Mktreasure

From AJS.COM

Jump to: navigation, search

mktreasure (located at http://www.ajs.com/~ajs/cgi-bin/mktreasure.cgi) is the whole d20 SRD's random treasure system (the core rules used by the Dungeons & Dragons game as well as other role-playing games) a random treasure generator (written in the Perl programming language). It matches the d20 rules on almost every specific feature from magic items to psionics to special materials to intelligent items, etc!

I've used this program extensively in re-itemizing some of the treasure in my Shackled City game to account for the presence of psionics in the party. This would have taken hours to re-do dozens of encounters by hand, but with mktreasure, it was just a matter of a few minutes of pointing and clicking while writing up my session notes before each game.

Contents

Features

The following are features of the tool and/or differences from the standard SRD rules:

  • Coin loot may be of mixed types and ±0-10% from the SRD. This variation is added for realism.
  • Optional 'Non-standard items' adds in a larger mix of gems and art. It also allows for "small" and "large" versions of all gems (moving them down or up a price bracket).
  • Ego of intelligent items is based on cost when there are no plusses. The SRD does not address such a condition, as intelligence is typically reserved for weapons and armor which must be at least +1.
  • Alchemical silver adds a cost to weapons based on their weight.
  • Dragon Magazine (NON-OGL) item names and issue numbers are optionally included for over 190 items!
  • Items from Dragon Magazine may be varied in ways that are implied, but not stated in the articles (e.g. "spellworms" are generated with specific spells rather than just as "spellworm").
  • The value in retail and resale terms is given. The resale value accounts for the SRD's default 50% reduction in price when selling an item other than mundane items, art, gems and coin.

How it works

Main article: d20 treasure system

The SRD lays out a huge set of tables that allow you to generate random treasure for any encounter. There are several stages to this table-driven generation:

  • Look up the creature's CR or the encounter level in the main treasure table and roll for each type of treasure (coins, mundane, art, gems and items).
  • Follow to the sub-tables for mundane, art and gems.
  • Follow to the sub-table for items to determine what sort of magic item is generated
  • Follow to the sub-table for the type of item (e.g. armor, weapon, wondrous, etc.)
  • Continue on to further sub-tables as directed.

The program has all of these tables and sub-tables built in, and randomly selects from them as called for. There are also some special exceptions that are not listed in the SRD. For example, the SRD does not address the ratio of psionic to non-psionic items in treasure, so the program allows the user to select this.

Limitations

  • There is no way to generate a specific item (e.g. "an intelligent +5 sword" or "a scroll with at least 3 spells").
  • Only the SRD spell and power names are available. This can be confusing in some cases, as can naming of some items (the "Heward's Handy Haversack" in the Player's Handbook, for example, is simply the "Handy Haversack" in the SRD).

Breaking the rules

In some places, the rules simply don't give enough information to generate an item without making up some rules. For example, the iron flask only has a price listed for its empty state, but suggests that a randomly generated flask can have a creature bound in it already. How much is it worth then? No information, so we assume about 10% more and leave it at that.

Similarly, the "minor" magic item "robe of useful things" could, as written, be generated with 16,000 gp worth of gems in it, and yet be worth only 7000 gp! In this case, we take any item in the robe with a listed value and add its value to the base value of the robe, but no extra value is added for the other mundane items that are often found on such robes (it is assumed that these items are included in the base price).

In every case, the spirit of the SRD is maintained as much as is possible and obvious. Your milage may vary....

Examples

Here are some of the more amusing items that it's created: 

medium head 1:( [axiomatic, frost, holy, throwing] +4 ) head 2:( +3 ) intelligent: (230,660gp value)
               int: 13, wis: 13, cha: 10, ego: 18
               Alignment: lawful good
               Communication: Empathy
               Powers:
                 Item has 10 ranks in Spot
                 Item has 10 ranks in Bluff
        axe, orc double

Please note that the axiomatic and holy attributes do not cause the item to be lawful or good, but they do preclude chaotic or evil alignments! 

medium [axiomatic] +3 arrows, longbow (36) (36,252gp)

Notice that ammunition is generated in randomly sized lots, and the price is scaled appropriately, just as it is for wands and other items with charges.

Current development

Current goals (now that the YAML conversion is done) are:

  • Code cleanup and performance work
  • Automatic generation of scroll prices from spell lists rather than relying on preset per-spell prices from the SRD.
  • Find and beat the person who came up with the armor tables
  • Figure out if we're doing the right thing for epic levels (the number of "major" items seems very high, but I think I'm obeying the SRD).

Licensing

The program was written by Aaron Sherman and is licensed under the OGL. For more information on its licensing, please see the "AUTHOR" section in the tool's documentation.

Dungeons & Dragons, System Reference Document, d20 System, and all of the item names and abilities are either trademarks of or part of documents which are copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast.

External links


Retrieved from "http://www.ajs.com/ajswiki/Mktreasure"
Personal tools