Clarify me this: Gold Rewards


Pathfinder Society

Sovereign Court 4/5

Hello everyone.

This questions stems from a few experiences I've had, and I think this hasn't been explained fully in the Guide or anywhere on Paizo messageboards.

Say you have a scneario and in it says:

Any scenario, really wrote:

Rewards: If the PCs murderize or capture everyone in the room, reward each tier thusly:

Tier 1-2: Give each PC 100 gp.
Tier 4-5: GIve each PC 400 gp.

What if said 'everyone' consists of four (4) enemy characters, and one of them gets away. Do you:

A) Award the players 100 gp per head.
B) Reduce one-fourth from the award, making it 75 gp per head.
C) Do something else I haven't thought about.

Note that this enemy escaping could be a result of players actually roleplaying their characters and letting the foes run for freedom while they still can. I personally don't see it fair to penaltize for that.

Similarly, if the said team doesn't specifically say to pick up a certain item (let's say it's a +2 Adamantine Fullplate) although they did find it, do you:

A) Treat it as found, keep the item in the chronicle and award the players fully in gold.
B) Treat it as not found, thus removing it from the chronicle, but still award the team full gold.
C) Treat it as not found, thus removing it from the chronicle, and calculate its appropriate value*, divide it by 12, and reduce that amount from the total gold.
D) Do something else I haven't thought about.

Why I ask this? It seems every GM has a different view on the situation. I, for example, always choose A from the list of options. I don't require the PCs to start lugging heavy armors and figuring out ways to carry them home just to recieve full gold (home campaigns excluded of course).

P.S. I actually looked at a Season 1 scenario while making the example and noticed that the older scenarios gave the gold reward to the player, not the PC. ;)

* a +2 adamantine fullplate costs 20,500 gp, thus giving each PC approx. 1708 gp

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

My answers:

Case 1) Look at why the gold is being awarded. If it's solely for the gear the mooks are carrying, subtract the difference. If there is stuff in the room or it is a general "success" reward I don't subtract anything.

Case 2) I don't require players to carry items to get them (and the reward) at the end. I figure they can pick them up at the end. However if they flee or move on to another site I do cross it off and subtract the worth. I will always warn them of that risk if they choose not to carry something.


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My understanding is A and A. I don't typically see any see any reason to reduce treasure because PCs were merciful or (as SCPRedMage said) less than perfect loot-murderhobos; that doesn't fit well with the idea of Pathfinders being at least nominally heroic. Answering anything else would mean you'd have to do on-the-fly calculations at the end of every encounter, and take into account what treasure was lost, where it was, and all that. That sounds like way too much work to expect. If they beat the encounter, they get the stated reward.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

SteelDraco wrote:
My understanding is A and A. I don't typically see any see any reason to reduce treasure because PCs were merciful or (as SCPRedMage said) less than perfect loot-murderhobos; that doesn't fit well with the idea of Pathfinders being at least nominally heroic. Answering anything else would mean you'd have to do on-the-fly calculations at the end of every encounter, and take into account what treasure was lost, where it was, and all that. That sounds like way too much work to expect. If they beat the encounter, they get the stated reward.

That is the expectation but it's rarely onerous. 95%+ of the the time the pathfinders will get none or all of the treasure for a given encounter. In the only two scenarios I have GMed where it is expected a significant number of parties will flee, fail, or run out of time (Bonekeep I and II) the scenario actually included a worksheet for calculating treasure.

I should add that it's really situational and the times where I subtract gold are actually quite rare. Definitely rarer than marking off items. At the low tiers, allowing one of the four human fighters to flee and "change your evil ways" would likely fall under the "clever solutions" clause and I wouldn't reduce gold. In a 7-11 an encounter might be two demons with a significant amount of magical gear. If one of them greater teleports away when his morale calls for it, that might be lost gold. (Random encounter not linked to anything else in the scenario? Probably lost. Was terrorizing a village? Probably creatively rewarded.)

Really the "leaving stuff behind" only applies to heavy or bulky stuff. I ran one not too long ago where part of the treasure was hundreds of pounds of cold iron. The party really needed to think about how to haul it to the next destination or if it was worth risking that they wouldn't come back to the same spot.

Shadow Lodge 3/5

SteelDraco is right, gold and items shouldn't be subtracted in these situations. It comes under this:

PFS guide, p33: Creative Solutions wrote:
If, for example, your players manage to roleplay their way through a combat and successfully accomplish the goal of that encounter without killing the antagonist, give the PCs the same reward they would have gained had they defeated their opponent in combat. If that scene specifically calls for the PCs to receive gold piece rewards based on the gear collected from the defeated combatants, instead allow the PCs to find a chest of gold (or something similar) that gives them the same rewards.

The only instance where you would subtract gold is if they actively fail the encounter, such as having to flee and fail the mission - so they get an overall reduced amount.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

Avatar-1 wrote:

SteelDraco is right, gold and items shouldn't be subtracted in these situations. It comes under this:

PFS guide, p33: Creative Solutions wrote:
If, for example, your players manage to roleplay their way through a combat and successfully accomplish the goal of that encounter without killing the antagonist, give the PCs the same reward they would have gained had they defeated their opponent in combat. If that scene specifically calls for the PCs to receive gold piece rewards based on the gear collected from the defeated combatants, instead allow the PCs to find a chest of gold (or something similar) that gives them the same rewards.
The only instance where you would subtract gold is if they actively fail the encounter, such as having to flee and fail the mission - so they get an overall reduced amount.

Or when the baddie flees, taking the interesting item with her. There's more than a few scenarios where an enemy has a morale breakpoint of "attempts to flee at a certain HP level."

Then it comes back to "where is the gold coming from?" Although it's not 100% consistent (especially in early seasons) the rewards section will usually say "the party successfully retrieves the glaive," "the party slays or captures the BBEG," "the party defeats the BBEG," or something similar. If the baddie exits with the glaive, no reward (if that was the condition). Often simply driving off an enemy is enough to get a reward from grateful townspeople

Like I said, it's very rare that I reduce gold. I hate doing it. I had heartburn a couple of months ago when I had to take away a full third of a party's gold because of a failed diplomacy check. But it was right there in black and white that if they failed the check they didn't get the item and the item was where the gold for that encounter was.

Shadow Lodge 3/5

I think you have to be careful even then, because sometimes the author and development can't predict every outcome.

If the text says "If the baddie exits with the glaive, they get no reward.", then that's black and white. But if it just says "if the party successfully defeats the BBEG and retrieves the glaive, reward 500gp." and nothing else, it's more a shade of grey. Technically they defeated the encounter, so I'd probably still give the full gold reward for the encounter, but cross the glaive off their sheet.

Grand Lodge 4/5

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I would treat an enemy escaping, if the players allow it within their RP, as under the creative solutions:

Quote:
Pathfinder Society Organized Play never wants to give the impression that the only way to solve a problem is to kill it—rewarding the creative use of skills and roleplaying not only make Society games more fun for the players, but it also gives the GM a level of flexibility in ensuring players receive the rewards they are due.

As long as they defeated the encounter, and having the NPCs run away is surely being defeated, they should receive the full rewards for the encounter.

Quote:
Step 5: Determine the Max Gold for the scenario based on the PC’s advancement rate and the subtier played. Circle the applicable value (F). If the PC’s level is not within the subtier played (such as a 1st-, 2nd-, or 3rd-level character in Subtier 4–5), circle the Out-of-Subtier gold value or calculate the Out-of-Subtier value for Seasons 0–4 by taking the average of both subtiers and rounding down. Write this value beside area F and circle it. This value represents the total gold piece value a character may receive for defeating all enemies and finding all treasure in a scenario. If the player is playing a non-1st level pregenerated character, he may choose instead to apply this Chronicle sheet to a 1st-level character by reducing this value to 500 gp (or 250 gp for the slow advancement track). If the PCs failed to earn any of the rewards listed for an encounter, deduct the amount listed for the applicable subtier from the value circled in area F. If the resulting value is negative, use 0 instead. Place the result of this calculation in the shaded GP Gained field and initial the adjacent box (Q).

As long as the PCs defeated the encounter, give them full gold. As to access, if the NPC running away has something that grants access, use the creative solution solution, and give them a chance to find it along the way.

Sovereign Court 4/5

I personally don't think missing out a baddie or an item should result in gp loss. The reward system is streamlined and made supersimple; simply, the given gold is not said to be tied to gear or anything like that, at least no in the "reward each PC thusly" section. Of course, the amount is calculated from loot and such.

I guess this method was a fix to an older method used in e.g. Living Greyhawk, where every item was listed and the GM had to do serious calculations if one of the baddies escaped. Because of this PCs often pursued enemies to recieve max gold, and so I don't believe the intent of Pathfinder Society is to make agents search through bushes and shrubs for missing gold.

Dark Archive

I thought the Guide to Organized play pretty clearly says if they beat the encounter, but don't get the treasure for some reason, you should place the same amount of treasure someowhere else for them to find.

Reducing gold, because the bad guy ran away, unless it specifically calls for it in the scenario, is also violating the "don't be a jerk" rule.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

1 fairly minor problem I have with some scenarios is where an encounter lists gold lost if the PCs fail in an encounter but there is absolutely nothing explaining what the gold represents. There are at least 2 examples of this in the confirmation.

The link between "reality" and what players receive is often pretty tenuous :-)

4/5

I always give them full gold and treasure if the defeat the encounter, in whatever manner. (Kill em all, baddies run, talk their way out, stealth around, whatever.) I don't "give" them the loot to use during the scenario unless they look for it, however: If the kill the 6 barbarians and then move on even after some "is there anything else you want to do?" prodding, I don't offer that there are potions of CLW on the bodies. They get the gold at the end but they don't get the free healing during the scenario since they were uncurious.(Unless we've got new players learning the ropes.)

I've reduced rewards or crossed things off chronicle sheets if the PCs intentionally destroy something, or if the treasure section explicitly says they have to _find_ something to get the reward. For example, when they invariably set fire to <redacted> without even searching it, thereby burning the scrolls hidden in it, they lose the scrolls and their GP value.

Once I had a player chuck a box off a cliff, the box had a listed value of something like 20gp, so I reduced the total GP reward by 20/4 = 5gp, mainly as a way to make them feel like their actions had consequences. I've got a sunder monster, but I _don't_ reduce GP for sundered stuff since that's the result of normal gameplay actions, not going out of their way to get rid of something or not finding something that was called out as necessary to find. I also probably wouldn't reduce the reward if it were a significant chunk of the scenario's loot, unless the treasure section had explicit conditions that they violated. 5 GP here and there adds flavor, 1,000gp, or even 100gp is a painful hit on your WBL, not just flavor.

Sovereign Court 4/5

Victor Zajic wrote:

I thought the Guide to Organized play pretty clearly says if they beat the encounter, but don't get the treasure for some reason, you should place the same amount of treasure someowhere else for them to find.

Reducing gold, because the bad guy ran away, unless it specifically calls for it in the scenario, is also violating the "don't be a jerk" rule.

That's what I've thought, but apparently not everyone thinks like that.

To be blunt, there's this one particular scenario where I felt slightly cheated (it's only 40 gp on Tier 1-2, but still, big money for fresh 1st level characters). The scenario says "If the PCs kill or capture the archers, reward each tier thusly.", and we happened to let two archers run away AKA not hunt them down. The enemies' tactics state that they attempt to flee if brought to near 0 hp.

Scarab Sages 5/5

Outside of Bonekeep 1/2, I've never subtracted gold from a player if they successfully completed the adventure alive and didn't actively try to skip past the meat of the scenario. Conversely I've had gold reduced from my own chronicles two times both of which were arbitrary, but I didn't say anything about it. Treasure is really abstract in PFS and I think the goal is to not spend a lot of time writing down 20 arrows or 3 tanglefoot bags.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Personally, I like the idea that gold rewards are based purely on character level. That is to say that level 1's get 500 gold, level 2 800 etc. (I'm making up numbers right now not suggesting necessarily accurate ones) This would be done to say that the your group cleared said area, the Society came in collected all useable goods and paid you based on skill level. A level 2 character being more valuable than a level 1. I like this idea for a couple of reasons it is easier for gm's, a level 5 playing in a 1-5, 3-7, or 5-9 would earn the same amount, and I think it would better reflect how/why characters don't actually keep things things they find in a scenario. (I would probably make a couple other adjustments, i.e. characters playing up would be paid at the rate of a character one level higher for hazard pay, and I wouldn't change the gold in scenarios like Bonekeep where there is far greater than normal danger)

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