I'm going to be starting Burnt Offerings soon and I was curious as to how "by the book" they were written, and how much attention I should be paying to the treasure (Gold as well as Magical Items) allotment?
Example:
The Gamemastering section of the Pathfinder core rulebook says that by 4th level players should have 6,000 gold (or its value of items).
As we play through Burnt offerings, does it assume my players are going to go through all of the encounters? (the book says they'll be over-leveled but I totaled it up and its not that bad) I'll probably only skip one or two encounters. If you total up the value for everything that comes along you get 9,044 gp per character(4 pcs) and about 9,500 xp (max including extra ad hoc encounters). That puts them right at 4th level but with way too much treasure. Or if it assumes that the items are only worth their sell value, they would be at 5,213 gp giving me some left over cash to reward the party for saving Sandpoint.
So how do published adventures handle Magic items as far as their value for their level? And, how much does it matter? I like the guidelines they give for character wealth so I know that they won't be under geared or over powered, but it seems like I'm over-thinking this.
So, should I be keeping track as they go in case they end up with too little by skipping encounters? Or should I just play the adventure path and assume that the writer is accounting for all that, even if they miss some things?
Funny thing about treasure per level.
It is only a guideline for building characters and NPC's of said level classes.
It should not be taken as gospel that the party needs exactly this much treasure.
It is more about if the party has the right kinds of magic items to meet the challenges that they will have to overcome.As for if the adventure path has the right amount of treasure if they skip something big, no, they will not have enough. On the other hand, if they just skip a minor encounter, they may have enough.
Thank you for the concise reply, I should have done a better search before I posted. I found this thread saying the same thing as me:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/campaignSet ting/general/treasurePlacement&page=1&source=search#0I'm still interested in how they calculate the value for magical items as treasure. They don't seriously use the chart on page 401 of the core rules do they? Even though they build the treasure to be %150 more than the book values to accommodate different group composition, do you think they assume this extra will be sold, and thus be worth less?
They assume that some will be sold, some will be used as-is, and some will be consumed (potions and scrolls).
The important thing, if you want to adhere strictly to the WBL guidelines, is to consider the equipment your party actually uses, not all the treasure they can accumulate.
So, make tallies now and then. If the party, at the time of your tally, has too much or too little equipment compared to the chart, then adjust the treasure in the next part of the campaign a bit.
Creative Director
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I'm still interested in how they calculate the value for magical items as treasure. They don't seriously use the chart on page 401 of the core rules do they? Even though they build the treasure to be %150 more than the book values to accommodate different group composition, do you think they assume this extra will be sold, and thus be worth less?
No two games have exactly the same taste in how much treasure is too much or two little. As a result, we kind of aim for the midline, then boost it a bit. We do indeed use the charts on page 399 of the core rulebook to start for encounters—we buit those tables, after all, so it'd be silly if we didn't value them enough to use them in some way..., but we don't stop there. We do assume that a fair portion of treasure will be sold off (half price), not found at all (no price), or even destroyed (in the case of evil items, or items that the PCs THINK are evil).
In the end, each GM should monitor how much treasure the PCs are accumulating and adjust as necessary to match the level of treasure he wants in his game. I actually prefer high treasure games, so I generally increase the amounts of treasure in an AP when I run the games, doing so by dropping in items that are specifically "tailored" to my group so that there'll be items that they WANT to keep rather than just sell off.
Thank you again for those who responded. Mr. Jacobs: It makes it much easier for me to judge how I should handle these things knowing where you were coming from when you put them together, so this helped a lot. It doesn't seem like you are doing this but I was actually talking about an unnumbered chart on page 401, the one that says medium magic items are ALWAYS worth 10,000 gp.
In 4e they actually separate the gold value, potion value, and item value for each level of wealth pc's should get. But its all very specific and feels much too rigid. With no breakdown of monster statistics (This monster has a 23 ac, why? Because it's level 11 silly!) it felt like you needed to do exactly what the book said in order for PC's to compete fairly. I'm coming over from this system, hence all my apprehension.
Personally I dislike tailoring treasure, it doesn't feel real enough, but I also like treasure to be more meaningful in general. Traditionally I use the silver standard and drop half as many magic items (at hopefully around twice their value). So the boss monster who drops their +4 bow might not be tailored to my players but one of them might go: "I don't normally use a bow, but I might start... I mean, it's a +4!"
But, out of my 4 players, 2 of them are new to d20 (Vampire: the masquerade ftw), 1 of them is new to dice games all together, and all of us are new to Pathfinder and Golarion. So, I decided I wanted to run this one by the book to establish it as a campaign setting and familiarize my new players with an un-biased example of the game before I start suggesting what I typically do for house rules. Looking through Burnt offerings, I want them to experience pretty much everything written with few exceptions. The refugee camp, for example, doesn't seem crucial to the story line. Knowing that some of the treasure is designed so it might be missed, and that items my specific party only sell of counts as half helps a lot in this case.
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Creative Director
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Thank you again for those who responded. Mr. Jacobs: It makes it much easier for me to judge how I should handle these things knowing where you were coming from when you put them together, so this helped a lot. It doesn't seem like you are doing this but I was actually talking about an unnumbered chart on page 401, the one that says medium magic items are ALWAYS worth 10,000 gp.
Ah. I think you're misreading the chart.
A medium item counts as 10,000 gp, regardless of it's actual cost. The idea is that over the course of an entire campaign, all of the medium items given out overall will more or less average out at about 10,000 gp.
Ah. I think you're misreading the chart.
A medium item counts as 10,000 gp, regardless of it's actual cost. The idea is that over the course of an entire campaign, all of the medium items given out overall will more or less average out at about 10,000 gp.
Yeah I understand that. I should have said "medium magic items are ALWAYS worth 10,000 gp, *insofar as treasure parcels are concerned*"
It seems better to me to simply use their actual value, so as to avoid what the book says "through luck (or unluck) of the dice to bloat your game with too much treasure or deprive it of the same." I think that the temperance of good common sense in this case would be to avoid that chart, though good to include it for those looking for a quick and dirty way to dispense magic.
Furthermore it gave me a fantastic idea to include a demon trader character in my campaign; think Vulgrim from Darksiders. He would have a few bags of holding, or maybe 3 magic chests and will let players open them and retrieve whatever is inside for a price dependent on the chest. (1000 gold for the wooden chest, roll randomly for minor magical items; 10,000 for the iron chest, roll for medium item; 40,000 for the gold chest, roll on the major item chart)
Gambling for magical items! What fun! Easy way to go broke, but if someone rolls an 8,000 gold sword out of the wooden box he becomes very angry and closes shop to that player. He'll charge double next time and hope he draws a potion (like a 50% chance) ha ha ha.