Alternate Treasure Rules

[zedturtle]

In the thread about Standard of Living, there were concerns about the Rules-As-Written. I had some ideas for that, but the more I thought about it, the less happy I was. So here's a different way to do Treasure that I think accounts for some issues that we've had with the rules as written.

TREASURE

Heroes begins their adventuring careers outfitted with what their families and their culture have been able to provide for them. But in the wide world they may often need items that must be purchased from strangers. The purchasing power of a hero is given as a rating of Treasure and ranges from 1 to 6. All beginning heroes have a Treasure rating of 1.

Standard of Living

A hero's culture determines the type and kind of Treasure that they carry, and how easy it is to agree with strangers on a fair price for a needed good or service. A Woodman may carry fine wood carvings and a few copper coins whilst a Dwarf might have many silver coins and a nugget of gold on his person. The following table gives a base value for each Standard of Living's Treasure tests:
Poor (TN 20)
Frugal (TN 18)
Martial (TN 16)
Prosperous (TN 14)
Rich (TN 12)
Wealthy (TN 10)

Item Costs

It is up to the Loremaster to determine if the cost of the item will affect the Treasure test. Simple goods and basic services should not add to the Treasure test (and might even reduce it) while more esoteric goods and services will increase the cost. Securing the use of a pony or a month's stay at a modest inn should add a +2 TN modifer, whilst a horse or a stay at a fancy inn might be worth a +4 TN modifer.

Treasure Tests

Whenever a character wishes to make a significant purchase of a good or service, the Loremaster may call for a Treasure test. The player rolls the Feat Die, plus a number of Success dice equal to the character's current Treasure rating and compares it to a TN based on the character's Standard of Living, modified if needed by the Item Cost. If successful, the hero has made the purchase without any complications.

If the test fails, the hero has the option to succeed instead by reducing his Treasure rating by one point. For example, if a hero has 3 Treasure and fails the test, he may reduce his Treasure to 2 and succeed. If a hero fails with a Sauron result then the Treasure score must be reduced by two points to succeed.

Gaining Treasure

On occasion, heroes may either find a cache of Treasure or a Hoard and have the opportunity to increase their Treasure rating. Divide the Treasure rating of the find by the number of heroes. If this number is equal to or above a hero's Treasure rating, he may increase his Treasure rating by one.

If a hero cannot (or chooses not to) increase his Treasure rating, he instead gains one bonus Experience Point from the find instead.

Treasure and Encumbrance

Treasure affects a hero's Encumbrance, as explained in the main rulebook.

Treasure and Standing

At Year's End, a hero that has a Standing of 1 or higher must reduce his Treasure rating by one to maintain his current Standing. To increase his Standing to the next higher level, he must spend Treasure equal to that new level instead.

For example, if a character has a Standing of 3, he may pay 1 Treasure in order to remain at 3 or pay 4 Treasure to raise to Standing 4. If he does raise up to Standing 4, the next year he simply need to pay 1 Treasure in order to maintain a Standing of 4.

- - - - - -

Alright, there's a rough draft. Feedback please!

[kimbo]

Hi zedturtle
interesting. I like really like the idea of percieved value of treasure.

something to throw into the mix
regarding Treasure Encumbrance:
The RAW on this dont bear looking at too closely. Making T equal Encumbrance is an odd generalisation. Treasure indicates abstract value but not its density. One could consider treasure in terms of its desnity of value or Quality.

From Laketown pg 13 :
1T =1 gold coin = 20 silver coins = 240 copper coins
Right there you've got three 3 levels of quality of treasure, say High, Medium and Low Quality approximating value density.

So if 3T is same encumbrance as a Longsword = 3 gold coins OR 60 silver OR 720 copper
does 720 coppers seem too high? ... if so,
we could set
Medium Quality Treaure as 1T = 1Enc (silver std),
Low Quality Treasure 1T= 10 Enc (say) (copper std)
High Quality Treasure at 20T = 1Enc

Stuff outside of these ranges are special cases
- less than low quality is not treasure as such, maybe goods or equipment.
- Stuff of greater than high quality are special individual items (gems, magic)

As an example
Consider 500 T – implied to be Bilbo’s cut from the hoard. (From Adventurers Book pg 116)
He brought it home on a pony, a chest of gold and a chest of silver (not including the mithril shirt).

Assuming same sized chests and similar number of coins: this 500T would be approx.
475 gold coins (475T) AND 500 silver (25T)
Enc = 24 + 25 = 50
Enc is more than 2 mail hauberks – it seems not far off

In an uncertain world the smart adventurer would seek to convert treasure into portable/wearable, value-dense items: jewelry of gold, silver and precious stones (rings, earrings, beads, bracelets, necklaces, teeth) not bling but their personal savings.

About Standing and Treasure
What if cost of maintaining Standing depended on your Standard of Living Level.
poor – frugal – martial - properous – rich - Wealthy: (1 to 6)
If your Standard of Living (1 to 5) is same or higher than your Standing: maintenance cost is covered
If Standing is higher: the maintenance is the difference.

my 2 coppers worth
K

[Glorelendil]

Zed,

I like the idea of making SoL (not to be confused with shit-out-of-luck) less abstract. What if SoL correlated to a skill? E.g Poor = 1, Rich = 5?

K,

And I agree with you about the Encumbrance of Treasure. It has been suggested that it represents more than physical weight/bulk, but opportunities for word play on "emotional baggage" aside, I don't buy that.

Others have suggested a 10:1 ratio, but i still don't like it. A single point of fatigue has too much impact on the game ("Phew! I just made my Riddle roll!" "Actually, you forgot to account for that 40T gem you found in the troll hoard; you are Weary and failed the roll.") Or think about this: a magical ring with a blessing has no Encumbrance. A non-magical ring worth 60T is as encumbering as a Helm.

To me it's like counting arrows: ignore it unless it seems relevant to the circumstances.

[zedturtle]

Well the point with these Alternate Treasure rules is that 3 Treasure becomes 'enough to have a reasonable shot at getting pretty much anything you need'. So paying 3 Encumbrance for something that has persistent value (much like weapons and armour do) is a lot more amenable than paying Encumbrance for something transient.

[Glorelendil]

Well the point with these Alternate Treasure rules is that 3 Treasure becomes 'enough to have a reasonable shot at getting pretty much anything you need'. So paying 3 Encumbrance for something that has persistent value (much like weapons and armour do) is a lot more amenable than paying Encumbrance for something transient.

Yeah, I appreciate the logic, but I feel like the rules are already so tight on Encumbrance/Fatigue that there's no room for Treasure.

I mean, it costs a whole Valour point just to reduce Encumbrance by 2. That is indicative of how precious those points are. Would you spend a Valour point that read, "You carry 2 Treasure with no impact on your Encumbrance score." I wouldn't. Or, more accurately, I don't think you should have to.

[Glorelendil]

By the way...I hesitate to bring this up because I don't want to trigger another flame war about Peter Jackson, but the changed detail that for some reason bothers me the most was at the very end: where's the pony with two small chests?

[ThrorII]

I have come to look at Treasure and Standard of Living as two different abstractions.

Treasure is what you find in dragon hoards and troll dens: swords, goblets, bundles of fabric, trade goods, etc. In short, Treasures are bulky goods that have value, but not intrinsic value like coins. Treasures do most certainly contain coins, but not just coins. So 3 Treasure can very easily weigh 3 Encumbrance, because it isn't just 3 gold coins, or 60 silver pennies, it may be 5 gold and jewel incrusted goblets, a chest of silver coins, a box of spices from Dorwinion, a handful of cloak broaches, etc.

Now, Treasure can be given away as gifts to raise your standing (because gift giving is important in Hobbit culture and the dark age European culture that Tolkien emulates). Giving away money is tacky, but giving extravagant gifts is a sign of wealth and bonding.

Standard of Living is your in-pocket coin you could be expected to have, based on your culture or status.

Now, Treasure can also be converted to raise your standard of living. Essentially, you are 'selling' your Treasures for coin, which is lighter and more practical for transactions. Which is why 1 Treasure is enough to raise your standing to Prosperous for 1 month.

That is how I explained it to my group, anyway. I also don't use the Lake-town explanation of 1T = 1gp. I keep Treasure to gold piece value abstract, as in the core rules.


Actually, now as I write this and really think about it, if a Treasure Hoard contained solely coin, or a big chunk of coin, I might just 'skip the middle-man' and allow the player-hero to bypass Treasure and just raise his standard of living by taking coin only. As LM, you'd have to adjudicate how much Treasure was in coin form of course. The player hero would be making a determination to forego "Treasure" and the implied gift giving for Standing, in order to focus on Encumbrance and/or Standard of Living.

You'd also have to decide if a certain amount of coin (Standard of Living) would be the maximum allowed. For example: A Rich SoL equals 24 Treasures a year in spending ability. Since most Adventure phases are at most a season [1/4 a year], you could say 6 Treasures worth of coin is all that can be converted. The rest must be standard Treasures and have the standard 1 T = 1 Enc.

For Example: 5 Player-heroes capture a Goblin hoard worth 10 Treasures. That breaks town to 2T per player-hero. Player's 2-5 decide to take it as Treasures, because they want to raise their Standings. Player-hero 1 is a Woodman who is tired of leaching off his friends at inns, and wants to raise his Standard of Living from Frugal to Prosperous. He informs the LM if he is taking the coins and leaving the other treasures. The LM rules that there is enough coin in the hoard to cover the 2 Treasures the Woodman converts to SoL. Player 1 raises his SoL for 2 months (2 Treasures). Player 1 has no Enc increase, while players 2-5 get 2 Enc increase each.

Example 2: 5 Woodman player-heroes capture a Troll Hoard worth 100 Treasures. That is 20 Treasures each!!!! They can't carry that much, so they tell the LM they are taking coins as SoL (6T x 5 heroes = 18 Treasures) and then carrying an additional 3 Treasures/Enc each in other items. They walk out with 33 Treasures worth of the Hoard, leaving 67 behind for later.

Now, if there are some Precious Objects/Wondrous Items in the Hoard (most likely), then they could carry one each for 1 Enc extra (4 Enc each total), and perhaps each Precious Object is worth an average of 10 Treasures. Now they are all Rich for the rest of the Adventuring Phase, carrying 3 Enc each worth of misc. goods in Treasure, and 1 Enc each of a special treasure (a Precious Object worth 10 Treasures, but only 1 Enc). They now have only left behind 17 Treasures worth of generic bulk items.

[Glorelendil]

it may be 5 gold and jewel incrusted goblets, a chest of silver coins, a box of spices from Dorwinion, a handful of cloak broaches, etc.

Or it might be a single gem that fits in your pocket. Or a ring you wear on your finger.

Which is why I believe it should be situational, like arrows. Sure, when the heroes find 20 Treasure worth of a rare vintage of Dorwinion wine, as LM I would ask, "How do you propose to get this home?"

But finding a ring worth 2 Treasure and telling the Beorning, "Sorry, your Great Strength feat is no longer active" is just...something I would just never do.

[Rich H]

And I agree with you about the Encumbrance of Treasure. It has been suggested that it represents more than physical weight/bulk, but opportunities for word play on "emotional baggage" aside, I don't buy that.

It's really the only way you can explain the encumbrance using in-game-universe logic. Either that or you don't or you alter the rules so they do feel more 'realistic'

.
.
.

Personally, I don't bother with Treasure much in my game so I've made a conscious decision not to apply encumbrance values to it unless it's important/relevant to the plot. I'd rather not waste my energy on explaining and dealing with a part of the rules that I don't think are at all important to the scenarios and campaigns I want to run in Middle Earth. I think everyone at my table has benefited from this way of working.

[ThrorII]

it may be 5 gold and jewel incrusted goblets, a chest of silver coins, a box of spices from Dorwinion, a handful of cloak broaches, etc.

Or it might be a single gem that fits in your pocket. Or a ring you wear on your finger.

I'd rule those single gems or rings worth a full Treasure or more are Precious Objects and have a set Enc of 1 (Rivendell source book).