What to spend gold on?
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That suggestion Amoxicillin Overdose would just lead to gold stockpiled on crafters.
I think most folk are missing my main point, which is that I wanted to know if there is some thing we could for people who want to spend gold on things that they can't get or new ways to spend gold etc.
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I cannot emphasize this enough: You never have enough consumables. How many people would not have died with 10k gold in their inventory who were too cheap to buy that death ward potion, and then ran into the bodak? Who got level drained and had no negative energy protection? The list goes on and on, people simply don't invest wisely >.>
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I'd LOVE more random useless things. (Think golden chalices, crap like that.) Just things that flavor RP. It doesn't have to be useful. But I'm probably one of the few. ;)
That suggestion Amoxicillin Overdose would just lead to gold stockpiled on crafters.
I think most folk are missing my main point, which is that I wanted to know if there is some thing we could for people who want to spend gold on things that they can't get or new ways to spend gold etc.
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Just some ideas. Some of these may, or may not work. Or even be desirable. Just some ideas for things I think players would want to spend money for, and would serve as money sinks.
Exploration areas that cost money to reach, such as paying for a teleportation, or airship ride that offer all manner of interesting non monetary rewards if lucky. High risk as well.
Chance to rent storage on a weekly basis.
Magical research that costs money to conduct. Like rarer alchemical recipes.
Perks for donating to temples, libraries, etc. opening up special stores, or quests.
Npc gossips willing to sell information related to potential plots, or history. offering minor lore, or plot hooks to encourage future adventure and exploration while serving as a money sink.
Chance to rent minor "office" space with persistant storage, for a very high weekly cost.
Make certain crafting options like tabards more expensive.
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Allow players to rent out storage facilities and see how they use their gold much more. Storage is the bane of everyone and many people would pay much to have a place they can store stuff temporarily and securely.
The system could consider variables of number of stored items and the amount of time they are stored. For example 1 Item storage for a week could cost 100Gp, 2 items storage for a week could cost 200Gp, and so on and so forth…
You could place the item inside for free, but when you want to take it out you have to pay the fee and the fee could pile up for as long as you keep the items there. You left one item for a month? You have to pay 400Gp to get it out. The cost of course could be adjusted to serve as gold dump system and to prevent players from exploiting the storage. -
I hoard my money in case I need a raise cause respawning makes me die a little inside every time I do it. :cry:
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i spend my gold on wands and supplies
then give them away
..occasionally i will splurge and waste my gold on changing a outfit, changing its colour as well
i found when i quested a lot i spent a lot keeping healing wands, and some parties and quests seemed to gobble up the wands in a hurry, some quests i would come out ahead
i tended to avoid the ones that use a lot of resources when i was below a certain supply point, refusing to do those till my supplies reached a acceptable level
the ones i would come out ahead on, i would try to do those every reset if invited to go alongbut there were always variables, parties, lag and bad luck
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As far as wizards / sorcerers go (who often end up with oodles of gold)
- True Wizard Staves
I think a certain merchant used to sell flashy wizard staves for a fairly high sum. They're pretty much a status symbol for wizards / sorcerers, and something to spend the ludicrous sums they can end up carrying about on.
- More varied scroll selections from stores
There are several magical vendors in the city. Sadly, their scroll selections are fairly similar. Especially when speaking of the circle 1-3 stuff. Adding in some more variety (Vampiric touch / Negative Energy burst / Stone Bones for merchants with a liberal view of necromancy | Endurance, Fox's Cunning, Eagle's Splendor and the rarer buffs at another store) might encourage wizards to spend a bit of their gold to pad out their spellbook with the spells that can be difficult to acquire from other PC's.
Also, perhaps a certain half-elf wizardess might sell some more varied high level scrolls. Obviously not stuff like Finger of Death or Power Word: Kill. More scrolls of spells that are slightly out of reach for PC wizards / sorcerers, but which have moderate utility and can be bought and kept for those 'Oh Shit' and 'Yeah, I'm sort of a badass' situations. Stuff like Shadow Shield, Summon Creature VI (Maybe VII too) and Protection from Spells.
- Spell Slot Items
So, so, so useful. Especially given how long some of the higher level quests can be. It seems like the best you're finding from socketable gems is lvl 0-1 stuff, but that's near to useless really. Maybe a merchant could start offering items with Bonus Spell Slots of up to level 3 or 4 for both arcane and divine casters for sale at a sufficiently high price. Fighters enjoy more longevity on quests through spending their hard earned gold at merchants buying items that boost AC - you can achieve the same goldsink for mages and priests by offering spell slot items.
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Wizard Staves definitely.
More varied selection of scrolls.
More reason to tithe to temples. Since I've not seen a diety save in ages.
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The gold will always end up in the hands of quest-slay characters. I run few alts that are just for the fun of questing and not for any other involvement. It's easy to hit 20 or 30 or 50k and I know that V3 saw several characters with spare cash over 100k even when the rewards were lower (in general) and you could buy a lot of shyte from the npc's and especially the other players. And then those characters might just go and say "Hey hello, I would buy 20 wands of hammer of god, plz) and both the player and the character who received the order would pass out.
Why the money is not spent?
- Respawning ; negates a lot of expenses and usually just ends up winning you a truck load, as lower levels are kind of silly with medium to high level gear
- Highbie Loot from NPC's ; kind of lame, so people will just invest in consumables and use those if they run into a situation where they need it
- themes, kits, pure class bonuses, pure class items; while really really really cool and I love them, they usually make up for some resources and thus; more money is saved
- too much "xx specific" items; while again, cool, and I love them, and I buy them when I have a reason, they are kind of slow to get (we only have few metal crafters compared to the legion of armorsmiths back in v3) , resources as scarce and from a powergamer perspective, not many are useful (I might disagree, but I tend to think a bit out of the box)
The real problem (if there is a problem, that is for the DM team to decide) is that the lower levels actually earn too much. It's hard to motivate them to take a risk with 1000gp. It used to be "holy bob on a cracker! half of my new fullplate just appeared!" and now it's like "1000gp, I got that much removing rats from a cellar and running errands"
I am fine with people having plenty of gold, but then again; I usually spend it.
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To me, gold is means to get consumables after i buy myself the "perma-gear" stuff. (armor, rings, amulet).
Surprisingly, noobs tend to accumulate more gold. Because they often have no idea where to buy good gear, while average gear is mostly free.
Many shops are hidden within the module and it's not that vets conceal this knowledge, rather noobs just have no idea those shops are there and they should look for them. After I learned about those shops (and I still probably only know very few) I started spending a lot of money there. -
People, this thread is not to discuss how to earn gold, or why people dont earn gold, its to discuss ideas of "gold sinks" that players would like to see. Keep on topic, or start a new thread to discuss the other topic.
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My thoughts;
Lowering the gold and making the quests harder should be accompanied by more potions dropping on the quests. If you choose this route I would advise only slightly harder. The player base is getting better at questing, and I think any kind of large boost in difficulty will send us back to the days of doing the same quests over and over once per reset and only when the perfect party was around.
I think persistant storage would only switch the hording from gold to loot.
The ideas like magical things you can do or staffs (I would rather wizards crafting staffs then buying them) I think are good if you have to buy expensive stuff and gather regents about the server that aren't easy to find, this way it takes time to do it rather just bam here it is.
My personal suggestion which could easily work with any of the above as an also would be to have extremely difficult exploration area that leads to some merchant that has +2 sword and extra damage or keen level loot. Something that would take a fortune of consumables to even hope to survive and obviously the loot would be expensive in its own, so gold is spent. You could rotate the shop like fivestar (one of the best features ever on coa) and once you feel people have gotten the beginings of a system to beat the exploration area you switch it up. I know there are places like this already, I'm just saying for this one up the danger and the loot at the end of the rainbow.
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Things I would like to buy from NPCs!
A portable portal that I can use that teleports my party back to the city after questing in a far flung location.
Augments for my character. Permanent stat boosts that cost loads of gold and have an evil bent to them.
Persistent storage for my crafting and merchanting buddies. If the weekly charge is not paid, items become forfeit.
A boat trip/ portal use to a far flung location where I can potentially earn more loot.
A tiered respawn system. If I pay a priest some gold, respawning could be less costly XP wise. This would probably need the base XP cost to be more brutal, though.
Non-persistent op loot. A magical vendor that sells some seriously mad yet expensive weaponry that doesn't last beyond a reset. Ideal for that underdark trip or super spiced DM quest.
Cursed items to give to pals
Fast travel between towns and outposts (sort of covered with portals)
A pet shop with animal companions/wizards familiars
Obscure magical foci that allow wizards to cast some of the new sorcerer spells/rift spells/other spells entirely.
Custom potions that boost spot/search/listen, social skills, climb/squeeze/balance checks
One use a day rod of resurrection, not the 22324354 GP version currently found in certain stores.
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I personally prefer giving my gold to PC's whenever possible as opposed to NPC vendors. Whether this be through crafters, potion brewers, or people who make attuned gems. The new crafting system is fantastic and I'm really liking the surge of player operated stores and services which is why I try to help them out whenever I possibly can.
That said, my gold usually stands somewhere around 0-1500gp pretty much constantly. I pretty constantly go on non-scripted player driven missions. Whether these be plot oriented or just mining trips they can use LOADS of resources for very little return on the investment usually other than plot advancement. But when I'm sitting at 400gp and about to use every last one on discipline stones and potions just so I can try to make a little bit of the gold I lost on those player driven plot quests back, and someone puts up some awesome strength gloves for 3200gp on the forum I can definitely see why people hoard their gold.
But putting these items in a regular shop that anyone can just save up and buy them when they have the money devalues them so much I don't think it's the right answer.
An idea I've been toying with is making the items that do not directly benefit a player mechanically more prevalent. Have magic bags drop on (more?) quests so people can sell them if they don't need them! Or sell them in a place that isn't a million miles away from everyone or horrendously overpriced in the Bazaar. (Because who actually skills appraise?) Make some more fun RP items! Make eating and drinking have a real positive effect ingame instead of something I can just roleplay with little difference. Items with cool particle effects, or that can give your own items neat visual effects. Giving people an outlet for their money that doesn't directly increase their power but still makes them want to spend their money I think is the best way to get gold out of people's pockets. Like persistent storage, as it has been mentioned multiple times in the thread so I wont go into that other than carrying capacity is why I haven't saved up for a second set of Fighter Plate.
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@Undead:
People, this thread is not to discuss how to earn gold, or why people dont earn gold, its to discuss ideas of "gold sinks" that players would like to see. Keep on topic, or start a new thread to discuss the other topic.
Wait what? That's exactly what my post was about.
If special shops were not secret and hidden from general playerbase, there would be much less people with lots of gold on their hands and little idea on what to do with it. -
Recipies for crafters being available to buy at a store, with the good stuff being really expensive would be a good start.
I would've suggested some awesome looking armor with medium stats, but the new crafting system allows that.
Rented storage space.
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When I had enough potions and wands, I hoarded gold for two reasons (and I would stay around 10k-20k). Firstly, is for major events I had planned where all the gold would disapear. They mainly would go into socket gems/unique items/anything else needed. The second reason was to save up for something special should it come around. A unique item, shiny, whatever. Though thats the only time I hoarded gold was when I had enough potions/main items/wands.
I remember on Akdul I spent 20k on items to give to everyone else for an event. If your hoarding gold, I think you should use it for a plot/something exciting! Perhaps if there were more unique and useful items from npc's people would spend it, instead of waiting for an item to come around (Such as a 100% holding bag, don't we all find that useful), or items that can help with plots (Although if its a DM event Im sure the DM's would help, like a goblin merchant selling catapults to team event to bombard the city with)
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i would like to see ig npc's mention hidden shops so us noobs can access them, and spend some of our gold
my main pc has gear, he has consumables and he still has around pots of gold with nothing to spend it on. ok so now i am paying people to do stuff :)
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What to spend gold on?
Never really got over 3k gold.
Here is what I spend it all on:
healing goods
protective potions (barkskin, shield, blur, that sort of stuff)
crafting components (blacksmith)
a few RP trinkets. (empty bottle, rations, gems, cloths)
Gear when I can afford it (which is rare since consumables pretty much eat all my gold…)This pretty much eat all my gold. I have no clue how folks manage to get 10k gold so easily. Perhaps some more consumables variations could be sold? Notice the Toy shop now has a cool shop of consumables. Perhaps some themed items in various places? More variety here and there?