Minimalist Magic Item table

I've spent a lot of time trying to finish this table. Probably too much time, honestly. It’s one of those things that works exactly as I wanted once it’s done, but just by looking at it, you can’t really see the amount of effort I put in. This is my Dark Fantasy Magic Items in minimalist form (although I think that book is still worth a read at $1.49; it has some additional stuff). 

After polishing it quite a bit, I am almost satisfied with the result.

The idea is this: anyone can create a table with 1,000 magical items (a single d1000 table or d10 versus d100 etc). Since you’ll never use more than a few dozen (maybe not even that many) in a campaign, you’ll never really know the true value of the table. If the results don’t make sense to you, you’ll just think you got unlucky when rolling.

What I wanted was a table that could be easily judged by anyone at a glance. For example, you can easy see how common is a magical dagger compare to a magic ring or rope.

I could also have a table meant purely for inspiration, with a completely abstract and open format, where you combine an effect with an item, no direct relation between the two. The problem is when the effects often don’t fit the items very well, so you end up with armor that deals extra damage or axes that make you move faster, etc. 

I had the impression this was the case in Shadow of the Demon Lord.

Or, ideally, I'd have a big list of common, uncommon, rare, legendary magic items... with sub-tables and elaborate descriptions, maybe prices too. I think this is what 5e does, maybe AD&D too. But it wouldn't be really "minimalist", would it? Anyway, I want to fit mine in a page or two.

The table below boils down to about 10 categories of objects and 20 categories of effects. Since the objects are divided in practice, we end up with more than a thousand possible combinations of effects and items. The difference is that I tried to make it very clear which effects fit best with which objects, so that most of the items you generate using the instructions will actually make sense, and "common" magic items will be, well, actually common. In fact, I toned don't some of the more fantastical and looney tunes effects (e.g., portable hole) to fit my favorite genres of fantasy (low fantasy, dark fantasy).

To illustrate the tables, I included a few items as examples at the end of the post.

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Magic Items

The most common magic items are listed below with their usual effects. You can replace the effects (or alter them, if you roll 1-4) using the effects table, below. It is recommended you do that when you roll an odd number in the first d20, at least until you need more variety.

 

1–2. Apparel. A piece of clothing. Sometimes it only affects an specific part of the body. Examples [1d8]: 1 amulet (+1 to all saves), 2 belt (your Strength becomes 18 or gets a +3 bonus, whichever is better), 3 boots (+10’ movement, i.e., walk 25% faster), 4 bracers (like belt), 5 cloak (+1 AC and saves), 6 gloves (+4 to manual tasks such as picking locks, pockets, etc.), 7 helmet (+4 vs. mind effects), 8 GM's choice.

3–4. Armor or shield. +1 AC. Roll 1d4 for type: 1 light, 2 medium, 3 heavy, 4 shield.

5–6. Potion. Restores 1d6+1 hit points.

7–8. Ring. Rings can do almost anything. Roll on the effects table.

9–10. Scroll. Contains a common random spell, anyone can cast. Roll 2d6, keep the lower die, for its level.

11–12. Tool. A magic tool that resembles an ordinary object but is supernaturally more efficient. Examples: Roll 1d6: 1 rope (you can command it to climb walls, tie itself, etc.), 2 lantern (burns without fuel for up to 10 hours on command), 3 bag (weighs one unit but holds 10 units without changing size or weight), 4 key (once a day, it can open any ordinary lock), 5 tinderbox (creates flame on command like a strong modern lighter), 6 waterskin (creates water on command, up to a gallon a day).

13–14. Wand / rod / staff. Cast one spell (see Scroll, above). Roll for maximum charges (wand 1d6, rod 2d6, staff 3d6). Casting spends charges equal to the spell's level; regain one-third of maximum (round up) at dawn.

15–16. Weapon. +1 to attack and damage. Ammunition comes in a bundle of 3d6 pieces, each expending its magic on a hit. Weapon type: 1 axe, 2 spear, 3 hammer/mace, 4 bow or crossbow, 5 ammunition, 6 polearm. See below for size if needed.

17–18. Sword. +1 to attack and damage. Roll for size if needed: 1 dagger (1d4), 2–3 medium (1d6), 4–5 long (1d8), 6 two-handed (1d10).

19–20. Special. Either roll 1d20 on the Effects table, then invent an unusual object to carry it (19) or roll for the object, then give it a remarkable or combined effect (20).

 

 

Magic Item Effects (d20)

Some effects fit some items better. Entries 1-4 can fit almost anything (if you don’t have an obvious effect, a roll of 1-3 might require you to roll twice); 5-6 are ideal for weapons; 7 (spells) are better left for scroll and wands, although magic swords can sometimes cast spells; 8-15 are mostly passive defensive and they can work well for armor or potions or apparel; 16-17 are more “mental” and better suited to helmets, necklaces and similar; 18 and 19 are rare and are only an easy fit for scrolls (summoning) and big apparel or amulets (transformation). 20 is for all items.

If the effect does not fit the item, decide what to do, randomly or otherwise.

E.g.: 1d6: 1-2 be creative and make it fit or allow it to be weird, 3-4 roll again, 5-6 fall back to the ordinary effect.

 

1. Cursed. The item carries a curse that may manifest at the worst possible time.
2. Temporary. The item becomes mundane after being used 2d6 times.
3. Powerful. The item is unusually strong. For a numeric bonus, roll 1d20: 1–10 the effect is +2, 11–16 +3, 17–19 +4, 20 +5. Similarly, a d6 becomes 2d6 to 5d6, and a 50% reduction becomes 1d20 × 5% (minimum 60%).
4. Conjuring. The item seems to return or appear from out of nowhere, as the owner conjures it with a word or gesture. Alternatively, it is very easily concealed, foldable or very light. If it’s a thrown weapon, it returns to your hand instead.
5. Elemental attack. Deals an extra 1d6 damage of one type. Roll 1d8: 1 acid, 2 cold, 3 fire, 4 lightning, 5 necrotic, 6 poison, 7 psychic, 8 radiant.
6. Hatred. Deals an extra 1d6 damage against one type of creature. Roll 1d12: 1 aberration, 2 beast, 3 celestial, 4 construct, 5 dragon, 6 elemental, 7 fey, 8 fiend, 9 giant, 10 humanoid, 11 monstrosity, 12 undead.
7. Spells. Cast one type of spell. Roll 2d6 and keep the lower die for the spell's level, the higher die for maximum charges. Casting spends charges equal to the spell's level; regain one-third of maximum (round up) at dawn. Alternatively, simplify "magic missile, three charges" to something like "cast magic missile three times a day" when desired. Best left to rings, wands, staves, and scrolls.
8. Protection from element. Reduces incoming damage of one type by 50%. See entry 5 for type.
9. Protection from creatures. Reduces damage or attacks from one type of creature. See entry 6 for type.
10. Protection (saving throws). +1 to all saving throws.
11. Defense. +1 to Armor Class.
12. Augmentation. Raises one ability score by +3, or sets it to a fixed value (18), whichever is better. The stat affected is usually physical and adequate to the item in question. If necessary, roll 1d6: 1 Strength, 2 Dexterity, 3 Constitution, 4 Intelligence, 5 Wisdom, 6 Charisma.
13. Resilience. 50% resistance to a hazard or condition. Roll 1d8: 1 poison, 2 fear, 3 charm, 4 sleep, 5 exhaustion, 6 disease, 7 petrification, 8 an environmental hazard (hunger, thirst, drowning, suffocation).
14. Movement. Move faster or in new ways. Roll 1d8: 1 fly, 2 climb any surface, 3 swim, 4 burrow, 5 walk on water, 6 ignore difficult terrain, 7 leap great distances, 8 slip free of grapples, shackles, and cages.
15. Misdirection. Disguise yourself, your movement, or your actions. Roll 1d6: 1 invisibility, 2 silence (move without sound), 3 impersonate someone, 4 create illusions, 5 leave no traces, 6 pass as another kind of creature.
16. Perception. A supernatural sense. "Keen" versions of ordinary senses grant advantage. Roll 1d8: 1 darkvision, 2 keen hearing, 3 keen smell, 4 blindsight, 5 detect invisible, 6 see auras or magic, 7 detect lies, 8 truesight.
17. Communication. Understand or speak across barriers. Roll 1d8: 1 all humanoid languages, 2 all spoken languages, 3 all written languages, 4 one exotic tongue (celestial, infernal, draconic, sylvan), 5 speak with animals, 6 speak with plants, 7 telepathy, 8 understand any language you hear.
18. Summoning. Call or create a creature to serve you. It looks friendly and possibly loyal but is not enslaved. Roll 1d6 for HD, 1d6 for number of creatures (limit total to 10 HD), and see entry 6 for creature type.
19. Transformation. Turn into a creature, usually an animal. Roll 1d12: 1 insect or spider, 2 rat, 3 owl, 4 snake, 5 wolf, 6 fish, 7 cat or tiger, 8 ape, 9 bear, 10 hawk or eagle, 11 boar, 12 a monster (see entry 6 for type).
20. Special. Roll twice and combine, invent something unexpected, or make the item especially noteworthy with multiple functions.

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Examples:

- Cloak: grants flight.

- Heavy armor +1 AC.

- Potion of cold resistance.

- Scroll holding a 2nd-level spell and a 3rd-level spell with 5 charges (this is a special result; I'd probably change this to a single 5th level spell, or replace it by two separate scrolls)

- Spear +1, +1d6 lightning damage.

- Two-handed sword +1 (1d10).

So far, these are cool if a bit ordinary. I haven't changed a thing. Let's try a few more:

- Helm that allows the wearer to see magical auras.

- Light armor that raises Dexterity by +3 (or sets it to 18) [I could change this, but since its is light armor, I think the Dex boost makes sense].

- Potion of healing.

- Belt of Strenght.

- Scroll of Levitate

- Shield that reduces damage from fiends by 50%.

I didn't even need to re-roll anything. Last pass, with some die rolls:

- 19, 6, 11 - Now this requires some input. I'd say it is a holy symbol that makes you a monster slayer (+1d6 damage to monsters) while you carry it. Maybe a sigil, tabard, etc.

- Level 1 scroll.

- 6, 2, 13 - We could stop at 6 and make it a healing potion, or roll on the second table and make a potion with 2d6 uses that protects you from fear.

- 8, 13, 5 - A ring of protection from disease.

- 16, 6, 17*, 11*, 14*, 6, 12 - A "mace of communication" sounds funny but doesn't quite work for me at first, so I re-rolled three more times (roll with asterisks were discarded) until I got a mace that causes additional 1d6 damage to undead. I could have stopped at a +1 AC weapon, come to think of it.

- Ring of Constitution.

As you can see, no "Legendary" status items, these would require rolling more 20s. But almost all the results are perfectly usable with little effort. I'll probably tinker a bit more with it before I finish my Old School Minimalist PDF (if I ever do), but at least I think I've found the right path here. Or almost...

Did I miss any obvious cool item or effect?

Currency, precious metals, taxes, and training

I'm currently writing the equipment section for my "minimalist OSR" game. I've recently gone back to XP per gold spent. Hopefully, that will encourage PCs to donate to church, sleep indoors, carouse, or whatever is appropriate to their alignment and personality. But that's a whole other discussion.

What I want to talk about today is precious metals, and specifically a problem I keep coming back to: gold's value is severely degraded in D&D. On one hand, I want to be more or less faithful to the original rules. On the other, I like to maintain at least a minimum of internal coherence, and I can't shake my discomfort with the idea of any common weapon being worth almost its weight in gold (or, in the case of a bow, more than its weight in gold). At that point, gold is too heavy to even be considered a viable currency, and copper starts to feel less like medieval coinage and more like the Weimar Republic, with people hauling wheelbarrows of coins just to buy bread.

I've heard various explanations for this, the most common being a kind of gold rush that inflates prices across the board, so a sword ends up costing ten to a hundred times more than it would in actual history. Then there's the coin size problem: ten coins weigh about a pound, which is absurdly impractical (in my current system I am considering 100 coins to weight about a couple of pounds, which improves things somewhat).

The other issue is player wealth. If characters earn more than half their XP from gold, a fighter reaching level six might already be sitting on 10,000 gp or more. He can essentially buy every piece of available equipment (and wagons to carry it, with horses to pull it...), even at inflated prices, and hire several retainers on top of that (which isn't necessarily bad). The problem is that my players, specifically, start treating wealth accumulation as the point of the game. They stop spending, the pressure to go out and find more treasure starts to feel increasingly artificial and forced, and the whole economy becomes more and more implausible, even if the adventures keep coming.

There are several standard fixes for this. Many people suggest draining gold through taxes, maintenance fees, making PCs targets for bandits, or (as AD&D recommends) requiring them to pay for training to level up. 

None of that appeals to me. I can hardly imagine Conan or Elric paying for a trainer (although they must have been trained according to their culture in status in the past). And my players, being perfectly rational (and I mean this is a fantasy, setting, of course...), will dodge every tax and respond to any tax collector with disproportionate violence. Worse, constantly handing out gold just to take it back makes me spend even more time focused on wealth, which is the opposite of what I want.

Then I read some Gorgon's Grimoire posts about the subject (like this), and an idea clicked into place; one that solves several of these problems at once, by letting the things I dislike cancel each other out.

Here's how it works: imagine that the legitimate local currency is whatever is stamped with the official seal of the local lord or empire (as suggested in conversation by Gorgon's Grimoire - thank you!). The coins the PCs pull out of dungeons are "frontier" coins; recovered from lost empires or inimical creatures, unregulated, unofficial, not recognized within current civilization. Any merchant who accepts them still has to exchange them for official currency before they can use them to buy anything inside the normal economy, which means they'll charge a heavy premium to cover that conversion cost.

This explains inflated prices without requiring an extreme gold rush. It's not only that goods are (notably) more expensive, it's that the PCs' money is worth less because of what it is and where it came from. They can't be bothered paying taxes or regularizing their hoard, and the prices they pay reflect that. Some merchants might try to smuggle the coins or find workarounds, but that's not the PCs' problem. Most will simply take the treasure to the appropriate authorities, pay the conversion fees, and pass the cost along.

It's a solution that feels organic rather than punitive, and it actually fits the fiction.

Of course, the occasional tyrannical ruler might start thinking the PCs are still not paying enough taxes, and some criminal guilds might consider a heist followed by forgery to make the coins legit... but then again, only occasionally. Money is not the main focus of the PCs or the game.

EDIT: BTW, these big costs include some upkeep too, so I can also ignore those...

Minimalist (?) turn undead, plus a reflection on playtesting

Here is my minimalist version of turn undead, which precludes the need for a turn undead table, and uses 1d6 instead of 2d6 plus another 2d6 plus table:

Turn Undead: Clerics can repel or destroy undead. Turning is attempted once per turn, in lieu of an attack. Turned undead flee by any means available and will not harm or contact the cleric. To turn undead, roll 1d6, add the cleric's level, and subtract the target's HD (e.g., 2 for zombies). A result of 5+ succeeds; 10+ simply destroys them permanently. The roll result also indicates the total HD of undead affected (minimum one creature, maximum 20 HD affected). For example, if you roll 11 against zombies, 5 of them are destroyed; against skeletons, 11 are destroyed.

This is the type of rule I want for my game; maps reasonably close to the original B/X (at least to my liking), but a bit simpler, faster, leaner, easier (it also expands to RC levels).

(BTW I can take no credit for it as apparently Delta wrote something similar more than a decade ago; since I take much inspiration from his blog, I might have read it at some point).

In practice, however, I found that this is not enough for even the simplest games. If using this rule (or even the original B/X rules), the players will certainly ask simple questions like "how often can I turn?", "how far", "for how long", etc. It happened in my last campaign.

And the text simply doesn't say. The Rules Cyclopedia adds a much longer text (and table) - but not many answers either. Same in the AD&D PHB.

5e D&D, on the other hand, clearly answers all these questions (30-foot radius, 1 minute or until the creature takes damage, etc).

I'm probably adding such details to my own game since they were obviously needed at my table. So my version might even look a bit longer than B/X, which wasn't my original goal. 

Old school D&D seems to work very well in practice; people often say it is because Gygax etc. had immense wargaming playtesting experience. But I have a feeling that old school GMs often relied on their experience and rulings over having things spelled out in the book, which some people may appreciate but certainly brings endless problems when you don't have much experience with a system and need to learn from the book.

In other words, these games were likely playtested by people who were familiar with wargames, instead of given to newbies to see how understandable they were.

Modern D&D is much more complex (and even verbose and repetitive at times) but often better explained. And, to be honest, I don't think you can get "minimalist points" by omission and incompletion. If the book needs a "good GM" to work, it is not a great book, as most GMs are average by definition (or, at the very least, the book cannot take much credit for the rules if the GM has to create most of them).

Anyway, I keep looking for my ideal D&D - say, something as simple as B/X but as clear as modern D&D. This, I hope, is one step in that direction.

Minimalist treasure 3: superfast treasure generation

I really liked the last post. I think it opened my eyes to several circumstances that will be very useful in my games. For example, regarding the fact that each of copper/silver/gold/platinum is worth ten times  than the other, but especially that gems/jewelry are worth ten times more than gold on average, and that magic items are not far from ten times more valuable than gems. 

Even so, the result, although satisfactory, still ended up being quite complicated (and a bit abstract) for the game I want to call OSR Minimalist. I realized that by reducing the types of treasure to a 2d6 table similar to a reaction table, you could keep the roll simple while at the same time producing varied and concrete results for quickly describing treasure.

| Roll        | Result                          |

|-------------|---------------------------------|

| 2 or less   | Heavy objects, Copper, Silver   |

| 3–5         | Copper, Silver, Gold            |

| 6–8         | Silver, Gold, Platinum          |

| 9–11        | Gold, Platinum, Gems            |

| 12 or more  | Platinum, Gems, Magic Items     |

A lot, some, a few

This treasure is immediately easy to describe with "a lot, some, a few". So 6-8 means "a lot of silver coins, some gold, a few platinum pieces".

But how many, exactly?

| Roll        | Result         

| 2 or less   | d6×10,000 Copper, d6×1,000 Silver, Heavy objects

| 3–5         | d6×10,000 Copper, d6×1,000 Silver, d6×100 Gold

| 6–8         | d6×1000 Silver, d6×100 Gold, d6×10 Platinum

| 9–11        | d6×100 Gold, d6×10 Platinum, d6 Gems

| 12 or more  | d6×10 Platinum, d6 Gems, d6×0.1 Magic Items

So, each item in the list has the same value on average.

Also, each line is worth slightly above 1,000 gp on average.

So if you find a hoard worth 5,0000, just multiply every result by five.

Neat, right?

Now, following the intuition from the last post (that larger hoards should be more weight-efficient, the "nobody buys a Ferrari with dimes" point), let's assume the table is calibrated for a 1,000 gp hoard. Roll with −1 for hoards under 500 gp, +1 for over 5,000 gp, +2 for over 10,000 gp, and +3 for over 20,000 gp.

This is optional, of course. If you don't apply the modifier, a dragon might end up sitting on piles of copper, which is fine.

Alternatively, if you want more variety, you can roll on the table multiple times for a large hoard, treating each roll as a separate component.

Bjorn Pierre (unsplash)

A note on heavy objects and magic items

I added some heavy objects to the table because I like the idea of some hoards containing statues, pelts, rugs, clothes, etc., but you can easily ignore it.

Magic item, OTOH, are d6×0.1 per each thousand GP. If the hoard is smaller than that 10,000 gp, you can treat it as a small chance of having a magic item, a low value magic item, etc.

Even more variety?

I am tempted to add a secondary table of "special effects" that take effect if you roll the same number on both dice. But that is just for extra flavor. To keep the minimalist vibe, that 2d6 table is all I need.

Minimalist treasure 2: generating hoard types

Continuing from the previous post, I wanted a way to generate treasure without complicated tables. The goal: a single roll that tells you not just how much treasure there is, but what kind — and how much of it is worth carrying.

Introduction (designer's notes)

Modern economists, following Aristotle, identify (at least) three qualities of sound money: portability, divisibility, and durability. In D&D, coins are certainly durable, but portability and divisibility are more situational. Few millionaires keep a significant share of their wealth in one-dollar bills — and no one with fifty thousand dollars in assets holds it as a single diamond. The denomination also has to match the transaction. Nobody buys a Ferrari with piles of dimes.

Put simply, the wealthier a person is, the more efficient their treasure tends to be per pound.

A handful of silver coins offers more divisibility than gold, but the gold is more portable. A gem offers more portability still, at the cost of divisibility, since dividing a ruby makes it lose most of its value.

In D&D, perhaps only a dragon — a compulsive hoarder by mythological nature — would accumulate the kind of mixed, inefficient pile that the encumbrance system is quietly designed to punish. Everyone else, given the choice, gravitates toward the top of the table.

This system takes all of this into account. If I may say so, it ended up being a lot easier to use than I expected.

The system

You already know the total value of the hoard (roughly 100 gp per HD, as discussed before; a lair of 100 bandits has a hoard worth about 5,000 gp). This roll tells you the composition — what the treasure is made of, and how efficiently it's packed.

Roll d20, then add +1 for every 1,000 gp in the hoard, up to a maximum of +20 (corresponding to a 20,000 gp hoard). Larger hoards should be broken into smaller parts and rolled separately. The result determines treasure type from the table below.

Roll	Treasure type	Value density
0 or less	Low-value or heavy objects (junk, pelts, tools)	= gold / 1,000
1	Reroll -10	—
2–9	Copper	= gold / 100
10–11	Reroll ±10	—
12–19	Silver	= gold / 10
20–21	Reroll ±10	—
22–29	Gold	= gold
30–31	Reroll ±10	—
32–39	Platinum	= gold × 10
40–41	Reroll ±10	—
42–49	Gems & Jewelry	~ gold × 100
50–51	Reroll ±10	—
52–59	Magic items	~ gold × 1,000
60	Reroll +10	—
61+	Legendary item or artifact	~ gold × 10,000

A quick note on the value density column. Each tier is roughly 10× more efficient per pound than the tier below — a clean order-of-magnitude progression that makes the table easy to understand.

And this progression looks very reasonable and not that far from the original. Consider:

Gems and jewelry in B/X are worth about 1,000 times their weight in gold (the 100× figure in our table is a deliberate simplification). In the real world, everyday jewelry is worth only slightly more than its gold content, but gems span an enormous range — common stones are worth a fraction of gold per gram, while fine rubies and emeralds can reach 2,000–5,000×.

Magic items vary immensely in price and weight, but 1,000× their weight in gold is not absurd as a round number. The spread is enormous: a Ring of Invisibility is roughly 3,300 times more valuable per pound than +1 plate armor, which works similarly to the gem range — the same category contains both a pebble and a diamond.

Because of that, gems and magic items might deserve their own sub-tables (which are already in B/X, AD&D etc.).

Treasure composition

The digit at the end of your result — the ones place, from 2 to 9 — tells you how heterogeneous the treasure is. This is where Pareto comes in: if a player takes only 20% of the treasure by weight, how much of the value do they recover?

• Digit 9: 90% of the value is in the top 20% by weight. Highly varied — gems scattered among coins, a magic item wrapped in cloth at the bottom of a chest of silver.
• Digit 5: roughly 50% of the value in the top 20%. Moderately mixed.
• Digit 2: 20% of the value in the top 20%. Nearly homogeneous — a chest of nothing but copper pieces, uniform all the way down.

A result of 24 (gold, digit 4) means: the treasure is worth its weight in gold on average, and taking the best 20% by weight recovers about 40% of the value (this 40% is mostly platinum pieces, some gems, etc.). A result of 27 (silver, digit 7) means: it's heavy and low-value on average, but picking carefully gets you 70% of the value in 20% of the weight — there's some gold in there.

Results ending in 0 or 1 are rerolls: 0 means roll again and add 10, 1 means roll again and subtract 10. This preserves the natural 20 as a potential windfall and the natural 1 as a setback, while keeping the table open-ended in both directions. The +20 cap means most large hoards cluster in the gold-to-platinum range, with gems and magic items requiring either a lucky roll or a genuinely exceptional hoard.

Treasure appearance

Homogenous treasure (i.e., digit 2) is easy to describe. For example, result 22 is basically a big pile of gold, etc. Mixed treasure, however, will look mostly as one tier below. E.g.,  result 25 is maybe almsot half silver, around 20% gold, around 20% copper, and only a bit of platinum.

Pocket money

Individual creatures carry roughly 1% of the lair's total value on their person, in the same denomination as the main hoard, provided they can carry it. A gnoll lair worth 3,000 gp in silver means each gnoll carries about 30 gp worth of silver coins — enough to be worth mentioning, not enough to change the logistics. This also gives the party a small preview of what's coming: creatures carrying gold suggest a gold hoard ahead; creatures carrying gems suggest something more interesting.

Outliers

Even a very small hoard can contain gems and magic items. This isn't usually a problem — as noted above, both categories vary enormously in value. A potion might be worth 50 gp, a semi-precious stone even less.

If you roll gem and magic item values separately, you face a choice: fix the results to match the hoard's overall scale, or let the dice fall and accept that a lone goblin might be carrying a ring of inestimable value. Maybe that deserves a table of its own... but that's a post for another day.

Carrying mixed treasure

The digit makes it possible to record treasure concisely and make decisions about it later. A player might note "30 pounds of platinum (34) Treasure" — meaning the hoard is platinum-tier (so, it is worth 3,000 gp) and the digit is 4. Back in town, or at a bottleneck in the dungeon, they can decide to keep only the best 20% by weight: that recovers roughly 40% of the value, or about 1,200 gp, at one fifth the encumbrance. If they have a cart, they take it all. If they're fleeing through a collapsing corridor, they know exactly what to grab first and what to leave behind — and they have a number to justify the decision at the table rather than an argument.

Pareto to infinity?

The system can recurse. A gold-tier hoard contains a platinum-tier sub-hoard — roll again to find what share (the digit, as before). That platinum sub-hoard may itself contain a gem-tier portion, and so on, until you've identified the single most valuable in the pile. Stop whenever the detail stops being useful, or when the digit is 2 (meaning a uniform pile of coins, homogeneous all the way down). In theory you could choose the best gem in a handful... But few adventurers are wealthy enough to leave any gems behind!

Time is money

One thing I haven't analyzed here (nor have I seen it addressed in any D&D rulebook) is the time required to sort a hoard. A disorganized dragon hoard could take hours to sift through properly. Most human-administered treasures, by contrast, will have at least some organization and can probably be assessed and selectively looted in a few minutes, depending on size. In a rush, however, PCs might be forced to carry a few random bags and trust their luck!

But does this actually make sense?

Yes!

For example, if you rolled 24, this is what a treasure could look like. This is mostly AI-generated but fixable by adding more copper and gems, and probably a human with excel could do a similar job.

Hoard: ~10,000 gp total, result 24 (gold tier, digit 4)

Item	Weight	Value	% of value
30,000 cp in copper coins	300 lb	300 gp	3%
40,000 sp in silver coins	400 lb	4,000 gp	40%
3,000 gp in gold coins	300 lb	3,000 gp	25%
120 pp in platinum coins	12 lb	600 gp	6%
5 gems (avg 80 gp each)	0.1 lb	400 gp	4%
2 pieces of jewelry (avg 200 gp)	0.2 lb	400 gp	4%
1 magic item	0.5 lb	1,000 gp	10%
Total	~1,013 lb	~9,700 gp	100%

The top 20% by weight is ~203 lb. That's:

• the magic item (0.5 lb, 1,000 gp)
• the jewelry (0.2 lb, 400 gp)
• the gems (0.1 lb, 400 gp)
• the platinum (12 lb, 600 gp)
• and about 190 lb of gold coins (1,900 gp)

Total: ~203 lb, ~4,300 gp — about 44% of the value in 20% of the weight.

Minimalist Treasure

I'm working on my minimalist OSR doc again, and this time I think I'll actually publish something before the end of 2026. 

Today, I tackle treasure.

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A Note on the B/X Economy

Analyzing the treasure tables was a somewhat frustrating experience. Things don't seem to make much sense, even after years of forcing myself to accept that D&D's economy doesn't work like the real world. When trying to make sense of treasure weights, I kept noticing that many simple objects — knives, swords, bows — are worth their weight in silver or more. This could, at first glance, be justified by imagining a world where gold and silver are extremely abundant but skilled craftsmanship is rare. But when you start relating this to specific creatures and thinking of commerce across towns, the logic doesn't hold up.

Take kobolds. Their treasure is mostly copper, and often they carry no treasure at all. Maybe the game doesn't want you to get rich by robbing them. Yet a kobold armed with a shortbow is, by the standards of this economy, extraordinarily wealthy, since a shortbow is worth almost its weight in gold. A spear is worth roughly its weight in silver.

Copper, as a whole, serves almost no function in the game's economy. It appears in treasure tables, weighs the same as any other coin, and is worth one hundredth of a gold piece. The average adventurer  (or kobold) would accumulate and transport weapons and simple manufactured objects rather than copper coins, even accounting for depreciation and indivisibility, since the value-to-weight ratio is up to a hundred times better. The fact that travelling is not easy or safe in most D&D worlds makes the whole issue more obvious - the cost of moving copper around would probably vastly surpass any gain you can make. The wages of hirelings/retainers would hardly pay for that service, maybe not even their food.

Aristotle listed portability, durability, and divisibility as the essential characteristics of money. Copper fails the first test badly enough that it feel useless as currency in a D&D world.

And now I can't unsee this. It simply doesn't make sense. 

Before giving up completely: in my last campaign I divided the weight of all coins by ten. I don't know if this actually fixes the underlying problem, but with some good will it seems to work well enough at the table. I also prefer to use: 1000 cp = 100 sp = 10 gp = 1pp, just because it is simpler.

With that brief aside, let's move on. I'll analyse the system as originally written, but keep in mind by the end I'll still coins that are much lighter.

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Let's do this anyway!

I started by giving each creature 100 gp of treasure per Hit Die in another post. Dragons are a different case entirely; they double, triple, or multiply both value and weight. They are, in the most literal sense, hoarders of useless coins.

The other half of the equation is weight. In B/X, every coin weighs (about) one tenth of a pound, and the encumbrance system punishes anyone who doesn't think before filling their pack. With this ruler it's possible to calculate the value density of each treasure type (how much each pound the adventurer decides to carry is actually worth). Before presenting the three groups, I must add that about five treasure types (I, L, M, N, and O) that exist in the tables aren't assigned to any monster in the entire canonical B/X (neither in Moldvay's Basic nor Cook's Expert), so I ignored them for now.

With the remaining types (those actually used in the bestiary) ranking by gp/lb reveals three groups with sufficiently clean boundaries. I used AI for some of the math, so please correct me if I'm wrong - I had to revisit it several times.

BTW, OSE's Treasure Types, reproducing the logic of B/X, have been invaluable to this post.

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Group 1 — Heavy treasure

Types P, J, Q, K, B, C · average ~3 gp/lb

The weight of this treasure is dominated by low-value coins. Type P is pure copper (0.1 gp/lb). Type J, the kobold lair, mixes copper and silver to reach 0.3 gp/lb. Q and K are small amounts of silver and electrum. 

Bugbears, ghouls, wights, gargoyles, ogres, all varieties of lycanthrope, minotaurs, owl bears, harpies,  hold treasure with a density between 3.5 and 3.7 gp/lb. As inefficient per pound as a kobold lair, just heavier. Types B and C are dominated by copper, silver, and electrum, with only a small chance of gems and an even smaller chance of a magic item. 

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Group 2 — Mixed treasure

Types R, H, E, D, S, F, G, A · average ~11 gp/lb

Gnolls, hobgoblins, lizard men, and orcs (type D, 9.5 gp/lb) sit alongside elves and doppelgangers (type E, 8.5 gp/lb), medusa and shadows (type F, 15.9 gp/lb), dwarves (type G, 17.3 gp/lb), and at the top of the range, troglodytes and bandits (type A, 20.1 gp/lb). The treasures balance coin volume with gems, jewelry, and platinum in a way that converges on the same efficiency band — roughly 5 to 20 gp/lb.

The most noticeable member of this group is the dragon. Type H — exclusive to the six dragons in the bestiary — has only 8.0 gp/lb, virtually identical to a gnoll lair, and well below the dwarves and medusa sharing its group. 

B/X really is a game about killing dragons: few things make you richer faster than finding a sleeping dragon on its hoard! 

The problem is carrying it... Type H includes 50% chances of 1d100×1,000 silver coins, 1d4×10,000 electrum, 1d6×10,000 gold, dozens of gems and jewelry, and a handful of magic items at the top — producing an expected weight of ~6,180 pounds, more than an adult African elephant. The dragon hoards incomparably more, accumulated over centuries, mountains of low-value coins with rare items buried somewhere in the middle.

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Group 3 — Value-dense treasure

Types U, V · average ~92 gp/lb

OSE call these two types "group treasure".

Type U (66.5 gp/lb) covers a sprawling list of apparently unrelated creatures: acolytes, normal humans, bears, great cats, giant lizards, bandits, pirates, merchants. What they share is that their treasures are light and proportionally rich in value per pound, with small chances of gems, jewelry, and magic items that punch far above their weight.

Type V (121.9 gp/lb) the best "pound-for-pound" treasure assigned for monsters belongs to the cave bear, the sabre-tooth tiger, the gelatinous cube, the halfling, the medium, the noble, and the veteran. Silver, electrum, gold, platinum, gems, jewelry, occasional magic item — in quantities so small that the total weight is nearly negligible, but the composition so clean that almost every ounce counts.

Why do wild animals have such great treasure? The most common interpretation in the OSR community is that these are the remains of what the animals ate — previous adventurers, merchants, unlucky travelers. The gelatinous cube dissolves organic matter and low-denomination coinage, leaving behind only what's worth carrying. Apparently monsters do not eat copper and silver, maybe because it is worse for your health... 

BTW, here is an odd comparison. A fight with a 4 HD black bear is not a great deal when a 4 HD gargoyle will give you almost ten times more treasure — though that treasure weighs more than 100 times more. 

This assumes both treasure are in their lairs; since the treasure is not individual, we can also assume that a group of gargoyles will be twice the size of a group of bear in the wilderness. The gargoyle's treasure is still better because of Pareto.

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Pareto in the dungeon

Vilfredo Pareto observed in the 19th century that 80% of wealth belonged to 20% of the population, a power law that repeats across complex systems. In any mixed B/X treasure, if the adventurer ranks items from highest to lowest gp/lb and starts carrying in that order, the first 20% of the weight typically delivers between 60% and 80% of the total value. 

So all these complex treasure types and logistics to bring the treasure to the city are a bit useless.

Copper is just not worth carrying, except apparently buy a few poor or hoarding monsters. Silver probably becomes obsolete after few levels, then gold. But you can just ignore tons of treasure and still get most of the value from a few gems and magic items.

This, in my opinion, is far from ideal; too many complex subsystems of rolling treasure that have no significant consequences.

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A minimalist version?

This kind of pointless complexity is one of my least favorite aspects of classic D&D. Twenty-two treasure types, five coin denominations, weights, probabilities, magic item subtables — all of it rewarding spreadsheet thinking more than adventure. Which parts actually make the game more interesting?

The analysis suggests the answer is simpler than the tables imply. Strip away the unassigned treasure types and three groups cover everything a DM actually needs.

The bottom tier — around 1 gp/lb — is for savage monsters and humanoids, undead, and the creatures that accumulate wealth without understanding it: kobolds, berserkers, bugbears, ghouls, wights, harpies, lycanthropes, ogres, owl bears, gargoyles. Their treasure is dominated by copper and silver, heavy for what it's worth.

The middle tier — around 10 gp/lb, roughly equivalent to its own weight in gold — covers organized humanoids and higher monsters: goblins, gnolls, hobgoblins, orcs, elves, dwarves, medusa, doppelgangers. This is the baseline of the game's economy, the chest-full-of-gold-coins standard. Dragons sit here too, which is the most counterintuitive result of the entire analysis: a dragon hoard is not more refined than a gnoll's, just incomparably larger. Moving it is the adventure.

The top tier — 50 to 100 gp/lb — belongs to the chests/lairs of wealthy individuals: merchants, nobles, knights, pirates, acolytes, high-status NPCs. Gems, jewelry, platinum, the occasional magic item, almost no dead weight.

A clean minimalist rule falls out naturally: 1 gp/lb for savage monsters, 10 gp/lb for organized humanoids and most monsters, 50–100 gp/lb for the hoards wealthy and powerful. The 100 gp per HD heuristic handles value; these densities handle weight. Between the two, any treasure can be improvised in seconds without opening a table.

And, again, since few creatures are travelling with more treasure that they can carry, a sufficiently large group may have a few leaders (with extra HD) carrying more valuable treasure, including magic weapons. Likewise, a high-level NPC will likely carry valuable stuff. This has an interesting side-effect of naturally making high-level PCs uninterested in pillaging anyone but the highest-level foes, which I really like.

Individuals will only carry a fraction of the treasures on themselves. Like in the originals, maybe give them a handful of coins (say, 3d6), with total value of around 1 GP per HD (meaning everyone carries silver, mostly, with some copper or gold). IF they have no lairs — for example, travelling nobles and merchants — they must carry all their treasure amongst themselves. Assume few would carry enough treasure to slow them down, so the either have horses, donkeys, and so on, or a few valuable gems.

As for wild beasts carrying high-value treasure because they've eaten adventurers — it's a fun image, especially for the gelatinous cube, but it doesn't hold up. Such creatures would devour goblins and peasants far more often than merchants and knights, which would predict copper-heavy loot, not platinum. Simpler to say wild creatures have no treasure at all (except in lairs) — or assign a value to their pelts and parts instead.

Which leaves the question of lairs. As a rough heuristic, we can try using the same 100 gp per HD we used for most creatures. Honestly, I'd divide the treasure of wild creatures by 10 or something similar; a lion's den is simply not that full of valuable treasure.

Dragons are a special case and should stay that way. They are the only creatures that genuinely deserve complex, idiosyncratic treasure — it fits their mythological origins, their centuries of accumulation, their sheer scale as opponents. Keep them as written. A dragon hoard should feel different from everything else, because it is.

Finally, to put some variety back without restoring the full complexity: a couple of short random tables for special cases.

Maybe this is easy to do with a dice pool - roll 1d10 for each 100 gp expected. In the main table, poor creatures get -1, rich ones get +1. Add other types of coins if you want. For example:

Main table

d10
0–1	Copper coins
2–4	Silver coins
5–7	Gold coins
8	Platinum coins
9–10	Special (roll below)

Special — d10

d10
1	Platinum coins
2	Gems
3	Magic item
4	Potion
5	Scroll
6	Map (treasure, dungeon, or secret route)
7	Art or jewelry
8	Single incredible gem (x10 value)
9	Document (deed, letter of credit, incriminating secret)
10	Pelt, trophy, or caged creature

This way you can keep the treasure "mini-game" if you want, and even have some rare events... A kobold carrying a gem he doesn't know the value of. A pirate ship with a crate of stolen art. The skeleton of a hero in the smilodon's lair, still gripping his magic sword. Treasure maps, unidentified potions and forgotten artifacts. These exceptions are what make individual encounters memorable — and they work precisely because the baseline is simple enough that the exception stands out. 

I'm not 100% happy with this yet, but it is a start.

How minimalist can D&D characters be?

As I've said before, this is the amount of information I'd like D&D characters to have — and that would have to be enough in actual play for something like 80% of the rolls, to minimize the time spent doing math and checking the book:

Nice, huh? Class, level, abilities, a couple of magic items or spells, and you're good to go. Most PCs have a little more than a dozen pieces of information (Name, Alignment, Level, Class, 6 abilities, AC, HP, weapons, and armor), plus spells for some.

Realistically, however, even the lightest versions of D&D need more information than that. For example, can you recall each saving throw from memory? Unlikely, but this is easily solved by reducing all of them to a single saving throw (say, roll 1d20 + level, target 20, or 16, etc.).

What about THAC0? Same thing. I'm happy with leaving the attack bonus equal to level for fighters, half level for everyone else, which is a huge simplification from D&D. But that's two extra bits of information. And usually, you need ranged and melee values, which rely on more information than just level (so you need to add strength modifier).

And ability scores? You have the six of them, but you need modifiers. You could commit the modifiers to memory, but you use them often enough that is is easier if you write them down. Well, maybe not all of them; since you already have AC, HP, and languages, you can ignore Dex, Con and Int modifiers most of the time (which is, by itself, an interesting idea - why keep these modifiers in the character sheet?). But you need Charisma mods for reaction, at least in theory, and Wisdom for saves.

Strength modifiers are needed to attack and damage - and in AD&D, this can mean two additional numbers. Notice these stats lack weapon damage too, something you'll use all the time.

Notice tat at the very least we could ignore all "+0" modifiers so we'd only need to add two or three digits, not six new ones.

We do not have much equipment here either; it is likely that a real PC has at least half a dozen items or more, not only weapons and armor. I'm counting "sword +2" as a single piece of information, not two.

[On a side note, maybe in a low magic D&D setting, "sword +1" could be a personal trait for a warrior instead of a magic weapon. This could incorporate your strength bonus and make "weapon specialization" a lot easier.]

So maybe we'd have a minimum of 30 pieces of information for each PC... but there is more!

Spellcasters have spells, which is straightforward enough (if not for the fact that they could in theory pick new ones every day, and clerics have access to their whole list - notice that the cleric here has no spells memorized). Thieves have skills - again, a bit hard to memorize, but can be easily replaced by rolling 1d20 and adding level (once you get some customization, more information is needed). Fighters have their weapons specializations and extra attacks - and they need this stuff.

And that is assuming each PC can only have one class.

In the end, we could have more than 100 pieces of information. Look at this AD&D sheet:

Of course, much of it is redundant, or rarely used, but it still muddles the sheet.

Sigh.

In the end, this post ended up doing the opposite of what I intended when I wrote its title...

The answer, I think is that D&D characters could be a lot more minimalist than they are, but it is not an easy task.

We could start by cutting all ability scores in half (only one number, no modifier), reducing all saves to one single save, and streamlining all skills... but I've been to this road before. There is no end to this, other than ending with something that doesn't resemble D&D anymore.

Maybe this much complexity is fine if I let the players handle it. 

I guess I have no easy answers today.

I want LESS!

Most of my time playing and reading RPGs has been ruled by the “undisciplined pursuit of more.”

I played several RPGs and took pride in trying new ones. I favored "universal" systems where I could create endlessly detailed PCs and do anything I wanted. I also collected monster manuals for my D&D-ish needs.

This process has been somewhat useful in helping me discover my tastes and needs.

However, there has also been much waste. I read only a fraction of the RPGs I buy and play an even smaller fraction of the RPGs I read. Nowadays, I'm embracing "the disciplined pursuit of less."

In other words, I want less: fewer monsters, fewer spells, fewer magic items, fewer stats, and simpler systems.

This partly reflects my appreciation for minimalism, but it goes beyond that. I believe that having fewer elements makes each one more important and meaningful.

While having a multitude of monsters is fun, each Monster Manual contains more creatures than entire worlds like Middle-earth, Barsoom, Lankhmar, or the Hyborian Age (not to mention most horror and sci-fi settings). It becomes virtually impossible for PCs to understand each individual monster with any depth.

Take dragons, for example. The dragons of mythology and literature are often unique individuals, like Smaug, Fafnir, Tiamat, Drogon. Each is distinct and memorable. But the 2e MM (my favorite!) has about more than a dozen dragon types. If a D&D party sees Smaug, it is just another red dragon (they don't even need to interact to know that he is chaotic, since he is red; but this is another issue).

[Another thing I've been considering is how adding more monsters to a game doesn't make it any different from "standard" D&D, but replacing existing monsters creates a completely new kind of setting. Take Curse of Strahd, for example: it includes few "demihumans," and even the elves are distinct from the familiar elves we're used to. This seems to hold true for most of my favorite settings and modules, and I think I might never run an adventure containing orcs again.]

Magic items are the same: Excalibur or Stormbringer are memorable, and so is Sting. In D&D, a first-level party often has dozens of magic items. Eventually, they discard some of them as they reach higher levels. This abundance devalues magic items and magic in general.

I feel the same way about rules.

I’ve run a few 5e campaigns. 5e is a more "complete" game than B/X. However, it requires ten times the page count to achieve this. So, I’ve been asking myself: is 5e ten times more complete than B/X? And the answer is no. Same goes for AD&D.

[Sure, I could use a one-page RPG. In the end, this ultimately comes down to a matter of taste.]

Spell selection has also been a headache, leading to imbalance and analysis paralysis.

I like customizing characters, but I don’t need dozens of classes and races. I really enjoy the simplicity of being able to say the bandit leader is a "fighter 5" and leaving it at that.

When you have fewer elements, you can connect them more meaningfully. For example, elves resist ghouls. The undead are raised by demons. All aberrations come from other dimensions, while monsters are created by mages. Etc.

And to be honest, this would make way more likely that my players would even REMEMBER most of this stuff.

In short, many of my current issues with D&D could be solved by just having less.

Additional reading:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/05/unlimited-d-x-limited-d.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-illustrated-war-of-earth-and-sky.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2025/01/magic-item-inflation-in-ad.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/10/skeleton-with-bow.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2015/01/minimalism-elegance-and-multipurpose.html

Weapons vs. monster

We discussed weapon versus armor in several posts. I think it is an interesting subject, but I'm still not sure it is worth the effort.

It probably works better when you're running troops of humanoids against each other, a la Chainmail. But what about dragons and ogres? AD&D suggests the table doesn't apply to them.

But, arguably, knowing if you foe is a dragon or ogre is more relevant than chain versus plate.

So maybe we should do "weapon vs. monster" tables instead of "weapon vs. armor"?

Of course, we already have something like that at least since AD&D. I don't remember if if it is from some  OD&D supplement (let me know!), but even in Chainmail the weapon versus armor table has a couple of columns for horses (and also different hit probabilities against ogres, dragons, etc.).

Could we create a minimalist version for B/X and other OSR games?

I think it would be a good idea. Let's see. Instead of specific monsters, I like to think of monster types.

- Giants are resistant to small weapons, but more vulnerable to large weapons, especially swords and polearms. Same for oozes. (although I think giants also deserve an HP boost for that). The downside is that David vs. Goliath becomes harder.

- Golems are resistant to cutting and piercing weapons, plus weapons made of wood. You need a mace of pick for that. Of course, a golem made of straw is weak against cutting and strong against bludgeoning.

- Plant creatures and wood golems are more vulnerable against cutting weapons, especially axes.

- Arrows and daggers are weak against ALL these creatures (you're unlikely to reach their vitals), plus undead, but maybe daggers are good against unarmored and defenseless humanoids. Would give thieves a reason to use them over longswords.

- Blunt weapons are good against skeletal undead and similarly brittle creatures.

- Lycanthropes require silver weapons. Demons, fey and golems have magic resistance. Elementals resist most weapons and certain elements, and so on. Swarms resist all weapons.

Dragons and other monsters are treated according to size.

How to enforce that? I think a simple -1 to +2 to both attack and damage will suffice. Anymore than that would probably be a headache.

If we only had giants and oozes to deal with, I'd give them some damage resistance - maybe 4 points? - but allow a weapon to roll two dice instead of one. So a dagger would have a hard time but a 2h-sword would deal more damage than usual (2d10-4).

And then we'd have to consider giants in armor... sigh. Maybe doing a simple version is not so simple after all. But it might be worth the effort, at least to different weapons and make the monsters more... tangible?

Two uses for each ability score

One thing that bothers me about D&D - most editions share the same problem - is that it feels like I need at least TWO different uses of each ability score.

For example, if I have Charisma 15 (+1), I feel I need to have a use for the score (15) AND also for the modifier (+1).

Otherwise, why would I need the two? ESPECIALLY when I'm trying to keep things minimalist - starting by the character sheet.

[Of course, you could just get rid of the score, which I'm also tempted to do, although I like having compatibility with other D&D games, etc.]

Fortunately, I don't use Strength 18/77 +2 +4 +1500 1-4 30% 

As you can see above, it is not difficult to find several uses for Strength.

Other abilities are trickier, UNLESS you use ability checks. 

And, fair enough, this is a decent solution. 

My issue with ability checks is that they don't take level into account.

So, a 10th-level fighter is as likely to avoid a pit trap (an early example of Dexterity check) as a first level one.

[This is also a terrible use of Dexterity because it feels like a saving throw but has a completely different method and rationale].

One compromise that could work is what I suggested here ("Minimalist OSR"):

Roll under skills (optional): this is an alternate method to deal with skills that makes PCs more

competent and their ability scores more relevant. To accomplish anything:

- If you are trained in a skill, roll under half your ability (round up) plus your level.

- If you are untrained, roll under your ability (round down).

This has lots of advantages, but it is slightly more complicated than simply rolling under ability. Also, if your rolling for easy stuff (which I don't recommend), it will make PCs look bad.

Even with ability checks, what do you "check" Charisma for, if there is already a (undue, IMO) influence on reactions, retainers, etc.?

If you don't like ability checks, things get even more difficult. Ideally, I'd want EVERY point of EVERY ability to serve SOME purpose to EVERY character. 

So, just saying that abilities give extra XP for certain classes (one of the main purposes originally) is not enough for me.

Let me give some quick examples:

Strength

Score = encumbrance (one item per point).

Modifier = bonus to hit and damage.

Constitution

Score = you lose Con when you have 0 HP, 0 Con means death.

Modifier = bonus to HP.

Dexterity

Score = No idea. Maybe unarmored AC when you're unencumbered? Too many "ifs" here.

Modifier = bonus to AC, maybe ranged.

Wisdom

Score = Could serve as sanity points (e.g., in Crypts and Things) or be "drained".

Modifier = bonus to saves versus spells.

Charisma

Score = Maybe some kind of "Luck points", but this require a new mechanic. I thought of giving a 12% discount in all equipment for PCs with Charisma 12 and so on, but that is a bit niche.

Modifier = bonus to social interactions.

Intelligence

Score = No idea here either.

Modifier = bonus to languages (seems weak, but okay - maybe you can trade some languages for skills or spells).

Well, there are hundreds of old school games out there. Surely there are more uses for ability scores?

Let me know in the comments!