Is it just me, or do the treasures found by the party seem a little low in Tides of Dread? I didn't see much besides a ring of evasion (nice, but only for 1 person) 3 suits of large +3 studded leather, the fairly decent gear of the "boss" and his small hoard. Overall, it just feels a little thin.
Is this because it doesn't show up much, but where it does its valuable? Anyone have any opinions on this?
Yep, it is slim. The party has to make due with what they find instead of relying on Monty Haul for their goodies. A good idea to take Craft items, etc, as there are plenty of opportunities for downtime. Also, a good DM will tweak what is found a little bit, so it matches some of the PC's.
We are loving it. Because of the lack of magic items, the "trove" found at the bat god's cave was a major deal - not just "oh, some more items *yawn*".
Yeah, the major haul the PCs take away from the Shrine of Zotzilaha is meant to go a long way toward compensating the PCs throughout the adventure.
The neat thing about the thin amounts of treasure in the STAP is that it makes all of it that much more valuable and appreciated. I've run a lot of campaigns where everything just got liquidated and the PCs bought their won stuff with the split. Yeah, **yawn** is right. That's frustrating as a DM when you've put some specific items that will be extremely useful in the next adventure you have planned in a treasure trove just to have your PCs go and sell it off.
Anyway, the treasure placement and values throughout the STAP are deliberate, Black Bard.
Creative Director
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Tides of Dread actually has some huge treasures in it, but not really a lot of it. GP wise, it's well over what an adventure of that level should hand out, but most of the treasure's tied up in bigger items rather than lots of smaller items. Since there's not really a place to cash in lots of tiny treasures and then buy more powerful items, Tides of Dread just hands out the big items and does away with mountains of +1 longswords and rings of protection +1 that you might find in a typical adventure. You should also strongly consider altering the treasure in Tides of Dread to more closely match your group. For example, if you have a paladin in your group who uses a halberd and has a lot of feats to support that choice, you should absolutely turn the +1 holy greatsword into a +1 holy halbard.
Once the PCs finish "Serpents of Scuttlecove," though... there'll certainly be enough treasure to go around...
Ah, I realized that I just scored another idiot point, as I read replies and wondered "why are they talking about the arc with Zotzilaha, I'm talking about the one with the aboleth?"
Then I realized I typed in the wrong adventure name in my question. Score 1 idiot point.
Ok, so, same question as the first, just replace "Tides of Dread" with "Lightless Depths".
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Creative Director
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Ah, I realized that I just scored another idiot point, as I read replies and wondered "why are they talking about the arc with Zotzilaha, I'm talking about the one with the aboleth?"
Then I realized I typed in the wrong adventure name in my question. Score 1 idiot point.
Ok, so, same question as the first, just replace "Tides of Dread" with "Lightless Depths".
Ah! Yes, Lightless Depths does indeed have a relatively small amount of treasure. City of Broken Idols has a LOT more though, as does Serpents of Scuttlecove. Think of it as the calm before the storm. And by "Storm," of course, I mean "explosion of treasure."
And by "Storm," of course, I mean "explosion of treasure."
What a happy phrase. Name an adventure that at Con and who wouldn't sign up? It's a gamer revamp of the old "let's name our band Free Beer!"
hmm.. and as if ive understood it correctly, scuttlecove is supposed to be a infiltration mission... but some players just might feel like returning the favour ala "tides of dread"... and level the town by the time they are done with it.
Ie, sending in some 2.000 olman headhunters (+20.000 zombies).. 40+ dinos, phanaton assassins ...aranea fireball artillery etc..
Ofcourse that will require some share for the participants, which is fine as it helps growing the internal market of the island ;)
But overall could enormously inflate the earnings there.
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Creative Director
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A large part of "Serpents of Scuttlecove" will certainly let the PCs seeking revenge against the Crimson Fleet to get just that, but this certainly doesn't involve an assault on Scuttlecvoe itself. That said, the adventure does talk a bit about what happens if the PCs do just that. Basically, they end up taking on an EL 22+ encounter with LOTS of reinforcements. There's folk living in the town who can give the PCs a run for their money on their own; taking the entire city on at once is a TPK waiting to happen.