As I create a replacement character for the one who died, I noticed that the wealth My old character had was really low (10k short of normal). After talking to the rest the group are average wealth was 6000 gold at sixth level. Is this accurate, are GM says that we've hit all the main points and we even spent extra time raiding ships.
Our GM is notorious for not giving our characters items. That is one reason we insisted on playing a published path. So I'm curious if we are missing gear that we would otherwise have gotten.
Our GM says that our wealth is low because we have a ship and the ship counts against our normal wealth by level.
Without giving any spoilers has anyone else found that this campaign is very low on wealth during the first two books?
As far as I know, my group (where I am GM) as well above WBL, and has been for a while. I don't exactly remember if it started at book 2 or later, but there's some awesome and exepensive loot in book 3, so it might be that you'll catch up later.
Counting the ship towards WBL is rubbish. This ship is an essential plot device, not value.
Not too sure, my group are content with what they have. Although there is a fair amount of plunder to be had which can be sold to gain gold, if you have been plundering ships you should have had more too.
Maybe you hit all the main points but did you actually search everything? Maybe there were a few things you missed as you didn't find them? I think all the magic items and gold, gems etc is equal or above WBL but it depends if you have sunk any of this in to the ship.
The ship is a plot device yes and is not part of the WBL BUT it costs money to upkeep, you need supplies, you need to pay the crew everytime you stop at port and you also may need to pay for repairs/modifications/weapon? Maybe this is where the money has gone? I guess it depends how the GM is running it, I made sure the players were aware that they would need to sink some cash into the ship and crew (hence why you need to go plundering more often otherwise money runs out pretty quick and you have a mutiny on your hands).
I think a lot of people forget that this campaign is not just a party of 4 PC's. Its a living working ship with crew and officers. If you have more than 1 ship the the cost is going to be more to maintain.
There is a lot to keep track of in this game so maybe if you have not already assign a quatermaster and have 1 player keep a track of all the items, gems, gold and plunder?
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I can only speak for my own character. We are have just entered the "dungeon" looking for the treasure towards the end of book 2. We all hit sixth level recently. I have a +2 equivalent weapon, +1 armor, a +2 shield, and +2 Amulet of Natural armor. All that plus a few miscellaneous potions and I would say I am pretty much right at WBL of 23,000 gp. Right on target. I'm sure the rest of the party is hit or miss. This doesn't count the magic Hammock, sextant or whatever, and other things we are keeping as party treasure.
Thanks everyone.
We haven't sunk any ship, because we plundered each one. We're only getting about 500 gold per plunder point that we get to keep (200 to pay off the debt, and 300 because we're not famous pirates yet gets kept). We also explore every bit of every dungeon that we can (we're a little OCD for reasons you'll see below).
Since we can't go to any main ports, we're rarely able to buy any magical gear, and it's usually marked up 20-30%.
To give a brief history, our GM has always been stingy with wealth, and magical items. Back when we played in Faerun, we couldn't find anything above a +1 item in major cities. When I'd show him charts showing what should be for sale, he'd tell me that I'm misreading the charts. He says that they show how much magic items there are total in the city, and most people would be unwilling to sale these items.
Now I wouldn't mind if his answer was that he wants to have a very low magic universe. He claims it's not though. When I point out the wealth by level charts he'll say that represents all money spent by the character at that point (including past potions, scrolls, tavern bills, food).
So after a bit of a fallout we (the players) said we play if he used a module so that he could see that the wealth doesn't match he preconceived notion. Now I've run a Rise of the Rune lords campaign, so I was expecting this campaign to have a similar wealth distribution.
If you're only selling plunder for 500 gp pr point, you're missing out!! Ok, if you've taken debt (to pay for squibbing?), but that should end at some point. But a 30% mark down for not being famous enough... and 20-30% for shopping magic items in non-major ports?
How about Bloodcove? Senghor? The Adventure Path specificly mentions non-Schackles ports you should sail to in roder to sell loot without getting in trouble with other pirates. There's an NPC who's supposed to tell you that, if you don't have knowledge: local yourself. And these are major trading centers, where 1 plunder point pr. rule sells for 1000 gp, and where magic items are readily for sale (or rather, should be, but with the reading your GM is demonstrating, that won't help).
Also, if you capture ships, these sell for 5 plunder points, that's 5000 gp apiece.
If you're only selling plunder for 500 gp pr point, you're missing out!! Ok, if you've taken debt (to pay for squibbing?), but that should end at some point. But a 30% mark down for not being famous enough... and 20-30% for shopping magic items in non-major ports?
How about Bloodcove? Senghor? The Adventure Path specificly mentions non-Schackles ports you should sail to in roder to sell loot without getting in trouble with other pirates. There's an NPC who's supposed to tell you that, if you don't have knowledge: local yourself. And these are major trading centers, where 1 plunder point pr. rule sells for 1000 gp, and where magic items are readily for sale (or rather, should be, but with the reading your GM is demonstrating, that won't help).
Also, if you capture ships, these sell for 5 plunder points, that's 5000 gp apiece.
It's not that we want to sell it for 500, that's what we haggle up to. Usually are GM will tell us that we can get 600 (not including the 200 that will be taken for debt payment) per plunder point, and we roll appraise to haggle up to 700. When I asked why it was so low, I was told that it's because were not trusted since we're "unknown" pirates.
People also won't buy the ships we capture because "other pirates don't want a beaten up merchant ships".
Because of the way the first book started out, I assumed that our wealth was just supposed to be really low, but by this level (6) it's starting to get old. It also has matched the other AP's I've ever seen run or run myself. I think I have my confirmation that our GM is purposefully holding out wealth. That's too bad.
Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.
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I'm running this myself and I can say that it sounds like your GM is not doing the sale of plunder properly. The base value of plunder is based on the size of the port you're trying to sell it in. How famous you are means nothing in terms of the rules, but the community size does limit how high the merchants there can offer you. Too small a port and there's simply not enough cash on hand. A village gets you anywhere from 100gp to 200gp per point of plunder, while something the size of Port Peril will get you 1000gp to 1400gp with a good roll. The haggle check is also supposed to be based on Bluff (you lie through your teeth about the value), Intimidate (buy this off me or... well you don't want to know), or Diplomacy (sweet talking the merchant, you scratch my back, I scratch yours). My PCs go out of their way to sell plunder in larger ports even if it extends the journey and forces them to pay a port tax or face additional hazards because the reward is well worth the risk.
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As a player I really don't pay any attention to WBL until it starts impacting on the survival of the party.
AP work off the premise that the PCs have X amount of cash to spend at certain levels and encounters are built with that in mind.
There will come a tipping point where the GM has been so tight that the PCs will be ham-strung. They would have the opportunity to make those important purchases (which are assumed to have happened by the AP writers)using WBL. But because the GM (for some reason) has held back on the spoils a TPK has a real danger of happening.
A character that has the hedge magician feat can circumvent a lot of DM stinginess in th2 first two books.
With all the cruising time, its a great opertunity to make money scribing scrolls.
Hitting 5th level and the party is still broke. The only reason we have any magic items in the party Is i took craft wondrous on my sorcerer.
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Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.
For some this can be part of the problem, where its not so much not having 'wealth by level' as it is not having 'the specific magic equipment I want to have by level'...
Put me in the group that thinks PC's need to worry more about what they can do than what they can buy, and trust the GM to tweak encounters to insure the appropriate level of challenge takes place.
Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.For some this can be part of the problem, where its not so much not having 'wealth by level' as it is not having 'the specific magic equipment I want to have by level'...
Put me in the group that thinks PC's need to worry more about what they can do than what they can buy, and trust the GM to tweak encounters to insure the appropriate level of challenge takes place.
The problem is, I don't think he's tweaking challenges appropriately. One character has the maul of the titans (his only magic item) while another only has a +1 shortsword (he's a rapier user, but the best he can do is get a masterwork rapier if he goes that route. Again this is his only magic item as well).
What frustrates me, is that the group has made it clear that we want to play in a moderate-high magic world, and time and time again we rarely get magic items.
Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.For some this can be part of the problem, where its not so much not having 'wealth by level' as it is not having 'the specific magic equipment I want to have by level'...
Put me in the group that thinks PC's need to worry more about what they can do than what they can buy, and trust the GM to tweak encounters to insure the appropriate level of challenge takes place.
The problem is, I don't think he's tweaking challenges appropriately. One character has the maul of the titans (his only magic item) while another only has a +1 shortsword (he's a rapier user, but the best he can do is get a masterwork rapier if he goes that route. Again this is his only magic item as well).
What frustrates me, is that the group has made it clear that we want to play in a moderate-high magic world, and time and time again we rarely get magic items.
Sounds like a screw-job to me then.
Yep, I agree, there are quite a few magic weapons in the AP to grab, (tidewater cutlass in book 1 for instance, maul of the titans as far I know is not in any of the loot so unless the players bought it the GM has added it in himself). Plus there are a ton of places for the players to sell loot they don't want to get what they do want.
It's not the AP at fault here but the GM, sorry.
Then again he is the GM so he can change things as he sees fit BUT I think the thing annoys me a little is that you wanted to run a published path to avoid that issue and he has obvously decided he would run it his way anyway.
Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.For some this can be part of the problem, where its not so much not having 'wealth by level' as it is not having 'the specific magic equipment I want to have by level'...
Put me in the group that thinks PC's need to worry more about what they can do than what they can buy, and trust the GM to tweak encounters to insure the appropriate level of challenge takes place.
The problem is, I don't think he's tweaking challenges appropriately. One character has the maul of the titans (his only magic item) while another only has a +1 shortsword (he's a rapier user, but the best he can do is get a masterwork rapier if he goes that route. Again this is his only magic item as well).
What frustrates me, is that the group has made it clear that we want to play in a moderate-high magic world, and time and time again we rarely get magic items.
Time for someone else to sit behind the screen.
Time for someone else to sit behind the screen.Yep, stingy Gm by the sound of it, the major treasures in book 1 and 2 if you have picked them up should have netted the group around 150,000 gp in total. The captains locker and the spyglass in book 2 are worth 30,000 gp each alone. Then on top of that you have the mundane treasures, armour and weapons in each encounter.For some this can be part of the problem, where its not so much not having 'wealth by level' as it is not having 'the specific magic equipment I want to have by level'...
Put me in the group that thinks PC's need to worry more about what they can do than what they can buy, and trust the GM to tweak encounters to insure the appropriate level of challenge takes place.
The problem is, I don't think he's tweaking challenges appropriately. One character has the maul of the titans (his only magic item) while another only has a +1 shortsword (he's a rapier user, but the best he can do is get a masterwork rapier if he goes that route. Again this is his only magic item as well).
What frustrates me, is that the group has made it clear that we want to play in a moderate-high magic world, and time and time again we rarely get magic items.
yeah.... unfortunately I'm the only other GM in the group and I'm a bit tired of doing it.
I am currently running the AP for a group of 3 + Sandara as a npc to make it a party of 4. She doesn't get a cut of the loot which is fine, I just keep her at PC wealth whenever they get a chance to go to town to buy gear.
A lot of money goes into upgrading your ship, buying siege weapons, ect. But from what I can tell, the AP provides this extra money in mind that the PC's will be dumping some plunder into their vessel.
I've been giving all the loot in the AP with the "More Guns" options where the AP says to place guns/cannons for a campaign with more guns. We've also just finished the first book.
I think my players are at least have at level wealth if not above. So, it does sound like the GM is holding back.
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Just want to throw something out there regarding WBL in this AP - in books two and three its assumed that the PC's do a LOT of pirating in sandbox style above and beyond the handful of encounters that are presented... there's no way they could build up adequate infamy or plunder otherwise. I think its also safe to assume that any lacking wbl can and should be made up in these encounters - every ship's captain is likely to have this magic item or that or any number of personal effects and just one good month of piracy (on camera or off) should be more than enough to fill the PC's pockets.
Just something to keep in mind - if you're struggling with wealth it may well be because your GM overlooked this particular aspect of the AP or is choosing not to bother with it.
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I'll be a bit of an antagonist here, if only to stimulate the discussion. Every time a player cites, "Wealth by level" I wince. The table's a guideline; even in the text below the table it states that some of this wealth will have been taken up by consumables, and more by selling half-price items. In short, if a PC is at full WBL, they're overpowered.
Try it. Build a non-optimized, run-of-the-mill 'generic' party of fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard, give them mindless non-optimized tactics, but then give them full WBL and a CR-appropriate encounter.
They'll curb-stomp it.
My experience is that WBL ensures PCs who don't need tactics or thought or consideration. Just, "We kick in the door and kill whatever we find." Such PCs are of little interest to me as a GM.
If you're honestly having trouble with encounters due to a lack of magic items, then by all means talk with your GM. But if you're still winning every encounter without significant risk, then why are you whining about WBL? How is it that the GM is 'cheating' you if you're not having any troubles at all? Why is that magic item so important to you?
And a massive disclaimer: The two groups I've taken to the end of APs have been at WBL by the end of the AP. The one group I've been in as a player to the end of an AP was at about 2/5 of WBL.
The only party-threatening fight we had was the one at 2/5 WBL, but we still won, and didn't lose a single party member.
So why is WBL so important to you?
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So why is WBL so important to you?
I'll concur that WBL should be the last priority on anyone's mind and I despise the crutch that magical gear often becomes, replacing intelligent character builds and sound in-game tactics...
...but I have to add the caveat in that its incumbent on the GM, regardless of the level of gear a particular party has, to make certain that they are neither under nor overly challenged.
Just want to throw something out there regarding WBL in this AP - in books two and three its assumed that the PC's do a LOT of pirating in sandbox style above and beyond the handful of encounters that are presented... there's no way they could build up adequate infamy or plunder otherwise. I think its also safe to assume that any lacking wbl can and should be made up in these encounters - every ship's captain is likely to have this magic item or that or any number of personal effects and just one good month of piracy (on camera or off) should be more than enough to fill the PC's pockets.
Just something to keep in mind - if you're struggling with wealth it may well be because your GM overlooked this particular aspect of the AP or is choosing not to bother with it.
Yeah, this.
Ch. 1 was most likely pretty low-wealth. Ch. 2 can be as well, if the players don't take advantage (or aren't given the opportunity) to explore the 'sandbox' aspect through plundering and pillaging.
Yeah, this.
Ch. 1 was most likely pretty low-wealth. Ch. 2 can be as well, if the players don't take advantage (or aren't given the opportunity) to explore the 'sandbox' aspect through plundering and pillaging.
I came in to my group just at the end of Book 1, and going through Book 2, we kinda blew the WBL out of the water by at least a full order of magnitude. Going into Book 3, we were at about 300,000gp per player. That's not counting the shares given to the crew. By Book 4, we stopped caring about money.
Ive had 16 level characters who could not swing 300000.
I've ran 1 AP and played in 3 now. I have never seen one that gave out wbl. When I ran CC, I had a three person party AND gave them a side quest(where I gave them a good amount of loot) in between every book and they were still behind wbl.
I have neither played nor read s&s though, so can't comment on it personally but it's probably behind wbl as well.
my party didn't want to just aimlessly plunder a dozen ships, and they are comenting that I am a pretty stingy GM (ex)
but i give them everything they find, we have just finished book 2 and the loot from the final dungeon did seem to make them happy.
Agreed. The loot in this AP comes in windfalls, not really a steady stream. If you as GM feel that it's light, I suggest rolling loot for any random encounters you insert while they're traveling. Also, when they meet large amounts of low level enemies without specified loot, like grindylows and sahuagins, make sure that you roll loot for them.
I think the problem might be that you guys arnt thinking like pirates?
I personaly added lots of side trecks but the ships themselves are worth massive amounts of wealth for low level party's so hiring many pirates and selling captured ships in senghor and bloodcove means you dont realy have an excuse for poverty. A good profession(sailor) modifier and one social skill is more then enough in this AP (as stated in the players guide).
The AP expects more encounters than scripted hence the list of prey ships and villages to be taken. So if they have not done some piracy I would imagine them to be behind. For reluctant pirates I would suggest adding some encounters and let them chase one of the treasures in the back of the books or you can plunder some adventures to give them something to do. Though if they lag behind standard WBL I would not worry much as long as they have weapons that can hit reliably. After all they have an NPC crew to order about/take some hits.