Expenses

What could be more exciting in a game of Dungeons & Dragons than charting downtime expenses? These rules cover the cost of food, lodging, and various services like getting equipment repaired.

Many of these expenses are tied to the economy of downtime days, the time that (in some campaigns) takes place during adventures. They exist in part to balance the income of characters practicing a trade; their function is not simply to add accounting.

Many campaigns either don’t use downtime (their adventures tend to run back-to-back) or won’t want to keep track of petty incomes and outlays. This is fine. But if your campaign does have downtime, and it does add income for the regular artisanal or professional activities during downtime days, remember to balance that income against certain expenses. A person’s cost of living typically consumes half of his or her normal income.

The official rules provide seven levels of lifestyle quality, each with an associated daily cost. To use these rules, choose a lifestyle level to live at, and pay in advance to cover it. Lifestyle costs can be paid daily, or they can be paid a week or a month in advance. Ideally, the DM predetermines how many downtime days will pass until the next adventure and calls for expense payments based on that number.

A character proficient in the Survival skill or possessing the Wanderer background feature can live in the wilderness, sustaining a “poor” lifestyle without paying for it, so long as the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.

Lifestyle choices have no set mechanics that affect the game. But the DM may create consequences in the form of downtime encounters or plot twists related to lifestyles. The lower the cost of your accommodations, the greater your risk of interacting with people who are poor, covetous, diseased, exiled, or otherwise dangerous to you. The higher your cost of living, the greater your chance of interacting with the cream of society, the movers-and-shakers who might try to enmesh you in their political intrigues.

These descriptions also apply to the individual components of lifestyles, priced in the sections below. The nature of meals, boarding, and stabling are of the same type, even when acquired piecemeal.

Aristocratic. Living among the very well-to-do allows you to rub elbows with the elites of society. Your food and lodging are top-notch. Servants are available to attend your every need. Your clothing is the cutting edge of fashion. This lifestyle is appropriate for politicians, guild leaders, high priests, and nobles.

Comfortable. Your accommodations allow you to easily maintain your clothing and equipment, keeping them in good repair and proper appearance. You may have your own cottage or other living area. This lifestyle is appropriate for merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military officers.

Modest. You can afford to live in a part of town where violence is not common. Your living conditions are clean, but simple. This lifestyle is appropriate for soldiers with families, laborers, students, priests, and hedge wizards.

Poor. A stable option, this lifestyle provides the bare necessities for civilized society. Your threadbare clothing still betrays your status as one of the poor inhabitants of the area, but you are not kicked out of shops or denied the protection of the law. This lifestyle is appropriate for unskilled laborers, street venders and peddlers, thieves, and mercenaries.

Squalid. This lifestyle provides the most basic form of shelter, a hut, a boarding closet, or a temporary shelter run by a local temple. The food is barely palatable and hardly nutritious. This lifestyle is appropriate for successful street gangs and other unfortunates.

Wealthy. This lifestyle includes spacious accommodations in a good part of town, with a healthy (or even excessive) diet. It includes the security and comforts available only to those with significant wealth. This lifestyle is appropriate for successful merchants, favored servants of nobles, or the owners of successful businesses.

Wretched. A wretched lifestyle has no associated cost. The character must beg, scavenge garbage, or otherwise provide her own food from anything freely available. Without a home, the character is exposed to myriad dangers associated with the poorest elements of society. This lifestyle is appropriate for beggars.

Characters paying for days of lifestyle have food, drink, and lodging included; the following need not be bought separately.

Food, drink, and lodging are described below. Ale. A sweet, full-bodied beer balanced with fermented gruit or hops.

Banquet. A bountiful, multi-course meal suitable for a noble’s table.

Bread. A baked mix of flour and water. Bread is a nearly-universal food staple.

Cheese. A congealed, solid byproduct of milkfat.

Meat. Meat cooked and ready for eating. A chunk is a cut of meat suitable for a single meal, while a flank is a portion of the animal equivalent to 15 cuts.

Pastry (any). Pastries are flaky, baked bread pieces containing cheese, fruit, or meat.

Spirits. An alcoholic beverage created by distillation and fermentation, usually followed by a set period of aging. The removal of diluting components like water gives spirits a high alcoholic content by volume.

Stew. A watery meal of stewed meat and vegetables, served out of a common pot or cauldron, typically one that simmers over a fire all day (or all week, depending on the quality).

Wine. A common type of alcohol made from grapes with little or no additives. The better the production and the longer the aging, the more expensive a bottle of wine will be. Wine is sometimes made from different fruits, rice, or other sources.

The pay shown on the chart is a minimum; some expert hirelings require more.

Services are described below.

Coach Cab. A coach is a passenger cart with flexible suspension, designed to provide a smooth, comfortable ride for passengers. A “coach-and-four” or a “coach-and-six” are descriptions that include the number of horses (or similar animals) pull the vehicle.

Hireling, Skilled. Skilled hirelings have training with weapons or tools, including artisans, mercenaries, scribes, and so on.

Skilled hirelings typically have proficiency with a type of tool and a score of 14 in the related ability. Skilled hirelings have the “stat blocks” of commoners. Soldiers instead use the details for bandit, guard, or tribal warrior. (See pages 343-350 of the Monster Manual.)

Hireling, Untrained. Untrained hirelings perform menial work without noteworthy skill. These include laborers, maids, porters, and similar workers. Untrained hirelings have the “stat blocks” of commoners. (See page 345 of the Monster Manual.)

Hireling, Long-Term (any). Long-term hirelings are those to whom you give steady work. You take these people into your household or bring them along on your adventures.

Long-term hirelings receive less pay because the work is steady and because you are expected to see to their room and board. If you do not supply these things, double the cost of the hireling’s services.

Messenger. Messengers are familiar with the area they work in and pride themselves on being able to deliver messages quickly and to the right recipient. They are suitably dressed to avoid trouble and to get into places where the rabble are excluded.

Toll, Road or Gate. A common taxation system for civilized societies includes tolls for people passing through confined access ways like gates, bridges, and the like. Loaded wagons are typically charged an additional toll.

Government employees like soldiers and tax collectors are typically exempt from tolls, as are members of the nobility and royalty.

Ship’s Passage, Ferry Crossing. Ferries can be private or government run. For government ferries, the fee is typically in the nature of a toll, making some classes of people exempt.

Ship’s Passage, Passenger Vessel. On large rivers or the open sea, passenger vessels follow set routes between cities or other well-inhabited points. Passenger vessels provide a slim measure of comfort for travelers, including food.

Ship’s Passage, Shipping Vessel. Shipping vessels often ply routes that passenger vessels do not. They are sometimes chosen as transport because the fare can be had for a much lower cost. Sometimes these lower costs include the understanding that a passenger will work alongside the crew. The accommodations aboard a shipping vessel are often cramped and miserable.

Spellcasters are usually not transactional with their magic. Nonetheless, it is possible to hire magical services under the right circumstances.

Availability. The expected availability of a spellcaster varies based on the local population. (See also the Buying Power by Population chart, above.) Cantrips and 1st-level spells are available in most small villages, but a larger village is needed for a 2nd-level spell. Towns of various sizes will probably have spellcasters able to manage 3rd-level and 4th-level spells. Anything higher-level almost always requires looking for the service in a city of some size, or perhaps following a lead to an isolated wizard’s tower or druid’s hermitage. Sometimes a spellcaster with greater capabilities chooses to reside in a place with a low population. These anti-social spellcasters tend not to make themselves available for such services but, if you can find one, they might be cajoled into providing a spell.

Cost and Multiplier. The Pay column on the chart below indicates the minimum price that spellcasters charge for their services. The formula used here, adopted from the Adventurers League system, is the square of the spell’s level, multiplied by 10. For example, 4 squared is 16, multiplied by 10 is 160. A fourth-level spell thus costs 160 gp to have cast. This value does not contemplate the additional expense of costly material components.

The multiplier indicates a general rarity for the spell’s level. If characters don’t have time to seek out the best price, perhaps needing spells cast the same day, multiply the base cost in the Pay column by up to the indicated multiplier number. Spellcasters don’t like to be rushed and are often willing to inflate their costs to whatever the market will bear. This multiplier can also be applied for various other reasons. Perhaps the person seeking spellcasting services annoys the spellcaster, or the spellcaster normally keeps his services to members of a specific race or religion. There are any number of reasons that such a markup could apply; the Pay column simply represents an ideal cost derived from ideal circumstances.

Material Components. It is typical for spellcasters to use their own material components. This ensures that the components are on hand when needed, and are of the right type and quality for the spell to succeed. If a spell requires a costly material component, the person receiving the service must bear the cost. This is in addition to the basic price of the spellcasting service based on the spell’s level. When looking for spellcasting services, it’s no good bringing your own material components; a spellcaster that makes her casting commercially-available has already invested in the components and won’t look kindly on you trying to reduce the expected fees that way.

If a costly material component is not used up in the casting, the customer must pay one-tenth of the component’s value. For example, the 100 gp pearl required for an identify spell is reusable, so the caster charges only one-tenth (10 gp) of its acquisition price. After a while, the spellcaster may recoup the investment cost of having such a component on hand, and might eventually turn a small profit on it.

If the material component is one that is consumed in the casting, the customer must pay double the component’s value. For example, the 500 gp value in diamonds needed for a raise dead spell would require the buyer to lay out double the expense (1,000 gp). Casters who market their spells invest serious coin to acquire these components, tying up that wealth until the right customer comes along. They expect to be compensated for holding onto these expensive inventories, having them ready at a moment’s notice.

Gratis Spellcasting. Some spellcasters will perform these services without collecting the price on the Pay column. This often means a local cleric who uses spells to support and assist a congregation. A member of a faith who finds the right temple can expect to receive low-level spellcasting assistance for free, the only cost being the basic value of any costly material components consumed in the casting. Many clerics see this sort of thing as their duty and don’t mind supplicants who supply their own material components. Some clerics also see this as a great opportunity to proselytize, not restricting their services to worshipers of their own deity.

Another way to get free spellcasting is to perform tasks or quests for the spellcaster. This is a particularly-appropriate exchange when the spell needed is a high level and the characters are too low level to afford it. For example, if a low-level party needs a member raised from the dead, they might need to go on a quest to repay the cleric who casts the spell. (In this case, the cleric might cast the spell first, on condition that the party complete the quest, taking this “payment” after casting so they have better odds of success.)

Wish Spells. Because there is a 33% chance that a spellcaster casting wish will never be able to cast the spell again, this spell is essentially unavailable for purchase through spellcasting services. This “finality effect” does not apply when duplicating other spells, so a spellcaster might be hired to cast wish with the spell-duplication functionality. This might be useful when only a wizard is available for hire and the party needs a cleric spell cast. Otherwise, the party could simply pay the lower cost to have the lower level spell cast directly.

Among the most notable expenses are the extensive maintenance costs for properties, garrisons, and businesses.

A small chart in the Dungeon Master’s Guide on page 127 reflects costs for structural maintenance. But normally, such facilities produce more income or tax revenues than their maintenance costs, so this chart is only showing half of the picture.

Properties and other investments, including their maintenance costs and returns, are more fully addressed in Investments.