Overlooked Dragon Hoards

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I've never had this happen to me before either as a Player or a DM. As a DM my players are always greedy and as another poster stated they look around until they are positive that something is not there. As a player I do the same thing, I'm pretty greedy as well I'll admit. I like to power up my characters just like most anyone else.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Seen this happen off and on, if it is not gold, silver, gems or equipment my players do not see it as treasure! They fail to see art work and knowledge with value!

 

[GSHamster]

Maybe the players' thought process went something like:

"Are we in the dragon's lair? No. Then there is no hoard here."

Rather than not searching, maybe the flaw was failing to recognize the area as a dragon's lair. I think both examples featured a non-typical lair.

Of course, the problem with this might have been:

"Why isn't this a lair? There is no hoard."

 

[Mark CMG]

In a scenario I ran for a one-shot (therefore missing the treasure had no long term campaign implications), the adventurers fought and defeated a Steam Dragon (a sort of modified Mist Dragon) in his cavernous lair on a rocky coast. Despite the treasure being within reach, just beyond some steam geysers that were active enough to obscure the hoard from sight, it was not found. In the quick postmortem after the game I almost didn't have the heart to tell them what they missed, but I did since I knew some were wondering why there was seemingly little reward for their struggles.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I have had characters walk around with powerful items they never identified and thus never used to their full extent. That is kind of like missing a hoard.

 

[Barastrondo]

Maybe the players' thought process went something like:

"Are we in the dragon's lair? No. Then there is no hoard here."

Rather than not searching, maybe the flaw was failing to recognize the area as a dragon's lair. I think both examples featured a non-typical lair.

I admit that was my first thought. Why would a dragon's lair be behind a building instead of inside a structure? Would a dragon who had conquered a town move his hoard there? Did he intend to make that his new lair instead of returning? If so, did the humanoids carry it for him? Were there wagons and such outside his movable lair?

Both of those encounters feel to me (at least from this sparse description) like "A dragon ambushes you!" When a dragon ambushes me, I don't expect his hoard to be just out of line of sight. I expect his hoard to be where the blackened bones of luckless victims lie strewn around, or the tarnished armor of fallen knights is hanging from trees as a warning. I tend to think of dragons' lairs as highly visually defined places; I can't fault players who don't think "maybe it's just on the other side of this building!"

When I see players pass on treasure, it's usually due to inconvenience rather than a lack of searching. Skim the most valuable and portable, and then find something else to do instead of returning with wagons and whatnot; they tend to have goals other than treasure. They're also really prone to giving away treasure, or a least large chunks of it; healthy believers in paying some form of reparations out of the villain's stores to rebuild villains or get ex-slaves some starting capital, they are.

 

[Bullgrit]

I have had characters walk around with powerful items they never identified and thus never used to their full extent. That is kind of like missing a hoard.

I've done this as a PC. But, in my defense:

The opening scene of the campaign for my character was breaking out of the brig of a ship I had been kidnapped on. I, (a 3rd-level fighter), overpowered the one guard, (a 1st-level fighter), and took his sword and pocket change.

I joined with the other PCs and we got off the ship and started making our way to a town. In the three game sessions, one of the other Players kept making a big show of examining every little item we came across or looted. She even closely examined a frickin' rock in the middle of the road. Just a character quirk, I figured. Weird, but not a problem.

When we made it to town, we went about selling our loot. I wanted to sell the broadsword and buy a two-handed sword. I looked in the Player's Handbook, saw 10gp was the buying price. "Can I sell it for 5gp?" I asked the DM.

"3gp," he answered.

So I erased the sword and added 3gp to my sheet.

At the next game session, the other Players were laughing at my loss.

That sword I sold -- that I had originally taken from a no-name sailor guarding a ship's brig -- was a powerful magic weapon. Had I examined it, I would have found the runes to activate it. The DM had told the other Players a couple of sessions before I sold it what it was, and he was wondering if I was going to look it over at some point. That's why the other Player was having her character closely examine everything we found, trying to hint to me to examine the sword. (The sword wasn't the only piece of looted/stolen/captured equipment and treasure I had one me.)

And to top off the stupidity, the DM laughed that not only had I sold it as a normal sword, he even haggled me down on the price.

Oh come on!

First: I got the sword off a basic guard. Who thinks the sword they got off the pissant ordered to watch the prisoner might have an artifact?

Second: I had the sword for several game days, and the DM assumes I never looked at it? I mean, isn't it assumed PCs do basic care on their equipment?

Third: I didn't get haggled down. I asked the DM what I could get for it. He told me.

That situation was not right.

Bullgrit

 

[Bullgrit]

---

 

[S'mon]

Second: I had the sword for several game days, and the DM assumes I never looked at it? I mean, isn't it assumed PCs do basic care on their equipment?

Yeah, that seems ridiculous.

 

[prosfilaes]

Seen this happen off and on, if it is not gold, silver, gems or equipment my players do not see it as treasure! They fail to see art work and knowledge with value!

How much artwork is really worth its weight in silver? Once you get down to actually packaging the (usually fragile) stuff for travel, then you've got to find a buyer, which can realistically be as hard as the DM wants; who do you go to if you want to sell a Lefebvre? And can you tell a Rembrandt from a Lefebvre from a Joe Shmoe? Easier and safer to just grab the money and run.