so I was looking though some adventures I plan on running later and I noticed the official adventures don't like to give out rewards and when its a money reward it is very very small even at higher levels, for instance your group is level 15 and they get hired to kill a dragon, when they get back they receive a 500 gold reward to be split between them, they means if you have 4-5 players they will each get around 100gp and here is the thing: what is a level 15 player going to do with just 100gp? its going to sit around in there bags building up weight, they can maybe buy a common magic item THAT IS IT, hell a level 1 player can barely do anything with 100gp, as such I have taken to increasing all the money rewards from 2-4 times the normal amount depending on the quest, more of a reward will make the players feel more like doing more things in your game and encourage them to seek out work in between big quests.
On that note for those who follow the lore you know that one gold peace is worth alot of money to common folk (if a average person saves up for about a year and does nothing but work they may earn 1gp) , even a few silver is alot to them but here comes problem number 2: most items in the game are brought with gold, by that logic how the hell are normal people going to survive?! Rations are a cheap way to eat but they are 5 silver each, if that is cheap food then commoners have to eat garbage on the floor because as mentioned above they maybe get 1 gold in a year and rations are half a gold and they are considered CHEAP, most common household items: 1gp each, so common folk can't even afford homes let alone food so if you want to get all lore friendly, look though most items and change the cost to be more appropriate toward the world, most items will change from a gold coin cost to a silver or copper cost so the wold makes more sense. And yes that is alot of work witch is why you should keep all the prices the same just add more gold to the world, it lets players buy more and useful items like ammo, food, lanterns, beds, maybe even a horse.
This edition is definitely lower in magical equipment and money (by default). My initial surprise was seeing thousands of copper pieces in treasure hoards. How are they meant to carry all of that? Makes it more an inventory management game than high fantasy IMO.
Now - usual Rule 0 - as the DM you can change anything (and I have).
That out of the way, I think you need to shift your perspective a little bit. The items listed are for adventurers (and maybe city folk). Adventurers are being charged the stupid/lazy tax. And they pay it because they can. A regular farmer however wouldn't be paying 2gp for a shovel. They would be making it themselves and passing it down from father to son etc. Now 2gp is probably a pretty good shovel, but probably more than a farmer really needs - and he isn't likely to break it trying to open a magically locked door or similar. (Same goes for ropes, ladders, pitchforks etc. An ox would be owned by the village or rented from a person.)
Similarly if they were to go to a tavern (generally a rare occurrence for farmer types, maybe a little more common for labourers etc) then they would be drinking what could charitably be called "grog". No fine elven wine for these fellows. Ale and a helping from the stew pot would be the best you could hope for, and that would cost a few coppers. Now they are happy to do up a suckling pig for you, but that is where silver and gold comes in. Similar to eating at your local fast food place versus eating at somewhere like The Fat Duck (in the UK). Now unless you are going for a gritty realistic feel we tend to describe excellent food etc, because who wants to play a fantasy game and imagine they are eating cereal or ramen for the 38th time in a row - we get enough of that in real life.
Also think about location - rent in a big city is different (more expensive) than rent in a small country area. Space is more readily available/less valued in a country area. Similarly with food - fruit etc is easier to get in a small country area (read: cheaper) than in a city etc, because of travel, loss of produce to rotting/bandit theft, taxes etc etc. This all drives the prices up. Conversely good quality paper for spells is going to be significantly marked up, I would imagine. Just a few things to help you think about things differently. It is good to have an adventurer try to buy some street meat and hand over a gold only to be stammered at and told that the guy can't provide change - it is more than he sees in a month etc. Makes them feel rich. (And adventurers should - they are the 0.1%. They can tank economies if they really want).
A real world example - I was working in China and went to the local bar/night spot. I was working in a glass manufacturing company (billions of turnover a year). The people I was working with could not afford to drink at the local pub. Three or four drinks (of total bottom level beers) was their weekly wages. A bottle of spirits was most of a year. Even a nip of spirits was a couple of weeks. (Chivas Regal) As an Australian this particularly hit home for me.
But on page 159 of the PHB. it says an unskilled hireling can make 2 silver a day, and a skilled hireling can make 2 gold a day... this is a far cry from 1 gold a year (where did you see this?).
Ok a hireling is a NPC for hire, someone with skilled, they probably rake in the gold.
But I was talking commoners are piss poor and many dont even have jobs, a present who runs a general store isn't going to make more than a few coppers a day and most of that is going to go to a meal. So yeah most people who dont work as sell swords, guides (like for the forests or jungles and so on), being a guild craftsman, having magical powers or something that puts your life at risk your going to be poor.
Also in some backgrounds there is a shot explanations on life styles and cost of living for each to give you a better idea about what type of people earn what type of money and how much they spend per day on average, for instance the lowest one is 2 copper a day witch would cover one meal
If I remember correctly, ProxyJamesis citing the old 2nd and 3rd editions economy. I remember my GM in college citing those same numbers. Also those numbers didn't make any sense (as he said) because tradegoods were beyond the ability of commoners to buy. A draft horse was more than any peasant could ever hope for.
5e has a lot of inflation since those days. While I think the descriptions of Wretched/Squalid/Poor/Modest/Comfortable/Wealthy could/should be better, it's a decent way to think about economics. Remember these numbers were not made up by economists interested in good world building. They were made by writers/game designers interested in "good enough" because players really aren't looking at the buy/sell value of chickens.
Compare that to an unskilled hireling is 2sp / day. That makes sense you're hiring a "poor" person, unskilled labor. A skilled hiring is 2gp a day, which is a Comfortable lifestyle... that's a huge upgrade. There should probably be something in the middle. Depending on the type of artisan I could see arguments for Modest vs Comfortable. Like saying a Brewer, Carpenter, or Cobbler is likely Modest, while an Alchemist, Jeweler, or Calligrapher is Comfortable... but then it could vary a lot.
Personally I think modest *should* be a little cheaper. But as it stands a 100 gold reward is enough for a single person to live a "Modest" lifestyle for 3 months.
so I was looking though some adventures I plan on running later and I noticed the official adventures don't like to give out rewards and when its a money reward it is very very small even at higher levels, for instance your group is level 15 and they get hired to kill a dragon, when they get back they receive a 500 gold reward to be split between them, they means if you have 4-5 players they will each get around 100gp and here is the thing: what is a level 15 player going to do with just 100gp? its going to sit around in there bags building up weight, they can maybe buy a common magic item THAT IS IT, hell a level 1 player can barely do anything with 100gp, as such I have taken to increasing all the money rewards from 2-4 times the normal amount depending on the quest, more of a reward will make the players feel more like doing more things in your game and encourage them to seek out work in between big quests.
On that note for those who follow the lore you know that one gold peace is worth alot of money to common folk (if a average person saves up for about a year and does nothing but work they may earn 1gp) , even a few silver is alot to them but here comes problem number 2: most items in the game are brought with gold, by that logic how the hell are normal people going to survive?! Rations are a cheap way to eat but they are 5 silver each, if that is cheap food then commoners have to eat garbage on the floor because as mentioned above they maybe get 1 gold in a year and rations are half a gold and they are considered CHEAP, most common household items: 1gp each, so common folk can't even afford homes let alone food so if you want to get all lore friendly, look though most items and change the cost to be more appropriate toward the world, most items will change from a gold coin cost to a silver or copper cost so the wold makes more sense. And yes that is alot of work witch is why you should keep all the prices the same just add more gold to the world, it lets players buy more and useful items like ammo, food, lanterns, beds, maybe even a horse.
This edition is definitely lower in magical equipment and money (by default). My initial surprise was seeing thousands of copper pieces in treasure hoards. How are they meant to carry all of that? Makes it more an inventory management game than high fantasy IMO.
Now - usual Rule 0 - as the DM you can change anything (and I have).
That out of the way, I think you need to shift your perspective a little bit. The items listed are for adventurers (and maybe city folk). Adventurers are being charged the stupid/lazy tax. And they pay it because they can. A regular farmer however wouldn't be paying 2gp for a shovel. They would be making it themselves and passing it down from father to son etc. Now 2gp is probably a pretty good shovel, but probably more than a farmer really needs - and he isn't likely to break it trying to open a magically locked door or similar. (Same goes for ropes, ladders, pitchforks etc. An ox would be owned by the village or rented from a person.)
Similarly if they were to go to a tavern (generally a rare occurrence for farmer types, maybe a little more common for labourers etc) then they would be drinking what could charitably be called "grog". No fine elven wine for these fellows. Ale and a helping from the stew pot would be the best you could hope for, and that would cost a few coppers. Now they are happy to do up a suckling pig for you, but that is where silver and gold comes in. Similar to eating at your local fast food place versus eating at somewhere like The Fat Duck (in the UK). Now unless you are going for a gritty realistic feel we tend to describe excellent food etc, because who wants to play a fantasy game and imagine they are eating cereal or ramen for the 38th time in a row - we get enough of that in real life.
Also think about location - rent in a big city is different (more expensive) than rent in a small country area. Space is more readily available/less valued in a country area. Similarly with food - fruit etc is easier to get in a small country area (read: cheaper) than in a city etc, because of travel, loss of produce to rotting/bandit theft, taxes etc etc. This all drives the prices up. Conversely good quality paper for spells is going to be significantly marked up, I would imagine. Just a few things to help you think about things differently. It is good to have an adventurer try to buy some street meat and hand over a gold only to be stammered at and told that the guy can't provide change - it is more than he sees in a month etc. Makes them feel rich. (And adventurers should - they are the 0.1%. They can tank economies if they really want).
A real world example - I was working in China and went to the local bar/night spot. I was working in a glass manufacturing company (billions of turnover a year). The people I was working with could not afford to drink at the local pub. Three or four drinks (of total bottom level beers) was their weekly wages. A bottle of spirits was most of a year. Even a nip of spirits was a couple of weeks. (Chivas Regal) As an Australian this particularly hit home for me.
But Rule 0 - works for every occasion.
Ok a hireling is a NPC for hire, someone with skilled, they probably rake in the gold.
But I was talking commoners are piss poor and many dont even have jobs, a present who runs a general store isn't going to make more than a few coppers a day and most of that is going to go to a meal. So yeah most people who dont work as sell swords, guides (like for the forests or jungles and so on), being a guild craftsman, having magical powers or something that puts your life at risk your going to be poor.
Also in some backgrounds there is a shot explanations on life styles and cost of living for each to give you a better idea about what type of people earn what type of money and how much they spend per day on average, for instance the lowest one is 2 copper a day witch would cover one meal
The simple conversion that makes the most sense is 1cp = $1. It isn't accurate, but any accurate conversions only work in a specific context.
This would make your 500gp reward worth $50k, probably not worth it on its own, but looting dragon hordes is its own reward.
If I remember correctly, ProxyJames is citing the old 2nd and 3rd editions economy. I remember my GM in college citing those same numbers.
Also those numbers didn't make any sense (as he said) because tradegoods were beyond the ability of commoners to buy. A draft horse was more than any peasant could ever hope for.
5e has a lot of inflation since those days.
While I think the descriptions of Wretched/Squalid/Poor/Modest/Comfortable/Wealthy could/should be better, it's a decent way to think about economics. Remember these numbers were not made up by economists interested in good world building. They were made by writers/game designers interested in "good enough" because players really aren't looking at the buy/sell value of chickens.
1sp Squalid . (vagabonds, exiles, urchins) (36.5gp/year)
2sp Poor (unskilled labor, peddlers, thieves, etc...) (73gp/year)
1gp Modest (skilled labor, artisans, soldiers, guards) (365gp/year)
2gp Comfortable (merchants, skilled tradespeople, officers) (730gp/year)
Compare that to an unskilled hireling is 2sp / day. That makes sense you're hiring a "poor" person, unskilled labor. A skilled hiring is 2gp a day, which is a Comfortable lifestyle... that's a huge upgrade. There should probably be something in the middle. Depending on the type of artisan I could see arguments for Modest vs Comfortable. Like saying a Brewer, Carpenter, or Cobbler is likely Modest, while an Alchemist, Jeweler, or Calligrapher is Comfortable... but then it could vary a lot.
Personally I think modest *should* be a little cheaper.
But as it stands a 100 gold reward is enough for a single person to live a "Modest" lifestyle for 3 months.