So I'm trying to write up some bandits to ambush the PCs in the woods. Simple enough. They're each human warrior lvl 1, giving them a CR of 1/3. However, for bandits, they get a horrendous amount of gold. 260gp total for gear, personal items, and gold?
Also, does that apply in the same way to every monster without racial HD. For example the default goblin in bestiary 1. Their gear isn't up to much-- leather armour, light wooden shield, short sword, short bow +20 arrows-- but surely that must leave at least 100 gp not spent. Don't tell me the average goblin is meant to have a few potions and a good 40 gp on their person!
I know this is up to GM's discretion, but even RAW, it seems a bit much. Am I missing something?
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Reducing their wealth reduces their Challenge Rating. A naked level 1 warrior isn't as difficult of an encounter as a level 1 warrior with masterwork armor and a couple weapons.
260gp isn't enough for masterwork or most special material weapons, or an effective composite bow, and if you give them a couple potions that's 40% of their wealth.
Keep in mind that 1st level PCs usually start out with 150gp of gear, and often have over 1000gp by the time they hit 2nd level. For someone already out in the wild, or making a living for themselves as an NPC, 260gp sounds about right.
That's true for the bandits, then. What about goblins? As I've said, they barely have any equipment. The default goblin has 1 npc class (I think it's warrior but don't hold me to that), giving them a cr of 1/3, by both the CRB and the Bestiary, which is fair. Where does the rest of the gold go though? A leather armour and wooden shield don't add up to 130 gp, as is given in the CRB for protection.
Thanks for the fast reply and advice.
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Perhaps because they have other abilities to compensate for their lack of gear.
Goblins are small-sized and have bonuses to Stealth, to-hit, and AC. They have darkvision, which can give them an incredible advantage when raiding human villages at night. They have bonuses to Ride, giving them better mobility because they're more likely to be mounted than human bandits.
I'll admit, most of this is guesswork. I only do PFS, so I don't create my own NPCs in Pathfinder, but that's been my experience with gaming in general.
Goblins with 260gp of extra gear would probably be CR 1/2 rather than CR 1/3 (or somewhere in between, if that's possible).
I see. I'll just use the table as a guide, and give the npcs a realistic amount of equipment and gold.
Thanks again.
Maybe a few potions, or some flasks of alchemist's fire? Just at a guess.
Everything likes shinies and want to have shiny things just sitting around
But if you start using it to make the enemies have better gear then the party has less gold as they then sell that for half the price, and the CR of the creatures would go up. If you have a strong party not much of an issue, but if not it could cause problems.
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3 quick Human Bandit builds, using 260gp (with leftover):
50gp Greatsword
3gp Javelins (3)
50gp Scale Mail
50gp Potion Enlarge Person
50gp Oil of Magic Weapon
225gp Composite Shortbow, +2 Strength
2gp Arrows (40)
10gp Leather Armor
5gp Buckler
15gp Longsword
10gp Daggers (5)
1gp Sap
100gp Chain Shirt
20gp Heavy Shield
75gp Drow Poison (1)
20gp Alchemist Fire (1)
10gp Acid Flask (1)
I see. I suppose the other thing I can do is to make them lvl 2 warriors, and give them minimal equipment. Then they'd have the same CR as equipped lvl 1 warriors. That'd create some desperate men for me to use.
The other thing to note is that bandits don't have a friendly 'Bank of Abadar.com' to drop all their cash in between robberies. So having a good chunk of coin on them unspent could be their share of booty...
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Lol this has actually been something that's come up in the last few weeks as I've been building a lot of commoners for my home game lol. The short answer is 260 gp is fine and think of it more as the total value of everything they are carrying. After purchasing their main weapons, armor, and a pot or 2 my best suggestions are things like alchemical weapons and remedies like antiplague, alchemist's fire, tanglefoot bags, shard gel, and smelling salts.
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You could also use the "monster statistics by CR" table from the Bestiary to guesstimate what your NPC needs in equipment. (And other stats actually.)
Example: My level 2 warrior should do 4 damage on average so he needs a d6+1 for an average of 4.5 damage.
Alternatively, a first level encounter should provide 260 gp worth of treasure, so the bandits (first level warrior) really should have only 87 gp worth of usable gear.
Another alternative is that a standard 1st level party of 4.5 PCs should all have 4500 gp total by level 2. Divide that by 20 encounters and you get 225 gp for 3 bandits or 75 gp each.
Ofcourse, you still need to compensate for the encounters that don't have treasure such as wild animals/monsters, traps and haunts.