This time around I’m looking at dropping shiny new Fourth Edition Treasure Parcels all over the Sunless Citadel, replacing the existing goodies with something that’s more in line with 4e’s “separate treasure from encounters” philosophy. I know that in practise it makes little difference as we always put the treasure down as a reward for fighting the bad guys, but it’s great to think of the treasure “package” as a whole, then divide out the spoils where you see fit.
I’m using Quartermaster to generate the treasure. Normally this would go against the grain – 4e encourages you to tailor the treasure to suit the player’s needs – but I’m eager to see how Quartermaster performs. I’ll leave the Weapon and Armour type generic (apart from Shatterspike‘s replacement, which will be a Longsword) so they can easily be adapted to the party’s needs. Good compromise, no? :D .
As I expect the players to be at least 3rd level by the end of the adventure that’s 3 lots of Treasure Parcels – one for levels 1, 2 and 3 – to scatter around the place. I set the generator to use only the Core Books (PHB, MM and DMG) and off we go.
Part one – 1 to 21
This is the first part of the adventure leading up to the Dragon Throne encounter. The generator throws out no Potions of Healing (is this a bug/feature?), but that’s quickly fixed by swapping out cold hard cash for Potions, 50gp a pop.
Taking Quartermaster’s output and spreading it out gives me this, again keyed by encounter/room number:
3. [57.6 gp]: One Potion of Healing, 71 sp, 50 cp
5. [Level 2 Magic Item]: Cloak of Resistance +1 (Player’s Handbook, page 250 (Neck Slot Items))
10. [Level 3 Magic Item]: Gloves of Piercing (Player’s Handbook, page 247 (Hands Slot Items)) & [180 gp]: 176 gp, 36 sp, 40 cp
12. [Level 4 Magic Item]: Thunderburst Weapon +1 (Player’s Handbook, page 236 (Magic Weapons)) & [122.4 gp]: 118 gp, 38 sp, 60 cp
15. [43.2 gp]: Four Jade Dragon Figurines worth 40 gp, 27 sp, 50 cp
20. [122.4 gp]: One Potion of Healing, 63 gp, 88 sp, 60 cp
21. [Level 5 Magic Item]: Rod of Reaving +1 (Player’s Handbook, page 240 (Rod)) & [201.6 gp]: Two Potions of Healing, 92 gp, 89 sp, 70 cp
If the Room contains a magic weapon or armour, it’s going to be used by any monster in there too. This is Very Bad News in Room 12 when the players will face off against a Troll wielding a Thunderburst weapon. Insert evil laugh here.
That’s taken 5 minutes do to, including generating the Treasure Parcels for levels 2 and 3. I’ll allocate and post those up later today.
Coming up: Rooms 22 to 41, and 42 to the end. After that I’ll do the second pass through the monsters to collate the encounters (and reduce the body count!) then post this up as a free PDF. Because I’m nice that way.
Time so far: 1 hour
