I and a group of friends have been playing through Rise of the Runelords, using the Pathfinder Alpha and now Beta. I give solid credit to our DM for his abilities in keeping our fractious pack of weirdos on any semblance of track.
To begin, let me say the good. The Path is immersive, a great deal of thought has gone into the scenarios and world, the NPC's are in the main believable and I have to say- outside of Call of Cthulhu(tm) I've never had a pc with obsessive-compulsive disorder caused by a game module before.
The books are well-written, and the monsters are well-thought-out.
However, and maybe this is just the opinions of myself and the players in my group, that the 'treasure' portions have thus far been...well. 'Sub-par' doesn't cover it.
I've been keeping track of Party Treasure thus far, and discounting items and monies thrown in by our DM, we have accumulated a rough maximum of around 8,000 GP per player at most; I estimate (and I don't think I'm too off) that if you count the stuff our PC's are using, we have maybe 15,000 gp in money and items *total* per PC. Mind you, this is with our PC's doing everything but stripping places to the walls and having Garage Sales in Sand Point...
Is this...normal, nowadays? We've gotten from Level 1 to (just recently) Level 8, and our DM (whom we justly praise) has had to allow us to make magic items with the monies we've accumulated just to get *useful* items. A PC starting at 8th level is supposed to begin with 33,000 gp worth of items, and on average we have less than half that amount. The dangers and challenges of the Path are by no stretch of the imagination 'halved', so we feel we are fighting an uphill battle and- to be honest- we're reduced to digging for any scrap of advantage to change the tide a little in our favor.
On some level, I keep getting the impression that the Adventure Path is someone's story in which the Party is...well, an afterthought, rather than pivotal reasons for the Path's existence in the first place. Don't get me wrong- we're enjoying the Path immensely, but it's very frustrating that the 'rewards' are either useless (+1 Ogre Hooks? Who *makes* these things?) or an item which would be useful for the NPC who coincidentally has it but not the Party (a Vicious weapon wielded by a Regenerating NPC, as opposed to a relatively low-hitpoint PC).
In the most recent portion of the adventure, we are beginning to get the impression that the Ogres have a 'uniform'. Ogre Hook, +1 (check) Hide Armor, +1 (check) Large-sized Masterwork compound longbow, Strength bonus up to +7 (check).
Our *party* doesn't have a magic item in common, yet the supposedly barbaric low-intelligence Ogres do?
(As an aside, my PC- a Wizard- has quietly vowed to find the insane spellcaster who had nothing better to do than make and enchant Ogre Hooks and kill him/her. As a service to the civilized world and for the insult to the world of enchanters his or her work represents.)
So far, we've seen magical Dogslicers...Ogre Hooks...War Razors...more Ogre Hooks...Hide Armor / Shirts...and large-sized Masterwork items. We've seen I think *one* magical Sword. A few magical Spears. Some daggers. Sets of magical Masks which not a single party member wanted to risk, since they reeked of Evil. We nearly saw a magical bow, but it belonged to a Good NPC and due to our alignment we felt compelled to give it back. (We as players were of a different mind due to the fact it was the *only* magical ranged weapon in Varisia apparently. But I digress.)
I understand that the Adventure Path is not geared toward 'Monty Haul' or intended to be a greed-motivated Path. I'm perfectly okay with this, every member of the Party is Good. However, we depend on Items and the money to buy other Items to 'level the field' against the monsters, and while I can comprehend that the magic items are appropriate to their NPC users, it seems that gear aimed at the Party is almost conspicuously absent. Treasure hoards have little more than money in small amounts, potions, and copious amounts of Adventure Hooks and background info. We salvaged a Giant *Helmet* because we *needed the money that badly*.
I hope I'm not overstating the case, but we are as a group intensely frustrated. Our DM has gone to heroic- and ongoing- lengths to provide off-the-cuff rewards that the module simply doesn't have.
Items conspicuously absent or present in too low of number:
Storage Items (Bags of Holding, Handy Haversacks)
Movement Items (Boots of Striding and Springing, closest is a single pair of 'Boots of the Mire')
Standard 'Fantasy Weapons' which are magical (Swords, Maces, Crossbows, Bows, etc.)
Rings beyond 'Protection +1 or +2'
Rods
Staves
Useful Wondrous Items
I admit, as a long-time D&D player, maybe I am used to the idea being that 'found items' are the things PC's aren't supposed to collect enough money to actually buy- they were the rewards for being an Adventurer in the first place, the reason we went out into insanely dangerous situations instead of becoming Accountants. There seems to be an idea that once you place a monetary value on something, that means it must only be available at 'x' level, without consideration of the actual power level of the item in question. Example: Ring of Regeneration. The 'cost' of 90,000 gp means a PC 'should' be able to get it- at a level where it's nigh useless to them.
Speaking as a Player and sometime GM, I see too much hesitance to give items to players based on arbitrary 'gp value' instead of 'what can this actually *do*'.
We are enjoying the game, but it is seriously counterbalanced by the lack of rewards which improve our PC's. If there were perhaps 'other rewards' such as opportunity to learn new Spells, languages, maybe even magical things that granted a bonus to an Attribute, it would be less frustrating to the players. They're easy enough to insert into play or grant by 'Divine Miracles' or whatnot.
