hey there.
beeing a complete noob, i cant get my head around the treasure tables...
So assuming a party og two second level pc's APL 1 (2+2/2= 2-1 for being less than 3 members =1) kill a ghoul. This gives them according to table 12-5 of the core book, a net sum treasure of 260gp on a average base campaign.
The same party, by luck of the dice and the "lack of same" of the dm dice kill a cloud giant. They still get the same gp sum worth og treasure plus equipment... + other, what ever that means??
What am i missing, i just cant seem right??
wow this is a piz poor system... i miss the days of ADD..
were you just roll a dice on a on the appropriate table given for the treasure type of the enquenter.
geez paizo
anybody else got tips or stuff to help out? i bought the equibment guide solely for the treasure tables, although its a cool book just doesnt fit the gap i wanted
I understand your desire for treasure tables, but that concept is fairly outdated by today's gaming standards. Yeah, I was there too, kill the monster and roll a bunch of percentile dice on Treasure Type B, E, Q, P, R, S, and T.
But then clever DMs figured out how to predict that in advance - make the treasures up before the game session. And then they started editing the treasure tables. What? Rolled the 4th cloak of elvenkind in the last 5 treasures? No worries, let's make this a belt of stone giant strength instead. What? Rolled another +1 sword in this treasure hoard? Everu PC who wants such a thing already has one, so let's give them a +1, +3 vs. lycanthropes sword instead.
Since we were editing our rolls anyway, the next set of clever DMs just stopped rolling at all. Or, we rolled treasure for all 15 encounters in the dungeon (or just made it all up), wrote it all down on one big list, then started sticking bits and pieces of it all over the dungeon. Some bits went into monster hoards, some pieces went into a secret removable flagstone in the corner of an empty room, etc.
Then, since we were just putting what we wanted where we wanted it, along came 3rd edition and ultimately Pathfinder which both told us to do exactly what we were doing.
Evolution at its finest.
So, yeah, rolling random encounters with random treasure had its place, mainly for lazy DMs like myself, but the times have changed. Now we just add up the appropriate treasure values for all the encounters in the dungeon, hand-pick the items we want to put in the dungeon, then distribute that around willy-nilly until we place it all.
So I'm not sure it's "geez paizo" but rather "Thanks, Paizo, for helping us GMs be better today than we used to be when we were DMs several editions agao".
Of course, YMMV...
but ....
well allright ive been away from table top since ad&d , so there are a lot of things i feel comfortable with and a lot i dont with pathfinder:)
so to recap: we use apl. to determine the treasure value for each encounter...
then just radomly determine what it is from a arabien stallion to 10 saks of corn??
And when the treasure entry says standard its just that...
but what does it mean when it says other? dm's choice?
double is just that, of the standard amount. and triple the same ...
If thats the case, a pseudodragon (p 229, beast. 1) gives standard treasure . Which is worth 260gp for a apl. of 1.
Now if that same party meets a pseudodragon at apl. 6, it still gives a standard treasure. but thats now bumbed up to 2000gps worth.
right?
just trying to get to gribs with the mechanics
thanks drake :)
I read your post last night and thought "I know that" and looked again at the rules and thought "er..it doesn't say what I thought it said. Maybe I don't".
It's the table being labelled APL that's confusing.
On page 400 of the core rule book it says "Table 12-5 lists the amount of treasure each encounter should award...". But then goes on to say that easy encounters should award treasure one level lower while challenging etc award higher levels.
So when your party is APL level 6, the lone pseudodragon probably isn't a challenge at all, and probably shouldn't be worth any XP or treasure.
What you do for, say, your party APL 6, is take the figure for an APL 5 (1550) for an easy challenge, 6 (2,000) for an average challenge, 7 (2,600) for a challenging (APL 7) challenge and so on.
Then decide on the treasure by any means you wish. (The treasure tables aren't compulsory).
It's helpful to place treasure that's easy to divide between the party members, and remember that NPC's carry triple the normal amount, so balance them by adding low treasure monsters/traps somewhere else.
I remember the old treasure tables: random baubles kicked out by matching monster to letter, then rolling percentiles. I also used to use (and still do sometimes) the random dungeon generator tables in the back of the DMG. These made it easy on the DM but you could end up with some messed up randomness.
So as others have pointed out, in PF the GM has a set amount they want to come close to per encounter, based on the APL of the challenge. There is also the suggestion in the RAW that you adjust up or down depending on the difficulty.
But what I read in the OP wasn't just how to determine the final GP value of the encounter. It sounded to me like you ALSO wanted some tables to actually know how to GET to that number.
If that's the case, there's lots of random treasure generators out there online. Heck, I have one on my phone. There's also some limited tables for magic items and such in the GMG.
The big thing to remember of 3x and PF is that designers wanted the games LESS random, or at least more focused. They want GMs, not tables, making decisions for the party. If the APL 1 PCs duke it out with a trio of goblins, they will have on/near them treasure valuing between 170 and 400 GP, with an average of 260 GP. There are no obvious tables though to determine this hoard, so we have to use our creativity.
What would these creatures value? Weapons, bits and bobs, and coins I'd suspect. In my homebrew goblins are very similar to Golarion types, so you'd also see fire-making kits, oil, and perhaps some alchemical fire.
But what if the SAME party took down a quartet of kobolds?
In my homebrew I play up the arcane magic angle of kobolds. More than likely you'd find spell components, alchemical devices, or wondrous items with limited use 0level spells, like a Weeping Figurine; a miniature stone figurine which, when squeezed whimpers softly while it's sobbing generates a CL1 Create Water spell (this highlights the kobolds' affinity for stone crafting, spells, and cruelty).
I guess the point is the numbers are the easy part but the actual items are tough. If it helps, when adding coins to a hoard, I usually don't detail out the exact quantities. Rather, I just say "mixed coins with a GP value of..." That way my players only have to record a single number and assume it all divides evenly.
A different way of looking at this:
If an encounter is CR 7 and your APL is 7 then you should give level 7 treasure (as per Table 12-5).
However, if an encounter is CR 7 and your APL is 8, well, you still give level 7 treasure (because the encounter is 'easy').
Similarly, if an encounter is CR 9 and your APL is 8, you give them level 9 treasure (because the encounter is 'harder').
So, based on that you can look at it as the CR of the encounter is what is determining the treasure being handed out rather than the APL of the group. While not *exactly* RAW (Rules as Written) it may help you figure out that element of the rules.
One other note: this system (Pathfinder) is still fundamentally the same as D&D 3.X (3.0/3.5). While Paizo has made some changes they are mostly cosmetic. The treasure award system is basically the same as the 3.X system (the values are different).
This is a great website for random rolls of...well...almost everything.
http://archivesofnethys.com/RandomItemGenerator.aspx
It usually means the creature has standard treasure, where some of the items from that standard treasure have already been determined for you by the statblock (so only the "leftover" treasure is left to be decided by the GM).
If thats the case, a pseudodragon (p 229, beast. 1) gives standard treasure . Which is worth 260gp for a apl. of 1.
Now if that same party meets a pseudodragon at apl. 6, it still gives a standard treasure. but thats now bumbed up to 2000gps worth.
right?
just trying to get to gribs with the mechanics
That's too simplistic.
You're thinking in terms of ONE encounter at a time. Think bigger.
Think this way: At APL 1, a pseudodragon is a good encounter for them. Fine. They beat it and get standard treasure, around 260 gp. Or do they? Maybe the pseudodragon is just one encounter that day. Maybe you have set up 5 encounters for that day. Maybe the pseudodragon only has 100sp scattered around amongst some leaves and twigs in its nest. Did you screw the players? No, because their NEXT encounter is with a couple orcs and in addition to their 50gp worth of coins, one of them has a masterwork greataxe (total loot is 370gp, considerably more than the "standard" for a CR 1 encounter). And their NEXT three encounters are individual encounters with wolves, and one of those is discovered chewing on the remains of a halfling that has a 1,000gp diamond in its pocket (the other two wolves have no loot).
Those three encounters right there add up to about 3 "standard" treasure rewards, even though a wolf has "none" treasure. Nevertheless, I just gave them a fair reward (1,380gp total) for five encounters, spread out however I saw fit. That averages out to 276 gp, pretty close to what it should be (but not exact - it's boring if every encounter has 260gp).
Now, back to your post, why would an APL 6 party encounter one CR 1 pseudodragon?
If for some reason you want them to encounter such an easy enemy, then you should either do something to make it very difficult for them to win. Create an environment where they are severely limited, such as maybe have the pseudodragon steal something from them. Something very valuable, like a magical item (small enough for it to carry in its mouth). Now they MUST chase the pseudodragon down to recover this valuable item, but it crawled down into a small hole in the ground. The PCs have to squeeze through these narrow tunnels, one at a time, being harried by the mean little pseudodragon the whole way - squeezing, they cannot fight well and can be repeatedly stung by hit-and-run tactics from the pseudodragon. Eventually, they find and capture/kill it, get their item back, and find a few other shiny things in its lair, maybe a few gems or a magical ring or something, adding up to around 2,000gp worth of stuff.
Or, maybe the pseudodragon is just ONE encounter that day and you give it only a few hundred sp but later that day they fight 4 ogres (about CR 6) and those ogres have a +2 shield they are lugging around, looted from a fallen adventurer. That shield alone is enough treasure to cover TWO encounters for an APL 6 so effectively the ogres have the pseudodragon's treasure too (the players won't look at it that way at all, but you and I will know the truth).
Or, once you get the idea of the big DAILY picture, you can then expand on that to a WEEKLY picture - your PCs might fight 30 encounters in a week. If all of them are around CR 6 with about 2,000gp each, it gets a bit boring. But you could have 29 of them be flat broke and the 30th one has 60,000gp worth of treasure. Weird, but still fair. Or you could just divide it up, some have nothing, some have a few hundred gp, some have a couple thousand gp, and a few bosses have around 5,000gp, so that it all adds up to 60,000 for the 30 encounters. (yes, I know they will gain a level or two during all those encounters so you should account for that by increasing the CR and rewards accordingly).
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The question that comes up too is whether NPC gear counts as the 'treasure' for loot purposes.
Like if you have a 7th level fighter NPC, does his NPC gear count as the loot earned for that?
The main problem with the random tables of yore was that you'd occasionally get the 'Why didn't the hobgoblin use the +1 sword'
Currently, what I want is a mundane item table. Drown in shoes, wooden ducks, small spindles, pounds of beans, hammers, ladders, and water clocks, foolish PCs! MUAHAHAHAHA!
Like if you have a 7th level fighter NPC, does his NPC gear count as the loot earned for that?
Yes; just look at the Bestiary goblin, for instance. Its treasure listing says "NPC gear" (with a parentheses explaining exactly what gear it will have unless the GM changes it).
The main problem with the random tables of yore was that you'd occasionally get the 'Why didn't the hobgoblin use the +1 sword'
That wouldn't be a problem if treasure was rolled beforehand as opposed to afterwards :)
ok..
seems im not the only one a bit confused. but thanks for all the input, i think im getting there..
So.. ( DM BLAKE)if i make a dungeon crawl, i should take all the encounters treasure, add it all up and spread it out as i see fit?
Its still just treasure values per (encounter) challenge rating, no?
And yes i see what you are getting at, making it more interestin for the players..
but if thats the case, what do you do if they level up during the crawl, and you have allready determinde the treasure before hand?
and thanks cheif cook, i had "forgotten that part"
oh, heres something ive also fought about. Say the party has an encounter, which is a "normal" apl cr. But after two player turns they defeat the beast without breaking a sweat or tkaing a scratch, do you then level down the treasure value for this encounter to an "easy" value ?
Or is it basicly what others have written that when all is said and done, is the cr that detremins treasure output?
I just need it as simple as possibly:)
So.. ( DM BLAKE)if i make a dungeon crawl, i should take all the encounters treasure, add it all up and spread it out as i see fit?
Its still just treasure values per (encounter) challenge rating, no?
And yes i see what you are getting at, making it more interestin for the players..but if thats the case, what do you do if they level up during the crawl, and you have allready determinde the treasure before hand?
Nope. You could, I suppose, but you certainly don't have to.
I don't let anyone level up during a dungeon crawl. You go on an adventure, you finish the adventure, then you return home and do a little training and practicing and working on your new skills. I don't require more than a day, really, because I assume the PCs have been working on those skills, practicing, figuring out the details, and when the level up, they've finally got it right.
RAW? No, but perfectly acceptable and it makes EVERYTHING so much easier.
This way you don't have to try to predict (or mathematically calculate) where they will level up (especially if they don't go the way you think they will) and then calculate correct CRs and treasure rewards for the second half of the dungeon based on your prediction.
This way you don't have to worry about a PC gaining a new ability you didn't plan for, and now something you thought would be a fun and memorable challenge turns into a boring trivial encounter.
This way things seem a bit more realistic (or at least organic) - you won't have PCs walking into a room, killing a few orcs, and suddenly they get bigger, stronger, faster, tougher, smarter, and more skilled than they were right before the fight.
This way you don't have to stop between rooms of a dungeon to let everyone spend time, sometimes a lot of time if they're new players or if they haven't put any forethought into it yet, figuring out their next level, class choice, feats, spells, skills, favored class options, etc.
It's just much easier on everyone. Heck, even if they finish their current adventure and return home in mid-session, I usually make them wait until the end of the session to level up - and then I ask them level themselves up at home, on their own time, so we don't all have to sit on our thumbs waiting for everyone, even the slowest/newest/most thoughtful player to work out his level details.
oh, heres something ive also fought about. Say the party has an encounter, which is a "normal" apl cr. But after two player turns they defeat the beast without breaking a sweat or tkaing a scratch, do you then level down the treasure value for this encounter to an "easy" value ?
Or is it basicly what others have written that when all is said and done, is the cr that detremins treasure output?
Now how are you going to do that? You're still thinking like you roll a random encounter, fight it, and then roll random treasure based on how that encounter went.
And the end of the dungeon, the players find they have, quite oddly, ten bags of exactly 260 gp each? OK, not that obvious, but still, if you really give them of "random" treasure after every fight, no matter how you disguise it, it's going to be obvious, boring, and clearly contrived.
The simplest way possible is to make your dungeon (etc.) before the game session. You make up all the encounters and all the treasure rewards and put them all onto your map. Hopefully, it's not entirely random. Maybe you think up a few "themed" encounters that go together. Maybe you even find something that will be of interest to your players based on their backstory, or on earlier campaign events, so that your seemingly-random encounters actually tie into the campaign idea as a whole. Hopefully you also provide some useful treasure for them. Maybe a bandit has a masterwork weapon of the same type that the fighter uses, or maybe an enemy sorcerer has a wand of magic missile with 15 charges, just perfect for your PC wizard to use instead of missing with his crossbow all the time. Etc.
Then, on game day, you run the players through it. They fight the encounters you wrote and they find the treasures you wrote, even if they have an easy time or a hard time with any particular encounter.
You wrote it, you scripted it, you play it, they enjoy it.
Easy-peasy, nice and easy.
The only one possible caveat I might recommend is that if they get really beat up on an encounter you thought might be easy, or ordinary, then you might, on the spot, add a couple consumable items such as potions of Cure X Wounds to the treasure you already wrote up, just to help them out a bit.
The tables are there if you want help or need inspiration, not to be a straightjacket.
This is what I do, more or less. I use the wealth-by-level as a guide because this is the first party I've GM'd, so it's new for me every time they go up a level.
The party is currently 5th level, approaching 6th. I have a rough idea (written down somewhere) of their current wealth (closer to 16k each for 6th level than 10.5k each at 5th). I won't be bothered if they're a bit over or under when they level up. By the time they reach 7th level I'm looking for approximately 23k per person.
I mostly design my locations well before the players play them, including placing treasure. I equip NPCs appropriately, put items where it seems appropriate (armour and weapons in an armoury, healing potions or kits or supplies like anti-toxins in an infirmary, magic items in a wizard's quarters etc). Sometimes I choose treasure I think a player will like, sometimes something obviously useful or if I'm out of ideas or it feels too tailored, I'll roll randomly. By the time I've finished I'll have a certain number of encounters and an amount of treasure roughly appropriate for the total.
I like putting together stuff that fits the location. For example, valuable spell components in a trapped cabinet in a long-abandoned wizard's house. The corpses of a previous adventuring party carry typical adventuring gear and so on. I can also put in items that are valuable to the right person, like maps, or information (the captain of the troop of mercenaries will pay good money for a hobgoblin troop's ledgers). I might use the treasure tables to help decide what proportion of cash/gems/art to potions etc. to permanent magic items to place and then choose the items off the table rather than rolling randomly.
Sometimes I add stuff on the spot. For example, when my son's monk went to pick up a rug that he obviously thought was going to be valuable, and it tried to smother him (and the rest of the party stood around laughing instead of helping), I added a compartment underneath containing a diamond necklace. (It was bad enough without there being no treasure.)
For items the party specifically want (perhaps a bag of holding) I might let them buy it, or find it as treasure (if it's fairly typical adventuring gear) or I might offer it as a reward for a particular task. A reward from dwarves or a sword smith might be a custom-made weapon. A reward from a cleric or a wizard might be a custom magic item or an enchantment added to en existing item.
Ahem....
excuse me while i put on my big boy thinking pants:)
noble@: aaah of course not... just wanted to be sure
DM BLAKE@: again of course not , never have before so why start.. how silly i am..
and i hear on the fudging a little something unplanned for the players... cant count how many times a potion of healing has been conviniently added to the loot :)
allright im all clear.. almost:)
do you make a dunguen and ad all the treasure values for each encounter and then spread it out..? ( dm you mentioned something along those lines)
or do you roll/pick for each encounter in the dungeon?
and finally, the CR is basicly what you guys use as the treasure amount indicator (if the beast has any) ?
I don't know about the rest of everyone, but I basically put in treasure per encounter, not for the whole dungeon and divided. I also don't include treasure at every point, even when the monster says they'd have treasure.
The party encounters a pair of kobolds entering the dungeon. These are low level guards on routine sentry. I give them NPC gear and that's all.
The party heads down a winding cavern and ducks a spear trap. They then enter a vast multi-exited cavern with a chasm. Here they encounter some fire beetles that lair in the walls of the fissure below. The party deals with these and moves on.
Now I have 2 set pieces nearby. One is a torturer's dungeon and the other's an evil kobold wizard's scroll office and lab. Each set piece is at the heart of a handful of outer cysts or caves. The party decides by random chance to head for the dungeon.
They encounter another trap along the way. This time they don't catch it and thy get hit by a poisoned crossbow bolt. The paladin saves and everyone's still fine physically, but the trap also sounded an alarm nearby (the party hears the muffled sound) and now the dungeon denizens are on alert.
The party proceeds with caution and murders a guard patrol of kobold swarmers. Again, nothing but NPC gear. However they enter one of the cysts and find no one there. They find bedding for 6, the same amount of kobolds they've taken out so far. They also find roughly about 400 GP in mixed coins, a couple sets of extra gear, and some interesting consumables like alchemical gear or minor magic. Essentially what they found was a hoard encompassing the excess treasure NOT on the guards they've already fought.
I try to put treasure in logical places and not have bodies turn into loot piles a la Diablo. I also try to think: how would the monsters WITH treasure store and transport it. In the case of the above, the kobolds have leather sacks for the gold, the extra gear and alchemical stuff is either carried or equipped on their person and perhaps a unique box or coffer for the minor magic which becomes part of the treasure itself. Remember: if someone gets a holy flask that creates a liquor that replenishes itself daily and grants Guidance 3/day, they might choose to store such an important item in an ornate pewter lockbox embossed with the relief of a dragon's bust and studded with garnets instead of a pine one.
Finally, I like making up random hoards. I keep a list of about 12 of them. I do 6 for the current level, 3 for APL -1, and 3 for APL +1. Then if the party has come a long and I HAVEN'T found a logical place for dropping treasure or they have a random encounter that leads them in a direction I didn't anticipate, I just toss one of these pre-gens down and shoehorn it into the game.
Ahem....
excuse me while i put on my big boy thinking pants:)
noble@: aaah of course not... just wanted to be sure
DM BLAKE@: again of course not , never have before so why start.. how silly i am..
and i hear on the fudging a little something unplanned for the players... cant count how many times a potion of healing has been conviniently added to the loot :)
Yep, done that :)
allright im all clear.. almost:)do you make a dunguen and ad all the treasure values for each encounter and then spread it out..? ( dm you mentioned something along those lines)
or do you roll/pick for each encounter in the dungeon?
I don't know that I routinely do anything.
So the abandoned wizard's house. I found a map from a book (3.5) of encounters. They were asked to go in, find traps or other hazards, disarm what they could and recover bodies of people who'd gone in before. There was a reward offered.
I decided on the approach and the gardens. I put a water mephit in the well and a corpse at the bottom. The druid was terrified because the player (wrongly) remembered mephits as being evil. I played up the water mephit's low intelligence, and it not understanding the corpse was dead. They talked to it, and worked out how to retrieve the corpse. The treasure was adventuring gear in line with the CR of a mephit, I think. Or maybe of a pit trap that deep.
I placed another corpse and a nest of stirges in undergrowth near the garden wall, treasure adventuring gear in line with the stirges' CR. And so on, room by room. For example an alchemy room with dangerously degraded chemical items (damage and CR as a trap) and recoverable alchemical items, an animated wardrobe (containing at least 1 cloak) that attacked them in the master bedroom, the apprentice's room on the top floor over a massive hole in the rotten floorboards (small chest with spellbook with 1st level spells) and so on. At some point towards the end I totalled the encounters and the treasure and decided what adjustments to make, if any.
In the wilderness, they came across a pair of gryphons. If they'd have taken the time to trace the nest there would have been something in the remains. They went past a pool with shocker lizards, ignoring the bow on the ground that they wrongly assumed was a trap.
I suppose I start with an idea of the number and type of encounters and a treasure budget, decide on the location and then place encounters and treasure room by room till I'm done. I read all the modules I can get hold of, and don't hesitate to steal anything that looks fun.
and finally, the CR is basicly what you guys use as the treasure amount indicator (if the beast has any) ?
Pretty much.
well thanks guys..
im all set...
all the best