Is it safe to assume that treasure is sufficiently listed in the adventures such that it is not necessary to add treasure unless you add encounters?
More specifically, every time the adventure lists a monster that normally carries treasure, should I be adding some kind of reward for that encounter?
For example, regular ogres are CR 3 encounters and their Treasure entry in the Monster Manual lists "Standard". There are a lot of regular ogres in Hook Mountain Massacre, but all the adventure says is "Ogre, MM 199". Maybe that standard treasure is figured in somewhere else, or maybe not.
I'm probably over explaining, but I'd like to be clear with my question.
Basically, it's your call. You can give the treasure as written, and if the players are having a hard time of it, you can boost it a bit with disposables (wands and potions and scrolls). I've heard some people say that Paizo's modules tend to run a bit wealth scarce for their tastes, so they do a few side quests to boost things.
Creative Director
|
Actually... the treasure in ALL Pathfinder adventrues is skewed a bit higher than the recommended amount in the DMG per encounter. This is mostly because I feel the DMG table to be too low; it doesn't accurately take into account the fact that money spent on recovery (such as raising the dead) comes into play now and then, or that a fair amount of the magic treasure handed out won't be useful to the PCs and thus just gets sold.
When you see a CR 3 ogre in the book, you don't have to give out their Standard treasure, since that equivalent exists already in the form of other treasure and NPC villain gear that the PCs find. The net result of their "standard" treasure is rolled into the overalll adventure's treasure.
You don't need to add treasure, in other words.
Unless you want to.
What I did was this: Calculated total values of all items in the scenario. Compared this value to the table at the end of PF Alpha. The one that has a 2nd level character's wealth at a total of 2000gp, multiplied by the number of PC. Then added money to the loot pile to round out the numbers so that when leveling up, the party of four had a total wealth (including items and other treasure) of 8000gp.
After the first game session and level up (Attack on Sandpoint, Glassworks) I had to add quite a bit of cold hard cash (rewards from Ameiko and goblin bounties), whereas after the second game session (Catacombs of Wrath), I hardly had to add anything. That almost useless returning dagger alone was worth something in the region of 4300gp. ;)
When my group went through Burnt Offerings, they somehow managed to skip almost every hidden treasure, and couldn't use or sell most of the goblin stuff. One of them died in the Malfeshnekor fight and needed money for raising.
So I threw them a bone and made the hermit crab helmet solid gold. 300 pounds worth 50gp per pound. They melted it down in the glassworks in Sandpoint and now have 3750gp in 75 one pound ingots each (four players).
Its not really that much for 4th level characters; enough for a +1 weapon and a +1 armor.
-Jack
I like the idea of increasing the value of the Giant Helmet. The adventure text calls it "the greatest treasure in the room" but it's only worth 200 gp and weighs 300 pounds. There's other stuff in the room that's worth way more.
My group of 6 players wanted to be a party of chivalrous knights. There are 3 front-line fighters, a cleric, fighter-mage type, and an armored skill monkey.
So all six of them wear either plate or breastplate armor, and 5 carry shields. Four wield longswords, one guy has an axe and another guy stole the MW ranseur and started using it.
Given the mix of characters, they end up findind a lot of stuff that they can't use. I already have to up the encounters a bit since they are a bigger party.
I have solved the problem by letting the party trade found items to their order of knighthood for free. Since they never have to sell stuff at half price, they're comimg out ahead over time. This seems to be compensating for the fact that the rewards are designed for a 4 PC party.
I figure the Order is large enough to find a use for just about anything the PCs don't need. And they have plenty of extra equipment available to give to the PCs. The Order also has a vested interest in the success of the PCs. So they don't mind giving the party increasingly better equipment as the PCs prove themselves worthy by vanquishing bad guys and bringing honor to the Order.
My players don't have to stress about finding or saving up to buy the optimal equipment for their character build. As long as they don't dishonor themselves or the Order, they will be provided with level-appropriate equipment sufficient for their needs.
It depends on the number of PCs. We had 5 PCs and an NPC ally, and the PCs would not have been anywhere close to their listed treasure without supplementation.
I find it undesirable to allow this to happen; in my experience things go okay for a while and then PC deaths start to spike upwards due to too-low AC and saves, or we have a debacle due to lack of an essential component (such as a particular type of weapon). So I added treasure, focusing on things usable by the PCs as this AP is very heavy on unusable stuff. (And three of my PCs were Small and one was a centaur, so even ordinarily usable stuff seldom fit them. One PC ended the campaign still fighting with the +1 dogslicer from #1.)
It will also make a difference whether or not your PCs do item creation themselves. Our AoW party did, heavily; our RotRL party did not; it makes a *huge* difference in the effective equipment level. An item crafting party has close to 50% more money available to them.
Mary
Thanks for all the great responses. I had been adding a little treasure here and there. I first started to worry about it in Skinsaw when it seems like we played for half the adventure and the players got virtually nothing. Killing Xanesha gave a pretty massive reward, plus the Lord Mayor's gift, but I've been watching it a little more closely since then.