Richest person in the rpg world

So prompted by a tumblr post I've been thinking on the value of made up money today.

Say most people in the rpg world are level 1 NPCs. They have money, but it's like, on the NPC chart, 260gp of gear... really? 260gp? Because level 1 starting PCs might have like 175gp if they're a wealthy class... mind that's an average, the upper bound you could roll is ... 5d6*10gp, that's 300gp. Okay, NPCs make sense too, they're just rolling well.

Wealth by level table says by level 2 you've got 1000gp.
Four times as much as the NPC in the street.

And granted you the PC risked your life for that, but, it could be a few days work.

Level 5 has 10,500gp.
You are now 40 times as wealthy as the man in the street.
And you aren't even out of the Ordinary yet.

By the time you're kind of a legend, level 16? 315,000gp
1211 times as much as that level 1 NPC
which is also how many people you could outfit with level 1 type gear.

Average cost of living is 10gp a month.

If my math is right
you could live 2625 years off of 16th level wealth.

... you could live 87.5 years off level 5 wealth.

... or 8 years on level 2.



Past a certain point an adventurer is not in it for the ordinary sort of money. The making a living money. That's a concern for lower level people.

PCs be in it for survival money, mostly making stupendous magic items.


Or they're funding huge numbers of followers and cohorts, or building castles.

Big dreams.