I love generating treasure. The possibilities that appear before you are endless. The random nature of the treasure is a surprise and a pleasure when you are generating it, and you know that the PCs are going to be surprised when they see it. Sure, sometimes it's nice to have nicely itemized rewards as well, and it's nice to have bazaars that the players can visit and purchase items. Other times, it's a nice reminder that the PCs are part of a larger world and the items are for people that are obviously not them.
So how do I do it? I made up some charts that I have been using after playing around with various methods.
First, determine how many items you want, or just roll a die to figure out how much you want.
d6 - type of treasure
1-4. Equipment
5. Rituals
6. Alchemy
d20 - type of equipment
1. Armor
2. Weapons
3. Augments
4. Implements
5. Reagents
6. Arm Slot
7. Feet Slot
8. Hand Slot
9. Head Slot
10. Rings
11. Waist Slot
12. Wonderous Items
13. Item Sets
14. Mount Slot
15. Familiar Slot
16. Companion Slot
17. Alchemical Items
18. Consumables
19. Intelligent Items (If you don't want to use these as random treasure, re-roll here instead)
20. Artifacts (If you don't want to use these as random treasure, re-roll here instead)
Level of Item
For players level 1-8 roll a d8 (1-8 level items)
For players level 9-18 roll a d12 (8-19 level items)
For players level 19-30 roll a d12 (19-30 level items)
You can obviously increase this if you wish, but it's a decent guideline based on levels.
Ok, you have determined the item type and the item level. That makes it pretty easy to narrow down choices now. For some things, less so though!
d6 -Armor type
1. Cloth
2. Leather
3. Hide
4. Chain
5. Scale
6. Plate
For armor, you can then determine subtypes if you want, githweave, finemail, warplate whatever if you want to, but the stuff is leveled, so you should feel comfortable subbing that in based on levels if you want. If the item type can match a level of that object (finemail at level 6 for example) roll a d6, 1-5 is normal, 6 is the special type.
d6 - Weapon Quality
1-2. Simple
3-5. Military
6. Superior
Superior Quality Weapons
1. Bastard Sword
2. Blowgun
3. Bola
4. Craghammer
5. Cutting Wheel
6. Double Axe
7. Double Flail
8. Double Scimitar
9. Double Sword
10. Drow Long Knife
11. Execution Axe
12. Fullblade
13. Garrote
14. Greatbow
15. Greatspear
16. Katar
17. Kukri
18. Mordenkrad
19. Net
20. Parrying Dagger
21. Shuriken
22. Spiked Chain
23. Spiked Shield
24. Superior Crossbow
25. Talenta Boomerang
26. Talenta Sharrash
27. Talenta Tangat
28. Tratnyr
29. Triple Headed Flail
30. Urgosh
31. Waraxe
32. Whip
33. Xen'drik Boomerang
34. Zulaat
35. Rapier
36. Reroll
That's a lot of superior weapons. The easiest way to do it is to break them into groups of six. 1-6, 7-12, 13-18, 19-24, 25-30, 31-36. Roll a d6 to determine what group you get, and then roll another d6 to determine weapon type.
Simple Weapons
1. Club
2. Crossbow
3. Dagger
4. Greatclub
5. Hand Crossbow
6. Javelin
7. Mace
8. Morningstar
9. Quarterstaff
10. Repeating Crossbow
11. Scythe
12. Sickle
13. Sling
14. Spear
15. Spiked Gauntlet
Still a lot, but not as many. Break them into groups of 5 and roll a d6 with group 1 (1-5) being 1-2, group 2 (6-10) being 3-4, and group 3 (11-15) being 5-6. Then roll a d6, rerolling any 6 you roll.
Military Weapons
1. Battle Axe
2. Battlefist
3. Broadsword
4. Falchion
5. Flail
6. Glaive
7. Greataxe
8. Greatsword
9. Halberd
10. Handaxe
11. Heavy Flail
12. Heavy War Pick
13. Khopesh
14. Light War Pick
15. Longbow
16. Longspear
17. Longsword
18. Scimitar
19. Scourge
20. Short Sword
21. Shortbow
22. Throwing Hammer
23. Trident
24. War Pick
25. War Hammer
Again, we have a multiple of five. Easy enough. Once again use a d6 to determine the item groups. If you roll a 6, just reroll. Group 1 is 1-5, group 2 is 6-10, group 3 is 11-15, group 4 is 16-20 and group 5 is 21-25.
Ok, so now you have your basic weapon types and your level ranges for items. I am going to do a huge thing here and list the effects as well, by level and weapon type.
One-Handed Non-Hammers
d4 - Level 1:
1. Magic Weapon +1
2. Challenge-Seeking +1
3. Reroll
4. Reroll
d20 - Level 2:
1. Aftershock +1
2. Armblade +1
3. Bloodclaw +1
4. Defensive +1
5. Farbond +1
6. Flesh Seeker +1
7. Gambler's Weapon +1
8. Goblin Totem +1
9. Guardian's Call +1
10. Harmonic Songblade +1
11. Mage Weapon +1
12. Manifester Weapon +1
13. Parrying Weapon +1
14. Pinning Weapon +1
15. Psychokinetic Weapon +1
16. Quicksilver Blade +1
17. Reproachful Weapon +1
18. Supremely Vicious Weapon +1
19. Vicious Weapon +1
20. Weapon of Shared Wrath +1
Level 3
1. Aegis Blade +1
2. Anathema Weapon +1
3. Aura Killer Weapon +1
4. Byeshk Weapon +1
5. Duelist's Weapon +1
6. Foe Maker Weapon +1
7. Frost Weapon +1
8. Great Hunger +1
9. Harsh Songblade +1
10. Inescapable Weapon +1
11. Inspiring Weapon +1
12. Ki Weapon +1
13. Luckblade +1
14. Pact Blade +1
15. Paired Weapon +1
16. Quick Weapon +1
17. Reckless Weapon +1
18. Scalebane Weapon +1
19. Strongheart Weapon +1
20. Subtle Weapon +1
21. Thundering Weapon +1
22. Vanguard Weapon +1
23. Warsoul Weapon +1
24. Gutting Weapon +1
25. Infectious Flame Weapon +1
Again, break this into groups of five. There will be five. Roll a d6 to determine the group then a d6 for the effect, re-roll any result of six.
Level 4
1. Acidic Weapon +1
2. Communal Weapon +1
3. Deathstalker Weapon +1
4. Dislocation Weapon +1
5. Echoing Songblade +1
6. Intensifying Weapon +1
7. Master's Blade +1
8. Maw of the Guardian +1
9. Medic's Weapon +1
10. Oathblade +1
11. Opportunistic Weapon +1
12. Stormbiter Weapon +1
13. Vigilant Blade +1
14. Weapon of Oaths Fulfilled +1
15. Wounding Weapon +1
Again, three groups of five, with re-rolling on a six.
Level 5
1. Chainreach Weapon +1
2. Fey Strike Weapon +1
3. Flaming Weapon +1
4. Flensing Weapon +1
5. Lifedrinker Weapon +1
6. Necroshard Weapon +1
7. Poisoned Weapon +1
8. Runic Weapon +1
9. Thieving Weapon +1
10. Thoughtspike Weapon +1
11. Vengeful Weapon +1
12. Weapon of Great Opportunity +1
13. Learning Weapon +1
Break them into groups of five. Roll a d6 to determine the grouping, a result of 1-2 for 1-5, a result of 3-4 for 6-10, and a result of 5-6 for 11-13. For the last group, assign each item two numbers then roll.
Level 6 - as level one with the following, all bonuses increase to +2
3. Dynamic Weapon +2
4. Sacrificial Weapon +2
Level 7 - as level two with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2
d20
1-16. Roll on the level 2 chart for item type
17. Devilblind Weapon +2
18. Retribution Weapon +2
19. Spiderkissed Weapon+2
20. Transference Weapon +2
Level 8 - as level three with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2
d20
1-11. Roll on the level 3 chart for item type
12- 20. Roll on the below Chart
1. Adamantine Weapon +2
2. Assassin's Weapon +2
3. Bronzewood Weapon +2
4. Cloaked Weapon +2
5. Cold Iron Weapon +2
6. Cunning Weapon +2
7. Dread Weapon +2
8. Flanking Weapon +2
9. Force Weapon +2
10. Graceful Weapon +2
11. Guardian's Brand +2
12. Mithrendain Steel +2
13. Mordant Weapon +2
14. Performer's Blade +2
15. Rubicant Blade +2
16. Tyrant's Weapon +2
17. Victory Flash Weapon +2
18. Waterbane Weapon +2
19. Writhing Vine Weapon +2
20. Re-roll
Level 9 - as level 4 with the following changes, all bonuses increase to +2
d20
1-12. Roll on the level 4 chart
13-20. Roll a d10 on the chart below.
1. Demonbane Weapon +2
2. Demonslayer Weapon +2
3. Dragonslayer Weapon +2
4. Feyslaughter Weapon +2
5. Elementalbane Weapon +2
6. Lucky Halfling's Weapon +2
7. Shapechanger's Sorrow +2
8. Singing Weapon +2
9. Vampiric Weapon +2
10. Wolfen Weapon +2
Level 10 - add the following to the level 5 chart, increase bonuses to +2
roll a d20
13. Blackshroud +2
14. Footpad's Friend +2
15. Guarding Weapon +2
16. Lightning Weapon +2
17. Righteous Weapon +2
18. Vitality Drinking +2
19. Wraithblade +2
20. Re-roll
I will finish the rest later, but this is a good start to get you going! Tomorrow will have levels 11-30 for weapons, hammers, armor and whatever else I get through.