So, I think I get how the purse works - whichever type you ended up rolling, you've got to have each type of coin/gem in the purse in order to get the benefits of the purse. If you don't have all three, you get none.
You put in one of each three coin types, you wake up in the morning, and there's 25 more of each.
You leave it empty for more than a few minutes, the magic is lost.
The big question I have - say you roll up the variant that gives you gems?
You put in the CP, EP and the gem, and you wake up, 25 more of each.
There's this caveat:
* Base 10 g.p. gems which may increase to a maximum of 100 g.p. only.
So, do you roll for the value of each gem? Or all of them? Or is it based on the value of the gem you put in the bag the night before?
I've never heard of this item before last night - busted open a factory set of the 1991 AD&D 2E trading cards, and this was in there - didn't have the full description that the 1E DMG did, and my buddy's 2E DMG is missing the table. Even then, while it's a bit more clear, was just curious how this was handled.
Thanks!
In that ruling, the gem version of the bag (the rarest of the versions) is craptacular compared to the more common CP/EP/PP bag.
How do you reconcile that against the stated "*Base 10 g.p. gems" etc.? At a minimum, that would seem to be 26 10 gp gems, but even then, that still makes the bag not as desirable as the more common version.
Rolling 01-50 gets you a bag that provides 26 SP, EP and GP daily.
Rolling 51-90 gets you a bag that provides 26 CP, EP and PP daily.
Rolling 91-00 gets you a bag that provides 26 CP, EP and Gems daily.
*** The 26th coin/gem is the one you put in the bag originally, so you net out 25 coins/gems the next day.
Bag Type 3 would be superior to Bag Type 1, in the sense that you get 100 GP of gems instead of 25 GP of gold.
Bag Type 2, however, would be superior to Bag Type 3, in the sense that you get 25 PP, worth 125 GP in 1E/2E conversion rates (5 GP = 1 PP), as opposed to 100 GP of gems.
It doesn't make sense that this bag would be more common - nor does it really account for "*Base 10 g.p. gems which may increase to a maximum of 100 g.p. only."
Surely, the gems have to be worth at least the minimum of 10 GP each, which puts it on par with the CP/EP/PP bag (10 GP = 2 PP).
Further, the bag description does state you get 25 of each applicable type per day - not (5) 20 GP gems or (10) 10 GP gems - you get 25 gems out for the one gem you put in.
Limiting it to 100 GP total means you get (25) 4 GP gems.
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In full disclosure, the issue only came up a couple of times back in the 80's while playing 1st edition, and that is how I ruled it each time in game.
I suppose another way to look at the issue would be that the only gems that can be placed within the purse would be gems that are valued at a minimum of 10 gp through a maximum of 100 gp value for each gemstone, but no matter what the value (i.e. 10 gp - 100 gp), you get 26 of that gem type/value the next morning.
I think it means that you get 25 'base 10gp' gems and that the actual value should be determined as per the rules for gems near the beginning of the DMG ( I'm speaking first edition here).
When you find a gem with 'base value x' you then roll a d10 to determine its actual value, if you roll a one, the value goes up to the next 'base level' and you roll again. This is just saying it can only increase a couple of times.
I think they recommend rolling for gems five at a time, but I dont have my book at the moment.
Ah, thanks!
That helped me find the relevant section in the 1E DMG (Gems, under Money) that describes stuff.
Much appreciated! I need to dig me up copies of the 2E stuff one of these days soon...