The standard coin weighs about a third of an ounce (50 to the pound) according to 3.5/Pathfinder.  Of course, you can make the coins smaller and keep prices the same, making gold more valuable.  Make the coins bigger and keep prices same, gold is worth less.  Play around with prices also, worth changes.  In other words, I would more concerned with the worth of gold vs weight INHO.

Quote from: beejazz;387094I'd never cheat my players out of what they've rightfully stolen, and they earned the shit out of that gold too.

It's not cheating to set more adventurers on them.

Let's face it, if your party of adventurers heard, "There's this bunch of guys who just looted a tomb, they're tossing gold around and are drunk half the time," what would your party start thinking about doing?

Yeah, I'm happy to take back my initial comment If part of the point of getting a huge pile of gold is to generate more adventure and fun, that's cool. I just react badly in general to the idea of giving something with one hand the with the full intent of snatching it away with the other, which is how I read the OP.

I read the OP as a simple enquiry about what was physically possible, or possible within the rules.

Leaving treasure behind can generate further adventures, too. You might want to go back for it, maybe someone else got there before you and now you'll have to chase them, or there were some surviving original inhabitants who are now better-prepared with traps, tactics and so on. Or maybe what you left behind turns out to be more valuable than you thought. If nothing else, the stuff you left could be covering a secret door into another level of the dungeon

My only problem with lots of treasure is when the player says, "now my character retires!" Mate, if you didn't enjoy the session, just say so. No need to wuss out that way.

Quote from: beejazz;387071In my last session, players looted a tomb with lots and lots of treasure. There was enough that they each took all the gold they could carry. I need to figure out how much that's worth before today's game. Please help me out. I'll post more about this campaign in the actual play forum later.

I think the first physical limit to them would be the carrying capacity of backpacks, sacks, purses and the like. Very rarely the players think about that when outfitting their PCs, so, in order to take out all the treasure, probably they shall have to leave some or all their gear (but the weapons and armor) behind. Think of it, and check the PC sheets to find out how many carrying space can they really afford.

Second limit would be the weight of the treasure. I agree with estar, 10 coins/pound sounds idiotic to me. Coin was easily portable, so unless there's a really enormous amount of it (and if I was one of your players I would only bother with high value coin, like gold, silver and the like) they should be able to physically carry that much weight. Of course, you should use the encumbrance rules your game has. Which game was it, by the way?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;387257I read the OP as a simple enquiry about what was physically possible, or possible within the rules.

Leaving treasure behind can generate further adventures, too. You might want to go back for it, maybe someone else got there before you and now you'll have to chase them, or there were some surviving original inhabitants who are now better-prepared with traps, tactics and so on. Or maybe what you left behind turns out to be more valuable than you thought. If nothing else, the stuff you left could be covering a secret door into another level of the dungeon

My only problem with lots of treasure is when the player says, "now my character retires!" Mate, if you didn't enjoy the session, just say so. No need to wuss out that way.

If I'm running a character who wants to get rich, I'm probably going to retire him as soon as he does. Then, I'll roll up another one.

Quote from: Imperator;387280Coin was easily portable, so unless there's a really enormous amount of it (and if I was one of your players I would only bother with high value coin, like gold, silver and the like) they should be able to physically carry that much weight.

Sure, but it's a bit clumsy and noisy. I mean, who here keeps their spare change and puts in a jar or something? Then you have to take it down to the bank. $40 or $50 in sub-$1 coins is a bit jingly. I wouldn't want to be carrying it around every day. It may be only a kilogram or so, if that, but it's still a pain.

Of course adventurers are made of sterner stuff. They happily walk across hundreds of miles of untracked wilderness munching on their iron rations with stinging wounds hastily stitched by their unskilled fellows, wearing the same clothes for months on end...

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;387085Coins in 3.5 are 1oz each.

No. No they are not. A coin in 3.5 D&D is 1/50th of a pound. A little less than 1/3 of an ounce. Almost exactly 9 grams. A copper piece is thus 1.0123 cubic centimeters, A silver piece is thus 0.8638 cubic cenimeters, and a gold piece is 0.4581 cubic centimeters. For comparison, a penny has a volume of 0.36 cubic centimeters.

Since 3.5 D&D usually keeps track of wealth in 1000 gp increments, it is useful to know that each one of those is 20 pounds. Also that such a pile of currency almost exactly fills a pint glass.

-Frank

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;387287Sure, but it's a bit clumsy and noisy. I mean, who here keeps their spare change and puts in a jar or something? Then you have to take it down to the bank. $40 or $50 in sub-$1 coins is a bit jingly. I wouldn't want to be carrying it around every day. It may be only a kilogram or so, if that, but it's still a pain.

Of course adventurers are made of sterner stuff. They happily walk across hundreds of miles of untracked wilderness munching on their iron rations with stinging wounds hastily stitched by their unskilled fellows, wearing the same clothes for months on end...

...Hence the popularity of the spellcasting classes. It's not Cosmic Power; it's Prestidigitation!

Quote from: Narf the Mouse;387282If I'm running a character who wants to get rich, I'm probably going to retire him as soon as he does. Then, I'll roll up another one.

yeah, I have some Uber roleplayers...one of them on an IRC game just took his share from an adventureand is putting a large downpayment on a specialty winery/Inn.  We actually have a name for characters who totally move away from the adventure path, called 'remote characters', so named because often players will control them remotely on email, doing basic stuff, so they remain in the game as a feature of that area.  
Because, as Narf mentioned, when a character's goal revolves around wealth and what they will do with it, there becomes something of a threshold as to how much is enough.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;387287Sure, but it's a bit clumsy and noisy. I mean, who here keeps their spare change and puts in a jar or something? Then you have to take it down to the bank. $40 or $50 in sub-$1 coins is a bit jingly. I wouldn't want to be carrying it around every day. It may be only a kilogram or so, if that, but it's still a pain.

Of course adventurers are made of sterner stuff. They happily walk across hundreds of miles of untracked wilderness munching on their iron rations with stinging wounds hastily stitched by their unskilled fellows, wearing the same clothes for months on end...

Oh of course is clumsy and noisy, but that's entirely a different problem.  I'm assuming that stealth & grace are not a concern here.

Quote from: LordVreeg;387297yeah, I have some Uber roleplayers...one of them on an IRC game just took his share from an adventureand is putting a large downpayment on a specialty winery/Inn.  We actually have a name for characters who totally move away from the adventure path, called 'remote characters', so named because often players will control them remotely on email, doing basic stuff, so they remain in the game as a feature of that area.  
Because, as Narf mentioned, when a character's goal revolves around wealth and what they will do with it, there becomes something of a threshold as to how much is enough.

It's more that my characters aren't just vehicles for gathering loot and XP.

I think the rules you want are online here:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/carryingCapacity.htm

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm (the weight of coins)

But I would have thought that how much weight they can heft wouldn't be the limiting factor. It'd be what they had to put the coins in: backpacks, bag, cart...?