The value of currency seems to have shifted in 5th edition DnD in comparison to earlier editions. With magical equipment being much less common, and the prices for goods and services having changed as well, I'm wondering if an amount of gold in, say, 4th ed. is the same as that value in 5th.
When converting a campaign from 4th ed. to 5th ed. DnD, do players have the same amount of gold, or is there a sort of economic conversion that must be made between the editions? In other words, does 100gp in 4th equal 100gp in 5th?
If not, is there an official conversion rate? And again if not, is there a good house-ruled approximation?
Best Answer
The big changes in the economy are in two areas, magic items and armor. The rest of the economy is largely unchanged.
In 4th editions magic items were not only a key part of the economy they were a super important part of making the math work across the system (particularly in the areas of to-hit, damage and defenses). If you didn't have on level or so magic equipment, you weren't effective.
5e is built to be different in this way, it is expected that in most campaigns magic items will be rare and the math is built in such a way as to make them optional, and powerful when available.
In 4e magic item purchase and sale was handled two different ways over the life of the edition. Originally there was no limits on what could be purchased when beyond what the DM ordained. Later in the edition all magic items were given a rarity value (common/uncommon/rare) and it was ruled that only common items were available for purchase and that uncommon and rare items could only be found. Items of any rarity could be sold though (and at a rate dependent on their rarity).
In 5e magic items are not generally available for sale and are so far never listed with prices, though rarity is still very much a thing (though I hesitate to enumerate the list until we get the DMG as I'm not sure my enumeration would be complete.).
However, we can take a look at the overall economy by getting a flavor for the mundane price differences. Let's take a look at a longsword, a shield and a day's rations in each edition:
From this randomish selection of items, it looks like the economy is expected to be about the same with regard to mundane items. I haven't done an item by item comparison, but the only big differences is that armor prices increase to prevent low level characters from having things like full plate at L1.
Presumably wealth by level or some similar mechanic for awarding treasure in general will be presented in the DMG, but for now, since treasure has very little impact on the game (it impacts cost of living and armor quality, but not much else), it should not be a problem to simply convert an old adventure verbatim on cash.