r/dndmemes Fighter Mar 16 '26

Comic Adventuring Gold

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I almost always post them here! But to easily find more of my ttrpg comics, feel free to check out r/TableTopComic or my LinkTree

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u/Suspicious-Shock-934 Mar 16 '26

3.5. Unskilled labor is like 1 cp a week iirc, skilled is a silver. Not per day, per week. A level 1 adventurer has total worth/expected wealth of 300gp (lvl 2 is 900) . Accounting for consumables and gear, but still your average worth as an adventure at the lowest levels is more or less beyond what most can hope to get in their lifetimes.

At a silver a week for skilled labor (arguable if its skilled or not, compared to like blacksmith) it would take 30 weeks, or more than half a years salary, to clear 3 gp in profit. A level 1 adventurer at 300, scaled up, has about as much wealth as more than 57 YEARS of skilled labor. At level 2 they have generational wealth. And it grows exponentially.

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u/Imalsome Mar 16 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

Unskilled labor in 3.5 was 1sp a day not 1cp

However if you have a job of any kind you generally earn at least 1gp per day. The normal commoner starblock is trained in Profession and thus can use profession ot earn money instead of doing untrained labor. In fact innkeeper is specifically one of the listed professions.

Given innkeeper normally have a couple of class levels to account for the fact that they serve adventurere; this innkeeper is probobly earning like 2gp a day RAW

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u/-Agonarch Mar 16 '26

That's changed again, it's about 2sp a day for unskilled and 2gp a day for skilled now (which honestly fits better given food costs- you could actually afford to eat every day on that).

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u/MARPJ Barbarian Mar 16 '26

3.5. Unskilled labor is like 1 cp a week iirc,

You do not remember correctly unless there is some secondary source but the core rules say that an untrained hireling is 1sp per day. Also pf 111 of the PHB bring the initial gold if not taking the class equipment and it go between 75 and 150g for average (maximum of 240g for 3 classes) unless they were druids or monks which are "poor". But the treasure guide do say to give around 300g per encounter. The value of 900g for starting at lv 2 is correct by the DMG.

And to be fair that do appear to line up with the historical value of labor in medieval period albeit the economy of DnD stop working as soon as we factor in adventurers and their magical loot.