GM Advice Loot in a Fast Leveling Campaign

[Master Codex]

I typed up a whole post, but it appears to have been wiped from time and space, so in my unsettled disappointment, let me just ask this for now.

A player dies and comes back with more money than the party. I was going to award the party money later, but now how should it be handled so that it can be fluidly played/explained/whatever that the new guy won't be getting any of the money. The player shouldn't complain about not getting money, but it'd be a little weird story wise. They just fought constructs, which give no treasure usually, but they are fighting a villain that uses constructs to enforce his power. They're in a fast leveling campaign as well, so how could this be handled better so this isn't a reoccurring problem.

They've been getting items and money as rewards from the people they've been saving.

Sorry if this is poorly written, I originally wrote a couple of paragraphs explaining more details, but yeah.

[Voadkha 11]

I assume you mean that when the first character dies you've allowed him to bring in a replacement character (with 'appropriate' WBL) that ends up being more than the party?

Alternately, do you mean specifically coins rather than wealth in the form of magic etc?

I ran into similar problems with allowing replacement characters keep coming in at appropriate level (instead of level minus 1) and appropriate WBL. I never solved the problem.

As for awarding the players money you could always give the party as a whole X*Y reward where X is the amount you intended to give each character and Y was the total number of party members not counting the guy that died. If the party as a whole wants to give the recently dead guy a full share they can, otherwise they may choose to give him a partial share.

[Guru-Meditation]

Dont give new PCs money per AVERAGE wealth per level table. Give them what the least wealthy char of your player's group has. So noone hard feelings are generated.

[Mysterious Stranger]

The Auto Bonus Progression from pathfinder unchained solves most of these types of problems. Since all characters have the basic bonuses the game assumes you have magic items become less important and more fun. Now instead of having to have a cloak of protection you can get something more interesting. It also means that a new character will have most of what he needs even if he has no equipment. He might not have all the cool abilities the other characters have but he has the basics so he is not totally useless.

In most cases when a new character is brought in he should have about the same level of resources as the rest of the party. If the party is at or near wealth by level, then the new character should get the standard wealth by level. If the party is significantly lower than wealth by level the new player should get that level of equipment.

[Master Codex]

Voadkha 11 wrote:

I assume you mean that when the first character dies you've allowed him to bring in a replacement character (with 'appropriate' WBL) that ends up being more than the party?

Alternately, do you mean specifically coins rather than wealth in the form of magic etc?

I ran into similar problems with allowing replacement characters keep coming in at appropriate level (instead of level minus 1) and appropriate WBL. I never solved the problem.

As for awarding the players money you could always give the party as a whole X*Y reward where X is the amount you intended to give each character and Y was the total number of party members not counting the guy that died. If the party as a whole wants to give the recently dead guy a full share they can, otherwise they may choose to give him a partial share.

Yes, taking in account for everyones gear, the level appropriate gold puts him at more than the average party member. I was going to originally give the party gold to share as a party, but the fact that a player might actually give the new character a share is what I find problematic, because even if it doesn't come from the parties total share, which would upset at least one player, it would mean he would volunteer his share to be reduced, meaning that as a whole, our paladin will be less tanky, which is bad considering the other members are just glass cannons (Barb, Sorc, Inves, Ranger) (Yes I consider Barb to be a glass cannon, she has like 14 ac despite her 100ish health, so practically everything hits her)

Guru-Meditation wrote:

Dont give new PCs money per AVERAGE wealth per level table. Give them what the least wealthy char of your player's group has. So noone hard feelings are generated.

We were doing that, but apparently they forgot and I didn't have time to check because this player was being particularly upset because he was playing a lower leveled npc until there was an opportunity for him to show up, which had to be delayed because he wasn't done making the character, so I didn't get to realize this until afterwards that they even started with 6th level wealth despite the party only being level 5 (Because he made his character level 6) (Because he knew we were going to level by the end of the session and didn't think he'd get to play his character, but was brought in anyways)

Mysterious Stranger wrote:

The Auto Bonus Progression from pathfinder unchained solves most of these types of problems. Since all characters have the basic bonuses the game assumes you have magic items become less important and more fun. Now instead of having to have a cloak of protection you can get something more interesting. It also means that a new character will have most of what he needs even if he has no equipment. He might not have all the cool abilities the other characters have but he has the basics so he is not totally useless.

In most cases when a new character is brought in he should have about the same level of resources as the rest of the party. If the party is at or near wealth by level, then the new character should get the standard wealth by level. If the party is significantly lower than wealth by level the new player should get that level of equipment.

I'm not familiar with that system, I'll have to check it out

Having looked at it, that's a possibility for a future game like this, but introducing a variant system might not be too great since one of the players is new and hence why we're doing a fast leveling game in the first place, so he can learn how to make characters level by level (since he didn't really understand at first how to make high level characters and why they could get what) and since a lot of players didn't want to play a low level campaign, even if it was just for a short while.

[Master Codex]

I know bumping is bad, but I really am wondering if there are other alternatives. It's partially my fault for not checking out his character in depth before allowing him to play it, but he's been with us for a while and he was expressing it quite clearly that he was having no fun without his character (playing other games while it wasn't his turn for example).

The Auto Bonus Progression would be helpful for a future campaign, but he already has more money then the party and if I tell him he can't have it, I'm sure it'll just upset him, he was getting very upset over an incredibly dumb topic of what jedi wear. Everyone goes through irritable phases and I've lost a couple of players just because of these phases (One player tried to kill the entire party and got upset when he took no one out because 5v1 is hard). I'd just hate to lose a player over such a dumb topic, but I'd also hate to have the entire group dislike a player for even one session while I handed them treasure items specific to a character just to catch them up.

[The Goat Lord]

I have encountered this before. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and adjust future rewards to take into consideration the new power level of the PCs. You can easily balance things out in the long run by cherry-picking treasure and following the guidelines for wealth by level. Additionally, it helps to be honest, transparent, and upfront with your players, and just say, "Hey, I propose this solution for the good of the table, but I welcome other opinions."

Still, you can't make everyone happy sometimes, but if everyone agrees to move towards a solution that is good for the table, the long game should be okay.