D&D: Money is Power – and These Basic Pieces of Adventuring Gear Prove It
Even in D&D you can’t get away from the power of commerce. Here are five pieces of basic adventuring gear that turn GP into damage.
Money talks, so they say. Mine mostly says “transaction declined” but, in D&D money can say a lot of other things. You just have to know how to listen.
Because one of the more common complaints of D&D is that there’s nothing to spend money on. And that’s sort of true. If your DM doesn’t make things like magic item shops available, it can be hard to find things to spend money on once you havey our basic gear.
Not impossible, mind you. You just have to actually give players interesting things to spend money on. Like doing damage. Which is where these five pieces of basic adventuring gear come in handy – as they’re basic gear, rules as written, you can find them in basically any shop wherever you’re likely to find a merchant.
Basic Poison
Let’s start with something extremely basic. It’s right there in the name: Basic Poison. For 100 gold pieces, you can get a vial of basic poison (no questions asked, presumably). With a vial of basic poison, any character can spend a Bonus Action to coat one weapon or three pieces of ammunition with poison. If it were me, you get the most bang for your buck by coating three arrows or crossbow bolts. After a weapon has been coated, it deals 1d4 extra poison damage when dealing slashing or piercing damage. So one vial gets you potentially 3d4 extra damage – great for a Rogue who is lining up that Sneak Attack and wants even more extra damage..
Alchemist’s Fire
This is potentially a much cheaper gp to damage value. A flask of Alchemist’s Fire will run you only 50 gold and it comes with a pretty gnarly effect—if your enemy isn’t great at Dexterity saving throws. For 50 gp, you can use your attack action to hurl yon flask at an enemy. Even better you only need to swap out one attack, so if you have multiple attacks, you can set someone on fire and then also stab them.
Because alchemist’s fire is very good at setting people on fire. You don’t make an attack roll – your enemy makes a Dex save at DC 8 + your Dex modifier + Proficiency Bonus. So it’s likely to be high, but not guaranteed. Or hurl it at someone who autofails Dex saves and just set them on fire. Either way, alchemist’s fire does 1d4 fire damage and gives a target the burning condition.
Burning targets take 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of their turns. This condition remains until the fire is put out – which takes a whole action (and drops them prone), so they’re taking at least 2d4 and potentially more from a single flask – or until the target dies, is doused or submerged in water, or the fire is suffocated. But yeah, not easy to just put yourself out once you’re on fire.
Holy Water
Holy Water deals damage to a limited selection of enemies. It only hurts fiends and undead creatures—but it works plenty well if you need to dole out some radiant damage. Like a flask of alchemist’s fire, it replaces one of your attack action attacks, and it deals 2d8 radiant damage to targets it effects. Not bad for 50 gold if you find yourself up against a demon or something.
Spell Scroll – Cantrip
Did you know that you can buy spell scrolls in stores now? You can! At least you can buy cantrip spells and 1st level spells on spell scrolls in stores now. Both this and the next item on our list are in the basic adventuring gear section now. A Cantrip Spell Scroll will run you about 30 gold pieces. But 30 gold to open the world of possibilities that a Cantrip represents seems like a small price to pay. Sure, it’s not going to come up in every fight, but a scroll of something like True Strike will let you power up one of your attacks with some extra damage.
Especially if you decide to only spend 15 gold pieces and scribe the spell yourself. A spell scroll cast by the caster that scribed it (which takes proficiency with either Arcana or Calligrapher’s tools) uses their own spellcasting modifier and level to determine a spell scroll’s effects. Meaning even one level in a casting class can let you gain the effects of a higher level cantrip’s damage if you make it yourself.
Spell Scroll – 1st Level
If you thought cantrips were a world of possibilities, then, 1st Level spell scrolls are a whole other solar system. One of these can do so much more than damage, but, even something like a Witch Bolt gives you a way to do consistent damage at range without needing to worry too much. All it takes is 50 gold pieces and you too can enjoy being a 1st level Wizard for an action.
Spending GP to deduct someone’s HP feels like the kind of accounting a D&D adventurer would do!
