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I always have my PCs take into account the weight of coins (50 to the pound) for encumbrance. In my campaigns there are banks to deposit their wealth, however, most of the banks charge a withdrawal fee, usually 5-10%. Also, some banks don't recognize other banks deposits. My characters ended up with money all over the place, but they knew it was better than hauling it around in giant wagons. Of course, they still had to have giant wagons to haul around the weapons and armor and such they looted. It is up to you if you want to go realistic or handwave it. It isn't a flaw in the game, it just depends on how quick and easy you want to make tracking resources, which is ultimately up to the GM.
For homebrew worlds, it's always worthwhile to consider having additional levels of currency, but have their be social implications for them. Adamantine or Mithral coins might be worth 1000 gold each, but it's a bullseye for thieves and some places might not accept them.
With that in mind, I feel like a character carry more than 1000gp in his backpack should reconsider. Not only is he carrying a small life savings worth of gold around, but that 20lbs worth of gold would/should take up more space than you would think.
Not really. That's about the size of a small water bottle (roughly 1.2 liters). Gold is really dense.
My question is, is there a better way to handle fantasy currency or are we doomed to have wagons full of gold because we're all adventurers?
Depends on how realistic you want to be. Realistically, currency itself was not that common and day-to-day transactions were handled either on a barter system or on a long-term credit system. The reason gold was used was, in part, precisely because it was so dense (you could literally carry a king's ransom in a backpack), but by the same token, you'd never be able to spend a gold coin any more than you could spend a million dollar bill.
You're unlikely to need "wagons full of gold," either. The 4000 pounds a single heavy wagon could carry would be 200,000 gp. What do you need more than that in cash for?
A typical merchant or noble with 200,000 gp lying around would keep it safe in a vault or something. A typical adventurer would probably convert it to equipment (those +9 swords aren't cheap).
In my games, I list intrinsically valuable items like gems or jewelry with the price that it can be sold for. So, a "500 gp emerald" can be sold for 500 gp.
If PCs want to trade their cash for easily-transportable valuables like gmes, there's a 10% markup. So, that 500 gp emerald would cost 550 gp to buy from a jeweler.
Of course, you can also use a bag of holding or similar item to easily carry a king's ransom of gold coins.
With that in mind, I feel like a character carry more than 1000gp in his backpack should reconsider. Not only is he carrying a small life savings worth of gold around, but that 20lbs worth of gold would/should take up more space than you would think.Not really. That's about the size of a small water bottle (roughly 1.2 liters). Gold is really dense.
My question is, is there a better way to handle fantasy currency or are we doomed to have wagons full of gold because we're all adventurers?Depends on how realistic you want to be. Realistically, currency itself was not that common and day-to-day transactions were handled either on a barter system or on a long-term credit system. The reason gold was used was, in part, precisely because it was so dense (you could literally carry a king's ransom in a backpack), but by the same token, you'd never be able to spend a gold coin any more than you could spend a million dollar bill.
You're unlikely to need "wagons full of gold," either. The 4000 pounds a single heavy wagon could carry would be 200,000 gp. What do you need more than that in cash for?
A typical merchant or noble with 200,000 gp lying around would keep it safe in a vault or something. A typical adventurer would probably convert it to equipment (those +9 swords aren't cheap).
It really depends. If you look at cost of goods vs the price in gold, a gold coin translates to somewhere between $20 and $100, depending on the types of goods you looking at and if you are basing them off of the same item or equivalents. (horse vs horse or horse vs car for instance).
Well, one issue is that coins in PF are too big.
For my games I base most coins on Us coinage for familiarity.
A gold coin is the size of a US Type I Gold dollar. So about half an inch in diameter and between half and two thirds the weight of a US dime.
A silver piece is the size of a dime.
A copper is the size of a penny.
1/50 of a pound is about 9 grams which is about 0.5 ml of gold.
9 grams is almost as heavy as a half-dollar (11.340 g) but 0.5 ml is less than the volume of a nickel.
Yes, gold is very heavy. 1000 gp would fit comfortably into a shoe box.
This sounds like something like...
How many coins in a coffer?
I think converting gold to gems or other highly valuable objects is a very reasonable way to go about it.
However, I am a bit alarmed when I see people saying that they impose 10% fees to buy those items or wouldn't let them resale for full value.
If you want to simulate some realism, use the bargaining rules from Ultimate Campaign. It gives players a reason to invest in appraise, bluff, and diplomacy. This imposes limits for how much an item can be sold for (up to 150% of listed value) and how much someone is willing to sell something to you for (75% of listed value).
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"In universe" I think it makes sense that coins would come in different denominations as well as different materials. Their value isn't just in the physical metal that makes them up, but the listed amount (which would be backed by whatever government or group minted them)
For my players, I actually hand out coins (campaign coins) in copper, silver, gold and platinum along with semi-precious "gems" and prop jewelry. The coins come in different denominations (a 1gp coin, a 5gp coin, a 10gp coin, etc) to make it easier to manage large amounts of currency.
Although it isn't officially a pathfinder rule, I recall reading in one of the old D&D edition books that standard gold coins weren't actually made of solid gold, but more likely gold plated or alloyed. I also recall reading in an old magazine interview with Gary Gygax that one of the reasons he added copper coins was to give players a giant dragon horde of them such that they couldn’t possibly truck them all out of the dungeon as a bit of a joke. When they came back for another load of treasure they found that other monsters had moved the remaining loot down to the next level, resulting in a player/DM arm’s race where players would drag in donkeys and hirelings into dungeons to remove their coins before other monsters could claim it.
To wrap it up, if you are looking for additional complexity and realism, making players bank money, or using things like gems to carry larger amounts at a time would probably work out well. Or you could just give them mountains of copper and see how they fare…
What about the fact that adventurers carry around their literal life savings in a backpack. Isn't there something wrong with that?
Not if they don't have anywhere else to put it. Most itinerant workers throughout history have done the same thing.
The real breakdown is magic items.
PCs gain or spend vast fortunes because of the trade in magic items. A +10 weapon costs the same as a castle or large wooden sailing galley, things that usually represent months of labor and a nation's industry.
Having thousands in gold might break our suspension of disbelief, yet when the same PC has a handy haversack, a few magic scrolls, and a +1 magic shield, that PC already has more wealth in portable items than any common person would ever gain in a lifetime.
One way to bring back barter is to lower the cost of magic items (and only magic items) as well as lowering the WBL and rewards by the same percentage. This sadly makes low level magic items very accessible to everyone, so it would not be unusual for every household to have a few magic potions. Mundane items would be more valuable in contrast, should the difference in the cost of a horse and the cost of a cure light wounds wand becomes very similar. Rewarding adventurers would become a dozen gold pieces rather than 1000 pieces of gold.
This could easily bring back barter as commoners could offer adventurers some riding horses in payment, and it wouldn't be seen as a pittance. Keep in mind, it would take a lot of work on the GM's part.
Medieval coinage had no standard size for anything; so why should our adventuring worlds be any different? Look up some ancient coins on google or ebay - the actual gold and silver coins are physically tiny by modern standards, but had great value. China was using paper currency, and the people of one Pacific island group (whose name escapes me) used stone wheels weighing as much as 500 lbs. as currency.
With all this, I think it's reasonable for a DM to do some hand waving in the players' favor. Or against them...
PC's don't have to carry their life savings with them. You could make it easier on players by allowing them to turn in their coin to a temple of Abadar in exchange for a promisory note that could be cashed in at a temple in another city. The Knights Templar offered such services for crusaders. If the note is made out to the bearer, the PC's have to guard against theft, if it is made out to the PC's name then they will have to provide some proof of their identity. Good role playing opportunities!
The PC's find several large granite disks strung together on a rope passing through holes in their centers - is this ballast or a giant's life savings? The PC's find a box filled with moldering papers - currency? promisory notes? incriminating letters? or notes on the mating habits of pseudodragons?
There are already enough accounts to manage, I don't see the need to add money size and weight to the mix.
In my setting there are banks where gold, silver, gems, etc can be stored for a nominal fee. To deposit or withdraw, the character has to answer several very specific, earlier agreed upon questions. There is a 5% fee for withdrawal.
This sounds like something like...
How many coins in a coffer?
Dragon Magazine, Issue #80 - December of 1983.
Wow, I'm just old...
I thought of that article, too. Just couldn't remember which issue.
In my setting there are banks where gold, silver, gems, etc can be stored for a nominal fee. To deposit or withdraw, the character has to answer several very specific, earlier agreed upon questions. There is a 5% fee for withdrawal.
Serious question, do you find that players just end up finding a way to transport their wealth without putting it in a bank? Because at 5% I would try very hard to do that exact thing.
5% of 100,000 gp is lot of money to lose. That is several lifetimes worth of gold for commoners.
Personally I hand wave a lot of it because truth be told, it takes away much more than it adds. Sure you add "a bit of realism" to a world with dragons, wizards, and living gods but at the cost of serious baggage, MORE things to track (ok so the closest bank I have anything with is 3 towns over... but it only has 50 gp, but the bank WAY BACK near that first city we hit has 500 GP in it.... ), more of a headache (ok so now that is ANOTHER thing to add to encumbrance system... that is clumbersum as it already is), and honest more pain with little reward...
Going to far sometimes takes more fun away from the game than ever adds...
Its kind of like basic adventuring gear... I just assume most people are running around with a bed roll unless we were specifically in a situation precluding it (like a jail break). Because then, player's equipment list start getting really out of hand and honestly.. very messy as they start to literally list EVERYTHING (I got 1 fire starter, 1 toothpick, 1 bed roll, ect. ect. ect.)
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In my setting there are banks where gold, silver, gems, etc can be stored for a nominal fee. To deposit or withdraw, the character has to answer several very specific, earlier agreed upon questions. There is a 5% fee for withdrawal.Serious question, do you find that players just end up finding a way to transport their wealth without putting it in a bank? Because at 5% I would try very hard to do that exact thing.
5% of 100,000 gp is lot of money to lose. That is several lifetimes worth of gold for commoners.
Maybe the bank allows free transactions between members [the Gold is shifted from one account to another] via a sort of internal Checking system, and the Bank is a monopoly within the campaign setting such that anybody wealthy using a banking system is using it?
In this manner the party can make payments to anybody who'd actually have anything of great value, but the bank still makes its cut on withdrawals made by somebody somewhere down the line paying expenses [possibly including wages.]
I did this in Council of Thieves - Westcrown's Bank of Abadar, run by recently arrived priestess Avahzi Serafian, would gladly take care of the PCs' funds. Most purchases were handled by a form of personal checking, which the PCs were glad to help popularize.
She didn't even charge transactional fees - she planned to profit through investments and lucrative loans.
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Am I the only one in this thread who thinks that gold as a separate XP track is a good thing and players shouldn't be penalized for accumulating and spending it? Leveling up in most classes means a couple choices a level, sometimes pretty obvious choices too. Choosing whether to upgrade your cloak or your weapon or get some fancy wondrous item is way more interesting than leveling. The unchained rules for scaling bonuses are even better because they free up the big 6 slots for interesting choices. (I've been using limited custom crafting for a similar effect.)
The economy, weights and conversion of coinage and prices of items are terribly unrealistic, but they were only ever meant to restrict player access to items of excessive power.
Baseline the game allows players to convert their wealth into lightweight trade goods of enormous cost (an example is wish diamonds) and back again with no loss. We've always played it that as long as you have a few pounds of encumbrance or extra-dimensional space you're covered for carrying your savings because bookkeeping that gets tedious fast. Hauling out a dragons horde can be interesting though.
This whole issue all but disappears if you abandon Pathfinder's built-in use of wealth as a second XP track (whether through houserules, Unchained variants, or simply playing a different system).
And opens up to the possibilities of more abstract methods of tracking wealth. I always liked Burning Wheel's method. You had a Resources stat, so to acquire something, you rolled your Resources vs the obstacle of whatever you were getting. If you failed, you got "taxed" and your Resources was lowered, depending on what you were getting (compared to your wealth level).
If I were designing my own, I'd use a tiered system of results. The better you roll, the cheaper it is, with worse rolls offering the item at increased cost or the choice to not acquire whatever you're going for. Finding treasure would usually give cash, which would be a one time bonus to a roll. Owning things like land (which produced something, like crops or livestock) would grant permanent wealth, though that can still be reduced with purchases (things like loans eating into your yearly income).
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The setting I'm working on uses this for money:
Platinum - The size of an Ike dollar. [I love these coins and I seriously wish they caught on in the 70s.]
Gold - The size of a Kennedy half-dollar. [Wish these caught on too.]
Silver - The size of a Sacajawea or President gold dollar. [Need I say it?]
Copper - The size of a dime [Because, as adventurers hate CP so much, I've really grown to hate dimes.]
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Am I the only one in this thread who thinks that gold as a separate XP track is a good thingProbably not but you won't count me among them. Gold = Power complicates the balance of the game, it's FAR easier to create a functionally balanced game when Gear isn't Power unless it's an actual part of the Character's abilities rather than something they found or bought.
I'm very curious how you see the balance of the game being negatively affected by gold. To me gold giving access to magic items levels the playing field between classes quite a bit and also allows for challenges where you need the ability to cast certain spells, so I see it as a positive for balance. WBL is admittedly one more thing to track, but can be eyeballed pretty easy. I do have to acknowledge on the negative side that spending your gold wisely is, from what I've seen, one of the later stages of learning how to play, but any game complicated enough to be fun has a learning curve.
Leveling up in most classes means a couple choices a level, sometimes pretty obvious choices too. Choosing whether to upgrade your cloak or your weapon or get some fancy wondrous item is way more interesting than leveling.Fault of the system. Were it better designed leveling up would be far more flexible rather than following a predetermined path set by a single class.
At that point are you still playing D&D though? Wealth in a different game should follow a different system, we're in complete agreement there.
Serious question, do you find that players just end up finding a way to transport their wealth without putting it in a bank? Because at 5% I would try very hard to do that exact thing.
5% of 100,000 gp is lot of money to lose. That is several lifetimes worth of gold for commoners.
Sure, there are bags of holding and such, but those can be stolen by bandits, monsters, other players.. lol, etc. And no character in my game has anywhere near that kind of money. It's actually only come up mostly in flavor and roleplaying.
I'm very curious how you see the balance of the game being negatively affected by gold.Am I the only one in this thread who thinks that gold as a separate XP track is a good thingProbably not but you won't count me among them. Gold = Power complicates the balance of the game, it's FAR easier to create a functionally balanced game when Gear isn't Power unless it's an actual part of the Character's abilities rather than something they found or bought.It's negatively affected by different classes getting different results from gold, and its negatively affected by some classes needing to spend a lot of their gold on 'essentials' to perform well at their job in that class, while other classes have very few mandatory expenses and can instead splurge on awesome s+!% like Metamagic Rods, or have near infinite versatility with a pack full of scrolls for any situation.
To me gold giving access to magic items levels the playing field between classes quite a bit and also allows for challenges where you need the ability to cast certain spells, so I see it as a positive for balance.First, 'leveling the playing field' would only happen if the more wealth-dependent classes had a class feature that granted them greater WBL than the non-wealth-dependent classes... but they don't. As for the 'create challenges where you need the ability to cast certain spells' idea... I don't and won't do that. I create challenges without creating solutions to them, coming up with solutions is my player's job and it should not require something so specific as a given spell. It shouldn't even necessitate spellcasting whatsoever, although spellcasting may make it easier.WBL is admittedly one more thing to track, but can be eyeballed pretty easy. I do have to acknowledge on the negative side that spending your gold wisely is, from what I've seen, one of the later stages of learning how to play, but any game complicated enough to be...
The part I'm curious about is the 'wealth-dependent classes' ... which ones do you consider to be that vulnerable?
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I've considered abstracting money with the Wealth system from d20 Modern.
From most wealth dependent to least...
Martials [Two-Weapon Fighters > Single Weapon Fighters] > Partial Casters > Full Casters
(Yes, massive snip, that was getting ridiculous.)
I can see TWF being costlier in just about everything, agreed.
This also makes me wonder on something. Item creation feats are often called 'trading feats for gold'; I'm grabbing one myself just because I like my character to have it, tho. How would you balance or evaluate or whatever that?
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Completly ignoring the Wealth-dependant-classes-stuff:
I always assume the characters exchange money to carry it more easily. This includes buying gems for easier carrying. The loss they make with this is included in the whole "selling only brings half the value" - the magic item isn't always really as expensive as noted, so instead of paying 21,000 gp they pay 19,000 gp - the last 2,000 gp represent the money they lost by turning their gold into gems before.
It's part of the rules that equipment sells for half and goods sell for full.
It doesn't make any sense, but here we are. ^_^
Actually, this generally applies to the real world as well. If you sell something of value to a pawn shop, they usually try to buy it for about half its market value, sometimes more or less depending on how the haggling goes. For precious metals, they usually pay about full price because gold and silver retain their value and are incredibly easy to liquidate.
Well, one issue is that coins in PF are too big.
For my games I base most coins on Us coinage for familiarity.
A gold coin is the size of a US Type I Gold dollar. So about half an inch in diameter and between half and two thirds the weight of a US dime.
A silver piece is the size of a dime.
A copper is the size of a penny.
1/50 of a pound is about 9 grams which is about 0.5 ml of gold.
9 grams is almost as heavy as a half-dollar (11.340 g) but 0.5 ml is less than the volume of a nickel.
Yes, gold is very heavy. 1000 gp would fit comfortably into a shoe box.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the older versions of D&D the 'weight' in pounds of items was actually a weight/volume.