Giving Out More Treasure


Advice


A bit of a positive request here, I hope. I'm looking for some input on how I can make sure the party is getting enough treasure, and, how to keep the hauls interesting. One thing I've struggled with getting enough meaningful loot into the party's hands, they're presently level 4 in their current campaign, and while I haven't closely audited their character's I suspect they are trailing the "wealth by level" chart.

There are a couple issues I'm having that I hope to work through.

First, I've always found treasure taking a long time to generate, even with random tables available in different publications there are still multiple rolls to add into the time spent designing each encounter. This is compounded when items like scrolls and potions need spells assigned to them. Additionally, there is the narrative issue when items would belong to creatures that can use them.

Second, I try to avoid dumping wheelbarrows full of currency and trade goods onto the players. Their current position largely prohibits them from shopping for whatever they like. Like holiday presents, I'd rather present something tangible than telling someone to pick out what they want, though I may be in the minority here. I will play fast and loose with rules for applying enchantments though, to keep the party's existing weapons and equipment relevant.

Third, during a session, I find the process of distributing treasure to grind a game to a halt as I read off a list of items, give page citations, explain what they do, and make sure that the players have things in order. One work around to lessen this delay I've taken to is informing the party that most magic items found while adventuring need to be studied at their base of operations before they can be used.

Whatever advice you have to inserting and awarding treasures is appreciated, thank you.


have you considered using any of the online treasure generators? the one on the D20PFSRD can be tailored for magic vs mundane vs coins vs art i believe.

To show how a thing works consider having the opposition use a the item/spell/whatever to give the players a little extra challenge and highlight the potential use.

you could abstract an item of value (a bust of a dragon comprised of valuable metals and inlaid stones... you can not place its actual worth but you cant help thinking it would be a small fortune) and figure out the exact cost later depending on how the party is handling their wealth.


Might I suggest you use something like this this.

I added a few tweaks of my own to it:

a. Non consumable magical items take 1 minute to attune to you normally before you can use them. An item can only be unbonded from you after a 1 hour ritual followed by 8 hours of rest.
b.Cursed items count against your encumbrance if they provide benefits and you ignore the penalties. Trying to find a cursed item that is useful to you but doesn’t inhibit you significantly is trying to find a way to game the system.
c.Do not figure in the base cost of non-magical weapons and armor including special materials.
d.Artifacts and Intelligent Items do count against your Magical Item Encumbrance.
e.Crafting feats do not in any way increase your Magical Encumbrance.

This enables you to run a Monty Haul without overpowering your PCs because they can only use so much gear at a time. Of course, I don't actually suggest you run a Monty Haul, but you can increase treasure drops without worrying about giving them too much because they can only use so much of it.

As far randomly generated loot...I suggest you don't. Either place it there with a purpose because it made since for the character using it, or to have it, or make it valuable goods like paintings or gems, or other things to those effects. Randomly generated items are in my opinion often too random to the point where they don't make sense.

Also, don't distribute loot in a game unless it's something that is most likely an upgrade for a character. In fact, with the system I mentioned above they wont be able to use it until they attune and rest so it's not something that usually happens mid-session anyways. If nothing else, tell your players that it's disruptive to the flow of the game and you'd prefer to handle treasure outside of game time. It's a very reasonable request.

You might also try using the automatic bonus progression rules laid out in Pathfinder Unchained. They basically eliminate the normal enhancement bonus items that characters need to be functional in game, instead replaced with bonuses that characters just get at certain levels. Afterwards, magical gear just becomes interesting magical items that do cool things instead of requiring you to have a Str +2 belt for your fighter because you need to be able to attack better and deal more damage. This eliminates part of the problem of not being able to buy gear (that you need to succeed against level appropriate challenges) but still allows you to work around not having magic marts.


1. Forget the base of operations study thing. That will only give them reasons to return to their base more often which will disrupt the narrative flow, or they will have to take useful items and stuff them into their backpack rather than use them (which means they'll be even further behind their WBL expectations until they can study those at their base) - either way it fails to solve your WBL concerns.

2. Distributing magical items is one of THE big rewards of RPGs. Gaining XP and leveling up is the other big reward. Why would you want to take that away from them. So it "grinds the game to a halt", but it's worth it for the reward, it's rare enough that it should only be an occasional grind - really, how often are you giving out magical rewards if you're worried that your level 4 group is BELOW the WBL expectations? Most items don't even need an explanation and I just let my players do their own research - most are willing to do it while the party moves onto the next encounter anyway.

3. As for the time sink, well, it's part of being a GM. Don't like it? You could just buy pre-made adventure paths or shorter modules. If you want to home-brew your own adventures, there is no simple solution; get used to spending some time on creating encounters and some additional time on creating treasure. It's in the job description. The good news is that it gets easier. Me, I just add up the total expected treasure value for a dungeon (or a dungeon level if I'm making a big multi-level dungeon), then I redistribute the wealth however I want, often with the big "level boss" having half, or even more than half, of the loot for the entire dungeon. That means some encounters have none, other encounters have just a handful of gold or a small gem or maybe a potion. A few encounters might have a little wealth, maybe 1/10 or 1/8 of the total for the dungeon. And the boss gets a lot. Usually he's the one with the good magic items too. But, often, those are quick and easy "Big Six" items with an occasional special one thrown in.

3a. Doing it that way means less effort making the treasure. It also means that when the players finally get that big score at the end, the dungeon is basically over so I don't mind if the session "grinds to a halt" while they figure stuff out and divide it up. And it also means that I don't spend much time describing what that +2 Ring of Protection or that +1 Flaming sword does - players already know this stuff. So I only have to describe the more unique/rare/interesting items and since those are less common, I don't have to do that very often per dungeon.

4. Finally, if they're in a place where converting cash to magic items is impractical, then either place more items and less cash (sounds like you're doing this) or give them an unusual source for trading (a goblin merchant, a dragon who is wiling to trade, or whatever).


Use the online treasure generator suggested above. Takes all of five seconds to generate your loot.


Brother Fen wrote:
Use the online treasure generator suggested above. Takes all of five seconds to generate your loot.

The flaw here is that the GM already said the PCs are not readily able to exchange coin and trade goods (and presumably unwanted magic items) for the items they need.

A random treasure generator will give them coins, gems, art, and random magic items that they might not want, and with no access to convert this stuff into items they DO want, the PCs will remain essentially below WBL because the WBL system assumes they use their wealth to be more effective in their encounters but these PCs won't be able to do that.

Which means that this 5-second solution won't work for this GM.


DM_Blake wrote:
Brother Fen wrote:
Use the online treasure generator suggested above. Takes all of five seconds to generate your loot.

The flaw here is that the GM already said the PCs are not readily able to exchange coin and trade goods (and presumably unwanted magic items) for the items they need.

A random treasure generator will give them coins, gems, art, and random magic items that they might not want, and with no access to convert this stuff into items they DO want, the PCs will remain essentially below WBL because the WBL system assumes they use their wealth to be more effective in their encounters but these PCs won't be able to do that.

Which means that this 5-second solution won't work for this GM.

I just checked it, the generator i mentioned has easy to use slide bars, set the residual value to 0 and the balance of items to coins to 0 coins and it spits out list after list of items. copy and paste the ones that leap out at you onto a .txt and print away.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/random-treasure-generator

Edit: If the players have no use for unwanted magic items, can not make use of coins and the GM does not want to load them down with such than the only left is get the wish list from each player on what they would use and start seeding those into the adventure.


As a GM I usually have a pile of pre-rolled treasure on the side.
Once we start a campaign I take not of each PC and what kind of item they would like to use. Try to take some time to build treasure like that in advance. As for wealth balance well calculate the total of the treasure and note it down on each loot pages.

I try to split most loot cache or treasure room with these proportions:
-Useful items: 40%
-Situation items: 20%
-Player gifts items: 30%
-Treasure and junk: 10%

Useful items are things that everyone in the party can kind of use and/or that will profit the whole group. Potions versions of useful spells like "Lesser restoration" or "Invisibility". I also give my items of my own creation called *talismans* they are items you can attune to weapons and armor to get bonuses (+1 for example). Long story short my players find floating bonuses they can add to their weapon or armor of choice.

Situation items are the type of wondrous item that could be useful but that might not see use on the day to day basis. Good example are items like that are the ring of jumping or swimming or a manta ray cloak.

Player gift items are there usually directly for one player class, items like pearl of powers for instance. Sometimes it's a new master worked weapon with cool materials like an adamantine scimitar for a fighter.

Treasure and junk are coinage, gems, pearls, art and sometime plot hooks.


Have them each make a 'wish list' of things they want... tell them to include as many as twenty items of varying costs...

Slowly slip those into your 'random' treasure.


If you want to give them items they can't or won't trade, then it is well worth dropping scaling items into your campaign. Purple Duck Games has a great set of PDFs dedicated to the subject starting with Legendary I: Legendary Blades.

My players love them. I've been dropping one scalar per module to ensure that every character has one. They start as simple +1 weapons, but when attuned can become quite powerful as the player advances in level.


Bottom line is that there probably isn't a quick way to generate a customized treasure that will perfectly match your party. If you want it quick, it won't be well customized, and if you want to make a perfect treasure for your party, it won't be quick.

I think you are over worrying about the narrative issue of creatures only having treasure they can use. There are many other options. They might have stolen it, they might be guarding it, and lastly, it might not have a whole lot to do with them, just being in the vicinity. (Someone years ago must have buried a fortune here, erosion has opened the site into a cave and the wolves began using it for a den.) With just a bit of creativity you don't need to limit your treasure giving to what a creature would 'logically' have. And in truth, your players will probably not notice much anyway and lack of loot is more likely to ruin the fun then treasure where it shouldn't be.

If giving out treasure takes away too much time out of the game I recommend going one of two ways. The simplest is having the treasure written on a page you can give the players and letting them figure it out during 'down times' in the story. The other is to really make the list of treasure part of the excitement. Rather than telling them they got a +1 flaming sword, instead it is this exquisite sword is carved with elven runes across the hilt, when drawn a pale violet flame springs to life along the blade (functions as a +1 flaming sword.) It can be tricky to make all the magic fresh and unique but when done right it can add a lot of wonder back into something that has just become a collection of numeric benefits.

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