How much gold does....

[kentma57]

A dragon need to sleep on? I know I read about this somewhere, can anyone remember?

[Emperor Tippy]

No, but I know its in the Dragon book that isn't Dragon Magic (Dracomican? however it's spelled).

[Greg]

Triple standard based on CR.

[kamikasei]

I don't think there are rules for "needs to sleep on this much treasure". You might be thinking of rules in Draconomicon for how big a hoard it needs at the end of its life, when it consumes it, in order to get into Dragon Heaven.

[MammonAzrael]

Page 278 of the Draconomicon, "How big is the pile?"

[bosssmiley]

What size is your dragon (L H, G, C)?

If he's a serious fantasy dragon (rather than a wannabe wandering menace with no fixed lair) he probably needs a hoard at least as big as his own occupied space to sleep on. That hoard is probably shaped into a comfy cone perfect for curling up around; and that cone is probably 1/5 to 1/6 of its diameter in height.

Yeah, we're talking gold by the scores of cubic feet here. And I'll tell you what: that's totally what a proper dragon hoard should be!

A dragon hoard should be the Fort Knox of D&D. It should be the accumulated treasures of toppled kingdoms, looted dwarfholds and a century of danegeld protection money extorted from covering bipedal runts. It should define 'rich beyond the dreams of avarice'. When you hear those two magical words 'dragon' and 'hoard' together, it should make your players think of Smaug, Aladdin, Fort Knox, Ali Baba, the Crown Jewels of England, and Scrooge McDuck's money bin...all rolled into one...then dipped in extra bling...and sprinkled with magic items...with an extra side order of "enough gold to re-clad my castle".

A *proper* pile of dragon loot should be an event in itself. You should have to swedge up it to get at the artefact, then slide down to get away from when His Draconic Majesty (inevitably) wakes up. It should have areas of dangerous instability that'll knock you prone if you're not careful and huge outcroppings of delicious loot you can use as cover! A proper hoard is one where you actually have to pick and choose what you'll Greyhawk because your bag of holding barely makes a dent in it!

None of this "triple standard for CR" cobblers thank you!

From The Dungeonomicon:

Now, you may ask yourself why these coins are so titanic compared to real coins. The answer is because having piles of coins is awesome. Dragons are supposed to sleep on that stuff, and that requires big piles of coins. Consider my own mattress, which is a "twin-size" (pretty reasonable for a single medium-size creature) and nearly .2 cubic meters. If it was made out of gold, it would be about 3.9 tonnes. That's about eighty-six hundred pounds, and even with the ginormous coins in D&D, that's four hundred and thirty thousand gold pieces. In previous editions, that sort of thing was simply accepted and very powerful dragons really did have the millions of gold pieces – which was actually fine. Since third edition, they've been trying to make gold actually equal character power, and the result has been that dragon hoards are… really small. None of this "We need to get a wagon team to haul it all away", no. In 3rd edition, hoard sizes have become manageable, even ridiculously tiny. When a 6th level party defeats a powerful and wealthy monster, they can expect to find… nearly a liter of gold. That is, the treasure "hoard" of that evil dragon you defeated will actually fit into an Evian bottle.

There are two ways to handle this:

1. Live with the fact that treasures are small and unexciting in modern D&D.
2. Live with the fact that characters who grab a realistic dragon's hoard become filthy stinking rich and this fundamentally changes the way they interact with society.

Of course, the guys who wrote the Dungeonomicon had the eminent good sense to decouple wealth from character power simply by instituting a single simple rules fix. This let them have their hoard and eat it too.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Too much.

Whether it's million or billions of coins is pretty irrelevant - you can't have Smaug and his hoard in D&D without putting way too much treasure at the PCs' fingertips, unbalancing the game completely.

... well, that's not necessarily accurate. There's absolutely no end of ways you can limit the usefulness of that treasure, or make it more trouble than it's worth. (Well, no - not quite. Any player will tell you there's no trouble they wouldn't go through for 1,000,000,000 gp.)

Just refer back to The Hobbit - what happened after Smaug was killed? Every power within marching distance sent an army to secure the treasure. In a D&D world, there's another issue - you're going to get dozens or hundreds of treasure-hunters trying to steal the hoard. Everyone with the ability and the inclination is going to come at you. All bandits and thieves in the area - which can be a prodigious number - will come at you. Other dragons, monsters, and evil humanoids or giants are going to want both the hoard and the lair.

Lawful or good PCs will find even more problems - under what legal system, exactly, does killing a murderer and robber entitle you to the spoils of their crimes? The original owners or descendants may have not only more right to, but more need of the treasure.


You can have those amazing hoards - but you'll need to give many times the time and thought to the consequences of that treasure's existence and liberation than to the actual dragon and encounter.

[FlyMolo]

A rough approximation: take the length and height of the dragon. Assume it needs a pile the height of the dragon, diameter the length of the dragon, and the coinage fills 1/2 the space a cylinder of that size would take up.

Fairly reasonable. The space one gold coin takes up is 1 inch by 1 inch by 1/27 of an inch. I did the math, don't ask. 27 gp per cubic inch, or 46656 gp per cubic foot. A dragon is about 70 feet long, give or take, and the bed should be 15 feet thick at the deepest. So pi*35^2*15/2 is a buncha cubic feet.

That makes 1,346,492,160 gp. Epic hoards for a colossal dragon, I'm afraid. The reward for a party of 4 level 20 adventurers beating a CR 26 colossal red dragon is only about 300000 gp.

If the dragon is cheap and uses copper, which weighs 559 pounds/cu foot, the bed still requires 28860 cubic feet of coinage. at 2gp/ cubic foot, copper is pretty cheap. A remarkably cheap 57,720 gp for a bed made of copper coins. Well within treasure limits, even assuming it's a giant solid lump. Coins don't pack perfectly, so it'd cost roughly 3/4 of that anyway. Cover with gold and goods, and you've got a great hoard. This is all wrong. 559 pounds per cubic foot. That makes 16 million pounds, at 50 coins to the pound. 806 million coins. 806k gp. Amazingly huge, I'm afraid. Much much cheaper than the same volume in gold, because a) copper is cheaper. b) copper is lighter.

Yeah, go ahead and give your players 806million copper pieces. Then let them try and spend it.

Does that answer your question?

[Emperor Tippy]

Too much.

Whether it's million or billions of coins is pretty irrelevant - you can't have Smaug and his hoard in D&D without putting way too much treasure at the PCs' fingertips, unbalancing the game completely.

... well, that's not necessarily accurate. There's absolutely no end of ways you can limit the usefulness of that treasure, or make it more trouble than it's worth. (Well, no - not quite. Any player will tell you there's no trouble they wouldn't go through for 1,000,000,000 gp.)

Just refer back to The Hobbit - what happened after Smaug was killed? Every power within marching distance sent an army to secure the treasure. In a D&D world, there's another issue - you're going to get dozens or hundreds of treasure-hunters trying to steal the hoard. Everyone with the ability and the inclination is going to come at you. All bandits and thieves in the area - which can be a prodigious number - will come at you. Other dragons, monsters, and evil humanoids or giants are going to want both the hoard and the lair.

Lawful or good PCs will find even more problems - under what legal system, exactly, does killing a murderer and robber entitle you to the spoils of their crimes? The original owners or descendants may have not only more right to, but more need of the treasure.


You can have those amazing hoards - but you'll need to give many times the time and thought to the consequences of that treasure's existence and liberation than to the actual dragon and encounter.

Not really. Why did the dragon still have it's hoard? Because no one with the power to off it had come along and taken it's hoard. The players offed the dragon, therefore they are more powerful than the dragon. So none of those forces that weren't willing to take on the dragon will be willing to take on the PC's.

[sikyon]

Not really. Why did the dragon still have it's hoard? Because no one with the power to off it had come along and taken it's hoard. The players offed the dragon, therefore they are more powerful than the dragon. So none of those forces that weren't willing to take on the dragon will be willing to take on the PC's.

"They got lucky"

And there's your rationalization.

[Citizen Joe]

Dragons have excellent balance and thus are capable of sleeping while balancing on the tip of their tail atop a single copper piece.

[FlyMolo]

Dragons have excellent balance and thus are capable of sleeping while balancing on the tip of their tail atop a single copper piece.

Balance DC for an inch wide object is 40, and a 40HD red dragon (great wyrm) can have a +43 modifier in Balance, plus it's dex. Which is 10, but anyway. So yes it can.

[Ionizer]

Wouldn't some (or most depending on size and subtype of dragon) of the coins be misshapen, compacted, and fused together (more so if the dragon purposely melted the gold [with fire, lightning or acid breath or spells] to conform more readily to it's body [I'd think hundreds of thousands of tiny metal thingies would be uncomfortable to sleep on]). That could make it difficult (or impossible) to remove some of the loot from the lair. Even if you get huge chunks of precious metals out of the hoard, they wouldn't be pure. You'd have copper, silver, gold, and platinum along with common steel, and maybe even more exotic metals like electrum, mithral, and adamantine mixed all together. You would have to pay to have that refined into the different components, perhaps losing a significant portion of some of the more valuable metals in the process. Not to mention any magic items that may be encased in the chunks of loot. You wouldn't want to just toss all the stuff in a furnace because you'd lose valuable items (or dare I say Artifacts?) while cooking off the impurities. So you'd have to pay someone to painstakingly search through the gold-boulders for magic items (keeping in mind that most divinations can't pass through more than an inch of metal) BY HAND, to get all of your loot.

Perhaps it might just be better to donate the large portions of gold to the local town/government/guild/easily bribed official and let them sort it out. Maybe making a pact that any Magic Items of sufficient power (above a specific caster level) are to be returned to you if found.

Spoiler

Show

Dragons have excellent balance and thus are capable of sleeping while balancing on the tip of their tail atop a single copper piece.

Or, you know, you can say the dragon balanced on it's tail while it slept on a much smaller hoard

[Tsotha-lanti]

The players offed the dragon, therefore they are more powerful than the dragon.

That's not quite how it works, though, is it? Especially considering the PCs will have expended a huge amount of resources dealing with the monster. (That, and armies are usually much more capable of dealing with PCs, who probably had to negate the dragon's flight and breath weapon advantages to win, than with said dragons.) Besides, it doesn't matter if none of the individual powers in the area are more powerful than the dragon or the PCs - combined, they're going to be a whole lot of trouble.

Second-to-most-importantly, that's not what everyone else who might want the treasure is going to be thinking.

And most importantly, my way is more fun and plot than yours. Neener.

[Morandir Nailo]

This brings up an interesting point: with the new wealth system in 4e, would it be feasible to go back to having True Dragon Hoards? If you go with the idea that magic items aren't just laying around anymore (nevermind the fact that 4e magic items just aren't as crazy as 3e items), maybe your characters having a gazillion gold pieces wouldn't be imbalancing.

Especially when you consider that there are no more generic stat/skill-boosting items. Yeah, they could probably find those +5 weapons/armor/amulets, but I doubt that their owners would be willing to part with them, even for that much money. And finding those people would probably be a lengthy quest in itself. That's how I plan to run my games anyway, so my PCs just might get to see a real Smaug-level hoard. Sounds fun!

Mor

[holywhippet]

This brings up an interesting point: with the new wealth system in 4e, would it be feasible to go back to having True Dragon Hoards? If you go with the idea that magic items aren't just laying around anymore (nevermind the fact that 4e magic items just aren't as crazy as 3e items), maybe your characters having a gazillion gold pieces wouldn't be imbalancing.

From what I understand of how 4E treasure is meant to be parceled out, you could possibly do it. Basically 4E treasure doesn't require each monster to have it's own personal bundle of loot. Instead, there could be a stockpile of treasure in a particular location representing the collective wealth of the creatures you are facing. So a dragon with an army of minions could be have a really big treasure pile while they have practically nothing.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Just refer back to The Hobbit - what happened after Smaug was killed? Every power within marching distance sent an army to secure the treasure. In a D&D world, there's another issue - you're going to get dozens or hundreds of treasure-hunters trying to steal the hoard. Everyone with the ability and the inclination is going to come at you. All bandits and thieves in the area - which can be a prodigious number - will come at you. Other dragons, monsters, and evil humanoids or giants are going to want both the hoard and the lair.

Y'see, the problem is that I would just see that as 'suddenly, hundreds of lootbearing shambling piles of money are converging on your position - what do I doooo?

[Project_Mayhem]

Wouldn't some (or most depending on size and subtype of dragon) of the coins be misshapen, compacted, and fused together

Oooh, I like this one. I'm just going to rule that the 3*CR is the only stuff thats still usable.

[mostlyharmful]

Oooh, I like this one. I'm just going to rule that the 3*CR is the only stuff thats still usable.

And not all stinked up with dragon musk (serious build-up issues if this thing doesn't change the sheets for hundreds of years....)

[Chronos]

In 2nd edition, it didn't matter that a dragon's hoard was millions of GP, since there was nothing you could possibly spend that much gold on. There were no magic marts, where you could convert those coins into more plusses on your weapons. If you wanted to upgrade your weapon, you had to find a wizard who would (and could) do it for you, and as often as not, the price the wizard was charging wouldn't be in gold, either. Under such a system, a dragon hoard means that you can buy anything that's for sale, but it doesn't matter, because most things aren't for sale.

In 3rd edition, it's generally assumed that there are stores where you can buy any item conceivable, so there is an easy way to convert that wealth into power. So giving the players unimaginable amounts of wealth does mean giving them unimaginable amounts of power, so you can't do that.

[I'd think hundreds of thousands of tiny metal thingies would be uncomfortable to sleep on]

For you or I, maybe. But we're not dragons. Dragons, for mysterious reasons of their own, like sleeping on beds of hundreds of thousands of tiny metal thingies.

[FlyMolo]

Hundreds of millions of tiny metal thingies.

Besides, sorting through gold-boulders would be easily profitable. Imagine, getting paid an ounce of gold for each axe blow. That's like 10 axe blows in a minute, so nearly a pound of gold a minute. gold is like 300$ an ounce. 3000 dollars a minute? sign me up. 180000 dollars an hour. I like those wages. Plus every so often you find a wand or somesuch.

[FlyMolo]

And as for stink, just get a decanter of endless water and hose down the hole shebang. That's pretty effective, actually. Hose down the hole cave, and watch for floaty magic things.

Expensive things will either sink or float, and the barbarian can wade around hacking things apart.

[Lapak]

Plus every so often you find a wand or somesuch.

I couldn't help thinking that this makes the high pay rate look like hazard pay.

*FWAKOOM*

"What was that?"
"Sounds like the miners found another Wand of Fireballs while chopping away with that axe. We lose about three a week that way."

[tyckspoon]

In 2nd edition, it didn't matter that a dragon's hoard was millions of GP, since there was nothing you could possibly spend that much gold on. There were no magic marts, where you could convert those coins into more plusses on your weapons. If you wanted to upgrade your weapon, you had to find a wizard who would (and could) do it for you, and as often as not, the price the wizard was charging wouldn't be in gold, either. Under such a system, a dragon hoard means that you can buy anything that's for sale, but it doesn't matter, because most things aren't for sale.

In 3rd edition, it's generally assumed that there are stores where you can buy any item conceivable, so there is an easy way to convert that wealth into power. So giving the players unimaginable amounts of wealth does mean giving them unimaginable amounts of power, so you can't do that.

The Dungeonomicon suggests a return to the 2nd Edition idea, based on the fact that the rules allow people with access to high-level magic to get gold in pretty much limitless amounts whenever they want it. Therefore, those who can acquire or make high-level magic items won't sell them for just gold- it's not worth it for them to spend large quantities of their time and XP just to get cash. They trade for magically-potent gems, captured souls, crystallized emotions, flasks full of liquid experience, and other rare, magically-powerful things that (important point) can't be replicated with simple magics. One of the benefits of this, as they point out, is that you can safely go back to having really impressive treasure hordes around and all the players can do with it is screw up some economies or have horribly ostentatious golden statues of themselves built. You know, fun stuff instead of buying a +15 Widget of Synonyms Starting With D.

[FlyMolo]

I couldn't help thinking that this makes the high pay rate look like hazard pay.

*FWAKOOM*

"What was that?"
"Sounds like the miners found another Wand of Fireballs while chopping away with that axe. We lose about three a week that way."

Nah, you hire or polymorph the barbarian into something with silly strength. Then the barbarian rages and peels everything apart. By hand.

If he finds a str-boosting item (and he will, eventually), the process accelerates itself.

[kentma57]

Thank for the answers.

[Tsotha-lanti]

In 2nd edition, it didn't matter that a dragon's hoard was millions of GP, since there was nothing you could possibly spend that much gold on. There were no magic marts

What AD&D 2nd edition were you playing? The magic marts were precisely as canon as they are in 3.5.

Aurora's. 'nuff said.

[Inyssius Tor]

Man, you could do all kinds of stuff here. I'm tempted to throw in a dragon sometime in the late Heroic tier now...

...but it might be a little redundant, since I'm planning to give the PCs a young Gold dragon patron in the Heroic tier (who they might end up fighting later on; he's the mayor of an expansionist city-state, and has something of an ends-justify-the-means philosophy). I dunno.

My contribution: gold scarab swarms. Or whatever they are. The little bugs that look just like coins until you piss them off (or, in this case, accidentally set off the magic item that controls them). The idea of fighting great swarms of little golden construct beetles amidst a vast draconic hoard...

[Bayar]

Ah, the fun you could have playing a Xorvintaal campaign. Play as pawns of dragons and raid the horde of other dragons. Monster Manual 5's finest.

[Chronos]

What AD&D 2nd edition were you playing? The magic marts were precisely as canon as they are in 3.5.

The AD&D 2nd edition where magic items didn't even have a GP value. Which one were you playing?