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Use electrum as an "ancient currency" Like when your players search ancient ruins they would find electrum. No shop would accept it but some collector or historic would trade it for even more than it's worth in the PHB
Our campaigns use Electrum as a mean joke. "You find five-thousand gold points of coins in the loot purse. They look kind of weird though. . . When you try to spend them, the vendor gets confused. He's never seen these before. . . The banker says they're Electrum. She'll store them, but you won't earn interest and you can't withdraw them like currency. There'll also be a storage fee." Stuff like that. It's all in fun.
"They're not *physical* coins... but they're minted in the blockchain! Wizard crypto is much more reliable than normal bank money, trust me!" It's called crypto because it was invented by a lich 💀
@@kotzpenner I don't know how coinage actually comes into being in 5e, but we kinda go for the no-deface theory. Also, the electrum would need to be liquated. That requires hitting each melting point gap between the four metals which commonly make up the electrum alloy. Not impossible, but also not fun. Might be a fun plot point if someone is going through the massive expense to process electrum for recirculation as silver, gold, copper, and platinum coins. They would also need to be buying electrum below face value.
Be me a forever DM Starts adding annoying rules like carrying capacity and encumbrance to try not be DM anymore turns out my players loved the realism and now I will never not be the DM
I'm a gratuitous PC creator. In our online game, I play a character I did _not_ create. (We joined an in-progress campaign) In our *_home_* game... I'm the DM. It's been three years. I have a 94 PC backlog. I'll just have to turn them into NPC's if I ever want to use them, lol.
I can understand everyone's dislike of electrum but it makes perfect sense if you know a little bit about what it's made of. It's an alloy of gold and silver so it makes perfect sense that it would be a halfway point between the two.
True. Historically speaking (in some parts of Europe during the middle ages) one gold coin was wirth 20 silver coins. One electrum coin was worth 10 silver coins or half a gold coin. Sounds complicated, but non-decimal currencies were extremely common throughout history.
There's certainly an interesting use I've seen tossed around of keeping it around, but as like the intermediary 'trader's currency', where it's carried by traders so they don't have massive piles of silver on them, don't have extremely valuable gold pieces on them, and some money lender or major coin establishment can still easily break it down to copper and silver when dealing with commoners ad their needs. This also makes it useful as an extra gate if your players want to work as traders and item-sellers of random goods as they go around as well, as it still can limit their liquid funds. That and also granting it the older coin conversions of earlier editions where it essentially was 10 silver and then moved to like 5 electrum to 1 gold or something.
Electrum is peanuts. It could be way worse. Historically, currency being consistently decimal is a very recent thing. Hell, the United Kingdom didn't have a decimal currency until 1971. Also historically, kings and other rulers regularly changed the conversion rates between different denominations every five to ten years to make the ones they had the most of in their treasury worth more. And when they spent it all and their treasuries filled up with denominations that weren't worth much after the conversion, they changed the rates again. Could imagine the pain in the ass of having one gold be worth 17 silver or 112 copper, and then the plot sends you across the border to a different kingdom, where 1 gold is worth 7 electrum or 51 silver or 225 copper, and your foreign coinage is all of a different weight than local coinage and has to be sold as metal by weight instead of being able to convert as currency? Because that's kinda what it was like in medieval society.
As a DM, I mostly dismiss encumbrance rules unless my players try to carry an unreasonable amount of stuff. Taking the bandit captain’s scale mail doesn’t mean a weight check, but trying to walk around hauling 12 sets of half plate, I had a player try to do that, means we pull out the calculator. I’ll make them track their money if they want to carry thousands of coins, but I also provide the option to buy a homebrew Magic Item called the Coinpurse of Holding. For just 1 pound of weight, all your coins and trade bars, I use those too, are tucked away in a convenient pocket plane. They can carry as much money as they want without getting encumbered and thieves are a lot more interesting NPCs to use.
@@mnmnrt That's called being "cute" and is going to make most GMs dislike you and your antics. Fishing for exact values for "a reasonable amount" just so you can go one under merely invites the GM to make your experience miserable.
@@roguebansheesounds like the gm is a petty control freak 🤨 if the gm is going to ignore money weight but will enforce it entirely when someone wants to game the rules then why not play with the rule enforced to begin with? I don't think trying to benefit as much as a player can by just barely reaching money weight cap is "cute", they're playing by the gm's specified house rules lol
If gold is twice as heavy (by volume) as silver and the coins weigh the same, I assume that gold is twenty times the value of silver by weight, so a gold coin is smaller than a silver.
Darkvision in darkness only gives disadvantage to perception rolls that *require* sight. Remember, being invisible doesn't give advantage to stealth rolls. Being blind doesn't make you auto fail perception checks to notice enemies either, for the same reason. .
Which makes it really strange when a dungeon is improperly lit. It just makes it harder for you to defend your place. That’s probably one of many reasons DMs forget that aspect.
@@MultiKbarry Depends on the dungeon setting as well. It makes more sense for a wild or more natural area to be improperly lit, but something inhabited by non-darkvision races really should have more light sources.
@@gratuitouslurking8610 It can be funny to think about the big bad of the campaign deciding to not light their dungeon/camp/cave. Then later on the party just sneaks by everyone since they can barely see. Even stuff like skeletons get the penalty.
@@MultiKbarry ngl 'undead who has no eyes have disadvantage in the dark' feels like one of those 'I understand the council has come to a decision but as it's a dumb one I choose to ignore it' sorta deals.
The only time I've seen Electrum actually used was in Curse of Strahd in Barovia and our party decided that Strahd truly was an evil man for forcing his people to use that currency.
I am running CoS and said to myself and my players that anyone with Electrum would have been killed or Strahd himself would obliterate you. In my other games, you either will get arrested and do forced labor for 25 years, or the universe will kill you in 15 seconds.
5:45 I once had a character so poor that he just couldn't eat for days... I kept track at how long it would take him before he started gaining levels of exhaustion, so one day I had him boil and eat his own boots. Good thing he was a Goliath with good Con, so being barefoot was not much of a real hinderance. I then found out that like a single chicken is only a few copper each, instead of 5sp for a ration or something similar for inn food, so he finally could eat daily again and not starve in the middle of Waterdeep!
Your best bet is wheat for 1 cp a pound. Note that rations, in addition to costing 50 times as much, weigh two pounds for a day's worth instead of one.
Our archer goes through 3-6 arrows PER ROUND. The quiver holds 20. The bag of holding takes a FULL ACTION to retrieve another bundle of arrows and put them in the quiver. This makes strategy in even mid-length combats meaningful. (another character trained his monkey to refill the quiver. I allowed it!)
You can also factor in that arrows also get recovered at a 1 to 2 ratio at the end of a fight (and enemy archers will no doubt have some), which acts as some of the balance between throwing, crossbows, bows and (theoretically) firearms. You can always recover a throwing weapon, arrows and bolts sometimes splinter at the end of combat but can be recovered, and basically all firearm rules, DMG or otherwise, destroy the ammo on shot. In theory, adds to the tactical level of the game, in practice, often gets thrown out the window cus people don't like doing paperwork in a game that demands 2-3 sheets to track a character.
Realistically, an archer could carry more than one quiver, such as one on the shoulder and one on each hip, or even 2-3 on the shoulder. Quivers are not heavy nor that large
I was in a campaign that used encumberance as well as coin weight. It was miserable. The only person who wasn't constantly struggling with weight limits was the barbarian. Every 50 gold was a pound, which is also the cost per spell level for a wizard to copy a spell into their spellbook. The GM also ruled most places couldn't neatly exchange silver to gold, if at all, because most businesses operate using silver and copper (despite the fact almost everything you can buy in the 5e books costs at least 1 gold). So if you wanted to copy three 3rd level spells into your spellbook, you had to be lugging 90 pounds of silver pieces around with you while you searched for your spells of choice. Along with your 11 pound scholar's pack, 4 pound quarterstaff, 5 pound light crossbow, 4 pound robe, and 3 pound spellbook. Someone literally multiclassed into artificer so they could make a bag of holding to use as a glorified wallet because so much of the campaign became struggling with small change. Imagine carrying all of the dimes with you that it would take to afford a gaming laptop.
Sounds great. I mean, if you're going that far (my table does) then you can do other things. The spell copying requires "special inks and supplies" worth 50 gold per level, not the raw coinage itself. It's similar to how holy water requires 5 pounds of silver and 1 of water to make but a flask of the stuff only weighs 1. You can also use banks, have wealth in gems, art and jewelry, and other less liquid assets (shares in a company, taxing rights, deeds to lands with natural resources, etc). Personally my players like raw and cut gems, as those are the least finicky to get appraised and paid fairly for, but then again we don't usually have high CHA negotiators.
@@fnzer0 It was absolutely horrific. Nobody liked it, and the campaign self-destructed because of it. No such thing as central banking, and the country was in turmoil. When I say we had to lug our coin, I really meant it.
So, fun fact, this right here is exactly why the spell Tenser's Floating Disk exists. That was literally its purpose, to carry Gyxaxian coinage and treasure nonsense around. It sounds like your GM was being a hardass for the sake of it, because when the whole party complains, especially on something so insignificant, you really should concede and bend your own rules somehow for them, or else you lose your game... Even though I did it because I accidentally broke the economy by forgetting coins are 10's not 100's, I think if you're gonna keep track of money especially in a physical way it would be *insanity* not to have coin denominations within the strata. If everyone does business in silvers I cannot imagine how anyone buys anything in bulk without being able to exchange coins if they have to deal with them in such volumes...
@@Tabledar Yeah, table consensus is king. Though you don't "need" central banking, checks aren't exactly new technology. I'll also assume any mounts or vehicles weren't something your table was interested to deal with? I've had my share of problems defending donkeys and ox in travels, or using the mount from summon steed as backup wagon puller.
@@fnzer0 I'd chalk this up more to the DM not making this aspect very congruent with the rest of the game. The last campaign I went through lasted 2 years and we all used coin weight and encumbrance. It was never an issue for a few reasons: 1) Our DM allowed for easy changing of coin in any decently sized town including changing GP for Plat to cut down on weight. 2) Always giving us opportunities to use that money for stuff. Like how we had to go undercover at a fancy party so we needed to buy some bougie clothes for ourselves. 3) This one isn't going to be applicable to every game, but we had a headquarters of sorts in the main city where we could offload items that we wanted to keep without lugging them around everywhere. An alternative, if your party is constantly pressing forward into new territory, would be finding a way to give your players a decent sized covered wagon as a sort of mobile base so they aren't limited to just carrying what they can shove in their backpack or using a Bag of Holding.
I like electrum pieces ever since I learned it's a real thing, it's a natural alloy of Silver and Gold that can be found in the wild. I also always keep track of my own ammunition amount, even if I never enforce my players to do so when I dm.
Fun fact, I actually made it through the _entire_ Tomb of Annihilation hardcover/module as an archer character tracking ammunition as per PHB, including recovery rules, as a sort of self-imposed challenge. I still ended up doing _crazy_ dps the entire time.
This has been the most real video I've seen on ignored rules. Some of them are so used to being ignored that you forget they are rules in the first place.
It is D&D, rules are quite literally there to be ignored so long as they are uniformly ignored by everyone involved. Remember always: the GM handbook almost literally says to do exactly this in order to facilitate a good time for you and your players.
I've always used electrum as "tokens of favor" that a guild or crime ring might use rather than a currency. Think continental coins from John Wick. They aren't technically money but access to certain perks.
You could further apply that the five silver is the monetary value if sold, since most places that do this will often keep track of who they give their tokens to in order to avoid someone stealing the favor. Selling one would not be worth the cost of a favor, but it would be worth the cost of the metal.
I use electrum! The reason it messes up the order is that it's arguably the most important amount of currency to get actual stuff done. Small daily expenses (ale, bread) are usually silver and copper, big expenses (large objects, fancy things, expensive services) are gold, huge expenses (magic items, real estate) are platinum, but medium expenses (trip to the market, single handmade object) benefit from having their own denomination. Try to think of it like this: 1GP is one night in an inn and a meal. The closest modern equivalent I can think of is the various inns you'll find on pilgrimage routes. On the pilgrimage of Compostela, you can typically get a night for 20 to 30€ and a meal for 15. So 1 GP is about 40€. That would then mean that 1SP is about 4€. A gallon of ale (2SP) turns out to be about 8€, a mug (4CP) is 1€60, and a loaf of bread (80¢). That price for bread is about right for a loaf 3/4 the size of a baguette. That price is cheap for beer, but consider that it's not an industrially produced recipe fine-tuned with a dozen ingredients and drunk solely for pleasure. When you account for the ale being home made; not fermented for very long and quite weak; basically just a bucket of wheat, yeast, hops and water; often made as a means of reducing the risk of getting sick from drinking potentially tainted water; it makes sense that the ale is cheap. With that approximate value established, we know that 1 electrum is basically a 20€ bill, which is a very useful amount of currency. Once you start thinking of its value that way and think to use it, it pops up a lot. If there was no denomination between the 5€/$5 bill and the 50€/50$ bill, something would seriously be missing. Are you going to break a 50 to pay for 20€ worth of stuff only to end up with six 5€ bills in change? Yes it's slightly easier to ignore the EP when you're writing numbers on a character sheet, but when you think of it from the point of view of the characters, it makes way more sense to use EP and I think it's more immersive. You could also go a different route and use EP like $2 bills. They're an official denomination, but quite rare, and maybe there are Electrum Piece collectors who value them more than their face value. Maybe the ones from other kingdoms or specific years are worth more.
Seems logical. Do you also abstract things so that coinage is always automatically grouped up to the largest possible denominations (the "color me up" concept in IRL casinos)? Like if I got +20 silver over the course of a dungeon run, I wouldn't write it down as "+20sp", I'd just write it as "+2gp" instead, since the _total value_ of your money is what matters, not in what denominations it is (or I suppose keep track of specific coins in a dungeon, then upon going to a shop, automatically "color up" to the largest valid coins).
@@WackoMcGoose The way we do it at my table is that they add what I tell them when adventuring and when they get to a town, they can generally reshuffle their currency. I assume they find places of business willing to minimize their currency weight. We do it this way because we take coin weight into account, so 200 silver is very different from 2 platinum. We used to not track coin weight until we realized my character (I was a player at the time) had ended up collecting several thousand gold, which worked out to more than double my horse's carrying capacity. If my players need to carry a fortune, they can buy gems in large cities and some mining towns. They generally can't use their gems as currency without it depreciating in value somewhat, but they _can_ buy and resell them at the DMG-specified price and suffer no loss.
Oh my friend, I use 'hardcore' currency, classic British standard rates: 12 coppers (pence) per silver (shillings), 20 silver per gold (pound). I typically don't bother with electrum still there, but I've used the traditional 2 EP per GP and a more flexible intermediate 4 EP per GP - they're just denominations of coins, after all, though I like to keep it simple. Fun fact - the later, more consistent denominations held the shilling coins at 1/20th of a pound (0.8 ounces), meaning that the gold pound coin was literally worth one pound of silver - hence Pound Sterling (Silver). Players usually are resistant to it initially having grown up with decimalized currencies, but usually find it easier to divide up amongst each other after a little bit of familiarization, since 240 (the number of coppers/pennies per gold/pound) is a highly composite number. It's really useful in parties of 3 or 4.
coins all being the same weight makes sense because they have different shapes and sizes. now, the illustrations of said coins don't make sense in like of real metal weights, since it seems like the standard coinage gets uniformly larger the more valuable the coin is. but if you ignore the screwups that Wizards makes, you can make it make sense
The metal a coin is made of need not have any bearing on its value, and in a world where magic can create anything, it's almost guaranteed that it won't
@@mnmnrtyou mean that material of which coin is made plus all the work around it is worth more than coin is worth? Though it only applies to coins, because printing money as banknotes is very cheap
When it comes to lifestyle expenses, numerous spells and abilities make surviving for free absolutely trivial. On the other hand, it's also reasonable that most characters would want some kind of a lifestyle for the same reason you and I spent our money on computers and furniture instead of choosing to live in a cardboard shack.
@@mnmnrt You might have a computer for work, but mine is a gaming machine that I don't need. Likewise, I might need a straw mat or a sleeping bag, but I don't need a proper bed frame and a comfy armchair. My larger point is that real people spend money on things they want but don't need, and we should assume our D&D characters will do the same.
@@mnmnrt Of course you will. Now if you look at all the characters you've played, would it seem reasonable that they would all live spartan lifestyles with no luxuries whatsoever? If you were deciding what your character does, would that be the answer every time? Hey, maybe it would. Like you said, I don't get to decide what your character buys.
Yeah, it's *only* an autofail on attack rolls. Although, I suppose if the party is playing a lot of skill-based characters, such as Rouge or Eloquence Bard, who can have obscene bonuses to certain skills or have an auto-ten, I could see a DM wanting to still have risks or failure possibility for said rolls.
@Nikkidafox Generally, it's not supposed to be, unless it's an attack roll. Skill checks and saving throws can have DC's that are impossible, such as the Immovable Rod having a DC 30 strength check. Most creatures, even with a 20, can't succeed.
@@Nikkidafox A nat20 is not always a success. That's a house rule. And it's fine to say if one is true, it's fair for the other to be true, but if you're going RAW neither of those rules is true.
To your first point about Electrum: I use them specifically as the "magical" ingredient in comissioning magical items. Want to make an item instead of find it? Now you need its requisite cost in Gold PLUS a pre-determined (by me) amount of Electrum that will serve as the magical conduit and help bind the magic to your item. Makes Electrum actually *worth* something to the party, and explains its lack of common use and rarity.
Generally the only ammunition I track in my games is the magical kind, since they lose their magic after use and are often in shorter supply compared to the surplus of nonmagical ammunition those players have.
@Blaine - the reason Electrum is still there is because it goes back to BECMI/AD&D. There, it was 10 copper = 1 silver, 5 silver = 1 electrum or 10 silver = 1 gold, 2 electrum = 1 gold, and finally, 5 gold = 1 platinum. So you can see, it wasn't always a multiple of 10 even in the beginning. A lot of us groggnars always thought of it this way: 1 copper = 1 penny 1 silver = 1 dime 1 electrum = a half dollar 1 gold = a dollar 1 platinum = 5 dollars
One of the many reasons I typically form parties around a ship is getting around tedious rules. Two tons of gold on the ship? No problem. Also some nice clothes when the mission calls for it. No need to haul several outfits in a huge pack. Plus you can bring your favorite NPCs along or leave them to wait in the ship.
A mobile stronghold is great and creates stress about guarding it during dungeon dives. The more long rests in the dungeon the less of their wealth remaining in the ship after they return.
I somehow talked my parents into doing a one-shot at Christmas, and my dad loved pointing out at every opportunity that his character could see in the dark because he had darkvision. He was a bit disappointed when he realized that the other two players (my mom and my wife) also were playing characters with darkvision.
One that people forget is that spellcasters need a free hand to cast spells with somatic components. Even Baldur’s Gate 3 ignores this rule because it’s kinda limited. You just have your staff and your spells, no dual-wielding or shield.
The rules for material components state at the end: A spellcaster must have a hand free to access these components, but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components. Also, a cleric or paladin can use a shield with religious symbol as a material component replacement, and likewise use it to perform somatic components at the same time.
@@PikaPenny17 Only if the spell contains both somatic and material components. If it just requires somatic then they can't use their focus, that is the point of the Warcaster feat.
@@makuresWhich actually makes artificer's brand of spellcasting unique because it requires them to use a focus or a tool they are proficient with when casting, giving every spell they cast the material component tag if it doesn't already. Which actually ends up helping in those cases of "somatic only" spells because now they can always just use the same hand as their casting focus.
@@PikaPenny17 Except artificers, again, are a special case and can't. They aren't even proficient with arcane foci and have to either use tools they are proficient with (either thieves tools or another set of artisan's tools) or with an item containing one of their infusions; they have to use one for every spell they cast and can't use a component pouch. But as I said, it actually works out well for them especially level 2 and on. They can just infuse either their weapon or a shield and now can use the hand with that item as the hand for every spell with the other being free naturally. For example, the Shield spell doesn't normally have material components and thus would normally require a free hand or the Warcaster feat to cast if both hands are occupied. But a Battle Smith Artificer with, say, the Enhance Weapon infusion on a longsword or Enhance Defense on a shield can cast Shield using the weapon/shield hand and still have the other in the opposite hand, because artificer spellcasting puts the M component on the Shield spell now.
DnD becoming streamlined and extremely appealing to the casual market via podcasts and shows makes it not surprising at all that some rules would be bent or outright not used at all. Trying to rule lawyer with a group of fresh players who only now have discovered that TTRPGs are a thing isnt going to be fun for anyone.
Eh, I ignore a lot of these rules and don’t engage with the podcast/live show scene often. I’d sooner blame that out of a book with these many rules, some were bound to be ignored in favor of more streamlined ones
A lot of these were rules my group of friends were ignoring in 3E like 20 years ago. Having to constantly erase things on a page is annoying, especially if it rarely seems to have an actual benefit. If anything a lot of the annoying busy work stuff like ammo and weight have seen a resurgence due virtual table tops helping track it. Heck even electrum isn't a big deal with a convert button.
@@Janx14 Every group is different, like if you dont want to keep erasing things then why not turn items or currency into physical things like tokens and cards with information on them. Its all about problem solving.
@@Janx14Honestly, for ammo and gold, I’d just have like a sheet of notebook paper to strike through or run tallies on. Say I got 50 arrows, and we’re bothering with ammo, I’m marking a tally for every shot taken. Then just jot the end session values on the back of your sheet for next time.
3:20 Had this exact thing happen to me and my party. Luckily, I was playing an artificer and took bag of holding for one of my infusions, as well as gauntlets of ogre power for increased carrying capacity. My character was easily the richest for the rest of the campaign.
It’s supposed to be an action? The game I just played on Wednesday, dm let it be a free action. (I picked up a drow body to use as a makeshift shield because our party was taken captive and had no weapons or armor)
From what I know, picking up an object is free once per turn. Using an object (health potion for example) is an action unless you're a thief who can do that as a bonus action.
@@Gamemaniac92711 I think it's in one of those wibbly zones where it depends on what the item you're interacting with is. Like, drawing your sword or pushing a door open is free, but doing something like managing a complex (but not so complex that it would require a check) latch system might be an action.
Depends on what it is. You get one free interaction per turn, which can be used to do things like pull a lever, open a door, pick up an item, or swap weapons. You only get one per turn, so you can't both swap weapons and open a door. You generally can't use your interaction to use magic items (because they usually say "as an action" in their text). See PHB Chapter 9 -> The Order of Combat -> Your Turn -> Other activity on your turn
* Easy Solution For Ammo: Just keep a handful of pennies on hand. Every time you fire a shot, toss a penny back into whatever "don't use" box you've got. * Easy Solution For Encumbrance: Give each item a non-weight value of 0 (meaning the item must be in a certain amount to equal 1) to 10, and give each player a set of value boxes they could fill with tokens (think of it like the resident evil 4 weapon case, but a lot smaller). Your size determines how many columns you get, while your strength score determines how many rows.
Electrum is historically correct - a naturally occurring alloy of silver + gold with traces of other metals such as copper. It WAS used in coins and jewelry during and before the Greek Empire. In my world, the empire south of the player's home country mints electrum coins. If handled correctly, the alloy is very immersive. It is also correct.
We mostly use lifestyle expenses... but the DM just told us that we are having a mandatory 6-month downtime, to which i asked, "I assume we will at least earn enough to live over that time... right?"
I remember being in a game where my party got electrum in a loot pile and everyone started arguing about how to split it loot-wise From that moment I decided to never include it in my games
Electrum probably got added to D&D because the stuff has been used in coins since the 7th Century BCE, so if it wasn't there, that's breaking our immersion. Also, it adds that bit of realism that most currency systems have were something just doesn't make any freaking sense, like Britain's traditional non-decimal coins and whatever reason the US has for trying to make dollar coins for the past 50 years that always turn out the same size as a quarter coin.
I'm pretty sure US dollar coins are a bit bigger than a quarter. And usually US dollar coins are more along the lines of collectible memorabilia instead of a full-blown currency
Dollar coins are not the same size as quarters. Ignoring the old silver dollar, they are bigger than quarters by .25mm, but smaller than half-dollars by .15mm. Also, the US has been waffling between coins and bills for dollars because of cost of production. The problem is, which one is cheaper to make keeps fluctuating. For a time, coins were cheaper because coins in general last longer bills while in circulation, but now the bills are made stronger and thus last longer than they used to, and thus they have become cheaper than the coins are to produce and circulate. Now they're looking at changing the materials in a dollar coin to make it cheaper to produce again, which will flip the balance once more.
@@clarehidalgo It's nice to have coins that are actually worth carrying. Quarters are useless and single-dollar bills just pad out the wallet. EDIT: Plus dancers up here get better tips by default, after all, how are you going to slip them a coin?
The problem with Electrum is that it is a perfectly legitimate coin, but the lack of other denominations is what makes it so weird. In the current day we have three denominations for every 10 increment: 1, 2 and 5. Electrum is the 5. But there is no 2, nor are there 2 and 5 for the copper to silver and gold to platinum transitions. The weight of coins in 3rd edition was 1/50 of a pound. That meant every 50 coins weighed 1lb. This made calculations much easier.
Same. But we go just a little more. The full amount can be recovered IF someone has the Mending cantrip plus the full amount of time per arrow. It does take one minute to repair a break with Mending. Also if someone is proficient with Woodworking Tools then they can make arrows as per Xanathar’s. Well provided they can source the wood needed. I suppose if someone in our group has Tinkering Tools they could also repair arrows but that one hasn’t come up.
Electrum is just the $2 bill of DND, but only worth a half dollar. 10 Pennie’s for a dime, 10 dimes for a dollar, ap dollars in a $10 bill, ten $10 bills in a $100 bill. It’s just a half dollar, but with the historical reputation of a $2 bill
Legends Of Avantris (The DnD group with Chuckles the clown) has a hardcore DnD campaign called Icebound in which they very much do care about the weight of gold and wood and food, they use exhaustion rules if the crew hasn't eaten or slept for long enough, they count how much ammo the ranger has and she has to sometimes fletch more arrows when they have downtime, and the druid actually needs to have his specific components or he can't cast his spells. It's a great series and it feels like there's real stakes to every decision.
life style expenses last maybe the first 3 sessions of the campaign until the story starts. after that, the party is always on the move and just rent rooms at whatever tavern they are in and seem to just drop gold pieces like its candy for some reason.
YAAAAAAAAS thank you for bringing more attention to the light rules!!!!! Nobody ever knows this and gets pissed off when you tell them like it’s your fault they didn’t read!
When my characters get paid in AL I always take it in platinum and gems with some gold and silver pocket change to pick up bar tabs, although I do play with encumbrance.
One workaround I had for ammunition being boring was having guns require you to load gold for each clip as the only company that has figured out how to make these guns has aapplied magic to make acquiring bullets convient… but expensive. Suddenly players started calculating whether or not it was worth to use the guns way way more
To add on to the stuff about darkvision: On top of having disadvantage on perception checks, having disadvantage with perception also applies a -5 penalty to passive perception.
For strength I gave it a bit more use in the fact that if it is too big for you to carry to a degree, I will do a strength check to see if you can manage to haul something that's bigger than you. Otherwise, if its smaller feel free to carry it however you want.
I play online which will automatically track coin weight and has an option to ignore it, so I usually just say that you track it unless you have a bag of holding, in which case you can store it in there and some magical loophole ignores that weight because its too little. Basically you can ignore coin weight if you have a bag of holding or some similar item
Electrum Pieces always being on the character sheet is actually kinda nice, in case you're playing Descent into Avernus. It's a neat way of tracking Soul Coins.
Downtime activities actually require a certain level of comfort to do. Running a business requires a modest living while working can be done at any level
I always love to play a character with an absurd amount of non-magical junk, and whenever dm gives me a side-eye, I give him propper calculations, of how much my character can carry. It's funny, especially when I find a bug repellent in my inventory, when fighting giant bugs.
with money i remind people that gems trade at value, they are very light for their value, and as such they are probably what adventurers turn most of their wealth into for trade. coins are for making change. even gold coins.
I generally waive the low-light condition when running 5e because low-light vision doesn't exist anymore (it still does in Pathfinder and I absolutely use those rules there). That said, eliminating color vision makes for some really interesting stealth situations and I recommend that more DMs employ that part of the darkvision rule. Understanding that you're effectively trading the ability to see in color for stealth also makes your party more likely to invest in things like hooded lanterns and other light-emitting objects and spells that are easy to conceal.
Not sure why your channel never came up in my feed, seeing how many subscribers you have, but I'm glad it did. I found when I tried to make these little things matter, that the game would tend to bog down. It seems that the best way to play was to not totally ignore them, but not try to keep track of everything either. As you said, if your Character appears to be carrying a reasonable amount of stuff, that's good enough. I don't know if this will interest you, but I wrote a D&D story, and then narrated it on my channel. I've currently written 2 books, and both are in their own Playlist. The book is titled 'Forestera's Fate'. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Oh, and I'm not sure why, but I didn't use electrum pieces in the story. Go figure 😏
My DM during Tomb of Annihilation did NOT forget about the Darkvision rule. And it bit us in the ass a few times (and why i ALWAYS pick Devil's Sight whenever possible) because we didn't see some differently colored tiles that mark where traps were.
The "Darkvision doesnt let you see colors" thing is something I really want to play with. I want to have the solution to a puzzle be obvious with color vision but tricky without it. Also, I would love to include a send up to the Grue from Zork, a threat that simply does not apply if even a candle's worth of light is in the room.
only time encumbrance has ever affected me was one time with my 1st dm (which was my friend’s grandpa) when i had like 23 shortswords i looted from goblins.
I only used encumbrance once. I was playing this homebrew artificer I found. One of the things it could do was make automated turrets and control all of them with only a bonus action. I don't know if it was an oversite of the one who made the homebrew but it didn't specify it was supposed to be stationary, only that it weight 50lb. I reworked the whole concept from DEX/INT build to STR/INT build just so I can strap 2 of them to my back and another 4 on my automated mount. The only other time weight was an issue was with flying brooms. It cant carry 2 plate wearing people.
i personally run electrum as a material to smelt down into a silvered weapon replacement or a easy way to make a coating that deals lightning damage (1d4 usually) or i typically give it as a joke currency.
5:02 - I don't forget either of these, in fact I had a puzzle with colored tiles. Entire party had Darkvision so they never carried any light. I described the puzzle as a set of black, white, and grey square tiles.
Electrum was a hold over from earlier editions when gold was worth 20 silver, and electrum was 10 silver. Platinum was 5 gold, or 10 electrum. So you ended up with a decimal system except for the base coin, gold.
Downtime activities were in the DM's Guide, Xanathar just expanded on them, modified them, and in some cases completely changed them. I know this because I did my research on crafting magic items for my artificer (Her whole reason for adventuring was to learn everything she could about every kind of magic item she could get her hands on so that one day she could create the kind of legendary magic items adventurers would seek out... and also obtain enough money to attend a top tier magic college), and my DM and I had a discussion about which version we wanted to use. We settled on Xanathar's because it just seemed the more complete version overall. I actually became the main supplier of magic items for my group, though the DM wasn't stingy about handing some out as well. I miss that campaign. Anyways, people ignore lifestyle expenses because they don't even know downtime activities exist, often because DMs kinda just start the next arc a few days after the last one concluded. I try to talk to my DMs about letting us just mess around in our base and hometown for a little while between adventures.
As a Singaporean who actively uses 50 cent coins on a regular basis, electrum pieces sort of make sense to me. Believe me, buying notes for the class and having to chase my classmates for physical money because the one printing the notes does not accept electronic payment is one heck of a job I signed up for.
I somewhat disagree with the coin comments. Yes, electrum isn't really providing any value, so I agree with ignoring it, but I think it still makes sense as a currency. If we imagine that 1cp is used roughly like we use $1 (which seems about right for the scale of expenses), then an electrum is a $50 bill, which is completely normal. By that logic there could also easily be a 5cp or 2sp valued coin (to match the $5 and $20). So it is one of those things that make sense to me for a world, but I agree is overly detailed for a game. As for gold and silver coins having the same weight: I just assume that they aren't the same size (like many real-world coins) and that "gold coins" probably aren't pure gold. And all coins having the same weight is again a simplification to make the math easier.
In my games ive now made electrum a magical trading money rather than actual money, so magic items cost like 2-3 electrum that way if they find it out in the wilds its more meaningful and also then its actually a super rare resource that they look for
Bag of holding is so clutch vs encumbrance and carry weight. I like it when they aren't so incredibly rare players dont manage to attain one, but putting abit of challenge for it is definitely needed
I've got another one for you: Social interactions. The DMG has a whole social interaction system that's actually really nice, but almost no one even knows it exists because it's in the DMG. It works on three "dispositions" which affect the DC for persuading someone to help you. You can determine through roleplay or through insight rolls (which makes insight actually USEFUL aside from being the "lie detector" skill) certain traits like an NPC's motives or desires which can help you to swing their disposition towards friendly. It's only THEN that you can make your persuasion/intimidation/deception roll to try and get them to help.
4:12 - A fighter making 4 attacks per round can use all of his arrows in 5 rounds. I always have players track ammunition, and after each fight they can recover 1/2 of expended ammo from the battlefield. But I also don't charge them to replenish ammunition (when they return to town) as it is covered under player weekly/monthly upkeep costs. Proficiency in Woodcarver’s Tools can allow a character to craft 5 arrows per short rest (XGE p 85)
So the clockwork woman on the front, is she just some art you found or is a playable race, and can I find it in the Anime 5e thing in the description (and which pack it is is)
While coin weight can be annoying, it's not really obnoxious to keep track of. 50 coins = 1lb. Therefore each coin is 0.02 lb. Easiest way to keep track of it would just divide your coin count by 50 rounded down. Also the fact that coins all have the same weight still makes sense. Not only does it make them easy to weight, but the can just be different sizes to accomplish that. Fun fact; The US Dine and Nickel are almost the exact same weight, but the dime is like half the volume.
One i do know people tend to ignore is spell components. In my campaign we vaugely have the components (a jar of metal powder that we don't keep track of). Nobody is hunting spider webs for the web spell, but the dm usually enforces the real expensive stuff like 500gp gems
At my table: The first magic item that appears in any characters inventory is always a bag of holding. Low magic setting? Plot hook, it is a heirloom and the player must hide the fact that it is magic. If starting from level 1 it is in the first dungeon or can be purchased for a low price from a passing merchant for the price of a pack mule. Bonus points if it latter turns out to be a sleeping bag of devouring.
Meanwhile over in my game literally no one has a bag of holding... I'm really lax on encumbrance and what you can carry, but either no one rolled one from the freebies I gave out during character creation or they're level 1 and had no such items yet... They're managing, at least. Someone DOES have a Portable Hole though and I have come to absolutely love the portable hole and if given a choice I would legitimately pick it over the bag. Yes, it's less convenient, but the *things* you can do with that dang thing... Until his wagon got destroyed by being caught in a *literal tornado* he'd put it on the inside of the wagon while they were stopped so more people could rest inside its relative safety. In dangerous territory he had the smaller characters plaster it on the underside of the wagon and climb inside. While infiltrating a castle, he used it to hide from their autonomous guards AND to scale the sides of the higher parts by having everyone but his familiar climb inside and had his familiar scoop it off the table or wall and carry it. Even in the worst case scenario where the familiar got blasted it's only a DC10 strength check to climb out of a closed portable hole and it looks like nothing more than a nearly invisible piece of fabric in darkness. One of the kids he's escorting said that if she owned one, she'd put up paneling inside and turn it into a deployable bedroom and I fucking love that idea so much I might use it the next time I'm a player.
I used it as a prank. The party was being forced to complete a stupid quiz, and one of the questions was “how many electrum pieces is 10 gold pieces worth.” I had to explain the value of electrum pieces multiple times for the to figure it out
I use Electrum as an exclusive currency for a homebrew class based on the Templar Knights. Making up the class (so-far DM exclusive) was my way of getting my Niece and Nephew safely between dystopian cities. My Templar is essentially a tour guide and banker.
Never got a chance to get to it before my campaign died, but I did have plans for my players to get to a town that's shops had incredible finds for extremely cheap but they only used electrun pieces.
