Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Me, Myself, & 101 others 06-13-05, 09:26 PM	How much gold can one person, with a backpack, concievably carry? Not interested in weight/encumberance so much as in volume and perhaps how much weight a packpack and other containers can take before being destroyed.
Bloodtide_the_Red 06-13-05, 11:40 PM	Of course there is not any answer here in the game or rules. It's a bit 'too real'. The answer would be, of course, not very much. Though it's typical in games to see folks have 20,000 gold coins in a backpack(or belt pouch). So how many coins can you realy carry around....well, not too many. How many quarters can you realy carry around(to use a modern example)? Ten or more gives you a big pocket full and you 'jingle' as you move. And something like 100? No way. Then you'd have to consider what they would be using to carry coins in....handmade items. No super poly-bonded steel mesh gear, it's more like animal hide and skins. I'd guess you could put, maybe, 1,000 coins in a backpack.....though it would be very hard to lift, you could not realy use the straps(they would break) and it would be quite hard to carry on the back. And all thoes coins would be in a big pile, in the bottom of the pack, moving and clanging around like crazy. Of course, limiting characters to only carring around 50 or so coins would be unfair. So your realy only left with....you can carry an infinte amount of coins. BT
Someone 06-14-05, 12:07 AM	The simple metric is that 50 coins weigh 1 pound. So its mostly a matter of deciding how much weight a particular storage item can hold. Gold and other precious metals are fairly dense, the standard "gold piece" is only an inch across and an eigth of an inch thick. BT's quarters analogy is a good one. But I think a thick burlap bag should be able to take it without ripping, after all, its what banks use to carry around their coins.
Thorak 06-14-05, 12:18 AM	The other issue, then, being sheer weight. 5,000 gold weighs 100 pounds. That's a lot. Sure, a big sturdy bag can probably carry half of that, per. Doubt you're carrying too many of them, though. My current campaign has been chock-full of massive treasure hoards we never get to take home. As an example, we were in a small dungeon, trapped by a sandstorm, in an area cursed so that teleportation magic twists and brings you back into the area (that's how we originally got in here, actually). What do we find? Piles of gold big enough to swim in. No way to trek it out through a desert, even if there [i]weren't[i] a raging sandstorm that's been going for 3 days and shows no signs of stopping. Frustrating. We generally just cast Detect Magic and hoard all the magical goodies, figuring they're worth more than their weight in gold, even if they aren't immediately useful. Also, they can often be worn or strapped on a whole lot easier than a big bag of coins. If you lack a portable hole or bag of holding, a realistic DM who hands out lots of coin is your worst nightmare.
Loren Pechtel 06-14-05, 01:43 AM	How much gold can one person, with a backpack, concievably carry? Not interested in weight/encumberance so much as in volume and perhaps how much weight a packpack and other containers can take before being destroyed. Weight is the limiting factor. Either from the character not being able to pick it up or from breaking the backpack. Google says gold weighs 19,300kg/m^3. That's 19.3kg for a block 10cm on a side. To put that in units we are more familiar with that's about 42 pounds for a block about 4 inches on a side. One layer in the backpack is probably 8 of these--over 300 pounds. The pack will have ripped before you got that much weight in it. Of course coins don't pack that well. IIRC you get something like 65% efficiency in packing them if you toss them in loose.
Leaf_Mage22 06-14-05, 10:23 AM	This is a very interesting question and it has many answers and many outlooks. There is a good point that the weight and space that make up the bulk of most characters booty gets ridiculous. Having more than a 1000 coins gets loud,heavy, and annoying to carry, ....go spend it. That is a great way to solve your problem. Usually when characters find a loot of many coin, they have found it by luck, or its a reward for a long campaign. What do they do next get to the nearest city and buy supplies, weapons or a really heavy,useful FULL PLATE, cause thats the best armor ;) . So that gets rid of the weight. Other ways is to get a chest or store it somewhere (burried treasure), or do what everyone does on the go, open a bank account, lol. Usually with my campiagns I allow certain storage items ex pouch to have a number of slot spaces. A normal pouch usually has three, and I tell my players that each slot space holds a small item, or about 20 coins, now each coin is a different size, but mostly they take the same amount of space. Also I don't charge by the BOOK'S prices there for limiting the need to carry more than a 1000 coins. But I also don't dispence coins in bulk in ridiculous amounts for rewards. Making the typical gold coin something valuable that most people in my world would consider amazeing that you have even one makes the need to carry more than a 1000 not necessary.
kaldrin 06-14-05, 10:57 AM	We had a DM who innitially seemed to be a little Bag-of-Holding-happy. He literally gave out dozens to the party over a year of gaming. For some unknown reason he got completely **** about accounting and insisted that we tally each and every coin and item in our inventories and make sure we could carry it. Well, according to the tally we could haul around just over 40 tonnes of material in all the bags of holding he gave us, which the STR 19 fighter was carrying around (2nd ed where 19 was godly). He threw up his hands and the campaign just went downhill from there. Dragon hordes were commonplace after that. The campaign lasted no more than six months after... All in all, I'd prefer a proper accounting of weights and measures to a DM who doesn't care about it.
Santrilla 06-14-05, 11:07 AM	There's a very handy article on the main website that I sometimes use a reference point when fine-tuning things like this: Rules of the Game: Going Metric, Part 4 (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040406a) . It contains a table with both the maximum weight and the metric volume of all the standard containers. Using that, the weight of money and a bit of maths, you can work out how much a backpack could feasibly hold. Such stuff is little more than micromanagement, of course; generally it's safe to use the 'maximum weight' measures on the character sheet as a guideline, and only ask questions when things start to get silly.
dragonseth 06-14-05, 11:11 AM	In our campaigns, we never worried about how much gold you could carry. We just never really think about it. You could have 50 million copper pieces in a belt pouch for all that we cared. :rolleyes:
Roxlimn 06-14-05, 01:31 PM	I once tried to carry something like 200 coins or so in a decent Samsonite pack. The material didn't survive the ordeal without a scratch - the threads were noticeable stretched and worn around the place where the coins were. Coins will make mincemeat out of any stitching done even in the modern day, never mind medieval level stitching. The best you can do would be a tough, seamless bag like burlap sack or a furoshiki sack, or something made out of fiber like a rattan pack. Even then, it would weigh something fierce. Books are not something I like to trek around with, but weights and loose metal objects are even worse.
kaldrin 06-14-05, 02:48 PM	I once tried to carry something like 200 coins or so in a decent Samsonite pack. The material didn't survive the ordeal without a scratch - the threads were noticeable stretched and worn around the place where the coins were. Coins will make mincemeat out of any stitching done even in the modern day, never mind medieval level stitching. Funny... I used to have an old canvas sack for storing my loose change. After about 8 years of throwing the odd pocket change in it I took it to the bank and got enough to pay my rent that month. Way more than 200 coins and the bag itself was none the worse for wear. I guess it's true that they don't make things like they used to. :rolleyes:
Bael the Bard 06-14-05, 05:08 PM	One thing I've seen dm's do is you could convert the gold pieces into platinum, or into equal value gems at large cities. I could conceivably see a large ruby/sapphire/diamond/insert valuable gem here worth 50,000gp or more. Another thing you could do is have banks in large cities, just don't allow interest just charge em a fee for holding their money 5gp a month is good. Have the bank guarded by dwarves and wizards or a :dragon: or whatever you feel will be powerful enough to protect the money. just my :twocents:
yonman 06-14-05, 05:09 PM	I don't know if any of you were aware, but there is a an Metric Conversion FAQ here on WotC's site for v3.5 that has all of the Carrying Capacities of all of the Backpacks/Carts/etc and their equivalent cubic feet in volume sizes. If I could access that from my work computer I would, but I know it's there cuz this question always comes up. But from route memory a backpack holds 50 pounds and cubic feet is like 3 I think...
Santrilla 06-14-05, 06:56 PM	I don't know if any of you were aware, but there is a an Metric Conversion FAQ here on WotC's site for v3.5 that has all of the Carrying Capacities of all of the Backpacks/Carts/etc and their equivalent cubic feet in volume sizes. If I could access that from my work computer I would, but I know it's there cuz this question always comes up. But from route memory a backpack holds 50 pounds and cubic feet is like 3 I think... Beat you to it, I'm afraid. :P
yonman 06-14-05, 07:11 PM	Yes you did Sant, I just scanned the forums and didn't see anything on the first run.
Santrilla 06-14-05, 07:20 PM	Yes you did Sant, I just scanned the forums and didn't see anything on the first run. Heh, no sweat.
mvincent 06-14-05, 07:35 PM	So the max size/weight that some common items can hold is: Backpack- 1 cubic ft./60 lb. Chest- 2 cubic ft./200 lb. Sack- 1 cubic ft./60 lb. Saddlebags- 5 cubic ft./250 lb. So, with some adjustments I could see a PC holding two packpacks and two sacks (240 lbs.) or a set of saddlebags (250 lbs.), allowing for up to 12,500 gp to be carried. I believe that gold weighs around 1,000 lbs per cubic ft. (and coins occupy maybe 80% of the available space)... so 'indestructable' saddlebags could possibly hold maybe 200,000 gp (2 tons). (and these saddlebags would do 20d6 damage if dropped onto someone from 10')
Sinaz 06-14-05, 07:52 PM	Here is an idea: Make your players manage thier money. Obviously they can only loot what they can carry, so start there. If a player finds 50 GP on the body of gnoll he just killed, does he need the extra pound of jingly weight on him, or can he mark his path and pick up the treasure on his way out of the dungeon. Because I roll treasures, my PCs encounter stuff they'd rather leave behind... so when they find portable valuable treasure, it's such a treat. Once they gather thier horde together and look at thier pile of loot, they begin to wonder, dang... how do we carry 3,000GP back to town? They may have a tedious time of dragging it all back, but now's the time to let them know they can hire porters and purchase wagons. Figure out what the going rate will be. Likely a common porter will hire for 3 GP per day (roughly three times the cost of eating per day). Once back in town, the players have to figure out what to do with the money. They can buy two chests and put the gold in them and drag it all around with them, or put it under the care of a trusted guardian. Pay a local merchant to watch baby-sit the gold while the party is in town for 10GP. They take a few GP with them to shop with. In bigger towns, they go to the money changer, pay a fee to convert the gold into a credit note. They can hand out cheques that go back to the moneychanger for coinage. When they are ready to leave town, they go back to the money changer and recieve thier remainder in boullion. Of course, most of this is handled behind the scenes. The idea to keep in mind is that the players have to pay people, they have to be aware of what it takes to take thier money with them. That it will be at risk while on the road. That thier money isn't there to hoarde and buy ressurection spells or rediculously priced merchandise, but to help maintain thier adventures and buy some cannon fodder for particularly harrowing wilderness encounters.
Sinaz 06-14-05, 08:01 PM	I believe that gold weighs around 1,000 lbs per cubic ft. (and coins occupy maybe 80% of the available space)... so 'indestructable' saddlebags could possibly hold maybe 200,000 gp (2 tons). (and these saddlebags would do 20d6 damage if dropped onto someone from 10') What horse will carry 2 tonnes? Better find some sort of magical beast.
Santrilla 06-15-05, 04:50 AM	What horse will carry 2 tonnes? Better find some sort of magical beast. This, of course, is the problem. Regardless of how much weight or volume a backpack or saddlebag can actually hold you're always tied down by the carrying capacity of the character. Often the simplest solution is to forgoe (sp?) all the worry about fitting stuff in your bags and just go with dragging weight.
Dunelord 06-15-05, 05:45 AM	In my games I have electrum take the place of platinum and 10 platinum is worth one electrum. This means that in one coin you can have 100 GP, so in one pound you can carry 5000 gold which isn't bad.
yonman 06-15-05, 04:43 PM	Just so everyone here knows the v3.5 weight of COINS (from SRD): The standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce (fifty to the pound). V3.5 does not make any distinction between different types of coins and weight....as a DM I am not gonna change this.
WaterRabbit 06-16-05, 12:19 AM	I once tried to carry something like 200 coins or so in a decent Samsonite pack. The material didn't survive the ordeal without a scratch - the threads were noticeable stretched and worn around the place where the coins were. Coins will make mincemeat out of any stitching done even in the modern day, never mind medieval level stitching. The best you can do would be a tough, seamless bag like burlap sack or a furoshiki sack, or something made out of fiber like a rattan pack. Even then, it would weigh something fierce. Books are not something I like to trek around with, but weights and loose metal objects are even worse. Were these razor sharp cookie-sized coins? 200 coins = 4 rolls of pennies $2 or 200 coins = 5 rolls of quarters $50 or 200 coins = 10 rolls of half-dollars $100 [Note: all use coins] A standard v3.5 coin is between a quarter and a half-dollar in size. It would not be difficult at all to carry 100 rolls of half-dollars or 2000 coins. The weight will become a problem long before the volume was significant. If I dumped them into a backpack loose it would take a 1/4 of its volume to be filled before the rubbing action of the coins started to stress the material. The weight would cause stress on the seems long before this was trully a problem.
runestar 06-16-05, 01:29 AM	Use credit cards or something.....
thndraven 06-16-05, 03:30 AM	Use credit cards or something..... no no, you use the credit card to stop the charging barbarian :P :D
Vahenir 06-16-05, 04:16 AM	Bael the Bard made a really good point, and it's unfortunate that it seems no one took note of it. So I'll reinforce it, because I was planning on saying the exact same thing: Who says the characters are carrying around gold all the time? On his character sheet, it says he has 100,000 gold pieces. That doesn't mean that he literally has 100,000 pieces of gold. GP, in the game, is an abstraction for wealth. He could very well simply be carrying around two intricate Dwarf-carved gems that value 100,000 gp total. Or maybe he found the 'deed' to a specific, luxurious piece of land worth around 100,000 gp. Or any other number of things that are worth a lot, but don't have to be in large sums. I've always found it unlikely that adventurers are carrying around massive amounts of cold, hard cash. I always figured GP as an abstraction for whatever disposable wealth the character has access to, including grain stores, a deed to a salt mine, a few gems of particular worth, maybe a really ornate set of steak knives - whatever. Bill Gates is worth billions of dollars. But he does not have billions of dollars in his bank account or in his pocket.
Vahenir 06-16-05, 04:17 AM	no no, you use the credit card to stop the charging barbarian :P :D I thought the barbarian was charging with the credit card? :rimshot: (and yes, I got the Capital One reference)
Eliza_Stormwhisper 06-16-05, 04:48 AM	Bael the Bard made a really good point, and it's unfortunate that it seems no one took note of it. So I'll reinforce it, because I was planning on saying the exact same thing: Who says the characters are carrying around gold all the time? On his character sheet, it says he has 100,000 gold pieces. That doesn't mean that he literally has 100,000 pieces of gold. GP, in the game, is an abstraction for wealth. He could very well simply be carrying around two intricate Dwarf-carved gems that value 100,000 gp total. Or maybe he found the 'deed' to a specific, luxurious piece of land worth around 100,000 gp. Or any other number of things that are worth a lot, but don't have to be in large sums. I've always found it unlikely that adventurers are carrying around massive amounts of cold, hard cash. I always figured GP as an abstraction for whatever disposable wealth the character has access to, including grain stores, a deed to a salt mine, a few gems of particular worth, maybe a really ornate set of steak knives - whatever. Bill Gates is worth billions of dollars. But he does not have billions of dollars in his bank account or in his pocket. I agree. What I simply do is knock of 10% of all monetary treasure I award. It may be realistic, but it's not fun to micromanage.
Radijs 06-16-05, 05:13 AM	I thought you'd take away a barbarions fusion cell or try plea bargaining. I'm not going to mention power armor in a low gravity enviroment since the barbarian is probably not a Loxie.
digoraccoon 06-16-05, 08:03 AM	This is where Bags of Holding really become useful. =^_^= Except my party has proven that once everyone in the group has a bag of holding, stuff gets lost easily. :D Wizard: "Who has the magic key for this door?" Rogue: "I thought you had it?" Wixard: "No dude, I was carrying the 100 pounds of platinum bars!" Ranger: "Don't look at me, my sack is full of coins and my shopping list." Claric: "Hey guys, you see that barbarian wandering out there with a credit card?"
runestar 06-16-05, 08:12 AM	While we are on the topic on credit cards, you realise that in theory, charging shouldn't be a viable tactic in dnd since credit cards haven't been invented yet? :D So next time your mounted knight tries to charge the dragon, the dm tells him :sorry, not in the next 1000 years or so. OR at least until they come up with the concept of credit cards.....
Radijs 06-16-05, 08:30 AM	The thing is we're an evil party so I'm not very comfortable about doing this too often since he might decide to just leave us in the bag to suffocate.
KarasDjun 07-01-05, 09:22 AM	Here's a possible solution to container breakage: If the weight of the items > or = volume of the container (you reach max weight capacity before filling the volume or at max. weight for the container), then make a Fort save (say, DC 12) for the container any time the container is violently moved, increasing the DC by +1 for each save made while the container is full. For example, a character has a sack filled with 60 pounds of coin (that would be 3,000 coins IIRC). He drops the sack as a free action to fight a monster, requiring a Fort save DC 12 or the sack rips and spills the coins all over the floor (possibly requiring Balance checks during combat in that square). If the save succeeds, and combat continues in that square, the sack has a chance of being kicked each round, so I would simply continue to make Fort saves for the sack each round, adding +1 for each save until the sack breaks or the combat ends. Then, if the strain is not repaired immediately, even lifting the sack onto the character's back should require another Fort save. This makes those low level mending spells quite useful, but simply resets the Fort save DC back to 12. The bookkeeping can be annoying, but a DM looking to "lighten his party's treasure load" will be willing to go the extra mile. Theoretically, you could have masterwork containers made that gain a +4 to the Fort save against strain damage. A masterwork chest would be less likely to break from maximum capacity than a standard chest (handles break, nails give, rivets fail, etc.). The Fort save should be based on the material from which the item was made so an iron chest, although much heavier, is also not likely to break. New spells could also be developed to strengthen containers, or make them invulnerable to breakage (I'm thinking they would have been developed by Tenser...). :D This coin and weight issue recently came up in my campaign after the characters killed a pair of dragons in their lair. The hoard was largely segregated into "things the party could carry - high value" and "things that aren't worth taking - low value". Needless to say, the mound of 75,000 sp wasn't touched! I found it difficult to estimate how many of the high-value art objects the characters could handle, given size and weight (but not volume). How many ivory tusks COULD you carry in a backpack?!? :confused: Many thanks to whoever found that lovely chart in the "Going Metric" article. Now I have a guide as to how much stuff my characters can take with them. KarasDjun
No-man 07-01-05, 12:16 PM	Since once in town you can do any of the things mentioned above (credit, gems, property) to get rid of too much coin, the question is one of how to get all the coinage home from the dungeon in the first place. All my characters carry at least a couple of sacks with them. As DM, when there's a large haul of coin, I don't let the party simply have it. Since I strive for a certain amount of realism in my campaigns (but not at the expense of playability), they've got to show me on their character sheets what containers they have to carry the loot. Then they can carry whatever the weight limit is, combined, of all the containers. Some of the best side quests (and RP opportunities) have been the PC's going off to buy or borrow a donkey and a cart to use to bring the treasure back. And of course once they reach town, every beggar worth his begging bowl comes out of the woodwork. :P
Sinaz 07-01-05, 12:24 PM	Credit in DnD, if you want to RP it, is a Clerk. Essentially, the clerk manages your finances with the towns aggregated in the rhealm you are currently residing in. Your coinage is in the treasury. If you need to 'charge' a large transaction, the Clerk can make promisary notes on your wealth's behalf. I mean... that's how we do it.
minowicz 07-01-05, 07:51 PM	The other issue, then, being sheer weight. 5,000 gold weighs 100 pounds. That's a lot. Sure, a big sturdy bag can probably carry half of that, per. Doubt you're carrying too many of them, though. My current campaign has been chock-full of massive treasure hoards we never get to take home. As an example, we were in a small dungeon, trapped by a sandstorm, in an area cursed so that teleportation magic twists and brings you back into the area (that's how we originally got in here, actually). What do we find? Piles of gold big enough to swim in. No way to trek it out through a desert, even if there [i]weren't[i] a raging sandstorm that's been going for 3 days and shows no signs of stopping. Frustrating. We generally just cast Detect Magic and hoard all the magical goodies, figuring they're worth more than their weight in gold, even if they aren't immediately useful. Also, they can often be worn or strapped on a whole lot easier than a big bag of coins. If you lack a portable hole or bag of holding, a realistic DM who hands out lots of coin is your worst nightmare. Shrink Item + portable forge = portable dragon horde a 5th level mage can shrink 10 cubic feet of gold to 1/4000 of it's size for 5 days!!!!! great way to get all the gold back to town. a targeted dispel magic would suck on the way back to town but that could be used both ways.
Greenintern 07-01-05, 08:02 PM	Someone in my group had over 20k gp before we realized this little conundrum. My DM, not wishing to make any complicated, sweeping changes this late in the game, decided that we had "magical portable holes of money storing." Although now I have procured an Instant Fortress from a dragon hoard, so we have put much of our gold in that. As for other gear, we have two bags of holding. Quite necessary, as one player (a nezumi no less) had become quite a packrat, carrying around upwards of ten longspears at once, among other things. As for the gold, it hasn't really come up as an issue. We just simply don't buy much equipment anymore, either requisitioning from allies or stealing from enemies.
Vaalingrade Ashland 07-01-05, 08:07 PM	How about rules for using coin laden bags as weapons?
No-man 07-01-05, 10:57 PM	Shrink Item + portable forge = portable dragon horde a 5th level mage can shrink 10 cubic feet of gold to 1/4000 of it's size for 5 days!!!!! great way to get all the gold back to town. a targeted dispel magic would suck on the way back to town but that could be used both ways. Great idea....although lighting a forge in the dungeon to fuse all the coins together would be problematic. Hmmm....