So I am toying with that idea for some years now, of a necromancer that uses his/her knowledge of anatomy to treat diseases like a modern medic (after all wizards are the closest thing to a scientist in a D&D/Fantasy setting), with concepts like aseptic conditions, immunization, infections and so on.
One of the ideas that I had is of a high level spell that would allow for the transplant of organs and body parts and I envisioned that different races would receive different bonuses/penalties/modifications of their abilities based on the "donor" of the organ. Like a human would receive different bonus/penalties if he receives the heart of Dwarf or and Elf;
The main problem for me (and thus I am here seeking feedback) is what bonus/penalty/modification each organ/body part would confer to the recipient based on the donor of the organ/body part.
The title says all. I need a solid build for a driud in a mythic campaign but I dont know much about divine spellcaster builds and druids are divine spellcaster.
The character will be played by my fiancee and she also dont know much about druids(it will be her first). She wanna try one.
Bp is 30 for the first level and only classic races allowed
For the record, true multi-classes aren't particularly worthwhile except in the most extreme of circumstances. A lot of published APs usually have an 80-20 level difference for NPCs that multiclass (i.e. PC and NPC levels), so those are more like level dips than true multi-classes (such as an Invulnerable Rager Barbarian 10/Witchguard Ranger 10).
The problem is that you're taking two classes whose possibility for effective multi-classing does not mesh well at all. In my above example, you have a full BAB martial who can self-buff himself (and/or others) with spells like Haste, provide powerful bonuses to ally spellcasters (and himself), Raging, Rage Powers (Pounce becomes a capstone), and so on.
If we combined Magus and Wizard (Necromancer), you'll have too many different class features and two different spell lists that have crap caster level in comparison to what you're expected to fight (seriously, Mystic Theurges would have better spells and caster levels than you, and they're designed to be "the most effective dual spellcaster"). Spellcasters (even Magi), mechanically speaking, do not benefit from excessive multiclassing. And in this case, Wizard dipping Magus (or vice-versa) is equally pointless, since Magus can get access to specific Wizard spells via Arcanas.
I understand that. Ohh how I understand that...
One of the things I hate about the current muti-class system (introduced by D&D 3rd edition) is that making multi-class of non-spellcaster classes (or classes that are not primary spellcasters) work like a charm, but the moment you use a pure spellcaster class of any type you suffer, like you have commited a heinous crime. The old AD&D had a system a lot more just and that acoplished the goal of multiclassing better. Enough with the rant.
In my case I normally dont go for mechanic as a reason to make a character. Like I said the Magus class is just to add a spice of combative option to the character. When I make a character I dont think about the "group" or if it will be relevant or not. I think about the story and if the concept is cool and then I go to search for classes options.
I like the Kensai archetype for Magus, but the loss of armor proficiency (and the fact our GM is one that hardly gives magic items in the game) make it a no-go for me on the matter of defensive capacities. Of course there is Mage Armor, but it only gives a +4 armor modifier and the Canny Defense is limited by the level of the Magus. That means that at best (5th level Magus) I would have AC 20 if I have the Dodge Feat and that is still low AC for a game in the 10th level range. Armor (of any type) could add much more AC more easily and without the need of me losing a action to cast mage armor.
Like I said before I just need ideas to change/replace magus class abilities to give the feel I want.
Being a samurai isn't about being a dude with a katana. It's about being a member of high society in service of a lord, clan, or country. There's a huge amount of depth about samurai culture. By focusing only on the weapon, you miss a huge opportunity in making the character more deep than just being a necromancer with a katana.
Is there any particular reason why you want to multiclass? Magi are typically not good to multiclass.
The phantom blade spiritualist might be worth looking at. They get many magus abilities and have a spell list that better fits a necromancer.
I know that quite well since I play L5R a lot, but that option, to be part of a order/swear an oath to a daimio is not something that will be used in the campaign since the GM will be only using Ghelspald as the main setting.
The idea for multiclassing is more because of background, to show that the character have travelled a lot around the world and from such travels she meet and made friendship to several unique individuals. One of these a Asaathi Samurai.
The Asaathi didnt train her to become a samurai. That would be a matter totally different. He only helped her so that Zandra could defend herself better in the future. From these "training" sessions she came with the principles that would lead her in the magus path.
Now I just need a good way to make that "apprenticeship" to show in the class.
The Kensai archetype is meant to be very Asian inspired character. It also nets you one free exotic weapon prof which you could use to use the Katana.
Another option that would be more medically inclined is to go with the phantom-blade spiritualist, as they get cure spells and a ghost-blade. They can't arcane mark-spell combat, but they can do it with virtue.
Yeah but the loss of use of armor and the begining of cool abilities only really coming after 7th level just scared me from it since I dont intent to level that class past 5th level.
I apreciate the sugestion but I was thinking more on the customization of the Magus class abilities to fit a more Samurai theme playstyle.
What do you consider to be "Samurai theme" playstyle. I don't think anyone's going to be able to help you without specifics of what that phrase means to you.
For what it's worth, necromancy specific Magus is a little hard to do just based on their spell list. You might have more success doing something like Occultist (necromancy implement obviously) on top of the Samurai base class. Alternately, the Phantom Blade spiritualist might be better to keep Magus like abilities with slightly more thematic spells. You could pick up heavy armor proficiency and have a phantom katana.
I consider it the use of Katana/Wakizashi and something related to it.
But what I want is something related to the Magus class and not some option outside the class like geting a feat to be able to use a Katana.
So you want a samurai... necromancer... magus... That's also a doctor? I'm gonna tell you straight up, you're basically mixing too many character concepts for Pathfinder to handle.
There is no real "class" options for magus to make them more "samurai" except maybe myrmidarch to symbolize their pursuit of martial prowess over the 50/50 martial/magic focus of a normal magus.
Actually I just a samurai "flavor" in the magus class. Something thematic that makes that magus class a bit diferent.
That dont mean anything that makes the class unbalanced. I am up for options that replace one or two magus class abilities.
Quite honestly Samurai is mostly a flavor. The basic idea of a Samurai is simply to serve and be honorable.
You could add the Katana to her proficiency but really at the end of the day, a Samurai is simply about serving a lord and make her lawful.
Even Samurai in pathfinder, don't have any special fighting styles, they just can challenge some opponents in a different way but beside that, uses the same stuffs as other martial classes.
Guess you could pick up pick up the feat quick draw but that's pretty much it.
Asaathi samurai have a racial samurai archetype with the following bonus feats:
-Alertness, Blind-fight and Eagle eyes as bonus feats...so if you really want to imitate the Asathi guy, you could pick up these three feats but not sure that you want to do that.
But those are not "class" options and more generic "character" options.
I apreciate the sugestion but I was thinking more on the customization of the Magus class abilities to fit a more Samurai theme playstyle.
So I have made a multiclass character for a Scarred Lands game. The GM said the characters should be 10th level and I decided to make a necromancer/magus character.
The idea behind the character is quite unique (at least until I found out about the variant Life for necromancers but even so its not the same).
A necromancer that is a medic, using her knowledge of anatomy (necromancers being the closest to a medic on a classical fantasy setting in regards of knowledge of the body and the function of organs) to cure diseases and researching methods of making people more resistant/immune to diseases.
Unfortunally I need to tell the background of the character. Its quite long so bear with me ok guys?
Spoiler:
Zandra Starcrow is an anomaly among her peers. Unlike most necromancers who focus on the study of death and immortality, Zandra focuses on the aspect of life that the necromantic knowledge touches. Illnesses, manipulation of vital force and other areas fascinate her and were one of the reasons that led her to run away from home to follow a necromancer when she was only 14 years old.
Zandra's parents have always been wandering merchants, moving from caravan to caravan to the furthest corners of Scar's world. During these travels Darran Starcrow (father of Zandra) would knew and became friend of the necromancer Azun Dabrurr that was from lands of Asherak. When Darran finally managed to gather enough gold to set up his own warehouse he settled in his hometown of Vorsus, the only city away from the violent and dangerous waters of the Sea of Blood.
Years later Darran and his wife Zaldrara would have two children, Aldury and Zandra (she is the youngest) and along with the children of Darran's first marriage, Kradus (Human, Cavalier serving in Karsia's military) and Nushala (Half-Elf, traveling Hunter, Last Known Location: Somewhere in the Dragon Lands) they made the warehouse a success and prosperity seemed to have entered the family life. That changed with Darran's disease.
During his travels Darran Starcrow ended up contracting a strange disease that affected his heart and prevented him from doing much physical effort. The healers and priests could not cure their illness, at most managing to alleviate it for variable periods of time. He lived with this disease during the last years of his travels and this was one of the main reasons for him to finally return to Vorsus and start his warehouse. During the years that followed he had relapses of this disease and each time it became stronger. When the disease arrived at a certain stage the business of the warehouse began to get bad because Darran could no longer take care of business as before and Zaldrara was not as good a dealer as her husband. It was at this time of lean cows that the event that would change Zandra's life would happen.
One morning Garran's old friend, Azun Dabrurr, appeared in the warehouse to visit him. The joy and excitement of seeing his old friend was too much for Garran, and his illness struck him devastatingly. Zandra and his mother were present when this happened and as they came to Darran, Zaldrara, desperate, quickly explained to the astonished Azun what was happening. When realizing what it was Azun went to put his friend under the effect of Spell Coma and proceeded to examine Darran. He soon realized something he had already seen during autopsies of some dead people and to confirm his suspicion he used the Spell Hemophilia in Darran. The effect was immediate and Darran began to breathe in a more normal way. Azun immediately ordered Darran to be taken to his bed and left the warehouse, leaving orders for him to be left resting. Hours later, late into the night, Azun returned with a strange bottle. In this bottle was a yellow liquid with a flickering color. Azun ordered the children to leave the room and then together with Zaldrara he proceeded to open the chest of his friend and using autopsy tools typical of a necromancer, proceeded to inject the strange liquid in the heart of Darran. The effect of the alchemical product was almost immediate, and shortly afterwards Darran stood again, healthy as if he had never had the disease.
Unbeknownst to Azun and Zaldrara, Zandra and her Brother Aldury saw the whole scene hidden in the attic of the house, using a hole in the floor that made it possible to see the room below. The whole procedure left Aldury disgusted but Zandra was fascinated by what she had seen. The following morning, during breakfast at which Azun was present as a guest, she began to fill the necromancer with all sorts of questions about what had happened in the room. Both Darran and Zaldrara were astonished that the girl had seen that and even Azun himself was concerned that the girl had witnessed such practices as a living section, but at the same time he was amazed at Zandra's intelligence as she was being able to guessing tiny parts of the procedure just by observation.
In the days that followed Azun, after Zandra's almost daily insistence, explained in part what he had done in Darran's heart, that what he did was in practice the same thing he did with certain corpses that had heart arteries obstructed and that the alchemical product he used in her father served to remove this obstruction. When Zandra asked how he knew that was the explanation for her father's illness, he replied that he did not know, but that he actually remembered what he had learned in the old continent of Asherak about peoples causa mortis and how to identify them in a autopsy. He tested his theory and was successful and therefore her father was alive and probably will remain alive for many years because the alchemical product he used leaves the arteries clean and almost "varnished" and therefore the dirt that clogged the arteries of his heart would never accumulate again.
These conversations left Zandra wanting to learn more about bodies, illnesses, and the like, and near the end of Azun's stay in the city she asked her father to let her be Azun's apprentice. Darran was surprised at his younger daughter's request, but Zaldrara, a fervent Madriel devotee, was vehemently opposed when she knew of it and soon Darran and his wife were arguing. After much discussion, Darran told Zandra that he would not allow her to go with Azun. Later Azun himself would seek out Darran to talk about Zandra and the girl's possible talent for the mystical arts, but Darran told Azun that he would not allow it because of his wife and also because of the repercussions that having a necromancer on the family would cause in his business. Karsia still stood guard against a possible onslaught from the servants of the Ghoul King and having Zandra as a necromancer would not be good for business. Azun understood the situation and without any hard feelings he said goodbye to his friend because he had to continue his own projects.
Azun would leave two days later, but without knowing it would bring with him a relentless chaser ... the young Zandra.
After knowing that she could not be Azun's apprentice, Zandra did not settle and, like every good teenager, she ran away from home one day after learning that Azun had left the city. With the help of her older sister Nushala, who did not share her stepmother's opinion, Zandra was able to find out where Azun was going and with that and the little money (30 gp) she managed to snatch out of the warehouse cashier's she began her chasing of Azun. It would take two weeks, but she would finally be able to reach him in the coastal town of Safral in the kingdom of Padrinola. When Azun discovered that Zandra had run away from home his first reaction was to send the girl back to Vorsus, but after much insistence he finally granted Zandra a chance, but the final word would be of Zandra's father. In the meantime he would begin to teach the girl the basis of magic.
Azun sent a letter to Darran, explaining what had happened. By this time more than a month had already passed since Zandra had run away from home. Furious with his eldest daughter and at the same time relieved, Darran, after much arguing with Zaldrara and Nushala, finally sent a letter back to Azun allowing Zandra to be his apprentice. Zaldrara was furious but in the end she ended up admitting that her daughter, like her, was uncompromising in her opinions and she would never give up on her goals if they tried to force her into it. When Darran's answer arrived at Azun, Zandra had already mastered the first of the cantrips (Light), demonstrating without a shadow of doubt his talent for the mystic arts.
In the years that followed Zandra learned a lot from Azun and it was on one of his master's visits to his homeland of Asherak that Zandra would eventually get to know Altanthropolis's young healing academy run by the city's kallorti caste. After a serious discussion with Azun because of Zandra's interest in the healing techniques and body knowledge that the Koralli have and in the fact that the Koralli only teach members of their caste, Zandra managed to convince his master to use his contacts with the members of the Society of Sand to obtain special permission for her to be admitted to the academy.
After weeks of negotiation and collection old favors, Azun was able to get permission from the Kalalli to get Zandra to learn at the Altanthropolis healing academy. As she said goodbye to Azun that year she would not have imagined it would be the last time she would see her master. 3 years later she was formed as Healer and her knowledge about the body and its diseases even greater. She then went on to travel the world to know more and more about diseases and their ways of healing them and never looked back. It's been five years since then.
Recently Zandra learned more about the pestilence titan and the continent where he was been defeated. She gathered her savings and built a "boat" to take her to the continent of Ghelspad. It's been three months since Zandra arrived and she's following directions here and there to try and find the place where the titan fell.
The idea is that in her travels, Zandra would have meet several unique individuals and one of then was a Asaathi Samurai (reptilian race with a samurai like culture) and that it was from the lessons in self defenses from this asaathi that she developed into a Magus.
What I need the help from you guys is a way to make the Magus class more "Samurai" themed (Katana wield and etc).
I know there is the "Kensai" archetype for Magus but it is more focused on Iaijutsu and the best abilities are from 7th level and up and I am taking magus more to add some "spice" on the character (no more than 5 levels in it I hope).
I googled after reading your post (I didn't know that feat) and I discovered there are other feats with Perfect Style as prerequisite (for example Unfolding Wind Strike that gift you abilities consuming ki point. So I think those are the "powers".
That dont make much sense since those feats need BAB +9 or more to be taken while Perfect Style need only BAB +5. Its like spending a feat to gain a ki pool and not having anything to use those points on.
Also that feat can be taken by non-monks and non-monks dont have ki powers to begin off.
I dont know what was the intention with this feat, but the way it was writen it gives the impression that the character get a power or group of powers that he can activate using the ki pool he receives from the feat.
I have recently adquired the Adventurer's Guide and found the Perfect Style feat confusing.
There it say you get Energy Resistance 5 (based on each style) and a ki pool to activate powers of the style you choose if you dont have a ki pool to begin. The feat can be taken by any class that meet the pre-requisites.
My questions then are those:
What are those powers?
Are they the same described in the prestige class related to the houses of perfection?
How many ki powers the character gets with this feat?
Thanks for the info guys, but I have asked for the opinion based on a 3.5 weapon called Iron-shod Quarterstaff, that is not entirely made of metal and does 1d8 of damage.
My goal is to present the idea for my GM so that I could buy one for my necromancer.
I wish a metal quarterstaff to make use of combos involving electric condutivity (hope I wrote it right)
Assuming you do the same across the board with everything I think it'll work fine.
My only concern is that by simple transforming the prices in sp to cp at the rate of 1:5 I would create some bizarre prices, either too cheap or too expensive for items that before you had to pay with silver to acquire.
Thats why I have come here to ask for opinions.
My easy peasy solution. change all standard gold prices to silver prices, and change the ratio of silver to copper from 1:10 to 1:100. gold takes the place of platinum at 10x silver's new value, and you can either dispense with platinum altogether, or make it 10x gold's new value.
That would make a simple poor meal in a inn (1sp original price) impossible expensive.
Assuming you do the same across the board with everything I think it'll work fine.
My only concern is that by simple transforming the prices in sp to cp at the rate of 1:5 I would create some bizarre prices, either too cheap or too expensive for items that before you had to pay with silver to acquire.
1st - I have no idea on how to stipulate values to base materials like the ones presented in the table 2-11 Trade Goods.
2nd - I have been arbitrary towards the prices of transportation because it deal with profit margin of the owner of the vehicle in question (and because I was a lot lazy on that part)
3rd - I keept the info on armors and weapons (AC bonus, and etc) as a way to help you guys evaluate the prices for each of then if compared between themself.
Feel free to analyse and suggest changes to any of the prices.
Fluctuation of gold value only started after that event, so it have less than 50 years of practice nowdays.
This right here is the main thing I was taking exception with as it wasn't true, and implies that historically it has kept the same value.
Ok got it and sorry if my statement implied that. English is not my native language.
Abraham spalding wrote:
Quote:
In fact the price of gold in comparison to other measures of wealth (bonds, and the like) during the past 200 years would have been a very poor investment.
Mostly I just want to point out that the "gold bugs" so to speak are giving gold much more worth than it honestly deserves/historically has had.
As to the thread I posted and the peon bit -- I apologize, that wasn't directed at you, just a general information bit to help with the thread in overall with food for thought.
You are talking about return in investments. Ok, but that is not my issue here. Stocks and everything related to it as we know it, is something that dont appear until the 17th century. But again that is not the issue with this thread.
I am talking about value of gold thru the middle ages, which is the core of the pathfinder campaing and any other D&D like games.
My intent is to emulate the fact that normally peasants and most merchants at the time dindt carried gold coins in their pockets or even made transactions using real gold.
Gold was used as a reference most of the time and the only onles to really deal with gold were high profile merchants, nobles and kings.
Um... no value is always a measure of one good against another. Since all values are relative to what they are measured against all values are in flux. It's absolutely false to claim the value of gold has not fluctuated, since the amount it took to buy any given good has changed with time both before and after the USA left the gold standard.
The only way you can say the price of gold has never changed is if you say the price of gold is the only constant value in the world.
Which quite frankly is... nuts to say the least (and also wrong).
I never said it never fluctuated. In fact I never mentioned that idea in my post. From where you get that impression?
What I said, and you link confirmed, is that the value of gold stayed stable for large periods of time (almost 100 years in the case of your table).
The trust people had in the value of gold and its uses as a universal medium for business and measure of wealth came from that fact that gold was always valued the same (more or less).
Gold and Silver have historically maintained a ratio of about 1:16
So 1 to 10 is actually not that unrealistic.
Also the Romans and many other ancient societies did use gold or silver coins in their currency. Its really not as rare as you might think. It is actually rarer in todays society, where the banks have concentrated all of it into vaults.
I know quite a bit about economics...and I won't bore you with the details about how artificially our current systems are constructed but to put it in historical perspective, or game perspective. Every time you see $1000 picture a gold coin, and every time you see $63 picture that as a silver ounce. Gold and silver are not that rare...just hoarded.
I never said they dindt use then, just that gold coins were not that commom in the hands of people that were not high profile merchants or noblemen.
Also my idea is to make gold into a more high value and less abundant on the streets.
Rather than change everything you could make it so that gold coins are not really gold, just like nickles are not really nickel. I personally say that both gp and sp are half copper and they are small, like a dime but thinner. It still doesn't make it close to real world metal values but it makes me feel better with minimal work.
The problem is that dipped coins only appeared around 18th to 19th century and even so in smaller quantities. We are talking about an 13th to 15th century that is the classical medieval world
I was thinking more alloyed than dipped. Roman coins had increasingly less and less gold/silver content as the empire progressed. Or course that also may have contributed to their collapse so maybe not the best example.
The Roman Empire was becoming increasingly dependent on slavery, which is much more evil.
Actually their fall was due to multiple issues, and slavery was not one of then.
However that is a talk for another thread
Honestly Golarion is looking at being technologically right in middle/end of the 15th century at the earliest. We have firearms making their robust appearance (as opposed to the simple firepots and what not) and the printing press is just starting to get going. In addition we have what very much appears to be the Age of Discovery going full tilt.
I think at most we could say that Golarion is very much exiting the Medieval period as people want to know it.
And gold is vastly overrated as a form of currency. It's value is as subject of fluctuation as any other good.
That is curious because all that is writen in the books suggest that firearms are still rare. As a whole the majority of the nations dont have access to firearms. Its so that way that the only ship in golarion that uses canons is of the pirate king in the Skull&Shackles adventure path and even so he only have it because of a especial deal with a armsdealer from Alkenstar. As for the printing press I wish to know from where you got that.
The value of gold was, and still is, a medium to measure wealth. Its so that all the countries in the world (our world) used the Gold Standard until around 1976. Fluctuation of gold value only started after that event, so it have less than 50 years of practice nowdays.
Ironically, a hollywood movie, Die Hard 3, played with that fact, since by the year of release of the movie, several countries still had their "national gold reserves" guarded in american banks.
Even today, long after it no longer was used for that purpose, gold is still a commodity stockpiled by governments as a last measure of control over their economies. The principle behind that is the old adage "Gold is Gold".
As for the "dirt eating peon with nothing" I agree, however that was not my point when I proposed the change in the system. My purpose was to give real value to precious metal that in the game were given the same treatment as less noble metals.
Rather than change everything you could make it so that gold coins are not really gold, just like nickles are not really nickel. I personally say that both gp and sp are half copper and they are small, like a dime but thinner. It still doesn't make it close to real world metal values but it makes me feel better with minimal work.
The problem is that dipped coins only appeared around 18th to 19th century and even so in smaller quantities. We are talking about an 13th to 15th century that is the classical medieval world
I was thinking more alloyed than dipped. Roman coins had increasingly less and less gold/silver content as the empire progressed. Or course that also may have contributed to their collapse so maybe not the best example.
The Roman Empire was becoming increasingly dependent on slavery, which is much more evil.
Actually their fall was due to multiple issues, and slavery was not one of then.
I like this. The 100:1 ratio makes gold a LOT cooler when you find it, especially if you don't change the treasure generators...
I don't do anything like this in my game, but have been thinking about it.
Two thumbs up for this idea, very cool.
That would not be totally apropriate since the generators gives lots of gp and all the reference values are in gp because of the original 10:1 ratio.
If gold was that commom it would have the same value as copper or none at all.
Bardarok wrote:
If you want a more realistic economy you are going to either play E6 or remove the buying/crafting of magic items that takes a hoard of gp. Wealth is used as a balancing mechanic in Pathfinder so it is necessarily non-linear wealth by level which means that at high levels it get's a bit ridiculous. Of course that is part of the fun Gygax wanted piles and piles of gold in his original game but I know it's not for everyone.
Actually I understand the values for magic items as the difficulty of find the materials necessary to craft one. They are not cheap or easy to find mind you.
I remember the old Game Master Guide for AD&D 2nd Edition, in the section were it describes the crafting of magic items, that some materials (the most important) were not mundane and thus finding then could be an adventure on itself. I clear remember an example of unusual materials being a "Tear from a virgin in the funeral of a great hero". This sort of thing can be very difficult to acquire.
If you take into account that magic items (outside of potions and scrolls) are not suposed to be easy to find, that they are sometimes the stuff of legendary heros or great kings, then the prices of then become acceptable.
Abraham spalding wrote:
CraziFuzzy wrote:
There is a 'cost of living' section in the Gamermastering section of the rules. An 2 baths a week is WAY overestimating the cleanliness of the middle ages.
honestly, we just handwave a lot of the 'economic' issues in the game - because game.
The most 'accurate' way to deal with this is to just not USE gp much in the game. Changing the math involved will just shift the issue. Don't give a bunch of gp as loot, give out gems, or other 'valuables'. But now you're bringing haggling up higher in the amount of gametime - so only look into this if your players WANT to be haggling every time they buy something.
Actually the designers expect us to use the system. The fact that most people dont use it is a shame.
Money, gems, jewery and etc were means by rewarding the players and thus allow then to buy better equipments or other things.
There's an entire list of good and services to be used that range from simple inn stay to even fees to use carriages around a city.
Its not haggling. Its a way to make the system makes sense and at the same time make the players think more before expending their hard worked money.
I am working on a list of all the items of the Ultimate Equipment with the prices adjusted to that idea of mine.
So far I have calculated that a person, living on a commom room in a inn for 1 month, having 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and taking 2 baths per week (remember... middle age) would expend around 19 sp. That dont take into account drinks, entertainment or anything else besides inn stay, baths and food.
Rather than change everything you could make it so that gold coins are not really gold, just like nickles are not really nickel. I personally say that both gp and sp are half copper and they are small, like a dime but thinner. It still doesn't make it close to real world metal values but it makes me feel better with minimal work.
The problem is that dipped coins only appeared around 18th to 19th century and even so in smaller quantities. We are talking about an 13th to 15th century that is the classical medieval world
I have come up with an idea to give gold and silver a more apropriate value inside the game.
I have never liked how all versions of D&D thru the ages have portraited the economy of a medieval world. There's too much gold and silver around, peasants have easy access to gold/silver and gold and silver coins overflow the game world.
Historically gold was always the currency of high profile merchants and nobles/kings and most of the time people would not have gold in the pockets. Copper and silver coins where more commom, with copper being more mainstream.
Just think about it, gold is a precious metal and it is so because its rare to find. Silver to a lesser degree is the same, but at the same time is much more abundant. However in the game characters by lower mid-levels (4th-6th) are suposed to have equipments/money in the dozens of thousands of gold coins. Its like gold is easy to find and thus have little to no value at all.
My idea is to increase the ratio of conversion from the current 10:1 to 100:1.
That way a silver coin would be worth 100 copper coin and gold coins would be worth what they should.
Of course that also means that the current prices for items in the game should be reworked to reflect that idea. Right now I have that simple formula for convertion:
Prices in cp = stay the same
Prices in sp = multiply by 5 and transform into cp
Ex. 2 sp = 10 cp
Prices in gp = transform into sp.
If for some reason the final price surpases 100, you just divide the value by 100 and then convert it to the higher currency.
Ex. 750 gp = 7 gp and 50 sp
Of course this is only a quick and dirt solution and a revision of some of the items price is in order but that would in my opinion be a matter of taking a look at some and adjust it.
