[RPG] the most reasonable conversion rate for a 5e “Gold for XP” house rule

dnd-5eexperience-pointshouse-rulesosrtreasure

I am thinking about using a OSR-like XP for Gold rule for my next 5e campaign. Instead of handing out Combat or Quest XP, I want to use the following rule:

Players can purchase XP / a level when they spend X pieces of gold. This gold cannot be used for equipment purchases of any kind, but instead can be used for things like:
- wine and song
- building a library of arcane knowledge
- building a temple for a deity
- having an artist create a statue of the character
- anonymous gifts to the poor/charity/…

Basically, they need to waste gold to get XP for it.

XP for Gold Table

Now, since I will be DMing Ravenloft: Curse of Strahd next, I need to know how much gold per level I should ask for. In the OSR games I played, it was generally 1000 gold for level 2, and then doubled for each successive level (3rd → 2000 gp, 4th → 4000 gp, etc.), but 5e rewards seem much too low to use that conversion rate.

Given the expected gold rewards for a 5e campaign (or Curse of Strahd specifically), how should this Gold per Level table look like?

Assumptions

Assume that the players don't need gold for ordinary equipment, and that magic items can never be bought, only found. The table should be built assuming that all gold they find, steal, extort or receive as gifts will be used for levelling. Magic items (other than those of common rarity) cannot be sold, either.

Notes

A good answer would provide a table ready for use, and some explanations on why the table is reasonable. I am not interested in answers or comments telling me my goal is bad, or that such a system does not fit 5e and Ravenloft specifically.
Part of the motivation is that my players have voiced their disappointment with monetary rewards, since they felt gold was largely useless — so much so that they sometimes stopped tracking it in the second part of the last campaign. (Elemental Evil: Princes of the Apocalypse, and they got the rewards as per book descriptions.)

I know that there are uses for gold without a magic item economy, and I get it, but it doesn't change anything. I actually reminded them of what they achieved story-wise and atmosphere-wise with the gold they spent during that campaign when we discussed this, but they were still disappointed. What to do with gold isn't the problem I am trying to solve, since I've already decided to use an tried-and-true OSR-style gold-based XP system for more than just this reason. I just need a balanced conversion rate to implement it.

Best Answer

Based off of DDAL¹ modules...

The Table:

\begin{array}{l c l} \text{Total GP Expended} & \text{Level} & \text{(Expenditure for next level)} \\ \hline 0 & 1 & (700) \\ 700 & 2 & (1,000) \\ 1,700 & 3 & (1,350) \\ 3,050 & 4 & (1,850) \\ 4,900 & 5 & (2,500) \\ 7,400 & 6 & (3,500) \\ 10,900 & 7 & (4,750) \\ 15,650 & 8 & (6,500) \\ 22,150 & 9 & (8,750) \\ 30,900 & 10 & (12,000) \\ 42,900 & 11 & (16,500) \\ 59,400 & 12 & (22,500) \\ 81,900 & 13 & (31,000) \\ 112,900 & 14 & (42,500) \\ 155,400 & 15 & (58,000) \\ 213,400 & 16 & \\ \end{array}

The Method:

I went ahead and tabulated the possible XP to earn and possible treasure haul² for each of the two-dozen or so DDAL modules I've got on hand. Each module is designed for one of the following level spans³: 1-2, 1-4, 5-10, or 11-16. From the XP earned in each I calculated a fraction of the indicated level span that would be "traversed" by completing the module, and used that to extrapolate how much gold would accrue to one gaining a level in that span. I then weighted each by the recommended hours of play⁴ and ran a power regression.⁵. Finally there's just a bit of rounding to make the numbers... round.

The Application:

Full confession: I don't think this ^^ is the best way to come up with these numbers.⁶ But I think it's a way and figured it's worth letting voters see so that wiser heads than mine can decide.
Those numbers are just... insane. Dropping that much cash--per adventurer!--onto the population of Barovia is just ridiculous. I know that D&D doesn't try to model any sort of functioning economy, but this is a bridge too far for my credulity. So you've got to find ways to ameliorate it. Perhaps use this table as a party table, so that once PCs have dropped 700gp everyone bumps to level 2? Perhaps adapt Delta's advice and switch to a silver standard (for XP) so that this all drops by an order of magnitude? Or perhaps...
magical items should be allowed as part of this scheme. Buying everyone a round and carousing for a night doesn't feel (to me) very different from rescuing a villager from weres and tossing a potion of healing their way. But this could also be a place where you can exert a GM's thumb on the scale, since the "values" of any items that the players disposed of in a way that buffed their renown aren't terribly standard. (And to that end, I'd recommend the Sane Magic Item Prices index; it may not be perfect, but it's waaay better than following the DMG's loose guidelines.) And now you've given players the interesting choice between hanging onto their widget of frobbing or "cashing it in" to level up. (Or level everyone up, per point 2!)

^{1 - Dungeons & Dragons Adventurers League, WotC's organized play program that was (and sort-of is?) active during 5e. The modules published through this program followed a rough set of guidelines for XP and treasure given out, and I'm using this as an insight into what WotC employees (Chris Tulach, specifically, perhaps with input from other designers?) thought was a good pacing of treasure accumulation by level.}

^{2 - only coinage; since you indicate your players won't really be able to "cash in" any magical items, we're going strictly off of currency here. But more on this later.}

^{3 - I'm using the term "span" rather than "tier" as "tier" is a defined term in 5e (PHB p.15) and these modules don't all correspond to tiers. It feels clunky, but I didn't want to conflate the ideas.}

^{4 - Some modules--only in the lowest two spans--are recommended for two hours, most are recommended for four. This then has the effect of dialing back the impact of these smaller modules. However, there are many more of them (fifteen in 1-2 and 1-4) than in the higher levels (six in 5-10, one in 11-16) so the model's still drawing more of its info from those levels.}

^{This weighting toward low-level information strikes me as fine in one way, as that's where the majority of play tends to happen. On the other hand, this means that any "errors" in the model are likely to appear at the high end, where it's going to take a while for you to notice and be really hard for you to fix: "oh, dear, we've been on level 10 for five sessions now, and are only halfway through. And I want them at 12 to face Strahd et al. for the last time and there's almost nothing left to explore!"}

^{5 - power regression based on eyeballing this curve.}

^{6 - I can think of one better way, but it's going to have to wait until I get my copy of CoS back from a buddy.}

Gold buys people

Without a readily available source of high-end useful items, you can purchase large quantities of low-end things.

For example, a hundred swords, a hundred kits of armor, a thousand man-years in soldier's wages and a dozen wagons of supplies can achieve a variety of things that a squad of powerful murderhobos can't.

A supply of gold can give (with some time and organization) a widespread network of informants that can be better than any 'gather rumours' check you can make. See Sherlock Holmes or Game of Thrones Varys for nice examples in fiction.

A band of henchmen can ensure that every night camp has multiple watchmen and a quick defensive encampment around it, as historical army detachments made at every nightfall - a dozen workers with shovels, axes and a supply of nearby trees can achieve quite a lot in a couple hours.

Gold buys services

If your desired magical device of power can't be bought, then it can likely be made. Not everything that's needed for it needs to be obtained by yourself. If it needs a McGuffin from the eastern mountains, a FooBar from southern seas and a thingamajig from the western desert, then you can go yourself for one of them, send a hired expedition (or two) of N-5 level adventurers for another, and offer a large reward (hand of princess optional) to whoever produces the third item.

What I mean, if you do have excess gold, then it is one of the instruments that you shouldn't hesitate to spend for plot goals instead of 'crunch' goals of character power.

[RPG] Is the value of currency significantly different between 4e and 5e

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:

 weapon       4e price       5e price
 longsword:   15gp           15gp
 shield       5-10gp         10gp
 rations      5gp/10days     5sp/1

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.