The RotRL campaign I'm a part of atm (working on Sins of the Saviours atm) has actually been in a weird sort of see-saw. We have a crafter who is very dedicated to her work, and we've been getting the materials we need to do proper gear enhancement, etc.
Our worst enemy in that category?
Time.
So much so, that at the end of Fortress of the Stone Giants, we were hesitant to use a scroll of Limited Wish to teleport us somewhere for fear of losing valuable 'crafting time'.
So much so, that our sorcerer does *not* have teleport on her list of spells, because transit time is used to 'make stuff better' or 'make better stuff' out of the things we've found.
That being said, we were really hanging into gear from Burnt Offerings and the Skinsaw Murders because, well, everyone else needed to be upgraded first, right?
So up until the middle of Fortress, it was a constant race to the rear and dumping the loot on someone, sometimes with consensus, sometimes with the gifted party objecting strenuously that someone else could use the gear. It became such an issue at one point that the cohort of the sorceress (She took the Leadership feat, and picked up Orik as her cohort along the way) was getting the loot we were finding, so he could be effective...
Our group is strange... but fun.
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Exact opposite of my experience. I never saw the books myself, but the GM said he was surprised because we had found nearly everything and were way under WBL. To the point where he ended up adding some things because he didn't see how we could make it otherwise....
Each member of my group, at the end of CC 1 had received 8.500 gp in loot and money, but as total equipment we had 2 magical weapons, 3 protective items plus several expendables and non magical equipment. perfectly right for our WBL and perfectly right for feeling under equipped.
The
If sold the non magical items give you about 1.800 gp (some are worth keeping and should be counted in your WBL).
I am sure of what we have found as I still have my excel sheet with the loot. I suspect that sometime we miss how high is the price of some item as the benefit is similar to a lower value item.
Yeah, it wasn't "rolled". It was added by the author who wrote the adventure and put the item in the dungeon. Maybe HE rolled it randomly, but when you're sitting at a word processor writing a module to sell to the public, instead of GMing at a live gaming table, you have a chance to alter the unrealistic rolls, and it seems you might be obligated to do so.
At least, it seems that way to me.
It's those silly items that can alter a game. Feels kind of old school having to bond and adapt an item not specifically on your wish list. More than once I've had to pick up a perform skill on the next level just to utilize some of those wondrous instruments.
I avoid upgrading the core items in the long run with an eye towards filling the other body slots and picking up some slotless wondrous items as well. It's one of the few exceptions I make to my passive bonus playstyle.
The ** spoiler omitted ** alone is 5.000 gp and can be brought for something like 500 gp,
And here comes the good aligned party: "You sure you know what you have here? This is way underpriced."
That's what our group did. Same later in the castle: "We were invited here, why should we ransack the place?"
We have a crafter who is very dedicated to her work, and we've been getting the materials we need to do proper gear enhancement, etc.
Our worst enemy in that category?
Time.
So much so, that at the end of Fortress of the Stone Giants, we were hesitant to use a scroll of Limited Wish to teleport us somewhere for fear of losing valuable 'crafting time'.
So much so, that our sorcerer does *not* have teleport on her list of spells, because transit time is used to 'make stuff better' or 'make better stuff' out of the things we've found.
In what way does teleporting cost you crafting time? Surely if you have a choice of spending a week walking somewhere and crafting when you stop to rest, or spending a week doing nothing but crafting and then teleporting there, the latter will allow you to get a lot more done.
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In what way does teleporting cost you crafting time? Surely if you have a choice of spending a week walking somewhere and crafting when you stop to rest, or spending a week doing nothing but crafting and then teleporting there, the latter will allow you to get a lot more done.
Maybe the GM was operating on some sort of "plot driven time," where time spent traveling doesn't count against you, but time spent in town just crafting does? It doesn't make sense to me but I've known some GMs that operate that way.
And here comes the good aligned party: "You sure you know what you have here? This is way underpriced."
That's what our group did. Same later in the castle: "We were invited here, why should we ransack the place?"
I don't recall an ioun stone, but our group was the same way at Schloss Caromarc: we're guests, not robbers. We weren't at all inclined to grab the count's tea, spices, gold-plated pool cue, wall scones, pipes and tobacco.
Even before that -- and I'll grant this moves past "good aligned" into "stupid" territory -- at the end of Book 1 we'd declined the reward of a +1 dagger from a troup of entertainers because we'd been unable to save their friend, only recover her dead body. We didn't feel much like we'd earned a big fat reward. That one's definitely on us.
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The ** spoiler omitted ** alone is 5.000 gp and can be brought for something like 500 gp,And here comes the good aligned party: "You sure you know what you have here? This is way underpriced."
That is the law/chaos axis, not the good/evil.
You are paying an item a price that is proportional to what the seller paid an that is exactly what he is asking.You think that if you explain to him the real worth of the item he will pay the difference to whoever sold it to him?
Or he will pocket it?
That's what our group did. Same later in the castle: "We were invited here, why should we ransack the place?"
There was very little of the owner properties in the castle to ransack and no reason to do that.
The ** spoiler omitted ** alone is 5.000 gp and can be brought for something like 500 gp,And here comes the good aligned party: "You sure you know what you have here? This is way underpriced."
That's what our group did. Same later in the castle: "We were invited here, why should we ransack the place?"That is the law/chaos axis, not the good/evil.
You are paying an item a price that is proportional to what the seller paid an that is exactly what he is asking.
You think that if you explain to him the real worth of the item he will pay the difference to whoever sold it to him?
Or he will pocket it?
Good implies altruism
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: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others2
: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species
Refusing to act in a way that benefit oneself because it is harmful to others is a clear cut case of altruism. Therefore it's Good behavior.
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Good implies altruismRefusing to act in a way that benefit oneself because it is harmful to others is a clear cut case of altruism. Therefore it's Good behavior.1
: unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others2
: behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species
Explain to me where paying a merchant the price he ask for something harm him.
If I have a better appraise skill I should correct all his prices? When he is overpricing something I should ask him to lower the price, as the item, in my evaluation, is not worth it and he is harming the buyer?
Really, some people are treating their alignment as a strait jacket that forces them into certain behaviors and restricts access to other behaviors.
It doesn't have to be like that.
A good person, even a lawful-good person, could happily buy an underpriced item from a merchant. There is no mystical force saying "you're a good altruist so you must inform this merchant that he's selling the item too cheaply." It's not stealing or cheating or immoral in any way to enjoy and appreciate an a great bargain, even if you feel the merchant misjudged the price.
That's just being a smart shopper. There are no alignment restrictions on being a smart shopper.
But if there character would say that then they are roleplaying their character, and that this kind of action would be attributed to a G alignment. Yes G doesn't HAVE to be played this way. But some people like to play G as G as they can.
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But if there character would say that then they are roleplaying their character, and that this kind of action would be attributed to a G alignment. Yes G doesn't HAVE to be played this way. But some people like to play G as G as they can.
That's fine.
There's a difference here:
1. My character is tragically honest and will always insist on fair negotiations, even fair bartering, even if that means helping the other person get a fair deal too. This is a character trait, not a facet of alignment.
2. My character is good so I have to tell the merchant that his price is too low because that's required for a good alignment. This is an alignment strait-jacket and is blatantly wrong by the Pathfinder rules and there is no reason to limit this character in this way.
The first one is awesome. It's roleplaying a character who has a personality and sometimes that personality is a flaw rather than an advantage - sometimes his behavior hurts him more than it helps him, but that's who he is, and this has nothing to do with his alignment at all.
The second is just a misunderstanding of alignments.
Note that it is possible to evolve the alignment system into a set of character traits that apply to a specific character. For example, a player might ask himself "Well, my character is lawful good - how would he behave in this situation?" and then come up with some answers. Then he writes them down and roleplays his character accordingly. That's great roleplaying. But note that a different player (or even the same player with a different character) might ask that same question and find different answers that are just as fun and just as correct - now you have two LG characters with different behaviors that evolved out of their alignment but evolved differently.
Playing by the evolved behavior is generally good roleplaying, while playing in the alignment strait-jacket probably is not.
There's a third option: The players are just naive:
I think that reiterates the point others have made: If you make a spreadsheet of available loot in Carrion Crown, it matches up fairly well with other APs. However, the loot is hidden in very unexpected ways ("Demand more money for your services. Loot the castle in which you are a guest. Swindle merchants.") so players who aren't actively trying to search every nook and cranny are going to end up far short of where they might otherwise be.
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There's a third option: The players are just naive:
We never encountered the whole "ioun stone" bonus cash. Looking at the book, I can see why we missed it. I'm very surprised that some parties have found it.
We always accepted whatever initial reward was offered. Apparently there's a whole mechanic whereby you're supposed to ask everyone you help for additional money, or just plain money to begin with.
We never searched the pond, seeing it more as a deathtrap for low-level characters than as a source of loot.
I think that reiterates the point others have made: If you make a spreadsheet of available loot in Carrion Crown, it matches up fairly well with other APs. However, the loot is hidden in very unexpected ways ("Demand more money for your services. Loot the castle in which you are a guest. Swindle merchants.") so players who aren't actively trying to search every nook and cranny are going to end up far short of where they might otherwise be.
Yes, that is a weak way to make loot available.
On the other hand, SOME loot should be well-hidden, hard to find, or require non-core skills to acquire - this rewards the players who build their characters with these skills and/or abilities, and it rewards players who search those hard-to-reach places or think out of the box.
But, the right way to do it is to make sure that PCs have the main share of their loot, ewpecially the core and/or essential items, and at least nearly the right WBL values of loot in simple accessible treasure hoards where you EXPECT them to get this stuff. The rest of the well-hidden stuff should be extra loot: nice to have but not essential, a reward for the extra effort and energy needed to get it.
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Apparently we got almost all the loot, even if we didn't bargained for extra rewards. As I have said, what we actually kept was worth about 8.000 gp for each character. And we used some stuff during the adventure.
So at the end of the adventure we were halfway to the WBL of a 5th level character. We could have missed one and even 2 major items and still have a WBl of 6.000 gp for each character.
We have totally derailed this thread. At least your not getting lectured anymore OP ^_^.
To toss something into the thread since the AP is deliberately loot-lean, an idea I'll pitch for consideration would be tailoring some of the published drops for the PCs -weapons/armor/ammunition specifically. As in a Medium +1 Keen Rapier would turn into a blank slate +1 Keen weapon sized as appropriate for the PC that bids on it and are proficient with. Armor would be the same, and I mention ammunition because the game does throw a lot of bolts the party's way in the first book; what if a PC wanted to be an archer or -gasp- Gunslinger? This would cover two of the most critical items for martial/ranged characters, and us Mages are able to fend for ourselves, maybe the scrolls/wands will be something within their spell trees so they aren't crippled by UMD checks should they not be specced for it.
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We have totally derailed this thread. At least your not getting lectured anymore OP ^_^.
To toss something into the thread since the AP is deliberately loot-lean, an idea I'll pitch for consideration would be tailoring some of the published drops for the PCs -weapons/armor/ammunition specifically. As in a Medium +1 Keen Rapier would turn into a blank slate +1 Keen weapon sized as appropriate for the PC that bids on it and are proficient with. Armor would be the same, and I mention ammunition because the game does throw a lot of bolts the party's way in the first book; what if a PC wanted to be an archer or -gasp- Gunslinger? This would cover two of the most critical items for martial/ranged characters, and us Mages are able to fend for ourselves, maybe the scrolls/wands will be something within their spell trees so they aren't crippled by UMD checks should they not be specced for it.
This seem minor, but it has a serious impact on WBL. Keeping the +1 keen weapon mean that you have 8.300 and something gp of gear, selling it to purchase the weapon you want to use mean that you have 4.150 and something gp.
A good GM should adapt at least some of the loot to his group. It shouldn't always be what they want, the guy focusing in the use of some obscure exotic weapon hopefully has made an informed decision and considered that probably it will be hard to find magical versions of it outside the major cities, but at the same time the group shouldn't be heavily penalized by that kind of choice.