So I was converting a few dragon's hoards from 1st edition and the sizes are... not impressive (at least keeping to the scales presented in the conversion guide), but at the same time I don't want to destroy the expected treasure-per-level. Advice?
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Yeah, clump up the treasures from obstacles both before and after so there's a notable spike of "Dang, we got ourselves a serious treasure!" that's ultimately balanced in terms of the party's power.
One thing I did when converting old modules (pre-Wealth By Level) was flat out tell the players that there was a game-breaking amount of wealth coming up that would destroy the power curve so it'll be RPing loot instead. It pretty much had to be, or be subtracted, to keep the campaign running. Since their characters all had RPing goals, they were quite happy to spend it buying a temple, upgrading a slum town they'd been trying to win over, and other niceties that had a major game impact, although a minor PC-combat-power influence.
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Yeah, clump up the treasures from obstacles both before and after so there's a notable spike of "Dang, we got ourselves a serious treasure!" that's ultimately balanced in terms of the party's power.
One thing I did when converting old modules (pre-Wealth By Level) was flat out tell the players that there was a game-breaking amount of wealth coming up that would destroy the power curve so it'll be RPing loot instead. It pretty much had to be, or be subtracted, to keep the campaign running. Since their characters all had RPing goals, they were quite happy to spend it buying a temple, upgrading a slum town they'd been trying to win over, and other niceties that had a major game impact, although a minor PC-combat-power influence.
I like the simplicity here of just being honest with your players. It makes things possible that would be really hard if you tried to stay within the strict lines of "all loot must be spendable on new gear".
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One thing I did nearly a decade ago when I ran into this issue was that I had the vast majority of the treasure being "broken" from being ... well made into bedding. A 5-10 tonne Adult-Ancient Dragon making a nest out of soft metal coins, wood and steel weapons, cloth-based art like paintings and tapestries, fragile marble stonework, and even jewels would end up making a ton of squished, smelly, compressed, and generally soiled treasure that would not be very easy to transport or sell/use.
The party was able to recover something like 150% of the treasure guidelines for the encounter in salvageable coin, jewels, magic items, and other miscellaneous treasure while the vast majority of it was just way too damaged since the Dragon spent weeks at a time rolling over in a half-slumber on the pile of valuables, shedding dragon scales and dead skin in the process. All of this doesn't even touch on the fact that they would have a certain amount of ... bodily waste that they create which I don't think would be located very far from their hoard if in a separate location at all.
Having gotten a dragons treasure in AoA and been really underwhelmed, I think I would prefer some shenanigans on the GMs part. Make the hoard huge, far above expected treasure levels, then make sure the Dragon has a fail safe that destroys or takes most of the treasure away from the group. Maybe the lair begins to colapse, you can grab a few choice items and fill your backpack with gold before having to run to save your life. Maybe lava, acid, poison water or what have you starts to fill the chamber, something that prevents you from getting riches beyond your wildest dreams, but maybe you can set up a risk vs reward situation where characters can loot longer thus making the skill challenge escape scenario harder.
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Do not dangle a treasure in front of the party, give them the feeling they've earned it, then yank it away via shenanigans. That sets up all sorts of bad feelings, even learned helplessness, a trait you don't want players or their heroes to have.
And it worsens if they can actually tackle the shenanigans.
"Oh, then I pull out my Wall of Stone scroll."
...and now you're improvising shenanigans right in front of them.
Or they start looking to nip shenanigans in the bud (even when there are none) and it becomes akin to overuse of traps, only this time treasure's involved so they might be that much more cautious not to let it slip through their fingers.
I've even had people go to great lengths to recover "lost" treasure via summoning Earth Elementals, mining, and so forth if they know it's there and feel they've earned it.
The one way which might work is to have the treasure be false. Then the party gets what they saw, it's just that they'd erred. What this says about the dragon is another thing as is the tactic's effect on using treasure as a lure in the future.
Best to know your players, but if they feel bad for getting level appropriate or even slightly higher rewards and not everything in sight, that might be something to work with them on.
A running gag in a two campaign group I was in was that the DM would often accidentally give us more treasure then normal, because every time I would find a logical way to bring it back. So the DM started finding ways to trick us with treasure, first time it was cursed, then somewhere we couldn't return to get more, then it was coin mimics, etc. I never felt cheated, it made us cautious instead of murder/loot hobos as often there were consequences to greed. We still ended up on the richer side of things overall.
Story and immersion over rules for me, a dragons hoard only having a couple items and the same amount of gold you've been finding for the most part, feels like terrible world building. Long lived dragons should have tonnes of stuff, maybe not all of it useful, but lots of things.
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Another option, depending on the circumstances the party encounters said dragon, is something that Everyone hates, but have to deal with at some point: Taxes!
The party is tasked with slaying a dragon by the local Baron/King/Etc..? They get to keep 1/5th of the horde as loot (conveniently the wealth by level amount). You could even allow the party to hand pick their loot, conveniently made up of things they wanted, saving them a trip to the shop.
The party slays said dragon of their own volition? Mr. Tax man shows up bearing a writ from the King demanding his due of the treasure.
"You slew the Dragon on Our land without Our permission. You are fortunate you don't rot in a cell for Poaching..."
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Another option, depending on the circumstances the party encounters said dragon, is something that Everyone hates, but have to deal with at some point: Taxes!
The party is tasked with slaying a dragon by the local Baron/King/Etc..? They get to keep 1/5th of the horde as loot (conveniently the wealth by level amount). You could even allow the party to hand pick their loot, conveniently made up of things they wanted, saving them a trip to the shop.
The party slays said dragon of their own volition? Mr. Tax man shows up bearing a writ from the King demanding his due of the treasure.
"You slew the Dragon on Our land without Our permission. You are fortunate you don't rot in a cell for Poaching..."
This is a good way to end up with a dead king.
Really, you have to handle this with a lot of caution, because this is a good way to mess up your campaign.
Either your king is powerful enough to force the players to hand over the treasure, at which point suddenly you start having to explain why the PCs have to save the world instead of this really expensive government that's powerful enough to push the PCs around.
Or the PCs just don't really feel like being the heroes of this kingdom anymore, what's it ever done for them? Take 80% of their stuff? Nah, come and take it if you think you can. Roasted tax collector. If the king doesn't like it, we can find a new king. Or I dunno, teleport to a different country?
Depending on a lot of stuff, being labelled a kingslayer and an outlaw is likely not good for a party of adventurers, especially when they can't prove the king was evil or corupt. You don't shake a reputation by moving away, word catches up, you'll have to deal with the consequences one way or another. Unless you run a murder hobo game, but the original question sounded like it was more interested in immersion while trying to stick close to the rules for treasure.
The tax idea can easily lead you into another adventure, trying to bring evidence to light of the corruption in the court or unseat the king in a way that won't destabilize the kingdom.
The way I see it, at levels where a Dragon's Horde would be a huge windfall (10th to 15th or so) for a party, they wouldn't have the power to buck a reasonably sized kingdom so lightly.
You have to remember that Monarchs in fantasy settings aren't equal in power to their real world counterparts. Other beings of great power exist beyond the party, and despite that, the King in question has remained in power. They would likely directly command several characters of equal to higher level than the party, and may be in that category themselves depending on the Monarch. That is to say nothing of the weight of their men at arms and vassals.
The party isn't a nation unto themselves. Unless that's the plot of the adventure they happen to be in that is.
I could see a particularly chaotic party trying to unseat a King over something like this, but your average neutral-ish party? Nah, they'd more than likely just pay the tax and go about their day, grumbling all the way.
A local village mayor? Yeah, buck that trend, walk away and the worst that will happen is you will not be welcomed back to the village. A King however, has weight. And likely more weight than your average adventurers should ever have. Unless the plot needs them to.
And at levels where the party Could conceivably just commit some casual Regicide (17+ imo), a Dragon's Horde is probably going to be much closer to their Wealth by Level numbers anyway. Enough so that you can just fudge it.