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Friday, September 24, 2010

Clone Project: Treasure Table II

Next we have what I call the "wilderness and inhabited area encounters" treasure table, commonly known as the treasure types. The table is meant to be used in a manner that's practically the inverse of the dungeon stocking table: instead of creating the map first, then randomly stocking monsters and treasure with no necessary connection between the two, you select a monster first, then build a lair and select treasure appropriate for that monster.

The treasure types sort of follow a pattern. First, Types G, H and I are only used once each, for dwarves, dragons and rocs respectively, and Type A is mainly for large bands of men (the exception being centaurs.) In fact, you can pretend that Type H is an abbreviation for "Hoard" and Type I is an abbreviation for "Individual Items", because that appears to be how the types of items found seem to be arranged: Type I is the kind of stuff a roc could swoop down and snatch, one at a time, which means that coins are excluded, while Type H is weighted in favor of lots of valuable treasure. Taking that as inspiration, I will replace the legally-questionable letter types with code words abbreviated to three letters.

Two other patterns revolve around magic items. With the exception of Type A, the number of potential magical items increases as you go down the list, and with the exception of Types A, H, and I, the chance of finding a magic item increases as you go down the list.

Types B and D are sort of organized according to danger of the guardian. Except for hydras, all the Type B monsters are 4 HD or less. Except for dryads, orcs, hobgoblins and gnolls, all the Type D monsters are more than 4 HD. Except for dryads, the low-hit dice Type D monsters occur in large numbers.

Here is what I've come up with for now:


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Treasure Type Coins and Target 20
and Description Items Found Roll Adj
------------------- --------------------- ----------
ALA d6 Copper +4
Land Adventure d6 Silver +5
2d6 Gold +6
6d6 Gems +9
6d6 Jewelry +9
any 3 Magic Items +7

AWA 5d6 Gold +11
Water Adventure 10 x d6 Gems +11
10 x d6 Jewelry +11
1 Map +9

ADE d4 Copper +3
Desert Adventure d4 Silver +4
d6 Gold +5
10 x d4 Gems +9
10 x d4 Jewelry +9
any 3 Magic Items +11

BAS d8 Copper +9
Basic Cache d6 Silver +4
1d6/2 Gold +4
d6 Gems +4
d6 Jewelry +4
1 Magic Armor or
1 Magic Weapon +1

COM d12 Copper +3
Common Cache d4 Silver +5
d4 Gems +4
d4 Jewelry +4
any 2 Magic Items +1


DUN d8 Copper +1
Dungeon Cache d12 Silver +2
d6 Gold +11
d8 Gems +5
d8 Jewelry +5
any 2 Magic Items
+ 1 Potion +3

ELF d10 Copper +0
Elven Cache d12 Silver +5
d8 Gold +4
d10 Gems +1
d10 Jewelry +1
any 3 Magic Items
+ 1 Scroll +5

FIE 2d10 Silver +1
Fiendish Cache d12 Gold +8
2d12 Gems +3
2d12 Jewelry +3
any 3 Non-Weapons
+ 1 Potion, 1 Scroll +6

GOL 10 x d4 Gold +14
Gold-Rich Hoard 3d6 Gems +4
d10 Jewelry +4
any 4 Magic Items
+ 1 Scroll +7

HOA 3d8 Copper +4
Major Hoard 1d100 Silver +9
10 x d6 Gold +14
1d100 Gems +9
10 x d4 Jewelry +9
any 4 Magic Items
+ 1 Potion, 1 Scroll +3

IND 2d8 Gems +9
Individual 2d8 Jewelry +9
Items Any 1 Magic +3

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The "Target 20 Roll Adjustment" column indicates that I've change the percentile rolls to Target 20-style rolls. Roll a d20 for each item listed, add the appropriate adjustment, and if the result is 20 or more, that item is present in the treasure.

The reasoning behind the treasure type names is:

The three Adventure types are for encounters with large groups of human (or near-human) bands of outlaws or semi-outlaws. Treasure amounts can be somewhat large, since bandits and pirates specifically prey on civilized areas.

The Basic Cache and Common Cache are relatively low-value treasures, with the latter trading the possibility of gold for the possibility of an extra magic item.

The Dungeon Cache is somewhat more valuable and is geared mostly towards reasonably powerful typical dungeon inhabitants, such as orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, and trolls.

The Elven Cache (named after one typical Type E monster) and the Fiendish Cache are more magic-rich than the previous caches and tend to belong to more fantastic monsters, such as elves, giants, medusae, and vampires.

The Gold-Rich Hoard has a high probability of lots of gold, as the name suggests, and is the usual treasure for dwarven outposts. The Major Hoard is an extremely rich hoard, typical of a dragon.

Monsters which don't typically seek out loot in the form of precious metals, but which might steal occasionally objects, might possibly have treasure of the Individual Items type.

2 comments:

  1. Please keep these coming. These are amazing posts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! There's probably going to be more time between installments from now on, though, because I saved all the difficult stuff for last: the treasure tables and magic items, air and sea combat, wandering monster and encounter rolls...

    I'll also need to think about further changes necessary for legal reasons.

    ReplyDelete