I'm running Kingmaker, and there are quite a lot of random encounters - some of which are well above the character's APL. My first and second level PCs have already fought and defeated both an owlbear and a troll.
With the troll, I generated treasure using the guidelines in Ultimate Equipment. I guess it's from years of playing 2e/3.xe, but I think I misunderstood the process and basically generated treasure for a 5th level party since the troll was CR 5. Looking at it now, I think the intent of the tables is the treasure should be generated based on character level, not opponent level.
However, I kind of feel like getting some more potent goodies for defeating something bigger and stronger than you is not necessarily game breaking. I was just wondering how others handle situations like this. I think in the future I'll generate at APL +1 for somewhat challenging encounters or +2 for very challenging encounters, but not more than that. The Troll was APL +3 and they got a lot of pricey stuff for 2nd level characters.
No, I think you did it correctly.
Think of it this way. Suppose they encounter a level 20 orc fighter. Yeah, they will all die if they fight him, but imagine they find a way to win.
Now, would it make sense for that level 20 fighter to be wearing chainmail and fighting with a masterwork weapon and only carrying a few gold pieces? After all, he is 20th level - he should have nearly a million GP worth of gear.
Sure, sure, you COULD arrange the encounter where they find the 20th level fighter bathing in a river and he left all his gear except a couple mundane items far, far away. Could be a fun encounter to fight a very high level guy with no gear.
But, really, if a 20th level guy has his gear, he's going to have 20th level treasure - not 2nd level treasure.
The same holds true for owlbears and trolls and everything else.
(side note: that doesn't mean that each creature has a bag of gold waiting to be looted; good adventure design suggests that you should re-distribute the wealth around so that it makes more sense - the PCs could fight several encounters with no treasure and then their next encounter has a large hoard of loot that actually adds up to about the expected treasure for this encounter plus all the empty ones, or any other imaginable loot redistribution).
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While I approve of what DM_Blake said, the same concept reinforces you to think carefully before deciding what kind of CR should party take on. Some challenges might reward also something else besides items & money. I tend to reward occasionally players with other rewards such as information, potential ally or favor in the future, some general mundane items of value which aren't weapons or money, traits and bonuses, etc. Eventually you can always redistribute gold over numerous encounters which party faces if you feel that they are behind WBL.
Adam
This is very good information that I will apply to my current DMing (I usually just use the encounters from the AP, but now I know what to do for random encounters)
Thanks for the perspective guys; glad to know I wasn't completely screwing it up. I definitely like the idea of giving info instead of treasure sometimes, and that will be going into my bag of tricks.
Challenging, hard, and epic encounters should award treasure one, two, or three levels higher than the PCs' average level, respectively.
Interestingly, nothing in the rules actually specifies that encounters where CR is less than APL should reward lower levels of treasure.
The shorthand most GMs seem to use is that an encounter awards treasure based on the CR, but that's not actually how it works in the strictest sense.