D&D 5e 2014 Treasure and Rewards Guide

Introduction

A D&D 5e (2014) party that's already sitting on a hoard of gold and a growing pile of magic items doesn't need more of either to feel rewarded. Chapter 7 of the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide covers two different kinds of payoff: the physical treasure a party hauls out of a dungeon, and a second category the book calls Other Rewards - supernatural gifts, marks of prestige, and epic boons that don't need a coin value attached to matter. This guide covers both halves without reproducing the DMG's randomized loot tables or its magic item catalog, which stay in the book where they belong.

For the mechanics of how a found magic item actually works once a character has it - rarity, attunement, activation - see the D&D 5e 2014 Magic Items Guide. This guide is about what else a DM can put in front of a party besides gold and gear.

The DMG frames Chapter 7 around a single idea: adventurers chase glory, knowledge, and justice, but most of them also want something tangible for the risks they take. Treasure and the rewards covered here are both answers to that want, just aimed at different points in a campaign - treasure works from the first session onward, while several of the rewards below only make sense once a party has already made a name for itself.

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Types of Treasure

The 2014 DMG sorts physical treasure into four categories. Knowing the categories matters more than memorizing any specific table, since it tells you what kind of loot actually fits a hoard before you reach for dice.

• Coins. The most basic form of treasure: copper, silver, electrum, gold, and platinum pieces. Fifty coins of any denomination weigh a pound, which matters more than it sounds like it should the moment a party tries to haul off ten thousand of them without a cart.
• Gemstones. Small, light, and easy to secure compared to their equivalent value in coin - a party that finds a fistful of gems instead of a chest of gold is getting the same value in a much more portable form.
• Art Objects. Gold idols, jeweled necklaces, paintings of long-dead kings, bejeweled dishes - one-of-a-kind decorative valuables rather than a uniform currency.
• Magic Items. Armor, potions, scrolls, rings, rods, staffs, wands, weapons, and wondrous items, each carrying a rarity from common to legendary. See the Magic Items Guide for how rarity, attunement, and activation actually work once a party has one in hand.

The DMG also includes intelligent monsters using or hiding the magic items in their own hoards - a hobgoblin war band might carry a +1 longsword into battle while keeping a more fragile item like an alchemy jug stashed somewhere safer, which is a useful reminder that a hoard doesn't have to sit in a pile waiting to be found. Some of it can already be in use.

The book's own Random Treasure section - individual monster treasure by challenge rating, treasure hoard tables, and the detailed gemstone and art object value tables - is randomized reference material meant to be rolled on directly from the book rather than summarized here, so this guide doesn't reproduce it.

Where and how much treasure to place is left entirely to DM discretion rather than a fixed formula. The DMG's own framing for that discretion is simple: the goal is making sure players feel rewarded for playing and that their characters feel rewarded for surviving whatever they just got through, whether that treasure came from a monster's hoard, a hidden vault, or a stash left behind by a previous adventurer who didn't make it out.

Dragon Hoards

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons treats a dragon's hoard as a special case of the four categories above, one where hoard size is tied directly to the dragon's own age and power rather than picked independently. A wyrmling holds a few hundred gold pieces; a young dragon's hoard runs into the thousands; an adult dragon needs a hoard worth roughly 15,000 gp (alongside a century of life) to cross into legendary status; and an ancient dragon's hoard, split across eight to ten caches, can exceed a million gold pieces. Older dragons also tend to split a themed set of items - the pieces of a broken artifact, numbered volumes of an encyclopedia - across multiple caches specifically to link them together, which turns "loot the dragon" into a multi-session hunt for the rest of a set rather than a single loot screen.

The mechanical stakes run in both directions: if a lair's remaining treasure drops below roughly 10,000 gp, the site stops counting as a lair at all, and the dragon loses lair actions there while its regional effects fade as if it had died - meaning a party can measurably weaken a dragon by stripping a smaller cache before ever engaging it directly. For the full age-by-hoard-value breakdown, hoard curses, and a step-by-step hoard-building procedure, see the Dragon Lairs and Hoards guide.

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Other Rewards

Treasure isn't the only thing gods, monarchs, and other powerful figures can hand a party for a job well done. The DMG groups everything else under Other Rewards: supernatural gifts that grant new capabilities, marks of prestige like titles and land, and epic boons reserved for characters who've already hit 20th level. These rewards tend to matter more at a table where gold has stopped being exciting - a title or a blessing keeps meaning something long after a pile of coin gets spent on lodging and gear.

These three categories aren't interchangeable, and knowing which one fits a given moment is most of the work. Supernatural gifts are personal - they change what one character can do, and they're tied to that character's own deeds. Marks of prestige are social - they change how NPCs, factions, and entire regions treat the party, and several of them (a title, a stronghold, a special right) keep generating consequences long after the moment they're granted. Epic boons are a late-campaign tool specifically for characters who've maxed out their level but the story isn't over yet. Reaching for the wrong one - handing a 20th-level demigod an ordinary letter of recommendation, say - undersells the moment as badly as forgetting to reward the party at all.

Supernatural Gifts

A supernatural gift is a reward granted by a being or force of substantial magical power, and it comes in two forms. Unlike a magic item, neither one is a physical object, and neither requires attunement - a character just has the ability, full stop.

Blessings. A blessing usually comes from a god or a godlike being, and it's reserved for something the DMG calls momentous - restoring the most sacred shrine of a god, foiling an earth-shaking plot against a deity, or helping a god's favored servant finish a holy quest. A blessing can also arrive in advance of a dangerous mission, the way a paladin might receive one before setting out to end a lich-driven plague. A character keeps a blessing's benefits forever, or until the granting god takes it back - and unlike a magic item, a blessing can't be suppressed by an antimagic field. There's no hard cap on how many blessings a character can hold, but the book calls it rare for a character to have more than one at a time, and a character can't benefit from two instances of the same blessing at once. Some blessings come with strings attached: a god who grants one for a specific purpose can revoke it if the character abandons that purpose or works against it. Named examples from the book include Blessing of Health (a Constitution increase), Blessing of Protection (a bonus to AC and saving throws), Blessing of Magic Resistance (advantage on saves against spells and magical effects), Blessing of Understanding (a Wisdom increase), Blessing of Valhalla (the power to summon spirit warriors, usable again after 7 days), Blessing of Weapon Enhancement (one nonmagical weapon becomes magical while wielded), and Blessing of Wound Closure (the healing benefit of a periapt of wound closure). The DMG's advice for building your own: model a new blessing on the effect of an existing wondrous item.

Hollow Ones. Wildemount's Explorer's Guide adds a supernatural gift that doesn't fit either mold above. In Blightshore, a region of Wildemount scarred by corrupted magic, a character who dies can come back as a Hollow One - alive again, but permanently marked by whatever brought them back. That's a third pattern: a gift granted by exposure to a specific place or event rather than a deity's favor, and it isn't going anywhere once it takes hold. Unlike a Blessing, no god granted it and none can revoke it. Unlike a Charm, it doesn't burn through a set number of uses before it fades - it becomes part of the character from that point forward. A Hollow One stops aging, reads as undead to detection magic even though its creature type never changes, gets a small edge on death saving throws, and can unsettle a nearby foe to spoil its next saving throw once it's rested up. The change isn't free: a persistent unease or sorrow clings to a Hollow One from having died, a reminder that something about them didn't come all the way back.

Charms. A charm is a smaller supernatural gift that shows up in a much wider range of circumstances than a blessing - a wizard uncovering an eldritch secret in a dead archmage's spellbook, a character who solves a sphinx's riddle or drinks from a magic fountain, or an ally graced by a legendary creature like an ancient gold dragon or a unicorn. Some charms work once; others have a set number of uses before they vanish. A charm that lets its holder cast a spell doesn't cost a spell slot or require components, but it can't function inside an antimagic field, its effects are still vulnerable to dispel magic, and nothing short of divine intervention or a wish spell can strip it away early. Named examples include Charm of Animal Conjuring (casts conjure animals, 3 uses), Charm of Darkvision (casts darkvision, 3 uses), Charm of Feather Falling (the benefits of a ring of feather falling for 10 days), Charm of Heroism (one use of a potion of heroism's benefit), Charm of Restoration (6 charges, spent on greater or lesser restoration), Charm of the Slayer (turns one sword into a dragon slayer or giant slayer, DM's choice, for 9 days), and Charm of Vitality (one use of a potion of vitality's benefit). The DMG's advice here: model a new charm on the effect of a potion or a spell.

Hot Take: Marks of prestige get skipped more often than they should, because none of them show up as a bonus on a character sheet. A title or a stronghold changes how NPCs across an entire region treat the party, which no line of magic item text can do. A DM who only ever rewards gold and gear is leaving half the book's reward system on the table.

Marks of Prestige

Marks of prestige are the fame, allies, and titles adventurers pick up over the course of a campaign - the DMG frames it as some of the most memorable reward a party can earn, and points out that plenty of real lords and ladies in a fantasy setting started as commoners who made a name for themselves through the same kind of dangerous work a party is already doing. These usually come bundled with treasure, but they can stand entirely on their own.

• Letters of Recommendation. A stand-in for payment when a benefactor is short on gold. A letter from someone with a reputation to back it up can get a party in front of NPCs they'd otherwise struggle to reach - a duke, a viceroy, a queen - and can smooth over misunderstandings with local authorities who might not otherwise take a party at its word. Its value is entirely tied to the reputation of whoever signed it; it's worthless somewhere its writer holds no sway.
• Medals. Often crafted from gold or other precious materials, but their value is mostly symbolic. Different acts of heroism call for different medals - the book's own Eberron example has the King of Breland awarding a Royal Badge of Valor for defending Brelish citizens, and a separate Golden Bear of Breland reserved for defeating a plot against the crown. A medal grants no direct mechanical benefit, but it shapes how NPCs react: a character wearing a well-known medal is treated as a hero within the territory that recognizes it, and far less so outside it.
• Parcels of Land. Comes with a formal letter affirming the grant. The land typically stays the property of the local ruler or ruling body even while it's leased to the character, and it can be reclaimed if the character's loyalty is ever called into question. A sufficiently large parcel might already include farms or villages, which makes the recipient a lord or lady with tax-collecting duties attached. A character can build on the land and is expected to protect it, can pass it on as an inheritance, but can't sell or trade it without the ruler's permission.
• Special Favors. A favor the party can call in later, rather than a reward paid up front. How reliably it gets honored depends on who granted it: a lawful character keeps their word short of breaking the law, a lawful evil benefactor honors it because a deal's a deal, and a chaotic good benefactor cares more about doing right by the party than about the letter of the obligation.
• Special Rights. Codified in an official document - the right to carry weapons in public, kill enemies of the crown, negotiate on a duke's behalf, demand free room and board within a community, or draft local militia. These last only as long as the document says they do, and they can be revoked if a party abuses them.
• Strongholds. Given to seasoned adventurers who've shown unwavering loyalty to a powerful figure or ruling body - a king, a knighthood, a council of wizards. A stronghold can be anything from a fortified tower in a city to a provincial keep on the frontier, and while the party runs it as they see fit, the land underneath it stays the property of the crown or local ruler; disloyalty or misconduct can cost a party custody of it. The individual granting it sometimes covers its upkeep for a set period before the responsibility shifts to the party. A stronghold awarded as a reward is where this section stops being purely about prestige and starts overlapping with a party's downtime between adventures - keeping the place running is its own ongoing commitment.
• Titles. Dispensed by a politically powerful figure, often bundled with a parcel of land - the book's own examples are Earl of Stormriver and Countess of Dun Fjord. A character can hold more than one title, and in a feudal setting, titles can be passed down to (or split among) a character's children. Holding a title comes with an expectation to act the part, and a title can be stripped by decree if a ruler questions the holder's loyalty or competence.
• Training. Offered in place of a financial reward when a skilled trainer is willing to teach - a retired adventurer, a reclusive wizard who owes someone a favor, the commander of a royal guard, the leader of a druid circle, or any other mentor figure the DM invents. Accepting training means spending downtime with that mentor in exchange for a guaranteed benefit: daily inspiration for a set number of days, a new skill proficiency, or a feat, at the DM's discretion.

Buying and Selling Magic Items

Types of Treasure covers what a party finds. Xanathar's Guide to Everything adds a second route to a magic item: paying for one, or unloading one the party doesn't want. This isn't the DMG's magic item catalog with a price sticker slapped on - it's a real procedure for turning gold into gear, or gear into gold, between adventures, and both directions carry their own risk.

Buying. Finding a seller takes effort before any gold changes hands: at least a workweek of searching and roughly 100 gp in expenses, which covers the wealthy lifestyle a buyer needs just to get taken seriously by people who deal in magic items. Extra workweeks and extra gold both add to a Charisma (Persuasion) check, and the total determines which rarity band of items actually shows up for sale. A weak roll might turn up nothing but common trinkets. A strong one can put something legendary on the table, and price scales with it: a common item runs tens of gold, an uncommon one a few hundred, rare items climb into the thousands, very rare ones into the tens of thousands, and legendary items into the hundreds of thousands, with potions, scrolls, and other consumables priced at half. None of this guarantees a specific item exists to be bought. A DM decides what's actually for sale and can rule that an isolated town, or a low-magic campaign, has no real market for this at all.

Selling. Unloading an item runs the same process at a smaller scale. A workweek and 25 gp buys the effort of spreading word that something's for sale, followed by another Persuasion check to see what kind of offer comes in. A poor result nets half the item's base value, an average one gets full price, and a strong one can fetch half again as much. The same item can sell for wildly different amounts depending on how the search goes and who ends up buying, not a fixed number posted in a shop window.

The risk on both sides. Buying and selling draw the wrong kind of attention. XGE treats every workweek spent chasing a deal as carrying roughly a 1-in-10 chance of a complication: a fake item planted by an enemy, a thief moving on the goods mid-sale, a rival bidder driving the price up, or a seller who turns up dead before the deal closes. None of that needs to derail a session. A rolled complication works just as well as a hook into whatever the party does next.

Setting the scale for your table. The real decision sits upstream of any check: how much gold should this economy support at a given tier of play? A market that hands a legendary item to a 5th-level party with a fat enough purse undercuts the same pacing the DMG's own magic item guidance is built around. Buying and selling work best as a way for players to chase a specific item they already want, not a shortcut around the tier a campaign is actually running at - a party that can shop for very rare or legendary gear should already be well into a campaign's later stretch, not funding a lucky early spending spree.

A party handling this during downtime treats the search itself as a downtime activity, tracked the same way as carousing or crafting through the game's downtime rules. For the mechanics of the items themselves once they change hands, see the Magic Items Guide.

Alternatives to Epic Boons

For a 20th-level character, the DMG offers two straightforward substitutes for an epic boon, and unlike most boons, both of these can be awarded to the same character more than once:

• Ability Score Improvement. Increase one ability score by 2, or two scores by 1 each. At 20th level, this is one of the only ways an ability score can climb past 20, up to a hard cap of 30.
• New Feat. The character gains a new feat of the player's choosing, subject to the DM's approval.

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Epic Boons

An epic boon is a power reserved for 20th-level characters, granted only when the DM decides it's warranted - the book's own guidance is to save these for after a character finishes a major quest or accomplishes something notable in its own right: destroying an evil artifact, defeating an ancient dragon, shutting down an incursion from the Outer Planes. For a table that keeps playing past 20th level, boons can also serve as ongoing advancement: award one for roughly every 30,000 XP a character earns above 355,000 XP. The DM decides which boon a character receives, ideally one that fits where the character and the story are headed, though a DM can let a player pick from the list subject to approval. A character can't gain the same boon twice unless its own text says otherwise, and the DMG suggests treating the moment a boon manifests - and any physical change it brings, like glowing eyes or faint motes of light - as a real scene in the story rather than a stat update.

The book leans into that idea harder than most reward systems in the game: it describes many boons as marking the gradual transformation of a character into something resembling a demigod, and asks the DM to decide how the boon actually arrives - spontaneously and mysteriously, or delivered in person by a being of cosmic power. Either version lands harder at the table when the DM treats the bestowal itself as a scene, rather than a line added to a character sheet between sessions.

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Choosing the Right Reward

None of this replaces gold or magic items - it sits alongside them, for the moments where a coin payout or another potion undersells what the party actually accomplished. A quick way to sort it out at the table: treasure and magic items reward what a party found or looted, supernatural gifts reward a specific extraordinary deed, marks of prestige reward an ongoing relationship with a person or institution, and epic boons reward a character who's run out of levels to gain but hasn't run out of story. A campaign that only ever hands out coin and items is running on half the reward system the DMG actually offers.

A few practical notes for running this at your own table, rather than a menu to check off in full:

• Scale the reward to the deed, not the level. A blessing that fits a 20th-level demigod-adventurer feels wrong handed to a 3rd-level party for clearing a bandit camp. The DMG's own examples - foiling a plot against a god, restoring a sacred shrine - are deliberately rare, campaign-defining events, not weekly loot.
• Prestige rewards work best when they cost the party something to maintain. A stronghold needs upkeep, a title comes with expectations, a special right can be revoked if abused. That built-in friction is what keeps these rewards interesting instead of becoming a free permanent bonus the party never thinks about again.
• Not every reward needs to be requested. A letter of recommendation or a medal can show up because an NPC decided the party earned it, which reinforces that the world is paying attention to what the characters do, not just handing out prizes on request.
• Epic boons are a pacing tool as much as a reward. At 20th level, ability scores and class features stop climbing on their own. Boons - or the Ability Score Improvement and feat alternatives - are what keeps a high-level character's build still growing when the level-up track runs out.

For the mechanics behind the magic items this guide keeps pointing to - rarity, attunement, activation, curses, and sentience - see the Magic Items Guide. Return to the Dungeon Master Guides hub for the rest of the 2014 DM-facing library, including how these rewards fit into the broader arc of a campaign.