When not descending into the depths of the earth, exploring ruins for
lost treasures, or waging war against the encroaching darkness,
adventurers face more mundane realities. Even in a fantastical world,
people require basic necessities such as shelter, sustenance, and
clothing. These things cost
money, although some lifestyles cost more
than others.
Lifestyle Expenses
Lifestyle expenses
provide you with a simple way to account for the cost of living in a
fantasy world. They cover your accommodations,
food and drink, and all
your other necessities. Furthermore, expenses cover the cost of
maintaining your equipment so you can be ready when adventure next
calls.
At the start of each week or month (your choice), choose a
lifestyle from the Expenses table and pay the price to sustain that
lifestyle. The prices listed are per day, so if you wish to calculate
the cost of your chosen lifestyle over a thirty-day period, multiply
the listed price by 30. Your lifestyle might change from one period to
the next, based on the funds you have at your disposal, or you might
maintain the same lifestyle throughout your character’s career.
Your
lifestyle choice can have consequences. Maintaining a wealthy lifestyle
might help you make contacts with the rich and powerful, though you run
the risk of attracting thieves. Likewise, living frugally might help
you avoid criminals, but you are unlikely to make powerful connections.
Lifestyle Expenses
Lifestyle |
Price/Day |
Wretched |
--- |
Squalid |
1 sp |
Poor |
2 sp |
Modest |
1 gp |
Comfortable |
2 gp |
Wealthy |
4 gp |
Aristocratic |
10 gp minimum |
Wretched.
You live in inhumane conditions. With no place to call home, you
shelter wherever you can, sneaking into barns, huddling in old crates,
and relying on the good graces of people better off than you. A wretched
lifestyle presents abundant dangers. Violence,
disease, and hunger
follow you wherever you go. Other wretched people covet your armor,
weapons, and adventuring gear, which represent a fortune by their
standards. You are beneath the notice of most people.
Squalid.
You live in a leaky stable, a mud-floored hut just outside town, or a
vermin-infested boarding house in the worst part of town. You have
shelter from the elements, but you live in a desperate and often violent
environment, in places rife with disease, hunger, and misfortune. You
are beneath the notice of most people, and you have few legal
protections. Most people at this lifestyle level have suffered some
terrible setback. They might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer
from
disease.
Poor. A poor lifestyle means
going without the comforts available in a stable community. Simple food
and lodgings, threadbare clothing, and unpredictable conditions result
in a sufficient, though probably unpleasant, experience. Your
accommodations might be a room in a flophouse or in the common room
above a tavern. You benefit from some legal protections, but you still
have to contend with violence, crime, and disease. People at this
lifestyle level tend to be unskilled laborers, costermongers, peddlers,
thieves, mercenaries, and other disreputable types.
Modest.
A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can
maintain your equipment. You live in an older part of town, renting a
room in a boarding house, inn, or temple. You don’t go
hungry or thirsty, and your living conditions are clean, if simple. Ordinary
people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families,
laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards, and the like.
Comfortable.
Choosing a comfortable lifestyle means that you can afford nicer
clothing and can easily maintain your equipment. You live in a small
cottage in a middle-class neighborhood or in a private room at a fine
inn. You associate with merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military
officers.
Wealthy. Choosing a wealthy lifestyle
means living a life of luxury, though you might not have achieved the
social status associated with the old money of nobility or royalty. You
live a lifestyle comparable to that of a highly successful merchant, a
favored servant of the royalty, or the owner of a few small businesses.
You have respectable lodgings, usually a spacious home in a good part of
town or a comfortable suite at a fine inn. You likely have a small
staff of servants.
Aristocratic. You live a
life of plenty and comfort. You move in circles populated by the most
powerful people in the community. You have excellent lodgings, perhaps a
townhouse in the nicest part of town or rooms in the finest inn. You
dine at the best restaurants, retain the most skilled and fashionable
tailor, and have servants attending to your every need. You receive
invitations to the social gatherings of the rich and powerful, and spend
evenings in the company of politicians, guild leaders, high priests,
and nobility. You must also contend with the highest levels of deceit
and treachery. The wealthier you are, the greater the chance you will be
drawn into political intrigue as a pawn or participant.
Self-Sufficiency
The
expenses and lifestyles described here assume that you are spending
your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of whatever
services you can afford—paying for food and shelter, paying townspeople
to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on. Some characters,
though, might prefer to spend their time away from civilization,
sustaining themselves in the wild by hunting, foraging, and repairing
their own gear.
Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn’t
require you to spend any coin, but it is time-consuming. If you spend
your time between adventures practicing a profession, you can eke out
the equivalent of a poor lifestyle. Proficiency in the
Survival skill
lets you live at the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.
Food, Drink, and Lodging
The
Food, Drink, and Lodging table gives prices for individual food items
and a single night’s lodging. These prices are included in your total
lifestyle expenses.
Food, Drink, and Lodging
Item |
Cost |
Ale |
Gallon |
2 sp |
Mug |
4 cp |
Banquet (per person) |
10 gp |
Bread, loaf |
2 cp |
Cheese, hunk |
1 sp |
Inn stay (per day) |
Squalid |
7 cp |
Poor |
1 sp |
Modest |
5 sp |
Comfortable |
8 sp |
Wealthy |
2 gp |
Aristocratic |
4 gp |
Meals (per day) |
Squalid |
3 cp |
Poor |
6 cp |
Modest |
3 sp |
Comfortable |
5 sp |
Wealthy |
8 sp |
Aristocratic |
2 gp |
Meat, chunk |
3 sp |
Wine |
Common (pitcher) |
2 sp |
Fine (bottle) |
10 gp |
Services
Adventurers
can pay nonplayer characters to assist them or act on their behalf in a
variety of circumstances. Most such hirelings have fairly ordinary
skills, while others are masters of a craft or art, and a few are
experts with specialized adventuring skills.
Some of the most basic
types of hirelings appear on the Services table. Other common hirelings
include any of the wide variety of people who inhabit a typical town or
city, when the adventurers pay them to perform a specific task. For
example, a
wizard might pay a carpenter to construct an elaborate chest
(and its miniature replica) for use in the
secret chest spell. A
fighter
might commission a blacksmith to forge a special sword. A
bard might
pay a tailor to make exquisite clothing for an upcoming performance in
front of the duke.
Other hirelings provide more expert or
dangerous services. Mercenary soldiers paid to help the adventurers take
on a
hobgoblin army are hirelings, as are sages hired to research
ancient or esoteric lore. If a high‑level adventurer establishes a
stronghold of some kind, he or she might hire a whole staff of servants
and agents to run the place, from a castellan or steward to menial
laborers to keep the stables clean. These hirelings often enjoy a
long‑term contract that includes a place to live within the
stronghold as part of the offered compensation.
Services
Service |
Pay |
Coach cab |
Between towns |
3 cp per mile |
Within a city |
1 cp |
Hireling |
Skilled |
2 gp per day |
Untrained |
2 sp per day |
Messenger |
2 cp per mile |
Road or gate toll |
1 cp |
Ship's passage |
1 sp per mile |
Skilled
hirelings include anyone hired to perform a service that involves a
proficiency (including weapon, tool, or skill): a mercenary, artisan,
scribe, and so on. The pay shown is a minimum; some expert hirelings
require more pay. Untrained hirelings are hired for menial work that
requires no particular skill and can include laborers, porters, maids,
and similar workers.
Spellcasting Services
People who are
able to cast spells don’t fall into the category of ordinary hirelings.
It might be possible to find someone willing to cast a spell in
exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no established
pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the desired spell,
the harder it is to find someone who can cast it and the more it costs.
Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level, such as
cure wounds or
identify,
is easy enough in a city or town, and might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces
(plus the cost of any expensive material components). Finding someone
able and willing to cast a higher-level spell might involve traveling to
a large city, perhaps one with a university or prominent temple. Once
found, the spellcaster might ask for a service instead of payment—the
kind of service that only adventurers can provide, such as retrieving a
rare item from a dangerous locale or traversing a monster-infested
wilderness to deliver something important to a distant settlement.