Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I have at times contemplated just how much money would or should be needed to go out risking your life fighting dragon lich gods and perticular nasty wolves.
So I did the math.
To life a middle class life ( which is what most skilled professionals get) it costs 2 gp a day, so that means 728 gp a year. That's to live a safe middle class life. If your annual adventure is not bring in at least this much you are losing out. Now the question is how much is risk worth. What sort of life style do you want (a wealthy life style costs 3650 a year) So fellow players knowing this how much do you need to be tempted?
Adventurers do it for the experience.
Jokes aside, most adventurers really aren't out to get rich and 5E especially doesn't throw money at you because of the lack of magic item economy that previous editions had.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Clearly you do it to build character.
...
Sorry, I'll see myself out.
D&D is not an economy simulator. The closest real world analog would be called a soldier of fortune, and generally speaking they either come from poor backgrounds (i.e. they aren't 'skilled professionals', they're people with no high value skills other than violence) or are pursuing that career for reasons other than money.
Historically, people would risk their lives for far less than "middle class" living. For example, the British Redcoat (enlisted) was paid a shilling a day (in theory, they rarely actually did receive the full amount, and I'm confident that it was rather still to get it on time). Finding how much that's worth today is variable to say the least, but judging by the BoE inflation calculator, that's £3-£4. Per day. They weren't getting rich.
They did it because the alternative was death a lot of the time - either because they'd been convicted of a capital crime, or because they were so poor that they would starve. It's not hard to provide an alternative to that.
They lived in a different world back then. Death was a constant companion, which changes your outlook. To do what a typical D&D party does? Generally speaking, there is no amount of gold you could offer me. Either I feel it's necessary for other reasons or I say that a billion pounds isn't worth dying for. Can't spend it when you're dead.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I mainly just use context to figure it out. My party has gone on adventures where they didn't get any material reward and just had the experience/story gain. I've also had it where they defeat a boss and find a ton of loot that had been hoarded away by it. I just do what makes sense for the location and the foe.
As a result, my games tend to be very spiky in terms of loot drops.
Even so, my PCs eventually had more gold than they knew what to do with so they literally just stopped picking it up. I still kept dropping it when appropriate but they pretty much only took interesting gemstones or art objects after a certain point.
Trying to put a price tag on being an adventurer misses the point that very few players write backstories with just earning a living as their prime motivator. Most characters are looking for things beyond just being comfortable and like the old joke goes happy people don’t wake up one morning and decide to go fight a dragon. Using your 728 GP a year figure and comparing that to the 5.5 DMG most adventurers have earned that by level 2 or 3 so what, the campaign just ends there?
Going from level 1 to level 10 in a matter of a few weeks, generally means you'd be set for life afterwards. When you're walking around with 50,000 gold and your life expectancy is another 30 years, you could just stop there. Above 10+ is even more lucrative, and the magic items you don't use can be worth 4000 alone.