Spending Gold
If you run a dungeon with the classic rule where xp is gained by retrieving treasure, you’ll need to figure out some stuff for your players to spend all that money on. Luckily with some digging there’s quite a few money sinks you can find in the 5e rulebooks.
Upkeep
If we set time between sessions to one month, lifestyle expenses vary between 60 gp (comfortable), 120 gp (wealthy) and 300+ gp (aristocratic). It won’t make a massive dent but it’s nice to know you’re living like a king off of your dungeon treasure. The plus there at aristocratic is nice, allowing us to set a high ceiling of, let’s say, 2,000 gp.
Buying (or Crafting) Magic Items
They don’t get sold often, but when they do they can really punch a hole in your finances! Uncommons go for up to 500, rares for 5000, very rares for 50,000 and Legendaries are limitless in how expensive they can be. A weekly auction before the session should keep your players engaged!
According to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, a character should receive over the course of an adventuring career:
Items (based on party of 4) | Average Price (DMPG*) | Total |
---|---|---|
5 uncommon minor | 574 | 2,870 |
4.75 rare minor | 1948 | 9,253 |
3.75 very rare minor | 4268 | 16,005 |
1.75 legendary minor | 10,000 | 17,500 |
2 uncommon major | 355 | 710 |
1 rare major | 3,803 | 3,803 |
1 very rare major | 24,528 | 24,528 |
1 legendary major | 96,453 | 96,453 |
TOTAL: |
| 171,122 |
* Discerning Merchant’s Price Guide
Depending on how much treasure you’re doling out a player could go way over 5e’s assumed number of magic items. One natural way to stop this is by limiting supply. About half an item per session for instance. That means 2 for the entire party (d3 for variety).
Auction (start of every session).
Roll a d3 to see how many items are on sale. To determine what each item is, roll:
d20 | Treasure table |
---|---|
1-3 | A |
4-6 | B |
7-10 | C |
11-14 | D |
15 | E |
16-17 | F |
18 | G |
19 | H |
20 | I |
Based on treasure hoard tables in the DMG.
Equipment
Most of it is peanuts, but some things cost actual monies.
Item | Cost |
---|---|
Breastplate | 400 |
Half plate | 750 |
Splint | 200 |
Plate | 1,500 |
Magnifying Glass | 100 |
Spyglass | 1,000 |
Holy Water (per) | 25 |
Poison (vial) | 100 |
Silvered Weapon (or 10 arrows) | 100 |
Adamantine Weapon | 500 |
Strongholds
A D&D classic! Build your own trading post or guild hall for as little as 5,000 gp! How about a noble estate for 25,000? Or pitch in for that 50,000 castle you’ve always wanted! Don’t forget that it’s absolutely fine to have a character buy a stronghold in parts – the builders will simply stop when the money runs out. Strongholds also feed back into the upkeep table. That castle costs 3000 gp a month.
The DMG doesn’t attach many in-game rewards to these buildings, but a canny DM should be able to come up with some on the fly, hirelings being a straightforward one. Or you could grab a module like MCDM’s Strongholds & Followers (not free).
Boats
Ships are pretty expensive. Anyone who can drop 20,000 can buy an airship and go on adventures!
Non-official: Hirelings
I’ve written about these guys here.
In a Table
Based on 1 month downtime between dungeon excursions. Assumes 5 workweeks (25d) in a month (30d).
Thing | Cost (* Months) |
---|---|
UPKEEP |
|
Lifestyle Expenses | 30/60/120 |
Aristocratic Lifestyle | 300-2,000 |
Guild Hall | 150 |
Noble Estate | 300 |
Abbey | 600 |
Tower/Temple | 750 |
Outpost/Fort | 1,500 |
Keep / Small Castle | 3,000 |
Palace | 12,000 |
Keelboat | 60 |
Airship | 600 |
Sailing Ship | 1,200 |
Longship | 2,400 |
Warship | 3,600 |
Galley | 4,800 |
STRONGHOLD |
|
Guild Hall | 2,500 (* 2) |
Tower/Outpost/Fort | 5,000 (* 3) |
Noble Estate | 5,000 (* 5) |
Abbey/Temple/Keep/Small Castle | 3,750 (* 13) |
Palace | 1,250 (* 40) |
BOATS |
|
Keelboat | 3,000 |
Sailing Ship/Longship | 10,000 |
Airship | 20,000 |
Warship | 25,000 |
Galley | 30,000 |
MAGIC ITEMS |
|
Uncommon | +/- 600 |
Rare | +/- 2,750 |
Very Rare | +/- 27,500 |
Legendary | +/- 50,000 |
XANATHAR |
|
Find Magic Items (+14 bonus) | 1,100 |
Carousing | 250 – 1,250 |
Research (5 rolls at +6) | 2,750 |
Craft Magic Item – Uncommon (3) | 600 |
Craft Magic Item – Rare | 1,000 (* 2) |
Craft Magic Item – Very Rare | 4,000 (* 5) |
Craft Magic Item – Legendary | 10,000 (* 10) |
Healing Potion (x25) | 625 |
Greater Healing Potion (x5) | 500 |
Superior Healing Potion (x2) | 2,000 |
Supreme Healing Potion | 10,000 |
Scroll 1 (up to 25/month) | 25 |
Scroll 2 (up to 8/month) | 250 |
Scroll 3 (up to 5/month) | 500 |
Scroll 4 (up to 3/month) | 2,500 |
Scroll 5 | 5,000 |
Scroll 6 | 7,500 (* 2) |
Scroll 7 | 8,250 (* 3) |
Scroll 8 | 8,250 (* 6) |
Scroll 9 | 25,000 (* 10) |