Good money making methods in 5e?

[Keeganwilson]

Apart from quest rewards what are some good ways to make money. Be it from spells or good?

I did butchering with a previous character which is surprising profitable.

[GlenSmash!]

My Barbarian is swimming in gold (or at least has a bad of holding full of it) from adventuring in Storm King's Thunder. I just need to get to a decent place to spend it.

If we ever have any downtime he is a Mercenary Veteran. That's probably a pretty decent way to make money in the realms.

[suplee215]

Ultimately it is too DM dependent to say. How dms handle ways the players attempt to make extra money varies too widely to try to optimize.

[Man_Over_Game]

Apart from quest rewards what are some good ways to make money. Be it from spells or good?

I did butchering with a previous character which is surprising profitable.

Be a Transmutation Wizard, using a woodcarver's kit to convert metal objects into wood that you then carve into impossible shapes.
Create fantastic sculptures that'd normally take years in a fraction of the time. Get spells like Wall of Stone, Shape Stone and Fabricate to create houses in a day. The houses might not be pretty, but being able to build a fort in a week is quite the feat.



Use Illusory Script to con someone into signing over their property.

Build a Teleportation Circle in two different cities, then charge people money to use it. Make sure to put it next to a bounty hunter guild or the local jail, in case people "randomly" use your teleportation sigil from another source without paying. Make sure to Hallow it so that planar travelers don't try abusing your public information. If possible, I'd get the local government in on it, so that it's already attached to an isolated part of their jail system. Give government workers a refund, make sure to have your profits taxed, and it's a good long-term investment for a city.

Be a Wind Walking Taxi Service, to transport high-paying travelers across the country.

Arcane Trickster with Ritual Caster. Combine using Detect Magic and your familiar to scout out the wealthy or the magic users from a crowd. Use your invisible Mage Hand to pilfer their stuff. Even if they notice they're being pickpocketed, they'll never know it was you.

Make a level 3 Continuous Flame in a lamp. Now it shines through Magical Darkness. If you want it to be resistant to Dispel Magic, make it a level 4 casting (as most people wouldn't bother casting an upcasted Dispel Magic on a supposedly level 2 spell).

[Hail Tempus]

You're an adventurer, not a tradesman. If you want gold, you need to get out there and kill the monster that's sitting on it.

[nickl_2000]

I could see a travelling Druid getting paid handsomely for casting the 8 hour version of Plant Growth by cities and towns.

[Sigreid]

Home invasion robbery is the traditional method.

[Segev]

Having a Perform skill and/or being an Entertainer background is enough to live a Wealthy lifestyle during downtime. Live a Common one, instead, and pocket 2 gp/day.

[JackPhoenix]

Having a Perform skill and/or being an Entertainer background is enough to live a Wealthy lifestyle during downtime. Live a Common one, instead, and pocket 2 gp/day.

It doesn't work that way. You don't get the money, you get the lifestyle. It may be people pay for your food and drink, and you get to stay in better accomodations for free. There's no gold to pocket.

[Waterdeep Merch]

You just can't beat adventuring for riches in D&D. With that in mind, there's things you can do to increase your profitability, DM-willing.

* Hire some mercenaries. They're cheap and plentiful. This can let you clear more difficult dungeons, if such things exist in your world. Or at least safely deal with the more serious threats.
* Hire specialists. If no one in the party wanted to train in survival, you don't have anyone with thieves' tools proficiency, and your party's perception is so low that dragons are sneaking up on you in the middle of featureless plains in the middle of a sunny day? Hire people that cover these things for you. This can often mean locating more treasure.
* Always travel with plentiful livestock and wagons, at least until/unless you get access to extradimensional storage like Bags of Holding. Sometimes there's just too much loot for your pockets, or you bet you can sell the lich's gilded lounge so long as you can get it out of the dungeon intact. Donkeys are your preferred beast of burden; at 8 gp each, you can afford a farm's worth early.
* Try to play merchant prince with local economies. Set up contacts with people that can buy your goods, see if you can't convince the DM to improve your relationships and get better deals (in my experience, most will at least throw a few more gold your way). Do NOT go the bully/intimidation route that every idiot player tries; it's far more lucrative to get NPC's to like you.
* Deck out a carriage as a traveling store front and you can make money essentially anywhere. Don't forget to hire bodyguards!
* Consider starting up your own mercenary business later, around mid-Tier 2. Whether the DM lets you make reasonable levels of funds from it is irrelevant. It gives you easy access to mercenaries and you can use them as information brokers; send them out to find big jobs that you can take, make important connections with local communities, ingratiate people to you, improve your personal trade network, and even act as couriers. If the DM lets you actually profit from them or send them out on missions, this can become extremely worthwhile.
* Start a fund with the other players, a bank. The bank gets paid as though it was a normal player when divvying up loot. It's part insurance policy (any resurrections or healing come out of this fund, not the injured player), part coverage- if anyone needs to buy something that benefits the party, they can pay for it out of the bank. Think company credit card. Meanwhile, also allow players to add directly to the bank, and keep track of their contributions and offering a 2% per session growth as compensation. And then allow players to withdraw loans from the bank, so long as the rest of the party agrees with said loan. This gives you and the rest of the party a way to fairly manage funds and let the more gold-hungry classes access what they need without starving players that don't need it as much. If you run the bank for long enough, it will get fairly chunky. See if you can't convince aristocrats and businesses to use your banking system- however, unlike with your party, an NPC's loan will have to deal with a modest 5% a month interest rate, and their funds will only grow by 1% per month. These numbers are to get you started- feel free to tweak things if your DM lets this take it's logical course. And if they do, be prepared to own most of the world in short order, as modern banking practices can basically devastate medieval stasis and hand control of entire nations over to you (read up on the Knight's Templar).

[Segev]

It doesn't work that way. You don't get the money, you get the lifestyle. It may be people pay for your food and drink, and you get to stay in better accomodations for free. There's no gold to pocket.

I'm not sure that the rules support that. It's hard to justify for certain entertainment professions, too. A DM is free to rule it that way, but if you're, say, a gladiator in an arena, them paying you a wage that you use to support yourself is perfectly reasonable. I mean, sure, it could be that you're just living in apartments and eating catered food, both provided by your patron, but it's equally reasonable to say that you're getting ~400 coppers thrown at you while busking.

I will acknowledge that this that we worked out with the gladiator in my party briefly caused some consternation when she felt that she made more money per day than she would adventuring, but the actual gp involved are pretty small compared to usual adventuring wealth. Just not what they'd seen from their first expedition (they should do better after the Sunless Citadel).

[Bjarkmundur]

Steer your DM into an urban setting. Start making rolls talking to patrons at the bar, especially regarding troubles (there's always a trade route being harassed by orcs or a farm with gobling troubles). Then go to the local authority and announce:

I HAVE HEARD THE PUBLICS CRY FOR HELP, AND HAVE COME TO LEND AID TO THE PEOPLE IN NEED. JUST YOU WAIT, FOR A EACH DONATION OF 2GP, I WILL BRING ONE HEAD OF AN ORC TO YOUR TOWN CENTER, AS PROOF OF MY DEVOTION TO RIDDING THIS PEACEFUL HOMMLET OF THE SCOURGE THAT PLAGUES IT.

Getting money isn't as much an issue as getting your DM to approve of your way of getting money. Remember that having a spellcaster cast a 1st Level Spell is priced at 30gp (see signature). You could:

1. Hire out your services as a security expert, casting the alarm spell for 30gp.
2. Cast Catapult and Mold Earth for construction companies and ditch-diggers.
3. Do marriages (ceremony)
4. Have a stall which translates books for the common folk at half price (Comprehend Languages)
5. Be a break-upper (actor, Disguise Self)
6. Sabotage any work space for a competitor by casting Fog Cloud inside it.
7. Cast Hex on the spouse of a spiteful divorsee.
8. Cast Shield on mercenaries or help a boxer cheat before his big fight.

[Wraith]

[*]Cast Shield on mercenaries or help a boxer cheat before his big fight.

I like this one, because it opens up a lot of possibilities. In any medium sized town or city, you can realistically expect organised gambling to be controlled by criminals, who of course use deviants means to ensure that the odds are tipped in their favour. As an adventurer, and especially a mage, bard or sorcerer, you shouldn't feel at all guilty about taking advantage of their arrogance.

Bet heavily on horse racing, and use Mage Hand and other similar effect to sabotage the other riders by tripping horses and pulling on their reigns.

Find a decent wrestler/boxer, bet heavily on him and then buff him with Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace and whatever else you have to hand. Hex his opponent for good measure.

For a quick turnover, search out someone running a Find The Lady game and 'win' every time with Prestidigitation.

Just be aware that at some point, you're probably going to get figured out by the local Mafia-equivalents who will send their goons after you to get their money back; Kill them, take their stuff, turn their bodies in for the standard bounties, and thus triple your profit. Eventually they'll be sending specialised Assassins after you with all sorts of exotic and expensive equipment and magic items, which is pretty much everything you could have asked for.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I'm not sure that the rules support that. It's hard to justify for certain entertainment professions, too. A DM is free to rule it that way, but if you're, say, a gladiator in an arena, them paying you a wage that you use to support yourself is perfectly reasonable. I mean, sure, it could be that you're just living in apartments and eating catered food, both provided by your patron, but it's equally reasonable to say that you're getting ~400 coppers thrown at you while busking.

I will acknowledge that this that we worked out with the gladiator in my party briefly caused some consternation when she felt that she made more money per day than she would adventuring, but the actual gp involved are pretty small compared to usual adventuring wealth. Just not what they'd seen from their first expedition (they should do better after the Sunless Citadel).

The way that the Entertainer background works is that you acquire lodging and food in exchange for performing in their establishment. Your DM could rule that during the performance you could take tips from the patrons and try to make a bit extra but the lodging and food is a trade in goods and services, not gold.

The only in print example we have of being able to make money of performance is the "working" downtime activity presented in Xanathar's. For one workweek, you can make a performance check and make some gold. An outstanding performance (21+) would be on par with being given free lodging at the establishment through your background feature plus an additional 25gp with the benefit that if you did also have the entertainer background you could pocket the living cost money as well as the 25gp bonus.

[Renduaz]

Contrary to what some posters here have been saying, with the right kind of spells ( Because D&D magic has infinite 'exploits' if sufficiently researched ) and select acquisitions, you can make more money than any session will ever give you with hardly an effort, and even do so at the same time too.

1. Trap a rare creature ( Not really as hard as one might think with magic, I actually have a guide dedicated to that, but not the right thread ) whose body parts/flesh have highly prized applications. By RAW 1lb of Ox ( Say, Ox Tail which might even fetch you more ) would be worth 15gp, and needless to say that it's far from being a rare creature. Then whenever you have a 7th spell slot left, just cast Regenerate on the creature and harvest again, and you can keep doing this every single day for any rare creature rather than having to look for new ones. At the point in which you have access to 7th level spells, you're probably looking at hundreds to thousands ( Wyvern Poison is 1,200gp RAW, though it's not really an organ like the poison gland/whatever itself, but you get the picture ) of gold from a single harvesting of a high CR captured creature. Like, in most campaigns if you ask a DM what you can sell a rare/high CR's creature's heart/claw/tail/etc for, they'll usually give you at least a few hundred gold coins for that, before knowing that you intend on using Regenerate to keep doing that of course.

2. Buy a boatload of Saffron. Spread out in a 100 feet radius, then cast Plant Growth. It becomes thick and overgrown, so you now have a higher percentage of Saffron. Sell, repeat. Or cut in half, sell, wait another day to cast Plant Growth again, and repeat. Keep in mind that 1lb of Saffron is 15gp and you're casting your spell on a 100 feet radius of Saffron, or as much of it as you can possible buy.

3. Cast Divination and ask your deity about trade investments or the outcome of a horse race and other opportunities for high margins of future profits. Though, obviously you might need to interpret it properly.

4. Planar Binding on a Korred and shear it's hair as sturdy ropes of gold whenever you want, casting Regenerate as necessary. If your DM allows you to choose a creature when you cast Conjure Fey, then you could bind an entire stock of Korreds which would easily cover the costs of your Planar Binding in mere days, eventually proliferating your gold rope industry out of control. That being said, while presumably the golden hairs might vanish if your Korreds do, you can just keep binding them so they stick around forever. A DM might rule that any body part of a summoned creature disappears when detached from it, but that's not a common ruling that makes a lot of sense. You whisked away that creature, composed of matter, from it's plane and it only disappears when it's no longer bound, there's not much reason for say, a creature's arm to vanish when severed as long as the creature was still bound to your plane when it happens. Worst case scenario, just test it out first and see what happens - most DM's are just going to tell you that you successfully chopped a creature's arm and it's still around, particular since they don't know what you plan to do with that information.

5. You could use the same harvesting techniques as above, but with Flail Snails rather than Korreds, replacing Conjure Fey with Conjure Elemental if possible.

6. This last one is moreso on the shady side of the law, but only requires a cantrip. Buy bottles of cheap wine, or any other kind of brew or food for that matter, and use Prestidigitation to alter their favor into that of an exquisite fine wine or delicious food, put a fancy label on them ( Or your own contrived brand ) and sell them at suitable pricing. Then make sure to bail out of town within the hour and use Disguise Self when doing it. On the other hand, there's also a method of doing it which is completely legal - Tell folk outright that you're using prestidigitation to change flavors, and that it runs out in an hour, but at that point they have more than enough time to eat/drink it and enjoy it, which means most people might not mind it at all. While you won't be able to sell at high brand prices, you could sell at a relatively higher price than the ingredients you're purchasing, but still below what it would cost for an actual chef to spice/brew your product physically.

There is, however, a downside to all these magical means of profiteering that adventuring does not, which is that accumulating your wealth from slaying monsters and villains that terrorize kingdoms and power structures might be 'tolerated' by those power structures due to the services rendered, monopolizing and breaking the economy using arcane tricks without any social contribution might be more frowned upon. Merchants guilds, common producers and so forth might start taking notice of your seemingly infinite supplies and try to ban you from conducting business or ask the rulers to regulate your purchasing power and monopolies. You could of course, try to counter such a possibility yourself by using different identities and 'spacing out' your big purchases to avoid arousing suspicions ( Which is what counterfeiters might usually do in real life ) and keep playing that cat and mouse game, or even strike a deal with a merchant guild or faction to operate freely as long as you grant them a cut of the revenue.

Then again, in most campaigns nobody seems to care that you have more cash than the king himself or that any portion of your loot from monster lairs might actually be considered the property of the kingdom/family/dynasty/guild from which it was possible stolen or legal structures by which, say, any significant archaeological findings belong to the Crown that governs these territories. So most 'normal' DM's might not even be thinking that far ahead.

[Grey Watcher]

Having a Perform skill and/or being an Entertainer background is enough to live a Wealthy lifestyle during downtime. Live a Common one, instead, and pocket 2 gp/day.

It doesn't work that way. You don't get the money, you get the lifestyle. It may be people pay for your food and drink, and you get to stay in better accomodations for free. There's no gold to pocket.

While it never works out to as much as the equivalent of 2 GP per day, this is a pretty common strategy among musicians I know. Hoard the per diem because they're never paying you enough.

[JackPhoenix]

I like this one, because it opens up a lot of possibilities. In any medium sized town or city, you can realistically expect organised gambling to be controlled by criminals, who of course use deviants means to ensure that the odds are tipped in their favour. As an adventurer, and especially a mage, bard or sorcerer, you shouldn't feel at all guilty about taking advantage of their arrogance.

It also doesn't work, because Shield is self-only spell.

Bet heavily on horse racing, and use Mage Hand and other similar effect to sabotage the other riders by tripping horses and pulling on their reigns.

You mean use the spell that creates clearly visible effect, can't even be more than 30' away from you, and can't attack, so tripping doesn't work? Yeah, that would go well...

Find a decent wrestler/boxer, bet heavily on him and then buff him with Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace and whatever else you have to hand. Hex his opponent for good measure.

All suggestion use concentration, so you can't use all of them. And it doesn't work if it involves attacks instead of ability checks, so wrestler, yes, boxer, nope.

For a quick turnover, search out someone running a Find The Lady game and 'win' every time with Prestidigitation.

Win what? Punch to the face for obviously casting spells in front of someone, not that Prestidigation would be any help in that situation anyway?

[nickl_2000]

It also doesn't work, because Shield is self-only spell.

It was probably supposed to be shield of faith.

You mean use the spell that creates clearly visible effect, can't even be more than 30' away from you, and can't attack, so tripping doesn't work? Yeah, that would go well...

Could be okay for an AT still. Also, chainlock invisible familiars.

[/QUOTE]

[Beleriphon]

For a quick turnover, search out someone running a Find The Lady game and 'win' every time with Prestidigitation.

There's a cute bit in Superman: American Alien where he does just that upon arrival in Metropolis, but being Superman he gives the money back to the guy that just lost $100.

[GiantOctopodes]

Contrary to what some posters here have been saying, with the right kind of spells ( Because D&D magic has infinite 'exploits' if sufficiently researched ) and select acquisitions, you can make more money than any session will ever give you with hardly an effort, and even do so at the same time too.

1. Trap a rare creature ( Not really as hard as one might think with magic, I actually have a guide dedicated to that, but not the right thread ) whose body parts/flesh have highly prized applications. By RAW 1lb of Ox ( Say, Ox Tail which might even fetch you more ) would be worth 15gp, and needless to say that it's far from being a rare creature. Then whenever you have a 7th spell slot left, just cast Regenerate on the creature and harvest again, and you can keep doing this every single day for any rare creature rather than having to look for new ones. At the point in which you have access to 7th level spells, you're probably looking at hundreds to thousands ( Wyvern Poison is 1,200gp RAW, though it's not really an organ like the poison gland/whatever itself, but you get the picture ) of gold from a single harvesting of a high CR captured creature. Like, in most campaigns if you ask a DM what you can sell a rare/high CR's creature's heart/claw/tail/etc for, they'll usually give you at least a few hundred gold coins for that, before knowing that you intend on using Regenerate to keep doing that of course.

2. Buy a boatload of Saffron. Spread out in a 100 feet radius, then cast Plant Growth. It becomes thick and overgrown, so you now have a higher percentage of Saffron. Sell, repeat. Or cut in half, sell, wait another day to cast Plant Growth again, and repeat. Keep in mind that 1lb of Saffron is 15gp and you're casting your spell on a 100 feet radius of Saffron, or as much of it as you can possible buy.

3. Cast Divination and ask your deity about trade investments or the outcome of a horse race and other opportunities for high margins of future profits. Though, obviously you might need to interpret it properly.

4. Planar Binding on a Korred and shear it's hair as sturdy ropes of gold whenever you want, casting Regenerate as necessary. If your DM allows you to choose a creature when you cast Conjure Fey, then you could bind an entire stock of Korreds which would easily cover the costs of your Planar Binding in mere days, eventually proliferating your gold rope industry out of control. That being said, while presumably the golden hairs might vanish if your Korreds do, you can just keep binding them so they stick around forever. A DM might rule that any body part of a summoned creature disappears when detached from it, but that's not a common ruling that makes a lot of sense. You whisked away that creature, composed of matter, from it's plane and it only disappears when it's no longer bound, there's not much reason for say, a creature's arm to vanish when severed as long as the creature was still bound to your plane when it happens. Worst case scenario, just test it out first and see what happens - most DM's are just going to tell you that you successfully chopped a creature's arm and it's still around, particular since they don't know what you plan to do with that information.

5. You could use the same harvesting techniques as above, but with Flail Snails rather than Korreds, replacing Conjure Fey with Conjure Elemental if possible.

6. This last one is moreso on the shady side of the law, but only requires a cantrip. Buy bottles of cheap wine, or any other kind of brew or food for that matter, and use Prestidigitation to alter their favor into that of an exquisite fine wine or delicious food, put a fancy label on them ( Or your own contrived brand ) and sell them at suitable pricing. Then make sure to bail out of town within the hour and use Disguise Self when doing it. On the other hand, there's also a method of doing it which is completely legal - Tell folk outright that you're using prestidigitation to change flavors, and that it runs out in an hour, but at that point they have more than enough time to eat/drink it and enjoy it, which means most people might not mind it at all. While you won't be able to sell at high brand prices, you could sell at a relatively higher price than the ingredients you're purchasing, but still below what it would cost for an actual chef to spice/brew your product physically.

There is, however, a downside to all these magical means of profiteering that adventuring does not, which is that accumulating your wealth from slaying monsters and villains that terrorize kingdoms and power structures might be 'tolerated' by those power structures due to the services rendered, monopolizing and breaking the economy using arcane tricks without any social contribution might be more frowned upon. Merchants guilds, common producers and so forth might start taking notice of your seemingly infinite supplies and try to ban you from conducting business or ask the rulers to regulate your purchasing power and monopolies. You could of course, try to counter such a possibility yourself by using different identities and 'spacing out' your big purchases to avoid arousing suspicions ( Which is what counterfeiters might usually do in real life ) and keep playing that cat and mouse game, or even strike a deal with a merchant guild or faction to operate freely as long as you grant them a cut of the revenue.

Then again, in most campaigns nobody seems to care that you have more cash than the king himself or that any portion of your loot from monster lairs might actually be considered the property of the kingdom/family/dynasty/guild from which it was possible stolen or legal structures by which, say, any significant archaeological findings belong to the Crown that governs these territories. So most 'normal' DM's might not even be thinking that far ahead.

Everything you've listed relies on DM discretion. Everything. The "downside" is that your DM has to be cool with it. What if there are no Oxen, and in the DM's world they ARE super rare? What if Saffron isn't available, and can't be found? What if the plant growth caused doesn't work on edible components, other than in the fashion defined by RAW, which is to say doubling the yield of plants over the next year, as a once per year effect which applies the "enriched" status? What if your DM doesn't allow you to choose the creature you summon? What if body parts do disappear when separated from summoned creatures?

This is to say nothing of logical consequences - if you're summoning creatures to harvest their organs, it seems likely that a) others have tried it, and b) someone will be less than pleased about that, and try to do something about it. If you can chain cast 100 plant growths to make infinite saffron, so can any other caster w/ 3rd level spells, and as such saffron would not be rare or valuable. Which is another thing - costs are based on what Value people place in things. If something can be made cheaply or in large quantities, the amount people will be willing to pay for that thing will rapidly adjust. Flooding the market with saffron, wyvern poison, or whatever should result in a crash of its price. Some DMs certainly will be cool with players being all powerful and doing things no one else can do and having infinite wealth as a result. However, it seems far more likely to me, personally, for finding a Buyer for Wyvern poison to be as complicated as it is to find a Seller, and for the amount they offer to be based on their perception of the difficulty which was undergone in obtaining it. I don't think if you find a wyvern and tame it you're suddenly guaranteed hundreds of thousands of gold pieces per year. It just wouldn't make sense, and doesn't contribute towards building an immersive, interesting world.

tl;dr: D&D isn't a video game, and as such 'exploits' only exist if and when you're interacting with a DM who is, for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to say 'it doesn't work that way'.

[Unoriginal]

Everything you've listed relies on DM discretion. Everything. The "downside" is that your DM has to be cool with it. What if there are no Oxen, and in the DM's world they ARE super rare? What if Saffron isn't available, and can't be found? What if the plant growth caused doesn't work on edible components, other than in the fashion defined by RAW, which is to say doubling the yield of plants over the next year, as a once per year effect which applies the "enriched" status? What if your DM doesn't allow you to choose the creature you summon? What if body parts do disappear when separated from summoned creatures?

This is to say nothing of logical consequences - if you're summoning creatures to harvest their organs, it seems likely that a) others have tried it, and b) someone will be less than pleased about that, and try to do something about it. If you can chain cast 100 plant growths to make infinite saffron, so can any other caster w/ 3rd level spells, and as such saffron would not be rare or valuable. Which is another thing - costs are based on what Value people place in things. If something can be made cheaply or in large quantities, the amount people will be willing to pay for that thing will rapidly adjust. Flooding the market with saffron, wyvern poison, or whatever should result in a crash of its price. Some DMs certainly will be cool with players being all powerful and doing things no one else can do and having infinite wealth as a result. However, it seems far more likely to me, personally, for finding a Buyer for Wyvern poison to be as complicated as it is to find a Seller, and for the amount they offer to be based on their perception of the difficulty which was undergone in obtaining it. I don't think if you find a wyvern and tame it you're suddenly guaranteed hundreds of thousands of gold pieces per year. It just wouldn't make sense, and doesn't contribute towards building an immersive, interesting world.

tl;dr: D&D isn't a video game, and as such 'exploits' only exist if and when you're interacting with a DM who is, for whatever reason, unwilling or unable to say 'it doesn't work that way'.

This thread is more than 1 year old, and Renduaz has long stopped posting his "exploits" here.

[GiantOctopodes]

This thread is more than 1 year old, and Renduaz has long stopped posting his "exploits" here.

Ah fair, didn't notice. Sorry for the Necreply.

More in line with the original topic, spellcasters should have plenty of options for money making during downtime, as would anyone with a profession in their background they can execute upon. The general principle of 'find an unmet need and fill it' is a sound one, and though YMMV with how cool a nation would be with a teleport circle in their domain, bridging a difficult or dangerous trade route with one and then charging for its use (to the extent you can enforce that) is definitely a viable means to turn some coin. The limit to a Rogue's wealth is always just "what can you get away with", but in general, the answer I most agree with is the one which indicates to work with your DM, as ultimately any scheme that can be hatched will rely on them to actually work. Again regardless sorry to contribute to the Necro