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loans
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Table of Contents
Loans
Rules for loans are found on PHB 35. What that looks like may vary between campaign settings, but we recommend the system on this page.
Getting a loan
Loans can be taken anywhere with a moneychanger.
No settlement will be capable of giving a single character a loan in excess of 1 gp per population. So a town of 2,000 could not give a loan larger than 2,000 gp to a single character.Ex
Security
The moneychanger may want for some security (see the Interest section below). Security can be in the form of any wealth accepted as payment by a trainer, including coin, gems, jewelry, or magic items.1) The security must be physically handed over to the moneychanger when the loan is taken out.
Interest
Interest compounds monthly, with a minimum of one time. Therefore, if a PC takes a loan out at 10% and repays it later that day, they still need to pay back 10% more than the loan.Ex
The following table “bakes in” the assumed reputation gain of characters as they go up in level. Rates should be worsened for a character with a negative reputation.
| Character | Monthly interest rate | Security |
|---|---|---|
| 1st - 2nd level | 10% | Reaction check: [Positive] 50% loan value required in security. [Neutral or worse] 100% loan value required. |
| 3rd - 4th level | 9% | Reaction check: [Positive] No security required. [Neutral or worse] 50% loan value required. |
| 5th - 6th level | 8% | Reaction check: [Positive] Optional 50% security reduces interest rate by half. [Neutral or worse] No security required. |
| 7th - 8th level | 7% | Optional 50% security reduces interest rate by half. |
| 9th+ level2) | 6% | Optional 50% security reduces interest rate by half. |
| Name level | 5% | Optional 50% security reduces interest rate by half. |
| Owns stronghold | 4%3) | Optional 50% security reduces interest rate by half. |
DM's notes
When considering a loan system, your priorities should be:
- “Providing” a way for PCs to spend their money (interest). Put another way, money sinks are usually great for the game.
- Not overly restricting the advancement of low level characters.
It's important to keep starting gold meaningful by not giving free loans, but you also don't want to saddle new characters with a ton of debt they can't get out of. Characters can avoid debt by staying XP capped, but you may find that a lot of this has negative effects to the campaign as time goes on.
After the campaign has been going for a while, new players and characters will join. If it takes a long time for them to be able to get past the first few levels in order to join in on non-introductory adventures, the campaign may suffer for it. Either these low-level characters will face challenges too great, or the higher-level characters will need to be put on the backburner (or be played in low-level adventures and thereby accumulate more upkeep than they make in these “starter dungeons”). Whatever you choose, your loan system should not cripple your campaign advancement.
1)
The sell value of the items should be considered, not their base value or XP value. For more info, see selling treasure
2)
If the character is name level by now, use that row instead.
3)
Based on PHB 35's rate for propertied characters.
loans.1697580774.txt.gz · Last modified: 2024-12-22 15:53 (external edit)
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