Other forms of treasure

[Dog Moon]

I did this once and it seemed to go over fairly well. Think it all depends on what they get and what they needed.

In my campaign, they had just taken over a rundown manor that was in the Undead section of Absalom. They were brand new to the city and had little money. They ended being hired to track down this maid who had been kidnapped. Turns out the maid had been kidnapped by a Black Dragon who wanted to mate with her [turns out she had celestial blood in her and she was actually a Solar who had yet to access her full powers]. The Dragon brought her to a ruined tower that was in the middle of being repaired. Wasn't the dragon's lair so wasn't much money, but there was a fortune in building materials in the area. Once the PCs realized this they were like 'score!' Never had anyone so happy to find a bunch of wood and stone.

 

[Dog Moon]

I like when dungeon fixtures are treasure...we recently did an adventure where the dungeon had several large sets of double doors made of copper. Copper = 1gp/2 lbs, so to low level adventures, that's decent loot.

This reminds me of the end of Savage Tide AP. We come across a pair of Obterium [sp?] doors. From the Stronghold Builders Guidebook, Obterium was this incredible strong and expensive material that made Adamantine look like butter [or something like that, but you get the point of how our greedy eyes demanded we take the doors]. We're like 'Sweet!' and we start removing the doors. We get one down and inside is the boss of the entire campaign. Suddenly we were in the middle of the final battle of the AP.

So remember, when looting the doors, make sure you've killed whatever is on the other side of the doors first or you might be in for a nasty surprise.

 

[jonesy]

One time I paid the party with an old library. The kingdom was in ruin, and they had nothing else to give. The players were pretty bummed until they went to check it out and realized just how many books there were. And how valuable some of them were.

Then there was the time I was playing and we were given crappy real estate from a bad neighbourhood. We got busy being proper heroes, cleaned up the area, and the value skyrocketed. Never did sell it, though.

 

[jcbdragon]

One time I paid the party with an old library. The kingdom was in ruin, and they had nothing else to give. The players were pretty bummed until they went to check it out and realized just how many books there were. And how valuable some of them were.

Yes, that's something else that a lot of players don't realize -- books are EXPENSIVE! According to the RAW, a blank spellbook (whether the 100-page "home spellbook" variety or the 50-page "traveling spellbook") will cost 5,000 GP. It it's already got spells in it, that just adds that much more to the price tag.

 

[TKDB]

I've had players find,coffee, tomatoes, and other perishable goods. Sometimes they just eat the food other times they take the time to try to sell it. The best was with the coffee which was a very rare commodity in the city they were in. They used the coffee as a bribe for a noble and that worked great.

Reminds me of just a few months ago in the pirate campaign I'm playing in where a fair chunk of the loot we got from raiding an aristocrat's mansion was in the form of coffee, tea, sugar, spices, and salt that we stole from the pantry. We fenced most of it, but kept some of the coffee and tea for personal use -- the tea because my character is a tea aficionado, and the coffee because it's ordinarily forbidden on board due to its tendency to make the already mischief-prone kobolds among the crew all the more insufferable. (The DM's setting has kobolds as seafarers rather than tunnelers.)

 

[Thurbane]

Yes, that's something else that a lot of players don't realize -- books are EXPENSIVE! According to the RAW, a blank spellbook (whether the 100-page "home spellbook" variety or the 50-page "traveling spellbook") will cost 5,000 GP. It it's already got spells in it, that just adds that much more to the price tag.

Are you sure? Looking at the equipment tables in the SRD, Spellbook, Wizard’s (Blank) is 15gp...

 

[Dordledum]

. On one hand, it reduces the amount of magic in my campaign world (which is necessary).

big fan of campaigns where magic items are rare. I'm one stingy DM and like the concept of: Your character rules, not his equipment.