Has anyone ever done an overhaul of the D&D Economy?

[Maelphaxerazz]

There's a lot of things D&D players choose to suspend their disbelief over. One of those things is the game's oddball pricing for various items, and strangely low value of gold. People have sliced and diced almost all the subsystems of the game, but has there ever been an attempt to overhaul the D&D economy?

[oslecamo]

Some attempts. But none really  complete or at least that does not demand heavy DM improvisation. Which is understandable when you take in account economcs are already pretty complicated before magic. And then the mainpurpose of the game is to go adventuring. Not to worry about inflation and taxes and whatnot.

[Samwise]

Yes, there have been many systems proposed over the years.
And various options introducing more "realism" and complexity.
They all ultimately fall short because economies are just too complex to try and model, particularly when you need to do all the calculations by hand.

Really, do you want to spend 20 hours preparing exchange rates for every weekly game?
Modifying prices for inflation after every time the players bring a new treasure hoard to town?
Rolling up yearly events for commodity production, tracking variations in demand, adjusting them for player actions, and coming up with a new base price table every game year?

Like many such complex systems, at a certain point you realize the more abstract the better, as you aren't ever going to be able to escape someone truly determined to game the system.
If you think you can make it work, adapt the D20M Wealth system for standard D&D item creation and magic items and call it a day.
Or, if you insist on putting yourself through it, devise a system that absolutely separates the adventuring economy, particularly in high ticket magic items, from the mundane economy, and fiddle with them independently of each other.

[linklord231]

My favorite is the Wish Economy by Frank Trollman.  It's got issues (it's fundamentally flawed in that it assumes a 15k gold piece limit on Wishing for magic items that doesn't exist), but it's a good starting point for dealing with issues in an economy that is simultaneously pre- and post-scarcity. 

[Chemus]

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The fact that out of the box, 1 dead Efreet (or even just Planar Allied/Bound in exchange for a nail paring) and 1 Simulacrum can get a caster any number of wishes for 1000XP (20HD Efreet is 10HD under Simulacrum, thus perfectly capable of granting non-genies 3 wishes. Wish for Items twice (the first time), and another Simulacrum Efreet. Then for all following Efreet, wish for the previous Efreet to cease to exist, Items, and Another Simulacrum Efreet. "At all times the simulacrum remains under your absolute command."

Command them to never perform an evil act without your express direction, and you have as many wishes as you want, no evil casting, no irresponsibility. Every day.

If you wanna have a huge army, make sure it's an Aleax targeting a (now) 24 HD Imaginary Efreet. Nothing can even try to harm the Aleaxes. You now have an army of completely obedient, non-consuming, 12 HD Efreet. Who can shapechange at will, grant non-genies 3 wishes per day, etc. Have them turn into Unbodied, for the lulz. Immune to MDJ, and almost immune to damage. If they were Troll-blooded (Or Pugilist Fighters) they'd be nearly invincible without Aleax's 'neener-neener' ability.

Truly post scarcity.

@linklord: On reading, that 15k GP limit is because the author is using the 3.0 version of wish, which has a 15k GP item limit if you don't want the DM to screw up your wishes. The 3.5 25k limit is not really more broken, just faster.

I do see that you likely mean that you don't wish for the item all at once, but in installments:
"I wish for the makings of 75000gp worth of glassteel"
[Repeat for other materials]
"I wish to Fabricate a gorgeous Suit of Spiked Medium Masterwork Glassteel Fullplate"
" Ditto Barding, and Glasteel weapons and ..."

"I wish for half the makings of [this plus 10 armor]"
"[the second half]", etc., etc.

There is almost no upper limit; like in RL you just keep building on what came before. In about 3 days, however, you have the Multiverse trying to kick your teeth in; as the article says. (This is where the Invincible Aleax Army from the spoiler comes in...)

[linklord231]

Sorry, I was unclear.  That 15k limit is an important point, because it's the dividing line between "yeah, you can have as many of those as you want, it's not really important" and "you can't buy this with love nor money, you need some kind of planar currency."  Without that line, you're right back in to the trap of the traditional D&D economy, where wealth is fundamentally tied to character power and you can't give your PCs a big pile of money and have it not affect the game much. 

I really enjoy the idea of having 3 distinct economies that the characters can participate in.  Separating what you can buy with gold from what you can buy with Astral Diamonds or Souls or whatever lets you have some PCs who are kings or merchant princes while others are street urchins or small business owners.  I like that my Barbarian can spend his share of the loot on ale and whores, and still be able to upgrade his axe for the next adventure. 

[Chemus]

Yeah, I see your point. As it's a fantasy economy, I can see Frank's system working. The levels (Turnips, Gold, Wish, etc) are useful. Making Gold not the Gold Standard would be nice for story, just as the article says. MIC's Item Levels is OK, but kinda feels shoehorned a bit to me. Being able to only get a certain level of EQ with GP is probably the right path, but I've honestly not examined it in any great depth.

[Solo]

Comrades, we must abandon this foolish and feudalistic economy for glorious post-scarcity magi-communism that the spellcasting system makes possible.

[SorO_Lost]

One of those things is the game's oddball pricing for various items, and strangely low value of gold.

That's because gold back then wasn't worth billions of dollars. For example, during the era where Jesus ran around a gold coin could only buy thirty-two dead sparrows, imagine what a single turkey would cost. Scaling up to the renaissances a florin contains 72 grams of gold (about $2,908), the "The Economy of Renaissance Florence" book a florin was worth 65~140 soldi and daily wage of an average person in Florence was 10 soldi, which comes out to about $290/day. So yes, people had an easier time amassing a small fortune. Kind of like the average nuclear family only had one working parent while all you've known is both parents working two jobs.

Also the idea it's borked comes from a very borked example. The "commoner" has Masterwork Tools he can't afford, a house he can't afford, max ranks, Skill Focus, assumes his seven 4yr children are all working members of the family, it grossly simplified expenses, and assumed selling the same exact item over and over again would always be in supply and demand. Because economics is an extremely complex subject where even the world's best and brightest in this subject still can't answer questions like what would happen if the USA declared bankruptcy. It's a subject where there is no right answer, you are merely discussing a system that you personally like.

That being said, D&D does a wonderful job handling the system. Assuming a '10' on everything, a skilled blacksmith can make 7 silver per day while his boss, a business professional, can make 20 silver per day running the guildshop. If the blacksmith eats poorly and is on a rent-to-buy option with his poor house 57% of his pay is dumped into his housing and utilities and a high tax rate of 10% can increase this to 67% leaving him with just 23 copper a day to buy new clothing and tools. Drinking a mug of ale at this point is worth 17% of his remaining pay. He is, by definition, in poverty and not living the high life. The professional on the other hand can afford more common living quarters and food which consumes 8sp/day and he's only out 50% of his pay after taxes leaving him with 100cp left to spend. And he does this like every other employer has done before him, by buying better tools for his employees without actually increasing their pay. Sort of like a masterwork printer to you only means less headaches but to your employer they only bought a new one because the bottom line of the new one serves as an increase to their revenue. Such as auto-collating and stapling means they don't have to pay your hourly wage for you to do it your self.

There are ways to break the "system", salt was extremely rare and highly needed for life and yes buying able to run down to the local magimart for a magical scroll worth a couple years of your pay would give you one to play with. Same for selling out your immortal soul for a pile of gold and hours of life as the devil immediately attempts to collect on your debt. D&D is about a fantasy game where dragons sleep on treasure piles worth more than most countries. But as the system also clearly indications, the only relevant bit is what PCs can bring into battle and that is supposed to run on a finite limit. You have the freedom to give them a castle, or leave them in the dirt, as you imagine it to be.

[phaedrusxy]

Comrades, we must abandon this foolish and feudalistic economy for glorious post-scarcity magi-communism that the spellcasting system makes possible.

[Samwise]

Without that line, you're right back in to the trap of the traditional D&D economy, where wealth is fundamentally tied to character power and you can't give your PCs a big pile of money and have it not affect the game much.

Just to note:
That is only "traditional" in 3E and forward.
In AD&D and backward, the only thing finding a billion gp would do is let you stockpile money for your training - if you used that "recommended option", or perhaps build a castle with the rather poor rules, and hire an army that could be extirpated by a few choice fireballs to go with it.

I really enjoy the idea of having 3 distinct economies that the characters can participate in.  Separating what you can buy with gold from what you can buy with Astral Diamonds or Souls or whatever lets you have some PCs who are kings or merchant princes while others are street urchins or small business owners.  I like that my Barbarian can spend his share of the loot on ale and whores, and still be able to upgrade his axe for the next adventure.

Having different "tiers" of coins in 4E was about the only idea in it that I particularly cared for.
Sadly, it was very poorly implemented.

Comrades, we must abandon this foolish and feudalistic economy for glorious post-scarcity magi-communism that the spellcasting system makes possible.

You never saw Dingo-nomics.
A guy read the trade rules from one of the Mystara gazetteers, and declared that every farmer would henceforth produce only wine (because it had the highest trade price), with 100% perfect use of every square inch of land, spontaneously transforming every single peasant into a multi-billionaire wine trader.
And then his assumptions got really peculiar.
He was baffled that everyone wasn't awed by his incredible design maths skillz.

[linklord231]

Just to note:
That is only "traditional" in 3E and forward.
In AD&D and backward, the only thing finding a billion gp would do is let you stockpile money for your training - if you used that "recommended option", or perhaps build a castle with the rather poor rules, and hire an army that could be extirpated by a few choice fireballs to go with it.

Shrug.  My only experience with 2e and prior was via Baldur's Gate, so I can't really comment.  On the other hand, didn't some of the ancient editions have XP tied to GP?


Also, today I remembered this blog column on Critical Hits called Dungeonomics.  It's mostly system-agnostic, but explores some of the potential consequences of fantasy tropes while also putting on its own quirky spin.  Every now and again they'll talk about real-life economic phenomena through an allegory of a fantasy universe, which are interesting to read. 

[Chemus]

In 2e, (and in 1e IIRC), each character (optionally) got XP for GP found as treasure, Fighters got (extra) XP for monsters killed, Mages and Clerics got XP for spells cast for a purpose, Rogues got XP for GP stolen.

Characters weren't supposed to be able to buy items at all; they had an XP value as well. That is the party got the XP if they found the item.

You were still 'expected' to have Magic weapons of +x by the time you fought dragons and demons, but crafting items was not spelled out, and custom items even less so. (I'm not as sure about the 'Spells and Powers' parts, as I never played with those rules) PC's were expected to have a hodgepodge of items that they looted from their victims, then hoarded. 3e really upped the 'magic-mart-ness' of the official rules...

[durn kids!]

[Samwise]

Shrug.  My only experience with 2e and prior was via Baldur's Gate, so I can't really comment.  On the other hand, didn't some of the ancient editions have XP tied to GP?

You did get xp for gp, but you were still limited to only gaining 1 level at a time. So at most, you gain a level then need 1 xp for your next level.
Which, as always, is rather awesome for the magic user, but less significant for the fighter and thief.

For the most part, treasure in AD&D was an ever-expanding list of junk that would ultimately be more useful than standard equipment if used as a weapon. Just empty all your bags of holding over the dragon threatening the kingdom and squish it. So what if some of it breaks? The dragon has more in its lair.

Aside

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I've had several arguments with grognerds over the amount of treasure in "the old days", with them whining about how much magical loot and such there is in D20 adventures. This is a quote from T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil

Note, however, that not all of the treasure is cash. A typical assortment of potions, scrolls, and other magical treasures are present. Furthermore, many common but finely crafted accessories—serving sets, plates and cups, tapestries, and the like— are quite valuable, though not quite as immediately negotiable. And for the exceptionally industrious, even normal armor and weapons abound to such a degree that, assuming half book value as the resale price, nearly 10,000 gp worth of such items can be taken from the Temple's inhabitants!

That's JUST the half-price mundane junk. And it is actually low!
There are 5 men-at-arms you can free and recruit on the first level of the temple, and a sixth you can pick up on the second. There is enough magic arms and armor to give all of them full magical equipment without reducing the gear of the PCs.
For the 0 level hirelings.

There is so much loot, you eventually need to find this in the dungeon:

LEOMUND'S LABILE LOCKER
GP Sale Value: 25,000 XP Value: 5,000
This copper-bound box is two feet wide and tall, and three feet long. Invisible runes are scribed upon its front; these reveal four command words. The first shrinks the box to a twelfth of normal size, with all contents likewise becoming minute. The weight of the shrunken chest, empty or filled, is 30 pounds. The second word causes the chest (if of normal size) to function as one upon which a Leomund's secret chest spell has been placed (but with no smaller replica necessary!). The third word causes the box to return to full size or normal place, as applicable. The fourth word causes growth to quadruple dimensions, with sides, top, and bottom of one foot thickness, huge copper bands, and a weight of 1,200 pounds.

That's right, a portable hole is too gauche for you! It is only 2/3rds the capacity, but you get to carry your surplus junk in a magical steamer trunk!

So yeah, loot was pretty superfluous back in the day.

[phaedrusxy]

Yeah... I remember my bard basically took all the junk magic items that our party didn't want. I had a bag of holding full... My favorite was the Eternal Salt Shaker. 

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

I never found it that problematic beyond the 1 ladder = 2 poles stuff before you start to buy magic items. Indeed, it is one of the most transparent systems. You can read over something like a ring of regeneration and laugh at the price. Then you read a belt of battle and know its worth the money. Obviously they did a poor job with it at the start of 3e (read the web articles about MiC), but it was easy to see the "traps" rather than, say sword and board or being a healbot with loads of support that got you nowhere.

Harder questions are "how strong should a 5th level spell be?" or, put more directly, "what level spell is x effect?" Should x be a swift or standard action? What CR should this creature be? etc. Magic items are way easier to consider.

[SorO_Lost]

I never found it that problematic beyond the 1 ladder = 2 poles stuff before you start to buy magic items.

Most "less mass but more expensive" things strike people as funny. But a cheap basic ladder is nothing more than a mostly straight branch with notches cut for pegs that bears weight on it's strongest edge, but a 10ft pole requires hours of a hardwood being shaved down and shaped. Which is again reflecting by the Skill system. Turning the ladder into a pole or two requires a several hours and Craft Check which inherently adds a cost of labor to the item. You're not inventing a profit, you're working for one.

[Endarire]

Having played the Temple of Elemental Evil PC RPG by Troika, I can confirm that this game has a lot of misc. loot!  The Circle of 8 mod even adds a miniature chest that casts Leomund's secret chest on command!  And it's possible to fill that chest many times over in the tmple with junk!

[Keldar]

I never found it that problematic beyond the 1 ladder = 2 poles stuff before you start to buy magic items.

Most "less mass but more expensive" things strike people as funny. But a cheap basic ladder is nothing more than a mostly straight branch with notches cut for pegs that bears weight on it's strongest edge, but a 10ft pole requires hours of a hardwood being shaved down and shaped. Which is again reflecting by the Skill system. Turning the ladder into a pole or two requires a several hours and Craft Check which inherently adds a cost of labor to the item. You're not inventing a profit, you're working for one.

Who says a ladder always has two poles anyway?

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[Maelphaxerazz]

during the era where Jesus ran around a gold coin could only buy thirty-two dead sparrows

While I appreciate the detailed answer, this part of it is not correct. Two sparrows could be purchased for an as, with 16 asses in a denarius, which was a silver coin. The gold coin (aureus) was worth twenty-five denarii, and thus could purchase 800 sparrows.