Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback D&D Money Larianized

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the money system in this game. It would be great to see copper and silver pieces implemented as opposed to having everything in the game cost gold. The strangeness and complexity of money in D&D is a part of what makes trading fun in the first place. I recall finding an electrum in the Zhent hideout, which is essentially useless because there's no implementation of anything but gold. Furthermore, the cost of things seems random and bloated. There are already set prices for weapons and armor in D&D, and I find it odd that a hand crossbow costs less than a light or heavy crossbow considering its superior utility and inferior demand. I feel that the market system in this game is following too closely to DOS/2 and not closely enough to the actual D&D origin of BG, which adhered somewhat more faithfully to the costs of weapons and armor set forth in the D&D rulebooks.

I agree that it would be nice to take a look at some of the pricing structures. I'd like to see a more vibrant economy overall, utilizing more coinages. That would be interesting.

And I'd especially like to see different prices at different vendors. Like a tailor gives more for robes and a blacksmith buys metal for more than, say, a leatherworker. The old Temple of Elemental Evil game worked that way.

That said, I'm not convinced that calling the current system "Larianized" is the best way to get across the suggestion. It sounds more like an insult than feedback offered in good faith. Just my opinion.

I feel this way too. Gold just loses some of it's mystique when it just turns into D&D dollars or credits or whatever. It also had powerful funerary associations, because it doesn't corrode like other metals - it doesn't rust or change with the passing of time in that way, which is why the ancients buried their dead with it. Even if they probably could never have guessed that Gold is actually produced in the hearts of dying stars, they still understood it as a chthonic element with Plutonic underworld associations. Also the idea of it's malleability as a wrought metal that changes shape and can be worked into many forms. Or even down to the soft sheen that characterizes it (the other part of the 'All that glitters is not gold...' aphorism hehe). Gold throws off light in a way that made it seem magical in an era before electric lamps and overhead fluorescence and whatnot. That's why it was used to adorn temples and churches and priest's vestments. Gold looks very different by candle or torchlight in the dark than it does under harsh modern light, less gaudy and more powerful in the illumination in that way. All that, and then there's the weight, as just the heaviest of heavies. All this is pretty cool lore material that could be mined from the depths and collected down by the river. I think they should use silver as the main stricken coin, and somehow preserve gold as a bit more rare and more special than these games usually do.

Eh..... I can't agree, Black Elk.

Pretty much every quality you mention here is true of silver as well, after all. Further more... its mysticism is *hugely* diminished in a world where literal magic is highly present and visible already.

Different currencies and different denominations are an interesting and fun feature as part of world-building and lore in any space, and this is true in D&D games as well... however, this is counter-balanced by the video-game format. In a video game, there is a certain benefit for streamlining elements of minutia that don't necessarily add to specific story being told, and currency minutia is often one of those elements. Within the scope of a video game's story, forcing the player to handle various denominations of currency in a direct or meaningful way will usually end up just being busy work or annoyance (and light knows, BG3, and larian design, has enough of THAT already), but having it handled automatically in a smooth or seamless way that the player doesn't interact with doesn't really *add* anything in this format... so working just in gold is pretty normal as a result. The neverwinter games, for example, just used gold, and weren't the worse for it.

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That aside... the gold *costs and values* that we work with in game should reflect the world space that we're playing in, and they should feel grounded and sensible, and that's something Larian definitely needs to work on in a big way, and onthat score i do agree with the OP's sentiment.

Imo money just needs to be more impactful in BG3. We're given thousands of gp in EA; there are old forum posts showing that people collected upwards of 30k gp. This was also back in earlier patches with fewer magic items, so I'd guess people can get closer to 40k gp now. And this is at level 4...by level 10 are we going to have hundreds of thousands of gp? More? That's just too much.

DAO's money system was great. You start out getting coppers and sometimes silvers, struggling to buy even the most basic gear and consumables. And by the end of the game you could have collected 10s of gold, maybe up to 100gp. This worked because the game converted your money automatically, coins didn't actually take up inventory so you didn't have to manage them, the conversion rate was 100:1, and the double-digit gp cost of highest-tier gear made gp much impactful and more easy to put in context. Humans are bad with large numbers.

I'd like BG3 to include different tiers of coins, both for familiarity's sake and for the reasons mentioned above. The worth of money should also make somewhat sense - basically everything commoners need to live is priced at <5 sp; it is only adventuring gear or Noble comforts that begin to cost gp. For context, the rough conversion I know of is 1gp = $100 US dollars. Getting gold(!)from enemies and chests should be a Big Deal to Tier 1 Adventurers.

I've been pondering if we won't have all our stuff taken from us at Moonrise, with Act 2 being a bit of a reset.

It'll seem odd showing up to BG with thousands of gold after mucking about in the woods for a few [insert time here].

I remember when firesnakearies was doing her Improbable Adventures, she was roleplaying a maid, and said she was doing pretty well with over a hundred gold. Yeah, I imagine that would bump up most people's standard of living by a fair margin, especially considering I think most commonfolk are supposed to average a copper a day.

D&D economies have always been the least thought out aspect, including their computerized adaptations

I found something online that said unskilled labor is paid 2sp/day but I couldn't find where that was from, the point still stands I think.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense for gold to be so plentiful in the wilderness unless we're talking the fringe encounters with the Zhentarim, and even then it's unlikely that they would hoard upward of 2000 gp in a goblin hideout and nothing in their actual headquarters. I imagine most people in the realm are poor, which averages to 2sp per diem. A modest lifestyle averages 1gp, comfortable 2gp, wealthy 4gp, and aristocratic 10gp at a minimum. This per the Basic Rules, Chapter 5: Equipment.

I strongly agree with your point about currency being handled automatically. Players don't need to do the math in their head for most transactions, the AI can do it for them, and the merchant should be able to confirm the player's remaining moneys before the purchase anyway. This is very basic programming compared to the tactical AI we fight in combat. As to the weight of moneys in inventory, perhaps that is something for the developers to consider. It's at the DM's discretion whether or not to account for the weight of coinage.

Consider that not everything costs even 1gp. The result is that we end up buying torches for 100x their value and bloating the in-game economy unnecessarily. Pennies are to dimes and dollars as coppers are to silvers and gold pieces. It isn't a hard concept for most to grasp, and might even make some players feel more intelligent for having understood it.

In this context Larianize must mean stay true to the original game.

In all versions of BG vendors dealt only in gold.
Even at 1st level the minimum price at Winthrop's store in the original BG for any item be it sling, club, arrows, darts or quarterstaff, was 1 gold.

You misunderstood what I was saying: Larianized means needlessly bloated and not reflective of the actual price of items as presented in D&D manuals.

I completely understood what you were saying.
You just completely missed the point that Larian didn't change BGs monetary standard.
In all versions of Baldur's Gate the vendors have dealt only in Gold.
In all versions of BG the designers have adjusted the prices of mundane items to cost much more than the prices that were listed in the D&D manuals.

The only point I’m missing is that of your needlessly aggressive tone. Regardless of whether or not the vendors deal only in gp, the price inflations on items are unnecessary. You seem to be conflating two separate points I made in this post.

Not conflating.
I was only addressing one of your incorrect statements, that the streamlining of the currency was somehow unique to Larian. That is factually incorrect.

Your assertion that the original BG didn't inflate prices is also incorrect. If you compare book prices from 2nd edition Ad&D to BG you will find that 's BG's prices are inflated for all items from what is in the source material.

You are attempting to throw shade at Larian based on two false premises.
If you consider it aggressive to point out that you are being factually inaccurate then that is on you.

Previous BG games (and NWN games etc) also generally refrained from 'vendor trash' items like plates and milk jugs. These are the items that would benefit most from expanding the monetary system to include copper & silver, because as-is right now a large amount of the items you can pick up are valued at 1gp. Would be nice to see less compression in the prices in the game IMO.

And really, of all the traditions Larian has brought over to BG III from the older games, and all the things it hasn't....I have a hard time seeing 'BG I + II only used gold coins' as an unassailable sacred pillar of the OG saga.

+1

BG1&2 using a purely-gold based economy with inflated prices isn't a good argument for BG3 doing the same. Tens of thousands of gp at level 4 is still an obscene amount of wealth, especially given our location in some fairly minor part of a forest 10 days travel from BG. Like, sure, there's a Zhent outpost and an Absolute base nearby, but you don't need to rob the Zhents to get that much money and the Absolute base is staffed with goblins so really shouldn't be overflowing with wealth.

If you want to change the way the BG games have always managed currency then ask for it.
Making up lies while trying throw shade at Larian obfuscates your concerns.

I'd like to take a brief time out to suggest that folks take an extra minute to read what they type and consider whether they can make their points in less confrontational or fractious ways; there's no need for it, and using a tone of writing that comes off as fishing for a reaction helps no-one.

The point that Larian were not the first to reduce the currency system to just gold, or that the currency values, as a result, end up being grossly inflated from tabletop equivalents in most video game renditions of D&D systems is valid - this is not something that Larian, specifically, have done afresh. This does not mean that others cannot suggest that it shouldn't be like that, and criticse Larian's choice in following established trends - especially when they seem so willing to discard established mainstays in other areas. Whether or not you agree with that criticism or request is also open to the individual to discuss... but we can all do so without throwing around deliberately confrontational language. Please.

I think having a standardized currency has kind of become the norm on most "mainstream" CRPG these days - it's not just a Larian thing. In general most devs just don't think having a very complex monetary system adds much. Most of the big games use a single practical currency, and in most cases, any other are strictly added in others for world building loot.

For example - in Obsidian games like Deadfire or FNV - you often get to pick up other currencies as a world building mechanic (i.e. NCR dollars, Azata shells), but the underlying barter system still operates on 1 currency. In Deadfire's case everything just gets auto converted to CP. In FNV's case, other currencies basically operate like gems and other sellable loot, with bottlecaps being the main.

Alternatively, in Dragon Age origins, gold/silver/copper exist, but your money is automatically converted. I.e. if you pick up enough copper, you'll automatically get silvers.


In regards to the economy, I wouldn't mind seeing Larian try to tone down the economy a bit, but at the same time, it's sort inevitable when you allow for certain player freedom and save scumming that things can get out of hand. As long as your game is designed for both extremes (i.e. non-looters and Scrooge McDuck players), some form of exploit will exist. No amount of currency control can deal with players willing to spend time farming and save scumming to accumulating wealth.

In general, almost any game that has pretty open exploration and allow you to kill and steal from NPCs (with save scumming) will have some form of economy problem where players can get incredibly rich. Deadfire, FNV, BG1/2EE all have this problem similar to BG3. Games that tend to restrict freedom more (i.e. Kingmaker/WoTR - where you can't actually steal or harm randoms) can better keep their economy in check, but that leads to you outright denying certain playstyles.

In BG3's case, I wouldn't mind if some of the more obviously sellable loot is reduced in value (i.e. all those crystals you can mine). But if someone's really looking to cheese the economy of the game, I don't think you can really stop them without putting in too much restriction that affects QoL.

No one has lied about anything. The money system in this game is reminiscent of DOS/2, down to the UI of vendor attitudes affecting prices. Also related, the overabundance of magic items for sale (and throughout the adventure) detracts from their value as magic items. In typical campaigns, a party might encounter a new magic item or two every new quest, and at lower levels they typically aren’t very powerful or useful (Cloak of Billowing, Pole of Collapsing, etc.). It’s only once the party reaches about level 3 or 4 that they might receive one or two +1 weapons, and perhaps a set of +1 armor or a +1 shield at level 5. These items aren’t normally carried by vendors since they don’t usually go on adventures themselves, and magic items are typically only found in the field. They are priceless. I also don’t find these +1 weapons particularly important since there are no enemies in the game right now that even have resistance to nonmagical damage from weapons, let alone immunity. I’m only suggesting that Larian not stray too close to its old formulas and try to operate in a way that is meaningful to the source material. I bought this game with the understanding that it was meant to be faithful to the tabletop RPG, yet with the understanding that some things just aren’t feasibly transferable to a cRPG. The D&D economy is not one of those things.