Spending Gold

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)

 

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