When it comes to handing out treasure, I'm struggling with the "prizes" part of cash and prizes. Sometimes I wonder why I should bother handing out treasure in anything other than gold pieces. Why give out a "gold and silver necklace worth 850gp" when it's just going to be hurled on the pile, sold and divided up?
There's a way to deal with it, of course. It requires me to be more of a hard ass and to be less lazy about treasure. The gold piece value should more clearly be stated to be "retail value." If it's but on the pile and sold it should be worth 1/3 of the retail value (watching "Pawn Stars" long enough, you know it can't fetch more than 1/2 value).
But, here's where the character traits come in. If someone is a jewelry collector, and gets the necklace, he would get 850 xp, as long as the jewelry was kept in his collection. If he was a Lady's Man, he'd get 850 xp if he gave it to his lady.
This solution would require me to be more attentive on the one hand, and would require us to "dice and choose" for all non-coin items, just like we do (sometimes) for magic items. I know that Nigel has pretty much shoved the "dice and choose" method for magic items on the party whenever he's there. That was deliberate, because I just freaking love doing that. For me, it adds a lot to the whole treasure business. I'd love to do it with all items too. It would make treasure a lot more interesting on the whole.
But, treasure division is NOT the DM's perrogative, it is an in-character player-only process. I can try to push it when Nigel is in play, but can't force the group to do it when I'm DM.
P.S. I would like to get some more options for the Character Traits, and get some more clarity about some of the types.
I'm all for forcing the distribution of items, like you're saying. It'd make the DM want to put some more effort into the treasure tables. I had difficulty finding the table for gems and jewelry in the DMG, and when I did I saw all the options for various types of loot. I ended up just saying fudge it, and used generic stuff, knowing it would just be heaped on the treasure pile anyways (though I must admit to a fondness for using bars of precious metals for treasure).
ReplyDeleteThe character traits already cover some pretty broad territory, with a little modification. Like Andrew using Ladies man to have Septimus gain experience for his outlandish attempts to woo Alexandra. I suppose it's up to the players to really customize the broader categories down into something specific for each character. I'm just as guilty of it as anybody else. I think, with my priest, I actually stopped spending on character traits about the time I started building stuff for my own property, about 3rd level or so. The only experience I got otherwise, was for being destructive and burning down Taglak's buildings. I'm honestly surprised more people haven't chosen destructive, given what our group normally does in a session.