What do they do with the copper and silver?

[Templetroll]

Way back a DM had a tower that had no doors, windows or arrowslits. It had a pointed top so no trapdoor up there. Inside the castle, down below, we found a hallway to a 20' diamiter circular room with a huge 10' trapdoor in the ceiling. Being the adventerous types we opened it and down poured 10,000 gp worth of copper coins.

I think we left that one.

For my characrters I always make notes of where loot was lost or left behind. If nothing else it if a reason to have a map to treasure that really does have something there!

 

[Whisper72]

My players were always the greedy type. As much loot would be taken as possible. Small coinage was traded up to gems as soon as possible to free up room in the various regular sacks, backpacks or portable holes / bags of holding or whatever other similar magic was available.

Treasure left behind usually quickly got taken by others. I mean, if the monsters are slain, the heroes return with riches, then others will quickly check out if there is anything left to pick over...

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, I rarely include huge amounts of copper pieces in treasure, but if I do, players typically don't bother taking it with them unless their bags of holding happen to be empty. As the adventure progresses, less precious stuff gets dumped in favor of items with a better worth/weight ratio, like large masterwork full plate mails...

 

[Tetsubo]

Whenever I run a campaign I always use a silver based monetary system. I add in a bronze piece as a silver replacement. So silver is the default coin.

But players always seem to take every darn copper...

 

[delericho]

Take it all.

Then disassemble the funishings and fittings of the room, roll up all the carpets, check behind the pictures, and so forth. Then take the furnishings and fittings, carpets, paintings, and absolutely anything else that might be of any value to anyone. Then break out the picks and shovels, and dig out all the walls and floors to a depth of at least six inches, just in case...

They haven't started stealing the hinges from all the doors, though. That would just be obsessive.

 

[theskyfullofdust]

My players tend to take everything at low levels, but leave the 'poorer' coins alone when they're more powerful; unless they have plenty of space to put it all (bags of holding were surely made for copper coin hoards).

 

[WayneLigon]

Once they come across or manufacture their first couple of bags of holding, they take everything that isn't an integral part of the structure.

 

[sinecure]

2e is better at this. 3e is kind of screwy with money as it makes gold as cheap as dollars. I prefer the silver standard, but even then I add other metals in besides copper. Like brass, bronze, iron, steel, etc. By making these coins with an assigned value it somehow serves to remind players that everything else in the gameworld also has value.

For instance, every iron pot now also has a raw iron value besides an improved value because of the smith. Now all those brass art objects and steel armors and bronze jeweleries and just about anything in the world not a coin is remembered to have value again.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

After they get past the low levels they still vacuum up anything that isn't part of the structure. Sometimes even that isn't enough.

Just for a sense of cool a while back I described the doors into a Temple of Moradin being used by the BBEG as cast bronze covered with intricate dwarven low relief murals. After they were done the barbarian spent several hours hacking away the stone until the doors were removable. One became the high table of the half-ruined castle they occupy and the other had continual flame cast on it before being sovereign glued to the ceiling as a light fixture.

Now the PCs of the new campaign are at high end of mid-level they still grab every copper but generally spread some of it around freely for the effect it has on their reputation. Or it gets piled up until someone has a heroic sculpture (of themselves of course) made out of it.

 

[kigmatzomat]

My party is like freaking soldier ants. There's six PCs, 4 cohorts, and a couple of hundred followers. If something's valuable enough, they'll teleport a work crew in and have things dismantled. I once had a hive-mind insect colony put up a wall of faux amber to block the party. The PCs excavated the tunnel and took the block of amber with them.

They are currently attacking embassies of an overthrown nation, and in one case they managed to capture most of the staff, who were then set to packing up everything. Since they offered parole to a couple of the higher ups, the secret vaults and what not were pointed out to them.

Of course, they're also 21st level, so coming up with enough RAW treasure is a problem of its own.