How this instrument works
Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons tracks wealth in five denominations of coin — copper (cp), silver (sp), electrum (ep), gold (gp) and platinum (pp) — each worth ten times the one below it, with electrum sitting at half a gold piece. A character sheet listing '5 gp, 2 ep, 3 sp, 7 cp' is really just one pile of wealth split across five buckets, and adding it up by hand means multiplying each bucket by its exchange rate and summing the results.
This instrument does that arithmetic for you. It converts every denomination down to the smallest common unit — copper pieces — by multiplying gold by 100, electrum by 50, silver by 10 and copper by 1, then adds the four totals together. That copper total is then divided by 100 to give the equivalent in gold pieces, the currency most treasure hauls, item prices and downtime expenses are quoted in.
The instrument is handy at three points in play: totting up loot after a fight where the party found a mix of coin types, checking whether a character can afford an item priced in gold when their pouch holds mostly silver and copper, and reconciling a character sheet where coins were logged separately over several sessions and never combined.
- Enter the number of gold, electrum, silver and copper pieces you're holding — one field per denomination, leave any you don't have at zero.
- Read Total wealth (in copper pieces) for the coin-accurate sum across all four denominations.
- Read Total wealth (in gold pieces) for the same total expressed in gold, the unit most prices in the Player's Handbook use.
- Leave out platinum pieces if you don't use them at your table — the instrument only converts the four denominations most parties actually carry.
- All four fields accept whole numbers only and cannot go negative; enter 0 for any coin type you're not holding.
Worked example — a mixed pouch of 5gp, 2ep, 3sp and 7cp
Enter 5 gold pieces, 2 electrum pieces, 3 silver pieces and 7 copper pieces. Converting each to copper: 5 gp x 100 = 500 cp, 2 ep x 50 = 100 cp, 3 sp x 10 = 30 cp, and 7 cp stays 7 cp. Adding those gives Total wealth (in copper pieces) = 500 + 100 + 30 + 7 = 637 cp.
Dividing that copper total by 100 gives Total wealth (in gold pieces) = 6.37 gp. That single number is what you'd quote if a merchant only deals in gold: the whole mixed pouch is worth 6 gold, 3 silver and 7 copper pieces put together.
Questions
What are the official D&D 5e coin exchange rates?
One gold piece (gp) equals ten silver pieces (sp), which equals one hundred copper pieces (cp) — the game's base unit. Electrum pieces (ep) sit at half a gold piece, so two electrum equal one gold. Platinum, the rarest coin, is worth ten gold pieces. These rates are fixed in the core rules and don't vary by setting or edition printing.
Do I need to enter platinum pieces too?
Not with this instrument — it covers the four denominations that show up in the vast majority of starting wealth and loot tables: copper, silver, electrum and gold. If your haul includes platinum, convert it separately at 1 pp = 10 gp and add that to the gold total this instrument gives you.
Why does electrum convert at 50 copper instead of 100?
Electrum is worth half a gold piece by the official exchange table, and since one gold piece equals 100 copper pieces, one electrum piece equals 50 copper pieces. It's the denomination players most often forget when totting up a pouch by hand, which is exactly why converting everything to a common copper baseline first avoids the mistake.
Why convert to copper first instead of straight to gold?
Copper is the smallest denomination in the system, so every other coin converts to it with a clean whole-number multiplier (gold x100, electrum x50, silver x10). Converting straight to gold would mean dividing silver and copper by fractional amounts at each step, which is more error-prone than summing whole copper values and dividing once at the end.
Can I use this to check if I can afford an item priced in gold?
Yes. Enter your current coin holdings across all four denominations, read the Total wealth (in gold pieces) figure, and compare it to the item's listed price. If your total meets or exceeds the price, you can afford it outright; if not, the gap tells you how much more gold-equivalent wealth you need to find or earn.
Is this exchange rate the same in every D&D 5e sourcebook?
Yes — the Player's Handbook sets a single Standard Exchange Rate table (copper, silver, electrum, gold, platinum) that every official 5e sourcebook and adventure uses. Some homebrew settings alter coin values for flavor, but the default math this instrument uses matches the rules as published.