pillaging by the numbers pt 2

Following up on Part I of the discussion, here’s a draft Mean Profit per Challenge Rating chart for the Moldvay Basic rules, showing gold per hit-die in a lair.  As a player, I want to know who to kill and what stuff I should take.

Avoiding any monsters which can murder you just by thinking about it, the juiciest targets are Dwarves (by a huge margin!), Troglodytes, Gnolls, and Hobgoblins.

Explanatory notes are at the very bottom of this post.  Expert Set monsters are a little harder to gauge, so I’ll do them later.

	HIT DICE	MODIFIED HIT DICE	NUMBER	LEADERS	LAIR TOUGH	TYPE	TREASURE	PROFITABILITY
dragon white	6	12	2.5	0	30	H	50000	1666.67
dragon black	7	14	2.5	0	35	H	50000	1428.57
dragon green	8	16	2.5	0	40	H	50000	1250
dragon blue	9	18	2.5	0	45	H	50000	1111.11
dragon red	10	20	2.5	0	50	H	50000	1000
dragon gold	11	22	2.5	0	55	H	50000	909.09
dwarf	1	1	22.5	5.5	28	G	25000	892.86
troglodyte	2	3	22.5		67.5	A	17000	251.85
medusa	4	8	2.5		20	F	5000	250
shadow	2	4	6.5		26	F	5000	192.31
gnoll	2	2	10.5		21	D	4000	190.48
bandit	1	1	82.5	9	91.5	A	17000	185.79
hobgoblin	1	1	14	15	29	D	4000	137.93
giant rat	0.5	0.5	16.5		8.25	C	1000	121.21
Doppelganger	4	6	3.5		21	E	2500	119.05
carrion crawler	3	5	2		10	C	1000	100
orc	1	1	35	5	40	D	4000	100
lizard man	2	2	21		42	D	4000	95.24
wight	3	5	4.5		22.5	B	2000	88.89
owl bear	5	5	2.5		12.5	C	1000	80
ghoul	2	3	9		27	B	2000	74.07
rat	0.13	0.13	27.5		3.44	L	250	72.73
ogre	4	4	7		28	C+	2000	71.43
elf	1	2	13	9	35	E	2500	71.43
halfling	2	2	12.5	4.5	29.5	B	2000	67.8
Were-tiger	5	8	2.5		20	C	1000	50
Were-bear	6	9	2.5		22.5	C	1000	44.44
harpy	3	5	5		25	C	1000	40
minotaur	6	6	4.5		27	C	1000	37.04
gargoyle	4	6	5		30	C	1000	33.33
thoul	3	6	5.5		33	C	1000	30.3
Were-boar	4	7	5		35	C	1000	28.57
bugbear	3	3	12.5		37.5	C	1000	26.67
gnome	1	1	22.5	15	37.5	C	1000	26.67
Were-wolf	4	6	7		42	C	1000	23.81
Were-rat	3	5	9		45	C	1000	22.22
goblin	1	1	33	17	50	C	1000	20
driver ant	4	6	14		84	(N/A)	1650	19.64
berserker	1	1.5	82.5		123.75	B	2000	16.16
neanderthal	2	2	25	12	62	C	1000	16.13
stirge	1	2	19.5		39	L	250	6.41
kobold	0.5	0.5	33	5.5	22	J	25	1.14

Couple observations:

• Holy moly, Dwarves.  They really, really said bad things about your momma. Let’s get ’em.
• Also: Giant Rats. Who knew?
• Bandits have good treasure, but it’s only found in the wilderness, so the mean Number Appearing shoots sky high. They’re still pretty good targets though.  Leaders is an estimate only.
• For similar reasons, Berserkers are a huge headache. According to the Mentzer challenge calculations, Berserkers have the most dangerous lair of all. Which probably points to the weakness of Mentzer’s approach, but hell: everyone feared the Reavers, now we know why.
• The Halfling monster entry seems to suggest that most of the people in their village are non-combatants, so I’m only looking at the 2 HD militia members and their leader.
• For the most part, the Treasure Tables as-written are for chumps.  If you want to get ahead in this game, the DM or the module has to hand you heaping spoonfuls of gold.

Explanatory notes:

• Everything here is the mean average.
• “Modified Hit Dice” reflects the Mentzer method described in this post.
• “Number” is Number Appearing.
• “Leaders” reflects any Hit Dice of leaders listed in the monster description.
• “Lair Toughness” reflects (Number Appearing * Modified Hit Dice) + Leaders.
• “Profitability” is the mean Treasure value divided by Lair Toughness
• In Moldvay, wilderness lairs have five times the Number Appearing.
• Your Dungeon Master’s mileage may vary.