\section{Expenses}\label{expenses}

When not descending into the depths of the earth, exploring ruins for
lost treasures, or waging war against the encroaching darkness,
adventurers face more mundane realities. Even in a fantastical world,
people require basic necessities such as shelter, sustenance, and
clothing. These things cost money, although some lifestyles cost more
than others.

\subsection{Lifestyle Expenses}\label{lifestyle-expenses}

Lifestyle expenses provide you with a simple way to account for the cost
of living in a fantasy world. They cover your accommodations, food and
drink, and all your other necessities. Furthermore, expenses cover the
cost of maintaining your equipment so you can be ready when adventure
next calls.

At the start of each week or month (your choice), choose a lifestyle
from the Expenses table and pay the price to sustain that lifestyle. The
prices listed are per day, so if you wish to calculate the cost of your
chosen lifestyle over a thirty-day period. multiply the listed price by
30. Your lifestyle might change from one period to the next. based on
the funds you have at your disposal, or you might maintain the same
lifestyle throughout your character's career.

Your lifestyle choice can have consequences. Maintaining a wealthy
lifestyle might help you make contacts with the rich and powerful,
though you run the risk of attracting thieves. Likewise, living frugally
might help you avoid criminals, but you are unlikely to make powerful
connections.

\begin{tabular}{ l | l }
  Lifestyle & Price/Day \\
  \hline
Wretched &  \\
Squalid & 1 sp \\
Poor & 2 sp \\
Modest & 1 gp \\
Comfortable & 2 gp \\
Wealthy & 4 gp \\
  Aristocratic & 10 gp minimum \\
\end{tabular}

\subsubsection{Wretched}\label{wretched}

You live in inhumane conditions. With no place to call home, you shelter
Wherever you can, sneaking into barns, huddling in old crates, and
relying on the good graces of people better off than you. A wretched
lifestyle presents abundant dangers. Violence, disease, and hunger
follow you wherever you go. Other wretched people covet your armor,
weapons, and adventuring gear, which represent a fortune by their
standards. You are beneath the notice of most people.

\subsubsection{Squalid}\label{squalid}

You live in a leaky stable, a mud---floored hut just outside town, or a
vermin---infested boarding house in the worst part of town. You have
shelter from the elements, but you live in a desperate and often violent
environment, in places rife with disease, hunger, and misfortune. You
are beneath the notice of most people, and you have few legal
protections. Most people at this lifestyle level have suffered some
terrible setback. They might be disturbed, marked as exiles, or suffer
from disease.

\subsubsection{Poor}\label{poor}

A poor lifestyle means going without the comforts available in a stable
community. Simple food and lodgings, threadbare clothing, and
unpredictable conditions result in a sufficient, though probably
unpleasant, experience. Your accommodations might be a room in a
flophouse or in the common room above a tavern. You benefit from some
legal protections, but you still have to contend with violence, crime.
and disease. People at this lifestyle level tend to be unskilled
laborers, costermongers, peddlers, thieves, mercenaries, and other
disreputable types.

\subsubsection{Modest}\label{modest}

A modest lifestyle keeps you out of the slums and ensures that you can
maintain your equipment. You live in an older part of town, renting a
room in a boarding house, inn, or temple. You don't go hungry or
thirsty, and your living conditions are clean, if simple. Ordinary
people living modest lifestyles include soldiers with families,
laborers, students, priests, hedge wizards and the like.

\subsubsection{Comfortable}\label{comfortable}

Choosing a comfortable lifestyle means that you can afford nicer
clothing and can easily maintain your equipment. You live in a small
cottage in a middle-class neighborhood or in a private room at a fine
inn. You associate with merchants, skilled tradespeople, and military
officers.

\subsubsection{Wealthy}\label{wealthy}

Choosing a wealthy lifestyle means living a life of luxury, though you
might not have achieved the social status associated with the old money
of nobility or royalty. You live a lifestyle comparable to that of a
highly successful merchant, a favored servant of the royalty, or the
owner of a few small businesses. You have respectable lodgings, usually
a spacious home in a good part of town or a comfortable suite at a fine
inn. You likely have a small staff of servants.

\subsubsection{Aristocratic}\label{aristocratic}

You live a life of plenty and comfort. You move in circles populated by
the most powerful people in the community. You have excellent lodgings,
perhaps a townhouse in the nicest part of town or rooms in the finest
inn. You dine at the best restaurants, retain the most skilled and
fashionable tailor, and have servants attending to your every need. You
receive invitations to the social gatherings of the rich and powerful,
and spend evenings in the company of politicians, guild leaders, high
priests, and nobility. You must also contend with the highest levels of
deceit and treachery. The wealthier you are, the greater the chance you
will be drawn into political intrigue as a pawn or participant.

\subsection{Food, Drink and Lodging}\label{food-drink-and-lodging}

The Food, Drink, and Lodging table gives prices for individual food
items and a single night's lodging. These prices are included in your
total lifestyle expenses.

\subsection{Self-Sufficiency}\label{self-sufficiency}

The expenses and lifestyles described in this chapter assume that you
are spending your time between adventures in town, availing yourself of
whatever services you can afford---paying for food and shelter, paying
townspeople to sharpen your sword and repair your armor, and so on. Some
characters, though, might prefer to spend their time away from
civilization, sustaining themselves in the wild by hunting, foraging,
and repairing their own gear.

Maintaining this kind of lifestyle doesn't require you to spend any
coin, but it is time-consuming. If you spend your time between
adventures practicing a profession, as described in chapter 8, you can
eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle. Proficiency in the Survival
skill lets you live at the equivalent of a comfortable lifestyle.

\subsection{Services}\label{services}

Adventurers can pay nonplayer characters to assist them or act on their
behalf in a variety of circumstances. Most such hirelings have fairly
ordinary skills, while others are masters of a craft or art. and a few
are experts with specialized adventuring skills.

Some of the most basic types of hirelings appear on the Services table.
Other common hirelings include any of the wide variety of people who
inhabit a typical town or city, when the adventurers pay them to perform
a specific task. For example, a wizard might pay a carpenter to
construct an elaborate chest (and its miniature replica) for use in the
Leomund's secret chest spell. A fighter might commission a blacksmith to
forge a special sword. A bard might pay a tailor to make exquisite
clothing for an upcoming performance in front of the duke.

Other hirelings provide more expert or dangerous services. Mercenary
soldiers paid to help the adventurers take on a hobgoblin army are
hirelings, as are sages hired to research ancient or esoteric lore. If a
high-level adventurer establishes a stronghold of some kind, he or she
might hire a whole staff of servants and agents to run the place, from a
castellan or steward to menial laborers to keep the stables clean. These
hirelings often enjoy a long---term contract that includes a place to
live within the stronghold as part of the offered compensation.

Skilled hirelings include anyone hired to perform a service that
involves a proficiency (including weapon, tool, or skill): a mercenary,
artisan, scribe, and so on. The pay shown is a minimum; some expert
hirelings require more pay. Untrained hirelings are hired for menial
work that requires no particular skill and can include laborers.
porters, maids, and similar workers.


\begin{tabular}{ l | l }
  Service & Pay \\
  \hline
Coach cab between towns & 3 cp per mile \\
Coach cab within a city & 1 cp \\
Hireling, skilled & 2 gp per day \\
Hireling, unskilled & 2 sp per day \\
Messenger & 2 cp per mile \\
Road or gate toll & 1 cp \\
Ship's Passage & 1 sp per mile \\
\end{tabular}

\subsection{Spellcasting Services}\label{spellcasting-services}

People who are able to cast spells don't fall into the category of
ordinary hirelings. It might be possible to find someone willing to cast
a spell in exchange for coin or favors, but it is rarely easy and no
established pay rates exist. As a rule, the higher the level of the
desired spell, the harder it is to find someone who can cast it and the
more it costs.

Hiring someone to cast a relatively common spell of 1st or 2nd level,
such as cure wounds or identify, is easy enough in a city or town. and
might cost 10 to 50 gold pieces (plus the cost of any expensive material
components). Finding someone able and willing to cast a higher---level
spell might involve traveling to a large city, perhaps one with a
university or prominent temple. Once found, the spellcaster might ask
for a service instead of payment, the kind of service that only
adventurers can provide, such as retrieving a rare item from a dangerous
locale or traversing a monster-infested wilderness to deliver something
important to a distant settlement.