Understanding D&D Currency (and how to price items in your campaign)

Stop me if you've heard this one:

Your players walk into a tavern ... and the party immediately asks how much a room costs.

You panic.

Your mind goes blank.

"Uh ... 5 gold?" you say, hoping that sounds reasonable.

The table goes quiet.

Someone whispers, "Isn't that like... a lot?"

The 'rules lawyer' player pulls up their PHB.

You've accidentally charged them the equivalent of a week's wages for a single night's stay, and now you're in too deep to back out.

We've all been there.

This guide to D&D 5e currency and pricing will help you understand what money means in your campaign and give you practical methods for pricing some of the most common items.

Whether you're a first-time DM scrambling through your first D&D session or a veteran who still has no idea if 3 silver for ale is highway robbery, understanding D&D currency can feel like trying to do calculus in the middle of combat. The good news? It's actually way simpler than you think, once you understand what money actually means in your game world.

The real problem isn't the numbers

Here's the thing: D&D gives you a whole currency system with copper, silver, electrum (which no one uses, let's be honest), gold, and platinum pieces.

You know where to go for the answers; the Player's Handbook has price lists and the Dungeon Master's Guide has treasure tables. And yet, somehow, none of it clicks until you're sitting there trying to figure out if 2 gold for a healing potion is generous or insulting.

The issue isn't that we don't have the information, it's that we don't have context. When someone tells you a longsword costs 15 gold, what does that actually mean to a commoner? To an adventurer? To your players who just completed a MAJOR heist at the Afterlife Casino?

Let's dive in!

Think like a commoner (because most NPCs are)

The best way to understand D&D currency is to start with the people who have the least of it: regular folks.

According to the PHB, an unskilled laborer makes about 2 silver pieces per day. That's your tavern server, your stable hand, your farmer. They're bringing home 6 gold pieces per month if they work every single day.

Now imagine that same commoner walking into a shop and seeing a chain shirt for 50 gold. That's almost a year's wages for a piece of armor. A riding horse at 75 gold? That's a year's salary. A simple longsword at 15 gold would be two and a half months of backbreaking labor.

Suddenly, paying 5 gold for a room at the local inn sounds like A LOT now, right?

Ye Olde Economics

Here's where it gets interesting ... your players aren't commoners. They're adventurers, which in economic terms, means they're basically tech billionaires wandering through medieval farming villages.

A single "modest" treasure hoard for a level 1-4 party can include 600 copper, 3,000 silver, and 40 gold.

That's more money than most NPCs will see in a year and your party might find that in a random cave before lunch.

PICTURED: the local NPC who overhears your party found 40 gp IN A CAVE

• Commoner Economy: Copper and silver matter. Prices are measured in what a day's work can buy.

• Adventurer Economy: Gold is the baseline. Copper and silver are loose change you don't bother tracking.

TIP: if you're DMing a campaign in Waterdeep or Sharn, go ahead and raise those prices, they can afford it! Some D&D locations, like the two I mentioned, have a HIGH concentration of wealth whether through trade or merchant guilds.

What does ___ cost in a tavern?

When you're DMing, you can choose to follow the guide below (from D&D 5e - Basic Rules 2014), make your own prices OR do a bit of both:

Common Tavern/Inn (Basic Rules 2014)

• Ale (mug): 4 cp

• Wine, common (pitcher): 2 sp

• Wine, fine (bottle): 10gp

• Meals (per day): 6 cp (poor), 3 sp (modest), 5 sp (comfortable)

• Room (per day): 1 sp (poor), 5 sp (modest), 8 sp (comfortable)

Nicer Tavern, up the road (how I price my homebrew)

• Ale (mug): 6 cp (medieval happy hour pricing for beers)

• Wine, common (pitcher): 4 sp

• Wine, fine (bottle): 10 gp

• Meals (per day): 8 sp (comfortable), 1gp (wealthy), 2 gp (aristocratic)

• Room (per day): 1 gp (comfortable), 3 gp (wealthy), 7 gp (aristocratic)

When your adventurers with full coin purses walk in, we're in silver and gold territory. The actual product might not be that much better, but the innkeeper knows they can afford it.

Pricing Shop Items: The 3-Question Method

When a player asks, "How much for this?" and it's not in the book, don't panic. Just ask yourself three questions:

1. How useful is this, really?

• Cosmetic or class-specific: 1-5 sp

• Useful utility item: 1-5 gp

• Could save their life: 5-50 gp

• Could change the campaign: 50+ gp (or not for sale)

2. What is the rarity of the item?

• Common (like rope, torches, waterskins, etc.): CP to low SP

• Uncommon (specialty goods, imports): SP to low GP

• Rare (special made, unusual materials): GP to PP

• Very rare: this is completely up to your discretion as DM. The first campaign that I DM'd was a homebrew with some quests from the Keys to the Golden Vault adventure book, so my players characters were RICH rich (read more about that campaign here)

3. Can a commoner afford it?

• If yes: Keep it under 1 gp

• If it's a stretch: 1-5 gp

• If absolutely not: 5+ gp

Ok, so what about magic items?

Magic items break all these rules, and that's intentional. The DMG is deliberately vague about magic item prices because, in most D&D worlds, you're not supposed to just buy a +1 dagger like you're shopping at Etsy.

That said, if you are running a higher-magic setting or your players are in a big city with actual magic shops, try the scale I use:

• Common magic items: 50-100 gp

• Uncommon: 100-500 gp

• Rare: 500-5,000 gp

• Very Rare: 5,000-50,000 gp

• Legendary: "Not for sale", or use 'plot-relevant' prices

But honestly? The best approach is to make magic items not something you can reliably buy. Make them quest rewards, family heirlooms, or treasures found in ancient ruins so they feel special (and save you from trying to calculate whether a bag of holding should cost 800 or 1,200 gp).

When to just let it slide

Here's my favorite pricing tip: sometimes, don't charge at all.

If your players are level 9, have thousands of gold pieces, and want to buy common traveling supplies in a random town, just let them. I say "you stock up on rations, rope, and torches ... no need to track the exact cost." They can afford it. You don't need to look up the price of 50 feet of rope for the thousandth time.

Save the detailed pricing for when it matters: big purchases, story moments, or when resource scarcity is part of the campaign. And if you ever feel lost, your friendly bardic dispensary of wisdom is here to help!