Should gold pieces have inventory weight?

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OzzyBotkins

No it would not add anything to the game . But that is just me

Magnus_Grelich

Nope. Faerun's currency is minted at a small bottlecap shack in Elminster's backyard. There, the weight of the metal is magically negated.

Kaltzor

Well, while it would make sense for the gold to have a weight... But I don't wanna be going around saying "Why can't I hold all these coins?"

Magnus_Grelich

Exactly. Something best left for the hardest of hardcore players, and anally retentive idiots.:D

Eudaemonium

No, for the pure simple reason that the game doesn't have a mechanism for 'dropping' money or exchanging it for much lighter bank notes. Money with weight would require a much revised system of currency and currency conversion to that which exists in the game at present.

Wanderon

The concept is pretty much pointless as it adds nothing to the gameplay and would require massive resources to make it work well that should be spent on things that actually improve the game.

OneAngryMushroom

I already have issues with encumberance I don't need gold adding to the problem

Tyranus

I voted 'No'. By the end of the game, I have so much gold that transporting it from area-to-area would end up looking like my trade network from Storm of Zehir.

I take my vote back if they implemented a cohort and horse/wagon feature that appears at the edge of every map I warp into. This carries my riches and may be randomly attacked by bandits whos power is directly proportional to your gold count.

bill_zagoudis

you realise that all the games are looking away when it comes to inventory realism right?

and how would you have it othwerwise? even a strong adult man cannot carry a full backpack along with a suit of full plate and a large shield,let along food and ofc water of which a party will need at least 10 litres if it's going to go far,whos going to carry those and how? also where should they put them in case of a fight?

not to mention potions(we have dozens on us),gems,wands,quest items,secondary weapons,ammunition and all the alike

fighters and clerics are already burdened enough with their armor,thieves and rangers need to be light and mobile and mages are wimps,so let's say that the mages conjure some sort of void storage and there you go,problem solved.

ChildofBhaal599

It could only work if money also became an inventory item. Imagine if the protagonist was a Mage who typically doesn't have high strength. If I have minsc in the party, why would I not give him all the money to carry? Also, this was an annoying feature in daggerfall, but at least that had a bank but here we don't. I guess I could store it in the friendly arm.

CaptRory

The problem with having money have weight is that, there's no system in place to cope with it. Normally you could deposit your money, yes even back then, into a bank or some kind of trading business and they'd give you a letter saying that you had a certain amount of material there. It was certainly easier providing a document proving you owned three tons of wheat than carrying it down the street with you.

atcDave

I liked the way the old Gold Box games handled it. Treasure hoards were broken down by coin type and weight just like PNP. Every time you shopped your coinage was converted to the most efficient change possible (mostly platinum pieces, with just a little spare change). If you were really wealthy you could convert to more precious gems or jewelry. It was a little labor intensive, and maybe not really worth it for most players. But I thought it added a level of atmosphere and immersion that I enjoyed. And you quickly learned not to bother picking up those copper pieces...

smeagolheart

No. *Magic* credit cards. Pocket of holding, whatever. A Wizard did it.

Necomancer

Gold having weight makes perfect sense. Gold is heavy. It has weight.

That being said, no. While it seems realistic, there is something that comes before realism to me, and thats ease of gameplay. Mind you, you can't make things to easy or it gets pointless and silly, but theres a balance you need to find. I think gold weighing something would just make the game more frustrating and add realism that only hampers, and not enhances, the game.

Menocu

Added value for the Bag of Holding.
@atcDave
I have fond memories of Secret of the Silver Blades and the Krynn games. Having different coinage types is also realistic: historically, in places that developed commodity money, metals of differing value did come into play to serve your different denominational needs.

the_spyder

I say it should, but with a qualification. There would need to be some sort of banking system and/or a heavy trade in gems and jewelry. And the Gem bags (there needs to be gem bags in the game) should be more robust.

But think about it, by the end game, most of us are walking around with several hundred thousand gold coins. Even if they were the size of dimes (and they should be more like twice-four times the size of silver dollars), that would be a HECK of a lot of bulk and weight to carry around.

Anduin

gc are kept in random barrels all over the realms... The figure you see from the inventory screen is the number of gc that you have in YOUR random barrels spread all over the realms... Currency is an idea... A concept... The recent crash was caused by bad bankers taking on bad barrels. When the barrels turned out to be empty, the banks crashed...

Lets not think about it too hard... When you realise that your local Bank most likely has not even 1/100 of the money supposedly stored in it, brains get fried... Even I have trouble with the barrel concept... But where are all these barrels kept? And what happens if you find one? Do the depositers lose out? Or is this a clever way to gain interest on your savings... This is a conundrum faced by the few accountants in the realms... Personally I would invest in gems and keep them in a bag on your person...

CaptRory

@Anduin

On the upside, the growing number of Wild Mages is an amazing force for fighting inflation. As soon as they move from a currency backed by Precious Metals to curreny like most of our world uses inflation will take care of itself. One wild surge and everyone else gets a little richer.

killeah

maybe a hard cap, of some reasonable size, obviously carrying around 100k+ coins seems a bit off, even for a bhaalspawn, then again one could picture that the party travelled with a carriage of some sort, which on the other hand would explain random bandit attacks etc.

Anduin

@killeah Perhaps my post lacked clarity... The gc amount you see on your inventory screen is your credit. The gc does not exist on your person... Many a billionaire walks light on his feet... The gc is tied in assets and in an existential basis in barrels. The barrel phenomena is a concept tied to the value that a gc piece holds, which as you rightly deduce, is itself a an idea and a concept. The value each person puts into a gc piece is unfortunately a fragile thing. However the physical gc piece is incorruptible. This is why gold is used. Only the weight changes.

Hope that clears it up!

killeah

aha, I see then again a barrel limit would perhaps be in place then? Again how many barrels could one stash? and infact the entire concept of looting a chest with 2000 gc seems a bit off when compared to the barrel concept.

on the other hand the entire I stash gold at your place - keep it safe or I'll skewer you - thought is quite appealling.

the_spyder

@Anduin - more or less a banking system.

KidCarnival

While logically, yes, gold does have a weight, I don't really picture my party having sacks with coins over their shoulders. I would prefer it if the currency was mixed - some gold, some gems - way, way more gems, and mostly pay with gems.
There is a big difference between carrying 10 million in money - even paper money - and carrying 10 million in diamonds. For the money, you need a suitcase or something; the diamonds all fit in a tiny bag.

That is how I imagine my party paying; the gem bag is the wallet and stores will trade armor and other higher value items for gems. Only the shabbier taverns and inns take gold, due to most of their prices being so low that there are no gems worthless enough to give change.

the_spyder

I suppose tha for continuity sake we could all assume that when we find more than a few coins, that it is actually some combination of coins and gems and other currency that adds up to the amount listed.

Zalson

It's a computer game.

In this game's UI, I can't carry 3 daggers and 12 different types of gems and 15 different spell scrolls at the same time, despite their negligible weight. I also cannot recruit a beast of burden to carry additional equipment. Nor can I leave the Sword Coast for any reason.

Inventory micro-management already contributes a great deal to the game's tedium. Let's not exacerbate the problem.

Coriander

Shuffling from copper to platinum or using banks or storage to deal with it is just tedious in PnP, so I don't unless the physical money matters for a given scenario. Doing it in BG would be painful.

the_spyder

I don't think that anyone is suggesting that each stack of 1000 gold coins takes up an inventory slot (although.....???? Nah...) so I don't think it would add that much tedium in my mind. It would prevent STR from being a dump stat for Mages though.

I guess I just think about that guy in Trademeet in BG2 who tells how he just helped slay a dragon but couldn't carry off more than a small amount of the hoard. That actually makes sense to me more than a party hauling sacks and sacks and SACKS of gold around everywhere they go. As does Bilbo Baggins only accepting two chests full of gold from Smaug's hoard because that was all that made sense for him to carry back home. There is a certain amount of lore and continuity that adding weight to gold would give.

And it could be done as easily as any time you visit a store that the shop owner changes up your currency to the highest level for you.

In PnP, there were gold and silver and copper and platinum coins which varied the currency quite considerably and made more sense. Don't get me wrong, I think the game is fine as is. Just saying it would be a nice additional feature.

AHF

If you were writing a novel, you would want to address this. However, for a video game mechanic it would be a tedious distraction from the focus of the game and banking/merchantile groups would ultimately provide you with a line of credit that would provide similar benefit to the weightless gold currently in the game.

There is more than enough time already spent on inventory management, IMO.

franco

Zalson said:

Inventory micro-management already contributes a great deal to the game's tedium. Let's not exacerbate the problem.

I agree. So we need to visualize a banking system. The realms certainly seem advanced and sophisticated enough to support such a system.

It opens the possibility in some future game where the banking system becomes stressed by some greedy king (or other scheme) and there is a financial crash. Ah. But that is another story.

AHF

franco said:

Zalson said:

Inventory micro-management already contributes a great deal to the game's tedium. Let's not exacerbate the problem.

I agree. So we need to visualize a banking system. The realms certainly seem advanced and sophisticated enough to support such a system.

It opens the possibility in some future game where the banking system becomes stressed by some greedy king (or other scheme) and there is a financial crash. Ah. But that is another story.

To me it is a bit like asking if we should be having characters carry around food and water. Some of these things you have to take for granted if you don't want to bog down the game into tedium.