In this fourth installment of the Treasure Hoards line, an array of twenty-five substantial hoards belonging to the wealthy (well, they ARE challenge level 17-20 after all!) are presented ready for you to locate for the party to pilfer. The format is as before, with a list of hoards which you can roll upon if you are happy with a random one, or you can read through each one if you'd prefer to select. This time, none of them is devoid of magic, unsurprising at this high level.

Within each hoard, first you hear about the cash - just gold and platinum pieces at this level and even so the quantities are such as to require some heavy lifting. Next comes a selection of items: gemstones, clothing, jewellry and miscellaneous items. Each has a note concerning value, generally with an Intelligence DC check to work out what they are worth and sometimes to figure out what the item is if it's not readily apparent by just looking at it. (Although I don't think it really takes a DC 20 Intelligence check to know that a promissory note to the value of 10,000 gp is worth... 10,000 gp!) Finally, magic items are listed with a brief description, but no indication of value, or for that matter details of what it does... you'll have to look those up elsewhere.

There's some nice stuff here, and several items could lead to adventures of their own. Why are they here? How did whoever you've given them to get hold of them? What will be the effect of the party hawking around that particular and distinctive item that they've just looted?

One hoard contains five fully-caparisoned heavy war horses! Make sure you use that one somewhere that there's accommodation for the horses. Another includes a complete sailing ship... Moving on to the magic, most is in the shape of potions, scrolls and wands with a few magical weapons and pieces of armour thrown in for good measure.

When you need some loot in a hurry, or some inspiration when stocking the next dungeon, this is a handy resource. The only thing I'd add is a total value for each hoard - there's always a party member who wants to know that!

An Endzeitgeist.com review

The fourth of the pdfs in this series clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial/ToC, 2 pages of advertisements, 1 page SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 5 pages of content, so let's take a look!

What is this pdf all about? Well, in short, it provides 25 fully fleshed-out treasure hoards, ready to be dropped in your game, four of which feature no magic items. A handy d%-table lets you randomly determine which treasure hoard to use and the structure of the respective entries is nice: We first get coinage and then the respective entries, which range from jewels to potions and beyond, containing legendary items at these levels as well.

In many a case, an Intelligence DC 25 check can determine the value of the more obscure items, like platinum-plated scepters, though harder and lower DCs certainly can be found. Magic item-wise, you will find items here beyond the confines of scrolls and potions: Wells of many worlds, portable holes or universal solvents can provide some nice magical oomph to the beleaguered adventuring group. It should be mentioned that the respective 5e-items have been chosen rather well and that the treasure hoards do feature nice themes. Considering that this one covers hoards for challenge 17 - 20 we also find a few pieces of +3 items and high level potions and scrolls.

...but at the same time, the pdf has one big issue: It inherits my criticisms regarding its direct predecessors and does not mention for which levels the treasure hoards presented would be appropriate. The pdf mentions challenge 17 - 20 as a general guideline, but personally, I consider that to be a bit too broad of a span. Granted, at this level, the power is less of an issue than at lower levels, but still.

A total value is also not provided for the hoards, which means you have to read up the value of each of the entries, look up the magic items, total them with the coinage...you get the idea. Some precise values (perhaps with a plus and the magic item's scarcity, if any, added) would have made this significantly more useful, at least to me.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no significant glitches. Layout adheres to raging Swan Press' elegant two-column b/w-standard and the pdf has no artworks, but needs none at this length. It does sport bookmarks for your convenience, though, and also comes in two versions - one optimized for screen-use and one optimized for the printer.

Ronald Calbick and Ben Kent's fourth installment for the series is, item-choice-wise and flavor-wise diverse and well-made, with 5e's items being well-distributed. However, the lack of total values and aforementioned handling gripes do limit the usefulness of this pdf, at least for me. Challenge 17 to 20 is also a VERY wide span and while the selection of items is diverse, with fluff adding something to the magical items, this does exacerbate the issues of the previous parts. At the same time, at this level, magic item bloat is no issue. My final verdict will hence, once again, clock in at 3.5 pages, rounded up for the purpose of this platform. Still, it could be easier to use, at least in my book.

Endzeitgeist out.