Treasure Dice for Experience Dice

My friend WFS at Prismatic Wasteland came up with the following algorithm for using dice to randomly determine the money-value of your treasure:

So when the party decides to sell, they tally everything they want to sell in the following categories: […] (d4) magic items, relics and artifacts, (d8) gems, jewelry, and art objects, (d12) trade goods, (d20) undamaged arms, armor, and equipment, and (d100) miscellaneous (but not worthless) junk and trinkets. Then roll all of the dice and tally how many dice roll 1, 2 or 3. The total sale is 200 gold per each such die plus 1 gold for each item sold.

Let’s look at a table showing the average gold pieces earned by each item category; this is calculated by multiplying the likelihood of a result of 1-3 times 200 gold pieces.

Category	Die	Avg. Gold
Junk and trinkets	d100	6
Undamaged tools	d20	30
Trade goods	d12	50
Gems, jewelry, and art	d8	75
Magic items and relics	d4	150

He gives one example: imagine that a party extracts 1 magic item, 2 gem-units, 3 trade goods, 4 weapons, and 5 junk-units. This results in a total average value of 150 + 150 + 150 + 120 + 30 = 600 gold pieces.

I think this algorithm would be handy for some, but I prefer higher-rolls-are-better as well as using the results of a die roll directly rather than using it to model likelihood. So, why not attach the value of treasure to a die roll? This way we meet my preferences, and also then treasure could interface with Prismatic Wasteland’s rules for rolling experience, which was originally envisioned by our friend Elias.

Let’s start with the table below, using the categories from his blog post. You would just roll the die associated with each treasure item, and multiply the total by 10 gold pieces. Then, if you were to use the aforementioned experience rules, you would probably gain experience equal to the unmodified roll (as if experience points were 1:10 with gold).

Category	Die	Avg. Gold
Junk and trinkets	d4	25
Undamaged tools	d6	35
Trade goods	d8	45
Gems, jewelry, and art	d10	55
Magic items and relics	d20	105

In the example from earlier, we would end up with 615 gold pieces on average using the new method. That’s just a difference of 15 gold pieces, and in a very large hoard! I would make some other adjustments, personally speaking, like not multiplying the total by 10 and instead using the raw results in a simplified currency system. We are also missing a sixth treasure category for d12, which feels sad.

This is what I would maybe use, to that end:

Category	Die
Junk and trinkets	d4
Trade goods	d6
Undamaged tools	d8
Luxury goods	d10
Gems, jewelry, and art	d12
Magic items and relics	d20

It feels like there’s an open discussion that could be had about how to create hoards of treasure—since you’re working with dice instead of known quantities—but that isn’t a super big deal.

Update (7/27)

One more side application: you could use these dice to barter! Imagine that plate armor has a market value of 6, but the things you carry are not exactly bullion currency. You can roll your treasure dice on the spot to try and meet the vendor's price, without exceeding it (there is no penalty except for losing out on the excess value). In the example, you might want to offer gems or jewelry in exchange for the plate armor, since that'll be the most likely to win you the item without you over-spending. What's nice then is that the act of rolling more dice feels as if you are trying to negotiate with the vendor, each die representing another item you're putting down on the table for consideration.