I have written about this before, so just a brief thought today.
I like the idea of using a silver standard because it's much more sensible than gold. There are other advantages and disadvantages from that. One thing Delta recommends (and I follow) is keeping armor under the gold standard, so chainmail costs 10 times more than a long bow, for example.
Although I think the whole equipment list deserves rewriting, I still use it for reference when needed. But one thing I am thinking of doing automatically, in addition to making armor more expensive, is also keeping all magical items in the gold standard.
There are not hard numbers in B/X The OSE SRD suggests this for research:
As a general rule, items should cost from 10,000 to 100,000gp and from 1 month to 1 year of game time to complete. Some examples: 20 arrows +1 (10,000gp, 1 month), plate mail +1 (10,000gp, 6 months), crystal ball (30,000gp, 6 months), ring of x-ray vision (100,000gp, 1 year)
AD&D suggests 100 GP per spell level for hiring an NPC to cast a spell AFAICR.
Keep them in the gold standard and everything else in the silver standard, them let your players buy magic items if they are available. Now, every magic items costs more gold than they ever seem in their lives. This gives another "low fantasy" layer to a setting.
This has not happened in my current campaign, as there is no "magic item store" in most of my games. But it might be interesting... It makes me think of ASOIF, where a Valyrian steel sword is a dowry by itself, or enough to trade for a nobility title, but it's cost in gold is too much even to the richest families.
Magic items become much more special. I might keep a few exceptions - healing potions, maybe. And I could even safely use 5e lists that are easy to find online.
Of course, if you keep giving the characters lots of magic items, as as it often happens in most TSR and OSR adventures I've played, you risk ruining the entire economy and making PCs instantly wealthy if they can sell the stuff they find (not that it would be easy to find a customer). So this would also require adjusting in a low fantasy setting.
Anyway, just an idea at this point. Maybe it would be easier to make my own list...
Oh, using silver standard but keeping armor and magic item prices in gold was my intuition too. I agree on rewriting whole lost but I'd note feeding a person is 1 copper per day and lodging would also cost like 1-2 coppers BUT if you're travelling and visiting an inn somewhere less accomodating than a town it could cost in silver due to costs and convenience, like a lot of other things.
ReplyDeleteI think I had used 1 sp per day for unskilled labor (same for a meal at a tavern, etc.), and a medium weapon would cost 10 sp or more. But it is hard to compare to existing prices (10 gp for a crowbar, for example, and the infamous 5 gp for garlic...). The cost is large cities could certainly be higher than in the countryside, but also more items available, etc.
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ReplyDeleteI've had good results with: Keeping prices the same, changing 1 XP = 1 GP to 1 XP = 1 SP, starting money is 3d6 x 10 SP, and the price tables are the same. 200 SP = 1 lb for encumbrance, I don't use the random treasure tables at all anymore. I decide how fast I want the PCs to level and then I place that much treasure in the adventure locations. I need to write a post about this.
ReplyDeleteSounds good, let me know when you do!
Deletehttps://grumpywizard.home.blog/2023/04/13/grumpy-wizards-swords-wizardry-house-rules-silver-standard/
DeleteNeat! Thanks for linking back here!
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