M., T. & J. ask:

I needed to roll up some treasure in the middle of my last session, so I cracked open the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, but couldn’t find any treasure tables! What gives?!

This question seems to be in high demand at the moment and my Let’s Read reactions to the new Dungeon Master’s Guide on the Alexandrian Discord and Bluesky seems to have people reaching out to me for answers.

I understand why the question is being asked. I was also a little confused when I first looked at Treasure in the new rulebooks. But there is a method to the madness, even if the essential information has been spread out between multiple chapters, and once you understand the procedure, it’s pretty straightforward.

TREASURE TYPES

Monsters are assigned a suggested treasure type, often including a treasure theme, in the Monster Manual.

Monetary Treasure can be coins, trade bars, trade goods, gems, or art objects. (DMG p. 213-15) When a monetary treasure value is determined, as described below, use it as a budget to “purchase” an appropriate mixture of monetary treasure.

Individual Treasure: Roll on the Random Individual Treasure table (DMG, p. 120) to determine how much monetary treasure they have.

Treasure Hoard: Roll on the Random Treasure Hoard table (DMG, p. 121) to determine monetary treasure and number of magic items. Then roll on the Magic Item Rarities table (DMG, p. 218) for each magic item to determine its rarity. Finally, use the Treasure Theme to determine their nature.

TREASURE THEMES

The page number for each theme’s random magic items table is given below, as well as the nature of their monetary treasure.

• Arcana (DMG 326): Gemstones
• Armaments (DMG 328): Coins, trade bars.
• Implements (DMG 329): Coins, trade bars, trade goods.
• Relics (DMG 330): Art objects.

Hoard – Any: For this treasure type, monetary treasure can be of any type. Roll 1d4 for each magic item to randomly determine which theme table to roll on (1 = Arcana, 2 = Armaments, 3 = Implements, 4 = Relics).

BONUS: RANDOM MONETARY TREASURE TYPE

One tool missing from the Dungeon Master’s Guide that I think would be useful is a Random Monetary Treasure Type table. This would be useful for both individual treasure and the Hoard – Any treasure type. Use it when you’re having trouble deciding what to use or just to inject a little random inspiration into your adventure.

TABLE: RANDOM TREASURE TYPE

Use this table when you just want to generate one random treasure item type other than coinage. Useful for individual items, but also, for example, what a specialized merchant caravan might be carrying.

TABLE: POCKET CHANGE

The Pocket Change table is designed for rifling through an NPC’s pockets. This table has a strong bias towards the type of monetary wealth a character is most likely to be carrying around in their daily lives.

Interesting Object: This character is carrying mostly coins, but also one unusual item, which will usually have a value of 20% or less of their total monetary treasure. Roll on the Random Treasure Type table (above) to determine type.

Strange Pocket Change: Roll 1d3 times on the Stash & Cache table. Why the heck was this guy carrying around a rare painting and two Avernian rubies?

TABLE: STASH & CACHE

This table can randomly generate all five monetary treasure types. It has a slight bias towards coins, but should give more varied treasures. Consider this table when rolling up the monetary treasure in a Hoard or otherwise stocking a room. For example, what a hag might be keeping hidden under her cauldron or a goblin under their mattress.

PARCELS

To get a more varied stash, divide the total monetary value of the treasure into 1d3 parcels and roll on the Stash & Cache table separately for each parcel. (It’s okay if you roll the same result multiple times. That will just change the ratio between different treasure types and mix things up.)

If you want, you can obviously increase the number of parcels for large hoards. (Although, equally obviously, this will increase the amount of rolling you need to do and will tend to homogenize your treasure results.)

A generic fantasy adventure with some interesting twists on the familiar tropes of the genre. This one deserves a closer look than you might first suspect.

Review Originally Published December 29th, 2000

You’ve seen these RPG books before: Questionable cover art. Amateurish lay-out. “Compatible with any fantasy roleplaying system” (*cough* D&D *cough*).

So you think you know what’s inside: A generic adventure that could have been popped out of a cookie cutter, in a flat fantasy world rip-off populated with paper-thin logic.

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for The Fantastic Adventure. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

So obviously you know exactly what to expect:

Evil villagers send the PCs on a quest for a nonexistent item.

Hold it…

The Fantastic Adventure takes the familiar traits of a fantasy adventure and then gives them just enough of a twist to provide an entertaining gaming experience which keeps your players just a little off-balance.

Basically the adventure goes like this: The people of Westfork have been burned by one too many adventuring parties of questionable morality in the past (just imagine that the Knights of the Dinner Table have come through town one too many times), and have hatched their own plan for revenge. Upon arriving in town the PCs are feted as heroes, but then framed as criminals and forced to seek the Anomaly Stone in order to clear their names.

However, the Anomaly Stone does not actually exist: It is the result of the nightmares of a faerie which have been imprisoned in the nearby ruins of the Auctumnix Monastery. When the PCs go there, they’ll discover the truth… and the faerie.

One last twist: While on their way to the Monastery the PCs will run across a group of horrible “monsters” (a giant, a satyr, a minotaur, and a witch orb). These guys aren’t villains, though: They’re another adventuring group, come to save the faerie (who is the childhood friend of the satyr).

STRENGTHS

In addition to the general cleverness of the central concepts driving The Fantastic Adventure, the entire adventure is set in the Red Marches. In this small slice of their Winter Dark campaign setting (which is available as a separate product), Troll Lord Games has created a really nice, generic fantasy area. The primary economy here is driven by the forest’s rilthwood trees, which are tall, white, and, in the fall, covered with bright red leaves (hence the name Red Marches). Its a simple concept, but one which results in an area which is subtly alien,  successfully capturing the essence of the fantastic without having to blow the players away with fireball-like intensity.

This is nicely done – showing a subtle creativity and attention to detail which many larger companies lack — and makes me look forward to reading the complete campaign setting.

WEAKNESSES

The Fantastic Adventure has a good idea – take the tropes of fantasy and turn them on their head – but like an injured quarterback it never runs with it. I would have liked to see the villagers deliberately send the PCs on a dangerous and misguided fool’s errand (perhaps complete with the catch that, if the PCs succeed, they will have mistakenly done a great wrong). I would have liked to see the encounter with the monstrous adventuring group (a nice twist in and of itself, mind you) designed so that there was a greater chance of the PCs mistakenly attacking their counterparts. And so forth. There is a hesitancy about embracing the really cool idea on which The Fantastic Adventure is based which, unfortunately, flaws what had the potential to be a really outstanding module.

The other problems here are entirely aesthetic: The cover artwork and lay-out on the product is poorly done – lending the entire product an extremely amateurish feel.

CONCLUSION

The Fantastic Adventure is a little shaky, but the foundation is fairly solid – with a couple of easy tweaks you could easily transform this one into a real winner. A couple of other nice touches definitely make this one worth the measly $5 the Troll Lords are asking for it.

Note: Troll Lord Games is planning to release The Fantastic Adventure, along with the modules Mortality of the Green and Vakhund — which I hope to be reviewing shortly – on a CD-ROM, complete with D20 conversions. You can check out their website.

Style: 2
Substance: 3

Grade: B-

Title: The Fantastic Adventure
Authors: Mac Golden
Company: Troll Lord Games
Line: Sword & Sorcery
Price: $5.00
ISBN: 0-9702397-3-4
Production Code: TLG1301
Pages: 24

I’ll be honest, until this review cued up in my reprint queue, I had completely forgotten The Fantastic Adventure. It was a weird opportunity to read a review I had written while having no actual memory of the book I was describing.

What I do remember, and what this review reminded me of, is how much I truly adored Troll Lord’s campaign setting. Even now it’s hard to describe what I found so enchanting about it. There was something richly textured and deeply mythological. There was beautiful imagery woven into a tapestry that tempted you to step through into its fantastic realms.

Several years later I ended up working on a couple of books for Troll Lord Games. I wish I had been paid for them.

The Fantastic Adventure has been updated and re-released several times: Under the D20 System trademark for D&D 3rd Edition, then for Troll Lord’s Castles & Crusades game, and then again for D&D 5th Edition.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

I don’t like vicious mockery.

It’s a weirdly dissociated mechanic. If you kind of squint at it in the right light, you can almost see an association. Magically enhanced insults so utterly devastating that they can literally kill you with psychic damage seem like a thing you put your thumb on.

But can you actually describe in character what the spell is doing? If a bard casts vicious mockery and kills a dolphin, what actually happens? If you’re targeted by the spell, what does it feel like?

Your mileage may vary, but this is one of those mechanics that, when the players trigger it, I’m completely uncertain how to describe what actually happens. That’s a red flag, in my opinion. (See, also, non-divine guidance.) More often than not, it feels like casting the spell means we all disconnect from the game world for a bit, do some dice stuff, and then reconnect to the game world with no clear description of anything actually happening (except maybe someone keeled over and died).

Alternatively, you’ve got the issue where players feel like they need to improvise the insult they hurl at the target of the spell. (Or, often, the DM will demand it of them.) That, too, seems fine. But, if we can be honest for a moment, how easy do you find it to improvise an insult so withering that someone falling over dead after hearing it seems like a reasonable outcome?

What actually happens most of the time, of course, is a sort of comical mismatch:

Player: I call the dolphin “fish-face”!

DM: This insult overwhelms the dolphin, who instantly dies!

Yes, I understand that the insult has been “laced with subtle enchantments.” But, again, what does that actually look like?

The mechanics of the spell — first introduced in the Player’s Handbook 2 for 4^th Edition before being adapted for the 5^th Edition Player’s Handbook — are also getting more dissociated over time. In 2014, for example, your target had to hear the insults, “though it need not understand” them. (Which kind of raises the question of why it needs to be an insult at all.)

In the 2024 Player’s Handbook, however, this requirement is dropped. The target of the spell is now “one creature you can see or hear within range.”

So we’ve gone from insults that drive your foe into a blind rage to a spell where the target doesn’t even need to understand what you’re saying (I guess they can just tell from your tone) to, today, your target standing in a silence spell while unable to see you, but still being completely wrecked by how mean you’re being to them.

Mechanically speaking, though, there’s nothing wrong with “Wisdom save or suffer damage and disadvantage on your attack roll.” It also provides pretty core functionality for bards, so I don’t want to just nix it from my game.

So can we tweak the presentation of vicious mockery to achieve the same or similar mechanical effect without the issues?

ETHEREAL SONATA

With the aid of subtle enchantments, you pitch your voice so that it vibrates through the Ethereal Plane instead of through air. As these ethereal tones resonate with a target you can see and who can hear you, they psychically damage and discombobulate them.

VICIOUS MOCKERY (REDUX)

You utter an epithet from the primal ur-language which was used by the gods to carve the minds of the first sentient races in the multiverse. Infusing the curse with magic, you precisely tune it to a target you can see and who can hear you. On a failed Wisdom saving throw, the target’s mind momentarily rewrites itself, shaking them with the sudden belief that your disparagement is utter truth.

SONIC BARRAGE

Weaving your magic, you tune and focus the perfect pitch of your choice into a killing word directed at a target you can see and who can hear you.

Note: This version would be an evocation cantrip dealing thunder damage instead of psychic damage.

FURTHER READING
Guidance Sucks in 5th Edition

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 41B: The Return of Arveth

At Myraeth’s, they found a bag of holding formed from links of golden chain with a dragon worked in crimson links within it. It was larger than the ones they already owned and Tee – envying the dragon design – was depressed to find it was too bulky and heavy for her to carry.

Ranthir took it instead, nesting it among his many bags and pouches.

Something you may notice throughout the campaign journal is me giving specific, unique descriptions to various items. Sometimes I’ll even go so far as to prep visual handouts for them.

This is probably even more prevalent at the actual table, since only the most notable or pertinent examples actually make it into the journal.

(I should mention that I’m not prepping all of these ahead of time. A lot of them – including the bag of holding described above – are being improvised at the table. The principles of smart prep apply here.)

Some of these descriptions end up being ephemeral – useful for a moment to conjure an image of the world before the inner eyes of the players, but otherwise largely or entirely forgotten.

Others, however, will stick.

Which ones?

Nobody knows.

Sometimes I try to predict it (“this is so cool, they’ll obviously remember it forever!”), but I’m almost certainly wrong more often than I’m right. What sticks with this sort of thing is usually a lot more situational than you might think. Attention and memory can be fickle things, and which objects sentimental value and notoriety attaches to often has at least as much to do with what’s happening to both characters and players at that precise moment as it does the object itself.

The point, though, is that for anything to stick you have to keep throwing stuff out there. Enough stuff that you can start winning the numbers game.

Although, on the other hand, you don’t want to throw out so much stuff that it overwhelms the players and becomes indistinguishable noise. Not every rusty sword the PCs find in a moldering crypt needs to be lovingly detailed. And, if you are giving an item the bespoke treatment, you don’t need to lavish it with multiple paragraphs. Usually just one or two cool details will get the job done. (Maybe three on the outside.) Even if you know that not every item you describe will ultimately stand out, you still want every object to have the opportunity to do so.

Which is why, in D&D, I’ll often focus this descriptive detail on magic items. It inherently narrows the field for me. I also want magic items to feel special. For example, it’s easy for every bag of holding to glob together into a generic nonentity, and they really shouldn’t.

(Although by no means should this dissuade you from occasionally hyping up a mundane item with a cool description. It certainly doesn’t stop me.)

This is not going to be a comprehensive discussion of all the different ways you can give objects cool descriptions, but here are a few things I like to think about.

First, what’s the utility of the object? What does it actually do? How could that be reflected in the structure of appearance of the object?

For example, a staff of fire gives its wielder resistance to fire damage and can be used to create flame-based effects (burning hands, fireball, wall of fire). Some quick brainstorming suggests various options:

• Someone attuning to the staff is limned in a flickering flame.
• The staff is topped be a large ruby, inside which is trapped an eternally burning flame (and all the various fire spells blast out from this ruby).
• The entire staff is actually made from a frozen flame.
• The staff is warm to the touch.
• When one attunes to the staff, it scorches the hand holding the staff, leaving a brand depicting the arcane sigil of the wizard who created it.
• The staff is a long shard of obsidian, split down the middle. To create one of the staff’s fire effects, pull the two ends of the staff apart, revealing the heart of flame held within.

Second, add one other purely decorative or incidental detail. If the utility hasn’t already added some flash to the item, this is a good opportunity to do so. These details might also suggest ownership, origin, or similar information. (Which may just be flavor, but could also reveal relevant information about the situation or scenario.)

Let’s do another one. A keycharm, from Eberron: Rising from the Last War, allows you to cast alarm, arcane lock, and glyph of warding spells that alert the holder of the keycharm if they’re triggered or bypassed. The item description suggests that this looks like a “small, stylized key.” If we stick that, we might still look at options like:

• The key is formed from a black stone with strange purple veins running through it.
• The key is made from taurum, the true gold and its bow bears the sigil of House Abanar.
• The key is a living “bud” sprouted from the heartwood of a dryad’s tree by druidic arts.
• A plain key of battered copper, but the bits of the key are a whirling, ever-shifting blur.

As you’re improvising these descriptions, remember that you can put your thumb on the scale of the party’s reaction by thinking about what you know the players or their characters already love (e.g., Tee’s infatuation with dragons) or hate.

(I would honestly pay good money for a book that was just a dozen different “looks” for every magic item in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.)

Campaign Journal: Session 41C – Running the Campaign: Home Bases
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 41B: THE RETURN OF ARVETH

August 15th, 2009
The 22nd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“That’s her,” Arveth said.

Another cultist stepped through the door behind her and swung it shut.

In the next room down, Seeaeti was aware that something was wrong. He stood up and started barking at the wall. Agnarr let him out into the hall… but missed the tail-end of the ambush by mere seconds.

The cultists started clubbing Tee, who managed to avoid the worst of it by rolling with the blows and tossing around in the cushions… until Arveth stepped forward and slipped a dagger between her ribs. “They took my eye, bitch.”

Tee, who had been screaming, gasped in pain.

Agnarr hadn’t heard her muffled screams because Seeaeti was still barking loudly. (“What is it, boy? What is it?”) But Ranthir heard the screams through the walls and rushed into the hall. He quickly told Agnarr what he had heard and then hurried on to Tor’s door.

The cultist who had followed Arveth into Tee’s room dropped a silence spell over it, abruptly cutting off Tee’s screams.

Agnarr ran down the hall and threw himself against the door… but it held firm. Elestra, wakened by Seeaeti’s barking (but oblivious to the cause) also came out into the hall. Ranthir, beating on Tor’s door, managed to rouse the scarce-sleeping knight. He rushed back to his own room… just in time to see Tee thrown out of her window in a silent, cascading shower of glass. She hit the pavement below with a sickening thud.

Ranthir ran back into the hall and shouted to the others what had happened. Elestra ran past him, through his room, and jumped out the window, tumbling onto the jutting corner of the first floor below and from there down to Tee’s prostrate form.

Unfortunately, Elestra was seen by the cultists above. One of them – the one who had followed Arveth into the room – leapt to the first floor roof himself. Whirling he lowered his hands and sent forth a wave of flame which Elestra narrowly ducked under.

Arveth was close behind him, leaping directly to the ground with acrobatic aplomb. Her sword was out and she attacked Elestra before she could reach Tee’s side.

Above, Tor had pushed his way past Agnarr and also thrown himself ineffectually against the door. Agnarr, frustrated past words, drew his greatsword and just started hacking. As the door fell apart into smoldering kindling, they saw that the thugs had ganged up on the other side of the door. Tor sent one staggering back, trying to hold his intestines together. The others fell back cautiously into a defensive line.

Below, Elestra drove Arveth away and then dove for Tee. She managed to release a burst of healing energy into Tee’s torso just before the cultist arcanist hit her with a second blast of fire. Tee rolled to her feet, grabbed Arveth, activated her boots, and levitated up into the air.

Ranthir, looking out from his window above, threw a web, trapping the arcanist and webbing up the window of Tee’s room to stop additional reinforcements from escaping. The arcanist responded by twisting within the webs and hurling a magical epitaph in Ranthir’s direction. In a burst of flame, a black leopard with burning coals of fire for eyes and a throat of flame appeared before the rapidly backpedaling Ranthir.

The creature’s claws caught and tore at him as he stumbled back through the door into the hall. Ranthir cried for help, but Agnarr and Tor – fighting in the pervasive magical silence of Tee’s room – were oblivious to his need. Despite Seeaeti’s brave efforts to intervene, Ranthir collapsed in a gurgle of blood.

But Seeaeti was successful in keeping the fiendish leopard from finishing its work. Hounding the leopard, Seeaeti was able to draw it back into Tee’s room. There, the leopard earned the wrath of Agnarr when the barbarian saw what it had done to his faithful dog. Tor, meanwhile, was able to finish off the panicked and trapped cultist thugs.

Tee, now floating high above the street, tried to gouge out Arveth’s other eye. But Arveth caught her wrist and managed to twist the dagger around to scrape it painfully across her ribs on the left side. Twisting the knife free from Arveth’s grip, Tee almost managed to choke the life out of her—

Before the arcanist struck her in the back with another blast of fire. In the burst of pain, Tee’s vision turned black and her mind slipped away… her boots stopped working…

And they both plunged to the ground below.

Arveth managed to roll slightly with the blow, cracking several ribs and breaking an arm, but alive. The unconscious Tee, on the other hand, fell helplessly. There was a sickening crunch as her head struck first and her neck snapped.

With Tee dead, Elestra unconscious, and everyone inside the inn completely unaware of what was happening outside, Arveth easily escaped.

But only by mere moments. Seconds later, the others arrived in the street below. Healing potions were poured down Elestra’s throat and then she called upon the strength of the Spirit of the City to revive Tee.

PARANOIA IS BUT A FEAR UNPROVEN

The ambush had shifted something inside of Tee. Just a few hours before she had been counseling Tor on the virtues of compassion, but now she had no mercy for any of them. The thought of Arveth – her endless haughtiness; her insatiable cruelty – filled Tee with a silent rage, compounded by the flashing images of Wuntad; the abominations of the cults; and the humiliations and agonies that had been visited upon her, her friends, and the people of her city.

But Tee’s immediate thoughts were consumed by Nasira: If this attack was a retaliation for their assaults on the Rat God and Ebon Hand temples, Nasira would be in danger, too. While the others stayed for damage control at the Ghostly Minstrel, she and Agnarr raced out into Delvers’ Square and haled a carriage.

When they reached the Welcome Inn, however, they found Nasira unmolested. Looking at the still bruised and battered Tee, however, Nasira’s brow knit in concern. “What happened?”

Tee gave a quick summary of the ambush at the Ghostly Minstrel. “It might be best if you came back with us. There’s safety in numbers.”

Nasira agreed, if for no other reason than because she had befriended the innkeepers Markus and Valene Schuk. This friendly older couple and their daughters (Rona and Illene) had been the only people to make Nasira feel welcome in Ptolus before she had met the rest of them, and she had no desire to bring trouble to their door. Nasira explained the situation to them, promised to keep in touch, and paid her bill ahead for two more weeks. Then she and Tee joined Agnarr in the waiting carriage and headed back towards the Ghostly Minstrel.

At the Minstrel, meanwhile, Elestra had gone to tell Tellith of the attack. Tellith was shocked at first, but her shock quickly turned to outrage and then to apologies. After a few minutes, Tellith came upstairs with Elestra.

While Elestra had been talking to Tellith, however, the others had kept busy: Tor hauled the unconscious cultist arcanist into Ranthir’s room while the others looted the bodies of the thugs (on whom they found golden bell charm bracelets).

Elestra reassured Tellith that Tee was all right and had merely gone to check on a friend to make sure they were okay. Tellith realized that the watch needed to be notified and left to do so.

Meanwhile, the arcanist was roughly woken up and questioned. His name was Nikkei. He told them that the attack was in retribution for the betrayal of “Laurea” and the attack on the Temple of Deep Chaos. Once “Laurea” had been identified as Tee, it was a simple matter for them to find her at the Ghostly Minstrel.

Satisfied (more or less), they knocked Nikkei unconscious again and waited for the guards to arrive. Which they did shortly thereafter.

“Oh, it’s you again.” Naturally Tellith had gone to the watch station just across Delvers’ Square. And, naturally, they were blessed once again with the blustering fellow who they had first met after a shivvel addict had tried to mug Ranthir.

The watchmen questioned all of them bluntly and performed a cursory inspection of Tee’s room and the street outside.

“And where is the victim?” one of them asked with suspicion.

“I’m right here,” Tee said, walking up with Nasira at her side.

“And where have you been?”

“Checking on a friend.”

The watchmen were taking a generally hostile tone, but Tee wasn’t impressed with their bluster. Finally one of them blurted out, “Just don’t leave town.” Tor laughed and Tee rolled her eyes.

“We’re not planning on it. But I’m glad you’re so concerned for our well-being. What were your names again? I’d like to mention you to the Commissar next time I see him. I just want to tell him what a fine job you’re doing…”

The watchmen exchanged nervous glances and then backed down. Tee and Tor turned Nikkei over to them before they left (although Tee would have preferred to slit his throat first).

Once the watch were gone, however, they were forced to consider what Nikkei had told them: It was their worst fear, and only confirmed what Malkeen’s appearance in Tee’s room two weeks before had suggested. Not only were they known, but they could be found. And easily.

This left them with the tough choice of what to do next: Should they leave the Ghostly Minstrel? And if they did, where would they go?

Without any clear answers, they bedded down. Tee wanted no part of her own room again, and they all thought it wise to stay close through the night. Half of them slept in Tor’s room and the rest in Elestra’s suite.

THE DREAMS OF TEE & ARVETH – PART 1

That night Tee reached out through the Dreaming in an effort to infiltrate the dreams of Arveth. She hoped to plague them with nightmares of losing her remaining eye. Or perhaps falling forever. Or both.

Unfortunately Tee found her own thoughts conflicted, and Arveth’s dreams proved impenetrable. But she vowed that she would try again the next night. And every night, if necessary, if it meant that she could eke out at least a small slice of revenge.

Running the Campaign: What the Magic Looks Like – Campaign Journal: Session 41C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index