How do I fairly award treasure?

[LastCenturion]

The title, basically. I've started DMing a new game at first level and I'm not sure how to deal with treasure. The world I'm running is pretty light on magic items, but it's also pretty light on dungeons inhabited by sentient creatures (read: big lack of gold pieces. GP rewards are from quest-givers and the like). Given this, I'm not sure how to deal with rewards. Obviously I want to reward the players for playing my game and completing my dungeons et al, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this. So far, since low-level adventurers aren't uncommon, I've planted dead bodies of former adventurers with minor magic items, but if I keep doing that it's going to get pretty old pretty fast. Is there a better way to do this? I have a couple ideas, but they only really work for higher-level rewards. I'd say more, but as all of my players are at least marginally active on the Playground, it might spoil some things.

TL;DR: What rewards can I give out in magic item and gold piece-light environments?

I'm not asking for an exact list, but a few general strokes might be nice.

[hymer]

What rewards can I give out in magic item and gold piece-light environments?

Some thoughts: Reputation, titles, land, horses, art, undying gratitude, friends, grudging respect, the best cow in the village, a painstakingly but inexpertly crafted item, a big kiss, a standing ovation, a medal or commendation, an introduction to someone important, a get-out-of-the-stocks-free 'card', free stay at the inn for a month, the right to address the assembly, a slave, a fine wine, the right to wear armour in town, a map, or a cart full of grain.

[Sariel Vailo]

A.P.P.active party participation. And the DMS guide may lady luck guide your loot distribution

[tomato]

I actually feel kinda strongly about this. Some DMs restrict magical items because they want to make them feel rare and powerful, and others do so because they don't like players being motivated by material/mechanical advancements. If you're in the former camp, good news: there are several ways to accomplish that, and still reward useful items while retaining mechanical balance.

If you're in the latter group however, there's likely going to be a disconnect between you and the party. Even from the beginning, D&D established a world where characters were motivated by the pursuit of magical items. Dungeon crawl deathmazes would only be worth exploring if there was something cool at the end of it. Additionally, magical items are just one of several channels that the DM has to confer advancement for the party. By denying or limiting this type of advancement, you're edging on breaking the unwritten contract of the D&D player. In short, if a character can't level, if they can't get cool items, if they can't use fun spells or defeat horrible foes, then an aspect of the game is missing.

The magic items provided in the DMG are intended for some amount of distribution, and so even a magic-lite campaign should probably feature some quantity of them. Characters don't need strong or dynamic magic items to function, but they do fill an important role in providing incentive for most players, and so should remain a component of the game unless you've established with your players that you have other adventuring incentives in mind. If so, then use those but bear in mind that you could be missing a motivating aspect of the game for some players.

Besides the baseline incentive element, as you advance, many monsters will start resisting non-magical weapon damage, which is intended to be balanced against the party being equipped with magical weapons to combat that. Either you remove the monster resistance (making the monsters weaker, and thus, less of a threat to non-adventurers) or you keep the resistance and give the adventurers weapons that can pierce resists.

If your concern is power creep or simply just complexity creep, and you want your players to have a fear of death, then limiting the quality/rarity of magic items they receive is an effective strategy. A paladin or fighter can be completely equipped with 3 useful attuned items only using Uncommon or Common items, and function well into the later levels. This is a method I've used in the past, and found it quite useful. When I finally gave the fighter an artifact later on, the change was so dramatic by comparison that it completely changed the meaning of their equipment for them.

Either way, you can absolutely use magic items in your campaign and still assert that they're rare within the world as a whole. If you choose to do this, I recommend researching what meaningful items the party could be equipped with, and then handing those out slowly over the course of their career. A +1 longsword or something may seem basic, but if you throw resistant enemies at the party, they will covet it above all else. If your goal is to create tension between combats by making the absence of magic items a point of concern for the party, then feel free to seed that ground by throwing a few mundane weapon resistant enemies at them early before they can deal with the resistance. That way, once you finally give them that +1 longsword, they'll appreciate it all the more.

[LastCenturion]

I actually feel kinda strongly about this. Some DMs restrict magical items because they want to make them feel rare and powerful, and others do so because they don't like players being motivated by material/mechanical advancements. If you're in the former camp, good news: there are several ways to accomplish that, and still reward useful items while retaining mechanical balance.

If you're in the latter group however, there's likely going to be a disconnect between you and the party. Even from the beginning, D&D established a world where characters were motivated by the pursuit of magical items. Dungeon crawl deathmazes would only be worth exploring if there was something cool at the end of it. Additionally, magical items are just one of several channels that the DM has to confer advancement for the party. By denying or limiting this type of advancement, you're edging on breaking the unwritten contract of the D&D player. In short, if a character can't level, if they can't get cool items, if they can't use fun spells or defeat horrible foes, then an aspect of the game is missing.

I actually don't think I'm either type; I enjoy magic items, both using and giving them, but the world I'm running doesn't have a lot yet because the furthest back that the world's history goes is about 50 years. There aren't remnants of bygone eras because there aren't any bygone eras.


The magic items provided in the DMG are intended for some amount of distribution, and so even a magic-lite campaign should probably feature some quantity of them. Characters don't need strong or dynamic magic items to function, but they do fill an important role in providing incentive for most players, and so should remain a component of the game unless you've established with your players that you have other adventuring incentives in mind. If so, then use those but bear in mind that you could be missing a motivating aspect of the game for some players.

Besides the baseline incentive element, as you advance, many monsters will start resisting non-magical weapon damage, which is intended to be balanced against the party being equipped with magical weapons to combat that. Either you remove the monster resistance (making the monsters weaker, and thus, less of a threat to non-adventurers) or you keep the resistance and give the adventurers weapons that can pierce resists.

Like I said, I fully intend to distribute enough treasure to keep the party on par with the monsters, but most of the rewards I've been able to think out only work at higher levels.


If your concern is power creep or simply just complexity creep, and you want your players to have a fear of death, then limiting the quality/rarity of magic items they receive is an effective strategy. A paladin or fighter can be completely equipped with 3 useful attuned items only using Uncommon or Common items, and function well into the later levels. This is a method I've used in the past, and found it quite useful. When I finally gave the fighter an artifact later on, the change was so dramatic by comparison that it completely changed the meaning of their equipment for them.

That's not the concern (I'd love for the characters to feel powerful and well-prepared), but the anecdote is still very useful. Thanks for the evidence.


Either way, you can absolutely use magic items in your campaign and still assert that they're rare within the world as a whole. If you choose to do this, I recommend researching what meaningful items the party could be equipped with, and then handing those out slowly over the course of their career. A +1 longsword or something may seem basic, but if you seed the throwing resistant enemies at the party, they will covet it above all else. If your goal is to create tension between combats by making the absence of magic items a point of concern for the party, then feel free to seed that ground by throwing a few mundane weapon resistant enemies at them early before they can deal with the resistance. That way, once you finally give them that +1 longsword, they'll appreciate it all the more.

This is a really good point. So far I've put in a single magic item, which I think the party will find very useful if they choose to use it right away. Since they're likely to discover it by this evening, I'll just put it in spoilers and ask them not to look. If the word Karaneth means anything to you, don't open this spoiler!
I've placed a medallion at the edge of an underground lake that functions as a Cloak of the Manta Ray and conveys the ability to see through water. The lake contains several modified reef sharks. (I added Darksight and subtracted size.)
Thanks for all the advice :smallsmile:

[BigONotation]

Early on especially, gold and things they can sell are great rewards. The Fighter has his eyes on better armor, the Wizard on scribing spells and components, the Cleric armor and spell components, the Rogue to buy more daggers/arrows/poison/tools... There is already a need there.

Once they hit 5th level, they likely have the best armor, weapons, tools, and spell-related needs money can buy and are taking on greater foes. Some of those foes will have attacks and defenses that the PCs need specific things to compensate for. Magic items, consumables, perhaps a squire to hold the horses and gear while the PCs head into the dangerous place where the bad guys are...


So long as not too long after you introduce enemies with difficult to compensate for features you offer the PCs counters, you can continue that pattern ad infinitum. You don't need to give +0 at 5th, +1 at 9th, +2 at 13th, and +3 at 17th, just make available in the world enough for the PCs to be effective if they seek out the ability to be.

[Byke]

If it's that early on in your world...allow them to collect rare ingredients (mine or harvested from beasts they kill) which can be made into magic items or discover runes (from another plane, race or whatever....is in your world) that can confirm magic abilities to mundane items, like those in Storm King's Thunder.

This will give you the ability to tailor the items to your players needs and your campaign.

**EDIT corrected my atrocious spelling :) ***

[Grod_The_Giant]

If it's that early on in your world...allow them to collect rare ingredients (mine or harvested from bests they kill) which can be made into magic items or discover runes (from another plane, race whatever....is in your world) that can confirm magic abilities to mundane items, like those in Storm King's Thunder.

This will give you the ability to tailor the items to to you players needs and your campaign.
I second this. Even without the "and make it into a magic item" aspect, harvesting trophies or magical components from rare beasts is a good way to add monetary loot to an encounter where it wouldn't normally make sense.

[Breashios]

I second this. Even without the "and make it into a magic item" aspect, harvesting trophies or magical components from rare beasts is a good way to add monetary loot to an encounter where it wouldn't normally make sense.

And I'll third it if that's a thing. Since you do have some magical items on fallen adventurers, someone is making them in the current setting. Those "trophies" and "magical components" would naturally be sold for gold to those rare individuals that are crafting those items. Good luck.

[Firemaster]

One thing I gave out as a reward in my campaign is at the end of a mine, behind a thinnish rock wall was a greenish crystal that when broken gave a number of shards. Each shard could be crushed to have the same effect as the Enlarge part of the Enlarge/Diminish spell (the crystal was the reason why the mine had become full of giant centipedes). Alternatively, they later found someone who could take a number of the shards and turn it into an item that lets them Enlarge themselves once per day. I do plan on having the group encounter more of these 'natural magic' crystals in the future.

So that is another thing you could do. Have things in the wild that have a natural magic to them.

[Sigreid]

So, unless the party is looking for something specific, I give magic items based on my own entertainment. If I give them a staff of healing, I can hit them a little harder. Magic weapon and armor, I can use that cool monster without waiting for them to level up. If I give them a folding boat, I get to sink the ship they're on. :D

Whatever they get though is usually used against them, if the current owner is capable. That +1 sword is a lot of fun for me in the hands of the Hobgoblin warlord.

[Vogonjeltz]

The title, basically. I've started DMing a new game at first level and I'm not sure how to deal with treasure. The world I'm running is pretty light on magic items, but it's also pretty light on dungeons inhabited by sentient creatures (read: big lack of gold pieces. GP rewards are from quest-givers and the like). Given this, I'm not sure how to deal with rewards. Obviously I want to reward the players for playing my game and completing my dungeons et al, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do this. So far, since low-level adventurers aren't uncommon, I've planted dead bodies of former adventurers with minor magic items, but if I keep doing that it's going to get pretty old pretty fast. Is there a better way to do this? I have a couple ideas, but they only really work for higher-level rewards. I'd say more, but as all of my players are at least marginally active on the Playground, it might spoil some things.

TL;DR: What rewards can I give out in magic item and gold piece-light environments?

I'm not asking for an exact list, but a few general strokes might be nice.

I think you have the right idea to have the bodies of others be a source of treasure; i.e. a treasure horde is really just a collection of things that victims of these monsters had on them.

So, when you party finds a Nest of giant spiders, after clearing them they might discover large piles of bones (animal and humanoid) from creatures the spiders have eaten over the days/weeks/months/years, containing who knows how much treasure! (as much as is CR appropriate of course).

This is frequently the case in the D&D RPG video games, you find the occasional bit of coin/valuables on humanoids, but the really good stuff comes from defeating something bad that has been preying on others. Most monsters aren't interested in non-edible bits, so they're likely to dispose of that somewhere in the lair or nearby.

Other ideas: Have the treasure take the form of valuable minerals/resources: Gemstones, salt, metal (ores, or just have some naturally occurring deposit of an otherwise processed metal for the sake of simplicity).

The party might clear out a cave and realize that there's a salt vein and they could get hirelings (unskilled with a skilled supervisor probably) to operate the mine on their behalf, providing a steady income. It would also provide an adventuring hook for later if the employees report something scary in the woods on their way to work.

[LastCenturion]

If it's that early on in your world...allow them to collect rare ingredients (mine or harvested from beasts they kill) which can be made into magic items or discover runes (from another plane, race or whatever....is in your world) that can confirm magic abilities to mundane items, like those in Storm King's Thunder.

This will give you the ability to tailor the items to your players needs and your campaign.

**EDIT corrected my atrocious spelling :) ***

This is a really good idea, as testified by my thoughts and the two people who beat me to the punch in agreeing with it. This also fits in so that the party can get what they want instead of what I think they want without metagaming by asking the smith instead of me.


I think you have the right idea to have the bodies of others be a source of treasure; i.e. a treasure horde is really just a collection of things that victims of these monsters had on them.

So, when you party finds a Nest of giant spiders, after clearing them they might discover large piles of bones (animal and humanoid) from creatures the spiders have eaten over the days/weeks/months/years, containing who knows how much treasure! (as much as is CR appropriate of course).

This is frequently the case in the D&D RPG video games, you find the occasional bit of coin/valuables on humanoids, but the really good stuff comes from defeating something bad that has been preying on others. Most monsters aren't interested in non-edible bits, so they're likely to dispose of that somewhere in the lair or nearby.

Other ideas: Have the treasure take the form of valuable minerals/resources: Gemstones, salt, metal (ores, or just have some naturally occurring deposit of an otherwise processed metal for the sake of simplicity).

The party might clear out a cave and realize that there's a salt vein and they could get hirelings (unskilled with a skilled supervisor probably) to operate the mine on their behalf, providing a steady income. It would also provide an adventuring hook for later if the employees report something scary in the woods on their way to work.

Sounds great, and also really easy to make more valuable by messing with supply/demand behind the screen. "The smith mentions how he could really use a good lump of iron" *one adventure later* "You find a bunch of iron ore. Because of how little iron the nearby town has, you could easily sell it for <lots> gold pieces"