How much gold does it take to fill a hoard?

[T. Foster]

Treasure Type H: 25% chance of 3-24,000 CP, 50% chance of 1-100,000 SP, 75% chance of 10-60,000 GP (Vol. II, p. 22); Very Old dragons may have as much as double the indicated treasure (Vol. II, p. 14) = average treasure-hoard of approx. 110,000 coins, and potential maximum hoard of 368,000 coins

 

[WereSteve]

Ya think a .50 BMG round would drop one?

Hardly ... quad mount Bofors might stand a better chance, but there's nothing quite like a depleted uranium round to take out a most venerable dragon.

As to the compositon of the horde ... nothing quite like an illusion cast on the treasure pile itself such that once the party brings it to the surface it turns out to be nothing more than fool's gold. Conversely, if you want to be really annoying, at one time aluminum was considered to be more valuable than gold due to early difficulties in mass producing the metal from bauxite ore.

 

[Klaus]

That's a lot of gold. Hoo-boy, I wanna kill me a draggy.

That's a lot of *coins*.

Draconomicon explicitly state that dragons keep copper pieces for precisely this reason. The dragon above could have 196000 cp, totally 1960 gp.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Dragons keep copper because not only does it make for mice big fluffy pillows; it also is theft proof. Few adventurers are desperate enough that they'll drag off 400,000 copper pieces.

@ .50 BMG ... I dunno, a Mk211 round might ignite a red's breath weapon chemicals. The internal secondary explosion might be pretty spectacular. Or might just be a burp.

I'm sure there's an RPG out there where PCs hunt dragons while flying zepplins equipped with GAU-12 cannon -- which is it?

 

[Piratecat]

I still feel a little bit guilty for making the entire treasure in Of Sound Mind be copper pieces. It was worth it, though, just for the giant hoard effect when opening the door.

 

[Rhun]

Dragons keep copper because not only does it make for mice big fluffy pillows; it also is theft proof. Few adventurers are desperate enough that they'll drag off 400,000 copper pieces.

Unfortunately, this is entirely too true. After the first couple levels, my PCs won't even touch copper. It just isn't worth enough. But I'm a big fan of using the silver standard, and making gold a lot rarer than it is...when I run campaigns like that, the PCs treat copper with a little more respect (you know, that same respect I give to pennies).

 

[billd91]

Similarly, the Dragon is old so the coins on the bottom would be 400-800 years old. Do those empires still exist? What's the exchange/salvage rate?

Most coins, you'd expect, would be valued based on size and material rather than having a government to back them up. That said, scarcity could be an issue. Dumping all this previously "lost" gold on the economy should spur a lot of inflation.