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Alright I made a thread a while ago asking about good ideas for loot drops and such, and after finishing a long running game I've just sat and talked with my group and like I assumed, they do agree that I'm terrible at loot, primarily because I can't find logical sense in dropping as much as the books apparently do.
I don't know even how to properly think of how much to drop unless it makes sense for whatever they run into to randomly be loaded with money and items when normal people don't carry things that much unless they are also a weirdly prepared adventuring party. The in world logic just doesn't make sense with that sorta thing and I know it's not helping the players.
Any thoughts on how I can logically fit the loot thing into an actual world?
If you can't make sense of something to drop a lot of loot, don't have it drop loot.
However, make sure you fit in creatures with more loot than usual as a counterbalance.
For example: the party fights a bunch of werewolves, who have precious little need of most items so they have minimal loot. However, not long after they come across a vampire who wants to appear suave and sophisticated, and as such has amassed a great deal of wealth. He has much more treasure than the book would indicate for a vampire, enough to make up for the werewolves having little to none.
Vampires, dragons, fiends, and humanoids all tend to work well for this.
I can understand that one, though Vamps, fiends, and dragons I'd think are pretty big type monsters that would require a lot of story reason to show up and want to kill. What about in the earlier levels? like in the current new game they are tailing an Orc warband. They don't care about gold because they wouldn't be let into any town anyway, and their weapons are mostly uniform (regular masterwork) that aren't worth all that much. The players are complaining that I don't give them enough loot to improve their characters beyond leveling and I keep having to tell them that the orcs wouldn't have those things, and so they want to stop progressing the story to do something else to gain coin (I wouldn't even know what would make sence for that), which time wouldn't allow
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Welcome to pathfinder.
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And if you feel you're giving out too many gold rewards or can't justify it, have the town's smith agree to forge them masterwork weapons of their choice, or a permanent boon that might be worth far more to them later on than any dinky little unenchanted item they could get. (Imagine how much more a 10% discount could be worth to a level 15 character compared to even a masterwork composite longbow.)
Keep in mind that there are wyrmling dragons and lesser but still greedy fiends like Imps, as well as the always-present 'humanoid with class levels', so this is no less valid at low levels (vampires do, admittedly, have a relatively fixed minimum bound of levels).
I've fought a wyrmling dragon sitting on a horde at level 2 (and we hit level 2 literally right outside its horde), as an anecdotal example.
But okay, an Orc warband. That's going... somewhere. Where's it going? Perhaps it's being directed by somebody-- somebody more human-looking, who would have reason to covet gold. And perhaps that, in point of fact, is why he's working with these orcs-- it's easier to take money from a sacked town than it is to earn it.
Or perhaps the Orcs are traveling to an unscrupulous merchant, who is going to offer to upgrade their equipment if they take care of a job for him. Now the PCs are fighting upgraded opponents (a bigger challenge) and have a plot hook to the next adventure-- bringing this merchant to justice.
Expand upon that perhaps-- maybe the Orcs are working for an entirely separate kingdom (town, city, etc., as appropriate). Kingdoms lead to people with money, and resolving disputes between one kingdom and another tends to put one in the good graces of at least one of those rulers (king, governor, mayor, etc.) who might bestow a generous reward.
A final option would be to consider having the PCs approached-- before or after the fact-- by a group who is interested in having this warband disposed of. People threatened by it, or those who lost someone to it. They might be willing to put up some gold as a bounty toward anyone who can bring them <X item owned by the leader of the warband> as proof of its destruction.
It's also worth considering that even though an Orc might not be able to walk into Sandpoint to spend some money, he still might value it. Who's to say that there isn't an Orc town somewhere nearby?
Well the deal with the orcs is already set. They are pissed at the elves who they got their weapons from since they lost a battle they were assured to win, and are going to attack the elves instead who they know are less prepared, and the party needs to stop this somehow but are hardly able to stop a whole band, and so have decided to tail behind them and wait for them to bed down and try to assassinate the leader, so while it would be awfully random for someone to approach them (in a mostly desert region) I could see that one working out well and I suppose I can add something in about a merchant too. As for the orcs themselves valuing gold it's a clan of orcs that are based in a war like culture (specifically this clan), they would see no point in a metal that can't make good weapons and armor, and would probably destroy another orc village for it's own weapons and food (they don't really have the long game in mind, or care about other cultures much unless they hand them more tools for war in payment for "don't kill us", they are pretty one dimensional on purpose)
And if you feel you're giving out too many gold rewards or can't justify it, have the town's smith agree to forge them masterwork weapons of their choice, or a permanent boon that might be worth far more to them later on than any dinky little unenchanted item they could get. (Imagine how much more a 10% discount could be worth to a level 15 character compared to even a masterwork composite longbow.)
Hmm, I kinda like this actually, maybe I can try to find a way that eploits can be told about them to allied towns and stuff for that
and I forgot to mention in my last post, but running into a demon or wyrmling in this world would be considered a major cosmic event right now, sure they wouldshow up later when the party finds the more super magic type kingdoms that dive into the dangerous stuff, but the monsters around are primarily just powerful normal creatures, with only a few of the mythical types around like basilisks (which I have ruled that their teeth fetch a pretty penny), and some magical beast type monsters, just weird fauna
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Another thing you can do is keep in mind the trade goods list at the bottom of the page here. Farmers might not have much coin to pay an adventuring party with, but they do have other forms of wealth, such as jars of honey from their beehives, or a basket full of dried chilies.
Making up a list of loot for any encounter is commonsense. If the enemy is well-to-do, you can roughly estimate what kind of stuff he'd be likely to have on his person or in his lair. If it's a creature rather than a person, think of what type of victims it's likely to have accumulated goods from and select items accordingly. Just remember -farmers and townsfolk don't have bags of gold, maybe just a couple of pieces, some silver and lots of copper. Also, magic items in an intelligent enemy's loot would probably include items which are appropriate for that person/enemy, but maybe they would also be good for the PCs; if not, they can be sold. Just make sure the magic level is not too high for the PC levels. It also depends on how fast you want your players to accumulate wealth or obtain magic items.
besides that, I usually get my low-level players to make up "wish lists" of things they want and their cost, so they can calculate how much they still need, to be able to buy those items.
Well they are getting bits of silver and gold from things like dead bodies, but thats just it thats all they would likely run into, nothing more than 100 gold at a time because reasonably, a person who's not wealthy wouldn't have much more. For magic items they don't really have any, where would they have even got them? the only enemies they have fought are a couple of theives, several horseman, a Sand worm type monster, and are now trailing the orcs who are for plot relevance. The orcs would have a couple things, but nothing much because your regular town doesn't have much, so no amount of raiding will improve that. Their level 4 and their path hasn't exposed them to a single magic item worth of note, though considering the most powerful caster their likely to encounter before mid game is 5th level that is themeatic.
Well, with those orcs: they're pissed at the elves. The party deals with them for the elves. The elves reward them for this. Seems straightforward enough there, honestly.
That's what half of dealing with loot logically come down to. Okay, Monster A doesn't have any reason, personally, to be carrying anything useful. Perhaps he has a master that does, or an associate that does, or somebody who wants him dead that does? If you can get one of those three things to fit, you're good. If not... you have some really, really random monster encounters. D:
Well I would normally say that, sure and if they DO succeed in killing the leader they will get a reward for sure, but this is a whole warband (30-40 people) and only 4 PCs, 'dealing with them' is a pretty difficult task since they chose to follow them through the desert, they are in a bit of a corner since they only can succeed and stall the orcs, go back and get help while the orcs make to the elves before them, or follow and just join the battle in a surprise.
As for monsters they aren't so much random as they are actuall 'animals' in the world, they encountered a sand worm in the desert because thats where it lives, it's a natural creature, and almost any monster they would actually encounter till mid levels would be just that, a dangerous, but completely natural beast that might have some minor magical abilities.
How many elves are there, and why is 30-40 Orcs a threat?
If they're fighting dangerous animals, those animals have presumably attacked other travelers before them; if they find the lair or den, they're likely to find the inedible bits of previous meals: coins, armor, weapons, magical items etc.
If there's really no reason for the monster to have anything with or around it, maybe they happen across treasure separate from the encounter: the remnants of a merchant caravan that was swallowed by a sand storm, say, when they see a glint of metal or the hard corner of a chest sticking up out of a dune where it's just been uncovered by the wind. They don't have to get treasure out of the monster itself; they just deserve to get some treasure from somewhere to feel like they're not just standing still.
Also, what DominusMegadeus said: How are 40 orcs without magical gear a danger to a whole settlement of elves? If the elves have the resources to reward the PCs, they should have the wherewithal to defend themselves against a band of orcs with mundane weaponry.
If they're fighting dangerous animals, those animals have presumably attacked other travelers before them; if they find the lair or den, they're likely to find the inedible bits of previous meals: coins, armor, weapons, magical items etc.
If there's really no reason for the monster to have anything with or around it, maybe they happen across treasure separate from the encounter: the remnants of a merchant caravan that was swallowed by a sand storm, say, when they see a glint of metal or the hard corner of a chest sticking up out of a dune where it's just been uncovered by the wind. They don't have to get treasure out of the monster itself; they just deserve to get some treasure from somewhere to feel like they're not just standing still.
Also, what DominusMegadeus said: How are 40 orcs without magical gear a danger to a whole settlement of elves? If the elves have the resources to reward the PCs, they should have the wherewithal to defend themselves against a band of orcs with mundane weaponry.
Not to mention the elves have the defender's advantage and universal longbow proficiency or natural magical ability. Technically, they also have the advantage at Stealth and Perception as well.
Make some orc Generals that have some wealth.
Have an Elf group or human reinforcement group come and give them some supplies and then go off to do their own thing.
How long have they been on this Orc plot and how much have they leveled being under wealth? If it's only been like half way to leveling up or something it's not a big deal to wait for the payoff.
Is this a Low Magic world?
Dominus and joana- The elves are settling outside their usual lands and number in the low hundreds, however they have no knowledge the orcs are even on the way and aren't fighters, they only know how to craft weapons better than the orcs would normally have because they have better smithing knowledge in general, and so a band of battle hardened orcs appearing across in the night would likely devastate them, and compound an already high possibility of war declaration, they also need the elves because they have to ask them who commisioned the orcs weapons to be made in the first place (because they know it wasn't the orcs). The elves are after all just regular people with as much access to magic as the orcs, who have one or too shamans but nothing astounding.
Kestral- Well the encounter is there because while on the plot they ran through known dangerous territory. I suppose this is partly something I do because they can often go for a decent while without an actual plot fight sometimes unless they piss people off or find some theives, who do carry a bit of coin on them. If they found a lair then yeah it would make sence to have some things dropped around though.
Chess Pawn- The generals are a level above the other orcs, and so have a bit better gear but not much else for how I have them right now. They began the adventure at level 1 and are level 4 now, they really haven't done anything that would make a person encounter lots of money so they've had about 4,000 gold at most at one time, which would be like a small fortune to normal people
Aaron Burr- I suppose it could be, how much magic is normally present in an average world? We've never played modules or anything really, and while this world isn't magic barren only one major country is reviving the practice of it, the fact that one of the party members is a Witch makes people really wary of them, and so far they have encountered one obviously magical item in the form of a Frost Longsword they managed to find on their travels through an old goblin cavern.
I'd probably second focusing more on non-material rewards then like boons from NPCs and whatnot then. Favors, discounts, perhaps sharing rumors that lead them to treasure, and so forth.
Admittedly in my GMing I tend to have the opposite problem of presenting too much cool stuff to stay anywhere near what is recommended in the guidelines.
Going by the standard setting rules, every tiny village has magic scrolls and so forth that PCs can buy. Gold is easily convertible to magic power, so any intelligent race will value gold.
If you want the party to catch up on wealth, you could have them stumble across a monster's lair (an owlbear cave, or whatever makes sense for the environment). If they defeat the monster, in the lair they find a couple of dead adventurers who had magic items.
Or the orcs are carrying some treasures from a previous raid. They have no idea that these items are magic and are using them as decorations. (This depends on the PCs having some kind of Appraise skill or using Detect Magic on everything to notice.)
Or they find some valuable jewels on an orc general, and a crafter offers to make magic items for them in exchange for the jewels.
I must say that killing monsters and taking their treasure is boring. I am currently playing in Mummy's Mask and find the material and magic item rewards... tedious.
And I think Pathfinder is better when the number of magic items available to the PCs is much lower than the RAW would indicate. Magic items should be rare and precious, the obtaining of large groups of magical items that are excellent in particular situations is logical from the PCs point of view.
But it tends to make their life a lot easier and take away from the capabilities of the PCs themselves.
Back to treasure, I like to give out treasure where it makes sense. I think if the PCs expect everything that they encounter to have tons of gold and magic they should be disappointed. If they kill a wild boar they should expect a lot of pork. A tasty meal or 2 they don't have to pay for is about the extent of the reward they should get for their victory. And not being dead.
Defeating bandits and taking what they have stolen from their victims, likely in the form of trade good at least in part, and perhaps a reward for freeing important prisoners or ridding the area of a persistent hazard, that makes sense.
Better still, the PCs become aware of the bandit problem, find a way of tracking them down and defeating them and then getting $$$ makes a lot of sense.
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One of the orcs carries a family heirloom which was taken in a daring raid three generations ago, and the eldest male warrior in the family carries it into battle for good luck, and it is <insert magic item of appropriate choice here>.
The Orc tribe's shaman made sure they had some potions.
There is a shaman with the Orc warband, who carries a number of scrolls.
One of the orcs has a trinket that he wears on a chain, not knowing that it's actually a custom brooch crafted by the famed jeweller <Name> of <insert big city here>, worth many times its intrinsic value to a collector.
Basically, either provide a reason for an enemy to have an item (or many lower value items), or come up with a reason that the enemy wouldn't know the real value of the item... If you think it's relevant. Quite a lot of the time your players won't care why some loot is in the possession of an enemy.
Yes, there'll be encounters where loot isn't appropriate, but you just fold those into the next encounter that it is suitable for.
I also tend to severly reduce the loot on most higher level encounters and then include whzat was missed in a proper hoard later on.
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I actually find low levels the easiest time to drop loot. I like to do a little math and work backwards. By level 2 the PCs should each be at 1000 GP each on the Wealth By Level chart. That means 4000 GP total.
Now I generate some random loot drops, each worth somewhere in the neighborhood of between 200 to 500 GP. I generate 4000 GP worth of drops and then just randomly roll when they finish an encounter I decide should have some loot in it.
If you go this route coins and gems are actually the enemy and should be used sparingly. You want treasure that could fit anywhere, so filling several sacks with silver and gold coins alongside an entire pouch of mixed, cut gems is highly unlikely for a CR2 group of kobolds to have on them at random.
For that reason I stick to art items, consumables, and wondrous items. At 1st level for example a 260 GP loot pile might be:
A scrollcase carved from dragon's bone gilt in silver and pewter with a draconic motif. The silver dragons featured on the device have tiny garnets for eyes (160 GP). Inside the scrollcase are 2 scrolls, each containing 2 arcane spells each. These are Burning Hands, Jump, Mage Armor and Unseen Servant (100 GP).
Now what if you randomly roll this entry after fighting, say 3 goblin warrior 1? Well you might pick a different loot entry, but you don't have to. What if they were couriers? Could be they found the scrollcase locked and just liked the way it looked. Maybe it needs a Prestidigitation and Mending spell since the goblins have ben using the locked scrollcase as a hammer.
Another note: anything can be loot. Your players might go down into a crypt, murder a bunch of undead, then search the whole place top to bottom and whine when they don't find chests of gold. You can then politely remind them that the torch brackets are made of expertly crafted brass (60 GP each); hanging in each cyst is an ornate tapestry depicting the lineage of the tyrant entombed there (100 GP each); the statuary throughout the catacombs are so well sculpted and lifelike they are unnerving (120 GP each); finally the undead that the PCs fought all had gold and iron inlay in their bones as well as eyes or organs represented by carved onyx (130 GP each). This coupled with the few obvious item treasures and a modest cache of coins interred with the leader of the dead is more than enough reward.
Finally not everything has to be gold. Trade goods or personal stuff is always an option. As small as a few pinches of the finest snuff in a Darkwood snuff box to 6 tuns of the best dwarven brandy can be treasure. If you want to add treasure don't just look at the monsters but where they're living. You might have a bunch of PCs kill some rats in an abandoned cellar. While searching they find a collapsed rack of sour wine; a DC 20 Perception check reveals one bottle of Elven Grappa, a highly-prized elf wine of a vintage no longer available in the city (100 GP). Also under the collapsed wreckage is the rats' tunnel and a skeletal corpse still bearing a (mundane) silver and amethyst ring (120 GP) as well as a chapbook of Sarenite prayers and devotionals tucked into which is a scroll of Lesser Restoration (150 GP). Finally the corpse has a simple iron key. Removing the rubble is tricky since a portion of it once supported the vaulted roof as an archway (either Engineering, Miner or some other appropriate skill, DC 20) but even without removing it the PCs can see the rats tunneled through wood as well as stone; there's a door back there! If they do manage to clear the way the key unlocks the door... to ADVENTURE (and more treasure)!
For some of the campaigns I play or run, we just allow characters to stat out their gear automatically to Wealth By Level. They can change as they desire between sessions, as long as they don't exceed their Wealth By Level.
It really helps with campaigns where looting bodies is extremely off theme. But what we find is, it doesn't really change the gameplay experience all that much if the characters aren't motivated by money.
So if that's the case for you, perhaps try removing loot drops entirely.
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Another thought would be to let the players dictate what they find. Kind of along the same lines as Mythic EL is saying. If the PCs kill some orcs give them a budget appropriate to the encounter and their level. They can then use that budget and "buy" their own items from the encounter, explaining/justifying them however they'd like.
Ex: an APL2 party has investigated tracks afield, fought through an orcish patrol (CR2 encounter), used skills/powers to cross a flooded stream (CR2 hazard) and battled their way through a small orc camp even defeating the leader (a CR2 encounter followed by a CR3 battle). They finally stop to assess the treasure they have.
- Add up the treasure per encounter from the chart of the same name, then divide by # of PCs. In this case we'll go with 2000GP divided by 4 PCs, for a total of 1000 GP per PC. This is each character's budget.
- Players spend their budget on items they want their character to have at this particular point in time.
Perhaps the witch PC is sick of missing saves all the time and wants a Cloak of Protection; turns out that one of the orcs slain along the way was carrying one the whole time. The witch took it off the corpse because he liked the way it looked and now after a moment to look over its magical properties he's determined its true power.
Alternatively perhaps the party's inquisitor has a masterwork shield that the player intends to use as one of her primary items through the campaign. The player gets your approval to advance the same shield in power throughout their adventures, then spends her 1000GP budget saying that Iomedae's power shines down upon the inquisitor for the justice she's brought this day. The masterwork shield now becomes a +1 shield.
In this way the players feel connected to the things they "buy" since they're designing their own arsenal and you're off the hook with creating all of this stuff. It even provides you with plot hooks from time to time. What if the shield DOES become a +1 item but it is also aligned and starts displaying an empathic personality. Suddenly the inquisitor finds they can't sleep at night with all the injustices in the world... until the shield can be pacified or dealt with in some way.
What's wrong with a group of kobolds having a large amount of coins and gems? Maybe the PCs will wonder how the kobolds acquired so much wealth and discover that the kobold tribe is known to have worked for a dragon who hasn't been seen in some time... leading the party to discover the abandoned lair of a dragon. The wealth is mostly spent by now, but there's still enough for quite a treasure, and all it takes is defeating the rest of the very possessive tribe.
Add up the treasure per encounter from the chart of the same name, then divide by # of PCs. In this case we'll go with 2000GP divided by 4 PCs, for a total of 1000 GP per PC. This is each character's budget.
- Players spend their budget on items they want their character to have at this particular point in time.
Mark, either your typing or your mathematics could do with some improvement. 2000GP divided by 4= 500.
Though errors like this on the part of GMs are to be encouraged, so ignore me. :)
Mark Hoover- I suppose that does help with the whole "can't buy things in the middle of the desert" lol, though I'll have to figure out what sort of things the orcs could have even run into since they wouldn't likely have actually found magical things even if they didn't know what it was, but I think I can manage a couple extra fancy utility items like the scrollcase idea, maybe a scroll to let the witch learn a new spell.
Mythic Evil Lincoln- First off your name is amazballs, and I'll talk to them about that idea if they prefer it it might be an elegant enough solution as long as they don't go overboard with random buys.
Mackenzie- Well I'd say they wouldn't have much probably because of a lack of contact with other cultures being a cave and tunnel dwelling race and that gold isn't actually a universal currency, but thats the realism steps my brain just takes. As for working with a dragon that could work in a more normal setting, but in this world there are only purhaps 10 or so dragons in existance, and they are like world guardians of utterly impassible power to mortals (gods left to go do other things, put these guys there as a fail safe for when mortals start playing with the gods power, IE all magic, it's not all divine, but it comes from the same source)
I struggle with this, too. I hate to give out a crap ton of treasure for every encounter, and as such, I dial it back quite a bit. And I'm going to restrict it even further when it comes to magic items. The players in my homebrew have plenty of magic goodies that I've begrudgingly doled out because the books suggest it, and it really galls me to do it. From now on, they'll find minor magic at most and if they want better they're going to have to pay to have it crafted specifically. It's hard to separate my views as a player from my views as a GM anymore. As a player, I don't care if I get a penny in an adventure; I play for the XP and the fun of it.
Needless to say, I kill a goblin and I can retire.
How much money do you think someone needs to retire on? If you want to be comfortable, you're looking at about 7500gp.
What single person has 2000 coins on them?
Most adventurers?
Recently though, I purchased the new and improved Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition books. The treasure for these is a TON better. That same goblin? 3-18 silver. In his lair with his buddies there may be more (and thats to be expected).
I'm not seeing what's better about this. Counting silver pieces isn't my idea of fun.
And 2nd edition doesn't need to feed WBL or pay for the next trip to the magic-mart so what works there isn't likely to work in Pathfinder.
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In my game I generally have the same problem, mostly not because the monsters or enemies wouldnt have a good reason for carrying loot... but rather because I sometimes straight up forget to mention that the players got anything, and no one in my group is loot-hungry enough to remind me of it until we all realize their level 8 with only a few minor magical items and their starting gear. So I had them fight a dragon and take the horde, a rather big horde too.
I was also thinking of sticking in Money Spiders as a zany, loot-based monster, basically modifying an appropriate CR giant spider (Oger Spider, Beblith, what have you) and turning them into a 'Money Spider.' It would have the same stats as the base spider, except I would give it a hot-coin breath weapon and when it died, you could loot it's cache of coins out of its stomach. Of course, this is more of an inside joke for us, as we're all gamers and familiar with the 'money spider' concept in video games and such, and my game is weird enough to make that work (in fact, with how much the fey have an influence in my game, it would actually fit thematically, but that's not the case for your game).
I personally like the 'orcs have items of value they may or may not know the value of' approach, though I can see merit in Mark Hoover's 'stop and assess the treasure' approach too if you want to streamline the buy/sell process of getting gear, especially if the PC's arent going to have the opportunity to go shopping every now and again. One of the big things in my game is that there's a lot of big towns and small settlements, so if the players roll up some loot that's worthless to them, they dont have to worry much about holding onto it, since they'll most likely sell it that session in town. It doesnt sound like your story has the same luxuries, so perhaps letting your players have some control over their loot would be a fun way to keep them rewarded the way they want to be.
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So, I made several changes to the economy and magic items in my game that I am very pleased with.
1) All magic items are decreased in price by 90%.
2) All service related goods in the book are increased by 10x. (This includes masterwork items, but not special materials.)
3) Added a grade of weapon/armor called "good" Good is 500gp for armor or 1000 for weapons.
4) All +x bonuses in core gear (weapon, armor, shield, save, nat armor, deflection, and attributes) are distributed evenly as character bonuses as characters level. (I can provide a chart of needed.) For weapons the bonus applies to any weapon wielded that the character is proficient with. Regular weapons and armor are capped at +1, good weapons and armor are capped at +3, and masterwork has no cap (though in 20 levels of play the highest you might achieve is +5) Special class bonuses like paladin bonded item stack.
EDIT 4a) All items producing +x effects do not exist in my game. The spells granting them do not exist. All casters can wear light armor without ASF, though proficiency penalties still apply.
5) All weapon and armor abilities (flaming, speed, ghost touch) are available via attunded crystals. Crystals are priced as the enhancement bonus less 90%. (So speed crystal would cost 1800gp.)
6) Regular items cannot equip a crystal, good items can equip 1 crystal, masterwork items can equip 3 crystals. It is a standard action that provoked an AOO to remove/equip a crystal.
7) Day job checks are paid as the PFS guide x10, monthly. Living expenses are removed (at 10x book price and sometimes you can't afford your lifestyle! Penalties may apply depending on RP circumstances.)
This keeps the economy more mutable and the little bumps here and there a lot more smooth. The biggest thing, for example, is the group could slay a very powerful foe and literally get just a masterwork weapon (or even nothing!) plus the pocket coins they had. The group accumulates wealth via small pickups and day jobs. And they need far fewer items because their expected upgrades are being met via character bonuses so they are keeping all the quirky "sub-optimal" items I drop and finding interesting ways to use them. Best houserules that I have ever implemented.
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A few days ago, I was reading up on the Gauls, and apparently they were very much into personal ornamentation, like gold torcs and armbands and such. Maybe the orcs are also into personal "beauty" and have melted captured gold and silver into personal jewelry items. The Gauls also liked enemies' skulls, and some skulls with gold ornaments were found in some dig somewhere. Gold-encrusted skulls of enemies would be great ornaments for orcs.
The group accumulates wealth via small pickups and day jobs.
That's what I think most people would take issue with.
That's hardly even adventuring. "I know we were gonna slay that dragon, guys, but my boss has me working Saturday."
The group accumulates wealth via small pickups and day jobs.That's what I think most people would take issue with.
That's hardly even adventuring. "I know we were gonna slay that dragon, guys, but my boss has me working Saturday."
So, there are a number of ways to view day jobs. In the current group 2 are military on detatched service so they get paid to adventure, 1 is a professor at the Mage's college so he has to spend 8 hours a week in class and all the rest of his time is spent adventuring (aka research), one owns a bar so he has no set hours, and the 5th is a member of the city government.
Beasts (even dragons*) simply don't accumulate vast treasure and NPC's burn their pocket coins on living expenses. The best part is most folks have a handful (call it 1d4) minor permanent items. I see it as fully industrialized magic setting where items have become somewhat ubiquitous.
*dragons would still horde stuff, but it would be much more specific items and far fewer coins.
The day job check is not meant to interfere with the activities of the PC's but to help ground them in the setting. Even a ranger who spends 95% of her time in the wilderness gets a day job check to account for the furs/herbs/fish/guide services she trades in local cities. Even if 100% of it happens off-screen.
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The day job check is not meant to interfere with the activities of the PC's but to help ground them in the setting. Even a ranger who spends 95% of her time in the wilderness gets a day job check to account for the furs/herbs/fish/guide services she trades in local cities. Even if 100% of it happens off-screen.
I suppose it could even be used as a plot hook sometimes if you needed a spare one.
"Guys, my employees at the bar I own have disappeared, I found a mysterious note, I think they were kidnapped by our rivals. I could really use your help rescuing them." Something along those lines.
I'm running a published campaign that doesn't have "magic marts" and I'm constantly paranoid that the players will be pissed off.
I thought about just allowing normal pathfinder shopping even though it kills the vibe for me, but that makes a whole new set of problems I would have to tweak for, because this campaign has weird things like low level evil cultists each carrying an unholy mace. If the party can sell all those for 50% and buy what they want they will end up with monty haul levels of loot.
#1 figure out how much wealth you want the PCs to have at different plot points. Unless you have a compelling reason and are prepared to do extra work, I strongly suggest using the WBL table for this.
#2 be creative and figure out how to get that loot into the parties hands. Sure, it might not always make perfect sense, just like some of the encounters you set up to give XP probably don't. Sand Worm monsters could have eaten a guy with a magic ring and now it is near their lair. Elves can give rewards for services. Pillaging bands or orcs might well have pillaged in the past, even if they don't have powerful magic the are likely to have jewelry and similar items to display their wealth and battle prowess.
Basically don't start with 'this is what those bad guys would probably have' instead start with 'this is how much loot I need to drop, where are the best places to drop it'.
Sounds like your party needs a new GM and vice-versa. These sorts of philosophical issues usually don't change much.
If you're going to stay, put a little more effort into thinking creatively, rather than rigidly.
Options include:
- The Warband has a cache of treasure acquired from raids
- The Warband has a redoubt in the desert which was once a palace; if you think they don't care about treasure, then all the treasure of that place is still there
- The Warband has magical equipment they have gathered, but their leader requires her soldiers to prove their worth in order to wield such power, and as such much of the magic goes unused
- The Warband actually uses some magical gear, distributed throughout the ranks
- The leader of the Warband requires all magical goods be sent to him, and he is an epic encounter in an of himself
There's 5 easy ideas. It took me less than a minute. One of the essential conceits of Pathfinder & D&D is that magic is commonplace, the wealth gap is enormous, and might makes right. Strong people acquire wealth while peasants starve. Making money is pretty easy if you're connected or strong and willing to take what you want. And even then, every commoner is not a starving peasant. Sometimes a commoner receives an ancient heirloom, or comes upon a cache of gold and is stowing it, trying to figure out how to spend it. Village elders sometimes live lavish lifestyles at the cost of their constituents. Some peasants save a ton of money over the course of their lives. If you look at the income rules for Profession, peasants make much more than they need to live, for the most part.
And if you look at real life...people in poverty are hood rich all the time. People spend money they don't have on s!%+ they don't need every day. So your conception of 'loot' in the world is, in my opinion, deeply flawed. Except the animals with bags of gold thing...that's crazy. But as was mentioned earlier, just make it up elsewhere, in a way that makes sense but doesn't necessarily make the sense you 'feel' it should make. For the most part, the players won't care.
Oh! And P.S. regarding the magic mart thing...introducing a cool NPC(s) that can make magic items for them is a great idea. Instead of dropping gold, you can drop magical reagents. Allow them to 'harvest' every creature for their precious spell components. And basically every creature has a spell component somewhere. They can save up components and essentially 'trade' them to a hedge wizard or witch in exchange for enchanting services.
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just popping in to say 'hey take a look at donjon.bin.sh it's got random loot generators by liquid assets, terrain, and monster type'
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I'm running a published campaign that doesn't have "magic marts" and I'm constantly paranoid that the players will be pissed off.
I thought about just allowing normal pathfinder shopping even though it kills the vibe for me, but that makes a whole new set of problems I would have to tweak for, because this campaign has weird things like low level evil cultists each carrying an unholy mace. If the party can sell all those for 50% and buy what they want they will end up with monty haul levels of loot.
This is one of the reasons I'm super-pro item creation. Just assume what they do find is being used to fuel item creation and you don't need magic marts, you can just convert your treasure.
The item creation rules never mentioned what sort of materials are required to create magic items, merely that they be worth a bunch of gold pieces. This means your party can cannibalize stuff for item creation. For example, instead of trading gold tiara studded with topazes and emeralds you instead make a magic headband out of it. :D
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The item creation rules never mentioned what sort of materials are required to create magic items, merely that they be worth a bunch of gold pieces. This means your party can cannibalize stuff for item creation. For example, instead of trading gold tiara studded with topazes and emeralds you instead make a magic headband out of it. :D
At the end of one campaign, I took a matched set of four bracelets and did exactly that. As a parting gift for the other PCs, I enchanted each one to cast sending once per day, as we all went off on our separate ways (3 of us stayed in town to settle down, build homes, run the place; 1 of us went back to rule the Empire we'd just saved from an infernal invasion; I wandered off to not even the gods knew where, but hey, I already cast sending).
just popping in to say 'hey take a look at donjon.bin.sh it's got random loot generators by liquid assets, terrain, and monster type'
goodness, i forgot to add the link in that post. fixed here.