Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saracenus" data-source="post: 9663772" data-attributes="member: 47839">Disclaimer: You old-heads like me don't need or care about the history lesson that runs throughout this post, but there are a ton of players who got their start with 3e, Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e and know nothing about the old ways. So bare with me and take the parts that speak to you.Ok, now for a post on treasure conversions. You would think that converting treasure from 1e to 5e is pretty straight forward, but it is and it isn't, also it doesn't have to be.First you have to understand treasure assumptions in 1e AD&D were predicated on the fact that gp value of items and coin extracted from a dungeon to as safe location (usually the town nearby) were converted into xp (this was in addition to the xp gained from killing monsters).That meant that everything you could take from said dungeon needed to have a value if it wasn't already listed in the 1e core books. You didn't have to sell the items, by the way, to get your xp value from them, but anything you left behind in the dungeon or was stolen from you before getting to the safe zone did not count towards your party's xp.So, in the keyed encounter <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/learning-2024-d-d-rules-by-converting-classic-1e-encounters-to-5e.713414/page-2#-mh12-corner-room" target="_blank">MH12 Corner Room</a> that I posted in my previous post had a bejeweled dagger worth 850 gp. PCs would have trouble selling this to someone in Hommlet so what they really got was a very expensive monster poker that no longer interacts with the xp mechanics in 5e. Not to mention this can mess with treasure distribution for the party. If someone keeps it to fight with, that is 850 gp of treasure that cannot be used for other purposes.It also doesn't say what jewels are on the dagger, what if the party wanted to pry out the gems to sell individually? Now the DM has to figure that out on the fly. Are the total value of the gems less than the value of the intact dagger? What to do? Well, there are a couple of ways to approach this:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">List the jewels on the dagger so they can be sold off individually. I find this unsatisfying.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Make it a low level magic item (common or uncommon). Not really following the spirit of the treasure given.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Make it tell a story that ties into the larger story of the plot driving the adventure.</li> </ol>I am going with option 3.So lets figure out what this is going be transformed into. I want this to tie into the elemental plot of the adventure story and give a party member something they can use. Using my design goal for PC utility, I notice that the party wizard does not have 100 gp pearl they need for their Identify spell.Well, pearls are associated with the sea and water, so let's use of <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#MagicItemsCreatororIntendedUser" target="_blank">Magic Item’s Creator or Intended User</a> table to spiff up the normal dagger. Now the blade is made of worked light pink coral (as hard as any metal), the handle wrapped in blue fish scale skin that always seems wet, and a large white pearl (worth 100 gp) forms the pommel. This elemental water themed dagger now looks like something someone from the Water Temple/Temple of the Crushing Wave faction would favor and use.That could have all sorts of fun implications when the PCs later encounter the water faction's followers and the wizard now has a pearl that can be used with Identify. We could stop right here with a cool non-magical dagger because we have now tied the treasure into both the story of the adventure and have given it utility to the PC wielding it (and the rest of the party for that mater) with the addition of the 100 gp pearl.Still, we could take it a step further and turn this dagger into a common magic weapon.As a common magic weapon It will not give a bonus to hit or damage, but it will still defeat damage reduction for certain creatures. Since the water temple group is in direct opposition to the fire temple group it makes sense that it will glow faintly in the presence (within 120 ft.) of a fire elemental creature or a members of the Fire Temple/Temple of Eternal Flame. This last bit is from the Sentinel option under the <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#MagicItemsMinorProperty" target="_blank">Magic Item’s Minor Property</a> table in the DMG 2024.Either choice is fine. I will pick one soon to put in the adventure. Or if my party doesn't have a wizard I can rebuild it differently if need be.Let's talk about a treasure parcel that I haven't listed yet, the buried chest in MH7 THE BLACK CHAMBER.In the chest contains: 2,000 cp, two bolts of fine cloth (worth 60 gp each), A crystal flagon and four goblets (the set is worth 80 gp), An inlaid wooden box with ivory handles and decorations (worth 45 gp), and four arrows +1. I came up with the following changes:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Four unbreakable elven arrows +1, they are half the weight of normal arrows, there is the symbol of the Knights of Luna etched in a nature themed pattern on the shaft and the arrow heads are magically hardened tree leaves. From the DMG 2024, <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#MagicItemsMinorProperty" target="_blank">Magic Item’s Minor Property</a> table: Unbreakable: These arrows cannot be destroyed except by the blood of an elf. So, do don't shoot an elf with them or they will melt away.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There were also two bolts of fine cloth (worth 60 gp each). Using the <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#TradeGoodsTable" target="_blank">Trade Goods</a> table in the DMG 2024 we now that normal cloth is worth 5 sp/sq. yd. This is fine cloth so let's up the value to 1 gp/sq. yd. and each bolt has 60sq. yds. weighing about 26 pounds each. Lets make them from the Kingdom of Furyondy (they export cloth and the realm north of the adventuring area). One is purple and the other is gold respectively.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The rest of the treasure is fine as is.</li> </ul>Now we have 2 more items with ties to the adventuring world.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the players interact with the Knights of Luna (they are part of one of the five factions active in the adventuring area) and will definitely raise eyebrows when or if the party arrives in the Kingdom of Celene.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the party brings the cloth to Hommlet and are having difficulty estimating price, they can bring it the tailor (see H11 Cottage (Tailor)) and you could have him drop clue that a merchant caravan passing through tried to sell him that very same cloth, this is could be proof that banditry is once again a problem outside of Hommlet that the party could take to the village council.</li> </ul>Edited for clarity.</blockquote>

Verification