Too much loot to carry?

[Deca4531]

So im writing up notes for the characters so they can see what the loot was from the last battle. in total they found 3,900 silver coins. now that has me thinking, that's a lot of coins.

now a real silver coin weights anywhere from 2.5 grams (the size of a dime) to 26.73 grams (a silver dollar)

now at max all that silver = 104,247 grams or 230lbs
at the least its = to 9,750 grams or 21lbs

at the point my players are at they cant convert it to gold (poor fishing village). even if I split the difference that are still looking at over 100lbs on just coins before all the other weapons and armor they have found. how should I go about dealing with this kind of encumbrance?

[Gavinfoxx]

Mules and pack saddles.

Possibly Mules and a cart.

[Deca4531]

lol I can just picture the players traveling down the road with a giant mound of silver coins in the back of their cart. it would be a good excuse to send every bandit within 30 miles their way.

[Red Fel]

If you, as the DM, are determining how much loot they've acquired, you can always break up the denominations - say they find gold coins as well, instead of just silver. If they've already found it, and you've told them it's all silver, then they either have the means to transport it, or they don't. Adventuring 101: Always have the means to carry your loot. If you're feeling particularly generous, they might find a horse, mule, or wheelbarrow used by one of the things they looted, but otherwise, let them pack their bags to the gills, bury the rest, and come back for it later.

If you, as a character, are trying to determine how to deal with the encumbrance, see Adventuring 101, above. Partymembers can foist the biggest, heaviest stuff off on the meatstick, but as a rule, if your party is watching encumbrance rules, you should be investing as soon as possible in goods transportation gear. See the "(Extradimensional) Storage Space" section of this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187851).

[Slipperychicken]

So im writing up notes for the characters so they can see what the loot was from the last battle. in total they found 3,900 silver coins. now that has me thinking, that's a lot of coins.

now a real silver coin weights anywhere from 2.5 grams (the size of a dime) to 26.73 grams (a silver dollar)



SRD Entry on Coins (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm#coins)
The most common coin is the gold piece (gp). A gold piece is worth 10 silver pieces. Each silver piece is worth 10 copper pieces (cp). In addition to copper, silver, and gold coins, there are also platinum pieces (pp), which are each worth 10 gp.

The standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce (fifty to the pound).

In D&D, 50 coins = 1lb. Each coin is 0.02lb.

That means 3900 coins weighs 78lb (3900/50=78). Easily carried when distributed across the party. Especially if they have some melee bruiser or animal with a huge carrying capacity.


If they need more carry capacity, they have options. They can:

Load it up on any old horse, mule, Fighter, or other big strong creature.
Cast the spell Mount (Sorc/Wiz 1) and load it up with saddlebags.
Place it in a cart/wagon.
Simply use extradimensional storage like a Bag of Holding, Handy Haversack, or Portable Hole.
Create a temporary extradimensional storage with the spell Hoard Gullet (Sorc/Wiz 1, Dragon Magic).

[Allanimal]

If you're playing pathfinder, Treasure Stitching (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/treasure-stitching) is nice.

[Radar]

lol I can just picture the players traveling down the road with a giant mound of silver coins in the back of their cart. it would be a good excuse to send every bandit within 30 miles their way.
Even 230 lbs (or 104 kg for those using SI) of silver won't take that much space - it would be about 2.38 US gallons (or 9.9 l for those using SI). If we account for the imperfect packing, we won't get much more then that. Such an ammount of silver can easily be concealed.

Still, a caravan is always a juicy target for bandits - wheter there is some visible loot or not.

[Slipperychicken]

If you're playing pathfinder, Treasure Stitching (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/treasure-stitching) is nice.

I don't see a means of transporting treasure. I see Shrink Item turned up to 11.


Place 10ft^3 worth of the heaviest stuff you can find on the carpet (taking care to calculate the weight beforehand. Which should be massive), then unfurl it high over someone's head. Object(s) drop on target's head, smushing him into paste.

That's what I call a carpet-bombing.

[Deca4531]

In D&D, 50 coins = 1lb. Each coin is 0.02lb.

That means 3900 coins weighs 78lb (3900/50=78). Easily carried when distributed across the party. Especially if they have some melee bruiser or animal with a huge carrying capacity.


If they need more carry capacity, they have options. They can:

Load it up on any old horse, mule, Fighter, or other big strong creature.
Cast the spell Mount (Sorc/Wiz 1) and load it up with saddlebags.
Place it in a cart/wagon.
Simply use extradimensional storage like a Bag of Holding, Handy Haversack, or Portable Hole.
Create a temporary extradimensional storage with the spell Hoard Gullet (Sorc/Wiz 1, Dragon Magic).


Ah, ok I thought there might have been an entry on the weight of coins in RAW but I wasn't sure.

im running them through a re-made adventure and that's what the listed loot is, normaly I just convert everything to gold and ignore its weight (since most of the time someone has a bag of holding) but I thought it might be interesting to see how the party handles the challenge of large amounts of coin.

[lsfreak]

Real silver coins could be smaller than that. The coins you've listed are ~17 to a pound and ~181 to a pound. Oboloi were ~640 to a pound; the Vijayanagar empire might have struck a coin that was in the 7500/pound range (.06g, 4mm diameter). Afaik most "daily" silver coins were in the 300-600/pound range.

But then you run into issues with what kind of coin "silver coins" are supposed to represent in D&D. Are they supposed to be "daily" silver coins, the ancient equivalent of 5 or 10 dollar bills, or are they supposed to be the larger coins used for paying wages and making large purchases? By RAW, silver coins are 50/pound (well, all coins are 50/pound), which is on the larger end of the spectrum (Greek drachmae, Roman denarii, Polish groszi, English groats, etc in the 120-140/pound range).

Anyways, more on topic, a cart. They likely don't need anything bigger than hand-pulled for the coins, but dog/mule/horse/ox-pulled might be better depending on how much other stuff they have.

[Deca4531]

Real silver coins could be smaller than that. The coins you've listed are ~17 to a pound and ~181 to a pound. Oboloi were ~640 to a pound; the Vijayanagar empire might have struck a coin that was in the 7500/pound range (.06g, 4mm diameter). Afaik most "daily" silver coins were in the 300-600/pound range.

But then you run into issues with what kind of coin "silver coins" are supposed to represent in D&D. Are they supposed to be "daily" silver coins, the ancient equivalent of 5 or 10 dollar bills, or are they supposed to be the larger coins used for paying wages and making large purchases? By RAW, silver coins are 50/pound (well, all coins are 50/pound), which is on the larger end of the spectrum (Greek drachmae, Roman denarii, Polish groszi, English groats, etc in the 120-140/pound range).

Anyways, more on topic, a cart. They likely don't need anything bigger than hand-pulled for the coins, but dog/mule/horse/ox-pulled might be better depending on how much other stuff they have.

the 50/pound seems fair to me so that's what i'll go with.

from an RP perspective I have always thought that the carry system was kinda flawed. like for me I knew I don't need to drop my pack before rushing into combat but for the sake of RP I have it rigged so I can as a swift action. I have often thought of the mountain of coins I have had on me at any given time and wondered how many tons of gold were contained him what was only a leather pouch. most DMs aren't too much of a stickler for details like that but I am.

[Radar]

the 50/pound seems fair to me so that's what i'll go with.

from an RP perspective I have always thought that the carry system was kinda flawed. like for me I knew I don't need to drop my pack before rushing into combat but for the sake of RP I have it rigged so I can as a swift action. I have often thought of the mountain of coins I have had on me at any given time and wondered how many tons of gold were contained him what was only a leather pouch. most DMs aren't too much of a stickler for details like that but I am.
If you are dealing with larger sums, then it doesn't have to be all paid in coins (silver, gold or otherwise). For example gems would be as good as cash for larger payments. Granted, not everyone can appraise gems and they are not normalised, but if you're in the big buisness, you'd better know your trade as there is no sensible alternative, unless you introduce a reliable banking system.

It would also be possible to establish other rare resources as cash equivalents.

[Slipperychicken]

But then you run into issues with what kind of coin "silver coins" are supposed to represent in D&D.

D&D coins are positively huge and thin, for the sake of easy calculations.

And yes, one is expected to use gems and such for larger transactions, as those are trade goods which can be exchanged for their full value, and they are (perhaps more importantly) lighter and less bulky than their equivalent value in gold pieces.

The dimensions of coin make some things difficult, like dragon's hoards: You'd need millions of gold for the stereotypical hill of treasure upon which a dragon sleeps -far more than any balanced, reasonable reward would dictate. There's a reason why such mountains of gold are the stuff of fantasy -It represents a staggeringly, jaw-droppingly enormous amount of wealth.

[Squark]

It also goes without saying that the values of the various metals is rather... unusual compared to their modern day value (or even their value during times when the metals were deflated in price- See Spain during the gold rush towards the Americas). I believe the price estimate someone on the old WOTC boards worked out was that, using the price of bread and masterwork weapons (Comparing a masterwork weapon to a car, for reference), is that a gold piece has roughly about as much purchasing power in D&D as a $20 bill does in Modern America (Or did 8 years ago, anyway).

[Ravens_cry]

I've always wanted to make a spell called 'change maker'. It converts currency into it's equivalent amount of a greater and smaller denominations. For example, it would turn one thousand copper pieces into one platinum piece.

[Slipperychicken]

It also goes without saying that the values of the various metals is rather... unusual compared to their modern day value (or even their value during times when the metals were deflated in price- See Spain during the gold rush towards the Americas). I believe the price estimate someone on the old WOTC boards worked out was that, using the price of bread and masterwork weapons (Comparing a masterwork weapon to a car, for reference), is that a gold piece has roughly about as much purchasing power in D&D as a $20 bill does in Modern America (Or did 8 years ago, anyway).

I maintain that trying to make sense of the D&D economy is a fool's errand -it is neither rational nor coherent. If one wants a D&D-like experience with a sensible economy at every level of play, I recommend Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS).

[TuggyNE]

It also goes without saying that the values of the various metals is rather... unusual compared to their modern day value (or even their value during times when the metals were deflated in price- See Spain during the gold rush towards the Americas). I believe the price estimate someone on the old WOTC boards worked out was that, using the price of bread and masterwork weapons (Comparing a masterwork weapon to a car, for reference), is that a gold piece has roughly about as much purchasing power in D&D as a $20 bill does in Modern America (Or did 8 years ago, anyway).

I've seen different reasonable estimates. One was around $200/gp, another was $80-120/gp, and so on. It's really not fully decidable, since D&D pricing is wildly inconsistent compared to medieval or modern pricing.