Gems III: Assessments

In this series on gems (four years in the making!) I’ve talked about how to set up gem types for a dungeon and how to assign gems to treasure. But how do the players find out what those gems are worth? How do you determine the actual value of the gems brought back from an adventure?

It’s best to postpone this assessment until the end of an adventure.

Gem Appraisal

The main reason it’s best to wait until the end to identify gems and appraise their value is: the PCs have to find someone who’s able to do it. Gem appraisal is a job for an expert, and usually PCs don’t have the skill to do it themselves. So, they bring their treasure finds back from the dungeon to town and show the gems to a jeweler or someone else with the appraisal skill.

Finding an Appraiser

If the PC home base is a fairly large town or city, there’s really not that much effort needed to find an appraiser: just go to the Street of Jewelers or maybe even any merchant and ask “Can you tell me how much these gems are worth?” If you really need to know how long it takes to find someone like that, decide first if it’s going to take at least a turn (ten minutes) or an hour, then roll a d6: on 5+, it takes exactly one turn or one hour, while on a 1 to 4, it takes that many extra turns or hours.

If there’s some reason why it’s not obvious where the merchants and jewelers hang out, like “gems are outlawed” or “we don’t speak the language or understand the local customs, so we can’t tell who the jewelers are”, you might want to make the process of finding an appraiser more difficult, like requiring a reaction roll to see how well things go. On a Good or better reaction, the PCs find an expert. On a Normal reaction, the “expert” isn’t that good and takes much longer for an accurate appraisal. On a Bad reaction or worse, the PCs will need to look somewhere else.

Making an Appraisal

Even a beginner at appraising who’s no expert can tell the PCs the names of any gems found after about a minute of examination, but it takes 1 to 5 minutes for an expert or 10 to 50 minutes for someone less skilled to determine the actual value. This part doesn’t normally require a roll if the appraiser has plenty of time to use their skills and no outside stress to mess things up. If the GM or players needs to know how long the appraisal takes, a d6 roll like the one described for finding an appraiser will do the job. In many cases, you can make this roll after giving the appraisal.

There’s only one or two rolls that are absolutely needed:

• A reaction roll (maybe) to see if the appraiser is honest, shorts the PCs a little, or straight up lies. This is usually only rolled once, with the first reaction carrying over for all future interactions unless the PCs take actions that warrant a reroll.
• The actual value adjustment roll for each gem involved. The basic roll is a d6 adjustment roll, which I’ve described before.

d6 roll	adjustment
1	halve the gem’s value
2-5	no adjustment
6	double the gem’s value

If there are 1 to 5 gems being appraised, roll 1d6 for each gem. If there are more, split the gems into 2 to 5 groups (whatever works best) and roll 2d6 to 5d6, reading each d6 result individually, left to right. If you need to roll the reaction roll and you use a d6-based reaction roll, you can roll all these dice at once, although that means you might be rolling 7d6 in some cases.

(The reason I cap the number of dice rolled at five is because I think rolling too many dice at once actually slows things down. Plus, if you are using these “literal” dice rolls read left to right, rolling more dice can make things harder to interpret and may even cause dice to ricochet off each other, maybe sending one or two dice flying off the table. If you’re one of those people who likes the excitement of rolling huge handfuls of dice, though, you can go another way with this.)

DIY Appraisals

Some PCs may have an appraisal skill, or may train to become experts at appraisal. I’m one of those people who assumes dwarves and gnomes are experts at appraising gems, Some people assume thieves know how to appraise the value of “found” goods like gems as well. Personally, I think I’d allow most thieves to make amateur appraisals (taking 1 to 5 turns for appraisals,) but thieves with Int 16+ would be experts, taking only 1 to 5 minutes. I might even allow PCs in general to be amateur gem appraisers if their Int is 16+. You might want to check out my pamphlet on Liber Zero Adventurer Skills for more information on backgrounds, previous professions, and training in new skills.

Do It in a Dungeon, Save Time

If the PCs wait until they are back at home base, or at least until they reach some kind of safe zone, before they make any gem appraisals, there’s no need to roll for time. Just make the 1d6 to 5d6 appraisal roll to find the adjusted values of each gem.

If, however, there’s a chance of being interrupted, make the 1d6 situation roll to see how quickly the appraisal can be done: 5+ means it takes only one minute for an expert or one turn for an amateur to make an appraisal, while a roll of 1 to 4 adds an additional 1 to 4 minutes or turns.

It only takes 1 minute for either an expert or an amateur to identify what kind of gems they’ve found (the in-world names of the gem types.) The d6 roll only determines how long it takes to work out the actual value of each gem. If the whole appraisal takes more than one minute and wandering monster rolls are applicable, an expert might be interrupted by a monster arriving, and an amateur might never make it all the way through the appraisal.

Adverse Appraisal Conditions

I’m assuming here that the appraisal is happening in steady, bright light and the appraiser is using a jeweler’s loop or some other magnifier. An expert can skip using the jeweler’s loop as long as there are no other adverse conditions.

Adverse conditions make appraisals harder. If there is at least one adverse condition, roll 2d6 vs. Int. If the roll fails (higher than Int,) look up the result on this modified reaction roll table.

Appraisal Skill Failure

2d6 Roll	Appraisal Skill Result
2	appraisal fails
3-5	amateur appraisal fails, otherwise time x5
6-8	multiply time needed x5
9-11	triple time needed
12	double time needed

If there are two adverse conditions, halve the appraiser’s Int score before comparing the result. If there are more than two, halve Int again and treat everyone as an amateur.

Adverse conditions include:

• Dim or unstable light (very dim counts as two adverse conditions)
• amateur without a magnifier
• expert without a magnifier and at least one other adverse condition
• sleepy or fatigued
• mist or haze
• watery eyes
• distractions

And anything else that reduces vision or affects the ability to focus.

Summary

The short version of this series on gems is: reduce the number of gem types for a location to just three or four, optionally rolling to set the base types if you don’t already have a concept, then figure out which treasures include gems in what proportions. Give players simple visual descriptions, but save space in your own notes by using gem type codes. When the players are ready to sell, appraise the gems to find out the real values.

Series Index

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

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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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Gems I: Types

I ended the first post of my series on gems (Gems Intro,) with this paragraph:

I plan on detailing each of these modified steps in a separate post, with appropriate tables. I won’t be posting before next week, however.

That was four years ago, so I was right.

Part of the reason for the delay was that I had finished (or nearly finished) the next part, but then lost all my draft posts, somehow. And after I found them again last month, I had to review what I’d written to figure out what I was aiming for. Also, I’ve changed my mind on some things, so I had to rewrite parts of it. But basically, my first post laid out three or four steps for generating gems in a pile of treasure.

• Steps Zero and One: Pick a Dungeon Theme and Gem Types to Match
• Step Two: Roll for How Many Gems Are in Each Treasure Trove
• Step Three: Assess Each Gem

Step One happens before stocking individual rooms, Step Two happens when stocking the rooms, and Step Three happens during the game session.

But Why?

What are my basic goals for making new gem rules?

I want two or three things:

• To reduce the amount of information that needs to be tracked per gem,
• To simplify and compress the generation process,
• And maybe to make it easy to improvise without actually looking at a table?

Reduce

There’s really only about eight or so gem names people are really familiar with: diamond, emerald, jade, opal, pearl, quartz, ruby, sapphire, maybe a couple others like jet, topaz or turquoise, but not everyone’s going to be able to recognize the same batch and most of the others are just different types of quartz, anyways. So recording gem names or being meticulous about base values for each type seems like a waste.

Instead, I say: reduce gem information to just Size, Color, Opacity, and Miscellaneous. The first three can be written in a single keyword, like “Xb5”. “Miscellaneous” only pops up if you want a gem with a special (magical?) ability.

Recycle

I’ve used Roman numerals before for things like size categories, so of course I’m going to do that again. We only need V, X, L, C, D, M, because who cares about Size I, anyways? And the hard part of Roman numerals is counting and subtracting, but we only need one letter per gem code. Here’s a table we only need to read once and never need to look at again.

Numeral	Size Reference	Default Gem Value
V	bead-sized (small)	5 coins
X	pebble-sized (small)	10 coins
L	marble-sized (med)	50 coins
C	eyeball-sized (med)	100 coins
D	egg-sized (large)	500 coins
M	fist-sized (large)	1000 coins

Reuse

One thing I use a lot is a simple d6 “table” for adjusting values on just about anything:

d6 roll	adjustment
1	move value down one
2-5	no adjustment
6	move value up one

You don’t even really need a table for this. It’s just “lowest possible result = down one, highest possible result = up one”.

I also like to use dice positions, reading left to right, to roll multiple things at once. I can reduce the number of rolls that way and speed things up immensely.

Building the Dungeon

I suggested that GMs creating a dungeon key should pick a small number of gem types for their entire dungeon. Specifically, I suggest three or four gem types per dungeon, with a color scheme that matches the dungeon’s theme. One gem will be the low value gem, a second would be the middle value, and the third would be the high value. If necessary, a fourth type matching either the low or middle value, but with a different color, opacity, or additional feature like a glow can be added when it’s thematically appropriate.

If you don’t have an idea what color you want your gems to be, just use the rainbow colors (Roy G. Biv.) Start on yellow for the low value, green for the mid value, and blue for the high value. Roll 2d6 and read the dice individually, left to right.

• First d6: 1 = shift values left one color, 6 = shift values right one color
• Second d6: 1 = shift low value gem down, 6 = shift high value gem up

Size

The default gem size for a given dungeon is based on deepest dungeon level / 2.

Level	Gem Size
1-2	C
3-4	D
5-6	M
7+	3M

This is for the high value gems. Low value (common) gems will be two sizes smaller by default (X to D.) Mid value gems will be one size smaller. Values above M use an Arabic numeral multiplier: 3M, 5M, 10M, 30M, 50M.

Roll 3d6 in order and read the dice individually, left to right.

• First d6: 1 = shift all sizes down one, 6 = shift sizes up one
• Second d6: 1 = shift low value gem down one size, 6 = shift high value gem up one size
• Third d6: Opacity

Opacity

Opacity is recorded as an index value (9 = 90% opaque, 5 = 50% opaque, 0 = less than 5% opaque.)

The third d6 rolled is the base opacity for the high-value gem, treating a 6 as zero. For mid-value gems, add +4. For low-value gems, add +8. Opacity is capped at 10, which is completely opaque.

Opaque gems are the listed size for their size value, but murky, translucent, or transparent gems will appear smaller.

• Opacity 0 to 2 reduces apparent size down two steps without reducing the value.
• Opacity 3 to 7 reduces apparent size down one step.
• Opacity 8+ is the listed size.

Gem Codes and Names

So let’s say you’re making a four-level dungeon. You start with the default gem colors of yellow, green, and blue, from low value to high value. You roll 3d6 and get (6, 4, 2). How do you write this in your notes?

• The low value gem is Cy10, an opaque yellow gem the size of an eyeball.
• The mid value gem is Dg6, a murky green gem of the same size, despite being worth 500 times as much as the low value gem.
• The high value gem is Mb2, a translucent blue gem that’s also the size of an eyeball, but worth 1000 coins.

The actual values of the gems can vary up or down during both the next step (stocking treasure in rooms) and the final step (getting the gem appraised.)

But what about the names? Unless a particular gem sounds like a diamond, sapphire, or emerald to you, I think you should stick to fantasy gem names specific to your world. Opaque yellow gems the size of an eyeball might be known as “Ra’s Eye gems”. Murky green gems might be “mossmist gems”. These names wouldn’t be listed in the dungeon key, but on a “list of gems in this world”, which you would build as you expand your campaign.

When players discover these gems, however, they won’t get the gem names or values immediately. Instead, just say "three small translucent blue gems, a few small murky green gems, plus a whole bunch of small yellow stones.

But more on that in a future post.

Series Index

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

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Gems: A Short Series

I’ve been meaning to do another movie review for a while, so obviously it’s time to start a series of posts discussing dungeon treasure stocking instead. Specifically, how to handle gems. It’s inspired by this OD&D forum post that’s been going on for that last month or so.

How do you assign gems to treasure? More specifically, how much information do you include, or should you include? Full description of each gem and quantity, minimum information necessary, or something in between?

I lean towards the minimum, with a few extra details. But before I get into that, I need break down the steps to assigning gem details. Loosely based on the “official” process, the steps are:

1. Check if there are gems in a treasure cache or trove.
2. Check the number of gems.
3. Assign base gem value.
4. Check how many gems are of higher or lower value.

If randomly assigning treasure, Steps 1 and 2 are handled as part of the treasure table in either Volume II: Monsters & Treasure (page 22) or Volume III: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (page 7) depending on whether it’s a wilderness treasure or dungeon treasure. Step 3 involves a roll on the Gem Base Value table on page 40 of Monsters & Treasure, followed by a d6 roll for each gem or group of 5 to 10 gems as Step 4.

In the official process, you could argue that there is a fifth step, “Record the info, along with extra details like gem type or color”. But the books do not actually say that all four steps must be done at the same time, before the dungeon key is completed.

I would argue that it’s easier to do Steps 1 through 3, record the info as Step 3.5, and put off the final roll for Step 4 when each gem is appraised.

So here is my suggested gem generation process for GMs stocking treasures:

Step Zero: Pick a Dungeon Theme

Picking a theme is of course is part of the dungeon creation process, rather than the gem generation process, but what kind of dungeon you are creating and where it is should, logically, affect what kind of gems might be available. One trivial example is pearls, usually treated as if they were gems. Underwater treasures or coastal treasures might reasonably include more pearls than someplace far from an ocean. Other gem types could be more or less common depending on the region: if jade is more common in one area, dungeons in that area or connected in some way to that area might have more jade in their treasure troves than other gems.

Step One: Pick Your Gem Types

It’s arguably not immersive to describe gems to players this way:

“You find 30 gems of 100 gp value.”

It’s more immersive to describe them this way:

“You find 20 sapphires and 10 diamonds.”

But it’s crazy to roll for each gem to see what its type is, especially since the average PC probably won’t know the exact type, just the general appearance. The easier method is to assign three gem types to the dungeon as a whole, for example opaque red, murky green, and clear yellow. All gems in that dungeon will be one of those types, simplifying the next step.

Step Two: Check the Number of Gems

As you stock each treasure trove in a dungeon, you make three rolls:

• How many gems are Gem Type 1?
• How many gems are Gem Type 2?
• How many gems are Gem Type 3?

You defined each gem type in Step One, so all you need to roll is a number. Gem Type 1 will be different for each dungeon. There is no table lookup for this step.

Since we can subtract a number from the roll and discard any result of 0 or less, we can fold “Check for Gems” into this step as well.

Step Three: Revealing Details to Players

For reasons I’ll explain more in a future post, each of our gem types has a predefined base value. We actually don’t need to roll any more as part of dungeon key creation. We just need to tell the players “You find 10 gems that look like this, 8 that look like this, and 2 that look like this.” And there’s only three "this"es per dungeon, so players can just keep a running total of each gem type found.

If there’s a dwarf in the party, or someone with gem appraisal skills, they can find out more details, including the exact value. Or they can have the gem appraised, or just sell it blindly without knowing the details.

I plan on detailing each of these modified steps in a separate post, with appropriate tables. I won’t be posting before next week, however.

Series Index

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

(Will edit to add links as the posts are published.)

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Even Simpler Treasure Codes

I wanted to take a break from endless treasure codes posts, but they keep reeling me back in…

I started a thread on the OD&D forums to get more feedback, and got some that caused me to think of alternatives to making the system even simpler. Two of the main goals of coming up with a new treasure system are:

1. Keeping the codes short but readable, and
2. Reducing the amount of die-rolling.

Switching to roman numerals for base values and reducing the main treasure codes to three is good, but as waysoftheearth pointed out in the thread, having two capital letters with two completely different domains of interpretation right next to each other can cause confusion. But if we replace the codes B, E, and A with actual words like “coins”, “gems”, and “magic”, or even use the standard coin abbreviations in place of “coins”, we still have a fairly short descriptive phrase while making things easier to understand.

We could also eliminate the need for a “chance of treasure” index by making the target number for a d20 roll = HD +/- hp modifier. So, a 1+2 HD creature has treasure on 3 or less on d20 (because 1+2 = 3.)

This still leaves the roll for “how much treasure”. One thing I considered early on, but couldn’t figure out how to do, was making the chance roll the same as the quantity roll. But we could use the chance roll result to set the quantity as well.

So let’s try this treasure code format:

5+1 HD monster, gp D, gem C x10, magic

How to use this code:

1. Roll 1d20 for coins. If <= 6 (HD + hp adds,) there are coins.
2. Multiply the result by 4 for number of containers. The code gp tells us these are gold coins. The roman numeral D tells us there are 500 gps per container.
3. Roll 1d6 per HD (in this case, 5d6.) Count the number of 1s and 6s you get, tracking them separately. Multiply each by the d20 result for the number of containers of coins of lower value and higher value.
4. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 for gems. In this case, if there are gems, also multiply the result by x10. This is the total number of gems of base value C (100 coins in value.) You can skip figuring out higher/lower value gems until a PC tries to appraise them.
5. By default, the roll for jewelry is the same as the roll for gems, even if not listed. However, some codes may say “no jewelry” or give a different value/multiplier.
6. Roll 1d20 for magic or other items. If <= HD/2, round up (in this case, 3,) there are items in the treasure. The result is the number of special items, but the target number (HD/2) is the total number of items, so there may be “duds”.
7. Roll 1d6 per special item. On a 5+, it’s a treasure map. Otherwise, it’s magic.

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Simpler Treasure Codes

So, I did all that stuff about mnemonic treasure codes, and then I decided there was a way to make the mnemonics much easier to read and more compact: (1) Fewer primary treasure prefixes, and (2) Ditching table lookups for base values.

Explaining the New Codes

First, the prefixes. We only need three:

• A = Arcane Artifact or Magic Item
• B = Bulk Treasure (coins of various types)
• E = Extra (or Expensive) Treasure, for gems and jewelry

The suffixes remain the same, but come immediately after this prefix, and only when necessary: Bc specifies copper as the default instead of silver. Eg specifies gems only, if jewelry is absent or less/more abundant.

Artifacts (A) only need a numerical prefix and optionally a suffix: 3 A means 30% chance for three items and 4 A+s means 40% chance for any four items + one scroll. For Bulk treasure and Extra treasure, though, use a roman numeral, which is easier to use than the vowel system I came up with earlier.

• V = 5 coins value
• X = 10 coins value
• L = 50 coins value
• C = 100 coins value
• D = 500 coins value
• M = 1000 coins value

To shorten things a bit, though, we can mix in arabic numerals instead of using more than one roman numeral (so, B3X instead of BXXX.)

Most of the time, coins will be in small bags (BL,) large sacks (B3C,) or chests (BM.) 5 BgM means 50% chance of 5d6 chests with 1,000 gold coins each. For gems and jewelry, that roman numeral refers to the base value of each gem or piece of jewelry, not the quantity. The most common value will be EC (base value of 100 coins.) In general, all gems and jewelry can fit into a single container.

How to Check for Treasure

For arcane artifacts, only one roll is necessary: a Chance Roll to see if there are any magic items at all. There may be additional rolls to decide which items are present, but this is optional; you could just pick whatever you want, any way you want.

For coins, you can handle all treasure checks with three rolls.

1. Chance Roll (d10 roll under prefixed number, or whatever you prefer) to see if any coins are present at all.
2. Default Coin Amount Roll (prefixed number = number of d6s to roll.) Total this, then set aside highest d6 rolled; call this the secondary coin amount.
3. Secondary Coin Amount Roll (secondary coin amount = number of d6s to roll as a dice pool.) Every 1 rolled is an extra container of lower-value treasure and every 6 rolled is an extra container of higher-value treasure.

So, if the code is 5 BsM:

1. Roll d10. If result <= 5 (50% chance,) there are coins in the treasure trove.
2. Roll 5d6, get {1, 3, 3, 4, 4}. Total is 16 chests of silver, 1,000 coins each.
3. Since highest d6 in Step 2 was “4”, roll 4d6 and get {1, 1, 2, 6}. Result is two chests of copper and one chest of gold, 1,000 coins in each chest.

If a prefix has two suffixes (Bsg,) roll Step 2 twice, but only set aside one d6 as the secondary coin amount for Step 3. The lower-value treasure is below the lowest value listed as a suffix, while the higher-value treasure is above the highest value listed. In the case of Bsg, this means there would be copper and platinum.

For gems and jewelry, either roll the same as you would for coins, using the third roll for gems or jewelry of higher and lower value mixed in with the rest, or just roll for chance and quantity, then follow the procedure in Monsters & Treasure, p. 40.

Using Treasure Codes for New Monsters

When designing new monsters, you would want to follow a more rational pattern than the original treasure types:

• Don’t worry about minimum quantities, only max quantities.
• Don’t use the plus or minus modifiers.
• Don’t split probability and quantity. Just use one number. If you want the treasure amount to be higher or lower than the probability would indicate, adjust the roman numeral instead (poor monsters might have small bags instead of chests, for example.)
• Only record the most common type of coin, letting the rules above handle other types.
• To make treasures fit better with each monster, focus on exclusions and bonuses. 4 A+2s no w as a magic-using monster’s artifact treasure is a much better customization than randomly raising and lowering coin amounts. 3 BgM no s might make sense for custom lycanthrope treasure.

Instead of assigning numbers to treasure probability and amount at random, work out a formula tying this to monster level. I think this is a good start:

Hit Dice	Quantity X	Base Value	G/J	Magic
up to 1+2	max hp/2	X BL	x1	1 A
2 to 10+	HD/2	X BM	x1	X/2 A
11+	HD/4+1	X B2M	x10	X+1 A

Replace the X in columns 3 and 5 with the value from column 2 (round up) to get the coin and magic treasure codes for a monster. For gems and jewelry, use X EC, replacing X with the value from column 2, then add the multiplier from column 4 as necessary. So, for example:

• For a 1+1 HD hobgoblin lair: 4 BL 4 EC 1 A.
• For a 6 HD troll lair: 3 BM 3 EC 2 A
• For a 10 HD hydra: 5 BM 5 EC 3 A.
• For a 12 HD dragon: 3 B2M 3 ECx10 4 A.

This starter code could then be customized, shifting some low-HD monsters to copper instead of silver, for example, or adding a x10 multiplier to gems for a gnome lair, or adding bonus magic items to mid-level monsters that have more powers than usual.

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Treasure Codes and the Treasure Table

I wrote a lot of posts over the past couple weeks about a new mnemonic way to mark treasure in monster descriptions:

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry
• Part Four: maps and magic items
• Part Five: dice and probabilities

I promised translations for the existing treasure types, although I will warn you right now that they look pretty ugly. This is mainly due to the treasure types not being very well thought out. Aside from scattered patterns I've already mentioned (higher treasure amounts for hoards and active treasure collectors, for example,) there's no real rhyme or reason behind assigning probabilities and quantities. This means you have to record lots of info for each type and can't compress it down to something simple.

And I confess: after I finished writing up the conversion table, I decided I wanted to improve the mnemonic system even more, and maybe do a complete overhaul of the treasure types, which really are quite bad. But for now, here's the conversion table.

Type	... Converts to This Code
A1	2:1 Coyc 3:1 Coys, 3:2 Coyg, 5:6 Gee/Jee, 4:3 Xu
A2	2:1 Coyc/s-1, 2:1 Coyg, 5:1 Gee/Jee-1 x10, 6:3 Xu
A3	6:5 Coyg (no cs), 6:1 Gee/Jee x10, 5:1 Mu
B	5:1 Coyc+1, 2:1 Coys, 2:1 Cyog-3, 2:1 Gee/Jee, 1 Xuw
C	2 Coyc, 3:1 Coys-1 (no g), 2:1 Gee/Jee-1, 1:1 Xu
D	1 Coyc+1, 2 Coys, 6:1 Coyg, 3:1 Gee/Jee+1, 2 Xu+p
E	(1/2):2 Coyc-2, 3:2 Coys, 2:1 Coyg+1,1:2 Gee/Jee-2, 3 Xu+s
F	1:4 Coys-4, 4:2 Coyg, 2:4 Gee/Jee, 3 Xu+ps (no w)
G	7:1 Coyg-1, 3 Gee, 3:2 Jee-2, 4 Xu+s
H	3:4 Coyc, 5:2 Coys-2 x10, 7:1 Coyg x10, 5:2 Gee-2 x10, 5:1 Jee-1 x10, 2:4 Xu+ps
I	5:2 Gee+2, 5:2 Jee+2, 2:1 Xu

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Treasure Codes: Thoughts on Quantity and Probability

This is Part Five in an ongoing series re-examining treasure types in OD&D and discussing a possible mnemonic replacement.

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry
• Part Four: maps and magic items

Today’s topic: Dice ranges for treasure amounts and the probability of finding each variety of treasure.

I mentioned one way of sorting the treasure types in Part Three based on quantity. But we could also sort based on likelihood of finding maps or magic. Mixing the two methods and splitting off Type I as an outlier gives us six categories:

Types	Category Name	Examples
A1/A2	Active Treasure Collectors	bandits
A3	Active Waterborne Collectors	pirates
B-F	Standard Treasure Troves	orcs, ogres
G	Dwarven Hoard	dwarves
H	Treasure Hoard	dragons
I	Individual Items	rocs

Active treasure troves have generous quantities of gems and jewelry and high chances of magic items, although pirate treasures (A3) have no magic, only a map, which is why it’s separate.

Standard treasures have smaller quantities of all monetary treasure varieties and lower the chance of copper coins in a trove as you progress through the alphabet: 50% for Type B down to 0% for Type F. Oddly, the chance of a magic item being in a standard treasure trove increases as the number of items increases. It’s roughly a 10% chance for each item, excluding bonus items like potions and scrolls.

Dwarven Hoards have generous quantities of gold coin, gems, and jewelry, no other coin varieties, and follow the same pattern for magic items as Standard treasure troves.

Dragon Hoards have generous quantities of just about everything, but half the expected chance of finding magic items.

Individual Items have no coins and low quantities of everything, although the chances for gems, jewelry and a magic item are high.

Treasure types with generous quantities of coin, gems, and jewelry have at least 50% chance for each, while almost all types with standard quantities of a category have a chance less than 50%.

Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any pattern linking quantity (dice) to chance of finding (probability.) But we can ignore that and create a link, just to make the mnemonics easier. I’ve already assumed all quantities are rolled with d6s only. Modifiers to the roll can be placed after the mnemonic code. This gives us:

• 3 Coyg = 3d6 chests of 1,000 gold coins each

• Jee-1 = 1d6-1 (or 1 to 5) pieces of jewelry, base value 100 coins each
• 4 Gee x10 = 10 to 60 gems, base value 100 coins each
• 2 Xu +p = any 2 magic items, plus one potion

The base probability for any of these is 10% per die rolled for quantity. So: 30% chance for the 3d6 chests of gold, 10% chance for the jewelry, 40% chance for the 10 to 60 gems, or 20% for 2 magic + 1 potion. No need to use percentile dice: roll a d10 instead, any result less than or equal to the number shown means that treasure is present. If the probability doesn't match the number of dice, use a target number prefix followed by a colon and the dice number:

• 6:3 Coyg 60% chance of 3d6 chests of gold
• 4:2 Xu +p 40% chance of 2 magic items + potion

Some options:

• d20 instead of d10: double target number
• 2d6 Drop 6s: Treat each 6 on a die as a zero, for number from 0 to 10. Target number is the same, but probability is no longer linear.

Next up: I finish this long series by translating the existing treasure types into mnemonic codes to create a new treasure type table.

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Treasure Codes: How Items Work

This is Part Four of in a series re-examining treasure types in OD&D and discussing a possible mnemonic replacement.

• Part One: treasure codes
• Part Two: coins
• Part Three: gems and jewelry

Today’s topic: maps and magic items.

Unlike other treasure items, the monetary value of maps and magic items is not used in the treasure types at all. One obvious reason for this: the random treasure tables include cursed items mixed in with useful items. That’s kind of what you want, if you are aiming for an old-school experience: players never know if an item is useful or cursed based solely on superficial examination.

Instead, items are sorted by their general form and function, which is why I originally chose to assign one letter to each form:

• M for Maps
• P for Potions
• S for Scrolls
• W for Weapons or Armor
• X for Any Magic Item

But in way, this doesn’t make sense. Because:

Any time a treasure type specifically includes a Map, Potion, Scroll, or Weapon, it’s one added item of that type, over and above any other maps, potions, scrolls, or weapons that are rolled by accident.

In other words, “Any 4 + 1 Potion and 1 Scroll” may mean:

• 5 potions and a scroll,
• 1 potion and 5 scrolls,
• 1 potion, 1 scroll and 4 items that aren’t potion,
• Some other mix of 6 items that includes at least one potion and one scroll.

Since the only vowel code that makes sense for items is “unique” (u), it makes more sense to cluster all magic items together in one “word”.

So: 4 Xu+ps would be a better way to write “Any 4 + 1 Potion and 1 Scroll” than “4 Xu Pu Su”, because it’s more compact. Besides, the repeated “u” codes makes the code look repetitive.

There’s only one roll to see if a treasure trove includes maps and/or magic items, not one roll per potential item.

Again, the “4 Xu Pu Su” code would be misleading, because it looks like there are four rolls: one for four magic items of any type, one for a potion, and one for a scroll. It should actually be a single all-or-none roll.

You can still use M/P/S/W if there is only one item type. One example: pirates do not have magic items, but do have a chance for a single treasure map. This would be the code Mu.

Next week: dice and probabilities.

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Treasure Codes: How Gems and Jewelry Work

Topic Two in a series of explainer follow-ups for the treasure codes post is gems and jewelry. The original treasure table specified that gems and jewelry are rolled separately, but in all but two cases, the chances of finding each and the quantities found are the same for any given treasure type. They are just combined into one column to save space.

There are two broad categories of treasure in relation to quantities of gems or jewelry in the trove: standard quantities (in the 1 to 3 dice range) vs. generous quantities (either 6d6, 1d100, or 1 die x10.) Gems/jewelry collected by bandits and other large bands of humans are generous, as are dragon hoards. All others are in standard quantities.

[There’s a similar distinction for gold possessed by pirates, dwarves, or dragons (generous) vs. all other treasures (standard,) which when combined with gems and jewelry gives us four categories: standard, generous gold, generous gems, and doubly generous.]

Vowels in gem and jewelry codes should be used to represent base values of each item, rather than the multipliers we use for coins:

i for inferior gems (10 coins base value)
a for average gems (20 coins)
e for excellent gems (50 coins)
ee = 100 coins
o = 500 coins
y = 5,000 coins
u = 50,000 coins

Most of the standard gem values are represented here, with a few extra. If the base type is y or u, don’t roll a d6 for the number of gems, but instead assume it’s a single gem (or, for example, 5 gems if the code is 5 gy, etc.) Jewelry will normally just be joo, but the value can go up or down for either gems or jewelry.

Each piece of jewelry, gem, or group of 5 or 10 gems of the same value, gets a d6 roll on the value adjustment table:

d6 roll	Gem Value	Jewelry Value
1	half normal	3d6/10 x base
2-5	normal	1d6 x base
6	doubled	2d6 x base

This is a simplification of the way gems and jewelry are handled in Monsters && Treasure.

As for suffixes, most of the time there won’t be one. If you really want to specify different kinds of gems, you could use codes like r(ed), g(reen), b(lue), and y(ellow), or p for pearls. But probably the most useful suffixes would be those indicating size.

gyl is a large gem (10x normal size, about the size of someone’s fist)
gyh is a huge gem (100x normal, about the size of someone’s head)
gyt is a titanic gem (1000x normal, about the size of someone’s torso)

The size multiplier doesn’t affect the base value, but it affects the space it takes up in a bag, sack or pack. You can’t fit a titanic gem into a large sack, but 1 to 3 huge gems could fit. These size codes would be especially useful if we added another code, F, for fancy items like vases, urns, paintings and other decorations.

Next up: maps and magic items.

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Treasure Codes: How Coins Work

At some point, I plan to do a conversion table for OD&D treasure types to the treasure codes I wrote about last week. But that’s going to take a while to assemble, so in the short term, I’ll try to explain some of the thinking behind the codes, with an eye towards things I might change in the future.

First topic: coins in treasure troves.

The original treasure tables had separate rolls for three kinds of coins: copper, silver, and gold. Later official versions of the treasure table often include new columns for electrum and/or platinum. I decided it makes more sense to use relative coin values. This has a couple advantages:

• It keeps the number of rolls low.
  The full AD&D treasure table would require five rolls just for coins. This way, there’s only three rolls in most cases.
• It allows adjustments for GMs who use the silver standard.
  This is a pretty common house rule that interprets equipment prices in silver pieces instead of gold pieces. There are rarer variant house rules for a copper standard or other alternatives.
• It allows temporary shifts for unusual treasure troves.
  Even if using the silver standard, a GM could change the common coin type for a dwarven hoard to “gold” to make it much more valuable.

In the previous write-up, I used the codes

C (common coin, in bags of 300 coins each)
Cl (low-value coin, bags of 300 coins each)
Cr (rare coin, bags of 300 coins each) and
L (loose coin, in smaller quantities)

Plus optional suffixes to specify other types. Re-thinking this, I’ve decided that it’s easier to just use C + vowel + suffix. Suffixes are up to individual GMs – they are mnemonics, after all – but my own suggestions, based on stuff I’ve seen, are:

c for copper
s for silver
l for electrum
g for gold
p for platinum
m for mithril
j for junk (any coin less valuable than copper, frex iron)
double or triple letters for larger coins, small bars, etc.

The missing element to these mnemonic codes, of course, is the vowels, which I defined as quantities. My original approach was to pick some of the most common quantities and assign them to vowels, but now I’m thinking that, if the die-type is constant (1d6) and we use numeric prefixes to indicate how many dice to roll (3 cig = 3d6 gold coins,) all we really need to use the vowel for is the multiplier (base number of coins.) So here’s a rewrite:

a for average (x20)
e for extra (x50)
o for overflowing (x300)
i for individual (x1)

These multipliers are based on container sizes in Men & Magic: 20 coins in a pouch, 50 coins in a small bag, 300 coins in a large sack. Which means that the first three vowels can be read as those container types. So:

2 cag = 2d6 pouches of gold pieces, or 40 to 240 gp
5 cog = 5d6 sacks of 300 gold each, or 1,500 to 9,000 gp

Double vowels, or vowel combinations, add the multiples together before multiplying: coog is twice as many sacks of coins as cog.

The missing vowels, y and u, can be redefined as needed, but by default. u is “unique” (no die roll, just a single item) and y is an abbreviation for “two sacks and two bags”, a x700 multiplier. This makes it easy to get the original quantities of coins in the treasure table with the oy combo (x1000).

Next up: gems and jewelry.

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Treasure Type Links

One thing I may not have made clear in the treasure codes article is that I’ve thought a lot about treasure types and written about them in the past. Lots of analysis, most of which we can probably ignore. But for the curious, these specific posts might be useful.

• Probably the most useful thing I’ve done with the treasure types is to create a list of monsters sorted by treasure type.
• I rewrote and tweaked the treasure types many times for my clone project, including these thoughts about treasure types.
• At least a tiny bit of that work resurfaced when I wrote about restocking dungeons.

Delta’s D&D Hotspot has some relevant articles as well, at least one of which was around the same time as I was writing about it. These are much more math-intensive than anything I ever did.

• Expected Treasure
• Expected Treasure and XP
• Dungeon Treasure Revisited

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Treasure Types, or Treasure Codes?

The treasure types table in OD&D’s Monsters & Treasure booklet has slightly obscure design goals, which carry over into B/X, BECM, and AD&D. As a result, it gets tweaked or completely replaced in most retroclones and many house rules. It’s tricky to figure out which type to assign to completely new monsters, or which old monsters can have their types swapped, since it’s not entirely clearly what the differences between most of the types really are.

But there are a couple distinctions worth noting:

• Most treasure types have all three coin varieties, but a few have no copper or silver, and one has no coins at all.
• The max number of gems is the same as the max number of jewelry items in all but two cases.
• Most types can have any kind of magic item or map, but three of them limit this to one variety, while some other have 2 to 4 items of any type plus one potion or scroll (or both,) guaranteed.

Having coins, gems, jewelry, magic items, and maps all specified for any given treasure type confuses the design and reduces usefulness. What we could do instead is use treasure codes made from more than one letter. Something like:

Code	Treasure Type
B	Basic Treasure
C	Common Coins (sack)
Cr	Rare Coins (sack)
Cl	Low Value Coins (sack)
G	Gems
J	Jewelry
L	Loose Coins
M	Maps
P	Potions
S	Scrolls
W	Weapons and Armor
X	Other Magic Items

Coins are separated into Common, Rare, and Low Value, corresponding to your standard coin used for prices in your campaign, a rarer coin, and a “junk” coin that’s less convenient to haul out of the dungeon. By default, these are in the proportion 1 rare : 10 common : 100 low-value, but you can change this to fit your campaign. The way you’d most likely use these codes in a monster description is to assume every treasure type is potentially present in standard quantities at standard chances, then specify anything that’s different. (That’s what Basic Treasure is for: a catch-all for any treasure type not otherwise specified, so that you can note a monster has ten times normal gold, no silver, and everything else is standard.)

Quantities for coins are assumed to be measured in “sacks” (300 coins each.) Other items like Gems and Jewelry are counted individually. This base number is multiplied by a dice roll, which we could choose to link to vowel codes like this:

Code	Size Modifier
a	Abundant (5d6x10)
e	Extra (3d6x10)
o	Ordinary (2d6x5)
i	Individual (1d6)
u	Undefined

So that we can specify treasure types like:

CaBo no S

Which would mean “this monster has abundant common coins like gold, ordinary quantities of other treasure types, but no scrolls.”

Undefined by default means “unique” (only one of this item,) but can also be redefined each time it is used.

Additional notes:

• Coins are broken down the way they are because you might want to set standard chances for each type, like “25% chance for common coins, 10% chance each for low-value and rare coins”.
• Magic items are broken down the way they are partly because that’s the way they are broken down in the original treasure type table, but mostly because those types have special restrictions: armor and weapons probably won’t be in an evil wizard’s lair, potions and scrolls won’t be underwater.
• If you want to specify absolute coin type instead of relative coin type, for example because you don’t want lycanthropes to have silver coins, you can follow the vowel with a lowercase letter (Cos = silver coins, Cog = gold coins.) This is especially useful for the “loose coins” type.
• You can do the same for other treasure types, like magic items (Wis = magic shields, Sic = cursed scrolls.) Some of these might wind up pretty cryptic, though, so adding an actual word after the code (Si (cursed)) might be a better choice.
• You can also use the “rare”/“low-value” modifier to breakdown gems into different values, for example, or to show that a magic item is fancier than normal or appears like a cheap common tool or weapon. (Gri = rare gems, Wlow = wooden magic weapon.)

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