Destroyer of Economies (5e Optimized Character Build)
The Idea[edit]
In 5e D&D, money feels pretty useless. Sure, you can get a keep or something, but that takes WAY to long for most characters. Plate mail costs 1,500 gold, but who uses that? However, the gold piece has one refuge: spells. Many spells require components with a gold cost.
However, Wizards of the Coast has left plenty of ways to blow this system wide open.
Race and Class[edit]
This build is based around the Artificer class featured in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and Eberron: Rising from the last war. It's pretty easy to pull off, but you do want as high of an Intelligence score as possible. Any race with a bonus to Intelligence works.
The Build[edit]
To start out, you'll need to find a way to get between the planes. You want to go to Limbo, which has a VERY nice optional rule that most DMs use (If they don't use it, it's ok - there are still more ways to make infinite money). It lets you make an Intelligence check to alter your surroundings. You can use this to make a 9-foot sphere of mithral or adamantine with a DC 20 Intelligence check. You can then sell this once you get out of Limbo. Adamantine is valued at 100 gp per pound, and a 9-foot sphere of the stuff is 3,053.6 cubic feet. A cubic foot of Adamantine is 400 pounds, so a SINGLE check will get you 122,144,000 gp. That's more than enough to hire a dragon to do all of your work. SCREW IT, NARRATIVE!
Once you hit Level 6 Artificer, a new way of making infinite money appears. By this point, the DM has probably destroyed Limbo to stop you from bribing your way through the entire campaign. So when you make some Mithral Plate, they won't know what hit them.
At level 6, Artificers get the ability to craft Uncommon and Common magic items for a quarter of their crafting cost. Uncommon items cost 500 gp to craft, which is reduced to 125 from the artificer discount. Mithril/Adamantine armor is uncommon.
By selling the Mithril or Adamantine plate mail that you're crafting for 125 gp, you can make a profit of 1375 gp per plate mail sold. Wow.
After all of that, your coffers probably span several demiplanes. But we can always go bigger.
You might know of a magic item called Daren's Instant Fortress. It creates a gigantic fortress made out of adamantine. However, it's immune to damage from nonmagical weapons. If only we had been taking levels in a class that allows you to create magic weapons at will!
Oh, right.
Mining the fortress out takes time, but it gives you enough adamantine to be well worth it. Plus, you can always get a shield guardian to do the work for you.
At this point, you can go nuts. Bulk order Instant Fortresses from you local magic item store. Buy some golems. Create an interplaner trade empire. Export magical materials from Limbo. Make Imprisonment a viable spell. Create magic items for a fraction of the cost. Singlehandedly bankrupt all dwarves.
(Once an overabundance of supply is created, the demand will drop, thus ruining the overall value of material. That is rudimentary economics. This is a short sighted method to gain very little actual liquid value.)
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