Gems II: Quantities

In Part I of this series on gems, I talked about limiting the kinds of gems in each dungeon to just three, maybe four if you really want a fourth type. But what I described was more about designing the top-level dungeon theme than actually stocking the individual rooms with treasure, which is what most GMs are thinking of when we talk about “rolling for treasure”. How is this actually done?

Treasure Troves and Dungeon Loot

In the original D&D booklets, treasure can be divided into what I call “treasure troves” (aka wilderness lair treasure) and “loot” (aka dungeon room treasure.) The chance of gems being part of a trove are based on monster type, per the table in Volume II (Monsters & Treasure), page 23, while loot stashes are based on dungeon level, per the table in Volume III (Underworld & Wilderness Adventures), page 7, which can be summarized as “percent chance equal to 10 times half the dungeon level, round down, minimum 5%, maximum 50%.” The troves of many wilderness lairs and loot in rooms on dungeon levels 1 through 7 usually have about 1d6 gems, loot on dungeon levels 8 and below can have 1d12 gems, while the lairs of bandits, pirates, dwarves, dragons, and the like have much larger quantities.

You could, of course, use these by-the-book methods of determining the total number of gems found, then splitting them up into three batches:

• A quarter of the gems found (round down) will be low value gems,
• Half the remainder (round up) will be mid value gems,
• Whatever is left over will be high value gems.

Make My Treasure Fast!

What I’d like to do, however, is roll all the dice at once. It would also be nice if the procedure were easy to memorize so that I could do it all without consulting a table. We need to modify the chances and quantities to do that, however. Here’s one approach.

Roll 3d6 and read the dice results individually from left to right. Interpretation is roughly the same in all cases, but there are differences between upper levels of the dungeon versus the dungeon’s deeper levels.

Fast Loot for Dungeon Level 1

Gems are rarest on the uppermost level of the dungeon, because this is usually where the dungeon entrance is and it’s thus the easiest level to raid for treasure.

• First d6 and Second d6 values match: Gems are in the loot if both dice are odd.
• Second d6 value: Max number of gems in the loot.
• Third d6 value: Number of mid-value gems, up to the max number.

If the second and third d6 match, half the mid-value gems will actually be high-value gems, round down.

Fast Loot for Dungeon Levels 2 and 3

Nearly the same as for Dungeon Level 1.

• First d6 and Second d6 values match: Gems are in the loot.
• Second d6 value: Max number of gems in the loot.
• Third d6 value: Number of mid-value gems, up to the max number. Half of these gems will be high-value if the 2nd and 3rd dice match.

Again: if the first two dice do not match, there are no gems in this loot.

Fast Loot for Deeper Dungeon Levels (4+)

Not as complicated, but basically the same.

• First d6: Triple the result rolled. Gems are in the loot if this result is <= dungeon level (max level 10.)
• Second d6 and Third d6 Total: Max number of gems in the loot.
• Third d6 value: Number of high-value gems.

Subtract the number of high-value gems (third d6) from the total number of gems found. Half of these (round up) will be mid-value gems.

Fast Treasure Troves

Treat treasure troves as if they were Dungeon Level 6: triple the value of the first d6 and compare it to the dungeon level to see if there are any gems. There are a couple modifications for some monster types: pirates, bandits, brigands, berserkers, dervishes, mercenary armies, dwarves, and dragons all roll 4d6 instead of 3d6. The first d6 is still the chance of gems in the treasure trove, but the other three dice are used for the number of gems, as follows.

• Dwarves (and other wealthy humanoids): Triple the value of the first d6 as for deep dungeon loot on Level 6. The three other dice are the total number of gems.
• Bands of Humans (bandits and so on): Double the value of the first d6 instead of tripling it when you compare the value to Level 6. Double the total of the remaining dice for the number of gems, and double the value of the third d6 for the number of gems that are high value.
• Dragons: As for Bandits, but the multiplier for the number of gems is x5 instead of x2.

Unique Treasures

The standard practice for stocking dungeons and wilderness lairs is “stock unique treasures first, then roll for the random stuff”. If there’s a special artifact, gold statue, magic tome, or other unique treasure that is essentially part of a story or at the very least a memorable moment during play, it should be placed manually, with thematically appropriate monsters, traps, or environmental features.

This applies to gems as well. Those three or four gem types that you assign to the dungeon as a whole are ordinary kinds of gems, even if some of them are rarer and thus more valuable than others. But your unique treasure might include gems that are either unique or of a special extremely rare type.

I previously described gem types as being mad of Size, Color, Opacity and Miscellaneous. The Miscellaneous details are usually reserved for these extremely rare, manually-placed gem types and usually means “unusual behavior, perhaps magical”. For example, you might have an exotic, very rare gem called a “zap diamond”, label it Cw2 (small transparent white gem.) But zap diamonds have a Miscellaneous feature: if two zap diamonds touch, they make a bright flash that has a chance to blind people for up to 4 rounds. It takes an hour for the charge to build back up so the zap diamond can be used again.

These zap diamonds would need to be place manually, since they are not strictly treasure, but more like magic items, or at the very least a minor puzzle to figure out. They are not simply something to cash in for coins without thinking about them.

There are some Miscellaneous qualities like stripes or speckles that aren’t special powers, just ways of distinguishing two gem types of the same color and opacity. These don’t need to be placed manually.

But How do I Describe This?

I’m assuming three stages of play in these posts:

• world-building, where you create gem types for your world and then place them as treasure in a dungeon;
• adventuring, where the players explore, discover treasure, and return home;
• housekeeping, where the players sell off loot, spend their gains, and prepare for the next adventure.

The gem codes, like Lb9 or Dg2, are meant to be a shorthand for the GM to record what a gem looks like and about how much it is worth. You aren’t going to tell the players the actual codes, of course, but you especially should not tell them that second part, the gem’s actual worth, at least in most cases. I wouldn’t even say the number of gems, if there’s more than about six of any given type, unless the PCs literally take time to count them (worth at least one wandering monster roll, I’d say.) Descriptions of what the PCs find should be broad and somewhat fuzzy, becoming more concrete once they return to base and begin the housekeeping phase.

The first letter of the code describes the Size, which can be broken down into small (V and X,) medium (L and C,) and large (D and M.) Remember, this is for opaque gems; transparent, translucent, and murky gems will be smaller, but still worth the same amount. Any gem that appears smaller than V/X can be called “very small”, and those of Size 2M or larger are “very large”.

The second letter is the color, and the numeral at the end is the opacity. I would not normally count Lb8, Lb9, and Lb10 as different types of gems, but one type of gem in different grades of quality. I break it down as:

• 0-2: transparent (passes light, can see through these gems)
• 3-5: translucent (passes light, can see shadows, but not details)
• 6-7: murky or cloudy (passes light only)
• 8-10: opaque (doesn’t pass light, although Opacity8/9 glisten or glow a bit)

Color + one of the above opacity terms = one distinct gem type. A Miscellaneous quality might make this a distinct type, however. Each gem type can come in a variety of Sizes, but speckled translucent blue gems and striped translucent blue gems might have different size ranges.

So, when the PCs find gems, the GM would describe them as something like “three small translucent blue gems, a few medium transparent green gems, and a bunch of large opaque orange gems”. The players would (presumably) write these down the same way, perhaps risking counting the gems to get the exact numbers of green and orange gems, while the GM would record exact numbers and codes in the “loot found” list as:

Lb4 = 3 gems
Dg1 = 9 gems
Cor9 = 15 gems

Thus, the GM keeps track of the approximate value of the treasure, but the precise value is only revealed in the next post in this series.

Series Index

• Gems Intro
• Gems I : Types
• Gems II : Quantities (this post)
• Gems III : Assessments

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