Differentiating Coins By size

I like playing about with money to differentiate one campaign from another. This drives some of the folks I’ve played with crazy, others love it.  Money is hardwired into the rules by pretty simple clear notation. But it’s no fun having every campaign the same, one scheme is to change the relations between coins, another is to change the common coin from the standard gold based default to silver or even copper based. 

One way to mix things up a bit is with sizes of coins. Different types of coins are and were found all over the worlds and an easy way to add more variety without changing everything is to introduce coin sizes. 

Here’s a suggested size scheme:

Tiny coin 10% the size of a standard coin

Small coin- 40% the size of a standard coin

Medium/standard Coin- standard value

Large Coin- x2.5 standard coin, 

Huge Coin- x4 a large coin (x10 standard)

Values of Coin by Size (in standard cp)

Size>	Tiny	Small	Medium	Large	Huge
Iron	0.02	0.08	0.2	0.5	2
Brass	0.05	0.2	0.5	1.25	5
Copper	0.1	0.4	1	2.5	10
Bronze	0.2	0.8	2	5	20
Silver	1	4	10	25	100
Norium	2	8	20	50	200
Electrum	5	20	50	125	500
Gold	10	40	100	250	1000
Orichalcum	20	80	200	500	2000
Platinum	50	200	500	1250	5000
Aethril	100	400	1000	2500	10000

Explanation for the extra metals:

Norium is a mix of Gold, Silver and Copper. In one of my campaign write-ups it is most common in the hyperborean lands of the far north and thus the name norium.

Orichalcum here is the fictional mountain gold that’s even better then gold and not alloyed mix used in the real world.

Aethril is valuable fantasy metal that isn’t unlike a silver finer than gold and nearly as strong as steel.

Putting that scheme together in play so it matters verisimilitude wise is to pick a few sizes and types of coins for a couple countries and only that size will be accepted at full value by local traders, others have to be traded in with coin-changers who skim 2 to 20% of true value when converting from foreign coins. Another coin changer trick is to charge an extra 2-5% when buying up to gold or better metals from cheaper ones. 

Some NPCs and monsters may be absolutely unwilling to use “wrong-sized” coins.  Giants counting out tiny silver pieces could prove troublesome and they may frown on anyone trying to pass off smaller sized coin; Pixies and other small folk may find all but tiny and small coins to be over-large and troublesome and refuse to accept more than one or two (if any at all). I figure the stereotypical dwarves would have specially calibrated coin counters to stack, count, and recount coins of all size however.

Encumbrance and different sized coins:  don’t worry about the size difference which is a little silly but if you don’t currently track coins by the coin weight doing it now would be even sillier, otherwise factor in weight based encumbrance by the value multipliers mentioned above.