D&D General Treasure - how much, how often, and how does your group divide it

[Xetheral]

That's about the same as how it goes here.

This is something else I specifically try to avoid: bidding wars. Why? Because it breaks the single-value mold, and if nothing else makes treasury division an absolute beast in that every time the bid goes up, everyone's share value changes.

I've always kind of seen it that the greatest demand for most magic items is likely to come from adventurers, be they PC or NPC, or nobility; meaning most transactions are likely either going to be a) private deals with contacts you've made during training or through guilds or wherever or b) direct sales to the crown or a temple or some other high mucky-muck. Some class-based guilds (e.g. a mercenaries' guild, or a wizards' guild) might act as clearinghouses and-or contact points, and occasionally buy or sell things as a guild, but that's it.

There's no "magic shop" as such.

There's no magic shop at my table either. The Great Market I referenced consists of thousands of individual dealers in various sorts of goods (everything from basic commodities, to futures, to priceless treasures) and the even larger network of middlemen and agents who try to connect buyers and sellers.

 

[Hussar]

In my current campaign, magic items can be constructed, but, require what I call Dust (from the magical Chaos Star that fell from the heavens and created the Chaos Scar). I simply repurposed the rules of Residuum from 4e. Works fantastic. You can drop Dust as a reward in treasure hoards and the group then has some thing to collect and keep track of if they want to buy magic items. I simply use the GP value in the DMG for the amount of Dust needed to craft that item which can only be created in specially designed kilns controlled by the Mages guild and some churches.

IOW, I made the magic item economy totally independent of gold. Because the local area is so dangerous, no one will sell magic items that could be used for defense. There's no point in selling an item for gold when you cannot buy another item.

This was one area where 4e really got it right.

 

[akr71]

In fairness, for new players I'd explain that this is something that kinda has to be done and step them through it - maybe even make each of them the party treasurer for an adventure to get a sense of how it works.

Yep, I admit I dropped the ball there. However, when I was asked to show some new folk how to play, I brought in some seasoned players to help me teach them the game. I think I might have relied on them a bit too much. Lesson learned.

 

[akr71]

Being polymorphed into a literal fish out of water would not kill the creature. When the creature reaches 0 hit points from suffocation, it reverts back to its normal form and the hit points that it had when it was polymorphed.

Putting it in the bag of holding works because it would revert to its normal form, then suffocate again (I note that this seems a very cruel form of execution... :-/ ). The polymorph just makes it easy to get it in the bag.

So does its normal form's size fit within the bag of holding? Remember it is only 64 cubic feet in size inside. To give you an idea what that is, it is a cube 4 feet to a side (though I rule the exact shape of the interior is amorphous within that volume limit). What would happen if you polymorphed the tarrasque into a mouse and placed it into the bag? When it reverts to its normal size, would the tarrasque be sent to the Astral Plane? Would the bag be rent asunder and destroyed? Or would the tarrasque be violently expelled out of the bag?

Yes, they likely thought it through, being that is one of their go to tricks. The cruelty of it doesn't seem to phase them much, but then again, who is overly sympathetic to a Yeth Hound and other horrible creatures. The space limit has come up, more that the size of the creature won't fit through the opening of the bag. The first time they handled it creatively by reaching into the bag and dismembering it inside the bag and pulling it out a bit at a time. Whether its RAW or not, I let it fly. They now had blood and gore soaked treasure.

The second time they clued into the fact that if you just turn the bag inside out (push the bottom of the bag out the top of it, all the contents spews out.

 

[S'mon]

Don't think I'd ever make a bag of holding literally airtight. A folded up portable hole, yes.

 

[Rabulias]

Don't think I'd ever make a bag of holding literally airtight. A folded up portable hole, yes.

A fair point, but the description of the bag of holding in both the 3.5e and 5e DMGs specifies a limited air supply for creatures within the bag.

 

[Lanefan]

A fair point, but the description of the bag of holding in both the 3.5e and 5e DMGs specifies a limited air supply for creatures within the bag.

I don't think I've ever DMed anyone trying to put a creature into a BoH, and thus I've never had to rule on it.

As I've always envisioned "bagworld" as being in effect empty space with the bag's contents floating arond, I think I'd rule it'd be like being put into airless space for a creature, i.e. almost-instant death.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. Reminds me of a campaign where we had a semi-sentient bag of devouring. We fed it the bodies of everything we killed in return for it acting like a Bag of Holding for us. So long as we kept it fed, worked great. We left the absolutely cleanest dungeons behind us. Half the campaign we were acting like it was Viscera Cleanup Detail.

 

[Raunalyn]

Heh. Reminds me of a campaign where we had a semi-sentient bag of devouring. We fed it the bodies of everything we killed in return for it acting like a Bag of Holding for us. So long as we kept it fed, worked great. We left the absolutely cleanest dungeons behind us. Half the campaign we were acting like it was Viscera Cleanup Detail.

Was that Storm King's Thunder? I don't quite recall.

It wasn't semi-sentient, though...it was fully sentient and would sometimes have full conversations with the party, including asking for different things to eat.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

In my last 1-20 campaign I handed out a lot of magic. Too much. But only because by Tier 4 it started losing meaning to the players. "A vorpal sword? Thanks but no thanks. I think I'd rather keep my flametongue."

That said, I still like handing out a lot of magic items. It's part of what makes D&D...D&D. But next time out I want magic items to be more central to the story. You don't randomly find a flametongue in a red dragon's treasure hoard -- instead, you seek out that dragon specifically because they have a flametongue in their hoard.

Also, I specify who gets what magic items. I don't let players decide that for themselves. There's always one person who gets exactly what they want and another person who doesn't get anything at all. I can't abide that.

Same with cash treasure. I just tell players: "You find treasure worth 200 gp each." Done.