It’s possible to get a crate of weapons or armor as treasure worth 225 gold and weighing 10 stone, which could be sold at a market. If a character were to break open the crate to outfit some soldiers, would it simply be full of a random assortment of armor and/or weapons up to the value and weight listed? Could a hoarder assemble a crate of weapons by scavenging battlefields until they had 225 gold and 10 stone worth of weaponry?
Well, it strikes me that weapons are the kind of thing that are probably “made to order,” along the lines of the rules for commissioning items when there aren’t enough for sale at a market. Sure, there’s probably some demand for “off the rack” assorted armaments, but if you’re shipping them in bulk you probably have a buyer in mind, and that buyer presumably has a specific use in mind.
For that reason, I would assume that a typical crate of weapons and armor would be fairly uniform in terms of it’s contents. A box full of spears to hand out to a peasant militia might make sense, or a crate of leather armor to outfit part of a unit of light infantrymen-in-training, but those would either weigh considerably more than 10 stone or fetch considerably less than 225 gold. A lot of the mercenary troop types in the core rule book carry short swords, and you could fit 60 in a 10-stone crate, but that would be worth an average of 420 gp. Maybe mix in some shields (which weigh considerably more and are also in high demand). Six shields and 24 short swords comes out to 228 gp, so something like that might make sense. I’m sure you can come up with other logical combinations as well.
Cain:
- I wouldn’t do it randomly, no, I’d assume the crates were intended for military units or were the work of a particular smith.
- Yes, if the players assemble a crate of weapons they can take it to market. If they are scavenging the weapons from the field of battle, be sure to check the rules on p.210 to reduce the value of the scavenged items.