I'm new to GMing. I've started running Rise of the Runelords, and I have a question about when the AP doesn't give complete loot for monsters from the bestiaries. The goblins were fine; since they had a good amount of gear already, I didn't worry about slighting my players a small amount of gold. Later, I see sinspawn, and the Treasure entry there says "standard (ranseur, other treasure)."
OK, what am I supposed to be doing? I'm working from the SRD, I have the Treasure per Encounter table, so I know that this CR2 creature should have 800 gold worth of loot (Fast XP track). A ranseur costs 10 gp.
Now I really don't want to have to come up with 790 gp worth of loot that a sinspawn might be carrying, and it feels silly to just have it carrying 400 gp. I'm also going to have to do this again for most of the other standard monsters, it seems. Kind of annoying, since I bought an AP so I wouldn't have to worry about most of this basic encounter building. I don't really mind doing it if there's some quick and dirty way to handle it.
Any suggestions?
I will probably get raked over the coals for this, but my monsters play in the "real world". The sinspawn were summoned creatures, so they weren't carrying anything. The goblins were carrying nothing but their gear. And my party was silly enough to give away all of the gold from the ONE person they got any from.
So after the goblins, the sinspawn, and everything else that comes before leaving town, they were still hard-pressed to come up with 750 g.p. for a wand of Cure Light Wounds.
BUT, they're in a town full of people whose lives they've saved, and those people are grateful. They get free room and board. If there's standard gear available at any of the stores, they get it for free. It's a much more barter-oriented system.
And when they finally found that WONDERFUL little magic item after the sinspawn, I didn't give them 2000 cash, I gave them 3000 credit that they're using to buy all kinds of fun stuff.
So it depends on your group, I'm in a group of 10 players with 3 active campaigns and two GMs, and if I had them attacked by a group of wargs that then dropped pouches of gold, they'd roll their eyes and say, "Really?"
There are also major caches of loot that will satisfy the player's greed. Once they leave town on their 'mission', they have the potential to find thousands more worth of loot.
I'm definitely interested in what other people say; all of our campaigns are VERY low initial gold, but once they get to the 3rd module and start killing guys with good gear, money accumulates fast.
Thanks for the responses.
Good to know I don't need to worry about it. I had already planned to have Shalelu give the PCs her wand of CLW, so they should be fine until they get some of the bigger hauls later.
The AP modules typically place the additional treasure elsewhere in the adventure, so there's no need to add things to the creatures encountered therein beyond what is listed.
The AP modules typically place the additional treasure elsewhere in the adventure, so there's no need to add things to the creatures encountered therein beyond what is listed.
That. Of course, if you're running a group with more than 4 PCs, you'll want to bump up the opposition and the loot a bit to compensate.
It's true you'd need to adjust if you're group has more than the assumed average of 4 party members. That said, there are a few points I'd like to elaborate on:
1a) APs (such as RotRL), and modules, do average out the wealth over the long-term, it's just not distributed perfectly among each creature. Sometimes there will be a creature with no "loot" but then there will be a room full of treasure but no creature. And so on.
1b) Specifically speaking for RotRL, I can also say the long-term wealth distribution is pretty much spot on. I'm running a party through it right now, but we're using the medium XP advancement which means I'm also adding my own encounters. To make sure any additional wealth I give out in my extra encounters compliments the total wealth of the AP, I built a spreadsheet that has tallied all the treasure in the AP by chapter and character level. I can say for sure that the wealth works out.
2) Right now, as a new GM (welcome to the game, btw), you're probably going to want to run pre-designed campaigns and modules for a while. Eventually, however, I imagine you will want to design your own encounters and maybe even a whole campaign. Once you do, keep in mind that the treasure suggestions in the bestiary are just that - suggestions. Just like in the APs, you don't always have to have a creature carrying around it's suggested wealth. There are going to be times when the party will find a trapped room full of treasure but devoid of creatures or deal with a raging Owlbear out in the wilderness with no treasure in sight. The WBL tables are just a guideline, but even if you want to match the guideline exactly you can still do so by just making sure the wealth all evens out in the long-run. Not every encounter has to match precisely. Some will under and some will be over.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Tony
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"The only problem a GM ever has with loot is players who whine about WBL."
Rise of the Runelords is one of the richer APs; it's the only one I've run or played in where the PCs are easily at or past WBL. The PCs just have to remember that at lower levels, it's just like a video game: You have to loot all the "junk" carried by the goblins, etc., and sell it off.
Prior to the Catacombs of Wrath, the PCs get very little money. That's just fine. The AP is written expecting that. The catacombs include some VERY valuable items for PCs of their level. And notice that there's at least one NPC who simply hands them 50 g.p. each precisely because they'll need about that much to equip themselves for the catacombs.
So unless you like playing with high-wealth, high-power PCs, give them only the gear listed for each creature. Heck, a base goblin in the Bestiary has to have leather armor and a wooden shield to get to the appropriate armor class, so that's 7.5 gold pieces per goblin if you count nothing but the armor (5), shield (1.5), and dogslicer (1). Throw in the short bow so that your goblins can attack at range if they need to (up to you, but be careful, as this can kill 1st-level PCs pretty easily) and you get another 15.5 per goblin.
Who would buy goblin gear, you ask? Certainly any Sandpoint resident grateful to the PCs for driving off the goblins. Savah or Larz might buy the armor to get scrap leather for repairs to better armor. Das might buy the dog slicers to melt them down. Or Daviren might buy it just as a bounty for killing goblins. Economy-wise, it makes little sense, but the PCs do need that small amount of gold to equip themselves properly for the catacombs, so throw them a bone at first and have someone willing to buy goblin gear.
Post-catacombs, money really isn't an issue. There are three extremely-wealthy hauls available in the first two books.
So if your players are expecting a video-game-like, "I killed that goblin and it explodes into 8 gold, 12 silver, and 15 copper," APs just aren't like that. They have to do the work of grabbing anything they might be able to sell and finding a buyer.
About the only way to mess up the PCs is to have all the NPCs refuse to buy anything from them.
Personally, I did not give the goblins bows because I ran too much risk of killing PCs. And my group still had plenty of money.
If your players are absolute "by the book" players, then yes, the goblins have them, but then make sure the goblins shoot at them to make them earn those 15 gp!
(In other words, totally up to you, but if the goblins do have the bows, they should use them on occasion. Don't forget that goblins are completely psychotic, so just because they have bows and see PCs doesn't mean they're going to shoot the PCs every single round. But they should shoot at them occasionally.)
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I normally run 1 out of three or so goblins has a bow unless there's a compelling reason to give more of them ranged weapons. A lot of the time though, after a hit a bow armed goblin will spend the next round cheering or taunting the long shanks or the like. If it's a crit the nearest goblin to the one who did the critting will try to steal the "obviously magic" bow, causing them both to lose next turn.
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See -- Fraust has goblins right!
I just had my 8-year-old and my 11-year-old play the goblins. It was AWESOME! They lit each other on fire, ran away from the barbarian, tried to kidnap the gnome, and otherwise behaved EXACTLY how I imagine goblins to behave.
So just pretend the goblins are 10-year-old boys and you'll be fine!
Thread necro, but instead of having the players sell goblin loot, I took that 15 gp per goblin attitude and had Daviren pay it as a bounty for ears. The sheriff only paid 5 gp per goblin, further instilling Daviren's hatred of the green menace.
I, as a new and very unexpirienced GM just allow them to sell everything somewhere in Sandpoint (at the general store). Exept that when they tried to sell the +1 sword for full price I said that the store owner had only 150gp. Take it or leave it.
They have a dwarf that can drag a lot of stuff with him and a Cleric, who likes looting everything. So here's a combo...
I will think about 15gp per ear pair - sounds good. I don't generally describe how goblins look like (hmm.. I guess I should, so they know which ones are dangerous).
Sandpoint has a purchase limit of 7,500 gp as shown in the AE Appendices, Purchase limit being the maximum a shop in Sandpoint will pay for a single item. Your players should have no problem finding someone who would pay the normal 1,157.5 gp for a +1 Longsword.
So, uh, you can change things around a bit, but just know that you're shorting them on quite a bit on the wealth the AP is assuming they have at this point.
I, as a new and very unexpirienced GM just allow them to sell everything somewhere in Sandpoint (at the general store). Exept that when they tried to sell the +1 sword for full price I said that the store owner had only 150gp. Take it or leave it.
They have a dwarf that can drag a lot of stuff with him and a Cleric, who likes looting everything. So here's a combo...
I will think about 15gp per ear pair - sounds good. I don't generally describe how goblins look like (hmm.. I guess I should, so they know which ones are dangerous).
Sandpoint has a purchase limit of 7,500 gp as shown in the AE Appendices, Purchase limit being the maximum a shop in Sandpoint will pay for a single item. Your players should have no problem finding someone who would pay the normal 1,157.5 gp for a +1 Longsword.
So, uh, you can change things around a bit, but just know that you're shorting them on quite a bit on the wealth the AP is assuming they have at this point.
Thanks. I must have missed that in the book. Wow, shop owners must be rich then :D
What I meant by "full price" is 2315 gp - the players figured out how much it is worth when buying so tried to sell it for the same price.
Note: magic items can be sold for half price. Ergo the price Ninja quoted. See Core Rulebook, p. 140. It's certainly not crisp economics but designed to keep the financials simple and in the background.