The price of the Marsh-dweller treasure

[Hermes Serpent]

AB p116 "Carrying Treasure
Players may burden themselves with their newfound
riches, carrying along chests filled with valuables or
stuffing their pockets with coins.
Every point of Treasure carried translates into one point
of Encumbrance. This means that a character sees his
Fatigue rating increased by one point for every point of
Treasure he chooses to carry."

[Glorelendil]

Personally I wouldn't "punish" the players for wanting the treasure. That'll just make them not enjoy the game. I think it's possible to redirect their energy to make it challenging while demonstrating the spirit of the game.

Hermes Serpent brings up a great point about the weight of the treasure. (Although, I have to say, the official encumbrance ratio of treasure still doesn't make sense to me.) They'll need ponies to carry off very much of it. That creates opportunities for the LM for all sorts of complications, including additional choices between treasure and survival (or moral decisions between treasure and other options.)

In other words, you can just rule "dragon sickness" and give them Shadow Points, or you can create a story in which they realize they actually have succumbed to dragon sickness.

[Hermes Serpent]

When my home troop goes off to collect the Marsh dwellers treasure they'll need ponies and maybe a boat or two to carry all that loot.

I'm probably going with something along the lines of a pony being able to carry 10 Treasure (20 Treasure at half speed).

The abstract Treasure Point only makes some form of sense for bullion (gold and silver loot) as gems are usually valued by measures other than weight. I guess the Arkenstone might have a value of 1000 Treasure Points but will be worth far more than 1000 gold pieces/20000 silver pennies and would weigh a lot less than 1000 Encumbrance.

[Glorelendil]

Even in raw bullion, if 1 Treasure = 1 gold coin, then 4 gold coins has the same encumbrance as a Great Axe.

Really?

That's a lot of psychological burden of carrying around gold in order for that to add up.

[Stormcrow]

"In the end he would only take two small chests, one filled with silver, and the other with gold, such as one strong pony could carry."

The Adventurer's Guide, p. 116 (p. 135 of the new book) says "Silver and gold to last the rest of a middle-aged Hobbit's lifetime" is 500 Treasure Points.

Thus, one strong pony can carry about 500 Treasure Points, plus a hobbit and his gear.

Reasonable? Dunno.

[Murcushio]

For putting Treasure on horses? No.

You could probably add the number of Treasure Points to your traveling encumbrance. However, I can't imagine how Bilbo managed to get 500 Treasure Points home that way!

Alternatively, you can just assume that mounts can bear the weight of any amount of treasure you're likely to carry. Of course, this then leads to characters always leaving their treasure on their mounts.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I've noticed that the published campaign is conspicuously silent on the subject. "You killed the Forest Dragon! Congrats, here's a ton of dosh." Great. We're getting that home how now?

I mean... this isn't D&D, and we're not murder-hobos. But Treasure is deeply tied to Standing, and Standing has a lot of really important roleplaying and Fellowship phase mechanics tied directly to it. "1 Treasure = 1 Fatigue" is very... simplistic. And doesn't seem to account for things like, say, the Arkenstone, or other unique treasures that would logically be worth just an absolute fortune but would then become too heavy to even lift.

[Glorelendil]

And, honestly, if the the party wants to simply go treasure hunting and they overcome all the obstacles one could throw in their way (such as a powerful wight who has moved in with the swamp dwellers, bandits harassing them every step of the way, ponies attracting unwanted attention from large carnivores with sensitive noses, competing claims from the original owner of the treasure, and the corruption of the treasure itself) then I see nothing wrong with each of them becoming moderately rich.

[Hermes Serpent]

Just how much of a bast***d LM would you have to be to have the Marsh Dwellers collapse the tunnel once the company is in the Treasure Chamber?

[Rich H]

I can see what the rules are trying to address with the 1 TP = 1 Fatigue conversion as carrying treasure isn't just about the physical weight it's also the psychological burden of carrying it. A real life example is when I carried a diamond engagement ring abroad from England to Australia; I certainly kept checking that it was there, made sure on numerous occasions that it was safe and panicked if I thought it was missing, feeling palpable relief when I discovered it was safe in the place I'd left it. So, I can certainly see that the rules are trying to represent that kind of situation.

[Evening]

"In the end he would only take two small chests, one filled with silver, and the other with gold, such as one strong pony could carry."

The Adventurer's Guide, p. 116 (p. 135 of the new book) says "Silver and gold to last the rest of a middle-aged Hobbit's lifetime" is 500 Treasure Points.

Thus, one strong pony can carry about 500 Treasure Points, plus a hobbit and his gear.

Reasonable? Dunno.

IMO, Tolkien's knowledge on arms and armour was not very extensive and was drawn from Victorian antiquarians who unfortunately wrongly interpreted many of their functions and uses based on their own romanticised ideals.

I will, however, throw Tolkien a bone here given his academic background and contacts within the academic community and assume he viewed and held actual coin treasure of Frankish, Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon origin. Assuming he did, he knew these coins are/were small (about the size of a US dime or 1970's decimal halfpenny), about 11-25mm, thin, and they weighed hardly nothing.

For example, 1000 gold coins could weigh between 7.5 and 10 lbs. Twenty thousand (silver) pennies could weigh between 45 lbs and 88 lbs. So Bilbo could have easily brought back 5000 gold coins and 20,000 pennies on a stout pony.

It's also hard to say how robust the Shire's economy was and what it was actually based on (like primarily on barter), and we don't have any idea what Bilbo's coin expenses were per year. For example, we have no idea what a gaffer's salary is, or how much a pint of ale or a meal costs. If one penny could buy everyone in a tavern (~40 people) a pint of ale, then Bilbo certainly had enough money for a lifetime. If it's a penny a pint, he could probably only afford to do that twice a year.

I'm not sure the examples of 'worth' Tolkien provided are very helpful since they were intended as a point of context a younger reader would understand and not on some quasi-Anglo-Saxon price list he'd reasoned out, at least not one that we know about. Perhaps his brief mention of 'worth' was taken from those current during his own childhood.

TLDR: Gold and silver coins don't weigh an ounce each.