Treasure in dungeons

[Eonas]

I often DM/play solo dungeon crawls, and I cope fairly well with them. The hardest issue for me, however, is that of treasure. I generally DM a fairly randomized dungeon, so I try to randomly generate the treasure per encounter. What throws me off, however, is how to assign treasure. This issue leaves me completely baffled. Do I roll per room? Per encounter? Where do I put the treasure? How much on the monsters themselves, how much in plain sight, how much hidden? Do wandering monsters carry treasure? If so, how do they deal with carrying aorund 6000 copper pieces or whatever? If not, does that mean all WMs carry around their weapons and nothing more?

Sorry, I know I'm asking a lot of questions. This should give you an idea, however, of how clueless I am with respect to treasure in dungeons. Any help would be appreciated.

[prufock]

Do I roll per room? Per encounter? Where do I put the treasure? How much on the monsters themselves, how much in plain sight, how much hidden? Do wandering monsters carry treasure? If so, how do they deal with carrying aorund 6000 copper pieces or whatever? If not, does that mean all WMs carry around their weapons and nothing more?

Per encounter, at least that's how the system is built (monsters have a treasure entry, after all).

Wandering monsters may carry treasure if they have the capacity to do so. Humanoids, monstrous humanoids and so on may even use items in their inventory at the DM's discretion. Many monsters keep treasure in their lair, or about the room where they've killed other adventurers.

[Ranting Fool]

Always depends if you think it's right.

I was about to say that most monsters don't have treasure because they don't want or need it (Animals/Stupid Undead/Golems) and any treasure they had would be on their victims or whatever they are guarding. But then I thought, well no some Animals might have shiny spiky mithril collars or the undead could be left wearing their old gems (depends what sort of undead) or you could say the Golems have gems for eyes. Anything really as long as it makes sense for it to be there.

But then that doesn't really help answer your question. Sorry :smallbiggrin:

[Seharvepernfan]

Yes, per encounter. For each monster in a given dungeon (even if the players don't encounter it), treasure should exist somewhere in the dungeon. Certain monsters, like vermin, have none, while others, like dragons, have several times the normal amount. Generally, at least some, if not most, of this treasure is hidden. It may or may not be guarded by traps, depending on the dungeon. Also, traps count as encounters and there should be treasure because of them as well.

If a monster is intelligent and capable of using any gear/magic items that its' treasure contains, then it should be wearing/using them, unless it has decided not to for some reason.

Unintelligent monsters leave their treasure wherever they first encountered it, likely on the corpses of whoever brought it in. It may be in their stomach or dung piles, it may be scattered about due to foot traffic. However, unintelligent monsters placed in a dungeon by intelligent npcs' might not have their "own treasure", you might add theirs to the treasure of the npcs' who built the place or put those unintelligent monsters in it.

If certain monsters inhabit certain areas, it would make sense for each to have its' own treasure area, unless you can think of a good reason not to. For instance, if fire giants inhabit area A and a behir inhabits area B, then area A should have the treasure for the fire giants and area B should have the treasure from the Behir.

Humanoid monsters will probably put/hide their treasure in something like a box or chest, a specific room, a crafted hiding place, or any other manufactured-thing-for-holding-other-things, unless they are trying to hide it somewhere unexpected (like in a dead tree or under a rock). Pc's can always track the npcs' path to any hidden treasure.

Non-humanoid intelligent monsters will likely place their treasure somewhere hard to find/reach, such as the bottom of a pit or at the top of a chute. Possibly underwater or under something big and heavy. If they lair inside a humanoid-made structure, they might put it anywhere a humanoid would.

Whether or not the treasure is in plain sight depends more on the dungeon in question than anything else. A place that doesn't expect visitors probably has it in plain sight, as would any place that expects mostly peaceful visitors (like a temple), though hidden treasure is always a possibility. A place that does expect unwanted visitors would likely hide/protect its' treasure.

It also depends on the npcs in question. Barbarians probably don't hide their loot, whereas rogues surely will. Dragons make big hoards out of it, liches probably hide it as best they can.

A wandering monster may or may not have any. An unintelligent monster *might* have some undigested in its' stomach, or otherwise stuck to its' body in some way (or its' body may be worth something on its' own - taxidermy/alchemy/spell components). Intelligent wandering monsters might, if there is anything in their treasure worth carrying, like necklaces or wands or armor, or if they don't have anywhere to hide it (like homeless orc raiders).