Treasure - how do you give it out?

[FireLance]

I think this is one of the strangest things I've ever heard of in a game. So, here's the fighter who just made 3rd level. "Hey, what happened to all my crap!? - Oh, wait, here's a bunch of new stuff." What a strange world your characters live in.

Yeah, it sounds a little strange on first reading, doesn't it? But really, it's just an abstraction for how the characters get better equipment. The first time I did this, the explanation was that the characters all belonged to organizations that kept them supplied with equipment appropriate to their level. So, it wasn't so much a question of equipment magically appearing and disappearing, but the characters bringing all their old equipment back to the organization's quartermaster and getting new stuff (in between adventures, of course). In a way, it's like the segment in a James Bond movie in which Q gives him his gadgets.

Along the way, other "handwaves" developed. Maybe the characters actually did find the stuff in the BBEG's lair. Or maybe they were given a reward by grateful townsfolk, or by the rich merchant they rescued. Or maybe they unlocked new abilities in an existing item, so that the +1 longsword that was plunged into the dark heart of a babau during the last adventure (the player rolled a crit, and killed it) now thirsts for the blood of other fiends and becomes a +1 evil outsider bane longsword.

The creative player can have fun coming up with all sorts of fanciful explanations how he got his gear. The dedicated min-maxer can have fun squeezing out the maximum amount of advantage he can get from his last 10 gp. The DM doesn't have to worry about giving out too much or too little treasure, or second-guessing what items the players want. So far, it's worked pretty well for my group.

 

[Agback]

Yeah, it sounds a little strange on first reading, doesn't it?

It does. But you make a very good case for it, and on the whole I am impressed.

I guess your characters are not shy about expending charges, drinking potions, and casting spells from wands. Especially when they see the end of the financial year rocking around.

 

[FireLance]

I guess your characters are not shy about expending charges, drinking potions, and casting spells from wands. Especially when they see the end of the financial year rocking around.

Oh yes. Whether that's a bug or a feature is up to the individual DM to decide. On the whole, I don't find it to be a problem, especially if the players aren't allowed to buy partially-charged items. There's an inherent balance in the cost of single-use items like scrolls and potions, and paying the entire cost for a fully-charged wand or staff can be prohibitive.

 

[Beale Knight]

Treasure - how do you give it out?

The old fashioned way, I make them eaaaaaarrrrrn it.

I use the treasure type in the MM as a guide, but will convert coins to other types, or even items, if I think it's better that way. I often have the treasure in a different place than where the PCs encountered the monster, and sometimes getting it is an adventure in itself (last session an hour was taken up by the party tracking down and negotiating the obsticles to the lair of the dragon they slew the previous session. Then they were stuck with what to do with more gold then they could carry.) Other times, especially in the case of monsters that have treasure but don't value it, I'll consider what might have happened to it since the moster got it. In one case, I decided some nearby monsters of higher intelligence and with a greater greed for gold got their hands on it and put all they could find into their stash.

So far as magic goes, I cherry pick it based on both what I think is logical for the situation and what the PCs will find useful. None of my players has a character that uses a bastard sword, so I'm not going to make the super-nifty cool magic item a bastard sword - unless there's an overly compelling story reason for it.

 

[Beale Knight]

such as I know there are 30 gaurds in the temple and each gaurd has 4-7 gold and 8-15 silver on their person.

I made a quicky chart for that sort of thing and it's turned out that I've used it just about every session. Figuring grunts will always a varying amount of coins, I gave a range of 0-16 silver (d20-d4), a 50% chance of 2d4 gold, and a 10% chance of a gem or jewelry piece of up to 20 GP vaule.

Using it isn't as tedious as I imagined. Usually after a fight wraps up we take a short break anyway, but there's always someone willing to sit at the table and jot down what's found on the grunts. I haven't done 30 in a row, but 15 took me well under 5 minutes of a 10 minute break.

 

[Hand of Evil]

You give out treasure!

If amount is listed for a module, say in a treasure room, I make note on it and start spreading the wealth, jewels, gold, art, other objects, and what is found on the guards.

As far as the party goes, they have a contract on how they split the take. Treasure is divided into 100 shares: Founding members get 5 shares (x3=15), new members 3 shares (x2=6), henchmen 2 shares (x5=10), party bank 15 shares, guild 25 shares, wizard/cleric/paladin 2 shares (extra x4=8), death share for family members 5 shares, taxes, fees, supplies: 15 shares. Yes, that is only 99 shares extra goes to party bank.

Other objects I have used: one use charms and tokens for free stuff (drinks at a bar or other entertainment). This is a plot device too.

 

[diaglo]

random roll way ahead of time.

and then work the items into the story for the NPC. decide whether or not the NPC will be using the item. storing it away to be sold later. keeping it out of the hands of the "good" guys. and so on...

 

[Henry]

Interesting question, since my group just last night found a haul worth about 4000 gp.

I tend to deliberately place treasure, and try to place it such that it makes sense. Other than a few coins and utility items, most treasure will be concentrated in a vault/hoard/safe storage. For example, last night my Arcana Unearthed group raided a Rhodin lair. The two big leaders were wearing the Masterwork weapons and armor, but the masterwork small chain shirt and masterwork large breastplate were cast off in the hoard, since no Rhodin could wear it (no skurgs in their band, either). Some gem treasures, a bolt of woven wool, some fur blankets, etc. were there as well, because it was late summer/early fall, and no one needed it. Had it been winter, the rhodin would probably have used the wool and blankets (and it would have been near-worthless, as a result).

However, I did place the treasure and make it a pretty large haul, because (1) they had gotten no real big scores up until then, because they had not really committed to any risky scenarios prior to now, and (2) they were due to raise to 3rd level, and had maybe recovered about 800 gp between the 5 of them previously.

 

[Rel]

Yeah, it sounds a little strange on first reading, doesn't it? But really, it's just an abstraction for how the characters get better equipment.

I understand why you do this and I understand why other people would use the same system. But the Tactician in me derives too much of my joy from Logistics and Resource Management for me to ever run a game this way. And I probably wouldn't enjoy playing in a game that used this method.

I am once again reminded that so much about the mechanics of game (and which mechanics we focus on and which we drop entirely) is contingent on our preferred play style. Very interesting.

 

[Hjorimir]

Other than commodity-grade magic items (i.e. potions and scrolls), which are usually available for purchase, all of the magic items are handcrafted and usually quite unique in their abilities.

I prefer a smaller number of magic items with a wider range of abilities as opposed to the paper doll mechanic that D&D has in place, which I feel lends itself to min/maxing. In fact, I have placed a great number of restrictions on magic item generation to ensure a certain balance is maintained.