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Author Topic: Old school questions  (Read 7233 times)

mAcular Chaotic

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Old school questions
« Reply #105 on: August 30, 2020, 04:20:58 AM »
I think I will do that. It just feels weird to level up from getting like, 30 gold pieces. And it doesn't buy much either, equipment wise, in comparison.
Battle doesn't need a purpose; the battle is its own purpose. You don't ask why a plague spreads or a field burns. Don't ask why I fight.

S'mon

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« Reply #106 on: August 30, 2020, 06:29:22 AM »
I think it's in the 1e DMG that Gygax says the PHB prices are Alaskan Gold Rush economics, with $5 eggs. A lot of the PHB gold piece prices are quite close to historical silver piece (eg shilling) prices, so that's one way to go. Gygax's stated preference is to assume a highly inflated economy right off. The problem with this is that (a) it only works for a Castle Greyhawk type setup and (b) his mundane NPC wages are mostly set off an historical silver based economy, though some of the expert NPCs are on the inflated gold based economy.

Over the years since 3e WoTC has kludged it by lowering the value of a gp back to 10 silvers while also reducing low level treasure hoards & increasing NPC wages, but the gap is a bit too big to be crossed IME - eg a normal sword should be more like 15 silver than 15 gold. Pathfinder 2e bit the bullet and went over to silver-based and gold worth x10.

My preference is to stick with the kludge, remember the PHB prices are an inflated near-maximum, goods may often be bought for a lot less (especially by NPCs!), and increase NPC wages somewhat. Basically the WoTC approach.

I use 1 gp = 10 sp, cheap food for a day 1 sp, poor daily wage 2 sp, good daily wage 4 sp. An sp is worth about $10 and a gp about $100. Players pay either the PHB inflated prices, or can bargain for lower prices - NPCs are probably paying 1/3 to 1/2 PHB prices on most goods.

Adapted from 5e DMG, but I use this in my 1e/OSRIC game too:
Social status Income & Expenditure
Lower Class
Subsistence      1sp/day, 3gp/month Maid, Scullion, Slave
Poor                  2sp/day, 6gp/month Labourer, Cook, Infantry Soldier, Barmaid
Unassuming     3sp/day, 9gp/month Yeoman farmer, Corporal, Longbowman, Cavalry, Sailor
Decent             5sp/day  15gp/month Sergeant, Heavy cavalry,Tailor
Middle Class
Modest             1gp/day, 30gp/month Adventurer, Lieutenant, Innkeep, Reeve
Comfortable     2gp/day  60gp/month Armourer, Master Smith, wealthy Innkeep, Captain
Upper Class
Wealthy            4gp/day 120gp/month wealthy Merchant, Colonel, Lord/Lady
Aristocratic      10gp/day 300gp/month High Priest, Baron, General
Noble               20gp/day 600gp/month Duke
Royal               40gp/day 1200gp/month King
Imperial           80gp/day 2400gp/month Emperor

For XP, in my 1e/OSRIC game I keep 1 gp = 1 XP, but I reduce gem & jewelry values a lot from the 1e DMG listings, to about 1/10, and I'll reduce gp in treasure if it looks excessive. I'll also reduce some magic item sale values - and thus XP - to about 1/10 the 1e DMG list values. In compensation I give increased monster XP, and lots of XP for non-combat achievements, but I keep big piles of gold as an adventuring lure.

Pat
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Old school questions
« Reply #107 on: August 30, 2020, 05:41:04 PM »
If you want to be more "realistic",  switching all uses of gp with sp, and making coins 50 instead of 10 to the pound is closer to historical norms. That means gold is worth something, and you can carry a small fortune in a purse.

But realistically, it really doesn't matter, because economies will adjust to any valuation of the unit of exchange. The main difference is transportation and ostentatious display -- using the AD&D rules, a great kobold chieftain with 500 gp worth of cp has 5 tons of copper (100,000 coins = 10,000 pounds), and a dragon's hoard with 100,000 gp would weigh the same (5 tons). To clear either out, you'd need a small army of teamsters and a pack train -- but conversely Scrooge McDogface could dive into a pool of coins, and the dragon could sleep on a literal bed of gleaming gold.

With the silver standard, the kobold chief's treasure is now worth 500 sp, which becomes a mere 100 pounds of copper coins. The dragon's hoard is worth 100,000 sp, which is converted to 5,000 gp, which weighs a mere 100 pounds. In other words, if you retain the same metal, coins become 1,000 more valuable per unit of weight.

The real question is whether you want vast cinematic hoards, or not.

Bren

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Old school questions
« Reply #108 on: August 31, 2020, 12:30:28 AM »
Quote from: Pat;1146983
The real question is whether you want vast cinematic hoards, or not.
Who wouldn't want that? :D
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estar

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« Reply #109 on: August 31, 2020, 01:10:18 AM »
The gold, silver, and copper each 1/10 of a pound are the size of a thick half dollar. While a historical silver penny is the size of a dime and why there are 250 coins to a pound. Since AD&D and D&D has the same base wage for laborer, 1 sp per day, this mean that D&D coins are worth about 16 to 20 time less then historical coins. More metal is needed in a silver piece to make it worth a day's labor.

Hoards are larger because the coins are not as valuable.

S'mon

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« Reply #110 on: August 31, 2020, 02:19:17 AM »
Quote from: Bren;1147029
Who wouldn't want that? :D

I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in The Hobbit film. OTOH I do like my huge ancient red dragons to have a decent pile of gold in their lair. 5e handles this by increasing the size of Epic Level 17-20 monster hoards to about 500,000gp, which ought hopefully to impress any player!

Ghostmaker

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« Reply #111 on: August 31, 2020, 07:04:53 AM »
Quote from: S'mon;1147038
I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in The Hobbit film. OTOH I do like my huge ancient red dragons to have a decent pile of gold in their lair. 5e handles this by increasing the size of Epic Level 17-20 monster hoards to about 500,000gp, which ought hopefully to impress any player!

Of course, then you have to get the gold out of the lair, which presents its own fun problems :)

Bren

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« Reply #112 on: August 31, 2020, 01:10:15 PM »
Quote from: S'mon;1147038
I know I got totally turned off by the rivers of gold in The Hobbit film.
It took until you saw the rivers of gold? I lost interest long before that. The movie seemed more like a World of Warcraft raid than like anything Tolkien wrote. The movie might even have been improved by adding Scrooge McDuck doing a swan dive into a pile of dragon gold.
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Steven Mitchell

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« Reply #113 on: August 31, 2020, 01:18:17 PM »
Quote from: Bren;1147090
It took until you saw the rivers of gold? I lost interest long before that. The movie seemed more like a World of Warcraft raid than like anything Tolkien wrote. The movie might even have been improved by adding Scrooge McDuck doing a swan dive into a pile of dragon gold.

In the movie version, I thought that Thorin was in that role.