Dungeon stocking is tricky. Over and over, people ask "How much treasure should I include per room / dungeon level / PC?"
The answer varies enormously between games, GMs, and systems.
At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts. - Men and Magic
OD&D, with its enormous groups (has no guidelines. AD&D and B/X, with smaller groups, have procedures for dungeon stocking, but not for group size calibration.
I didn't intend to include a stocking procedure when I started to write the Treasure Overhaul, but testing showed that one was necessary, if I wanted room treasure values to make sense in context. If you'd like to get a preview of the compact 3-page dungeon generator, it's available on my Patreon.
As previously discussed, calculating average treasure value is misleading. Any treasure that includes Gems and Jewellery will have a very skewed distribution.
AD&D Room Stocking Method
| 1d20 | % | Room Contents |
| 1-12 | 60% | Empty |
| 13-14 | 10% | Monster Only |
| 15-17 | 15% | Monster & Treasure |
| 18 | 5% | Special or Stairway |
| 19 | 5% | Trick/Trap |
| 20 | 5% | Treasure Only |
| 1d100 | % | Treasure (Without Monster) |
| 1-25 | 25% | 1,0000cp / level |
| 26-50 | 25% | 1,0000sp / level |
| 51-65 | 15% | 750ep / level |
| 66-80 | 15% | 250gp / level |
| 81-90 | 10% | 100 pp / level |
| 91-94 | 4% | 1d4 gems / level |
| 95-97 | 3% | 1 piece of jewelry / level |
| 98-00 | 3% | Magic (roll once on the Magic Items Table) |
With Monster: Roll twice on the Without Monster table and add 10% to the total of each roll.
B/X Room Stocking Method
This is one of the rare cases where B/X method is more complicated than AD&D, for no real benefit.
| 1d6 | % | Room Type |
| 1-2 | 33.3% | Monster |
| 3 | 16.6% | Trap |
| 4 | 16.6% | Special |
| 5-6 | 33.3% | Empty |
| 1d6 | % | Is Treasure Present? |
| 1 | 16.6% | Monster: Y, Trap: Y, Empty: Y |
| 2 | 16.6% | Monster: Y, Trap: Y, Empty: N |
| 3 | 16.6% | Monster: Y, Trap: N, Empty: N |
| 4-6 | 50.0% | Monster: N, Trap: N, Empty: N |
Treasure:
| Dungeon Level | SP | GP | Gems | Jewelry | Magic Items |
| 1 | 1d6x100 | 50%: 1d6x10 | 5% 1d6 | 2% 1d6 | 2% any 1 |
| 2-3 | 1d12x100 | 50%: 1d6x100 | 10% 1d6 | 5% 1d6 | 8% any 1 |
| 4-5 | 1d6x1,000 | 1d6x200 | 30% 1d6 | 10% 1d6 | 10% any 1 |
| 6-7 | 1d6x2,000 | 1d6x500 | 30% 1d6 | 15% 1d6 | 15% any 1 |
| 8-9 | 1d6x5,000 | 1d6x1,000 | 40% 1d6 | 20% 1d6 | 20% any 1 |
OSE simplifies the first table while keeping the chances the same. OSE Compressed Version:
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Comparing Methods
In AD&D, there's a 20% chance a room has treasure. In B/X and OSE, there is a 27.7% chance a room has treasure. As previously discussed, average values are misleading. The "per level" for gems and jewellery for AD&D keeps the distribution the same. B/X (and OSE) increase the percentage chance of gems, but not the number (until level 8), allowing their always-present coins to dominate.
On Bluesky, Warren D. suggested looking at the pre-generated treasure values from Monsters and Treasure Assortment. I used the 1980 version. The results had a similar shape to AD&D, but different values, and more magic items than AD&D's method would normally generate.
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| Maxime Desmettre |
Treasure Overhaul Method
The simplest method is to use a d100 table.
| 1d100 | Result |
| 1-10 | 1,000x1d10cp |
| 11-50 | 100x1d10sp |
| 51-90 | 50x1d10gp |
| 91-93 | 1 Gems |
| 94-95 | 1 Piece of Jewelry |
| 96-100 | Magic Item |
However, this method is slow. Gems, Jewellery, and magic items are where the bulk of the treasure-that-feels-like-treasure comes from. Large numbers of low-value coins are useful as a tradeoff in hoards. Take them and risk filling your inventory with low-value loot, leave them and return, melt them down, use them as bribes, etc. But small numbers of low-value coins are just small numbers. They add to verisimilitude, but this is a dungeon. A GM can sprinkle pocket change around without a procedure.
| 1d20 | Room Treasure |
| 1-17 | 50x1d10gp per Dungeon Level |
| 18 | 1 Gem per Dungeon Level |
| 19 | 1 Piece of Jewellery per Dungeon Level |
| 20 | 1 Magic Item |
5% gems and 5% jewellery is high. However, it's 1 gem instead of 1d4 in AD&D, which prevents some of the runaway values. It is still possible (though very unlikely) to get a 30,000gp piece of jewellery in a 1st-floor room, but not 6x 30,0000gp pieces of jewellery.
So, How Much Treasure?
The method I'd suggest, if you'd like a procedure, is to put enough treasure to level up [PCs / 2] -1. E.g the 1st level of a dungeon for a group of 4 PCs would contain [4/2]-1 = ~2,000gp.
With an average of 195gp per Room Treasure (call it 200gp), we get:
2,000 gp required / [400gp*(2/10) + 200gp*(1/10)) = 2,000gp / [100gp] = 20 rooms required on a Level 1 dungeon for 4 PCs.
Remember the skewed treasure value distribution, monster XP, treasure types and hoards, traps that contain treasure, etc.
The formula isn't really designed for this sort of calculation though. It's a quick way to check results. Too much treasure is less of a problem than too little treasure, thanks to the XP cap. "A character should never be given enough XP in a single adventure to advance more than one level of experience." Since mundane gear is cheap, it only really affects hirelings and side projects. Too many magic items is a problem, but too many coins generally isn't.
Daniel Collins, who is very experienced in this sort of thing, wanted "a first level of a dungeon to level-up a party of five fighters, i.e., give 2,000×5 = 10,000 XP" That is higher than the room-treasure-only method, but well within the bounds of the results this generator can produce.
