Master Codex's page

Yeah, without me checking in with him, I think he does play mini war games. Perhaps it would be best to ask him if he wants to roll up a new character. We have asked him about his character numerous times and the age old answer of "I'm playing my character" is his response. But he really is not interested in anything non combat, so perhaps it would be best to ask him if he wants to make a character who can do more when we aren't fighting. He started off with a paladin, but changed when he saw that his paladin wasn't going to be a tyrannical purge all who dare not worship my God thing. He likes to hang out with us outside of the game though, so I really am chalking it up to him thinking that the game is more of a combat simulator.

Yes, him hitting the thing can prove to be an invaluable distraction as the party comes up from behind to do whatever it is they want to do to it. But there is still the whole part between that and the start where he'd rather be playing a different game, so if he does that before the party decides an idea that requires a distraction, it'd be a shame if he just didn't pay attention because he's off doing something else.

There are a couple of ways I thought of that can seal it back, the most prominent idea being to get the exact same thing it broke out of and to try and do a soul jar sorta move on it. But I'm all down to see if the party can come up with their own things. Soul Jar will be the idea given to them if they get all their knowledges worked out well enough, but the party has given me so many wonderful solutions to puzzles in the past, I can't help but root for a new one.

As such, there are things that can catch the creature off guard the first couple of times that it happens to it, like dog piling on it (Grappling) or casting a pit under it, forcing it to fly out, which will give the party a round or so to prepare whatever else they need to do.

Yeah, there is the possibility that the creature will leave before whatever and this can happen meaning they'll have lots of in between time to really work out a complicated solution, but that's not important right now.

I do dread telling him that it's going to be a predominately roleplaying session because last time we did that, his character stood around and drank while the party got all the stuff needed to continue on. Yeah I through stuff at him, but instead of talking with the guy to get information or even rolling a knowledge local in the bar to hear rumors, he just stood there and ignored him. He was only really happy next session when the combat in the light house started. And then when some of the things seemed to have been mind controlled people and he was told to stop, he resumed standing around procedure.

No sir, I don't like 'em.

That's fine. Is there anything you don't like about them specifically?

I personally see no difference between an encounter with an unstatted creature and an encounter with a social situation where combat is poorly suited to success, such as needing the cooperation (and very specifically not decapitation) of a king.

You aren't creating a combat encounter, and if my character is strictly combat then I understand this is simply not the challenge I geared my character towards. I have the ability to politely set myself aside and use roleplay techniques to enjoy myself, knowing my diplomacy roll will most likely fail.

I'll then look forward to the next encounter being something that plays more to my stengths, because you've made an encounter that worked in favor of the other players and it is now my turn.

Basically this, but I would like it if character who is solely combat has something to do. Even with combat added in, it won't take the entire encounter so at best that's just short term catering. But thank you for understanding.

If you or your players have an issue with how Timmy chooses to engage with the game and it's mechanic's then you might want to try talking to him about it instead of passive aggressively creating a thing that's completely immune to his characters abilities via fiat.

This thing was made before I saw his style of 'play', the point of this thread was to see how I could handle this better for his sake, but all I'm getting are people claiming I dislike the player and am intentionally making this to harm him.

Even now, Orf is having a discussion with a person who isn't me and insulting me over it, showing me that he came in here simply wanting to insult me, hence why I am going to ignore him from this point on, as he is simply trying to say that his way is better while throwing a tantrum about it. His way may have been better, but now the world will never know.

Note: I am assuming you do not let players defeat these "Level X" super-beings via rolling diplomacy or just rolling Int checks to figure out what it wants?

If not then why not just play pretend?

Also why would such a ridiculous being not simply solve the characters problems for them if friendly or squish them if malicious? I assume because neither is fun correct?

That is due to the fact that tropes that work in one form of media, such as literature, do not work in all other forms, in the case TTRPG's.

TL;DR: Stripping players of agency is frustrating for many players.

They can roll, their stats are still there. If the creature makes the floor lave it isn't a "Oh my stats are worthless", it's a oh our rogue can really shine through with his acrobatics check.

If Zod the Super Genius wants to roll Diplomacy and does well, the Level X may find him entertaining and pay attention to what Zod is doing and Zod is welcome to roll checks to find out what it wants, from there even if Zods player is not coming up with an idea, someone else in the party can because 1. Even smart people do not solve every problem or 2. The player may tell Zod about his idea so that Zod can do it as a communal roleplaying sort of thing if they're friends about a character like that.

Why does the creature simply not just solve the worlds problems or utterly destroy them. Perhaps there's a limitation put on the creature that disallows it from physically altering the world and has to do so through other means or the creature itself is just a devious prankster that wants to be entertained. Either way, it does come down to fun, but can have it's reasons that the party can exploit.

If you happen to take offense to me defending this, it's because I am trying to show my side of it, as some assumptions were made.

Timmy, however, just attacks and stands around. When it comes to the choice between two things, Timmy will choose hit it until it is dead. Timmy has been targeted by a natural 20 intimidate that equaled out to a 64 (Mythic Stuff) and Timmies response was to stand there and stare back. Timmy has seen comrades sacrifice their lives for the party and Timmy says nothing and stands there. Timmy has been told not to attack by his party, so he stands there. In a fight however, Timmy attacks. He then stands there and attacks again until target is dead or Timmy is dead. Timmy will target the thing he deems most threatening as well, so while Timmy and the Bossman duke it out, the party has to take on the bossmans men, who are often times their own competent party who will be simultaneously helping the bossman and attacking the now separated party, because Timmy ran past them and took all their AoO damage. So when it comes down to the party having released hell because of Timmy doing something stupid in the end (I kill the only person who can stop the ritual). So how should this be treated in a meaningful way that would make sense. I see it as a powerful being that the party must entrap again, because it would all be very anticlimatic if they just fought it until one or the other died. Timmy will be interested during the beings "I summon stuff at you" tirade, but Timmy will not be interested during any skill challenge or roleplaying. Timmy wants the boss with a million hit points and weaknesses to everything except purely getting hit with a weapon, because that's all Timmy does. There are five other players to think about here, but it would be a damn shame if even bland as oatmeal Timmy had zero fun in the end of the campaign because the monster didn't shoot out a million tentacles to have Timmy cut them off.

Yes, I suppose the way I handled that was rather childish and for that I apologize. However, you also need to take a look at your own mannerisms of speaking. You started off in this tone, so at the very least you should expect retaliation in kind. It is the internet.

As I've said earlier, I've done this before and people like it, but there is always someone who doesn't and I wanted opinions, not attacks on character.

If you have anything of value to add, I'll listen to it and take note of it, but I wish it to be done in a manner that doesn't revolve around mocking someone.

Why would you use a Level X character when you can use a Level 999 character? What's wrong with giving them stats? Are you afraid that your level 5 PCs are going to kill Cthulhu?

I'd much rather use a super high level statted NPC over an unstatted one. There's no rule saying that I can't use an overpowered NPC in the core rulebook. And this way, I'm not indirectly depriving my players of their character traits.

Edit: I guess what I don't like about Level X 'God' characters is that as long as they exist in the game scene, you're essentially folding the core rulebook, cease playing pathfinder, and play a 'roleplay only' game. I don't mind roleplay, but generally, when I get together with my friends to play pathfinder, I want to play pathfinder.

Well it's not of the note that I don't want to stat it, I have a vague idea of how it should be treated need it come down to that, but rather that I wish it to do things that the core book doesn't allow a creature to do. If I want a childish god to make the players play the floor is actually lava, I should have a way to do that without finding a needlessly complicated rule set to allow it to do as such. Similarly I don't want to make it so powerful that if the freed demon lord were to mindlessly bat a player away, that it wouldn't kill them if I rolled high. If the forgotten lord of nature brings forth something not of the Summon Monster List, how should I treat it as a spell if the beast has no summon equivalent. Rather than making an increasingly complex sheet to cover these bases, it's simply accepted that they can do these things because they are so powerful. Generally a Level X is defeated by being outwitted or by having what little power it was gathering used up by the party because the party kept passing it's challenges and beasts before it had time to truly gather all of it's strength. Even Level X's with stats are still sort of Level X's if they have a bunch of abilities that were made up for them. (Edit: These Abilities being of such power that a normal monster shouldn't have them)

Yes, I understand all that, this is a rare occurance, but one the party basically asked for over the course of several sessions. Basically it's like they summoned Cthulu, but they aren't of level to fight it, so all this here happened.

The reason I responded somewhat harshly there was because I perceived what orf to say as hostile, especially with his choice of saying I was being a dick.

This isn't a dues ex, this isn't salvation, it's a threat they must overcome through a manner beyond simple combat. If that's all your character can do than I'm sorry for you. This is coming because of the players actions, they helped release this threat upon the world through their slip ups and they're going to have to stick it back somehow.

I suppose you dislike it whenever a monster with that has the ability to destroy weapons show up or an anti magic field is used or unnatural cold comes in and shatters your cold resistance. Sometimes something does stunt what you would rather do and you have to work around it.

If you want to fight the level x, that's fine, you'll just learn that it's not going to be favorable for you and you will either have to find a way to hurt it or die as you mindlessly swipe at it for the millionth time. There are mechanics beyond the simple I roll to attack, they could roll any number of skill checks to try and find out more or trick it, they have a plethora of items at their disposal and they have their wits.

You can't please everyone, but when one person in a group of six literally does nothing but swing their weapon and stand around, anything non combat related will bore them. (Yes we try and get them to roleplay more, but this is another matter)

I never did state that the party was going to meet Gods, I just used them as an example. Using outsiders as a proxy on a party that can't fight that outsider yet can be considered just as bad. The point of me asking about Level X's tho is that one wouldn't be limited to the things that are already in the rules and would allow you to set a sort of GM rule 0 on what that character can do. Sure you can alter an already made thing to have it do some sort of thing it can't normally do, but then suddenly it's a different CR and needs to be reworked, but if it isn't intended to take damage, why should I have to make some illogical sheet for it to just say it can do this too.

I've made a Dullahan that used a steam train as it's steed and the train was powered by the souls that it captured, but it was meant to be physically fought by the party as they maneuvered their shoddy train next to it. I altered a Dullahans Couch of the Silent to a more grander scale and it was designed to be fought against and won and people generally had a lot of fun with that.

But, I'm asking about a challenge that CANNOT be physically defeated. Outsmarting an efreet is one thing, but having to outsmart it is another.

I've had the party have their choice of physical challenges versus mental, but it only takes one party member throwing anchor tokens at doors to ruin the mental challenge for everyone else. (The situation being that they were basically in a jail after being wrongly arrested and instead of waiting to have their roleplaying ah-ha thing to point out the true villain, one player used the feather tokens he smuggled in to break out and free the others, this being fine and all, but the players are upset now that they are wanted men and are now actually criminals in that place for having done that)

For those of you who don't know or simply call it something different, a Level X is a character who does not actually have a de facto sheet with stats and everything filled out to the point that something can actually fight it. In the vein that "If it has hit points you can kill it", a level X is not supposed to be designed even far enough to have hit points. Sure some impossible thing like hundred handed ones or whatever may be able to kill it if you want, whatever the case, the point of a level X is that the players aren't meant to fight it in a physical sense. The Gods are made this way in Pathfinder for example. I've had mixed opinions on this, as I've had players who were just upset that when they slice at the floating demon prince, nothing happens, but on the opposite side, I've had roleplayers love outwitting the reality warper into making his own prison. Whenever I have a Level X, I always get at least one person who feels like they're useless because I always have at least one player who doesn't roleplay so much as "I swing my sword at it". In my current campaign, I have just such a player and I'd love it if they decided to not play a different game while their character stands there doing nothing. Sure there are things to fight, the godlike character may summon a creature to entertain itself while the players fight it, but ultimately it will come down to the group having to trick it or at the very least do something beyond attacking it. I don't really think any advice will help in this case because the player will literally not do anything beyond physical actions, otherwise they state their character starts drinking. So really this comes down to whether or not I should even do it. One character won't have a lot of fun, but not doing it, I feel will deprive many other players of enjoyment. I personally enjoy taking on Level X characters because they aren't so much a physical challenge as a mental one. But I can see why some players dislike them, believing them to be power hungry GM's inserting their OC's or feeling like a GM is lazy for not actually designing an encounter with stats. What I'd like to know is how you feel about these Level X characters or even hear any stories about any you may have encountered in the past, to help me make my decision about doing this or perhaps even bettering it.

I did talk to the player, he basically says the character wants to die now, it's written in his backstory, because he believes strong kills weak and he was weak because someone else helped him. I think that's weird because of tons of organisms that thrive in communities like ants and crows and what is he, lol a human, nah those don't work in communities. All the same his character is now suicidal and is angry at the player characters and he's already making a new character. He argues that it's within the confines of charm person to do what he did because even though he was told to stay safe and he f+$#ing screams at people persuing them and wanting to kill them, his argument is "well maybe they changed their mind and it's safer to be in a house than a tree". Etc. He just wants the character dead and frankly I'm more annoyed that he would play a character that's this suicidal, what's the point of playing the character then.

The group was moving through a dangerous swamp, blah blah, one player fell in a dark chasm and was in trouble of being eaten by a creature. The character believes that the strong always win so he was weak and this was deserved. Another player goes down with a rope and a couple of cool rolls and rounds later they save him when the other 3 players, who are all nonstrength characters, manage to pull them up and the beast nat 1'd it's swallow whole and crashes into the cavern, sealing it away. Now this player becomes upset, he wanted his character to die. This is interesting to say the least, but when his character goes off towards the direction of the people chasing the party, the sorcerer casts charm person and wins. Now our player is upset and is threatening the party in character and deliberately trying to sabotage the party, such as talking loudly when the party tries to stealth and telling the sorcerer directly, who he is supposed to be friendly with, that he will murder him in his sleep. This is all rather annoying to me because it detracts from the game I think, because this is more of a player being upset rather than a character. How do you think this should be handled within confines of the spell, is this player right? Or do you think the group is right to be upset with the player.

This isn't a video game where a warrior can run around using nothing but a sword and still expect to live.

Yes, but this is also a group game where if one player finds they are at a disadvantage, they should find a way to overcome with the group. The Barbarian wouldn't be able to do the things I want him to do if I build him to shoot just as far as our one archers range, so instead he would look for a way to cancel out the inane range of one of his foes.

What's your group's darkvision like? If your barbarian is a race that can see in the dark, and/or has darkvision from a potion/spell, there could also be darkness emanating from him due to a magic item/spell. 30 feet of movable "no, you don't know exactly where he's at" negates an archer just fine. Even if they do have darkvision, it won't kick in until the barb is sixty away, cutting down a lot of the pre-fight damage. Watching a giant sphere of darkness moving inexorably towards your party has its own nice mental effect.

There are a lot of good ideas in this thread, but I think I'll go with this one. It doesn't shut down the player, it simply makes him have to be close enough for his darkvision to take effect which will negate his 200 to 350 feet attack range that I didn't want him to abuse.

Fickle Winds could work well, I mean it's still official paizo

I would like to treat him as more of a physical threat than an intellectual one, they've already been through a couple of recent fights that involved them to think and they haven't been doing it necessarily well. In one fight, they decided to let their squishy sorcerer and investigator get attacked from the back while their tanks focused on ONE high health target which was a mindless construct restricted to one spot, so instead of backing off to protect their dying comrades they stood their whacking the construct until it died. I'd like to try and enforce the idea that some fights should be made to come back for another day.

Weather could help rather well. I like the idea of using an ogre as a wall for the actual barb

Our sorcerer is primarily fire, as he is an ifrit and likes to make a majority of his spells fire elemental.

This scenerio isn't necessarily abusing too much, but our group consists of a five people. One person is a skill monkey and can only really do anything with his poisons. One person is a sorcerer who can do a lot of fire spells, a barbarian that hits stuff, a paladin. Basic premises. Our Skill Monkey investigator and Paladin are both archers. The Fifth character comes in and brings another archer. These people are mythic 1 at this point in the game because various reasons, but mostly because they did a lot of cool stuff and this way I can throw some interesting things at them and have to not worry as hard about them dying because of auto stabilization and additional health, plus they all do some more damage and can do neat things. Our Ranger comes in with Mythic Deadly Aim and the ability to shoot a target from about 200+ Feet away. They haven't been using this too much, but I'd like to introduce a more threatening minion of the BBEG their fighting without having the Ranger deal 40 damage a round while it runs up to them. Protection against Arrows could be a solution, but I don't feel like it's enough. Is there anything else in the core rules against this type of damage that I missed or should I just look into third party/make a balanced spell for such a situation.

The evil minion in question is essentially a large sized Barbarian whose point is to try and drive them out of the plane their in, in an attempt to hide it's secrets for a bit longer.

Alternatively, there is a witch, a wizard and a goblin rogue the party is already aware of and having all four together could be threatening, but I don't want them to just try and fight them thinking they can suddenly take the wizard who was clearly a higher level then them when they first encountered it. (It didn't kill them because it had no offensive spells left prepared so it just made them scared).

Its not a case of one up man ship, (player versus DM) a background story is the past, it does not change or suddenly alter as the initial post described. If one parent died the background should specify which, if one parent was an X, Y or Z the background should say so from the beginning.

But what you're describing makes it seem like it is. Adding things as they appear to be convenient. They aren't doing that, their just adding backstory to what used to be no backstory. I'm fine with that within reason.

Bah, humbug.

The player hasn't given her player character anything other than backstory. That's fine. No, that's great! Sure, the characters in the PCs backstory might have resources - but giving them to the party is still up to the GM. Does it seem contrived that the PC aren't given free stuff? Well, ask the player why. The player came up with the resources in the first place and can be the one to explain them away. If necessary.

Agreed

On a side note, I love that the player comes up with backstory as the play goes along. Sure, it can get weird, but I'd take it any day over reading four pages someone wrote before the game even started. Talking about your characters past during game really bring them alive, for everyone around the table.

Yeah, I'm fine with them adding stuff about their past as time goes on. Our sorcerer has also done something similar. He doesn't have an interesting backstory, let alone, a backstory, but he's a new player. He was reading the rule books and found staves so now his character is starting to show interest in what he wants to be in the future. A collector of magic artifacts, primarily magic staffs.

I'm not quite sure I see your problem Master Codex. The player as developed a backstory. You think it's a bit much, a bit ill contrived. Right?

Talk to the player! Maybe he's fine with it staying backstory. Maybe you can work out the quirks in the story, get it to fit better with your vision of the world. Maybe you can work together and come up with a cool story for an adventure that really puts the player in the spotlight.

It's a bit weird near the end, but like I said, it's not unheard of and he's a player, the characters the players take control of aren't just some random joe, their future heroes and legends, so it's fine if he has some odd background, but my question was if I involved a story with them, how could I handle it without upsetting the player. I also didn't want to spoil anything, but fortunately Neils gave me a good way to ask EVERYONE without having to ruin anything nor step on anyones toes.

If you allow alterations to back story as the game goes on you will find new advantages coming into play. I mean basically the PC just gave himself nobility, wealth, and lots of extras that are just being brought in willy nilly....

My character died well that's OK uncle Bob is a 10th level cleric and I already gave him enough diamond dust for both the raise dead and the restoration of negative levels..

I'd calmly explain that Uncle Bob already died and was brought back as an undead for the bbeg. This isn't a matter of trying to go nuh-uh, you can't do that against the GM who is essentially the God of the world. The player isn't trying to abuse it, he's just saying what he thinks is cool. All of his nobility doesn't amount for anything unless he rolls well in which case I may go, oh with your 20 diplomacy the man recognizes you and is willing to give you information for a good word with your father, etc.

Your players may not be like me in this regard, but I quite enjoy having my characters back story involved in the campaign.

You may want to talk to your players and, with out going into specifics, ask if anything is off limits in their back story for you to play with.

Thanks, that's a great way to ask permission without ruining anything story wise or making a player upset.

No, they've been adding these details as the game has been going on. Originally his story was Dhampir who is a detective.

I do want to ask them, but the possibility of their parents dying is what sort of sets me off, because I don't want that to scare them when it doesn't necessarily have to happen and I also don't want it to spoil any possibilities of what will come for them.

This might seem like a more trivial matter compared to my earlier request, but this is slowly starting to bother me. One of my characters is a chaotic neutral Dhampir. That's fine. At some point he talks about how he's off to visit his parents and we all know that usually the mother dies giving birth to a Dhampir, but this isn't always the case, so we shrugged it off. Then we find out that his mother is the vampire, but this still isn't terrible. However, when the party is tricked into killing an innocent who was under mind control, he talks about how he doesn't want to be like his mother who has killed hundreds, maybe thousands. Now, this is where it starts to bug me that there is Vampire living in a mansion with a nobleman, who presumably have a staff of workers. This isn't impossible or even unheard of, but I certainly feel like that this much information warrents some sort of event to take place, perhaps the party has to go answer the players call from his parents who request his help, only to find out that a child whose parents were killed grew into a powerful paladin seeking revenge for all the innocents, but at the same time, I don't want to upset the player about this. This is also one of our only good backstories in the game at the moment because the other players backstories are "barbarian" "Sorcerer" and "Royal Guard sent from the godless lands to spy on the king of Arcadia but then had his life saved by our parties first paladin so he became a paladin in response, turning his life against his old ways". Which I think the last one also warrants it's own story, but that doesn't involve that players Parents. So what do you guys think is best? The Player would be fine if I had his parents around, but this sort of session could result in a punishing result if the party decides to just let the paladin kill his mom for example. Would it be best to just do nothing about it?

I know bumping is bad, but I really am wondering if there are other alternatives. It's partially my fault for not checking out his character in depth before allowing him to play it, but he's been with us for a while and he was expressing it quite clearly that he was having no fun without his character (playing other games while it wasn't his turn for example).

The Auto Bonus Progression would be helpful for a future campaign, but he already has more money then the party and if I tell him he can't have it, I'm sure it'll just upset him, he was getting very upset over an incredibly dumb topic of what jedi wear. Everyone goes through irritable phases and I've lost a couple of players just because of these phases (One player tried to kill the entire party and got upset when he took no one out because 5v1 is hard). I'd just hate to lose a player over such a dumb topic, but I'd also hate to have the entire group dislike a player for even one session while I handed them treasure items specific to a character just to catch them up.

I assume you mean that when the first character dies you've allowed him to bring in a replacement character (with 'appropriate' WBL) that ends up being more than the party?

Alternately, do you mean specifically coins rather than wealth in the form of magic etc?

I ran into similar problems with allowing replacement characters keep coming in at appropriate level (instead of level minus 1) and appropriate WBL. I never solved the problem.

As for awarding the players money you could always give the party as a whole X*Y reward where X is the amount you intended to give each character and Y was the total number of party members not counting the guy that died. If the party as a whole wants to give the recently dead guy a full share they can, otherwise they may choose to give him a partial share.

Yes, taking in account for everyones gear, the level appropriate gold puts him at more than the average party member. I was going to originally give the party gold to share as a party, but the fact that a player might actually give the new character a share is what I find problematic, because even if it doesn't come from the parties total share, which would upset at least one player, it would mean he would volunteer his share to be reduced, meaning that as a whole, our paladin will be less tanky, which is bad considering the other members are just glass cannons (Barb, Sorc, Inves, Ranger) (Yes I consider Barb to be a glass cannon, she has like 14 ac despite her 100ish health, so practically everything hits her)

Dont give new PCs money per AVERAGE wealth per level table. Give them what the least wealthy char of your player's group has. So noone hard feelings are generated.

We were doing that, but apparently they forgot and I didn't have time to check because this player was being particularly upset because he was playing a lower leveled npc until there was an opportunity for him to show up, which had to be delayed because he wasn't done making the character, so I didn't get to realize this until afterwards that they even started with 6th level wealth despite the party only being level 5 (Because he made his character level 6) (Because he knew we were going to level by the end of the session and didn't think he'd get to play his character, but was brought in anyways)

The Auto Bonus Progression from pathfinder unchained solves most of these types of problems. Since all characters have the basic bonuses the game assumes you have magic items become less important and more fun. Now instead of having to have a cloak of protection you can get something more interesting. It also means that a new character will have most of what he needs even if he has no equipment. He might not have all the cool abilities the other characters have but he has the basics so he is not totally useless.

In most cases when a new character is brought in he should have about the same level of resources as the rest of the party. If the party is at or near wealth by level, then the new character should get the standard wealth by level. If the party is significantly lower than wealth by level the new player should get that level of equipment.

I'm not familiar with that system, I'll have to check it out

I typed up a whole post, but it appears to have been wiped from time and space, so in my unsettled disappointment, let me just ask this for now.

A player dies and comes back with more money than the party. I was going to award the party money later, but now how should it be handled so that it can be fluidly played/explained/whatever that the new guy won't be getting any of the money. The player shouldn't complain about not getting money, but it'd be a little weird story wise. They just fought constructs, which give no treasure usually, but they are fighting a villain that uses constructs to enforce his power. They're in a fast leveling campaign as well, so how could this be handled better so this isn't a reoccurring problem.

They've been getting items and money as rewards from the people they've been saving.

Sorry if this is poorly written, I originally wrote a couple of paragraphs explaining more details, but yeah.