Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalin
The issue of leveled treasure reminds me of a bizarre element in the latest edition of The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh. An alchemist, wanting to falsely claim that he had developed the philosopher's stone, had a set of solid-gold objects crafted to make it seem like he had transformed them. The book describes them as solid, life-size, and "pure gold." But, because it is a 1st level adventure, their values are absurdly low. The solid gold apple was worth 5gp and the human skull was worth 20gp. (An apple made from five D&D gold pieces would have a diameter of roughly 2/3 of an inch.) One would need to conclude that the workmanship was so terrible that these objects were actually worth far less than the volume of gold that they contained. Or maybe the ostensible philosopher's stone was also a stone of shrinking.
If you want solid gold objects in an adventure, then they should be worth their weight in gold (at a minimum). The challenge then is to place them in a way that it is plausible that they would have been untouched by others.
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It's amusing to me the coincidence that you would mention that particular adventure. I'm prepping the
original Saltmarsh to run in GURPS (which works great, as the original really emphasizes thinking and NOT killing stuff). In the original, the wizard
was an alchemist and had transformed objects into gold, but the apple was worth 150 gp, and the skull was worth 750gp. Given the size of a human skull, and the value of gold, that would be an
insanely valuable lump of gold in any GURPS/DFRPG system, but it is at least a little more in line with standard D&D gold valuation and weight. I wonder what the heck happened?
Looking at it now, the original Saltmarsh is written much more in line with Kromm's line of thinking on loot placement. If the low level D&D characters (as low as level 1 each) play smartly, they can apprehend smugglers and not only get several gold objects, they can acquire an entire sailing vessel and all the cargo. Even after the excise paid to the town, and sharing out lots with the town excisemen who help them, they can get huge monetary rewards, and may not have to fight more than 2 gnolls, 2 wizards, and some smugglers (who will surrender readily if badly outnumbered as well). It's immense rewards against people who weren't expecting to fight anyone, and who have little reason to be strongly geared up for a fight.