How to Loot?

[TheCrowing1432]

Treasure is one of the cornerstones of DND besides, well dungeons and dragons.

Both of these things typically have treasure.


But for being one of the classic RPG's in existence, ive always found loot in DND to be....difficult.

Loot in other games such as Fallout, Diablo or the Elder Scrolls series is usually dynamic and exciting, DND? not so much.

There are only so many treasure tables that give you "X bag of gems" before you start to get sick of it.

Im not saying I want to hand out "+10 vorpal longswords" in every treasure horde, Im just looking for ways to spice up the loot tables/generators. .

Does anyone have any tips or perhaps a link to a decent generator?

Ive tried the srd ones and those are the ones who keep giving me things like


"you find three paintings, 89 different gems worth 1 silver each, and a dagger"

Hardly exciting


I know that me as a DM could manually put things in, but thats a lot of work for every encounter.

[dascarletm]

The Magic Item Compendium, has a decently nice treasure table, and will last for a good while.

[Theodred theOld]

A method I use is to sometimes include strange/rare trade items in the pile. Things like 1 12# minotaur horn, a bale of giant lizard skins, strange tree barks or a handful of rare bird eggs. It's really fun to watch a party try to unload a minotaur horn on some unsuspecting npc. " I heard they have many medicinal uses"

[JDL]

The Appraise skill should be used to identify whether any mundane equipment is valuable beyond its base table price. In your example above, dump the value of the gems into the dagger, giving it a gold filigree, ivory handle, and a large ruby set into the pommel. The dagger itself functions mechanically as a mundane dagger in combat, but the value of the item itself is far higher.

[Bronk]

I know that me as a DM could manually put things in, but thats a lot of work for every encounter.

You could just pick out what you think is cool, or what you think they think would be cool, then just add some gold and potions or something like that.

[Rainshine]

Honestly, I have to disagree with you a little on the games. I think it was a comic -- PA maybe? -- that talked about.. Borderlands, I want to say, as the loot being an arrow game. This arrow is up, this arrow is down. In Elder Scrolls or Fallout, mostly I look at whether the arrow goes up between what I currently have and what we found. Maybe I'm just boring like that?
There's lots of fun and goofy things you can throw in the loot, and lots of ways to flavor it, but I've found in D&D, it comes down to the party and bookkeeping. Some players/parties don't care if they found an 800 year old lost painting of an ancient elven Lord and just want a gold value for it, and others want to hang it above their manor house table. Oftentimes, that's what I've seen with the pregen tables; the ones I recall described basic gems: they find four emeralds each valued at xx, a giant cut ruby valued at yy, a statue valued at zz, and it all becomes gold within half an hour anyways, so it doesn't matter if the DMM would have just said You find AA worth of gems. So maybe explore and find out if your PCs are interested in more interesting treasure.
Just looking through item lists can give you ideas too. There's plenty of things out there like the Sleeve of Many Garments or whatever that you might have a player who would enjoy/use. Or maybe it's a group like a table I recently sat at, where one player demanded to roll for loot that he couldn't even use and another player could, because he wanted the gold for it.
The other cut about treasure is I feel it should generally make sense. An aboleth probably won't be keeping oil paintings in its lair. Dragons, sure. Goblins probably aren't going to keep detailed wooden murals in their barracks -- or maybe they do in your world. Only you know.

Now, three online generators.
Myth-weavers: http://www.myth-weavers.com/generate_treasure.php?do=treasure
Gives out actual items/treasure, you can give it an EL and ratios, or just ask for individual items

DonJon: http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/treasure/
Can divvy up for individual 'hoards' -- select level, ratios, lots of options

MonsterAdvancer: http://www.monsteradvancer.com/magicItemGenerator.jsp
Can choose to do it by total value, by item type, or by encounter level.

[JDL]

Also remember that loot in a magical world doesn't necessarily function the same as its mundane counterparts. How about a mirror that always shows you a view of the back of your head? A small glass bird figurine that, when left next to a cup of water, will dip its beak into it as if taking a drink?

Here's a great list from WOTC to get your creative juices flowing:

Elemental Evil: Trinkets (https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/elemental-evil-trinkets)

[Thurbane]

If it's not been mentioned already, The Mother of all Treasure Tables (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/12252/The-Mother-of-All-Treasure-Tables?term=mother+of+all+&it=1) is fantastic! Easily the best third party purchase I've made, right up there with Tome of Horrors. It helps keep loot/hordes fresh and interesting.

Here's a sample: http://www.kenzerco.com/free_files/moatt_preview.pdf