What do they do with the copper and silver?

[shilsen]

What happens if your DM doesn't allow magic shops in his campaign, so you can't buy a magic item, no matter how much cash you wave around?

Then you hit them with a bag of copper pennies till they learn better.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It varies. We've never concerned ourselves too much with encumbrance, but they still have an awareness of copper in particular being bulkier than it's worth to lug back to town. When the PC's are lower level every copper is ultimately worth it. But as they gain levels and treasures get larger the copper and silver rapidly lose meanigful value. By the time they are getting treasures with tens of thousands of gold coin they are unlikely to care about 10,000 cp, yet they WILL still take them unless I mention that they are getting into encumbrance issues. Then the copper is the first to be jettisoned without batting an eyelash.

Even when they do take it, the copper gets spent first. Meals, common supplies, inn rooms, etc. are all paid in copper. If nothing else the copper pays taxes and the fees to EXCHANGE it for larger coins or gems.

Another important factor is whether or not there is a party fund. Most times the PC's as a group eventually come to keep a seperate account from their own personal funds. This party fund is used to buy things that the party as a whole requires - passage on a ship, emergency resurrections, buying information, and even throwing parties. It also tends to include things obtained by the party as a group that retain value for what they ARE such as rope, tents, rations, and caches of weapons and armor (even magical equipment). Rather than trying to sell them off the party will store them somewhere and then have at least the capability (whether used or not) to outfit a fighting force on quick notice or to replace their own destroyed or stolen equipment until better equipment can be obtained.

With a party fund nobody really carries the "useless" copper or silver - THAT'S the coinage that is the first to go into the party fund. Given the mundane things that the party fund is generally used for it actually works better that it is filled with mostly low-denomination coins.

And yet some parties, particularly in older editions where the copper was even less valuable, would simply leave the copper lie (and then one enterprising PC funded a highly successful criminal organization in part by retrieving the copper the other PC's left behind).

The final factor is whether the PC's eventually obtain magical means of carrying loot like portable holes or bags of holding. As soon as they do the question is moot - EVERYTHING NOT NAILED DOWN gets shoveled into the magical containers and sorted out later all-but-regardless of bulk or value.

 

[CruelSummerLord]

Then you hit them with a bag of copper pennies till they learn better.

Uh. maybe. But what if you as a DM want to maintain the integrity of the setting, keeping the number of magical goodies strictly limited, even for the BBEGs?

 

[CruelSummerLord]

Then why even bother taking any loot?

There are non-magical solutions, however. Like buying a cart and Mounting in a horse to pull it back to town.

To be able to live in the lap of luxury-fine wine, women, gambling...or you could send some of the money to causes you care about-donating it to a knighthood or a church, paying off the debts of your friends...stockpiling it as a nest egg for when you retire...paying for a castle and keep, and then using your prestige and your power to wrangle a noble title for yourself and recruit appropriate followers...

Seriously, if the only purpose of loot is to buy magic items, then what are guys like Conan supposed to do with all the treasure they gather? Conan avoids magic like the plague, yet he still goes for fabulous treasures whenever he gets the chance.

 

[Treebore]

Wouldn't the density difference be a dead giveaway? I mean, the coins would weigh more than twice as much.

Yep. Even had the merchant who busted them cite that he caught on because the coin was too lite in weight. They never thought to check out the copper coins. Never.

 

[Treebore]

Probably not the best analogy, but...
On the idea of carrying only gold and platinum, go into a 7-11 and try buying a cup of coffe while paying with a $100 bill. They will either tell you that they cannot cash that, or you will have to wait for 4 people to buy something else with a $20 to get all your change back. Now transpose that to the small tavern in the middle of tinyville and try to buy a bowl of gruel and a tankard while paying with a platinum... you may still end up washing dishes to pay for your meal.

Yep, which is why my Pc's always take 100 copper and 100 silver with them. Which only weigh a pound each because I go by an old Best of Dragon article for my coin weights. Combine that with most DM's totally ignore encumbrance from "small things" like copper and silver coins and it all worked out.

 

[shilsen]

Uh. maybe. But what if you as a DM want to maintain the integrity of the setting, keeping the number of magical goodies strictly limited, even for the BBEGs?

Meh. This is D&D, not Shakespeare (whose brilliance, by the way, was enhanced by the ability to throw so-called artistic integrity out of the window when it interfered with entertainment). What's the good of killing things and taking their stuff if you can't spend the stuff to buy magical doodads that help you kill more things and take their stuff?

Okay, okay - I'll admit I'm mostly being facetious. I think a DM is well within his rights to not have magic easily accessible in his campaign. I've just almost never seen it done usefully or well, with it usually not really adding much to a game and often needing some serious arbitrary handwaving to justify.

Anyway, to answer the OP's question, in my games the PCs never have to keep track of the silver and copper, since I always assume the extra little stuff they pick up and we never track is also spent on the little daily expenses which we never track.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

My groups (two of them) never take copper or silver. It's just not worth the effort for them and frankly I agree. I enforce encumbrance in my campaigns and at 1/2 gp per pound of coin, they'd rather leave it.

 

[Set]

In response to Set: How did the dwarves react when the party hauled in the huge altar to Moradin?

Sadly the campaign ended before we got that far.

In our latest game, the DM decided that he didn't like platinum, and so coinage goes from copper pennies (1/100th of a gp) to silver pennies (1/10th of a gp) to golden pennies (1 gp) to mithril pennies (10 gp each) to adamantine bits (100 gp each).

Pretty much everyone uses copper, silver and golden pennies. Elves and Halflings use mithril pennies for larger sums, while Dwarves use adamantine bits more often for large purchases, and and alloyed coins (steel, bronze, brass) for smaller denominations. Humans use gold doubloons, 10x weightier than golden pennies and worth 10 gp each, in place of mithril or adamantine. Gnomes use a bewildering array of metals, including tin, lead, copper, iron, silver and gold mostly ranked by 'alchemical value' with larger purchases made with flasks of mercury worth 25 gp.

So a dragon hoard could contain a dozen different types of coin, made from different metals!

 

[Slife]

Yep. Even had the merchant who busted them cite that he caught on because the coin was too lite in weight. They never thought to check out the copper coins. Never.

I just hope they got a spot check to notice it. It's kind of jarring when you pick up something that weighs a lot more than it should.