Another poster went through the trouble of adding the treasure up and by his math the game gave out extra treasure. Now he only did the first 3 books to my knowledge. Did you search everywhere? I am GM'ng this now, and my group has decent treasure close to the end of book 2, but they take anything that is not nailed down also.
Maybe have a quick chat to your GM and tell him you did the research and there needs to be some treasure adjustments. This advice I can recommend to you and good luck on your adventures.
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Well, after book 2 (Trial of the Beast), my whole party (4) was about 1 level behind WBL.
One thing that upset me is how you get some disproportionate, generally useless loot that is too expensive to logically sell. There are two items in book 2 that have a base price of over 20,000gp and since nobody will probably ever want them, you're expected to be able to get that in Lepidstadt (which is big, but that much gold in one sale seems a bit out for its size). Also, if your party is LG tendency, you can really miss out on a LARGE portion of loot in book 2, from either not wanting to break into an entire segment of the book, or from not wanting to loot someone's house.
Just started in book 3, however, there seems to be only a bit of loot here there and yonder (almost all on bad guys as equip).
I find it really odd that the adventure assumes that PCs are going to loot the whole Schloss Caromarc. Going by the book, they're going there because Beast invited them (if he's found not guilty), so why the hell would PCs steal from a former Count who created a sentient golem? Can't really imagine the awkward moment when they release him:
Alpon: Thank you, brave adventurers... Is that my chandelier?
Doesn't really help the situation that Alpon is lvl 15 Alchemist.
For the added sillyness, even the adamantine trapdoor is listed as lootable.
Can you further explain "tried and failed"? Your GM said he didn't care that you felt you guys were behind, or what? Also, do realize the Wealth By Level chart is a guideline for GMs, not an expectation of players...at least it shouldn't be an expectation.
Are you guys honestly having problems fighting the monsters the GM is having you encounter? Are characters dying? I'm not hearing much in the way of a problem...other than when you did the math you saw you were behind...
As I'm going to be starting CC this weekend I thought I'd better work out if there is less treasure.
I've just gone through all of HoH, adding up the treasure (this does not include the platinum received upon reaching Lepidstadt as payment for staying there a month). This is literally just stuff listed in the Treasure sections. All magic items and masterwork items were set to half price (for sell) rather than their price value.
I got a total of 25,186 gp. Divided by four that's 6,296 gp per character, which is almost 300 gp over what is listed for a lvl 4 person (what you should be at the end of the adventure). This assumes you're selling stuff for half price, which most everything in there will probably be used.
So at least for HoH, I don't see a problem.
I'll work on the other modules as I have time.
Melissa...I just can't agree with you. Not in saying it's a "good indicator". There are too many variables, but arguing over specifics probably isn't going to help you is it?
Can you set back and enjoy the game as it is going? Stop thinking about should/would/could/all that crap, and ask yourself can the game, as it is going, be fun for you/the other players. If so, then there really isn't a problem. If the answer is no, you need to explain this to the GM, tell him/her you're not having fun, you don't like getting trashed. It sounds like you want a heroic style game, and the GM wants something more gritty. This happens a lot, and both sides often think their style is RIGHT. Don't do this. Don't tell the GM he's not playing right. Tell him/her you're not having fun. If s/he doesn't listen again, then stop playing. If you aren't enjoying yourself, and the situation isn't going to change, then there's no point in sticking around.
Despite my calculations above, I would like to say that as WPL is a guidelines it should not be a hard and fast rule, and players who are checking it constantly to make sure their up to par with it are doing themselves a disservice.
If you're having a hard time with challenges, that is a wholly seperate matter than WPL and won't necessarily be fixed by being on par with WPL.
Finished calculations for Trial of the Beast.
At the end of Trial of the Beast the party will accrue 79,749 gp (19,937 per character) for a total for both modules of 104,935 gp. That comes to 26,233 gp per player by the end of Trial of the Beast and 7th level. Which means they should be about 3000 gp ahead of the WPL.
Melissa,
I have a question. You're 10th level and you did the math. Does that include ALL of the consumables from lvls 1-10? Potions, scrolls and the like? If you're basing your calculations on gold (from looting and selling and payment) as your current equipment, its not going to calculate right if you don't include all the consumables you've gone through as well. That is part of WPL.
Hi Melissa!
Thanx for that input. I suppose a few points I'd make.
1. While there are no rules written about cohort wealth, the xp info on them is that they don't get an even share of XP. So as a DM I wouldn't calculate them into the division of loot either. Any loot you give the cohort is honestly just part of the loot of the person with the Leadership feat. In other words if you have a party of 5 +1 cohort and are averaging out WPL, you're dividing by 5, not 6. At least that is how I would read it. They are not a PC.
2. As you do have more than 4 anyway though, yes you're going to have less. But frankly, from a DMs perspective this is fine. The WPL does assume a four person party as well.
3. Consumables. Just adding up scrolls and potions, not wands, there's 5,949 gp worth just in the first two modules. And that's based upon half-price for selling, not their cost. So if you're at 10th level and you've only used 500 gp a person worth of consumables (just potions and scrolls) than something is wrong. There are LOTS of consumables in the first module alone.
4. The free spells you get for levelling up as a wizard would not be included in WPL.
5. In the end, just basing on WPL there's not really a problem (once you recalculate to exclude the cohort from your math). Again that WPL number assumes you're in a four person party for division of loot, by adding a fifth, the loot will divide thinner, but you have a 5th person in there to help out in combat so it balances.
Conclusion: If you're having a serious problem with the challenges in the modules, that is a wholly seperate concern than loot and should be discussed with the DM. But your DM saying, "Loot-wise things are on course" is actually a pretty correct statement. He's not really wrong there. I'm glad this discussion is up though. As I said, I start CC this Saturday with a party of 5. And they are concerned about whether the loot will be okay. Now I tend to be one who customizes loot to make certain special things appear for people, so it won't be a concern. But ultimately this is the problem with using WPL as a hard and fast number, especially as a player, to see if you're good to go on loot. There are too many factors involved (especially when you change the size of a party from 4 to something more, cause that honestly changes that whole table).
PS: If the WPL is not based on a four person party, I'd very much like to hear from James or other developer about that. From what I can see looking at calculations, it does assume four people.
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Addendum: After seeing this from the Core Rulebook....
"To aid in placing treasure, the amount of treasure and magic items the PCs receive for their adventures is tied to the Challenge Rating of the encounters they face—the higher an encounter’s CR, the more treasure it can award." pg 400
....I think one can conclude that WPL is based upon a four person group.
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How did you create your characters? Point Buy, Rolling method? What is your party make-up (and how experienced are you as players)?
As a GM who's running this AP for 6 PCs I've added 50% treasure to most, but not all encounters, but having 20 point buy characters I find that my group has rolled through most of the encounters in HoH and TotB without too much trouble. The only time my PCs struggle in an encounter is when they are rolling poorly.
Now my PCs are also used to a much higher power level than a 20 point buy so when I see they still making their saves more often than not I think things are just about right.
Are there any specific encounters you felt the group had a hard time with?
--Count Vrockula
The cohort should not automatically take any part of the party's treasure. The PC the cohort belongs to is responsible for outfitting the cohort (presumably from his/her share of the treasure).
Having 4 PCs with 100% WBL would be approximately equal to having 5 PCs, each with 80% WBL, in terms of overcoming challenges. In that sense, everything should be fine. That assumes the DM keeps the challenges exactly as they are, the same way he appears to be keeping treasure exactly as it is.
However, if the DM increases the toughness of the challenges to account for the additional PC (and possibly the addition of the cohort), then he should also increase treasure accordingly.
If any player gets hung up on how much money they have, they should ask themselves why they're playing a role-playing game.
Role-play!
As far as battles go, they should be easier with extra players unless the DM is adding monsters to compensate for the extra players, in which case he should also compensate the players with extra loot.
Sounds like you have [had] extra players without extra monsters but still had trouble with the encounters. Maybe your tactics suck or something. I doubt it has anything to do with your equipment.
Having a +1 rather than a +3 cloak of resistance, say, is a 10% difference per roll, that's not game breaking.
Also, stop looking at the chart! It clearly doesn't apply for your game so move on and get back to role-playing, you might even enjoy it.
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How did you create your characters? Point Buy, Rolling method? What is your party make-up (and how experienced are you as players)?
As a GM who's running this AP for 6 PCs I've added 50% treasure to most, but not all encounters, but having 20 point buy characters I find that my group has rolled through most of the encounters in HoH and TotB without too much trouble. The only time my PCs struggle in an encounter is when they are rolling poorly.
Now my PCs are also used to a much higher power level than a 20 point buy so when I see they still making their saves more often than not I think things are just about right.
Are there any specific encounters you felt the group had a hard time with?
--Count Vrockula
15 point buy. 3 very experienced players and 1 moderately experienced player. The PCs are paladin, wizard, magus, and cleric with a bard cohort. We had a rogue/shadowdancer as the 5th PC but as has been mentioned previously, he had to stop playing.
We mostly struggle with "boss" encounters. The Splatter Man, Matthias the werewolf, the head of Askenar Lodge (forget his name). It's not that they aren't supposed to be hard fights, because they are, it's that they feel ... overtuned, for lack of a better term, for our group.
If you play WoW (I know I know, the game we're supposed to hate), it's like when Heroic Halfus 10-man was just ridiculously hard. You can do it barely with an exceptional group of players, but you know it's just not supposed to be this hard. It feels off.
Ok with a 15 point buy I can definitely see how you are struggling. That it feels overtuned may be an appropriate observation.
One thing that's become very clear to me is that the system really plays better with 20 point buy and it seems the default Challenge Rating system doesn't hold up well as written. APs and PFS scenarios seem to run more like 6 encounters at APL+1 instead of 4 or 5 at APL.
The Splatter Man encounter as brilliantly broken down by the poster Steel_Wind is a TPK waiting to happen unless you run it exactly as written in it's tactcs section. Otherwise he's powerful enough to outright murder an entire party if played with any intent to kill.
I imagine the 15 point buy is the chief concern here, not the loot. Again as they said above, if he is increasing the CR of the encounters, than he should be increasing the loot. But if he is running the encounters as is, there's no reason to increase the loot.
As I quoted from the core rulebook before. If the loot of a creature is tied to its CR, as it says, than it stands to reason that the WPL table is designed around the 4 person group, as the CRs are. Again I'd welcome a developer to give some input here as to the thought behind their numbers on the WPL.
You say you mostly struggle with the boss encounters. Well that's a good thing actually. And the boss encounters in CC are designed very hard, but I'm pretty sure all of them are also designed around a weakness of the boss (Splatter Man's spellbook, using the Beast in Trial of the Beast, etc.) They are designed to be a very hard challenge. Are you taking advantage (figuring out) those weaknesses and exploiting them? Is the DM giving you hints as to the those weaknesses?
As for the adventure path itself, so far in my calculations, the loot that drops is perfectly correct for the level of the players involved in its design.
I find it really odd that the adventure assumes that PCs are going to loot the whole Schloss Caromarc. Going by the book, they're going there because Beast invited them (if he's found not guilty), so why the hell would PCs steal from a former Count who created a sentient golem? Can't really imagine the awkward moment when they release him:
Alpon: Thank you, brave adventurers... Is that my chandelier?
Here's how it went in my game:
Caromarc: Thanks soo much, but I don't want to keep you, here's bus fare, have a great day.
Adventurer: This would be a great story for the local newspaper.
Caromarc: Take anything you want!