D&D 5e Gets Treasure Hoards All Wrong. 

The art items become relevant and interesting if you're running an old school style long expedition / dungeon crawl that keeps track of carrying limits. Moving half a ton of gold pieces is far harder than a small bag of diamonds which have the same value.

I've always viewed the role of artwork as treasure in an entirely different light. Treasure isn't designed solely for the convenience of players. Art isn't just a more realistic alternative to everyone/thing having only thousands of gold coins, the inconveniences and complications art can bring are *features* rather than detriments. The video mentions how quickly gold becomes meaningless; art handled correctly is a method of making substantial rewards available without actually giving the full value to the players. Art is often fragile, easily damaged or destroyed with combat or even travel. Art can be cumbersome and difficult to carry. The average adventurer isn't going to have a clue as to how much a piece of art is worth. Art can be difficult to sell without proper connections, as well as time, and adventurers may only receive a small fraction of its actual worth. And if the party is pressed for time, then its just tough luck that they don't have time to lug those life-size marble statues back to town before the evil snake god is resurrected...

It feels like those stacks of gold that players acquire should have some local or regional political / economic significance, but it changes the natures of the game. Not everyone gets into the political and economic intrigues of the game world. Most players want to slay bigger and badder bosses. Note to Baron: I remember 88 HP for an ancient red dragon from the AD&D era. Your HP may be off, but the point still remains.

If you're running an "epic quest" style play, then I'd suggest abstracting high level gold and gems to the scale of person it can influence. "A bag of gold" is enough to set a commoner up for life, and can allow you to take over an inn for a month or have a farmer not mind if your alchemy lab in his fields blows up and takes out that year's crops. "A sack of gems" might buy the spying of a thieves guild, save an orphanage from a greedy merchant so a poor temple lends you a holy relic in thanks. A king's ransom - a cart of gold or sack of gems - can result in a city putting their best people to work, or a monarch putting their forces at your disposal. Gold and gems are cool when there are story relevant things it can do. I think Pathfinder 2nd edition has a much cleaner "money can buy you items, and threats are built based on the assumption you'll have a certain level of gear" system if you're wanting to run the sort of game where counting the gold is a relevant and useful activity to the game.

Art objects like statues, wall tapestries, fancy rugs, etc become more exciting when you have a stronghold to put them in. By then gold has become so plentiful that a heavy art piece you don’t intend to sell has more value than coin. You want it as a display piece so you can flex on NPCs.

Giving players ways to spend money is another good option. Lairs, bases, cool magic stuff, followers etc. all work fairly well to develop the game and the story. We mentioned this all last week fyi on our show...

The thing about gold is that you can only carry so much of it, which is why encumbrance rules, while annoying, are needed. This is also one of the reasons why gems and jewelry become more important at higher levels as you get more cash for the weight you have to carry. I remember that the old AD&D Gold Box games DID track encumbrance and carrying too much would slow characters down when engaged in combat. There were plenty of times I'd have to drop stuff so I could carry more valuable treasure instead. And that dropped stuff was permanently gone, as something else would have taken it before they party would have a chance to ever get back to it.

for going to magic shops, obv. 4E had the ability to upgrade gear, so money was vital to improve the kit.

If your players are hording gold, would that not attract goblins, thieves, and small dragons if there is enough? Or upset the balance of regional power?

Doesn’t it entirely depend on how generous or not your DM is? I’m a 6th level fighter and have only recently been able to afford plate. We have about 4 magical items between the whole party, plus a few scrolls and potions. We play a gritty, low magic world (5th edition D&D). So for us, finding a humble 500 gp IS exciting.

Paizo's Skulls & Shackles campaign uses a much more interesting "Plunder" system for all the random treasure - each plunder is about 1000gp but value goes up or down depending on some sale factors and takes about a day to sell per plunder. More of a kingdom builder game than 3 days to save the world, but it works well for those longer games.

The magic item I was most excited about was the Apparatus of Kwalish in 3rd edition. It was basically a mini submersible that could walk on land and attack for decent damage. It was also very fun to experiment with, as all you were presented with was a panel with some unlabeled levers, and had to figure out how it worked by trial and error.

All fairness there is very little 5e doesn’t get wrong

Non-magical treasures have some use in a long-term campaign where you have some sort of presence in the world, and can translate gold into other forms of power. Honestly I think the worse issue is that a lot of magic items have literally no value. If you're wielding a +2 longsword and you get a +1 shortsword, well that's literally useless. Maybe you can sell it, but then what will you do with that gold?

Great point about the Holy Avenger. It influences the whole late game by its very existence, and the instant powerboost for a Pally is rather incomparable.

Just buffing magic items without taking into account how much of that power has been moved into level progression is certainly... a change that you could make.

Magic Items in 5e are a direct response to 3ed and 4ed. In 3e if you didn't had magic items your character was incomplete, there are many things that are going to be extra difficult to fight. The problem is that the rate at which the GM should give magic items considers an amount of encounters that was still focused on dungeoncrawling. In 4e the situation was the same, magic items are a given, you need armor and weapons to keep up against the numbers the monsters are throwing, and practically 90% of the items are geared toward just combat. It's easier to give treasure because everything has a level and you have many simple table for treasure. You still gain coins because in some way you can use it to make the items you want with crafting (which was a thing with rituals). So... 5e tried to make the magic item optional, power comes for your class features.

While I agree that treasure tracking can be a tedious affair, I think that the gold problem can be dealt with by making its use a more involved part of the game. For example, instead of awarding experience for defeating monsters or accomplishing story beat milestones, make gold the method by which the players gain exp. If they want to get better, they have to delve into ancient dungeons and bandit camps to scrounge for money, then find and pay for a trainer to teach them new skills so that they can level up. 300 gold pieces just to get from level 1 to level 2 might not seem like much at first glance, but it certainly will when you account for 4-6 players and that number jumps up to 1200-1800 gold pieces just to get everyone to level 2. Add in encumbrance rules, and now PCs have to pick and choose what loot they're going to take back home. Is it worth it to clean out the bandit's weapons racks of rusted swords, or backtrack for that valuable artwork and gems a few rooms back? And what about the merchants? Of course, a blacksmith may not be interested in the gemstones or a painting the party brings home and will pay only a pittance for them (compared to their worth in the DMG), but a rich merchant travelling between two cities might know a place where gemstones and masterfully-crafted portraits sell like hot cakes, and even offer to pay the party more than what the DMG says they're worth. Keeping track of living expenses can in this way be a good method for delivering plot hooks. Whatever the PCs don't sell, they have to stash the remainder somewhere - if it's not in their private home/fort, then it's on their person in whatever tavern or inn they're sleeping in. Low-level pickpockets might try to sneak into a PC's Squalid room if their purse has been jingling ever since they came back from the dungeon earlier. Perhaps a noble has discovered that the PC's have obtained a piece of a collection of their family's heirloom and left it in their Wealthy or Aristocratic place of rest. Said noble could send a very skilled (and very greedy) thief to snatch the goods under the cover of darkness - but what is to us DM's just a piece of art randomly rolled in the DMG treasure hoard table.

People decided they didn't like tying up their character power in the GM fiat delivery of magic items. So WotC started pushing power from the magic items that e.g. martials expected to get in early editions directly into the class. At least as much as they could without changing the overall tone from S&S to Anime. So magic items got toned down and class powers got toned up. A 5E fighter has waaaaaaay more inherent power than a 2E one does.

Great timing my players are about to fight an ancient Black Dragon.

I am still wondering why the trolls in The Hobbit were hoarding gold in their lair or why would they carry a purse, even. Would them trolls ever be buying anything?

You are absolutely one of my favorite RU-vidrs, but I really need to rewatch a lot of these speedy and very intelligent videos.

It's been that way since 1st edition. Mainly this is due to: 1) New or lazy DM's who take the treasure charts/formula literally; 2) DM's who embrace the Monty Haul style of play. A common argument over the years has been my belief that Monsters, etc., generally don't lug a lot of treasure around with them, so if you have an encounter away from their lair, the loot should be minimal. This has helped to encourage PC's to track or follow said Monster back to their lair... Then there's the legendary Dragon's Hoard. I often have to point out just how big a hoard can be; and that one only has to turn to Smaug's death in The Hobbit to understand both size and complexity of such finds. Word does get around that such a hoard is no longer guarded by the Dragon (or whatever), so you can't take it all with you; and you can't really defend it very well, especially if you plan on taking any treasure to town... One tactic that I've used numerous times is that 'Oh, so your the great dragon slayers! Yes, yes, you are well known and the king would like to congratulate you in person. No, no, we insist... Guards!" After all, just about every power of worth in the region will be looking for a share (or to simply take possession of the hoard) and it's just a mater of time before other Adventurers, Agents of the various regional powers; hell, even an army (or Orc hoard, or both) could be on the march within days of said Dragon's demise.

Just because the players may find gold inconvenient doesn't mean the NPCs wouldn't include it in their hoard.

The red dragon's HP sounded wrong, so I checked and I think Baron was remembering the baseline entry for the juvenile White Dragon. The base HP of the juvenile Red Dragon was 15HD (avg 67-68) vs juvenile White Dragon's 9HD (40-41). An ancient great wyrm tacked on 8 extra HD, so the red would have had 23HD (103-104). With a base AC of -3 that +5 to hit makes a huge difference. Now that the "Ummmm... akchually..." is out of the way... Baron's point still very much stands: toss that in the hands of a Paladin who's not just hit domain-level play but is now wanting to protect that domain and you've got someone who's hitting that dragon on likely an 8-9 and swinging twice per turn and that Wyrm is going to have to give a VERY good and long think about messing with a guy who in less then a minute can undo your last twelve centuries of living while your most powerful spells die before even touching his immaculate hair. And that guy went so far to bring his 3 drinking buddies along for the ride, one of which is currently in the process of unraveling the cosmos as we speak doing Tiamat knows what and giving you precious little time to consider your fight or flight options and the other is looking FAR too excited at the opportunity to clash blades with your talons while actively running in your direction screaming profanities. Wait did he bring 3 guys? Where's the third... But yeah. Magic Items in ye olde days were cracked, comparatively speaking.

For a second there I was really scared this one was going to be sponsored by those masterpiece guys.

Okay. I call this entire diatribe "inflammatory", "declarative" and "argumentative". I've been playing since 1979. I remember older editions. I played them. Do you want treasure and magic to mean more? Easy. There's lots to do, and it all comes from older editions: - Training to level. In 5E, leveling is instantaneous like a video game. Make it more like training for a promotion or a new rank in a martial art. Train. Finding a trainer, paying for that privilege, and funding the facilities that may be required costs money. - Build a stronghold. I could go more into this, but Colville covered it. - Establish contacts. Add political, criminal, business, or other contacts. Bribes, donations, financial support and the like can be expensive. - Enact fines for damage. PCs break everything. Charge them for the repairs when they burn down a tavern. - Tithes. Paladins, Druids, Clerics, or anyone with the Acolyte background might have connections to religious institutions of some kind that require a percentage of their funds. - Taxes. They were real in the past. They're real now. Enforce them. - Jealousy, covetous behaviors and greed: Just because the PCs won treasure doesn't mean others want to steal it after they've done the hard work. Banks or other secure facilities are expensive, and want a cut for what they protect. The PCs will become the targets of thieves and grifters. Protect your money. - Enforce encumbrance. What's the point of 20000gp if you can't carry it? Now you have ANOTHER challenge to overcome. - Enforce repairs. Any armor that suffers a crit will require repair or suffer a permanent penalty to AC. Weapons that Crit fail may become equally damaged. Acid, fire, and other damaging elements can adversely affect your kit. Make life harder. The list can go on, but I know the reaction. The reaction will be a hew and cry from the 5E crowd about infringement on their power fantasy. I've already tried to enforce such things at one table and there were threats to quit....followed by complaints that money had no use. Some just want to bitch, but tend to refrain from actual solutions. Giving PCs MORE power than they already possess will simply make things more difficult to adjudicate for some DMs. Most won't increase the threat level to truly add risk to the table, for the same reasons as mentioned above - many players don't want a challenge. They want a power fantasy, but become bored when they achieve it too easily, and become angry when it's not given instantly. It's the DM refrain I hear over and over. Therefore, to truly address the "how 5E failed to do hoards right", maybe address the core problem: expectations vs execution. Maybe go into how to address things more practically than handing a + Holy Avenger to a PC. Hel, I home brew the magic items for my PCs and those items scale with each PC to make them signature items associated with each PC. They don't desire bigger and better, but instead want to see what unlocks next. Add risk. Add repercussions. Promote struggles and challenges - then reward the PCs for heroically overcoming those challenges. Let them be hungry for more. Make them think about their choices. When you have the engaged, all of these issues disappear. That includes gobs of gold. When you add costs or financial challenges, gold becomes necessary.

How about non-combat magic? Ancient inventors spent a lot of their time coming up with amusements for the wealthy. Singing birds, self filling wine goblets, chess playing automatons, etc. would be commissioned from the few item makers by the elite way more than military gear. Some of that stuff might strike a player's fancy to furnish a home base. And way more interesting than a stack of electrum.

The arguments presented in this video are the reason why I ran my last campaign with GP=EXP and I'm currently designing my next campaign to run with ICRPG rather than 5e

Things exist in the game world because it is internally consistent with the setting and game logic that they so exist. It's call "verisimilitude". If a GM wants to craft an immersive and engaging experience, they shouldn't be building encounters around player utility only.

Absolutely LOVE the Idea of single use magic items, unique items and item sets! Thank you for that. "Hexxen 1733" (German RPG in the style of "van Helsing" or "Hansel and Gretel - Witchhunters") shortens the treasure hoard jewelery situation in a nice way: it does not mention, what jewelery and bauble you find- it just mentions, what it could be worth. So players can imagine, what they found (maybe some ring for their character or a little pipe or a cookie or some hankerchief) or they just sell it.

I’ve been running a pretty loosely organized campaign at a mid-high level. Gold has basically been abstracted out to “you have it and plenty of it.”

One of my first magic items, and still one of my favorites, was a Robe of Useful Items.

I only played till second edition but can still provide a few counterpoints to this. Sometimes the piles of coin are there for fantasy atmosphere (dragons prefer sleeping on comfy piles of coins than lumpy piles of larger items) or verisimilitude (the robber baron still needs currency to pay his marauders). If the characters no longer need coinage they can literally leave them behind or tell the local villagers to go shopping or something. :)

When i started playing dnd it was ADnD, i was 15 (or 16), and yes, I also wanted a holy avenger. That thing was the ultimate badass blade, and obviously: it would totally solve all your problems... lol

My wizard is 12th level and my DM gives out so little money I can't use spells with expensive components. I would love to be getting too much money.

Maybe it's just me but I haven't really had this problem, but that's because I take a very alchemical approach to Gold and the Magical Economy. Monster Parts, Powdered Gold, and Magical Components are all necessary for Crafting. Meanwhile the Items I place are heavily impacted by the lore of the environment. So you may need Fire to deal with the Troll, but you're in an Ancient Elven Forest and you may only find a Moon Sickle or something. But you could take certain pieces and make Flaming Arrows. Maybe that's a bad example, but in practice I haven't had many players Hoarding Gold. I also make heavy use of Strongholds and the idea shouldn't be thrown away as a concept, you can actually get a ton of Player Engagement through Strongholds.

I still care about funding gold as a currently 13th level character, because I need it in order to craft new magic items and scribe spell scrolls. But I get what you're saying about the time frame of the quest interfering with making use of that gold in any significant way, since crafting / scribing takes so long, and so does finding the components needed for item crafting.

The reason 5e magic items are relatively weak is probably that PCs have so much more power already. When a character is already intrinsically a super hero it makes less sense to give out hugely powerful items. That said, I completely agree that items should be made more interesting than just a simple bonus to hit rolls or armor class. Providing different bonuses against different types of creatures is a start. But why not give a magic sword miscellaneous utility powers that can be used periodically? It's only limited by a DMs creativity. Magic items shouldn't be something that were created on an assembly line. Make them interesting and unique.

Our real friends were the magic items we gained along the way. It should also be noted that treasure should generally be appropriate to its owners and location, altho even Tolkien breaks that rule early on with the Trolls. Or perhaps, the treasure's guardians should be appropriate to what they guard, like the Barrow-Wights, and those four fine blades. (Tho actually, in both cases, the "party" was rescued by an NPC, and still rewarded. Hmmm...)

THOUGHT: What if Magic was modified so these random magic bobbles could be used as replacements for magic components is spells. And If the DM is only allowing Casters have spells memorized or available if they consumed the necessary components for said spells = The result being that magic bobbles will always retain significance & early spell casting (when your spell list is smaller) teaches the concept of consumables to fuel spells so by higher levels they can easily understand how to utilize magic items to replace those components; which could create a more loot centered & fun resource management experience for casters, especially for wizards.

I’m building uses for gold and treasure into my TTRPG right now. Also crazy possibility of worlds and areas without money as abase (also building in). But there are plenty of reasons to use gold. 1) oh I don’t know actually help the poor and quality of life of people in a country you are connected too. 2) building a company and franchises such as adventure gear shops, art selling shops (that’s where they sell their art and Jewelry) 3) build a settlement on the edge of the wilderness/new kingdom the PCs rule 4) have squires/apprentices and hirelings they deck out with their ‘seconds’ in gear! 5) have a family/gild or other organization they donate too and can rely in as a place to stay get info etc!

Potions of Greater Healing are the real trading standard for adventurers. 500 gp coin for a 1/2 pound (0.227 kg) of weight. Reduces your carried weight to much more manageable levels. Oh and they have intrinsic value just like gold and silver.

Strong disagree. Magic items should be nice perks, not so powerful that they become character defining. That's why Holy Avenger was the worst designed weapon in AD&D: it didn't matter who you were, because your blade was more important than the person swinging it. Have fun being upstaged by a lump of metal 😂

This is why I really like the Cypher system's ..well.. cyphers. They're in constant supply, ephemeral, and PART of character leveling design.

I make gold less available and silver the principal form of currency. I enhance magic items with feats as magical boons and I don’t allow players to choose feats. This helps make the currency relevant and allows gold to be precious. Feats are controlled but allowed when tied to a magic item that may have campaign relevance.

Party collected a bunch of gold and items that they kept at their keep... Then a dragon caught wind of it, attacked the keep, killed their hirelings, and took the hoard for itself.

I almost always agree with you but have to take exception to this episode. Also you kind of were focusing on two connected but separate topics, gold and magic items. On gold, players shouldn't be running into hoards of gold except in latter levels [9th and above] Hoards to me are in the 10's of thousands of gp. Usually I parce a large cache into a mix, first coinage, usually silver, gold and platinum. Next items durables like art pieces, runestones which give clues to other interesting locations, and mundane masterwork pieces. Next one shot protected items, such as potions or scrolls incased in boxes or scrollcases. Lastly magic items of all kinds based on the party level and what I, as a DM, know they will encounter in the future. As for the magic items themselves, I am a pathfinder 1e DM, in this system there is an option for having magic items level up with the player. I usually only have campaigns go up to 10th to 12th level intentionally. Also on gold, using money can affect play in many ways, the players need to transport it, safeguard it, Large amounts can encumber them, converting to gems at an exchange rate. Then there are the types of coins and thier exchange rates. Then spending; Buying titles, land, aquiring fame through becoming a patron of the arts or being a philanthropist to the poor or the clergy. Spreading your wealth to gain recognition or buy rare items or powerful magic. In the end monetary treasure should be a blessing with a touch of curse to it as well. Still love your point of view and agree on the magic part of your video. Cheers DM

The +bonus items certainly need improving; An article in Knock 2 'What is my Sword?' by Kobayashi (inspiration credited to Earthdawn RPG) changes the way I thought about them, and that was a very subtle change in delivery. I've found the stuff you roll for minor/major drawback/benefits sections in the DMG can also add flare to simple magic items, like little Buff Moons that orbit the Bigger Main Gas Giant. Its by no means an actual fix, but it definately acts as a decent bandaid to the issue of how dull the magic items are in 5e. I suspect a lot of it was done due to a weird sense of fear about breaking 'the balance' by the designers. Keeping stuff generic, mundane and by extension, dull, is keeping it safe and widely appealing. The one use magic items and consumables is an absolute must for D&D, and one of the things I've been doing since I rocked Cypher System. Even then, it's one of the issues with 5e as a whole; magic items and loot are dull because they can be. No one quests for a magic item anymore because the things they offer are offered by class features. Class features across the levels and even the archetypes have replaced the impetus to design colourful, weird and downright insane magic items as loot. Fab video, and I look forward to checking out your revised treasure horde release. Reckon you'll ever do a 5eRedux Rules release, just all these little snippets of rules you drop into one leatherbound collectable :P

I just google "best magic items for... class" sprinkle those throughout the campaign, have the players make a wish list, sprinkle those throughout the campaign, and then roll a random table until something interesting pops up for some variety/ unique items. Also, I try to give gold sinks throughout the campaign: finance a heist, buy equipment, bribe someone, etc. E.G. my high level players are going to the positive energy plane, and asked a wizard to make them rings to protect them from the positive energy. 16K each for four custom magic rings that don't take an attunement slot.

I find that mercenaries are a great way to deal with having lots of capital in the party. Mercenaries have upkeep costs, so unless the players keep making more money, they can't keep their mercenaries employed indefinitely. When the players get really rich, odds are they have a bunch of assets that need protecting in their absense. They can also use mercenary forces to make political power plays whether they're present themselves or not. This allows them new ways of affecting the story. If they can afford an army, give them a battle to match.

I have automated all the roll tables from the 5e DM Guide. I'll be putting them up on my website next month. I will look this over, and see about adding it to the Treasure Hoard generation page. Click a button, and the hoard is generated. Copy and paste to your notes.

A good way I personally liked to use those numbers for was the huge auction happening every 10 jears or even once a decade in the large city the heroes are staying in right now. It can actually be quite fun to show your group a selection of pretty rare or curious items. The need to compete with obscenely rich merchants, nobles and even kingdoms if the item is rare enaugh can lead to pretty interesting gameplay right of the bat. It also fixes some of the issus with weaker items, since this way you as a player are not so much reliant on your GM to pick the right ones for you that are „obviously“ just random stuff in the dragons hoard. If you as a DM likes to this is also the perfect hook for a adventure. Let something thruely gamebreaking appear and show how this can literaly lead to backstabbing and even war if the scope is this high.

I rarely see you rant this much sir Baron. But I see your point. I never worried too much about random treasure tables, but then I never loved them either. Now, looking at your random generator, I like it a lot, for some things. We should make it a treasure generating app, for convenience. I believe adding this sort of simple web-app to Itchio is easy enough. I'm curious now, what it takes to get this out there.

Absolutely needed this man!! I think you've highlighted one of the main issues with 5e... Where as the characters class/race is so powerful that magic items are much less the forefront of how strong a character actually is. I think it stems from classes like Sorcerer, where their power stems from their draconic bloodline. Therefore players expect their character to just "become more powerful" over time without items. Which leaves your martial classes who have zero magic, relying solely on magic items. I think this is an inherit flaw for many TTRPGs... And is almost unavoidable. People who want to play these RPGs are generally more attracted to powerful character classes, and won't spend much time looking at all the cool magic items they COULD get. It's almost an evolution of TTRPGs over the years :'( .... Love the video though brother! I'm working on my own TTRPG and this really highlights my intentions for doing so!

The other important note is that dragons are naturally attracted to hoards and wealth, which is why there are no major kingdoms or communities in the forgotten realms. Any time wealth is concentrated, a dragon takes notice and destroys the group controlling the gold. Groups seeking power hoard gold underground where it’s harder for dragons to go, and even the player characters will be targeted by dragons if they become too rich. I like the idea of leveling via gold value, so each character has to pay in-game money and take out-of-game time to level up. Combined with the danger of carrying valuable objects (including magic items), it becomes a risk/reward system for traveling to and from dungeons, gaining and spending loot, powering up, etc. Each class should have to spend loot in appropriate ways-barbarians and bards have to spend all their money wastefully, clerics have to donate to their churches, wizards have to buy tomes and take classes, etc. Imagine carrying a level-up worth of gold on your back and seeing a dragon in the distance drawn by your plunder! Do you drop it and get away clean or stand your ground and potentially lose the fight AND your loot? Or do you have one person teleport away while the rest distract the dragon and trust that the gold will be safe with just one character? Different choices!

Love single-use/limited-use items! Makes finding that magic weapon or shield even more exciting!

I say spending gold gets you renown, and you need renown to get the attention of lords, then nobles, and eventually the king. Higher-status NPCs are who give you higher-level adventures. You can spend gold on a better lifestyle, house, a ship, and give gold to your faith and get visions of where to find the magic item you want (which you then have to go fight for). And high-status NPCs will buy your old magic items from you. Or you can pay a powerful wizard to further enchant your magic item to be even more powerful, but there may be strings attached.

I am checking out, and probably backing, Enclave because it's mechanics fit better with the "theater of the mind" style of play that our group has come to prefer (we've been playing since the late 70s). From The One Ring we gained the notion that counting coins was less fun than gaining stuff through a general wealth level; it keeps the story flowing. I really like the idea of a magic item growing in power along with its wielder, thus keeping items in scale, and avoiding having characters discard older items like yesterday's news paper as they progress (plus, discovering an item's other powers can be an adventure itself!). Currently loving Cairn, as deadly combat rarely comes up, and clever play rules the sessions. Maybe Enclave will be our next progression.

Something tells me Baron's players don't argue over ivory statuettes to decorate their fantasy rooms... Let alone hate parting with them; to the point that when that NPC's house burned down they were sifting through the rubble to recover the statuette.

“0th edition” 😂 Got me.

Art and trinkets. Yes, some pieces of art are worth lots of money but they are large and bulky and hard to get out of a dungeon even with a bag of holding and could still get damaged and become worthless. I like trinkets and gold rings and such. Many of my characters would use these to bribe guards, reward hirelings, grease a palm here and there. It makes for some great roleplaying which is what the game is actually about. As to having too much gold. My highest level character was more than happy to take all those copper coins that nobody wanted. Besides having expenses, he used those coppers to have his henchmen give them to beggars and paupers and win them over to be snitches for his network of thieves. I can only think of one character that I would call rich. The rest spent most of their money on equipment that constantly gets lost or destroyed. Or on spell research, making scrolls and potions. Most of my Thief characters had maps of dungeons with lists of all the treasure that we had to leave behind because you can only carry so much with you. BTW, I only played 1st edition and some 2nd edition added in. I find 5E to be a bit of a joke myself. You don't roleplay you roll play and that isn't what this game is about.

Good advice! My two take-a-ways, don’t run or play 5E and make uncommon treasure items have some kind of plot associated with them.

10d10 is way too many dice. I mean most people roll digitally anyway but still.

Ughhh... you didn't just say to make gold irrelevant after a certain level did you?! Oi vey... wrong!!! How bout we make the money more valuable. Make them pay for stuff and utilize the environment to cause them to spend it rather hand wave it... they can't eat it. They need to be geared up for adventure. Make them tithe 10% to a party fund, mages need ink, parchment and spell components. Melee guys need swords sharpened and armor repaired. Iron rations, water and horses, stabling... just to name a few. You don't wanna track all that shit? I get it. Just pay the tithe. Now put them in places where money is irrelevant.

My Lv 9 players just killed Thumberchaud (Adult Red Dragon) and s**t you not, my players did just what you said in the video: ignored the gold and sifted through the horde looking for magic items!

Excellent, I was waiting for this video since the livestream it got brought up.

Just my opinion, the entire concept behind 5e was control. 3.5 spiraled out beyond where they wanted, beyond where most GMs could handle, so in attempting to attract new players, they toned it down to allow new GMs to handle level 20 adventures. One thing that irritates me no end is killing a legendary, hugely difficult boss monster that kills one or more PCs, and the loot is so bland that no a single one of the items gets used by a PC.

A level 1 character often starts with a +4 to hit and will hit close to 75% of the time. I say the rules need to have lower innate pluses to hit and then that +3 long sword really becomes something, and it becomes something that can be stolen.

Utility and weird ass items or much more fun, interesting and useful than a plus something.

Earlier editions basically defined player characters by their magic items. That's not the sort of heroic fantasy most people have in mind when they sit down at the table these days. 5e magic items are plenty powerful and still trivialize lots of encounters on their own. Here's the thing you are overlooking: it is ok for loot to be mostly flavor; it is ok for gold to be mostly useless. It isn't a game about hauling loot back to town anymore. It isn't a game about haggling with merchants anymore...and this is a perfectly valid approach, it comes down to preference and not everyone's preferences are wrapped up in nostalgia.

So hoards, magic items and coinage have a basis in the world you build. I treat "gold" even in my higher fantasy settings still very controlled. The wealth of most nobles tied to land ownership and resources found within. Timber, ore, livestock. The amount of actual liquid capital in a noble's fortune might be quite low, very similar to our world during the dark/middle ages. Massive treasure hoards are not common. They would be known or at least the things of rumor and legend (think Erebor and the Lonely Mountain). Players on the run during a campaign are forced to leave excess behind; Marking locations on maps and leading expeditions during downtime to recover the treasure they could not take with them. Depending upon the location that may set up the story for other one shot adventures; has a group of bandits moved in and started to move the goods; have a local town or magistrate laid claim to the goods. Players like to feel connected to the world granting them titles and lands is a great reward; it allows them to spend gold on retainers; masons/architects/carpenters. Often players start off with a lodge, great hall or simple tower and it grows. It is not uncommon in the process of their building for a small village to be founded as labor moves to the area and their extended families. This brings a whole campaign in itself as their now burgeoning town becomes the source of drama and conflict; especially when the landlord is travelling afar; who knows what they may return to find? If you have found the players have "too much gold" then you simply give them a cost; let them face finding their own rare magical component or deal with purchasing the "jar of ochre jelly" to acid etch rune into the sword; the "phoenix feather" to encase in the wand of fireballs; or the "hags eye" for their Sphere of Divination at exorbitant prices. Natural disasters requiring "charity" also allow great alignment based roleplay challenges. Having to purchase timber to construct homes on the verge of winter; or grain from a plague caused by a dark druid can be woefully expensive; but again; protecting that shipment the players just paid 50,000 gold to purchase can become a story in itself and just as rewarding. My biggest issue; I miss the hoard tables from AD&D; the rich content on followers, etc. that we use to have in the Player's Handbook upon reaching certain levels. I find myself going back and incorporating it often.

The Baron seems furious today!

We have fun with the hoards at my table. Occasionally after a boss fight they get to make those rolls, and usually find random shit. Since they roll, I also sweat as the DM, because what sort of random shenanigans might they find in this dragon lair, and how is it going to freshen up our campaign.

Bonus comment: your hoard generator is fantastic! I love it when a mechanic does "bonus die per yes to question," it makes really clear what the point is.

Gold is only useful for things like Wizards in filling up spellbooks and for casters in stocking up in regents.

A seven inch bar of gold ( inches 7 x 2 x 4 ) weighs 30 pounds. That is ( 1000 ) 1/2 ounce gold coins.

I'm thinking... magic items with abilities tied to the character's Proficiency Bonus, growing in power as the character advances. So that huge axe that was a +1 when you found it at level 3 is now at level 10 a +1 axe that deals an extra d6 of fire and a d6 of acid damage on a hit, and might develop even more terrifying properties as you advance further in level...

excellent point! in homebrew adventures, i like to create multi-part quests to find awesome magic items that can solve the ultimate problem quest, but . . . i need to be flexible about how to design those magic items for the specific PCs and to introduce at the right time, possibly with powers that scale up with the PC levels

I think in 5e, Legendary items aren’t really legendary anymore, compared to earlier editions... but 5e also has Artifacts, which can fill that role.

potions scrolls poison and magic creation. Thats the way to make gold useful, in addition to other RP outlets.

There's a simple enough answer if your players are amenable to it; a deed. Strongholds are expensive, and remember, in 1st edition it was expected for the players to build a fortress when they hit a certain point. The construction, the security, paying for a standing army, all of this can chew up all that filthy lucre. And that by itself can become a hook. What's the politics of the nearest lord? Villagers moving nearby so you have to protect them. A dragon takes offense. Raiding parties. No, gold is still a viable treasure, you just have to show why.

“Do you know what 9 year old me thought was the coolest magic item…” *The Holy Avenger* “…when I first got my hands on the 2nd edition…” *The Holy Avenger!* “…Ad&D Dungeons Master’s Guide?…” *THE HOLY AVENGER* “…The +5 Holy Avenger.” *Yesssss!* Some things are universal, Baron!

This is exactly why i dont play 5th, still playing PF1. My groups can convert money into magic items, and there are other game world uses. 5th ed shot itself in the foot with the 3 magic item thing. Sounds good on paper, but no one wants 1000 gp to go on a dangerous quest at middle levels

Your story about the enchanted items in the old versions of the game explains A LOT about the critical role campaigns 🤣

The main issue is not how special the treasure is, but what you do with it. Even back in third edition, I had the question of what are the player going to do with the gold they have. I actually asked, and they didn't give me an answer. So it's not about the treasure, it's about making the players want to spend the treasure. 3.5, 4th, and 5th edition have all upped the power of the PCs, while making DMs less powerful, to the point that the stuff they were planning before the OGL debacle included new rules that seemed to nerf the DM to the point of just sitting around and doling out free levels and announcing how awesome they were. The best way to deal with the problem is to increase the monster's power, while making the money worth it. If you make it so that monsters are more powerful, say by increasing monsters so that they face CR 2 or 3 monsters at level 1, and keep the monsters more powerful than the players, they will want to spend the money to get the items they need, and every magic item found is a precious item that could potentially make things better for the party. What's more, making gold useful is important. If you add actual training for levels, players will look at coins, jewels, and even magic items they won't use as potentially useful, since it spends to increase their power.

Scathing but entirely accurate. I really wish the authors had leaned into the different fantasies at each tier of play.

When I was playing 5e I found that there was no need for magic items unless they were quest related. Mostly due to the fact that 5E has all of the magic items built into your class and sub class… throwingthrowing in magic items in 5E gives it an imbalanced feel, which is why most of those items were nurfed in the first place. At least that’s what I think.

While I'll agree that Players need better uses for gold after the first few levels ... I don't know if I care for more powerful magic items. The Attunement system and lowered power of magic items means that a character's power comes from themselves and their level, not the Christmas tree of items like they'd need in 3rd or 4th Ed. And consumable items tend to run into the hoarder mentality and never get used. That said, having played a lot of BG3, it'd be interesting to see more item sets that could cause players to build towards them and more synergistically build power. Most of the DMG items just bolster what you'd probably already be doing.

Calling magic items “weak” is an insufficient analysis. Magic items are often scaled down in 5e because so much more power is now in the classes themselves. You suggest items that give players options for solving problems, but 5e places that power in the classes themselves, and MORE power isn’t really an answer, and a comparison to 1e/2e is quite misleading if you don’t acknowledge how much weaker the classes were back then. Sometimes items do provide interesting, creative options, but these are more often items like a rope of climbing-something that doesn’t correspond to “power” in the traditional sense at all. Players are also often very uncomfortable with consumable items, always wanting to save their items for life-or-death, must-use scenarios. These items often create anxiety rather than fun, as players agonize over whether or not to use them, and would likely have trouble keeping track of each and every bespoke, single-use item they collect (if my experience seeing how players handle basic scrolls and potions is any indication). I also think telling DMs to stop awarding gold past the early levels, while workable, is lazy advice. Coming up with interesting uses for funding and fixing the root systemic issues with the lack of economy in 5e would be the better approach.

Is this problem a product of the reaction to the mentality of "I want my character growth to be a matter of what I can do not what I own"? I remember a few years ago reading an article or forum post somewhere complaining about how the writer didn't like that. Character growth for Marshall characters was about their equipment rather than their own power, and how spellcasters growth was about their power, not just their equipment. Pair that line of thinking with the issue of DMS handing out too much powerful gear and then trying to scale back the power by having it stolen or lost or destroyed, and you'll get a batch of players and designers who recognize that the solution is to have power baked into the class progress table which can be tested and "balanced", rather than the equipment which can be mishandled.

It would seem more strange that the hoards would just be a bunch of unused magic items. What does the Brigand Leader pay his brigands with, unless youre just gonna distribute the magic items among them? Dragons are notorious for coin hoards, as well as any other intelligent creature that actually understands the value of money

Over a decade ago, I did a post-apocalyptic DND setting where society collapsed after a massive plague. The premise for the players was that The Church was trying to rebuild and the players were sent out to rediscover the world. There was ridiculous amounts and types of money from collapsed kingdoms that they could bring back, but the economy had literally devolved into trading sea shells. So this money was collected by The Church and the players were credited and honored with favors locally. As they gained more credit, this expanded the area and their renown. Basically, the more civilization they recovered, the more soft power they had. All they had to do was risk their lives on the daily.

Treasure hoards really seem like a vestigial part of the game after designers removed the experience-for-treasure part. When it's played as a game about exploring and unearthing treasure instead of about fighting pitched battles, counting that treasure makes a lot more sense.

"Thunder Burt?"

Great Video and Thanks! Wizards need a lot of gold. A fix for making gold more valuable - create requirements for other classes, rogues pay guilds, Clerics tithe, etc.

I think the problem is not how the game handles wealth. It’s how players handle wealth. Players in D&D do 2 things; they collect everything they can sell for value; and manage their money better in the game than they do in real life. One time I offered players “lifestyle options” where they spend an amount of gold to maintain a lifestyle of a certain level, every player chose the least expensive option. We’ve made jokes about “searching the loincloth” just in case that monster might have a few copper pieces (i think it was a troll they killed specifically); despite it clearly not having anything of actual value. In my current campaign; the party has a wagon they take with them so they can load it up with whatever “loot” they can find. Seriously, the only thing they spend any appreciable amount of money on is magic items; and even then half my players take crafting feats so they can make items at reduced costs. I feel players should act more like Conan the barbarian. That is to say; they should be spending their treasure as much as possible. In Conan after they rob the tower of the serpent; they party like animals, blowing all their money. So when the king’s men come to collect them they’re back to eating gruel. The king knows this and offers them a king’s ransom to rescue his daughter. Sure Conan probably would have gone anyway because it’s clearly a quest for him. But it creates a meta narrative that the king’s men tracked them down because of their reckless spending; and we don’t even need to be told that; it’s pretty clear. That’s how people in real life tend to act when they fall into money. They spend it on stuff. They buy new things they want but probably don’t need. New cars or houses, expensive vacations and luxury items of all sorts. They don't miser it away for later or invest it in their future; they got stuff to buy. I really think the use of wealth really depends on what sort of game you are running. A pulpy sword and sorcery game (Conan) may need treasure as a reward; while a high fantasy epic quest (LOTR) might not require much in the way of gold. A quasi-historic political game (Game of thrones) may require gold and other non-monetary (titles; lands etc) rewards to play a significant part of the game. it really depends on what the dm and players decide to set up and play.

Ooooh treasure generator

The idea of money disappearing from hoards will break immersion. The PCs have hit a level where *they* don't value money, therefore every ancient hoard they come across *also* was owned by someone who had no use for money?

I mean you can buy magic items. Also, most of the high-level late-game downtime activities require a massive amount of gold.