Treasure: What Hommlet Tells Us

Yesterday I discussed one possible solution to the problem of slow advancement due to small amounts of treasure in AD&D.  As I mentioned, this was a problem that particular loomed over my Nightwick Campaign.  I found this somewhat odd as I was generating treasure more or less by the book, so I decided to look into it. Yesterday's solution focused on increasing the amount of xp a single gold piece provides.  Today I'll talk about the method I'm actually using in the Greyhawk campaign: increasing the amount of treasure.

This method is not without precedent.  Quasqueton at EN World was kind enough to do some of my work for me.  Since it is a starter module written by Gary Gygax and designed specifically with AD&D in mind I'll be primarily focusing on T1: The Village of Hommlet.  According to Quasqueton's figure, whcih I sadly have not had time to confirm, the total value of the treasure in the module is 30,938gp. 

A large sum, especially when compared to the amounts suggested for a first level dungeon in the DMG.  In total, the moat house consists of 35 rooms, well below the hypothetical 100 I used for yesterday's example.  It somehow manages to provide ten times the amount of treasure that would be allowed using the DMG's method.  How do we square this?

It's likely that Gygax was aware of the slow pace of advancement with the above system and that he inflated the treasure to compensate.  The method I used in my version of Castle Greyhawk provided a similar amount of treasure.  Obviously that's a much bigger structure, but there is quite a bit more empty space in it than there is in the moathouse. 

This method works best if one maintains the other rules as they are.  Upkeep and training are designed to take away this excess coinage so that the players don't screw up the campaign economy -- which is different from the economy of the milieu.  It strikes me that Gygax likely sought to solve the new problem created by training costs rather than changing everything over to a silver standard.  I'm not sure what his motivation would be, but I've more or less replicated his fix so I can't complain too much.

Now to put a fly in the ointment.  Yesterday, -C commented "I thought AD&D changed the rules so that you recieved 1xp per 5gp, so that you would accumulate more money between levels, allowing you to pay for things like training."  This makes some sense; however it wouldn't solve the bigger problem of the pace of advancement.  If you use the rules in the DMG as is, it would take even longer to level up because each PC would still be only getting 600gp on the first level.  Now they only have 120xp from gold.  Even the inflated amounts don't hold up to this metric.  The moat house would only give a total of 1,031xp for treasure, which isn't even enough for a thief to level off of.

Ultimately, I think it's best to use whatever works for your campaign and your group.  If you're looking for a more realistic economy, then increasing the xp from gp is probably the way to go.  If you prefer piles of coins to realism, then it's probably better to just use the rules as is and up the treasure substantially.

Treasure, Experience, and the AD&D Economy

For some reason, perhaps it is my reinvestigation into Harn as a setting, I've been thinking about the AD&D economy quite a bit lately.  I can't remember where, but there was a thread on some forum that discussed a comment from Gygax saying he might have changed experience for treasure to a 5xp to 1gp ratio.  A commentor stated that they believed this would be coupled with a switch to a silver system, which would actually mean an overall reduction of xp.*

Assuming for a minute the two do coincide, I don't think it would actually mean fewer xp.  When one looks at the Standard Hirelings Table on page 28 of the DMG, the monthly costs for most of them don't go above 5gp, with the notable exception of Limner.  So a tailor would make 18gp in a year.  This is less than the PCs would make in even an unsuccessful delve.  The general economy would likely be powered by sp.  The high prices for weapons and armor are reflective of the pseudo-medieval/early modern society that AD&D seeks to represent.  Gold hoards are found in dungeons because they're the remnants of the golden age that made them.

So let us assume that the 5xp/1gp ratio is designed with the current economy presented in the PHB and DMG in mind.  One thing I noticed using the treasure rules as written for Nightwick Abbey was that after 25 sessions (c. six months) only one PC was level 3.  This strikes me as an incredibly slow rate of advancement, especially if one remembers Old Geezer's tale.  Granted that's a different system than AD&D, but they're obviously related.

For the sake of argument, let's see what this new ratio does to a hypothetical dungeon.  Based on the stocking chart in the DMG, a 100 room dungeon should have 20 rooms with treasure in it.  Using one possible reading of the rules, which will skew high, treasure is determined entirely by the level of the dungeon and not the monsters present.  Using Kellri's  Old School Encounters Reference, our hypothetical dungeon has about 3,600 gp on its first level.  A party of 6 would only get about 600xp from clearing out all of the dungeons treasure.  Now I don't have to tell you that's barely a drop in the bucket on an Prestidigitator's path to becoming an Evoker.  If you assume 5xp for 1gp though, the total xp available becomes 18,000 on the first level.  That's 3,000 a pop for our hypothetical party of 6.  If we assume a high number of 8, that's still 2,250, which is a much bigger boon to that aforementioned Prestidigitator.

The problem then comes with Training Costs.  If that Prestidigitator managed to get the 3,000 experience from clearing all of the dungeon, he still would only have 600gp to spend.  Ignoring upkeep, he still can't pay the training costs to level up.  This brings up the ultimate question: what is the pace of advancement supposed to be in AD&D?  Even with the inflated xp advancement is just as glacial as it was in the Nightwick campaign.  It would possibly be even slower. 

Somehow, I don't think this is the goal.  It could be a function of Gygax's game meeting more often than most modern groups or it could be that I'm a relentless powergamer for my belief that it shouldn't take six months to get to level three or the system could just be poorly thought out.  A the end of the day, I'm still not sure what to think.  While I won't adopt it for my current Greyhawk campaign -- instead I chose to inflate the treasure -- the 5xp to 1gp system is very attractive, if only because it allows me to use the treasure rules as written. 

The training costs strike me as highly unrealistic.  In a world where a light-footman makes 12gp in a year, it would seem unreasonable that his sergeant must pay 1,000gp just to train for a few weeks.  I imagine it's a way to get gold out of the players hands, but if you're only getting 604gp each dungeon level, that doesn't really strike me as game breaking.