. :smallbiggrin:

They have branches in most of the larger cities. Since there's also a (partial) fixed-point portal network, plus they hire casters with communication spells, I can handwave that the bank balances get updated in (more or less) real time. So they can carry bank drafts (basically cashier's checks).
I have often converted my cash to gems in previous groups. Dropping a 1 or 2 percent surcharge to do so is the cost of doing business, as I see it.

FWIW, your system is a bit Renaissance / Enligtenment era -ish (Fuggers / Medicis model) but letters of credit and proto banking did exist as far back as something like 800 or 900 AD IIRC. (Need to check a some old notes) With the use of a sending spell as the ACH mechanism, I think your model works well enough.

EggKookoo

2021-05-24, 01:20 PM

This kind of thing is why I emphasize to my players that their PCs (currently 6th level in this campaign) are incredibly wealthy. They kind of exist in their own economic sphere, and while there may be other "adventurers" out there, there can't be too many or they'd all distort the economy. They have to be careful with how they shed gold, lest they draw unwanted attention. Even then, it's hard to explain why they're not famous, even if just in the specific circles that cater to adventurers (magic component trade and whatnot).

And I haven't worked out economics nearly to this level of detail. My rule of thumb is: an unskilled laborer makes from between 1 sp and 1 gp per day. A skilled laborer makes 1 gp per day at minimum at the start and go up from there. Most cap out their careers in the mid-high double digits. Some "superstar" into the hundreds per day but they're pretty rare. If you make between 1 cp and 1 sp per day, you can squeak by but it's pretty unpleasant living conditions. Less than that and you're basically destitute and living off the kindness of strangers.

Meanwhile, living costs go about the same. Living on 1 cp per day will get you some stale bread and a back alley somewhere. Living on 1 sp per day gets you spartan communal living and three basic meals. Living on 1 gp per day gets you a tiny private apartment or shack and three decent, if unremarkable meals (many starting skilled laborers share living spaces to save money and get an arguably bigger place to live). Nicer homes go up from there, with really nice houses running about 100 gp per day to maintain.

At 1st level the PCs got hired to do a job that paid 50 gp each. They jumped at the chance, as it paid rent for over a month. By 6th level they're finding treasure in the hundreds or thousands of gold (they recently found a necklace valued at 10,000 gp). I also tend to assume most of this value isn't literally in coins but in valuable items or gems, and they cash it out when they need to buy stuff.

chiefwaha

2021-05-24, 02:34 PM

CapnWildefyr

2021-05-24, 04:09 PM

Nice, easy to parse, and it makes that old Beatles song fit.
It will also attract the attention of the local thieves guild ... :smallwink: ... or thieves from somewhere across the sea who hear the story of some band of fools who took on a dragon and got the loot. "They did the hard work, all we have to do is kill them and take their stuff"

Reminds me of a Fritz Leiber story... "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" :smallbiggrin:

The real world value ratio of copper to gold is something like 6000:1, in DnD it's 100:1. The ratio for copper to silver is actually close to 10:1, though it's more accurately 8.5:1.

Gold is apparently less rare in the fantasy settings of DnD!

So. 1kg of copper is about $10, and that's about the weight of 100 coins (50 per lb.), so 1cp is about $0.10. So a DnD sp is $1, a DnD gp is $10.

I think it's a little tough to use modern comparisons, since the value of gold is skewed by investments and the value of money is bound only to faith in its value, more or less. [Let's face it, if everyone in DnD had gold out the nose, or didn't want it for whatever reasons, it would be worthless. Think Darksun.]

----

Another point -- it's hard to model a barter economy, too, and a lot of times, that's what you have. The farmer's don't make money but with good harvests, they eat and others maybe do not.

As for the OP questions - bribes are tough, you've got the competing axes of honesty, honor, salary, fear, and "just doin' bidness." Sorry, I don't want to try to quantify that one.

---
1e had lots of ways to tax and charge money for things. So even to this day, even when I have a bag of holding, I tend to convert cash to gems and other more portable things, and never put all my cash in one place.

An interesting thing is that the knights templar had a pretty good system going. They had a way to extend credit based on deposits made elsewhere. You can also read novels like The Count of Monte Cristo, where it talks about how people (nobles and rich people, at least) used to lend money based on letters and recommendations. Quite different than today's credit cards and ATMs.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-24, 04:12 PM

Reminds me of a Fritz Leiber story... "The Two Best Thieves in Lankhmar" :smallbiggrin:
Yeah, that's a fine yarn. (Man, I need to dig out my Lieber books, have not read them in years)

Dork_Forge

2021-05-24, 04:16 PM

At 1st level the PCs got hired to do a job that paid 50 gp each. They jumped at the chance, as it paid rent for over a month. By 6th level they're finding treasure in the hundreds or thousands of gold (they recently found a necklace valued at 10,000 gp). I also tend to assume most of this value isn't literally in coins but in valuable items or gems, and they cash it out when they need to buy stuff.

That's... quite the jump, do the players ever want for money anymore? Is there any reason they don't just establish strongholds and significant amounts of varying types of staff besides not wanting to?

EggKookoo

2021-05-24, 04:54 PM

That's... quite the jump, do the players ever want for money anymore? Is there any reason they don't just establish strongholds and significant amounts of varying types of staff besides not wanting to?

What's amazing is I use published adventures as a basis for a lot of my dungeon crawl settings, and those are the values of the treasure in a lot of those. I put them through a (modified version of) Forge of Fury. The black dragon fight in that awards about 2,000 gp just in coin, plus whatever they could get from the magic items. At 4th level (they started at 3rd and didn't quite ding 5th on it). I flipped through Against the Giants and it awards a truckload of gold when it's all said and done, but I haven't run it. I'm putting them through the Original Adventures Reincarnated Expedition to the Barrier Peaks now (again heavily modified). That's where the 10k necklace is, but even aside from that they're kinda rolling in it.

At this point (they're about 1/3 into 6th level) they could probably stop adventuring and live pretty cushy lives, at least for a number of years. The PCs are sitting on about 2.5k gold each on average, BP loot not included. In between adventures I do deduct some for living expenses but it doesn't hit them that hard. One is into crafting and has money lined up to spend on that. They keep adventuring because the plotline is prompting them to -- they're chasing down an artifact before the BBEG gets it.

At the same time, I also don't let them easily buy and sell magic items. Selling is possible but legally they can only do it through official magic trade guilds, and that doesn't pay a lot. Buying is also legally only allowed through those same guilds, and good luck getting the item you're looking for. There are black markets for magic items but they work on trade rather than cash transactions, so that still limits how easily they can move things.

I'm running an urban game based in a (you got it, heavily modified version of) Eberron, specifically Sharn. So they do, in a sense, have home bases in the form of apartments in the city.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-24, 05:11 PM

What's amazing is I use published adventures as a basis for a lot of my dungeon crawl settings, and those are the values of the treasure in a lot of those. I put them through a (modified version of) Forge of Fury. The black dragon fight in that awards about 2,000 gp just in coin, plus whatever they could get from the magic items. At 4th level (they started at 3rd and didn't quite ding 5th on it). I flipped through Against the Giants and it awards a truckload of gold when it's all said and done, but I haven't run it. I'm putting them through the Original Adventures Reincarnated Expedition to the Barrier Peaks now (again heavily modified). That's where the 10k necklace is, but even aside from that they're kinda rolling in it.

At this point (they're about 1/3 into 6th level) they could probably stop adventuring and live pretty cushy lives, at least for a number of years. The PCs are sitting on about 2.5k gold each on average, BP loot not included. In between adventures I do deduct some for living expenses but it doesn't hit them that hard. One is into crafting and has money lined up to spend on that. They keep adventuring because the plotline is prompting them to -- they're chasing down an artifact before the BBEG gets it.

At the same time, I also don't let them easily buy and sell magic items. Selling is possible but legally they can only do it through official magic trade guilds, and that doesn't pay a lot. Buying is also legally only allowed through those same guilds, and good luck getting the item you're looking for. There are black markets for magic items but they work on trade rather than cash transactions, so that still limits how easily they can move things.

I'm running an urban game based in a (you got it, heavily modified version of) Eberron, specifically Sharn. So they do, in a sense, have home bases in the form of apartments in the city.

So you're using 3rd party adventures that originated in... I wanna say AD&D or something around there, but using 5e as the game system?

Didn't older editions have gold tied to xp and a heavier incentive towards hirelings etc.?

It kinda feels like the gold totals are out of whack with what is earned in 5e published adventures.

Kane0

2021-05-24, 05:32 PM

Also worth noting that the books give the cost of maintainance for several buildings.

A palace/large castle costs 146000 gp a year. A farm costs 182,5.

I'm not in front of books at the moment, can anyone provide those lists of stuff to build and maintain?

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-24, 05:35 PM

JackPhoenix

2021-05-24, 06:07 PM

I hope that you realize that this poses an immense temptation for some, shall we say, piratical sorts .. :smallbiggrin:

Explains why random bandits are willing to mess with adventuring parties. Win or loose, you won't need to work a day in your life ever again.

EggKookoo

2021-05-24, 06:35 PM

So you're using 3rd party adventures that originated in... I wanna say AD&D or something around there, but using 5e as the game system?

Didn't older editions have gold tied to xp and a heavier incentive towards hirelings etc.?

It kinda feels like the gold totals are out of whack with what is earned in 5e published adventures.

I never saw the original version of Forge of Fury, I'm just used the one from Yawning Portal. The treasure in that wasn't refactored for 5e? It's not a 3rd party product.

Barrier Peaks is indeed 3rd party but it's also meant for late t2, early t3 PCs.

But take a look at the treasure in Storm King's Thunder. The opening questline for 1st level PCs ("A Great Upheaval") will net them about 2.5k gold (more of they can get away with Lady Nadar's 750gp ring). And that's just from a quick scan of the gp values in the various "treasure" entries and doesn't include the value of any magic items the party can sell. A group of 4 PCs will pocket roughly 650 gp each by the time they hit 2nd level, and it only goes up from there. That's actually less than my players had at 2nd level.

Edit, sorry, Great Upheaval is meant to progress to 5th. So maybe that's a little more sensible and is slower than what my players are doing.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-24, 06:40 PM

I never saw the original version of Forge of Fury, I'm just used the one from Yawning Portal. The treasure in that wasn't refactored for 5e? It's not a 3rd party product.

Barrier Peaks is indeed 3rd party but it's also meant for late t2, early t3 PCs.

But take a look at the treasure in Storm King's Thunder. The opening questline for 1st level PCs ("A Great Upheaval") will net them about 2.5k gold (more of they can get away with Lady Nadar's 750gp ring). And that's just from a quick scan of the gp values in the various "treasure" entries and doesn't include the value of any magic items the party can sell. A group of 4 PCs will pocket roughly 650 gp each by the time they hit 2nd level, and it only goes up from there. That's actually less than my players had at 2nd level.

Wow. I don't run packaged adventures, so I'd lost touch with how much the adventures are really giving out. That's...insane, IMO. I frequently don't give out a treasure hoard in the first session (ie level 1) at all. They might get some from individual creatures, but that's about it.

For reference, my current party collectively had ~8k gp at level 10. Of course, they've spent a significant amount along the way, but not hundreds of thousands. They just popped a lich (CR 22) at the first session of level 11, gaining ~330k gp (plus 4 legendaries...stupid dice rolls); none of the other hoards have been over 10k. And I tend to roll treasure hoards (the cash value anyway) more or less "by the book".

EggKookoo

2021-05-24, 06:45 PM

Wow. I don't run packaged adventures, so I'd lost touch with how much the adventures are really giving out. That's...insane, IMO. I frequently don't give out a treasure hoard in the first session (ie level 1) at all. They might get some from individual creatures, but that's about it.

Sorry, my mistake. That opening part is meant to go from 1st - 5th level, not 1st - 2nd. So it's not quite so insane...

For reference, my current party collectively had ~8k gp at level 10. Of course, they've spent a significant amount along the way, but not hundreds of thousands. They just popped a lich (CR 22) at the first session of level 11, gaining ~330k gp (plus 4 legendaries...stupid dice rolls); none of the other hoards have been over 10k. And I tend to roll treasure hoards (the cash value anyway) more or less "by the book".

I don't mind the PCs having lots of money. I don't think my players like to play PCs who are motivated primarily by loot, and they enjoy being a little Bruce Wayne from time to time (to compliment being Batman when out on adventure). They see themselves as, well, heroes, doing things because it feels right to do it. I've got them convinced the BBEG is a threat to the world (which he is) and that's enough to get them out of bed. In fact, having a lot of wealth brings problems (namely unwanted attention) of its own...

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-24, 06:58 PM

Sorry, my mistake. That opening part is meant to go from 1st - 5th level, not 1st - 2nd. So it's not quite so insane...

I don't mind the PCs having lots of money. I don't think my players like to play PCs who are motivated primarily by loot, and they enjoy being a little Bruce Wayne from time to time (to compliment being Batman when out on adventure). They see themselves as, well, heroes, doing things because it feels right to do it. I've got them convinced the BBEG is a threat to the world (which he is) and that's enough to get them out of bed. In fact, having a lot of wealth brings problems (namely unwanted attention) of its own...

As an overall T1 adventure, that doesn't sound so bad. The average DMG recommended total for T1 cash is somewhere around 7 * 375 / 4 = ~650 per person.

I don't mind the money either; I just have a block where I don't put treasure parcels in unless the placement makes sense. Which for some adventure arcs is few and far between. Or fewer and further between anyway.

One of the driving forces behind this whole thread was the party coming into cash and looking to get involved in the land acquisition business to build a fortified area. So getting a handle on what the purchasing power of that cash should be.

Tanarii

2021-05-24, 07:30 PM

https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html
Every time I see that tumbleweed priced at 12gp I giggle

Cheesegear

2021-05-24, 11:44 PM

That's... quite the jump, do the players ever want for money anymore?

Once the party has 'enough' sets of Plate, they're done. The game explicitly says that magic items shouldn't really be bought and sold...Or, at least, the idea of a 'magic shoppe' shouldn't exist. So what is there to do with money? Save up and buy a Warship? :smallconfused:

That's why I refuse "...and then Johnny left home to seek his fame and fortune!" backstories. He'll have a decent amount of fame the first time he slays a Young Dragon, and he'll have enough fortune to last a lifetime by Level...6? Your character arc is over very quickly.

Kane0

2021-05-24, 11:59 PM

My level 7 party are currently:
- Commissioning magic items from the only mage in town
- Repairing and upgrading a modest ship
- Operating as a member of the town council
- Establishing a 'plantation' just north of town which is honestly probably going to turn into more of a compound

So yeah, they're literally running themselves ragged for funds.

Unoriginal

2021-05-25, 02:30 AM

So what is there to do with money?

Live like a king?

It always confuses me that 5e players don't seem to know what to do with money. Like... spending on luxury is a thing.

Of course it could be argued that it just showcases how just acquiring wealth for wealth's sake is a pointless goal.

Cheesegear

2021-05-25, 03:05 AM

Live like a king?

Oh, no. I get that.
I get that a character who's just killed himself a Young Dragon, with their share of the loot, can live Wealthy for months before doing anything else again.

But the real problem is that a DM and Player don't want to spend 60-90 days of in-game time doing effectively nothing in the world.

8 times out of 10 the reason that the Young Dragon was doing a thing, was because something even bigger was doing something even more threatening, and the DM wants to progress the story.
...Leaving the question unanswered; We just killed a Large Dragon, and got loot (woot!)...But we can't do anything with it because we're busy adventurers.

It always confuses me that 5e players don't seem to know what to do with money. Like... spending on luxury is a thing.

Because 'luxury' isn't in the PHB. The best you get is a one-paragraph description of what it's like to live Wealthy or Aristocratic...But it doesn't affect your character, because almost all DMs I know of will simply treat 'luxury' as Downtime, and not address it because it's not part of the main story.

Justin Sane

2021-05-25, 05:00 AM

I dunno, there's lots of RP potential in having a character constantly complaining that they just want the plot to be over so they can retire (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony)...

Amnestic

2021-05-25, 05:11 AM

The game explicitly says that magic items shouldn't really be bought and sold...Or, at least, the idea of a 'magic shoppe' shouldn't exist.

Mm, not sure I agree.

DMG 135-136:

If your campaign allows for trade in magic items, rarity can also help you set prices for them. As the DM, you determine the value of an individual magic item based on its rarity. Suggested values are provided in the Magic Item Rarity table. [...]

[Table with rough prices based on rarity]

BUYING AND SELLING
Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase. Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf. The seller might ask for a service, rather than coin. In a large city with an academy of magic or a major temple, buying and selling magic items might be possible, at your discretion. If your world includes a large number of adventurers engaged in retrieving ancient magic items, trade in these items might be more common. Even so, it's likely to remain similar to the market for fine art in the real world, with invitation-only auctions and a tendency to attract thieves. Selling magic items is difficult in most D&D worlds primarily because of the challenge of finding a buyer.

Plenty of people might like to have a magic sword, but few of them can afford it. Those who can afford such an item usually have more practical things to spend on. See chapter 6, "Between Adventures," for one way to handle selling magic items. In your campaign, magic items might be prevalent enough that adventurers can buy and sell them with some effort. Magic items might be for sale in bazaars or auction houses in fantastical locations, such as the City of Brass, the planar metropolis of Sigil, or even in more ordinary cities. Sale of magic items might be highly regulated, accompanied by a thriving black market. Artificers might craft items for use by military forces or adventurers, as they do in the world of Eberron.

FR seems to be the 'default' 5e setting at the moment, with Eberron not far behind (since it even got a shoutout in this section!). Both of which have prevalent magic item markets as part of their worldbuilding. 5e's just set up so that if your setting isn't one that has a thriving magic item market your players will still be able to perform in combat.

Frogreaver

2021-05-25, 06:41 AM

Mm, not sure I agree.

DMG 135-136:

FR seems to be the 'default' 5e setting at the moment, with Eberron not far behind (since it even got a shoutout in this section!). Both of which have prevalent magic item markets as part of their worldbuilding. 5e's just set up so that if your setting isn't one that has a thriving magic item market your players will still be able to perform in combat.

Everything in that passage says the stereotypical magic item shop with a large selection of nearly whatever your heart desires doesn't exist. Even the first sentence says: "Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase." It continues to elaborate that the closest it recommends to a stereotypical magic item shop is something akin to the market for fine art and that's only if "your world includes a large number of adventurers engaged in retrieving ancient magic items."

Unoriginal

2021-05-25, 06:50 AM

FR seems to be the 'default' 5e setting at the moment, with Eberron not far behind (since it even got a shoutout in this section!). Both of which have prevalent magic item markets as part of their worldbuilding. 5e's just set up so that if your setting isn't one that has a thriving magic item market your players will still be able to perform in combat.

It's not really "prevalent". An Uncommon magic item is more like a luxury car than something everyone will see in person.

quindraco

2021-05-25, 06:53 AM

The problem with magic item shops is... well. The problems are:

DMG magic item rarity was assigned with low effort and WOTC won't errata it, so magic item power level only loosely correlates with rarity.
Even a perfectly executed assignment of rarity would still leave significant gaps between item power levels at the same rarity, because there aren't that many rarity grades.
5E was written with an assumption that the DM would either hand out magic items randomly or with a personal interest in furthering the story - there was no allowance written in for PCs being allowed to choose items good for their build, and attempts to patch it later aren't very good.
Neither the DMG nor Xanathar's has a good system in place for crafting, which means there's no good system for assigning monetary value - and the system we do have was so low-effort common and uncommon magic plate armor is cheaper than plate armor.

And this is a problem for WOTC, too. They can't possibly know how balanced a class ability is that makes your weapon attacks magical, like monks have, since magic item balance is completely unknowable from table to table.

Amnestic

2021-05-25, 07:05 AM

It's not really "prevalent". An Uncommon magic item is more like a luxury car than something everyone will see in person.

"Prevalent" in this case meaning "there are probably several people/shops that deal in magic items in any major city and they're easily found by anyone who cares to". Luxury car analogy works fine in that sense.

EggKookoo

2021-05-25, 07:21 AM

[...]and the system we do have was so low-effort common and uncommon magic plate armor is cheaper than plate armor.

Eh, I think Xanathar's at least implies pretty strongly that you need to get the mundane plate first, before turning it into magic plate. Crafting magic items is a subset of basic item crafting, and those rules say you need to get the raw materials for the item.

"Creating a magic item requires more than just time, effort, and materials. It is a long-term process that involves one or more adventures to track down rare materials and the lore needed to create the item."

So to make a suit of +1 plate, you need to get half of the cost of plate in raw materials. Plate is 1,500, so you need 750 gp worth of the stuff needed to make the suit. Then you need to spend 15 work-weeks crafting the armor. A +1 suit of armor is a rare item. The cost of crafting a rare item is 2,000 gold and another 10 work-weeks. On top of that, the DM is encouraged to include at least one quest or encounter where you need to acquire a special material or item to complete the process. No explicit gold cost there but for a rare item the rules suggest a CR of 9-12, so not something most t1 parties can do easily.

In the end, you're looking at 2,750 in gold, 25 work-weeks, and overcoming a teir-2, maybe tier-3 challenge.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-25, 07:39 AM

Explains why random bandits are willing to mess with adventuring parties. Win or loose, you won't need to work a day in your life ever again. High risk, high reward. :smallcool:

I never saw the original version of Forge of Fury, I'm just used the one from Yawning Portal. The treasure in that wasn't refactored for 5e? I think it was factored for Adventurers League. :smallcool:

But take a look at the treasure in Storm King's Thunder. The opening questline for 1st level PCs ("A Great Upheaval") will net them about 2.5k gold (more of they can get away with Lady Nadar's 750gp ring). And that's just from a quick scan of the gp values in the various "treasure" entries and doesn't include the value of any magic items the party can sell. A group of 4 PCs will pocket roughly 650 gp each by the time they hit 5th level, and it only goes up from there. That's actually less than my players had at 2nd level. (Corrected to include your edit) [/quote]
Assuming they do a full clear.

I don't mind the money either; I just have a block where I don't put treasure parcels in unless the placement makes sense. Likewise with magic items, for me. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan has a lot of magic items. Granted, my players didn't do a full clear, but they did run into a situation at the end where they returned an item (the obsidian +1 sword, which was technically a spare since the barbarian already had one) for a favor from the Oni - who is more or less the guardian of that adventure site. Also, they had just come from Forge of Fury, and had quite a few items from there.

One of the driving forces behind this whole thread was the party coming into cash and looking to get involved in the land acquisition business to build a fortified area. So getting a handle on what the purchasing power of that cash should be. This also sets up some RP situations in re monitoring and working with retainers, employees, etc.

My level 7 party are currently:
- Commissioning magic items from the only mage in town
- Repairing and upgrading a modest ship
- Operating as a member of the town council
- Establishing a 'plantation' just north of town which is honestly probably going to turn into more of a compound

So yeah, they're literally running themselves ragged for funds. I love your players. :smallcool:

I dunno, there's lots of RP potential in having a character constantly complaining that they just want the plot to be over so they can retire (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Retirony)... Once they retire, the NPC assassins and Bandits come into play. They don't exist in a vacuum either. :smallbiggrin:

An Uncommon magic item is more like a luxury car than something everyone will see in person. Nice analogy.

"Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase." In a large city I will sometimes make an exception for spell scrolls. But they are Cost Plus, and "you need to know a guy" or "be friends with Lillian, the librarian at the {scholarly place}" to even get access to a chance to purchase them.

Eh, I think Xanathar's at least implies pretty strongly that you need to get the mundane plate first, before turning it into magic plate. Yep.

In the end, you're looking at 2,750 in gold, 25 work-weeks, and overcoming a teir-2, maybe tier-3 challenge. Which in and of itself is a fine adventure. :smallbiggrin:

da newt

2021-05-25, 07:51 AM

Magic items being easily sourced is a weird issue, but an issue none the less. Pricing of items is bazaar - the DMG lists value by rarity, selling prices, and crafting costs, then Xanthar's adds some more buying magic stuff guidelines.

Then the DM has to decide what they want for their world/story.

Then you have balance issues.

In one high magic game the DM created a magic items shop with most everything available, and then the party came into a bunch of $$, so each PC had ~ 8500 gp (9th lvl). Earlier it had been established that prices were marked up a little over DMG, so we were excited to each have enough $$ for one rare item - then I think the DM realized this could throw balance off, so when we returned to the store the rare items were 15 - 20 thousand gp, and the shop owner would only buy magic items at 25% of the DMG value. It felt like a bait and switch, but I can totally understand why the DM decided to go that way ...

jjordan

2021-05-25, 09:16 AM

Tvtyrant

2021-05-25, 11:22 AM

The real world value ratio of copper to gold is something like 6000:1, in DnD it's 100:1. The ratio for copper to silver is actually close to 10:1, though it's more accurately 8.5:1.

Gold is apparently less rare in the fantasy settings of DnD!

So. 1kg of copper is about $10, and that's about the weight of 100 coins (50 per lb.), so 1cp is about $0.10. So a DnD sp is $1, a DnD gp is $10.

-DF

I would like to point out that this was an actual critique of medieval coinage at the time. Poor people's money depreciated in value relative to wealthy people's money as silver was dug up at a faster rate than gold, and copper much faster than either. There was a closer ratio of metals in the past that have diverged significantly over time, with first copper and then silver being found in massive quantities while gold has remained relatively scarce.

ad_hoc

2021-05-25, 02:55 PM

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-25, 02:57 PM

NPCs that grew up in a community probably have the support of that community and can acquire things they need at a lower cost than PCs.

Etc.
And they can trade favors to one another, the "non cash economy"
My mother in law still does this IRL

DwarfFighter

2021-05-25, 03:03 PM

Well, it's not like the monetary system and the prices of goods in DnD represents an actual economy. They are convenient for the game, and obviously flawed outside of the immediate context of enabling you to transform dead orcs to rewards to a new sword.

Still, I like to occasionally call out "50gp? That's like €500, guys! Let's take the deal!"

-DF

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-25, 03:17 PM

PCs use different rules than NPCs. Trying to apply the former to the latter can give you some weird results.

There are a lot of things not considered in the PC rules.

NPCs probably start with a lot of assets they don't need to pay for such as a house. PCs need to pay for lodging every day.

NPCs that grew up in a community probably have the support of that community and can acquire things they need at a lower cost than PCs.

Etc.

While I agree that NPCs are different (hence why this is just the bare beginnings, to get an initial feel), the lifestyle costs section does call out types of NPCs that tend to live in various conditions. So saying that NPCs generally have things like houses that they don't need to pay for seems, to me, to be a bit far-fetched. Heck, even in real-world considerations, housing is a high, ongoing expense. Especially for the poor.

olskool

2021-05-25, 03:30 PM

JackPhoenix

2021-05-25, 04:31 PM

Bah, you should run on a proper monetary system: 12 cp in a sp, and 20 sp in a gp. With different coins valued at 1/4 cp, 1/2 cp, 1 cp, 3 cp, 6 cp, 1 sp, 2 sp, 2 sp 6cp, 5 sp, 10 sp, and 1 gp.

Parts of this post should be blue. Maybe.

Unoriginal

2021-05-25, 04:40 PM

Here's something I find always helps one's perspective on coins.

The US Federal Reserve WEIGHS coins to confirm a coin count. Modern coins are remarkably uniform in weight. What is really interesting is that most older coins were also remarkably consistent in their weight as well. So if weight is consistent, you COULD use a modern standard for the weight of your coins.

Quarters (the second most numerous US coin behind the Penny) are bagged in $1,000 lots of 4,000 coins each. Each bag of 4,000 Quarters weighs 50lbs per Federal Reserve guidelines. That means there are 80 quarters to a pound. One COULD argue that a Gold coin would weight slightly more but I would set a realistic weight for Denari or other old coins at around 50 per pound. If the coins were smaller, say Nickel-sized, you could carry 100 coins per pound of weight. So that is where I set my coin weights. 100 is easier to use when you are using the Encumbrance rules (which I do use).

That's not how weight or currency work, though.

Ancient coins' value was generally defined by the value of the metal (or more often, metals) that composed them. The reason for the standardized weight is because it's the most available way to calculate mass in a mercantile context, so if your coin weighted approximately the correct weight for approximately the correct size, it was assumed the coin was composed of the right metals and such worth the expected amount.

Modern coins like quarters have an arbitrary value set by the government, same as bills (there are a few exceptions still, but they're not usually minted for day-to-day uses). To the point that the market value of the copper quantity required to make a penny is worth more than the penny itself.

Now, to go to your "one COULD argue that a Gold coin would weight slightly more" argument, a quarter is has a diameter of 0.955 inch (24.26 mm) and is 0.069 inch (1.75 mm) thick according to wikipedia, or in other words is has a volume of 0.809 cubic centimeters.

0.809 cubic centimeters of gold weight 0.03 lbs. That means you'd need a bit more than 33 quarter-sized gold coins to make one lb. Or to put it differently: 33 quarter-sized gold coins and 80 quarters are nearly the same weight.

As for the "realistic Denari weight", assuming you meant the Roman Denarius, the coin started as a 4.55 g coin composed at 95% of silver, and ended up becoming a 3.41 g coin composed at 5% of silver. Which means you needed 151 5%-silver-Denarii to make one lb.

Sigreid

2021-05-25, 04:52 PM

That's not how weight or currency work, though.

Ancient coins' value was generally defined by the value of the metal (or more often, metals) that composed them. The reason for the standardized weight is because it's the most available way to calculate mass in a mercantile context, so if your coin weighted approximately the correct weight for approximately the correct size, it was assumed the coin was composed of the right metals and such worth the expected amount.

Modern coins like quarters have an arbitrary value set by the government, same as bills (there are a few exceptions still, but they're not usually minted for day-to-day uses). To the point that the market value of the copper quantity required to make a penny is worth more than the penny itself.

Now, to go to your "one COULD argue that a Gold coin would weight slightly more" argument, a quarter is has a diameter of 0.955 inch (24.26 mm) and is 0.069 inch (1.75 mm) thick according to wikipedia, or in other words is has a volume of 0.809 cubic centimeters.

0.809 cubic centimeters of gold weight 0.03 lbs. That means you'd need a bit more than 33 quarter-sized gold coins to make one lb. Or to put it differently: 33 quarter-sized gold coins and 80 quarters are nearly the same weight.

As for the "realistic Denari weight", assuming you meant the Roman Denarius, the coin started as a 4.55 g coin composed at 95% of silver, and ended up becoming a 3.41 g coin composed at 5% of silver. Which means you needed 151 5%-silver-Denarii to make one lb.

I'd always kind of assumed that the minting of coins was originally about basically a government guarantee of amount of metal to facilitate trade. So a Roman gold coin was a known gold quantity, basically.

Tvtyrant

2021-05-25, 04:57 PM

I'd always kind of assumed that the minting of coins was originally about basically a government guarantee of amount of metal to facilitate trade. So a Roman gold coin was a known gold quantity, basically.

It also is a guarantee that the government will accept that coin for tax purposes, which is an important stabilizer of value. Coins are tricky because they are both money and a commodity, so their value is extremely susceptible to fluctuations and arbitrage.

A very realistic D&D economic issue would be if all of the gold from Waterdeep ended up being sent to buy undervalued silver in Thay, leading to their coinage switching from GP to SP and having an inflation cycle as the two coinages equalize.

Tanarii

2021-05-25, 05:28 PM

So. 1kg of copper is about $10, and that's about the weight of 100 coins (50 per lb.), so 1cp is about $0.10. So a DnD sp is $1, a DnD gp is $10.
Given the skilled laborer daily pay of 2gp and moderate cost of living of 1gp, $100/gp is probably better. That's about $52k/year in earnings and $26k/year in expenses. Sounds about right. Since it doesn't include the horse, feed, and insurance necessary to sit in the daily rat race of crosstown traffic.

Which means you've been blowing a lot of big money, $5k at a time. :smallamused:

Still, I like to occasionally call out "50gp? That's like €500, guys! Let's take the deal!"

Definitely puts a different perspective on those 50gp Potions of Healing ...

Kane0

2021-05-25, 08:16 PM

Bah, you should run on a proper monetary system: 12 cp in a sp, and 20 sp in a gp. With different coins valued at 1/4 cp, 1/2 cp, 1 cp, 3 cp, 6 cp, 1 sp, 2 sp, 2 sp 6cp, 5 sp, 10 sp, and 1 gp.

Indeed (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2paSGQRwvo).
10char

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-25, 10:15 PM

Cheesegear

2021-05-25, 11:24 PM

Well, it's not like the monetary system and the prices of goods in DnD represents an actual economy.

I disagree.

The monetary and pricing system of D&D does represent an actual economy. It represents the economy of the game. There are few baselines to determine the value of coins. But to the OPs point, 1gp represents living Modest for a day:

Modest. A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can maintain your equipment. You live in an older part of town, renting a room in a
boarding house, inn, or temple. You don't go hungry or thirsty, and your living conditions are clean, if simple. Ordinary people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families, laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards, and the like.

To me, that reads a room at a decent motel, with meals. 1gp a day. That's the value of a gold piece. That's the thread. Forget real-world currencies and metal conversions. What is a gold piece, worth. What can it buy you? It buys you a decent, clean place to sleep, relatively crime-free, and ostensibly includes food and clean water.

So when you bribe a Guard with 20gp to look the other way...You're paying his rent for two tendays (or roughly three weeks, IRL). Does the Guard take that deal?

"Hey man, if you turn around, I'll give you 20gp pay your rent for three weeks."
What's the DC on that?

That Longsword that's 'only' 15gp? ...That represents two whole weeks (IRL) worth of someone's room and board.
That suit of Plate Mail you're walking around in? ...That represents so much invested cash that how are you not a walking target?
'I could have paid your rent for years with the cash I used to buy this.'

They are convenient for the game, and obviously flawed outside of the immediate context of enabling you to transform dead orcs to rewards to a new sword.

Again, disagree.
The entire context is provided for a full economy. Craftsmen earn 30%, minimum (after living expenses, too), on everything they make sell. No matter what it is.
It takes 100 days and 250gp to learn any Tool or Language.

It's not a realistic economy. But it's definitely an economy.
How can the DM use what they know?
(e.g; What do you bribe a Guard with?)

EggKookoo

2021-05-26, 05:57 AM

Something else to consider is that the prices of things in the PHB are geared toward individual, private purchases. A suit of plate costs 1,500 gp. Sure, but the elite town guard of 10 guys decked out in plate probably didn't literally cost the coffers 15,000 gp. The town got some kind of deal, either through a bulk contract or they even employed their own blacksmiths.

I work for a big company. I produce software for other departments within the company. It's far cheaper for the company to have coders on salary than it would be to go to outside firms, at least in many cases. I know this because there have been times in the past when I'm overbooked, and I've turned to outside vendors for help. For a project that would take me perhaps three weeks of work, they charge what I make in three months. A lot of it has to do with economy of scale.

In a similar vein, a few years back the company bought new cubicles and furniture (well before Covid, they're selling that stuff off like hotcakes now). My chair was like everyone else's, and it sold retail for $1,200. I don't think my company paid that much per chair, and almost certainly got a bulk discount or some other consideration to offset the cost.

So it's not as simple as looking at PHB prices and trying to project how a large-scale economy works. At the same time, I feel like it makes adventurers lugging home hundreds or even thousands of gold every week all the more wealthier by comparison.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-26, 10:02 AM

So my thought about how I want to do things--

I'm thinking that I'm going to add the following information to my setting at the "county" (ie one significant town and the surroundings) level, piece by piece.

1. Wealth : One of Rich/Normal/Poor. Rich areas have higher costs (1.25% PHB values) but you can get anything (including common magic items); finding poor folks is harder. Normal are...normal. No magic items for sale, finding things like plate or specialized items may be tricky. Poor areas are slightly cheaper (90% of book) but don't have any of the top-tier weapons or armor available. And you can't find nobles or other fancy folks as easily, and the ones you do are less influential.

2. Labor Supply : One of Shortage / Normal / Surplus. Areas in surplus have reduced prices (90%) for labor/hirelings, and vice versa (110%) for shortage. Players can influence this--if they (through their actions) get a bunch of people killed, you're likely to go into shortage. Or if you bring in a raft of refugees (say), you might go into surplus.

3. Magical Inclination : Tags, could be any/all of Arcane/Divine/Primal. Indicates (roughly) what kind of magical support you can find above the cantrip level.

4. Special economics : Anything special--item types that are scarcer, more common, etc.

So as an example, the county Bradford (on the Sea of Grass, a great-plains analogue, at the juncture of two major rivers and two other trade routes) would have the following in addition to all the other
1. Rich. You can buy and sell expensive things here. Many are shipped in, but they can find most things (other than non-common magic items[1]) if you can pay.
2. Normal. (No particular factors here).
3. Divine -- this is a very devout culture. Might find a hedge wizard or so, but if you want real spells they'll be divine.
4. Wood and stone are expensive, so buildings often use packed earth (cob-style). Food and cloth (especially wool) are cheap.

[1] setting-wise, the only magic items that can be reliably made are common ones, with a very few uncommon ones in particular areas. Sale of Uncommon+ items is restricted by international agreement to particular locations and sellers (plus the inevitable black markets, of course).

DwarfFighter

2021-05-26, 01:17 PM

I disagree.

The monetary and pricing system of D&D does represent an actual economy. It represents the economy of the game.

First of all, "actual" doesn't mean that, what you are looking for is "fictional", and even that is a stretch since that would imply that the designers have first invented an economy, and then used that as a basis for the monetary system and the values presented in the book. I feel safe in assuming that they did not do that, instead what you see in the book is their attempt at making a system that is simply playable.

The "economy of the game" is whatever you want it to be, but you would have to reverse-engineer it to fit the few established facts and invent mechanisms to compensate for weirdness, and even then it would be pretty boring to apply real-world economic theory to a fantasy setting. Pay-day loans? Sure. How about a futures market manipulated by scrying and divination? Flux of cash, material and labour between planes? Conversion rates for the currencies of civilizations that only exists as Undead?

Insofar as the information in the books represents a system, what we are seeing is just a low-dimensional image of a higher-dimensional construct. Like, you look at a circle, but that could be a 2D representation of a 3D sphere, a cylinder, or any other object that happens to look like a circle from a certain angle.

-DF

Mellack

2021-05-26, 03:49 PM

?

That Longsword that's 'only' 15gp? ...That represents two whole weeks (IRL) worth of someone's room and board.
That suit of Plate Mail you're walking around in? ...That represents so much invested cash that how are you not a walking target?
'I could have paid your rent for years with the cash I used to buy this.'

I just want to point out something on this bit. Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is just under $1000 dollars in the US. Add in food costs, and you are at 14K-15K a year. Average new car cost in the US is over $40K. That means you see people all the time moving around with enough invested cash to pay the average person's rent for years. That two weeks of rent for a longsword? People carry phones easily worth that. It is not that big a deal.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-26, 03:57 PM

I just want to point out something on this bit. Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is just under $1000 dollars in the US. Add in food costs, and you are at 14K-15K a year. Average new car cost in the US is over $40K. That means you see people all the time moving around with enough invested cash to pay the average person's rent for years. That two weeks of rent for a longsword? People carry phones easily worth that. It is not that big a deal.

I mean, car theft and car jackings just kind of reinforce their point about 'walking' around with a particularly valuable thing that someone is capable of taking from you making you a target.

It's ultimately about where you are, if you're in the business district then you'd probably think nothing of people walking around in Rolexes, but in some areas letting that watch be seen would be very dangerous.

Same thing with phones, my partner had her new phone stolen at an airport at the end of '19, phone theft is a pretty common crime...

Tanarii

2021-05-26, 04:58 PM

I just want to point out something on this bit. Average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is just under $1000 dollars in the US. Add in food costs, and you are at 14K-15K a year. Average new car cost in the US is over $40K. That means you see people all the time moving around with enough invested cash to pay the average person's rent for years. That two weeks of rent for a longsword? People carry phones easily worth that. It is not that big a deal.
Living expense is more than room and board. It includes maintaining your clothes, simple equipment, furniture, etc. Which is why I pegged it at 1gp/$100, $52k in income, $26k in expenses. Before transportation. (Edit: I'm also assuming 5 day workweeks btw)

So that Longsword is probably more like a middling $1500 laptop than a $600 phone, but yes, it's not something out of range of a skilled worker by any means, provided they choose to live a slightly spartan lifestyle. If they want to live comfortably instead of modestly through ...

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-26, 07:01 PM

Living expense is more than room and board. It includes maintaining your clothes, simple equipment, furniture, etc. Which is why I pegged it at 1gp/$100, $52k in income, $26k in expenses. Before transportation. (Edit: I'm also assuming 5 day workweeks btw)

So that Longsword is probably more like a middling $1500 laptop than a $600 phone, but yes, it's not something out of range of a skilled worker by any means, provided they choose to live a slightly spartan lifestyle. If they want to live comfortably instead of modestly through ...

As a side note, as a function of hours worked, we spend way less of our income on necessities than just about ever before. Clothes? Dirt cheap. Food? Almost a trivial expense in most budgets[1]. Housing? Expensive, but most of that (in the US at least) is the hedonic treadmill--houses (even the cheap ones) are way better and bigger than they've ever been. Those phones/computers? Dirt cheap compared to their previous versions. We're carrying 1980s supercomputers (like the ones in Jurassic Park) in our pockets. That we drop and break and replace[2]. Cars (and transport in general)? Pretty darn cheap. We can fly across the world for (relatively) trivial amounts, in relatively trivial amounts of time.

I guess what I'm saying is that comparisons to current costs grossly distort the picture. Why? Because the relative prices of things in our consumption basket has drastically changed over time. A pre-modern culture would spend the majority of their time acquiring food and water, except for those privileged few who had the luxury to specialize. There's a reason that so many of the great Scientific Revolution scientists (especially the English ones) were clergy--they had the luxury of time to spend on experiments and learning. This thing called "free time" was one of two things--
1) a sign you were going to starve, because there was no way to get food or work
2) a mark of indolence, a right reserved for the "idle rich".

[1] at least they could be, if people stopped buying prepared foods. Even so, food usually isn't a huge contributor to budgets unless you're splurging dramatically.
[2] I worked at a school. The number of kids who had several new phones and iPads during the course of a year because they'd break them was...horrifying. And these weren't budget ones either. Top of the line iPhone Whatevers.

Tanarii

2021-05-26, 07:16 PM

As a side note, as a function of hours worked, we spend way less of our income on necessities than just about ever before.
Well yes. Skilled D&D workers spend 100% of their income to live a comfortable living. If we assume they somehow don't pay any taxes.

Cheesegear

2021-05-26, 07:24 PM

I guess what I'm saying is that comparisons to current costs grossly distort the picture.

That's why I keep saying that comparisons to the real world - currency and metal values - is irrelevant.

You can only compare the cost of a Longsword, to the cost of things that are worth 1gp. Because when you start comparing things inside the game, to things outside the game, your game falls apart, and starts to look a lot like work...And that's not a game I want to run.

A Longsword, is worth fifteen days of living expenses.
A suit of Plate, is worth fifteen hundred days of living expenses.

1gp, is worth an entire days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in a boarding house or barracks, and is explicitly tied to Apprentices, Acolytes and Students.
2gp, is a days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in their own house. Explicitly applied to skilled tradesmen and merchants.

1gp is not 'worth' $100. You have no way of knowing that.

What we do know, is that:
1gp buys you a relatively crime-free place to sleep and put your stuff (but not necessarily your own room), meals, and clean water for an entire day, and you can maintain whatever equipment you have. All for a single gold piece. That's what a gold piece is worth, because that's what the PHB says a gold piece is worth.

Any talk about 'realistic' economies, and trying to equate a gold piece to an IRL currency value...Is silly. That way lies dead catgirls.

at least they could be, if people stopped buying prepared foods. Even so, food usually isn't a huge contributor to budgets unless you're splurging dramatically.

This happens in D&D, too. As mentioned, you can actually live an entire day, on a single gold piece.
You can live in house for 2gp.

Rations? 5 sp.
You know Poor people can live for two and half days on 5sp. Squalid people have to use 5sp for five days.

Yet here you are blowing 5sp on single days' worth of food.

PHB, pg 143
With one gold piece, a character can buy a belt pouch, 50 feet of good rope, or a goat. A skilled (but not exceptional) artisan can earn one gold piece a day.
[...]
One gold piece is worth ten silver pieces, the most prevalent coin among commoners. A silver piece buys a laborer's work for a day, a flask of lamp oil, or a night's rest in a poor inn.
[...]
A single copper piece buys a candle, a torch, or a piece of chalk.

That's what the book says money is worth.

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-26, 07:46 PM

That's why I keep saying that comparisons to the real world - currency and metal values - is irrelevant.

You can only compare the cost of a Longsword, to the cost of things that are worth 1gp. Because when you start comparing things inside the game, to things outside the game, your game falls apart, and starts to look a lot like work...And that's not a game I want to run.

A Longsword, is worth fifteen days of living expenses.
A suit of Plate, is worth fifteen hundred days of living expenses.

1gp, is worth an entire days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in a boarding house or barracks, and is explicitly tied to Apprentices, Acolytes and Students.
2gp, is a days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in their own house. Explicitly applied to skilled tradesmen and merchants.

1gp is not 'worth' $100. You have no way of knowing that.

What we do know, is that:
1gp buys you a relatively crime-free place to sleep and put your stuff (but not necessarily your own room), meals, and clean water for an entire day, and you can maintain whatever equipment you have. All for a single gold piece. That's what a gold piece is worth, because that's what the PHB says a gold piece is worth.

Any talk about 'realistic' economies, and trying to equate a gold piece to an IRL currency value...Is silly. That way lies dead catgirls.

This happens in D&D, too. As mentioned, you can actually live an entire day, on a single gold piece.
You can live in house for 2gp.

Rations? 5 sp.
You know Poor people can live for two and half days on 5sp. Squalid people have to use 5sp for five days.

Yet here you are blowing 5sp on single days' worth of food.

That's what the book says money is worth.

I'll say that I'm trying to go a bit beyond that, mainly for worldbuilding purposes. Because people in the Sea of Grass, where trees are uncommon but sheep are like weeds, are going to have a very different take on what's valuable than the people deep in the forests of Kotimaa, where trees are everywhere (and some of them move and hunt you) but safe food is much rarer. And both are going to be quite different than a deep-mountain dwarf in the Uulan Confederacy, who might have never seen a living tree or sheep (or the moon or sun) in his extended life, but for whom gems and metals are the stuff of every-day. Whereas in Byssia, metal is rare (and mainly imported) and they've magically altered wood to serve many of the same purposes.

On the other hand, I run adventuring prices (ie prices payed by adventurers) pretty much by the book, at least in the main area. Because there's an international agreement and cartel that has deals with the vast majority of merchants (or with nations, who then enforce them on merchants) with a fixed price list for things. Basically, they'll buy items coming from registered adventurers (such as art objects, gems, etc) at fixed, uniform prices. These prices are set to be a slight subsidy to the merchants, who also don't have to hunt for buyers for things. In exchange, the merchants sell to registered adventurers at cartel-dictated, flat prices (that are also slightly above averaged market prices). They also make lines of credit available in the banks in larger cities, effectively acting as a Federal Reserve for adventuring-related transactions. This is, in effect, a subsidy for adventuring. It provides a liquid supply of cash for adventuring loot while preventing the sudden treasure influx from crashing local markets.

Adventurers who try to get "cute" and set up alternative markets using these prices quickly find that the cartel has a lot more pull than they do, and find themselves stripped of the rights to buy and sell at those prices.

Cheesegear

2021-05-26, 08:12 PM

I'll say that I'm trying to go a bit beyond that, mainly for worldbuilding purposes. Because people in the Sea of Grass, where trees are uncommon but sheep are like weeds, are going to have a very different take on what's valuable than the people deep in the forests of Kotimaa, where trees are everywhere (and some of them move and hunt you) but safe food is much rarer.

But it's still important to know what things are worth, in relation to each other. That's in the book.

PHB
Members of the peasantry trade in goods, bartering for what they need and paying taxes in grain and cheese.
Members of the nobility trade either in legal rights, such as the rights lo a mine, a port, or farmland, or in gold bars, measuring gold by the pound rather than by the coin. Only merchants, adventurers, and those offering professional services for hire commonly deal in coins.

1gp is worth all of that stuff from before.
1gp is also worth a goat.
3gp is worth a pig.

1 Pig = 3 Goats = 150 Chickens* = 3 Days of living.
*Chickens are seriously undervalued. But hey, it's what's in the book.

Bartering is definitely possible, so long as you know what value, is, in relation to other things.

Saying "1gp is $100." kind of helps, if your intent is conceptualise it gp as a concept, for you, as a player.
But what is $100, in D&D? 'Dollars' is not a unit of currency in D&D.

That's why I keep pushing 1gp = 1 Day of Life for the average person.

1gp = 1 Day, for most people. My players understand that. I understand that. That's a very easy concept to understand. In game, out of game, and dealing with NPCs.
When my player throws 10gp on the bar and says it's a 'Tab' like it's nothing... WTF!? ...You just bought yourself 250 beers. The bartender stares at you in stunned silence. The people next to you, see the bag of cash on the counter, and look up. Holy ****. You didn't just shout the bar. You shouted the bar for the next ten rounds. You're a ***-damned hero...Or a mark, for later in the alley.

JackPhoenix

2021-05-26, 08:29 PM

Well yes. Skilled D&D workers spend 100% of their income to live a comfortable living. If we assume they somehow don't pay any taxes.

I would assume taxes are part of the lifestyle costs.

This happens in D&D, too. As mentioned, you can actually live an entire day, on a single gold piece.
You can live in house for 2gp.

Rations? 5 sp.
You know Poor people can live for two and half days on 5sp. Squalid people have to use 5sp for five days.

Yet here you are blowing 5sp on single days' worth of food.

Pretty crappy food, as far as taste go. But the point of rations is that they are still safely edible after few weeks of dragging them through the wilderness, that's why you pay extra. They also, for some weird reason, weight 2 lb, while you only need to eat 1 lb of food to avoid starvation...

PhoenixPhyre

2021-05-26, 08:37 PM

But it's still important to know what things are worth, in relation to each other. That's in the book.

Except...it isn't. I strongly disagree that the book's rules are in-universe constants. They're game UI, nothing more. They're no more real than "points" are in-universe in WH40K. They exist only to make the game playable without pain. Because setting them as in-universe constants shatters any sense of verisimilitude I have hard. And setting coherence is, if not the most important thing to me, certainly among the top 3 (probably second only to "are the players having fun").

The value of a bar of iron depends on where you are. At least for NPCs[1]. The value of a pig varies depending on where you are. The value of a chicken...well...is pretty constant, unless you're in the Great Eastern Dustlands, where chickens (or any reliable source of meat) are rare. The nature of an "average person's lifestyle" varies. Crisial City, even the relatively poor are well-to-do compared to the down-and-out in Tarad'am. Or even the middle class in Tarad'am.

Any other answer says that the world is nothing more than a flat stage

[1] see my previous statement about how adventurer-facing prices are fixed by international cartels.

KorvinStarmast

2021-05-26, 09:08 PM

[1] see my previous statement about how adventurer-facing prices are fixed by international cartels. Who get rich while we go out and face dragons, liches, assassins, giant insects, demons, etc.
:smallconfused:

Hmmm, might want to pay a few folks some discrete visits soon. (I'll talk with the group in a few levels, providing that the tarrasque doens't eat us first) :smallcool:

Cheesegear

2021-05-26, 09:15 PM

Except...it isn't. I strongly disagree that the book's rules are in-universe constants.

You're the DM. Do what you want.
...I also actually agree with you.

They exist only to make the game playable without pain.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Because setting them as in-universe constants shatters any sense of verisimilitude I have hard.

I suppose that that's true. However, in those cases I usually straight up tell my players that in [area], items made of iron or steel cost twice as much. In other [area], food - especially from livestock - costs twice per normal. This [area] has so many ***-damned chickens that meals are free if you rent a room at the inn. Chicken & Eggs for everyone! All the time!

Book * 2.
Book / 2.
But it's having a baseline that's important.

setting coherence
[...]
The value of a bar of iron depends on where you are. The value of a pig varies depending on where you are.

Of course. However, it's important to have baseline - the cartel, you speak of. From there, you can go up or down. I just don't create a whole economic system out of it because that sounds like work for something my players likely don't even care about.

The nature of an "average person's lifestyle" varies.

In relation to this, my point is knowing the value of the gold piece. Which is what the thread is about. No?

Crisial City, even the relatively poor are well-to-do compared to the down-and-out in Tarad'am. Or even the middle class in Tarad'am.

What are their living expenses, then?
How much would a gold piece buy of that, then?

Going into a mostly Poor village (2sp per day), and giving a local a gp to tell you which way the Bandits went. That matters.
Would the local poor farmer out the local Bandits - who likely know who he is, and can probably hurt him and his family - for a single gp?
...Well, when his living expenses are 2sp per day...Maybe he absolutely would?

I once had an NPC refuse a gold offer from my players because he had no use for it. His village was somewhere between Squalid/Poor. Gold is worthless to him because there's no way he can spend it. No-one in his village can process that kind of money. "However, if you've got 300 Copper (a full pouch) on you, I'll take that."
My players were confused. "Copper? WhyTF would we have that!? That's worthless." ...No. No it isn't. It's only 'worthless' because most players look at the Armour and Weapons pages, where everything is listed in gp values, and then close the book.

It's like going to a corner store, and paying for a $2 chocolate bar with a $100 note. The cashier can't process that amount of change.

JellyPooga

2021-05-27, 12:53 AM

It's like going to a corner store, and paying for a $2 chocolate bar with a $100 note. The cashier can't process that amount of change.

If anyone wants a good narrative depiction of the issues being discussed in this thread (and a cracking good read), I recommend reading The Deed of Paksennarion by Elizabeth Moon. The titular character starts off as a dirt-poor farm-girl with barely a shirt on her back, going to a mercenary with a mercenaries pay, to an adventurer looting dungeons and later into the high-and-mighty echelons of a religious organisation. Along the way, she somewhat loses sight of the value of money. She forgets how "rich" she felt with the mercenaries meagre pay (and comparatively high standard of living) when she later becomes destitute and has to accustom herself once more to poverty. When she first comes back to town after getting a bunch of loot, she doesn't even realise the value of the gems and treasure she has and has to have it all valued and converted into "real money" before even attempting to spend it and later on simply ends up donating the bulk of her wealth to charity because she simply hasn't got a use for that kind of dough.

When it comes to cash, it's easy to lose sight of how little the majority of a population should actually have and it's an important grounding yardstick for any campaign building exercise.

Unoriginal

2021-05-27, 03:03 AM

Except...it isn't. I strongly disagree that the book's rules are in-universe constants. They're game UI, nothing more. They're no more real than "points" are in-universe in WH40K. They exist only to make the game playable without pain. Because setting them as in-universe constants shatters any sense of verisimilitude I have hard. And setting coherence is, if not the most important thing to me, certainly among the top 3 (probably second only to "are the players having fun").

For what it's worth, the adventure modules do have price variations depending on the context, sometime. Or straight up says "X can't be bought here" or "Y is willing to pay extra for Z".

Hytheter

2021-05-27, 06:33 AM

Squalid people have to use 5sp for five days.

Yet here you are blowing 5sp on single days' worth of food.

In fairness the squalid person probably has to beg and fish garbage to fill their bellies.

Tanarii

2021-05-27, 09:42 AM

I would assume taxes are part of the lifestyle costs.
I don't. Because I want to tax adventurers on their filthy lucre.

Ettina

2021-05-27, 09:43 AM

I mean, car theft and car jackings just kind of reinforce their point about 'walking' around with a particularly valuable thing that someone is capable of taking from you making you a target.

It's ultimately about where you are, if you're in the business district then you'd probably think nothing of people walking around in Rolexes, but in some areas letting that watch be seen would be very dangerous.

Same thing with phones, my partner had her new phone stolen at an airport at the end of '19, phone theft is a pretty common crime...

Difference is that carrying a longsword and wearing full plate implies you're more likely than a random person to be able and willing to seriously injure or kill an attempted thief.

It'd be more like trying to rob some guy's handgun in an open carry state.

Unoriginal

2021-05-27, 09:51 AM

I don't. Because I want to tax adventurers on their filthy lucre.

There is a difference between "living somewhere" taxes and "got money from an uncommon source" taxes.

I think it makes more sense if the lifestyle costs include taxes, and then the government establishes different ways to get money out of adventurers.

Like an adventuring permit, or a "realm's percentage" on the loot, or...

Difference is that carrying a longsword and wearing full plate implies you're more likely than a random person to be able and willing to seriously injure or kill an attempted thief.

It'd be more like trying to rob some guy's handgun in an open carry state.

I get what you mean and you're right, but I have to note it's probably easier to rob an openly carried gun. You can see if the person you're robbing goes for the weapon or not, so as long as you have the drop on them...

Justin Sane

2021-05-27, 10:08 AM

That's why I keep saying that comparisons to the real world - currency and metal values - is irrelevant.

You can only compare the cost of a Longsword, to the cost of things that are worth 1gp. Because when you start comparing things inside the game, to things outside the game, your game falls apart, and starts to look a lot like work...And that's not a game I want to run.

A Longsword, is worth fifteen days of living expenses.
A suit of Plate, is worth fifteen hundred days of living expenses.

1gp, is worth an entire days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in a boarding house or barracks, and is explicitly tied to Apprentices, Acolytes and Students.
2gp, is a days' worth of living expenses for the average person living in their own house. Explicitly applied to skilled tradesmen and merchants.

1gp is not 'worth' $100. You have no way of knowing that.

What we do know, is that:
1gp buys you a relatively crime-free place to sleep and put your stuff (but not necessarily your own room), meals, and clean water for an entire day, and you can maintain whatever equipment you have. All for a single gold piece. That's what a gold piece is worth, because that's what the PHB says a gold piece is worth.

Any talk about 'realistic' economies, and trying to equate a gold piece to an IRL currency value...Is silly. That way lies dead catgirls.

This happens in D&D, too. As mentioned, you can actually live an entire day, on a single gold piece.
You can live in house for 2gp.

Rations? 5 sp.
You know Poor people can live for two and half days on 5sp. Squalid people have to use 5sp for five days.

Yet here you are blowing 5sp on single days' worth of food.

That's what the book says money is worth.
It's a good thing living expenses are well-documented in the rules, you can use that to compare some RL examples.

For example, my local 5-star hotel? Using the 1gp=100$ conversion, cheapest room is 2gp per night, during off-season. Private suites, during peak season, easily go for 6gp per night. Two meals at the in-site restaurant can easily add another gp to the bill.

So, high-end lodging, with luxury meals, add up to ~4 or 5gp per day, which matches really well to the expectations I have of a Wealthy Lifestyle - that, according to the book, is 4gp/day.

Granted, the comparison might break down oh the lower end of the scale (even if I think 1cp=1$ still matches reality closely enough for government work, I haven't really ran the numbers to show it),
but when you're measuring the... "sentimental" value of GP (aka, how much players should care about it), 1gp=100$ matches reality surprisingly well - when it comes to lifestyle, at least.

jjordan

2021-05-27, 10:17 AM

I guess what I'm saying is that comparisons to current costs grossly distort the picture.

That's why I keep saying that comparisons to the real world - currency and metal values - is irrelevant.
Comparison to current costs are inevitable. When players are looking at costs they aren't looking at Ancient/Medieval/Renaissance economies, the faux versions of the same, or even the generic fantasy setting of D&D (which gets manipulated by every module/supplement that touches it in order to balance the availability of magic items), they're applying their understanding of the modern world.

In this situation the best I can do, as a DM, is simply be consistent and have a reference scale that's somewhat based on reality. 1gp = $100 is a measure that's easy to reference, isn't far wrong, and is workable, particularly in light of the players' tendency to look at everything in modern terms.

On the other hand, the labor value that Cheesegear is pointing to is very interesting and, arguably, more accurate.

EggKookoo

2021-05-27, 10:23 AM

Like an adventuring permit, or a "realm's percentage" on the loot, or...

In my setting, buying and selling uncommon or higher magic items, or any rarity magic weapons or armor, is illegal unless you go through a crown-approved agency. Conveniently, these are the same agencies that tend to outfit adventurers. You won't get rich that way, since these groups exist to make a profit, but it's safe. You also won't get anything amazing for your gold, as they're going to keep the really good things for themselves, the military, or buyers with special political connections.

Possessing magic items is not in and itself illegal. Just the buying and selling. And due to a loophole in the way the law was written, trading items is technically legal as long as the items are of roughly equal value and no actual money is exchanged. This opened the door to quasi-black-market "trade auctions" where you can offer your loot up for trade, and get some items in return. Since these places are seen as using the letter of the law to circumvent the spirit of the law, there's not a lot of legal defense going on. You attend them at your own risk. At the same time, the auction holders have access to some really good magic items and are motivated to protect their investments, so there's a strict no-fighting policy in force. Which can be interesting because members from rival criminal guilds often attend the same auctions and have to resist temptation.

I set this up so I could provide a way for my players to get their hands on some decent magic items as they level, but not just flip through the DMG and order stuff like they're at a fast food joint. Getting the cool new shiny thing often means giving up something they currently have. And I sometimes dangle that NPC they've been tracking for weeks right in front of them to see if they risk trying to take him down.

Dork_Forge

2021-05-27, 10:51 AM

Difference is that carrying a longsword and wearing full plate implies you're more likely than a random person to be able and willing to seriously injure or kill an attempted thief.

It'd be more like trying to rob some guy's handgun in an open carry state.

Not really?

It really depends on how it goes down, if one person rushes them then it's going to go badly. If four people emerge, one or two of them with a bow or crossbow? That's a different ball game. If the person is armored then they might favour their chances (and also could be subsequently grappled and hammered to death/stabbed in the eye), but if it's someone just with a sword? Poor odds unless you're looking at hp totals and healing from a meta perspective.

JeenLeen

2021-06-09, 10:34 AM

In fairness the squalid person probably has to beg and fish garbage to fill their bellies.

So 1 day's decent food is the same cost as 5 days poor food.
That checks out, I think.

I'm thinking just from my own experience. Let's say 1 gp = $100.
Right now, I could easily spend $50 on food if I was eating out for all three meals. Or if 2 gp a week (as I think someone quoted) is more reasonable if I assume eating out some but mostly buying and cooking stuff at home.

But I could easily live on $50 over a week. There's been times when my meal was a big thing of rice (2-3 dollars) from a Chinese restarant, and that was basically all I ate that day. Add in some bread or fruit for a couple buys, and $10 a day is easy to live off of. I know I caclulated my average food expenditure as $8/day, when I was just out of college and working two part-time jobs.

In my setting, buying and selling uncommon or higher magic items, or any rarity magic weapons or armor, is illegal unless you go through a crown-approved agency. Conveniently, these are the same agencies that tend to outfit adventurers. You won't get rich that way, since these groups exist to make a profit, but it's safe. You also won't get anything amazing for your gold, as they're going to keep the really good things for themselves, the military, or buyers with special political connections.

Possessing magic items is not in and itself illegal. Just the buying and selling. And due to a loophole in the way the law was written, trading items is technically legal as long as the items are of roughly equal value and no actual money is exchanged. This opened the door to quasi-black-market "trade auctions" where you can offer your loot up for trade, and get some items in return. Since these places are seen as using the letter of the law to circumvent the spirit of the law, there's not a lot of legal defense going on. You attend them at your own risk. At the same time, the auction holders have access to some really good magic items and are motivated to protect their investments, so there's a strict no-fighting policy in force. Which can be interesting because members from rival criminal guilds often attend the same auctions and have to resist temptation.

I set this up so I could provide a way for my players to get their hands on some decent magic items as they level, but not just flip through the DMG and order stuff like they're at a fast food joint. Getting the cool new shiny thing often means giving up something they currently have. And I sometimes dangle that NPC they've been tracking for weeks right in front of them to see if they risk trying to take him down.

I also really like this idea for something like "We found a +1 Short Sword, but I think I want to use a Longsword or Dagger instead", and letting the auction be a place to trade such.
It works whether the DM truly uses randomized loot, or if the DM thought the player wanted a short sword.
The one 5e I was in that actually lasted a while used a system kinda like this. Buying/selling wasn't illegal, but items were so rare it wasn't practical--but we could trade out using our contacts (Background) with nobles or the church if we had gear of equivalent value to what we wanted and it wasn't anything especially rare.