Campaign Opener Help: Giant Hoard of Treasure

[LunaticChaos]

So this idea I have is inspired by my love of giving out loot and seeing what happens. I am a Monty Haul type DM by nature (in regards to wealth only though), I've never had trouble motivating or rewarding my players as I'm creative about how I reward them and what I make available. I am not afraid to be generous at all. But I've had a bit of an issue figuring out how best to do an opener for a campaign I've been thinking about.

This Campaign Opener absolutely destroys the Wealth by Level Curve. And I'm not talking just giving them a few levels higher worth of loot. I'm talking giving them a loot pile whose value would be grossly inappropriate for a party of Epic Level 40 characters, though no epic gear will be present. And giving it to them at somewhere around level 1-3. I will be including all sorts of things, money, art, jewelry, gems, mundane goods, rare materials, magic items of all sorts, prolly a few artifacts, etc in this huge pile of loot. The goal with this setup is to see what they do with this loot and how they try to take as much back with them as possible at a level where they wouldn't have magical storage.

Now I'm not just giving them this all without any caveats. Which would be:

I will not be providing any means to magically identify anything in this hoard of treasure. They will only have descriptions of items and any identifying ability they come into the game with. And these items will be of varying value.
I am only going to give them 24 hours of in universe time to select what they want to bring with them. Once this 24 hour period is over powerful figures will show up to claim the treasure. I plan to be adding a few restrictions via the location so that they only get one trip and can't do anything clever by transporting items halfway to get more or the like. This time limit is planned to be made known to them.
There will be some items in the hoard that act as "Traps" for the party. Traps in that powerful npcs in setting will want those item and would have known these items were in the hoard, so if they are missing then they will know someone who got there first will have it. These will act as plot hooks if the party picks any of these up.
If they have too much "Wealth" for their "status" that is showing then that will make them the target of others and I'll make this clear to the players. For example, a Level 20 character carrying a +5 weapon with other enchantments around isn't going to draw too much attention. But a Level 1 would get targetted by a level 20 and the local government as well.
I will be preventing flatout tippyversing by changing a few rules of Magic so that the hallmarks of it just don't work.

That being said I have some questions for people.

Does anyone have decent links to random description generators for items? I want the players to have to look at items and then try and predict what the value of that item is based on how it looks.
Magical Storage, do you think I should include some in the hoard? And if so, how would you disguise it amongst other items?
Do you foresee any particular issues with this setup?
Is there anything you would change about the setup? Outside of the sheer scope of how much wealth there is that is.
What do you expect players to do when presented with this situation?

Also as an aside. Has anyone done anything like this before? If so, how'd it go? Doesn't have to be to this ludicrous of an extent of course, just something similar in concept.

[Efrate]

How far is horde from neareat magic mart where extra dimensional storage is sold? Or just wagons and mounts? Depending on that they could conceivably take most or all of it. Provided they can spend money to get things they want.

The simple thing I would do is detect magic all the non money items, look for any red glow(artifact) and otherwise strongest glowing itema and peioritize those. Identify is a 100 gp price tag but loading up on gold, platinum and gems makes that kind of trivial. Or if PF just a spellcraft check and a few minutes tells you a lot.

[LunaticChaos]

How far is horde from neareat magic mart where extra dimensional storage is sold? Or just wagons and mounts? Depending on that they could conceivably take most or all of it. Provided they can spend money to get things they want.

The simple thing I would do is detect magic all the non money items, look for any red glow(artifact) and otherwise strongest glowing itema and peioritize those. Identify is a 100 gp price tag but loading up on gold, platinum and gems makes that kind of trivial. Or if PF just a spellcraft check and a few minutes tells you a lot.

They won't be able to come back to this hoard, they have to choose what they get at the time. In addition they have to budget enough time to get far enough away that the powerful npcs won't find them without doing some legwork/investigation.

As for Detect Magic, I'm planning to intermix items so that they will have to spend the maximum amount of time to figure out what each thing is roughly, and I plan to make this horde cover a VERY large area to make even multiple castings of detect magic ineffective at identifying everything. Plus Lead and other materials will be used as well on both low value and high value items.
Editing this in: Not every item will be blocked this way. It'll be done in ways to draw attention to them, not to just block Detect Magic.

If it makes a difference to your answers. The hoard isn't a Dragon's Hoard, its set up more like a Gallery/Showroom. And the former owner was/is a massive AH who wants to cause a lot of chaos and conflict with this hoard, and the idea of low level adventurers showing up would tickle their fancy at causing more chaos so there would be some protections against scrying/divination/etc on such people. Hence the setup.

As for Identify, no Pearls will be present in the horde and the party will not have the chance to go buy them. So they'll only get what (if any) pearls they came in with.

[RNightstalker]

Monty Haul

I will not be providing any means to magically identify anything in this hoard of treasure. They will only have descriptions of items and any identifying ability they come into the game with. And these items will be of varying value.

If they have too much "Wealth" for their "status" that is showing then that will make them the target of others and I'll make this clear to the players. For example, a Level 20 character carrying a +5 weapon with other enchantments around isn't going to draw too much attention. But a Level 1 would get targetted by a level 20 and the local government as well.

Magical Storage, do you think I should include some in the hoard? And if so, how would you disguise it amongst other items?

Do you foresee any particular issues with this setup?

Is there anything you would change about the setup? Outside of the sheer scope of how much wealth there is that is.

What do you expect players to do when presented with this situation?


What's a Monty Haul?

I have no problem with them not having the magic identifying stuff as that can make it interesting with luck, depending on how you have identified everything and determined how characters eventually get their stuff identified.

If a character does get lucky and get a +10 hackmaster, how will they automatically be drawing attention to themselves, and isn't it kind of a big middle finger to punish them for getting lucky by having level 20 characters come after a level 1-3 PC?

Magical storage could be cool, especially if someone gets too excited and throws a bag of holding into a portable hole or something like that.

I would wonder what the PCs will be facing as they progress through the levels...how do they face regular enemies from a Monster Manual? How do they have any meaningful challenges after getting their pick of 13 million gold in treasure? What happens to the PC that get's terrible luck and only gets mundane/cheap items?

[LunaticChaos]

What's a Monty Haul?

Its a type of DM who is excessively generous, its often a failing of new DMs as unless you know how to balance the game around this it can easily lead to things being too easy, it being impossible to reward players, and a slew of other issues. The term itself comes from the original host of the gameshow Lets Make a Deal whose name was Monte Halparin or Monty Hall as he was known on the show.


I have no problem with them not having the magic identifying stuff as that can make it interesting with luck, depending on how you have identified everything and determined how characters eventually get their stuff identified.
They'll have the ability to identify things once they get back to town. I just won't be providing any means to identify anything in the hoard itself. So they only have what they bring in with them when they have to select what they get.


If a character does get lucky and get a +10 hackmaster, how will they automatically be drawing attention to themselves, and isn't it kind of a big middle finger to punish them for getting lucky by having level 20 characters come after a level 1-3 PC?

If they aren't a certain distance away from the hoard by the time the powerful NPCS show up they will then know they are there or will have the ability to track them down. But outside of that, their gear won't automatically be known outside of visual aspects. Some items will be very eye catching. And of course there is the identifying issue and if they get someone to identify the stuff if that person will snitch or not. I'll be making these issues (and a few others) apparent in an in character way. So part of this setup is how they keep anything too stellar from catching people's eyes, or if they can't what they do with such items.


Magical storage could be cool, especially if someone gets too excited and throws a bag of holding into a portable hole or something like that.

Well yes, I have considered that. However it does go a bit against what the former owner's goals would be for something like that to happen as it would resolve the issue rather than cause chaos and conflict. Plus it significantly lessens the issues one has in trying to decide what to take which is one the key things I'm interested in with this opening. Making players make choices with imperfect information.


I would wonder what the PCs will be facing as they progress through the levels...how do they face regular enemies from a Monster Manual? How do they have any meaningful challenges after getting their pick of 13 million gold in treasure? What happens to the PC that get's terrible luck and only gets mundane/cheap items?

You're undervaluing that treasure a bit, I said grossly inappropriate for a party of level 40. But mild humor aside...
The plot of the game will center around the conflict and chaos caused by what they don't take with them as well as who they eventually ally with amongst those powerful npcs. They'll all have their own plots, goals, etc and they'd be using their own gains from this horde to undertake them. So the party will be facing lots of things with class levels eventually.
As for the unlucky PC. Well that's the risk of only going for items. It really wouldn't be any different than any other game where a treasure pile doesn't have anything for them or a game with random treasure rewards. That ultimately will be a party discussion point as well as any wealth inequality.

[Vizzerdrix]

Do let us know how this all plays out.

[Thurbane]

Be aware that Dragonfire Adept 1 comes with the potential to use Identify 1/full round with the Magic Insight invocation.

[LunaticChaos]

Be aware that Dragonfire Adept 1 comes with the potential to use Identify 1/full round with the Magic Insight invocation.

A valid point. But that's a "Well okay then, you got me there" situation to me.

But to be honest, I do doubt that'll be an issue. As how often does one see Dragonfire Adepts? I've never seen one at my tables, online or not...unless I played it.

I will note. That while this is going to be my campaign opener. I'm not going to flat out tell my players that they are going to come across this situation ahead of time. They're going to make more normal characters and then end up across this situation.
The flow of the first session will be roughly "Adventure Hook -> Short Dungeon Crawl -> Come Across the Hoard in a way that's entirely 'coincidental' in regards to the adventure hook itself" And if I time it well, we'll end session 1 on the discovery of the hoard and I'll give them a week to think about how to get the most safely out of this setup.

[aglondier]

I like to encourage players in my campaigns to adopt signature items for their characters. An item that defines or represents their character in the eyes of the common folk. Arthur's Excalibur. Baba Yaga's Hut. Alladin's Lamp. Gandalf's Staff. Presto's Hat. Indy's Hat. Cap's Shield. Kaneda's Bike...etc...
Basically, I'm just saying if you are going to give them extra loot from the outset, lay out a handful of "legendary" items that they can each choose one of, that then stick with them for the rest of their careers...

Also, don't just give them boosted ordinary items, give them items with weird quirks and offbeat abilities that they have to use their imaginations to get real use out of...

[Batcathat]

I like to encourage players in my campaigns to adopt signature items for their characters. An item that defines or represents their character in the eyes of the common folk. Arthur's Excalibur. Baba Yaga's Hut. Alladin's Lamp. Gandalf's Staff. Presto's Hat. Indy's Hat. Cap's Shield. Kaneda's Bike...etc...

I kinda like that idea. So do the signature items improve as their owners do or do they stay the same?


Also, don't just give them boosted ordinary items, give them items with weird quirks and offbeat abilities that they have to use their imaginations to get real use out of...

This is always good advice for magic items, I think. An item of plus whatever can be useful, even necessary, but it's not as much fun as something with a bit more personality.

[aglondier]

I kinda like that idea. So do the signature items improve as their owners do or do they stay the same?



This is always good advice for magic items, I think. An item of plus whatever can be useful, even necessary, but it's not as much fun as something with a bit more personality.

I usually allow, one way or another, players to transfer enchantments from one item to another... their signature item being able to hold 2 traits, 2 minor abilities, 2 major abilities and 1 greater or legendary ability. Regular items could, at best, contain one major and one minor ability. Though most items would only have a single ability...making the signature item not only more valuable, but also able to scale up over the length of a campaign...

A wizard in one campaign took a leaf out of Presto's book and incorporated a bag of holding and a bag of tricks into his wizards hat...

[Starbuck_II]

Are any of them cursed?
I know a few are Lo jacked and being tracked, but no actual curses?

Artifacts? Sweet.

Hopefully, they brung a few sacks and mules.