D&D 5E What could 5E do to make wealth worthwhile?

Reynard · Feb 20, 2025

Note: This includes 5E 2024.

It is pretty well agreed upon that monetary treasure and wealth does not have much use in 5E (especially compared to 3.x era games). So what could 5E do to make money matter? What would you like to see? What things could help motivate the going into the holes and killing the monsters and taking their stuff?

payn · Feb 20, 2025

Personally, I just give compelling reasons to adventure beyond getting wealth and power. The players do it because its interesting to do it. Not becasue its level up time to do it.

That said, I could see taking things off the sheets more and putting it into the players hands. For example, in my Traveller games the players often want to do things like build a secret space bunker, or build a cool ass android to help them with stuff, pimp their spaceship, etc.. So, adventures help them find things to do it. Things in this instance for D&D could just be money. Trade it for forts, wizard towers, influence, whatever keep the player interested and looking forward to adventuring.

Bae'zel · Feb 20, 2025

I've personally done 3 things:

- used the downtime activities in Xanathar's Guide and some 3rd party books

- used the 2024 Bastion rules (reasons to spend money to upgrade their homes for mechanical benefits)

- added some magic items to shops for purchasing (as we got in Baldur's Gate 3). Gives the PCs something to save up for while ensuring that it isn't a free-for-all buy anything in the DMG game.

Lazybones · Feb 20, 2025

I try to present uses for using cash in my games, such as buying property, hiring retainers, and the like. I don't generally have magic stores per se, but usually the local temple will have a few potions or scrolls for sale, and those tend to scale easily to the party's level.

5e 2024 supposedly has some additional mechanisms, especially expanding Bastions and creating magic items. I haven't played enough 5e 2024 yet for that to become an issue, but I could definitely see some of my players taking advantage of those options. Crafting alone has the potential to quickly drain a party's pockets if players go all-out in that area.

ezo · Feb 20, 2025

I just reduce the amount of cash given. My adventurers barely make enough from adventuring to survive. Having left over cash? Not likely.

TiQuinn · Feb 20, 2025

Create training rules and a Downtime action that requires spending money on actually attaining the next level and the abilities. This could be paying someone of higher level to train you, tithing to a church of your religion, paying an arcane academy or library for access to their restricted section, etc.

TiQuinn · Feb 20, 2025

You could also have a system for crafting magical items but I wouldn't want that purely to be money driven. Probably some formula of Money + a Unique Component which can drive a particular quest.

Reynard · Feb 20, 2025

I like the idea of starting the PCs off with a massive debt -- and someone willing to come looking for them if they don't make their regular payments. I don't think I have ever done this with D&D, but it was standard for Star Wars and other sci-fi games where the PCs started with a ship.

payn · Feb 20, 2025

Reynard said:
I like the idea of starting the PCs off with a massive debt -- and someone willing to come looking for them if they don't make their regular payments. I don't think I have ever done this with D&D, but it was standard for Star Wars and other sci-fi games where the PCs started with a ship.

It can work, but I also seen it backfire where the PCs dont want to do anything too dangerous and risk their ship/livlihood. For example, in Traveller they ended up putting all their attention into finding trade routes for textiles and electronics and avoided any type of adventure as too risky. That makes sense from simulation perspective but man is it boring as an adventure game.

Now, for a Kingmaker campaign where the PCs are building a community in the wilds, there is all kinds of things to save money for!

Sacrosanct · Feb 20, 2025

Go back to AD&D 1e. Training costs, downtime costs, keep costs, hireling (sages, etc) costs, etc.

D&D 5E What could 5E do to make wealth worthwhile?

Reynard

aka Ian Eller

payn

Glory to Marik

Bae'zel

Adventurer

Lazybones

Adventurer

ezo

Hero

TiQuinn

Registered User

TiQuinn

Registered User

Reynard

aka Ian Eller

payn

Glory to Marik

Sacrosanct

Legend

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