Treasure - How much to give out?

[Kincaid]

Im looking through all my Conan books and i cant even find a single table on how much treasure to give out per encounter.

I like how experience is just kinda a feeling of when the characters should level but no table for treasure? Thats kinda strange.


Am i missing something.... What are Gm's doing to reward their players?

 

[arderkrag]

The system is built around the Conan stories, and Conan goes through tons of wealth and plenty of poverty...at all levels. Don't tie wealth to level. I don't even tie encounter difficulty to level.

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Exactly, give treasure when it is deserved. Not just for killing a few beings. If the party does something spectacular, give them treasure. If they defeat a vile enemy, and do it in a way that required cunning, tact, stealth, or those perameters, then give them treasure.

One of the things I love about Conan is its lack of Expericience system.

You basically give the experience out as you see fit, same with the treasure.

 

[Spongly]

It doesn't really matter how much treasure you give out - characters lose it pretty fast anyway in Conan.

 

[Hervé]

Yes, that's it. My players find quite often treasures big enough to pay a king's ransom, but usually they don't keep them long. Same about equipment, their weapons & armor get generally lost, broken, stolen or whatever. That's Conan's style!

 

[kintire]

Im looking through all my Conan books and i cant even find a single table on how much treasure to give out per encounter.

Because it doesn't matter.

In DnD you have very careful wealth by level guidelines, because wealth is power. With the vast variety of magical items around you can literally buy power. You can buy many feats (Improved Crit = Keen property for example), attack and damage, supernatural abilities and spells, and even stats. These are in some ways more powerful than the class, or at least than a few levels in it. Thus, the rate at which characters get gold is almost as important as the rate they get xp.

In Conan, this just isn't so. Magic is rare, dangerous and usually one use. Once you have the best armour you can manage and a masterwork sword, that's about the best you can do. Your power is all about the stuff you can do, and very little about the stuff you have. Because of this, wealth per level guidelines are not needed

 

[Clovenhoof]

Pretty much everything has been said, it doesn't matter (much) how much treasure the PCs get. They certainly can't buy overpowered gear because there IS no overpowered gear, thank goodness.

Just let them gain whatever treasure you deem appropriate. If they raid a tiny struggling village whose peasants eat cooked grass, they'll hardly find any amount of silver worth the bother. If they break into the sovereign's vault, however, that's another story.

The main use for cash in Conan is between sessions. High living, spending the reward on ale and whores, well that's about it. The best use of money in-game is that you can bribe your way out of many situations.

 

[Nagisawa]

I don't 'give out' treasure.

I expect my players to take it when they see it.

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Normally, I steal treasure from D&D and modify it accordingly. Any weapon +1 would be a gift from the gods, so to speak. But like others say, they do not keep it long. Several times, things just seemed to vanish from thier persons. NIce to have an NPC thief following every now and then.

 

[slaughterj]

The issue isn't how much treasure the characters get, it's how you get rid of it

 

[librarycharlie]

The issue isn't how much treasure the characters get, it's how you get rid of it

No kidding.

I just had an entire party of decked out 11th level characters stripped naked, marched through the snow for six days, starved, and crucified. When their "healer" contact in the city took them down that night, they were at a total net worth of 0 silver.

One of them lost a toe to frostbite.

Easy come, easy go.

 

[Brass Jester]

I just had an entire party of decked out 11th level characters stripped naked, marched through the snow for six days, starved, and crucified. When their "healer" contact in the city took them down that night, they were at a total net worth of 0 silver.

Ouch!
What had they done: - parked their horses in the wrong place?

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

In AD&D characters get treasure.
In Conan RPG characters get scars. :shock:

 

[The King]

In fact I think it all depends on what your player want to do with it. If they want to create a merchant company or something like this, or purchase a boat or buy themselves a free company, why not give them the opportunity to do it.

 

[slaughterj]

In fact I think it all depends on what your player want to do with it. If they want to create a merchant company or something like this, or purchase a boat or buy themselves a free company, why not give them the opportunity to do it.

Reasonable enough. Though acquiring boats, trade goods to be merchants, etc. can be the direct acquisition which is wealth-equivalent as well.

 

[Krushnak]

a friend recently got iron heroes and the mastering supplement for it and in the mastering book they come up with an interesting idea called wealth feats. basically you buy the feat with gold and and it only lasts aslong as you have the money to keep pouring into it. good mechanic for working out bribes and particuarly useful for nobles and temptresses.

 

[librarycharlie]

I just had an entire party of decked out 11th level characters stripped naked, marched through the snow for six days, starved, and crucified. When their "healer" contact in the city took them down that night, they were at a total net worth of 0 silver.

Ouch!
What had they done: - parked their horses in the wrong place?

Yep. Hyperborea. The year was divisible by nine. They were nailed to trees outside Scythia, then nooses hung around their necks so that if they pulled themselves free or lost consciousness they'd strangle.

From Faith and Fervor:
"Every ninth year, in honour of the defeat of Ymir, human
sacrifices are offered to Bori. Hundreds of prisoners or slaves
are sacrificed and hung from trees. This mass human sacrifice
is illegal in Gunderland but widely practised in Hyperborea."

The fifth day of their deathmarch occurred on the first day of winter, prompting some extra-terrible torments from the Hyperboreans who spent the whole day feasting in front of the starving characters.

FF:
"Korochun Feast: Held on the first day of winter, the
Korochun feast is a feast of the ancestors."

Those who survived gained the endurance feat for free. I agree that in Conan, you get scars rather than cash.

 

[Kincaid]

Either way i would like to see a table for say:

-how much a random npc has on them
-if creatures have a hoard of some sort
-what the average commoner makes in a month
-how much they can make from marauding or killing marauders
-ect.

I think its a cool idea to give wealth by feel, but for those of us who arent comfortable with it yet, id like some examples.

Also if its just by feel, why have prices listed for equipment at all?

 

[Krushnak]

Also if its just by feel, why have prices listed for equipment at all?

so that when a pc asks "can i get a broadsword in this marketplace" you can, how much sp do you have? "ummmm none" well you'd better do something about that shouldnt you.

 

[librarycharlie]

Either way i would like to see a table for say:

-how much a random npc has on them
...
-what the average commoner makes in a month

For what it's worth, the Free Companies guide suggests a base price to hire a mercenary is 4 silver pieces per day. If you figure that soldier has the option to spend between 1 and 2 silver for an ordinary lifestyle, or 3-4 if high living (whores, feasts, etc.), ask yourself how long he's been serving and you get an idea of what he has on him.

Basically an ordinary hired goon will very rarely have more than 10 silver on him at any time. It's dangerous (and noisy!) to carry around more silver than this for an ordinary person.

The FC book also suggests that soldiers/mercs make MUCH more than commoners, so the amount from commoners should generally be nothing. Many peasants rely on barter for trade (a chicken for a large haunch of beef, for example) and don't rely on coins frequently, if at all.

Additionally, there are rules in FC regarding corruption saves if one loots the dead in Hyborea. It's against the culture to do several things (over-pillaging, burning, hurting pregnant women, enslaving all craftsmen, etc.) and can result in a character become twisted by evil.

I find a good way to determine phat l00tz is to roll a d10. If I get a ten, it "explodes," adding on another d10 (which can also explode). This generates an average of around 6 sp per enemy defeated, but can easily escalate if you're slaughtering, say, noblemen.

Nobody feels jacked if the dice are determining the loot. Keep in mind that the equipment most combatants wield (aside from primitives) will be far more valuable (and encumbering) than their purses.