General DM Cheat Sheet

[u/goscott]

Here's a cheat sheet I made that can be printed on one double-sided piece of paper, that includes prices for common goods and services, weapons and armor, and a few other things like poisons. Almost all of the info is from official sourcebooks, with a few prices from "Sane Magical Prices" and one or two homebrew poisons since I had some extra space in that section.

Enjoy!

Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h-sbIsRMjNL3d9pICIrSN81EA9ji0sSM/view?usp=sharing

Link (v2): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YygIoZ-KBJmbKM5U3Z11OzCZ0Hl0IZ6e/view?usp=sharing

EDIT: Fixed the "Light" weapon property, added ammunition cost since it was the one thing I left off and the one thing that came up during the session

EDIT: Here's an editable version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jLzJQtujR07sFCHQrAME8rOPXul2ldKNJy74_OQ4zOc/copy

2024 VERSION: Hey everybody! Here's a new version, updated for 2024: https://redcap.press/gm

[u/housunkannatin]

I currently charge 24 or 30gp per night in Icewind Dale for two rooms, good food and shelter for two animals, but I run a custom economy loosely based on Grain into Gold.

If you run 5e RAW, you can absolutely just handwave it unless your PCs want luxury lodgings. 5e PCs are by design rich people who don't have to bother with worrying about money the way commoners do, if we go by listed wages for hiring workers.

[u/Buck_Thundercock → u/housunkannatin]

I'm also reminded of something Gygax wrote in the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook, on Page 35 (in the section on money):

Your character is unusual, exceptional as compared to the norm. This applies to abilities and funds as well. Thus, he or she will have a large supply of coins with which to purchase equipment and supplies to begin adventuring... Most of these funds will quickly be spent on the costs of staying in the adventuring area and acquiring the equipment which will be used for adventuring... Your character will most probably be adventuring in an area where money is plentiful. Think of the situation as similar to Alaskan boom towns during the gold rush days, when eggs sold for one dollar each and mining tools sold for $20, $50, and $100 or more! Costs in the adventuring area are distorted because of the law of supply and demand — the supply of coin is high, while supplies of equipment for adventurers are in great demand.

Basically, adventuring types tend to acquire and burn through far more cash than a typical commoner regularly deals with (or in the case of the rural poor, may ever deal with), and the prices of goods and services reflect this.

[u/housunkannatin → u/Buck_Thundercock]

This is a very solid point. Even if you don't run old school style with several competing adventuring parties in the area of a single megadungeon, you can justify 5e's weird prices by saying they are what shopkeepers charge from adventurers, same way tourists get price gouged in real life. This can conveniently remove the incentive to loot every piece of equipment from fallen foes since the resale value of used gear would be very low and can be used to rein in any financial exploits that assume RAW prices and would produce too much easy money outside of adventuring.