The art items become relevant and interesting if you're running an old school style long expedition / dungeon crawl that keeps track of carrying limits. Moving half a ton of gold pieces is far harder than a small bag of diamonds which have the same value.
Gems are mostly there for spell components (which is often ignored but makes spellcaster treasure picks more interesting). I have found players are more into art items if they seem to help tell a story (a painting of a scene from your setting's lore) or just seem fancy (the gold trimmed cloaks and ivory chalices and such) so they can upgrade their mundane outfit or decorate an impressive home. Have a paladin find a clunky statue of their god in a treasure horde and, hopefully, you'll have some memorable roleplay come out of your loot.
@@CooperAATE Is that the answer to the question of how to get stuck at a particular level for years of game time while one's character wanders around the vast world looking for an available bag of holding?
Art objects like statues, wall tapestries, fancy rugs, etc become more exciting when you have a stronghold to put them in. By then gold has become so plentiful that a heavy art piece you don’t intend to sell has more value than coin. You want it as a display piece so you can flex on NPCs.
They also present a logistical challenge to get out of the dungeon. Sure, a 30-foot tapestry is cool, but figuring out how to haul it up through a 5-level dungeon might force the players to find a totally different route to the one they took in if they actually want to keep it.
Could also have things like a pile of books.... (Which could contain hidden objects, such as small magical baubles, jewellery, spell scrolls, potions, or other consumables.... or it could just be a mimic...), random things reflecting the nature of the monster.... (Like a room full of dolls, or a collection of teacups.... Ornate music boxes that may or may not double as a single use magic item or perhaps a bag of holding...)
It feels like those stacks of gold that players acquire should have some local or regional political / economic significance, but it changes the natures of the game. Not everyone gets into the political and economic intrigues of the game world. Most players want to slay bigger and badder bosses. Note to Baron: I remember 88 HP for an ancient red dragon from the AD&D era. Your HP may be off, but the point still remains.
Yeah my players get into the political intrigue and economics side of things. Double that with us doing slow burn leveling in a continual game, they don't often do dungeons. So when they do, there is a lot there. And they're the type to invest and spend, plus i can make taxes high and all that so when they do get above it/change it, it feels rewarding
For AD&D 1e, a huge (11 HD), ancient (8 HP per HD) red dragon would have 88 HP. A small (9 HD), ancient red dragon would only have 72 HP. An average (10 HD), ancient red dragon would have 80 HP.
If you're running an "epic quest" style play, then I'd suggest abstracting high level gold and gems to the scale of person it can influence. "A bag of gold" is enough to set a commoner up for life, and can allow you to take over an inn for a month or have a farmer not mind if your alchemy lab in his fields blows up and takes out that year's crops. "A sack of gems" might buy the spying of a thieves guild, save an orphanage from a greedy merchant so a poor temple lends you a holy relic in thanks. A king's ransom - a cart of gold or sack of gems - can result in a city putting their best people to work, or a monarch putting their forces at your disposal. Gold and gems are cool when there are story relevant things it can do. I think Pathfinder 2nd edition has a much cleaner "money can buy you items, and threats are built based on the assumption you'll have a certain level of gear" system if you're wanting to run the sort of game where counting the gold is a relevant and useful activity to the game.
Add to that raising men-at-arms and hiring mercenary companies. That all costs quite a bit of coin, but will make it so that this poor village no longer has to rely on 4-5 random shmucks for its protection from random bandit gangs, and the evil lich's undead army doesn't look so hilariously unstoppable anymore. Matt Colville's books give a good framework to make this work.
Blades in the dark abstracts this as a "lifestyle rating", a measure of general wealth from 0-4. If I was playing a 5e game, I'd do something similar, abstracting away the minute costs of day-to-day living in favor of letting players roll their charisma + lifestyle to determine things like how many small items they're able to buy from a store, how effectively they can bribe an NPC, and how well they fit in higher-end areas.
many GMs seemingly forget that money can be used to buy goods and services. Or perhaps more importantly, there are goods and services other than staying at an inn.
Definitely taking notes for my own setting. Gold as Influence is a REALLY good idea. Mind you, I'm using Savage Worlds, which has a very different system for buying things (a Wealth Die that increases in size the more loot you get)...
The thing about gold is that you can only carry so much of it, which is why encumbrance rules, while annoying, are needed. This is also one of the reasons why gems and jewelry become more important at higher levels as you get more cash for the weight you have to carry. I remember that the old AD&D Gold Box games DID track encumbrance and carrying too much would slow characters down when engaged in combat. There were plenty of times I'd have to drop stuff so I could carry more valuable treasure instead. And that dropped stuff was permanently gone, as something else would have taken it before they party would have a chance to ever get back to it.
Paizo's Skulls & Shackles campaign uses a much more interesting "Plunder" system for all the random treasure - each plunder is about 1000gp but value goes up or down depending on some sale factors and takes about a day to sell per plunder. More of a kingdom builder game than 3 days to save the world, but it works well for those longer games.
On the flip side, for a 3 days to save the world quest it's probably better to just omit magic items and focus on player abilities. Grant things like extra feats rather than magic items. I can't think of any fantasy story that loads on magic items like D&D, they really aren't required - most fantasy stories have a few focus items per party. For Pathfinder 1e there was "Automatic Bonus Progression" to eliminate +X items, and 5E is nominally balanced to work without "optional" magic items.
@@cameronlapp9306 First off, just for an old school viewpoint. Our group has switched to a silver standard, so the cost for most items in the PHB, under 1000 gp are valued in silver pieces. Starting gold is now starting silver. Exceptions to this are primitive firearms and powder, suits of full plate harness, and other high ticket items that come into play in domain style play. And currently I do award 1 XP for every silver piece the party loots. So now when you find a gold piece, you are holding 20 XP in your fingers---making the gold piece a truly rare and wondrous thing as Gygax advanced in the DMG. So to Award XP for treasure or not to? I've been on both sides of this debate over the years--in recent years I've come back around to seeing it as a good mechanic. It rewards not having to fight through every encounter, trying to find creative ways of getting around the monsters to hit the treasure hoard, and leave before they notice it's gone. And what I fine is that it's basically a 66-33 split--encounter experience to experience gained through treasure. The current party I'm running now is 4th, and they are just beginning to find their first magical items. I do like the idea of master work weapons and items low levels--ones of sufficient quality that they give minor bonuses and could accept enchantments with the right rituals. Awarding master work weapons allows for side quests--this mithril longsword you character gets during his first adventure---yes it has a +1 damage bonus in it's non magical state---but at some point the character finds out this weapon is of such quality that it could become a +3 Frostbrand one day. To accomplish this the character needs the powdered claws of a white dragon, which will be hammered by a grand master smith within a consecrated forge, and when the blade is still hot, it must be quenched in blood wrung from a frost giant's heart. There's a whole side quest to earn this magical item. And yes, the money it would take for such a ritual and hiring of the needed specialists---all that treasure matters now.
People decided they didn't like tying up their character power in the GM fiat delivery of magic items. So WotC started pushing power from the magic items that e.g. martials expected to get in early editions directly into the class. At least as much as they could without changing the overall tone from S&S to Anime. So magic items got toned down and class powers got toned up. A 5E fighter has waaaaaaay more inherent power than a 2E one does.
I've always viewed the role of artwork as treasure in an entirely different light. Treasure isn't designed solely for the convenience of players. Art isn't just a more realistic alternative to everyone/thing having only thousands of gold coins, the inconveniences and complications art can bring are *features* rather than detriments. The video mentions how quickly gold becomes meaningless; art handled correctly is a method of making substantial rewards available without actually giving the full value to the players. Art is often fragile, easily damaged or destroyed with combat or even travel. Art can be cumbersome and difficult to carry. The average adventurer isn't going to have a clue as to how much a piece of art is worth. Art can be difficult to sell without proper connections, as well as time, and adventurers may only receive a small fraction of its actual worth. And if the party is pressed for time, then its just tough luck that they don't have time to lug those life-size marble statues back to town before the evil snake god is resurrected...
Basically filler treasure the recovery of which can be a story in of itself.... (Heck it could be stolen Artwork and perhaps the rightful owners want it back and have dispatched mercenaries to recover it, creating an easy misunderstanding that can drive a whole new conflict, especially if the art object in question is damaged or destroyed in the course of the adventure.... ) Heck art objects/treasure can be set dressing.... Imagine fighting off bandits in a nobles estate while trying not to destroy his collection of priceless artifacts with a poorly placed fireball....
Non-magical treasures have some use in a long-term campaign where you have some sort of presence in the world, and can translate gold into other forms of power. Honestly I think the worse issue is that a lot of magic items have literally no value. If you're wielding a +2 longsword and you get a +1 shortsword, well that's literally useless. Maybe you can sell it, but then what will you do with that gold?
If you don't need it for the party, you could give it to an NPC as a reward for service. I get what you mean, though. Kind of a letdown if you've got better.
Magic Items in 5e are a direct response to 3ed and 4ed. In 3e if you didn't had magic items your character was incomplete, there are many things that are going to be extra difficult to fight. The problem is that the rate at which the GM should give magic items considers an amount of encounters that was still focused on dungeoncrawling. In 4e the situation was the same, magic items are a given, you need armor and weapons to keep up against the numbers the monsters are throwing, and practically 90% of the items are geared toward just combat. It's easier to give treasure because everything has a level and you have many simple table for treasure. You still gain coins because in some way you can use it to make the items you want with crafting (which was a thing with rituals). So... 5e tried to make the magic item optional, power comes for your class features.
Which makes it so that you don't really have to work for the extra umph, you get that automatically as you level up. This cut out a huge part of questing.
Agreed, I like how 5e handles magic items much better. They are a nice perk, not your entire build with your character hidden underneath somewhere in the middle.
@@tuomasronnberg5244 I like how attunment works in 5e, but I have remade some of the items that give flat bonuses or change your attributes like the Gauntlet of Ogre Strength. I don't agree that much with Baron on that the magic items aren't powerful... monsters are much weaker now. The dragon comparison is kind of the point, you pretty much don't magic items to fight the dragon, if you have high level you are going to stomp it.
@@krinkrin5982 Yes, this kind of hurts the game over all. I like the idea that you need to spend coins to train and level up, learn new spells, travel, etc. The idea that you don't need treasure in the "Save The World" ™ is a bad argument. The problem is that D&D tries to be ALL different types of fantasy at the same time.
Unless you're a martial, in which case high level play requires magic weapons to not totally cripple you against enemies with resistance or immunity to non-magical attacks.
It's been that way since 1st edition. Mainly this is due to: 1) New or lazy DM's who take the treasure charts/formula literally; 2) DM's who embrace the Monty Haul style of play. A common argument over the years has been my belief that Monsters, etc., generally don't lug a lot of treasure around with them, so if you have an encounter away from their lair, the loot should be minimal. This has helped to encourage PC's to track or follow said Monster back to their lair... Then there's the legendary Dragon's Hoard. I often have to point out just how big a hoard can be; and that one only has to turn to Smaug's death in The Hobbit to understand both size and complexity of such finds. Word does get around that such a hoard is no longer guarded by the Dragon (or whatever), so you can't take it all with you; and you can't really defend it very well, especially if you plan on taking any treasure to town... One tactic that I've used numerous times is that 'Oh, so your the great dragon slayers! Yes, yes, you are well known and the king would like to congratulate you in person. No, no, we insist... Guards!" After all, just about every power of worth in the region will be looking for a share (or to simply take possession of the hoard) and it's just a mater of time before other Adventurers, Agents of the various regional powers; hell, even an army (or Orc hoard, or both) could be on the march within days of said Dragon's demise.
The arguments presented in this video are the reason why I ran my last campaign with GP=EXP and I'm currently designing my next campaign to run with ICRPG rather than 5e
When i started playing dnd it was ADnD, i was 15 (or 16), and yes, I also wanted a holy avenger. That thing was the ultimate badass blade, and obviously: it would totally solve all your problems... lol
I still care about funding gold as a currently 13th level character, because I need it in order to craft new magic items and scribe spell scrolls. But I get what you're saying about the time frame of the quest interfering with making use of that gold in any significant way, since crafting / scribing takes so long, and so does finding the components needed for item crafting.
This is definitely an issue of campaigns having 0 breaks! In epic quest campaigns I say give most of the loot as magic items outright and even skirt the spellbook rules a bit for wizards, allowing them to use spellbooks they find as their own at some other cost, like double the gold amount for almost none of the time investment or give them an item at the midpoint that allows them to decipher other spellbooks for either a regular cost of some sort, through a check, or other means, then lets then scribe it into their book at a fraction of the time and money later (like they have to prepare a spell 3 days in a row doing the check, and on the third day they can copy it down at half or a quarter of the cost and time per spell level. The other option is to just play more campaigns that give downtime and stuff to do in it like managing demesnes! Gives wizards time to research and scribe spells (or create new ones 😮), crafting can actually get done (but get 3rd party rules anyway so it doesn’t suck, or look to previous editions and their modular crafting systems), and you can spend money on strongholds and followers (pun intended).
IMO, if DMs are going to have plots that move at a breakneck pace, they should increase the speed of crafting. Most of the rules are balanced around the idea that the characters adventure for maybe 8 hours a day, once a week.
Our real friends were the magic items we gained along the way. It should also be noted that treasure should generally be appropriate to its owners and location, altho even Tolkien breaks that rule early on with the Trolls. Or perhaps, the treasure's guardians should be appropriate to what they guard, like the Barrow-Wights, and those four fine blades. (Tho actually, in both cases, the "party" was rescued by an NPC, and still rewarded. Hmmm...)
I only played till second edition but can still provide a few counterpoints to this. Sometimes the piles of coin are there for fantasy atmosphere (dragons prefer sleeping on comfy piles of coins than lumpy piles of larger items) or verisimilitude (the robber baron still needs currency to pay his marauders). If the characters no longer need coinage they can literally leave them behind or tell the local villagers to go shopping or something. :)
Potions of Greater Healing are the real trading standard for adventurers. 500 gp coin for a 1/2 pound (0.227 kg) of weight. Reduces your carried weight to much more manageable levels. Oh and they have intrinsic value just like gold and silver.
I just google "best magic items for... class" sprinkle those throughout the campaign, have the players make a wish list, sprinkle those throughout the campaign, and then roll a random table until something interesting pops up for some variety/ unique items. Also, I try to give gold sinks throughout the campaign: finance a heist, buy equipment, bribe someone, etc. E.G. my high level players are going to the positive energy plane, and asked a wizard to make them rings to protect them from the positive energy. 16K each for four custom magic rings that don't take an attunement slot.
I make gold less available and silver the principal form of currency. I enhance magic items with feats as magical boons and I don’t allow players to choose feats. This helps make the currency relevant and allows gold to be precious. Feats are controlled but allowed when tied to a magic item that may have campaign relevance.
I find that mercenaries are a great way to deal with having lots of capital in the party. Mercenaries have upkeep costs, so unless the players keep making more money, they can't keep their mercenaries employed indefinitely. When the players get really rich, odds are they have a bunch of assets that need protecting in their absense. They can also use mercenary forces to make political power plays whether they're present themselves or not. This allows them new ways of affecting the story. If they can afford an army, give them a battle to match.
Absolutely needed this man!! I think you've highlighted one of the main issues with 5e... Where as the characters class/race is so powerful that magic items are much less the forefront of how strong a character actually is. I think it stems from classes like Sorcerer, where their power stems from their draconic bloodline. Therefore players expect their character to just "become more powerful" over time without items. Which leaves your martial classes who have zero magic, relying solely on magic items. I think this is an inherit flaw for many TTRPGs... And is almost unavoidable. People who want to play these RPGs are generally more attracted to powerful character classes, and won't spend much time looking at all the cool magic items they COULD get. It's almost an evolution of TTRPGs over the years :'( .... Love the video though brother! I'm working on my own TTRPG and this really highlights my intentions for doing so!
I almost always agree with you but have to take exception to this episode. Also you kind of were focusing on two connected but separate topics, gold and magic items. On gold, players shouldn't be running into hoards of gold except in latter levels [9th and above] Hoards to me are in the 10's of thousands of gp. Usually I parce a large cache into a mix, first coinage, usually silver, gold and platinum. Next items durables like art pieces, runestones which give clues to other interesting locations, and mundane masterwork pieces. Next one shot protected items, such as potions or scrolls incased in boxes or scrollcases. Lastly magic items of all kinds based on the party level and what I, as a DM, know they will encounter in the future. As for the magic items themselves, I am a pathfinder 1e DM, in this system there is an option for having magic items level up with the player. I usually only have campaigns go up to 10th to 12th level intentionally. Also on gold, using money can affect play in many ways, the players need to transport it, safeguard it, Large amounts can encumber them, converting to gems at an exchange rate. Then there are the types of coins and thier exchange rates. Then spending; Buying titles, land, aquiring fame through becoming a patron of the arts or being a philanthropist to the poor or the clergy. Spreading your wealth to gain recognition or buy rare items or powerful magic. In the end monetary treasure should be a blessing with a touch of curse to it as well. Still love your point of view and agree on the magic part of your video. Cheers DM
I rarely see you rant this much sir Baron. But I see your point. I never worried too much about random treasure tables, but then I never loved them either. Now, looking at your random generator, I like it a lot, for some things. We should make it a treasure generating app, for convenience. I believe adding this sort of simple web-app to Itchio is easy enough. I'm curious now, what it takes to get this out there.
Something tells me Baron's players don't argue over ivory statuettes to decorate their fantasy rooms... Let alone hate parting with them; to the point that when that NPC's house burned down they were sifting through the rubble to recover the statuette.
I say spending gold gets you renown, and you need renown to get the attention of lords, then nobles, and eventually the king. Higher-status NPCs are who give you higher-level adventures. You can spend gold on a better lifestyle, house, a ship, and give gold to your faith and get visions of where to find the magic item you want (which you then have to go fight for). And high-status NPCs will buy your old magic items from you. Or you can pay a powerful wizard to further enchant your magic item to be even more powerful, but there may be strings attached.
I am checking out, and probably backing, Enclave because it's mechanics fit better with the "theater of the mind" style of play that our group has come to prefer (we've been playing since the late 70s). From The One Ring we gained the notion that counting coins was less fun than gaining stuff through a general wealth level; it keeps the story flowing. I really like the idea of a magic item growing in power along with its wielder, thus keeping items in scale, and avoiding having characters discard older items like yesterday's news paper as they progress (plus, discovering an item's other powers can be an adventure itself!). Currently loving Cairn, as deadly combat rarely comes up, and clever play rules the sessions. Maybe Enclave will be our next progression.
My Lv 9 players just killed Thumberchaud (Adult Red Dragon) and s**t you not, my players did just what you said in the video: ignored the gold and sifted through the horde looking for magic items!
Bonus comment: your hoard generator is fantastic! I love it when a mechanic does "bonus die per yes to question," it makes really clear what the point is.
A good way I personally liked to use those numbers for was the huge auction happening every 10 jears or even once a decade in the large city the heroes are staying in right now. It can actually be quite fun to show your group a selection of pretty rare or curious items. The need to compete with obscenely rich merchants, nobles and even kingdoms if the item is rare enaugh can lead to pretty interesting gameplay right of the bat. It also fixes some of the issus with weaker items, since this way you as a player are not so much reliant on your GM to pick the right ones for you that are „obviously“ just random stuff in the dragons hoard. If you as a DM likes to this is also the perfect hook for a adventure. Let something thruely gamebreaking appear and show how this can literaly lead to backstabbing and even war if the scope is this high.
PS: I also realy like the idea of powerfull items with distinct disadvantages. They don‘t have to be cursed for this to happen. It can be just be the best way to min/max the current elite of wizzards and artificers where able to achieve when the item was made. Human ingenuiety usualy works this way. We usually don‘t wait till the technology is advanced enaugh that a powerfull tool is absolutely riskfree to use and has no disadvantages whatsoever. We use what gives us the best edge over our competitors.
We have fun with the hoards at my table. Occasionally after a boss fight they get to make those rolls, and usually find random shit. Since they roll, I also sweat as the DM, because what sort of random shenanigans might they find in this dragon lair, and how is it going to freshen up our campaign.
I have automated all the roll tables from the 5e DM Guide. I'll be putting them up on my website next month. I will look this over, and see about adding it to the Treasure Hoard generation page. Click a button, and the hoard is generated. Copy and paste to your notes.
I'm thinking... magic items with abilities tied to the character's Proficiency Bonus, growing in power as the character advances. So that huge axe that was a +1 when you found it at level 3 is now at level 10 a +1 axe that deals an extra d6 of fire and a d6 of acid damage on a hit, and might develop even more terrifying properties as you advance further in level...
Art and trinkets. Yes, some pieces of art are worth lots of money but they are large and bulky and hard to get out of a dungeon even with a bag of holding and could still get damaged and become worthless. I like trinkets and gold rings and such. Many of my characters would use these to bribe guards, reward hirelings, grease a palm here and there. It makes for some great roleplaying which is what the game is actually about. As to having too much gold. My highest level character was more than happy to take all those copper coins that nobody wanted. Besides having expenses, he used those coppers to have his henchmen give them to beggars and paupers and win them over to be snitches for his network of thieves. I can only think of one character that I would call rich. The rest spent most of their money on equipment that constantly gets lost or destroyed. Or on spell research, making scrolls and potions. Most of my Thief characters had maps of dungeons with lists of all the treasure that we had to leave behind because you can only carry so much with you. BTW, I only played 1st edition and some 2nd edition added in. I find 5E to be a bit of a joke myself. You don't roleplay you roll play and that isn't what this game is about.
Earlier editions basically defined player characters by their magic items. That's not the sort of heroic fantasy most people have in mind when they sit down at the table these days. 5e magic items are plenty powerful and still trivialize lots of encounters on their own. Here's the thing you are overlooking: it is ok for loot to be mostly flavor; it is ok for gold to be mostly useless. It isn't a game about hauling loot back to town anymore. It isn't a game about haggling with merchants anymore...and this is a perfectly valid approach, it comes down to preference and not everyone's preferences are wrapped up in nostalgia.
Just my opinion, the entire concept behind 5e was control. 3.5 spiraled out beyond where they wanted, beyond where most GMs could handle, so in attempting to attract new players, they toned it down to allow new GMs to handle level 20 adventures. One thing that irritates me no end is killing a legendary, hugely difficult boss monster that kills one or more PCs, and the loot is so bland that no a single one of the items gets used by a PC.
A project that appears to have failed on both fronts. Not only is 20th level still a total mess, the design philosophy has taken a sharp turn towards stripping out systems to reduce complexity and telling DMs to homebrew their own rules (a thoroughly unhelpful suggestion for novices).
So hoards, magic items and coinage have a basis in the world you build. I treat "gold" even in my higher fantasy settings still very controlled. The wealth of most nobles tied to land ownership and resources found within. Timber, ore, livestock. The amount of actual liquid capital in a noble's fortune might be quite low, very similar to our world during the dark/middle ages. Massive treasure hoards are not common. They would be known or at least the things of rumor and legend (think Erebor and the Lonely Mountain). Players on the run during a campaign are forced to leave excess behind; Marking locations on maps and leading expeditions during downtime to recover the treasure they could not take with them. Depending upon the location that may set up the story for other one shot adventures; has a group of bandits moved in and started to move the goods; have a local town or magistrate laid claim to the goods. Players like to feel connected to the world granting them titles and lands is a great reward; it allows them to spend gold on retainers; masons/architects/carpenters. Often players start off with a lodge, great hall or simple tower and it grows. It is not uncommon in the process of their building for a small village to be founded as labor moves to the area and their extended families. This brings a whole campaign in itself as their now burgeoning town becomes the source of drama and conflict; especially when the landlord is travelling afar; who knows what they may return to find? If you have found the players have "too much gold" then you simply give them a cost; let them face finding their own rare magical component or deal with purchasing the "jar of ochre jelly" to acid etch rune into the sword; the "phoenix feather" to encase in the wand of fireballs; or the "hags eye" for their Sphere of Divination at exorbitant prices. Natural disasters requiring "charity" also allow great alignment based roleplay challenges. Having to purchase timber to construct homes on the verge of winter; or grain from a plague caused by a dark druid can be woefully expensive; but again; protecting that shipment the players just paid 50,000 gold to purchase can become a story in itself and just as rewarding. My biggest issue; I miss the hoard tables from AD&D; the rich content on followers, etc. that we use to have in the Player's Handbook upon reaching certain levels. I find myself going back and incorporating it often.
When I was playing 5e I found that there was no need for magic items unless they were quest related. Mostly due to the fact that 5E has all of the magic items built into your class and sub class… throwingthrowing in magic items in 5E gives it an imbalanced feel, which is why most of those items were nurfed in the first place. At least that’s what I think.
Great Video and Thanks! Wizards need a lot of gold. A fix for making gold more valuable - create requirements for other classes, rogues pay guilds, Clerics tithe, etc.
Over a decade ago, I did a post-apocalyptic DND setting where society collapsed after a massive plague. The premise for the players was that The Church was trying to rebuild and the players were sent out to rediscover the world. There was ridiculous amounts and types of money from collapsed kingdoms that they could bring back, but the economy had literally devolved into trading sea shells. So this money was collected by The Church and the players were credited and honored with favors locally. As they gained more credit, this expanded the area and their renown. Basically, the more civilization they recovered, the more soft power they had. All they had to do was risk their lives on the daily.
This is exactly why i dont play 5th, still playing PF1. My groups can convert money into magic items, and there are other game world uses. 5th ed shot itself in the foot with the 3 magic item thing. Sounds good on paper, but no one wants 1000 gp to go on a dangerous quest at middle levels
Well with enchanting and being able to buy magical items and just the large plethora of things players can spend gold on in my campaigns I don't find the first part of this to be a problem. And I tend to use a lot of older items from 3.5 and 4th edition picture of a good bit harder to translate properly a lot of more powerful items that's what I'm also moving to Pathfinder not D&D so but I love your videos so therefore I stick around and love to come with all things.
It would seem more strange that the hoards would just be a bunch of unused magic items. What does the Brigand Leader pay his brigands with, unless youre just gonna distribute the magic items among them? Dragons are notorious for coin hoards, as well as any other intelligent creature that actually understands the value of money
The main issue is not how special the treasure is, but what you do with it. Even back in third edition, I had the question of what are the player going to do with the gold they have. I actually asked, and they didn't give me an answer. So it's not about the treasure, it's about making the players want to spend the treasure. 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition have all upped the power of the PCs, while making DMs less powerful, to the point that the stuff they were planning before the OGL debacle included new rules that seemed to nerf the DM to the point of just sitting around and doling out free levels and announcing how awesome they were. The best way to deal with the problem is to increase the monster's power, while making the money worth it. If you make it so that monsters are more powerful, say by increasing monsters so that they face CR 2 or 3 monsters at level 1, and keep the monsters more powerful than the players, they will want to spend the money to get the items they need, and every magic item found is a precious item that could potentially make things better for the party. What's more, making gold useful is important. If you add actual training for levels, players will look at coins, jewels, and even magic items they won't use as potentially useful, since it spends to increase their power.
I still use gold value awarded as XP. Entice players who are willing, to build and maintain properties and get involved in domain level play. Or they can use their hard won treasure for the usual; carousing drinking, gambling and debauchery. Ah; the life of the murder-hobo, how I love and loathe thee.
The idea of money disappearing from hoards will break immersion. The PCs have hit a level where *they* don't value money, therefore every ancient hoard they come across *also* was owned by someone who had no use for money?
I agree! Unless you're trying to play some low-to-the-ground adventure/setting, if you're playing DnD5e and you're getting rewards, it should be about Getting Cool Shit (tm).
A reallty easy way to fix this, to me, is just to play an older edition. Pitch 2nd ed as the "Vintage Vinyl" of Dungeons and Dragons, let people scope out the classic, zero-cgi art, emphasize how relatively glossless and handmade the old books are. Then, if people really do need that crunch, you can still drown them in splatbooks if they absolutely insist you do so.
Is this problem a product of the reaction to the mentality of "I want my character growth to be a matter of what I can do not what I own"? I remember a few years ago reading an article or forum post somewhere complaining about how the writer didn't like that. Character growth for Marshall characters was about their equipment rather than their own power, and how spellcasters growth was about their power, not just their equipment. Pair that line of thinking with the issue of DMS handing out too much powerful gear and then trying to scale back the power by having it stolen or lost or destroyed, and you'll get a batch of players and designers who recognize that the solution is to have power baked into the class progress table which can be tested and "balanced", rather than the equipment which can be mishandled.
Not truly on topic, but I cannot find a version of the holy avenger that emits light as indicated and the dragon being assessed as "Ancient" and "42HP" is not in line with what I'm seeing in 2nd edition etc (20ish HD for > age category 9). Still a valid point about the importance of items, just maybe not the best of memory.
I'm not really sure about where that light part came into the picture. In the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 165, under the heading Swords (III.G) it actually says that "Most swords (and all daggers) of magical nature shed light when drawn from their scabbard...The sole exceptions are the _Flame Tongue, Frost Brand, Holy Avenger, Life Stealing, and Sharpness_ swords, and these will be dealt with individually. The description of Paladin in the 1e Player's Handbook does reference "Holy Swords," but doesn't specifically say anything about it acting as light source. Finally, on page 102 of the PHB it, generically, gives light radii of 10' for daggers, 15' for short swords, and 20' for long swords.
Xp for gold sir, xp for gold. The main problem is that New DM focus on story and not the logistics of stealing gold from a dragon lair. You would need to make more than one trip. Sometimes the dragon is not there Sometimes he is. That fireball you casted in the first room is still on fire how will you get the gold out. The old osr played the game as a survival game. Now its story this and story that. When i tell players they found 200 gold they just write it down on the sheet not thinking how much that would weigh or the noise it would make walking around. How could you fight with a sag of gold in one hand and a sword in the other. Sir gold is needed to this game. Gold value can change depending what ruler is on in. Bandits dont want to kill you just take your stuff. Melt your silver to kill that werewolf or add it to your blade. What will you feed your pet Xorn? So and so on. If you ask me the most broken item is the bag of holding. Some players think they have one when they dont.
I wholeheartedly disagree. The addition of art, currencies of many varieties, and such adds to the world. What you have described is an Elder Scrolls video game experience. If I want that, I can play video games.
I usually like the videos on this channel, but this one loses a lot of my respect. You can make any treasure hoard memorable to players and give them plenty of things to invest their coins in at later levels. And art objects make great trophies and decorations for the players’ stronghold to remind them of past adventures. And you can always homebrew magic items to match the difficulty scaling of your adventures. These are only problems if you let them be so, and making the cadence of your voice more emphatic doesn’t make you more right.
I definitely appreciate 4e and it's approach to magic items much more then 4e and use the old adventurers vault books constantly for inspiration, since the 5e dmg is woefully lacking in jt
I never cared for a glut of magic items due to may preference for low-magic, human-centric settings. I never like the idea of characters getting golf bags of magic swords and hands that look like The Mandarin with all the magic rings characters can carry. When I do use magic items, the powers come with a cost. In fact, I usually treat such items like artifacts and intelligent items. Also, I like this old rule were players can get XP for earned gold, but instead of it being automatic, characters have to spend it on things unrelated to adventuring: Debts, hobbies, charities, magical research, wild drunken parties, etc. Basically any large money-sink that personally motivates the character, as well as motivating the characters to do more adventuring when all the treasure get spent. While this approach lean towards "Murder Hobos" who are motivated more by greed than heroics, I generally assumed that PC are not heroes be default and that their personal desires requires a lot of cash, be it noble, nefarious or just plan selfish.
Well, just to be clear, gp is xp, but only when you get it back to your base. It's just a potential asset until you get it to where you can use it. Gems, jewelry, etc. only become xp if converted to gp; they are easier to transport, but chisel them down with "pawn shop" gp conversion rates. Looking at the recurring costs in the 5e books, I think the recurring costs are a bit too low. Moreover that doesn't get the other folks that need paid off, like the nobility; the players could remove the nobles, but then they'd have to spend their time ruling instead of adventuring. Time demands can consume huge amounts of money...high levels may be able to cast ultra-powerful spells, but only so many per day. Their high level henchmen should soak up a lot of gold, too. Just as one example, in my world there's not a single deity that can grant 6th or 7th levels cleric spells at the start of the campaign. It's not required to unlock high level spells, but should the players want such access it will take millions of converts to supply that kind of elan to one of the existing deities. They'll need a plan, good henchmen (that then cannot be put on other tasks), and a shed-load of gold to make that happen. The biggest drain on cash should always be the time demands. Everything needs to be done at once, which requires hiring those who can do it, and that takes a level of money that the level of the task demands. The players won't want to spend their time accomplishing most of those tasks themselves, so they have to pay. Plus, the more everyone around them realizes they can pay that much, the more they become targets themselves...better bribe the head of the thieve's guild and the head of the assassin's guild.... P.S. In 1980, ten year old me was most fascinated by the Sphere of Annihilation.
Another chip off my confidence in D&D. The whole treasure topic is related to the core of D&D which to me is just "More, more, more!" which makes less meaningless easily. You gain levels and you automatically gain hp, spells, abilities... without the character really doing something for it. Of course, treasure and items are supposed to keep up with it. It's really strange that in other systems it sometimes feels like the opposite is true: Characters don't get enough money and items because the understanding of adventure is not "you find a room filled with gold and gems (that will cause mass inflation in your country)". Plus, they have more expenses, like ingredients, training, debts, upkeep of equipment or buying a better piece of cyberware, ship, etc. You talk about the need of achievements being earned. To me, D&D has a real problem here.
I think the actual issue is not "why include gold at all?' but that if gold & wealth are meaningless then the core concept of the game is fundamentally broken. What's the point of playing a mega-rich, super-powered playboy? Sure, it might appeal to adolescent boys, but for more mature players where is the challenge in that?
And this is why I’m #dOneDnD; they broke it to make it appealing, and that resulted in it losing its identity. Time to go play all the other games out there.
Cool video, chart seems interesting! I agree with a lot of this, but removing gold and gems FEELS wrong. IWish money was important all throughout personally. I like art pieces and jewelry and it definitely bothers me that the answer to making them actually important continues to be "care about building a stronghold".
5e is not build to go into the impossibly gigantic battles that you call Epic (I personally find them to not be so, but rather cheap) and be more toned down in general. Is a game built around attrition, and about keeping the numbers fairly low. I've played with a 3e/3.5 inspired system, and found that modifiers barely mean something even tho they grow to stupid levels, and all those big numbers are just an headache and a complication...not to mention the infinite number of specific skills with their own modifiers...nah, 5e has a lot of shortcomings and issues, but not giving you a +5 , or a shitload of incredibly OP abilities on magic weapons is definitely not one of those.
I have to disagree about having gold in treasure hoards. Can you imagine a dragon that has nothing but a few magic items and not a pile of coins? Or an evil warlord with nothing but plot relevant items in his treasure room? I get your point but the treasure should include treasure. If players want to waste their time haggling over statues they can. There are a couple solutions to the gold thing though. One is to make gold necessary. Make the players pay for training or upkeep and what not to be a gold sink. The second is to not give out portable holes and bags of holding like they're candy and actually be conscious of how much players can carry. I'm not saying that you have to keep track of encumberance but it's easy to make a broad ruling that four PCs can't carry 30000 gold pieces in their backpacks, let alone stacks of trade goods.
The AI generated art is really putting me off. I could hardly pay attention to you because I was so distracted by the horribly uncanny and obviously generated art. The D&D community as a whole has generally seen such art as lazy and disingenuous, I'm surprised you used any at all.
lol well 5e gets most things wrong so why would treasure hordes be any better. This is also why I like low magic settings. You might find a magic item but more likely...you need to seek out a guild and pay through the nose for any magic item you want...or get something a powerful wizard wants and he will pay you for your service in a magic item. It also saves me effort as a DM for story missions because you, as the player, are pushing the story forward. Why are you delving into a dungeon? Because you need the money to finance your character's power growth. Not every game has to be that deep, you know? You want a +5 holy avenger? Yea, you need to do something EPIC for the church of to grant you access to their holy relic that they might only have 1 of. It would be akin to convincing a christian cult to gift you a piece of the true cross...
Gold hordes are not the problem, it's the game masters . Look to avoid this bullshit start making interesting rewards. For example my game. When my players protected a caravan and helped protect a new town being built. They got Free rides on the airship One pc went up in rank in the militia Discount on all stores they buy in And they got a base built. As you can see I made things diverse. For magical weapons, they got from demons base aka hide out
If your players are hording gold, would that not attract goblins, thieves, and small dragons if there is enough? Or upset the balance of regional power?
@@eddarby469 ask. I introduced my son to the game. He wanted to be a monk. He took his first bit of gold for the first adventure to the local blacksmith and asked for him to make some brass knuckles. I love it when my players come up with crazy ways to spend money.
@@eddarby469 D&D is a COLLABORATIVE storytelling game. Most DMs will be happy to work with you if you have an idea of how you can use money. Large quantities of money should be able to buy power and influence.
@@Oera-Bskills, backgrounds, inspiration, proficiency bonus, advantage, ritual spells, heavy dual wielding penalties, weapon versatility, resistances. It's not a long list
Doesn’t it entirely depend on how generous or not your DM is? I’m a 6th level fighter and have only recently been able to afford plate. We have about 4 magical items between the whole party, plus a few scrolls and potions. We play a gritty, low magic world (5th edition D&D). So for us, finding a humble 500 gp IS exciting.
The art items become relevant and interesting if you're running an old school style long expedition / dungeon crawl that keeps track of carrying limits. Moving half a ton of gold pieces is far harder than a small bag of diamonds which have the same value.
Inb4 "just get bags of holding bro"
Gems are mostly there for spell components (which is often ignored but makes spellcaster treasure picks more interesting). I have found players are more into art items if they seem to help tell a story (a painting of a scene from your setting's lore) or just seem fancy (the gold trimmed cloaks and ivory chalices and such) so they can upgrade their mundane outfit or decorate an impressive home. Have a paladin find a clunky statue of their god in a treasure horde and, hopefully, you'll have some memorable roleplay come out of your loot.
@@CooperAATE Is that the answer to the question of how to get stuck at a particular level for years of game time while one's character wanders around the vast world looking for an available bag of holding?
1,000,000 gold pieces vs 1 Mono Lisa rolled up in a scroll case.
@@CooperAATEbag man
Art objects like statues, wall tapestries, fancy rugs, etc become more exciting when you have a stronghold to put them in. By then gold has become so plentiful that a heavy art piece you don’t intend to sell has more value than coin. You want it as a display piece so you can flex on NPCs.
They also present a logistical challenge to get out of the dungeon. Sure, a 30-foot tapestry is cool, but figuring out how to haul it up through a 5-level dungeon might force the players to find a totally different route to the one they took in if they actually want to keep it.
Could also have things like a pile of books.... (Which could contain hidden objects, such as small magical baubles, jewellery, spell scrolls, potions, or other consumables.... or it could just be a mimic...), random things reflecting the nature of the monster.... (Like a room full of dolls, or a collection of teacups.... Ornate music boxes that may or may not double as a single use magic item or perhaps a bag of holding...)
It feels like those stacks of gold that players acquire should have some local or regional political / economic significance, but it changes the natures of the game. Not everyone gets into the political and economic intrigues of the game world. Most players want to slay bigger and badder bosses. Note to Baron: I remember 88 HP for an ancient red dragon from the AD&D era. Your HP may be off, but the point still remains.
Yeah my players get into the political intrigue and economics side of things. Double that with us doing slow burn leveling in a continual game, they don't often do dungeons. So when they do, there is a lot there.
And they're the type to invest and spend, plus i can make taxes high and all that so when they do get above it/change it, it feels rewarding
When I ask about such things, my last DM just rolled his eyes and muttered "We're not playing Dungeons and Merchants."
For AD&D 1e, a huge (11 HD), ancient (8 HP per HD) red dragon would have 88 HP. A small (9 HD), ancient red dragon would only have 72 HP. An average (10 HD), ancient red dragon would have 80 HP.
If you're running an "epic quest" style play, then I'd suggest abstracting high level gold and gems to the scale of person it can influence. "A bag of gold" is enough to set a commoner up for life, and can allow you to take over an inn for a month or have a farmer not mind if your alchemy lab in his fields blows up and takes out that year's crops. "A sack of gems" might buy the spying of a thieves guild, save an orphanage from a greedy merchant so a poor temple lends you a holy relic in thanks. A king's ransom - a cart of gold or sack of gems - can result in a city putting their best people to work, or a monarch putting their forces at your disposal.
Gold and gems are cool when there are story relevant things it can do. I think Pathfinder 2nd edition has a much cleaner "money can buy you items, and threats are built based on the assumption you'll have a certain level of gear" system if you're wanting to run the sort of game where counting the gold is a relevant and useful activity to the game.
Add to that raising men-at-arms and hiring mercenary companies. That all costs quite a bit of coin, but will make it so that this poor village no longer has to rely on 4-5 random shmucks for its protection from random bandit gangs, and the evil lich's undead army doesn't look so hilariously unstoppable anymore. Matt Colville's books give a good framework to make this work.
Blades in the dark abstracts this as a "lifestyle rating", a measure of general wealth from 0-4. If I was playing a 5e game, I'd do something similar, abstracting away the minute costs of day-to-day living in favor of letting players roll their charisma + lifestyle to determine things like how many small items they're able to buy from a store, how effectively they can bribe an NPC, and how well they fit in higher-end areas.
many GMs seemingly forget that money can be used to buy goods and services.
Or perhaps more importantly, there are goods and services other than staying at an inn.
Definitely taking notes for my own setting. Gold as Influence is a REALLY good idea.
Mind you, I'm using Savage Worlds, which has a very different system for buying things (a Wealth Die that increases in size the more loot you get)...
The thing about gold is that you can only carry so much of it, which is why encumbrance rules, while annoying, are needed. This is also one of the reasons why gems and jewelry become more important at higher levels as you get more cash for the weight you have to carry.
I remember that the old AD&D Gold Box games DID track encumbrance and carrying too much would slow characters down when engaged in combat. There were plenty of times I'd have to drop stuff so I could carry more valuable treasure instead. And that dropped stuff was permanently gone, as something else would have taken it before they party would have a chance to ever get back to it.
Paizo's Skulls & Shackles campaign uses a much more interesting "Plunder" system for all the random treasure - each plunder is about 1000gp but value goes up or down depending on some sale factors and takes about a day to sell per plunder.
More of a kingdom builder game than 3 days to save the world, but it works well for those longer games.
On the flip side, for a 3 days to save the world quest it's probably better to just omit magic items and focus on player abilities. Grant things like extra feats rather than magic items. I can't think of any fantasy story that loads on magic items like D&D, they really aren't required - most fantasy stories have a few focus items per party.
For Pathfinder 1e there was "Automatic Bonus Progression" to eliminate +X items, and 5E is nominally balanced to work without "optional" magic items.
@@cameronlapp9306 First off, just for an old school viewpoint. Our group has switched to a silver standard, so the cost for most items in the PHB, under 1000 gp are valued in silver pieces. Starting gold is now starting silver. Exceptions to this are primitive firearms and powder, suits of full plate harness, and other high ticket items that come into play in domain style play. And currently I do award 1 XP for every silver piece the party loots. So now when you find a gold piece, you are holding 20 XP in your fingers---making the gold piece a truly rare and wondrous thing as Gygax advanced in the DMG.
So to Award XP for treasure or not to? I've been on both sides of this debate over the years--in recent years I've come back around to seeing it as a good mechanic. It rewards not having to fight through every encounter, trying to find creative ways of getting around the monsters to hit the treasure hoard, and leave before they notice it's gone. And what I fine is that it's basically a 66-33 split--encounter experience to experience gained through treasure.
The current party I'm running now is 4th, and they are just beginning to find their first magical items. I do like the idea of master work weapons and items low levels--ones of sufficient quality that they give minor bonuses and could accept enchantments with the right rituals. Awarding master work weapons allows for side quests--this mithril longsword you character gets during his first adventure---yes it has a +1 damage bonus in it's non magical state---but at some point the character finds out this weapon is of such quality that it could become a +3 Frostbrand one day. To accomplish this the character needs the powdered claws of a white dragon, which will be hammered by a grand master smith within a consecrated forge, and when the blade is still hot, it must be quenched in blood wrung from a frost giant's heart. There's a whole side quest to earn this magical item. And yes, the money it would take for such a ritual and hiring of the needed specialists---all that treasure matters now.
People decided they didn't like tying up their character power in the GM fiat delivery of magic items. So WotC started pushing power from the magic items that e.g. martials expected to get in early editions directly into the class. At least as much as they could without changing the overall tone from S&S to Anime.
So magic items got toned down and class powers got toned up. A 5E fighter has waaaaaaay more inherent power than a 2E one does.
I've always viewed the role of artwork as treasure in an entirely different light. Treasure isn't designed solely for the convenience of players. Art isn't just a more realistic alternative to everyone/thing having only thousands of gold coins, the inconveniences and complications art can bring are *features* rather than detriments. The video mentions how quickly gold becomes meaningless; art handled correctly is a method of making substantial rewards available without actually giving the full value to the players. Art is often fragile, easily damaged or destroyed with combat or even travel. Art can be cumbersome and difficult to carry. The average adventurer isn't going to have a clue as to how much a piece of art is worth. Art can be difficult to sell without proper connections, as well as time, and adventurers may only receive a small fraction of its actual worth. And if the party is pressed for time, then its just tough luck that they don't have time to lug those life-size marble statues back to town before the evil snake god is resurrected...
Basically filler treasure the recovery of which can be a story in of itself.... (Heck it could be stolen Artwork and perhaps the rightful owners want it back and have dispatched mercenaries to recover it, creating an easy misunderstanding that can drive a whole new conflict, especially if the art object in question is damaged or destroyed in the course of the adventure.... )
Heck art objects/treasure can be set dressing.... Imagine fighting off bandits in a nobles estate while trying not to destroy his collection of priceless artifacts with a poorly placed fireball....
Non-magical treasures have some use in a long-term campaign where you have some sort of presence in the world, and can translate gold into other forms of power. Honestly I think the worse issue is that a lot of magic items have literally no value. If you're wielding a +2 longsword and you get a +1 shortsword, well that's literally useless. Maybe you can sell it, but then what will you do with that gold?
If you don't need it for the party, you could give it to an NPC as a reward for service. I get what you mean, though. Kind of a letdown if you've got better.
Magic Items in 5e are a direct response to 3ed and 4ed. In 3e if you didn't had magic items your character was incomplete, there are many things that are going to be extra difficult to fight. The problem is that the rate at which the GM should give magic items considers an amount of encounters that was still focused on dungeoncrawling.
In 4e the situation was the same, magic items are a given, you need armor and weapons to keep up against the numbers the monsters are throwing, and practically 90% of the items are geared toward just combat. It's easier to give treasure because everything has a level and you have many simple table for treasure. You still gain coins because in some way you can use it to make the items you want with crafting (which was a thing with rituals).
So... 5e tried to make the magic item optional, power comes for your class features.
Which makes it so that you don't really have to work for the extra umph, you get that automatically as you level up. This cut out a huge part of questing.
Agreed, I like how 5e handles magic items much better. They are a nice perk, not your entire build with your character hidden underneath somewhere in the middle.
@@tuomasronnberg5244 I like how attunment works in 5e, but I have remade some of the items that give flat bonuses or change your attributes like the Gauntlet of Ogre Strength.
I don't agree that much with Baron on that the magic items aren't powerful... monsters are much weaker now. The dragon comparison is kind of the point, you pretty much don't magic items to fight the dragon, if you have high level you are going to stomp it.
@@krinkrin5982 Yes, this kind of hurts the game over all. I like the idea that you need to spend coins to train and level up, learn new spells, travel, etc.
The idea that you don't need treasure in the "Save The World" ™ is a bad argument. The problem is that D&D tries to be ALL different types of fantasy at the same time.
Unless you're a martial, in which case high level play requires magic weapons to not totally cripple you against enemies with resistance or immunity to non-magical attacks.
Great timing my players are about to fight an ancient Black Dragon.
Just because the players may find gold inconvenient doesn't mean the NPCs wouldn't include it in their hoard.
It's been that way since 1st edition. Mainly this is due to: 1) New or lazy DM's who take the treasure charts/formula literally; 2) DM's who embrace the Monty Haul style of play.
A common argument over the years has been my belief that Monsters, etc., generally don't lug a lot of treasure around with them, so if you have an encounter away from their lair, the loot should be minimal. This has helped to encourage PC's to track or follow said Monster back to their lair...
Then there's the legendary Dragon's Hoard. I often have to point out just how big a hoard can be; and that one only has to turn to Smaug's death in The Hobbit to understand both size and complexity of such finds. Word does get around that such a hoard is no longer guarded by the Dragon (or whatever), so you can't take it all with you; and you can't really defend it very well, especially if you plan on taking any treasure to town...
One tactic that I've used numerous times is that 'Oh, so your the great dragon slayers! Yes, yes, you are well known and the king would like to congratulate you in person. No, no, we insist... Guards!"
After all, just about every power of worth in the region will be looking for a share (or to simply take possession of the hoard) and it's just a mater of time before other Adventurers, Agents of the various regional powers; hell, even an army (or Orc hoard, or both) could be on the march within days of said Dragon's demise.
For a second there I was really scared this one was going to be sponsored by those masterpiece guys.
The arguments presented in this video are the reason why I ran my last campaign with GP=EXP and I'm currently designing my next campaign to run with ICRPG rather than 5e
“0th edition” 😂 Got me.
One of my first magic items, and still one of my favorites, was a Robe of Useful Items.
When i started playing dnd it was ADnD, i was 15 (or 16), and yes, I also wanted a holy avenger. That thing was the ultimate badass blade, and obviously: it would totally solve all your problems... lol
I still care about funding gold as a currently 13th level character, because I need it in order to craft new magic items and scribe spell scrolls.
But I get what you're saying about the time frame of the quest interfering with making use of that gold in any significant way, since crafting / scribing takes so long, and so does finding the components needed for item crafting.
This is definitely an issue of campaigns having 0 breaks! In epic quest campaigns I say give most of the loot as magic items outright and even skirt the spellbook rules a bit for wizards, allowing them to use spellbooks they find as their own at some other cost, like double the gold amount for almost none of the time investment or give them an item at the midpoint that allows them to decipher other spellbooks for either a regular cost of some sort, through a check, or other means, then lets then scribe it into their book at a fraction of the time and money later (like they have to prepare a spell 3 days in a row doing the check, and on the third day they can copy it down at half or a quarter of the cost and time per spell level.
The other option is to just play more campaigns that give downtime and stuff to do in it like managing demesnes! Gives wizards time to research and scribe spells (or create new ones 😮), crafting can actually get done (but get 3rd party rules anyway so it doesn’t suck, or look to previous editions and their modular crafting systems), and you can spend money on strongholds and followers (pun intended).
IMO, if DMs are going to have plots that move at a breakneck pace, they should increase the speed of crafting.
Most of the rules are balanced around the idea that the characters adventure for maybe 8 hours a day, once a week.
Our real friends were the magic items we gained along the way.
It should also be noted that treasure should generally be appropriate to its owners and location, altho even Tolkien breaks that rule early on with the Trolls. Or perhaps, the treasure's guardians should be appropriate to what they guard, like the Barrow-Wights, and those four fine blades. (Tho actually, in both cases, the "party" was rescued by an NPC, and still rewarded. Hmmm...)
I only played till second edition but can still provide a few counterpoints to this. Sometimes the piles of coin are there for fantasy atmosphere (dragons prefer sleeping on comfy piles of coins than lumpy piles of larger items) or verisimilitude (the robber baron still needs currency to pay his marauders). If the characters no longer need coinage they can literally leave them behind or tell the local villagers to go shopping or something. :)
Potions of Greater Healing are the real trading standard for adventurers. 500 gp coin for a 1/2 pound (0.227 kg) of weight. Reduces your carried weight to much more manageable levels. Oh and they have intrinsic value just like gold and silver.
I just google "best magic items for... class" sprinkle those throughout the campaign, have the players make a wish list, sprinkle those throughout the campaign, and then roll a random table until something interesting pops up for some variety/ unique items. Also, I try to give gold sinks throughout the campaign: finance a heist, buy equipment, bribe someone, etc. E.G. my high level players are going to the positive energy plane, and asked a wizard to make them rings to protect them from the positive energy. 16K each for four custom magic rings that don't take an attunement slot.
I make gold less available and silver the principal form of currency. I enhance magic items with feats as magical boons and I don’t allow players to choose feats. This helps make the currency relevant and allows gold to be precious. Feats are controlled but allowed when tied to a magic item that may have campaign relevance.
I find that mercenaries are a great way to deal with having lots of capital in the party. Mercenaries have upkeep costs, so unless the players keep making more money, they can't keep their mercenaries employed indefinitely. When the players get really rich, odds are they have a bunch of assets that need protecting in their absense. They can also use mercenary forces to make political power plays whether they're present themselves or not. This allows them new ways of affecting the story. If they can afford an army, give them a battle to match.
Absolutely needed this man!! I think you've highlighted one of the main issues with 5e... Where as the characters class/race is so powerful that magic items are much less the forefront of how strong a character actually is.
I think it stems from classes like Sorcerer, where their power stems from their draconic bloodline. Therefore players expect their character to just "become more powerful" over time without items. Which leaves your martial classes who have zero magic, relying solely on magic items.
I think this is an inherit flaw for many TTRPGs... And is almost unavoidable. People who want to play these RPGs are generally more attracted to powerful character classes, and won't spend much time looking at all the cool magic items they COULD get. It's almost an evolution of TTRPGs over the years :'( .... Love the video though brother! I'm working on my own TTRPG and this really highlights my intentions for doing so!
I almost always agree with you but have to take exception to this episode. Also you kind of were focusing on two connected but separate topics, gold and magic items. On gold, players shouldn't be running into hoards of gold except in latter levels [9th and above] Hoards to me are in the 10's of thousands of gp. Usually I parce a large cache into a mix, first coinage, usually silver, gold and platinum. Next items durables like art pieces, runestones which give clues to other interesting locations, and mundane masterwork pieces. Next one shot protected items, such as potions or scrolls incased in boxes or scrollcases. Lastly magic items of all kinds based on the party level and what I, as a DM, know they will encounter in the future. As for the magic items themselves, I am a pathfinder 1e DM, in this system there is an option for having magic items level up with the player. I usually only have campaigns go up to 10th to 12th level intentionally. Also on gold, using money can affect play in many ways, the players need to transport it, safeguard it, Large amounts can encumber them, converting to gems at an exchange rate. Then there are the types of coins and thier exchange rates. Then spending; Buying titles, land, aquiring fame through becoming a patron of the arts or being a philanthropist to the poor or the clergy. Spreading your wealth to gain recognition or buy rare items or powerful magic. In the end monetary treasure should be a blessing with a touch of curse to it as well. Still love your point of view and agree on the magic part of your video. Cheers DM
Love single-use/limited-use items! Makes finding that magic weapon or shield even more exciting!
I rarely see you rant this much sir Baron. But I see your point. I never worried too much about random treasure tables, but then I never loved them either. Now, looking at your random generator, I like it a lot, for some things. We should make it a treasure generating app, for convenience. I believe adding this sort of simple web-app to Itchio is easy enough. I'm curious now, what it takes to get this out there.
Something tells me Baron's players don't argue over ivory statuettes to decorate their fantasy rooms...
Let alone hate parting with them; to the point that when that NPC's house burned down they were sifting through the rubble to recover the statuette.
I say spending gold gets you renown, and you need renown to get the attention of lords, then nobles, and eventually the king. Higher-status NPCs are who give you higher-level adventures. You can spend gold on a better lifestyle, house, a ship, and give gold to your faith and get visions of where to find the magic item you want (which you then have to go fight for). And high-status NPCs will buy your old magic items from you. Or you can pay a powerful wizard to further enchant your magic item to be even more powerful, but there may be strings attached.
I am checking out, and probably backing, Enclave because it's mechanics fit better with the "theater of the mind" style of play that our group has come to prefer (we've been playing since the late 70s). From The One Ring we gained the notion that counting coins was less fun than gaining stuff through a general wealth level; it keeps the story flowing. I really like the idea of a magic item growing in power along with its wielder, thus keeping items in scale, and avoiding having characters discard older items like yesterday's news paper as they progress (plus, discovering an item's other powers can be an adventure itself!). Currently loving Cairn, as deadly combat rarely comes up, and clever play rules the sessions. Maybe Enclave will be our next progression.
My Lv 9 players just killed Thumberchaud (Adult Red Dragon) and s**t you not, my players did just what you said in the video: ignored the gold and sifted through the horde looking for magic items!
Bonus comment: your hoard generator is fantastic! I love it when a mechanic does "bonus die per yes to question," it makes really clear what the point is.
Good advice! My two take-a-ways, don’t run or play 5E and make uncommon treasure items have some kind of plot associated with them.
A good way I personally liked to use those numbers for was the huge auction happening every 10 jears or even once a decade in the large city the heroes are staying in right now. It can actually be quite fun to show your group a selection of pretty rare or curious items. The need to compete with obscenely rich merchants, nobles and even kingdoms if the item is rare enaugh can lead to pretty interesting gameplay right of the bat. It also fixes some of the issus with weaker items, since this way you as a player are not so much reliant on your GM to pick the right ones for you that are „obviously“ just random stuff in the dragons hoard.
If you as a DM likes to this is also the perfect hook for a adventure. Let something thruely gamebreaking appear and show how this can literaly lead to backstabbing and even war if the scope is this high.
PS: I also realy like the idea of powerfull items with distinct disadvantages. They don‘t have to be cursed for this to happen. It can be just be the best way to min/max the current elite of wizzards and artificers where able to achieve when the item was made.
Human ingenuiety usualy works this way. We usually don‘t wait till the technology is advanced enaugh that a powerfull tool is absolutely riskfree to use and has no disadvantages whatsoever. We use what gives us the best edge over our competitors.
We have fun with the hoards at my table. Occasionally after a boss fight they get to make those rolls, and usually find random shit. Since they roll, I also sweat as the DM, because what sort of random shenanigans might they find in this dragon lair, and how is it going to freshen up our campaign.
I have automated all the roll tables from the 5e DM Guide. I'll be putting them up on my website next month. I will look this over, and see about adding it to the Treasure Hoard generation page. Click a button, and the hoard is generated. Copy and paste to your notes.
Ooh what's your site
Utility and weird ass items or much more fun, interesting and useful than a plus something.
I'm thinking... magic items with abilities tied to the character's Proficiency Bonus, growing in power as the character advances. So that huge axe that was a +1 when you found it at level 3 is now at level 10 a +1 axe that deals an extra d6 of fire and a d6 of acid damage on a hit, and might develop even more terrifying properties as you advance further in level...
Ooooh treasure generator
Art and trinkets. Yes, some pieces of art are worth lots of money but they are large and bulky and hard to get out of a dungeon even with a bag of holding and could still get damaged and become worthless.
I like trinkets and gold rings and such. Many of my characters would use these to bribe guards, reward hirelings, grease a palm here and there. It makes for some great roleplaying which is what the game is actually about.
As to having too much gold. My highest level character was more than happy to take all those copper coins that nobody wanted. Besides having expenses, he used those coppers to have his henchmen give them to beggars and paupers and win them over to be snitches for his network of thieves.
I can only think of one character that I would call rich. The rest spent most of their money on equipment that constantly gets lost or destroyed. Or on spell research, making scrolls and potions.
Most of my Thief characters had maps of dungeons with lists of all the treasure that we had to leave behind because you can only carry so much with you.
BTW, I only played 1st edition and some 2nd edition added in. I find 5E to be a bit of a joke myself. You don't roleplay you roll play and that isn't what this game is about.
Earlier editions basically defined player characters by their magic items. That's not the sort of heroic fantasy most people have in mind when they sit down at the table these days. 5e magic items are plenty powerful and still trivialize lots of encounters on their own.
Here's the thing you are overlooking: it is ok for loot to be mostly flavor; it is ok for gold to be mostly useless. It isn't a game about hauling loot back to town anymore. It isn't a game about haggling with merchants anymore...and this is a perfectly valid approach, it comes down to preference and not everyone's preferences are wrapped up in nostalgia.
Just my opinion, the entire concept behind 5e was control. 3.5 spiraled out beyond where they wanted, beyond where most GMs could handle, so in attempting to attract new players, they toned it down to allow new GMs to handle level 20 adventures.
One thing that irritates me no end is killing a legendary, hugely difficult boss monster that kills one or more PCs, and the loot is so bland that no a single one of the items gets used by a PC.
A project that appears to have failed on both fronts. Not only is 20th level still a total mess, the design philosophy has taken a sharp turn towards stripping out systems to reduce complexity and telling DMs to homebrew their own rules (a thoroughly unhelpful suggestion for novices).
So hoards, magic items and coinage have a basis in the world you build.
I treat "gold" even in my higher fantasy settings still very controlled. The wealth of most nobles tied to land ownership and resources found within. Timber, ore, livestock. The amount of actual liquid capital in a noble's fortune might be quite low, very similar to our world during the dark/middle ages.
Massive treasure hoards are not common. They would be known or at least the things of rumor and legend (think Erebor and the Lonely Mountain).
Players on the run during a campaign are forced to leave excess behind; Marking locations on maps and leading expeditions during downtime to recover the treasure they could not take with them. Depending upon the location that may set up the story for other one shot adventures; has a group of bandits moved in and started to move the goods; have a local town or magistrate laid claim to the goods.
Players like to feel connected to the world granting them titles and lands is a great reward; it allows them to spend gold on retainers; masons/architects/carpenters. Often players start off with a lodge, great hall or simple tower and it grows. It is not uncommon in the process of their building for a small village to be founded as labor moves to the area and their extended families. This brings a whole campaign in itself as their now burgeoning town becomes the source of drama and conflict; especially when the landlord is travelling afar; who knows what they may return to find?
If you have found the players have "too much gold" then you simply give them a cost; let them face finding their own rare magical component or deal with purchasing the "jar of ochre jelly" to acid etch rune into the sword; the "phoenix feather" to encase in the wand of fireballs; or the "hags eye" for their Sphere of Divination at exorbitant prices.
Natural disasters requiring "charity" also allow great alignment based roleplay challenges. Having to purchase timber to construct homes on the verge of winter; or grain from a plague caused by a dark druid can be woefully expensive; but again; protecting that shipment the players just paid 50,000 gold to purchase can become a story in itself and just as rewarding.
My biggest issue; I miss the hoard tables from AD&D; the rich content on followers, etc. that we use to have in the Player's Handbook upon reaching certain levels. I find myself going back and incorporating it often.
When I was playing 5e I found that there was no need for magic items unless they were quest related. Mostly due to the fact that 5E has all of the magic items built into your class and sub class… throwingthrowing in magic items in 5E gives it an imbalanced feel, which is why most of those items were nurfed in the first place. At least that’s what I think.
Gold is only useful for things like Wizards in filling up spellbooks and for casters in stocking up in regents.
Scathing but entirely accurate. I really wish the authors had leaned into the different fantasies at each tier of play.
Your story about the enchanted items in the old versions of the game explains A LOT about the critical role campaigns 🤣
Great Video and Thanks! Wizards need a lot of gold. A fix for making gold more valuable - create requirements for other classes, rogues pay guilds, Clerics tithe, etc.
Over a decade ago, I did a post-apocalyptic DND setting where society collapsed after a massive plague. The premise for the players was that The Church was trying to rebuild and the players were sent out to rediscover the world. There was ridiculous amounts and types of money from collapsed kingdoms that they could bring back, but the economy had literally devolved into trading sea shells. So this money was collected by The Church and the players were credited and honored with favors locally. As they gained more credit, this expanded the area and their renown. Basically, the more civilization they recovered, the more soft power they had. All they had to do was risk their lives on the daily.
"Post apocalyptic DND setting" that's D&D on a good day, it really only has two settings, post apocalypse and apocalypse.
This is exactly why i dont play 5th, still playing PF1. My groups can convert money into magic items, and there are other game world uses.
5th ed shot itself in the foot with the 3 magic item thing. Sounds good on paper, but no one wants 1000 gp to go on a dangerous quest at middle levels
Agreed
Well with enchanting and being able to buy magical items and just the large plethora of things players can spend gold on in my campaigns I don't find the first part of this to be a problem. And I tend to use a lot of older items from 3.5 and 4th edition picture of a good bit harder to translate properly a lot of more powerful items that's what I'm also moving to Pathfinder not D&D so but I love your videos so therefore I stick around and love to come with all things.
A seven inch bar of gold ( inches 7 x 2 x 4 ) weighs 30 pounds. That is ( 1000 ) 1/2 ounce gold coins.
potions scrolls poison and magic creation. Thats the way to make gold useful, in addition to other RP outlets.
you spoil us with this content 😭👏✨
It would seem more strange that the hoards would just be a bunch of unused magic items. What does the Brigand Leader pay his brigands with, unless youre just gonna distribute the magic items among them? Dragons are notorious for coin hoards, as well as any other intelligent creature that actually understands the value of money
The main issue is not how special the treasure is, but what you do with it. Even back in third edition, I had the question of what are the player going to do with the gold they have. I actually asked, and they didn't give me an answer.
So it's not about the treasure, it's about making the players want to spend the treasure. 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition have all upped the power of the PCs, while making DMs less powerful, to the point that the stuff they were planning before the OGL debacle included new rules that seemed to nerf the DM to the point of just sitting around and doling out free levels and announcing how awesome they were.
The best way to deal with the problem is to increase the monster's power, while making the money worth it. If you make it so that monsters are more powerful, say by increasing monsters so that they face CR 2 or 3 monsters at level 1, and keep the monsters more powerful than the players, they will want to spend the money to get the items they need, and every magic item found is a precious item that could potentially make things better for the party.
What's more, making gold useful is important. If you add actual training for levels, players will look at coins, jewels, and even magic items they won't use as potentially useful, since it spends to increase their power.
Re: 5e and to much gold. That's why in one game I just asked the GM "How much gold do I spend on booze, pixie dust, and brothels?"
Hey where do you get that cool artwork that shows up on the screen?
I still use gold value awarded as XP. Entice players who are willing, to build and maintain properties and get involved in domain level play. Or they can use their hard won treasure for the usual; carousing drinking, gambling and debauchery. Ah; the life of the murder-hobo, how I love and loathe thee.
The idea of money disappearing from hoards will break immersion. The PCs have hit a level where *they* don't value money, therefore every ancient hoard they come across *also* was owned by someone who had no use for money?
I agree! Unless you're trying to play some low-to-the-ground adventure/setting, if you're playing DnD5e and you're getting rewards, it should be about Getting Cool Shit (tm).
A reallty easy way to fix this, to me, is just to play an older edition. Pitch 2nd ed as the "Vintage Vinyl" of Dungeons and Dragons, let people scope out the classic, zero-cgi art, emphasize how relatively glossless and handmade the old books are. Then, if people really do need that crunch, you can still drown them in splatbooks if they absolutely insist you do so.
Is this problem a product of the reaction to the mentality of "I want my character growth to be a matter of what I can do not what I own"?
I remember a few years ago reading an article or forum post somewhere complaining about how the writer didn't like that. Character growth for Marshall characters was about their equipment rather than their own power, and how spellcasters growth was about their power, not just their equipment.
Pair that line of thinking with the issue of DMS handing out too much powerful gear and then trying to scale back the power by having it stolen or lost or destroyed, and you'll get a batch of players and designers who recognize that the solution is to have power baked into the class progress table which can be tested and "balanced", rather than the equipment which can be mishandled.
Not truly on topic, but I cannot find a version of the holy avenger that emits light as indicated and the dragon being assessed as "Ancient" and "42HP" is not in line with what I'm seeing in 2nd edition etc (20ish HD for > age category 9). Still a valid point about the importance of items, just maybe not the best of memory.
I'm not really sure about where that light part came into the picture. In the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide, on page 165, under the heading Swords (III.G) it actually says that "Most swords (and all daggers) of magical nature shed light when drawn from their scabbard...The sole exceptions are the _Flame Tongue, Frost Brand, Holy Avenger, Life Stealing, and Sharpness_ swords, and these will be dealt with individually. The description of Paladin in the 1e Player's Handbook does reference "Holy Swords," but doesn't specifically say anything about it acting as light source. Finally, on page 102 of the PHB it, generically, gives light radii of 10' for daggers, 15' for short swords, and 20' for long swords.
I mean you can buy magic items. Also, most of the high-level late-game downtime activities require a massive amount of gold.
Xp for gold sir, xp for gold. The main problem is that New DM focus on story and not the logistics of stealing gold from a dragon lair. You would need to make more than one trip. Sometimes the dragon is not there Sometimes he is. That fireball you casted in the first room is still on fire how will you get the gold out. The old osr played the game as a survival game. Now its story this and story that. When i tell players they found 200 gold they just write it down on the sheet not thinking how much that would weigh or the noise it would make walking around. How could you fight with a sag of gold in one hand and a sword in the other. Sir gold is needed to this game. Gold value can change depending what ruler is on in. Bandits dont want to kill you just take your stuff. Melt your silver to kill that werewolf or add it to your blade. What will you feed your pet Xorn? So and so on. If you ask me the most broken item is the bag of holding. Some players think they have one when they dont.
Well that’s because the new game sucks.
Yeah the Bag of Holding and the Gem of Seeing
What I like to do is "Substitute Gold of the hoards with number of Spell Scrolls of similar grand-total value".
I wholeheartedly disagree. The addition of art, currencies of many varieties, and such adds to the world.
What you have described is an Elder Scrolls video game experience. If I want that, I can play video games.
I usually like the videos on this channel, but this one loses a lot of my respect. You can make any treasure hoard memorable to players and give them plenty of things to invest their coins in at later levels. And art objects make great trophies and decorations for the players’ stronghold to remind them of past adventures. And you can always homebrew magic items to match the difficulty scaling of your adventures. These are only problems if you let them be so, and making the cadence of your voice more emphatic doesn’t make you more right.
Definitely a problem that I no longer have thanks to switching to pathfinder 2e back in January.
I definitely appreciate 4e and it's approach to magic items much more then 4e and use the old adventurers vault books constantly for inspiration, since the 5e dmg is woefully lacking in jt
I never cared for a glut of magic items due to may preference for low-magic, human-centric settings. I never like the idea of characters getting golf bags of magic swords and hands that look like The Mandarin with all the magic rings characters can carry. When I do use magic items, the powers come with a cost. In fact, I usually treat such items like artifacts and intelligent items.
Also, I like this old rule were players can get XP for earned gold, but instead of it being automatic, characters have to spend it on things unrelated to adventuring: Debts, hobbies, charities, magical research, wild drunken parties, etc. Basically any large money-sink that personally motivates the character, as well as motivating the characters to do more adventuring when all the treasure get spent. While this approach lean towards "Murder Hobos" who are motivated more by greed than heroics, I generally assumed that PC are not heroes be default and that their personal desires requires a lot of cash, be it noble, nefarious or just plan selfish.
Well, just to be clear, gp is xp, but only when you get it back to your base. It's just a potential asset until you get it to where you can use it. Gems, jewelry, etc. only become xp if converted to gp; they are easier to transport, but chisel them down with "pawn shop" gp conversion rates.
Looking at the recurring costs in the 5e books, I think the recurring costs are a bit too low. Moreover that doesn't get the other folks that need paid off, like the nobility; the players could remove the nobles, but then they'd have to spend their time ruling instead of adventuring. Time demands can consume huge amounts of money...high levels may be able to cast ultra-powerful spells, but only so many per day.
Their high level henchmen should soak up a lot of gold, too. Just as one example, in my world there's not a single deity that can grant 6th or 7th levels cleric spells at the start of the campaign. It's not required to unlock high level spells, but should the players want such access it will take millions of converts to supply that kind of elan to one of the existing deities. They'll need a plan, good henchmen (that then cannot be put on other tasks), and a shed-load of gold to make that happen.
The biggest drain on cash should always be the time demands. Everything needs to be done at once, which requires hiring those who can do it, and that takes a level of money that the level of the task demands. The players won't want to spend their time accomplishing most of those tasks themselves, so they have to pay. Plus, the more everyone around them realizes they can pay that much, the more they become targets themselves...better bribe the head of the thieve's guild and the head of the assassin's guild....
P.S. In 1980, ten year old me was most fascinated by the Sphere of Annihilation.
Another chip off my confidence in D&D. The whole treasure topic is related to the core of D&D which to me is just "More, more, more!" which makes less meaningless easily. You gain levels and you automatically gain hp, spells, abilities... without the character really doing something for it. Of course, treasure and items are supposed to keep up with it.
It's really strange that in other systems it sometimes feels like the opposite is true: Characters don't get enough money and items because the understanding of adventure is not "you find a room filled with gold and gems (that will cause mass inflation in your country)". Plus, they have more expenses, like ingredients, training, debts, upkeep of equipment or buying a better piece of cyberware, ship, etc.
You talk about the need of achievements being earned. To me, D&D has a real problem here.
I like to use your loot rules for Diablo style games.
"Treasure" has been a problem in all editiions. Sad. Long Live House Rules!
Indeed
Zeroth edition? LOL. Yes, I ran the video back to make sure. Lol
drop that zero (DND) and get with a hero (ICRPG)
I think the actual issue is not "why include gold at all?' but that if gold & wealth are meaningless then the core concept of the game is fundamentally broken.
What's the point of playing a mega-rich, super-powered playboy? Sure, it might appeal to adolescent boys, but for more mature players where is the challenge in that?
And this is why I’m #dOneDnD; they broke it to make it appealing, and that resulted in it losing its identity. Time to go play all the other games out there.
great video, but why does he sound so pissed off in this one? 😅
Cool video, chart seems interesting!
I agree with a lot of this, but removing gold and gems FEELS wrong. IWish money was important all throughout personally. I like art pieces and jewelry and it definitely bothers me that the answer to making them actually important continues to be "care about building a stronghold".
5e is not build to go into the impossibly gigantic battles that you call Epic (I personally find them to not be so, but rather cheap) and be more toned down in general. Is a game built around attrition, and about keeping the numbers fairly low. I've played with a 3e/3.5 inspired system, and found that modifiers barely mean something even tho they grow to stupid levels, and all those big numbers are just an headache and a complication...not to mention the infinite number of specific skills with their own modifiers...nah, 5e has a lot of shortcomings and issues, but not giving you a +5 , or a shitload of incredibly OP abilities on magic weapons is definitely not one of those.
I somewhat agree, but I think it can be very easy to award such a powerful item that it makes class abilities crap comparatively
Great advice!
Baron seems uncharacteristically impassioned in this video.
I have to disagree about having gold in treasure hoards. Can you imagine a dragon that has nothing but a few magic items and not a pile of coins? Or an evil warlord with nothing but plot relevant items in his treasure room? I get your point but the treasure should include treasure. If players want to waste their time haggling over statues they can. There are a couple solutions to the gold thing though. One is to make gold necessary. Make the players pay for training or upkeep and what not to be a gold sink. The second is to not give out portable holes and bags of holding like they're candy and actually be conscious of how much players can carry. I'm not saying that you have to keep track of encumberance but it's easy to make a broad ruling that four PCs can't carry 30000 gold pieces in their backpacks, let alone stacks of trade goods.
5e PCs can almost always punch 5 levels above their "weight class" though. Also... *Me, laughing from Mt. Shadowdark*
The AI generated art is really putting me off. I could hardly pay attention to you because I was so distracted by the horribly uncanny and obviously generated art. The D&D community as a whole has generally seen such art as lazy and disingenuous, I'm surprised you used any at all.
+++
lol well 5e gets most things wrong so why would treasure hordes be any better.
This is also why I like low magic settings. You might find a magic item but more likely...you need to seek out a guild and pay through the nose for any magic item you want...or get something a powerful wizard wants and he will pay you for your service in a magic item. It also saves me effort as a DM for story missions because you, as the player, are pushing the story forward. Why are you delving into a dungeon? Because you need the money to finance your character's power growth. Not every game has to be that deep, you know?
You want a +5 holy avenger? Yea, you need to do something EPIC for the church of to grant you access to their holy relic that they might only have 1 of. It would be akin to convincing a christian cult to gift you a piece of the true cross...
Lol, your hand movements. You're naturally cycling between the same 3 hand movements the whole video.
Based and treasure pilled.
Just play old school versions. Way more fun imho
Gold hordes are not the problem, it's the game masters .
Look to avoid this bullshit start making interesting rewards.
For example my game.
When my players protected a caravan and helped protect a new town being built.
They got
Free rides on the airship
One pc went up in rank in the militia
Discount on all stores they buy in
And they got a base built.
As you can see I made things diverse.
For magical weapons, they got from demons base aka hide out
It's almost like... the game sucks and survives on hype. Dnd is McDonalds
If your players are hording gold, would that not attract goblins, thieves, and small dragons if there is enough? Or upset the balance of regional power?
Only if your DM is doing their job properly
But if the DM gives you nothing worth spending money on ... ? It's just a curse.
@@eddarby469 ask. I introduced my son to the game. He wanted to be a monk. He took his first bit of gold for the first adventure to the local blacksmith and asked for him to make some brass knuckles. I love it when my players come up with crazy ways to spend money.
It would only upset the regional balance of power if they’re spending any of the gold.
@@eddarby469 D&D is a COLLABORATIVE storytelling game. Most DMs will be happy to work with you if you have an idea of how you can use money. Large quantities of money should be able to buy power and influence.
All fairness there is very little 5e doesn’t get wrong
Would you be so kind as to make an exhaustive list?
@@Oera-Bskills, backgrounds, inspiration, proficiency bonus, advantage, ritual spells, heavy dual wielding penalties, weapon versatility, resistances. It's not a long list
Well said. It is a great theater department practice simulator though.
@@mightyfp you forgot class balance ~ especially where the optional material is concerned ;-)
Doesn’t it entirely depend on how generous or not your DM is? I’m a 6th level fighter and have only recently been able to afford plate. We have about 4 magical items between the whole party, plus a few scrolls and potions. We play a gritty, low magic world (5th edition D&D). So for us, finding a humble 500 gp IS exciting.