On Magic Items and Treasure Hoards

I find the official method for determining what magic items are included in a treasure hoard in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons to be pretty unsatisfying. Basically, the Dungeon Master rolls d100 to determine the type of treasure hoard, depending on the "Tier" of the characters - Tier 1 is levels 1-4, Tier 2 is levels 5-10, Tier 3 is levels 11-16, and Tier 4 is level 17 and up (Dungeon Master's Guide, page 133). 

If there are magic items present, there will be one or 1dX magic items from Magic Item Table Y. My issue with this is that the magic item tables in question (page 144) are organized mostly by rarity (page 135) and by whether the items are "Minor" or "Major" items (I can't seem to find where the distinction is laid out, but generally speaking, "Minor" items are either consumables like potions and scrolls or more permanent items which have less significant (i.e. non-combat) utility effects - lots of "meme" items like the bag of holding, alchemy jug, immovable rod, and the like - whereas "Major" items tend to be weapons and armor, rods, staves, wands, and the like - many of which have some impact on the game's math or grant a combat ability).

So what's the issue with this method of organizing the tables? Well, I didn't really realize there was a problem until around 14th-level of my most recent campaign, where one dungeon's treasure hoard contained a +2 suit of armor, an Oathbow, and a staff of power. This in and of itself is not a problem, as these are perfectly acceptable treasures for a 14th-level party to acquire (bafflingly, the party sold the armor, gave the bow to an nonplayer character follower - who became a DPS juggernaut as a result - and the character who took the staff retired from the campaign immediately afterward, but that's besides the point). 

The issue became apparent when I prepped the next dungeon, which contained nothing but potions and scrolls. The first dungeon had a handful of great, iconic, useful items because when I prepped it I happened to roll the treasure type which directed me to roll on the magic item table consisting only of great, iconic, useful items. The second dungeon had a handful of consumables which the party promptly forgot about because when I prepped it I happened to roll the treasure type which directed me to roll on the magic item table consisting only of easily forgotten consumables (there's something to be said of players' tendency to forget about consumables and/or their hesitance to use them, but again, besides the point).

Another time, I might detail my method for determining the contents of treasure hoards, which includes magic items (the gist of it is that I use 5e's treasure tables in combination with Courtney Campbell of the Hack & Slash blog's excellent treasure tables in the Hack & Slash Blog Compendium II). For now, let's assume the DM is preparing a treasure hoard containing X magic items. If the DM is running 5e, their roll on the Treasure Hoard table tells them how many items are present and what magic item table to roll on, so they end up with a handful of the same type of item.

Contrast this with the original 1974 edition of  D&D - the monster encountered determines the "type" of treasure found (Book II: Monsters and Treasure, pages 3-4), and the type determines the chance for magic items (page 22), some of which are specific (i.e. "Weapon, Armor, or misc. weapon", "1 Potion", "1 Scroll", etc.), while others are general ("any 3"). In the case of the latter, the DM then refers to the following table (page 23):

Each of the magic item types then have their own unique tables on the following pages.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (both 1st edition and 2nd edition) handle it similarly - each monster has a "type" of treasure in its lair, the type refers to a table, and the roll on the table determines if and how many magic items are present. A subsequent table is used to determine the type of these magic items:

AD&D 1e DMG, page 121

AD&D 2e DMG, page 183

The result of this system is not only a greater variety of types magic items in a given treasure hoard, but because the subsequent tables for each type of magic item aren't organized with the characters' levels in mind, it also allows the chance for low-level characters to stumble across something truly special, game-changing, and character-defining.

But, I understand why "new school" DMs might be hesitant to entirely dissociate character level from the power level of magic items they might find the way earlier editions of D&D did. Which is why I'm going to suggest an entirely different magic item table from another 5e book.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, published in 2021, is the rare post-Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (published in 2020) Wizards of the Coast book that I actually recommend (TCE is where WotC truly lost me with lazy, sloppy products of dubious worth to DMs - not to say there were not similar products before that - but perhaps that's a topic for a later date). FTD is a good book and an obvious resource for any DM who wants to include dragons in their game with "dragons" in the title. But it also contains a hidden gem - a second, more secret, better magic item table than that found in the DMG.

The table is in Chapter 4: Lairs and Hoards, on page 72. Like other treasure tables, it uses a d100 roll. The DM is meant to roll on the table corresponding to the dragon's age category (wyrmling, young, adult, or ancient). This is similar to how the tables in the DMG are broken up by tier, or character level.

Assuming the DM knows how many magic items are present (FTD similarly suggests a number of magic items in a given dragon's hoard, again determined by the dragon's age category, but the DM might prefer to use the DMG's tables as to number of items, or some other method of determination like I do with Courtney Campbell's), the DM can roll d100 however many times on the appropriate column of the table in FTD (treating wyrmling as Tier 1, young as Tier 2, adult as Tier 3, and so on). The DM can decide if the column they're rolling on is determined by character level or by the "tier" of the adventure site where the treasure is found (if the DM is running a sandbox, for example, where characters can presumably attempt to go anywhere and do anything, Tier 1 characters might end up trying their luck in a Tier 2 adventure site, and end up with Tier 2 treasures as a result).

This method produces a spread of magic items which is more diverse in terms of rarity and distribution of minor and major items. A Tier 1 party (or a party adventuring at a Tier 1 location) is still most likely to find common minor items, but there may be rarer items and major items mixed in as well. Another option, which I haven't playtested, is to treat a roll of 100 (or the DM's preferred number) as a reroll on the next highest column of the table, so that even greater items occasionally appear as well.

With both this system and that laid out in the DMG, it's still impossible to randomly find an artifact-level magic item. The DMG states that "artifacts only appear when [the DM] wants them to", hence why they're not included on random tables. Maybe this is good advice and what the DM wants, or maybe it isn't. I know from my own prep style that I'll probably never remember to deliberately place artifacts in my game. If the DM wants a chance for artifacts to appear randomly, they might treat a roll of 100 on any column of FTD's table as an artifact. They may want to follow up a roll of 100 with a subsequent d100 roll to confirm. Or, a roll of 100 might only result in an artifact when it's rolled on the highest (ancient/Tier 4) column of the table.

I would go so far as to also use the tables from past editions (2e is mine of choice) to determine the type of each magic item (i.e. potions and oils, scrolls, rings, etc.) so that these are also diverse - however, some knowledge of what constitutes a minor or major item in 5e would be required. For example, most or all consumables like ammunition, potions, and scrolls are considered minor items, and there are only a handful of minor armors, rings, rods, shields, staves, and wands. "Wondrous Items" (formerly known as "Miscellaneous Magic") can be either minor or major depending on what they do.

A secondary benefit of this system is that, while the DMG's magic item tables (understandably) include only those magic items published in the DMG, this method allows the DM to include magic items from those other sources published since the DMG's release. Using D&D Beyond (or some other filterable or searchable database of 5e resources, for those of us who don't give money to WotC anymore 😉 ), the DM can filter or search for minor or major items of the appropriate rarity and type to choose from. Frustratingly, at some point WotC stopped identifying items as minor or major (the aforementioned table from FTD uses the terms, but the items in the book itself are identified as neither - like I said, lazy, sloppy, of dubious use, etc.), so the DM will have to use some judgment as to what constitutes a minor or major item in some cases.

And that's it! Hopefully this post communicated what I intended, which is that the treasure and magic item tables in the DMG provide same-y, unsatisfying results (for me - maybe they're great for every other DM). I enjoy a bit more variety in the type, rarity, and power level of magic items my players find, and I don't mind doing a bit of extra work to get the results I enjoy seeing in prep. There are undoubtedly a lot of DMs who simply include the items they want to be in their games, whether because they're cool, important to the setting or "story", or particularly suited to a specific player character, and those DMs probably don't notice these issues at all. My prep style is randomization plus imagination, and I'm always looking for ways to make my randomization methods yield results that are satisfying and inspiring.