Quick Links
Providing meaningful rewards to players like treasure is always a great way to cap off anyDungeons & Dragonssession. However, sometimes, when you’re crafting an encounter or climatic battle from scratch, it can be easy to forget to come up with original treasure or rewards to gift your players with after they prove themselves victorious.
Luckily, when pulling monsters from the 2025 Monster Manual, each Monster Entry, or grouping of monsters, has notes on what kind of treasure these creatures might hoard. If you’re just picking up the 2025 Monster Manual for the first time, here’s what you need to know about how treasure works.
How Treasure Works
In the 2025 Monster Manual,each monster type has a Treasure Tagthat dictatesthe type of treasurethe creature has in its possession, and how much. There are a handful of different treasure tags, listed below.
Details
Any
The monster hasany kind of treasure hoard or any singular piece of treasure, to be used at the DM’s discretion.
Individual
The monster doesn’t have a specific treasure hoard, but it does have one piece of treasureon its person, likea singular magical item or more typically, gold of some kind.
Sometimes,an Individual tag will also have a Treasure Themeassociated with it.
Treasure Theme
The monster has a treasure hoard or a singular object skewed to a particular theme(more on this below). This can be coupled with the Individual tag as well.
None
The monster doesn’t care about treasure, and likely doesn’t have any.
What Are Treasure Hoards?
A treasure hoard is a mass of treasure containing various types of objects, typically rewarded to players after a difficult combat encounter.
In the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide,various tables in Chapter Seven can help you flavor Treasure Hoardswith different types of gems, stones, metal bars, coins, and more.
Each of these Treasure Hoards also has a Treasure Themethat dictatesthe type of rewardsyour players might get.
What Are Treasure Themes?
In the 2025 Monster Manual, at the top of each Monster Entry,there’s a section listed for Treasure Themeright next to the creature’s chosen habitat.
This Treasure Theme tag can also be coupled with the Individual tag, meaning the monster in question has one piece of treasure tailored to that theme.
Depending on the type of monster, you might seeone of four different themes.
How To Create A Treasure Hoard
Once you understand the basic overview of each Treasure Theme, it’s time todesign a Treasure Hoard based on the monster you selectfrom the 2025 Monster Manual.
Determine Amount Of Treasure
First, you’ll want todetermine the amount of magical items or individual, specific objects you’ll want to place in the hoardfor players.
You can base this on the creature’s Challenge Rating.
Determine Treasure Worth
Second, you’ll want todetermine the material worth of the objectslike coins, gold, art objects, etc.
Determine Specific Objects
Once you’ve figured out value and the number of objects, you cancreate the stat blocks, rules, and other details for said objects.
To determine the size and worth of the treasure, you can use the following table, available in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide.
0-4
2d4 x 100 (500) GP
1d4 - 1
5-10
8d10 × 100 (4,400) GP
1d3
11-16
8d8 × 10,000 (36,000) GP
1d4
17+
6d10 × 10,000 (330,000) GP
1d6
Treasure Hoard Example
Let’s take a look at a Treasure Hoard exampleby using the 2025 Monster Manual entry for Adult Black Dragons, which can be found under ‘B,’ alphabetically.
Adult Black Dragons have the Treasure Theme Relics, and don’t have the Individual tag,meaning they have a large hoard of Art Objects and religious magic items. Plus,their CR is 14, which is relatively high.
Using this info,we can determine the amount of treasure in their hoard and its worth.
From there,you can either homebrew your own magic items, or roll on the Random Magic Items tableunder Relics found in Chapter Seven of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
To determine Art Objects found in the hoard, you can roll on the Art Objects tablefound in Chapter Seven as well as many times as necessary to achieve the equivalent worth of the treasure listed above.
Remember, ultimately,these are all just guidelines. As a DM,you may do whatever you want with a monster’s Treasure Hoard,just make sure it feels rewarding to players!
