Awarding Treasure

[Tinalles]

This has undoubtedly been asked before, but I'm not finding it. My search-fu has failed me.

I'm running Rise of the Runelords, and I have been handing out the rewards explicitly listed in the adventure -- gear from named antagonists, rewards from grateful NPCs, and so on. But I have not been generating treasures for every nameless mook the party steamrolls.

For example, in one room in Fortress of the Stone Giants, there are four stone giants.[1] Technically, they're an encounter. Am I supposed to:

A) Generate a separate CR 8 treasure for each of the four giants;

B) Treat the four as a CR 12 encounter, and generate one treasure shared between them;

or C) Ignore them because they're mooks who got pasted in 2 and a half rounds?

I don't want to shortchange my PCs, but dang, I don't want to spend ages coming up with treasures for every Crog, Brick, and Derpy Stone Giant who walks on and gets diced.

[1] OMG spoilers, there are stone giants in the book named "Fortress of the Stone Giants"!

[Kalindlara]

You aren't expected to generate treasure in addition to what's given in the adventure; the treasure given in the adventure takes those encounters into account. The possible exception to this is random encounters (those rolled from a table, not those explicitly listed in the adventure). You can probably get away without generating treasure for those, though.

So... you're doing it right so far. ^_^

[CBDunkerson]

When running an AP or module don't generate any additional treasure except for any random encounters or side adventures you add in. They will frequently have mooks with no treasure, but the equivalent value will later be found as part of a treasure room at the end of the encounter area.

[Tinalles]

Oh good. That's a relief.

In this case I actually did generate a treasure:

4 Large greatclubs (no particular value)
1 Large masterwork obsidian dagger (304gp, fragile, breaks on a nat 1)
6 polished agate worry beads (12 gp total)
1 pair of heavily used bone dice (six-siders, no particular value)
1 potion of bull's strength (300 gp)
1 bag full of jerky (DC 20 Survival or Kn (Nature) to identify it as badger, no particular value)
1 large-size waterskin full of vinegary wine (no particular value)
1 belt pouch full of powdery sand mixed with bits of gravel (no particular value)
1 wand of lightning bolt which has apparently been used as a toothpick. (7 charges remaining, CL 5, 1,575 gp)

That's way less than even a CR 8 encounter. And most of it is useless but flavorful.

[Deadalready]

My read of Rise of Runelords puts the treasure value overall as pretty high. In fact I removed some treasure because my players were destroying encounters so easily, edging off their treasure was my way of bringing their power back into line.

[Wheldrake]

It won't hurt if individual adversaries have a few odds & ends of loot on their persons. A small bag of gold, a pouch with a few low-value gems, a potion of cure light wounds, occasionally a masterwork (or even magical) weapon that they salvaged off some poor sod they killed a few weeks back. Things like that.

IMHO, loot in RotRL is a tad bit on the low side, so it can't hurt to toss in a few dribs & drabs along the way, whenever you feel appropriate.

Much of the treasure in chapter 3 is oversized ogre hooks, ogre armor and the like, stuff that not only the PC can't use, but that they are unlikely to even be able to sell. Who wants a +1 ogre hook? Unless you let it be re-hafted as a halberd or some such.

[MeanMutton]

Wheldrake wrote:

Much of the treasure in chapter 3 is oversized ogre hooks, ogre armor and the like, stuff that not only the PC can't use, but that they are unlikely to even be able to sell. Who wants a +1 ogre hook? Unless you let it be re-hafted as a halberd or some such.

A shady, fool-hearty merchant who has no issues selling powerful magical weapons to giants. Where do you think ogres and cyclopses and hill giants get their magic items from?

[Wolfsnap]

MeanMutton wrote:

Wheldrake wrote:

Much of the treasure in chapter 3 is oversized ogre hooks, ogre armor and the like, stuff that not only the PC can't use, but that they are unlikely to even be able to sell. Who wants a +1 ogre hook? Unless you let it be re-hafted as a halberd or some such.

A shady, fool-hearty merchant who has no issues selling powerful magical weapons to giants. Where do you think ogres and cyclopses and hill giants get their magic items from?

Those +1 Ogre Hooks were originally +1 swords that were looted from foolish adventurers and then beaten into hook-shapes. :)

[justaworm]

Wheldrake wrote:

but that they are unlikely to even be able to sell.

Why wouldn't they be able to sell it? There aren't restrictions on buying or selling ogre hooks in civilization. It is meant to be thematic loot and the players should still benefit from selling it, as supply/demand considerations are mostly non-existent.

[justaworm]

As a current RoRTL player (pally), I would call the loot pretty good, unless it is poor as written and our GM is scaling it up. :)

Especially in the higher level books and especially with the artifact in Jorgenfist in play. Holy cow that is one of the most useful artifacts of any AP, even though you can't move it.

[Skeld]

justaworm wrote:

Especially in the higher level books and especially with the artifact in Jorgenfist in play. Holy cow that is one of the most useful artifacts of any AP, even though you can't move it.

The Arcane Anvil isn't part of the AP. That's a GM Special that I put in there so that you guys could gain some of the benefits of the more off-the-wall magic items (re: Ogre Hooks) without having to just sell stuff because that's boring.

Otherwise, I'm glad you like it! :D

-Skeld

[Skeld]

Wheldrake wrote:

Much of the treasure in chapter 3 is oversized ogre hooks, ogre armor and the like, stuff that not only the PC can't use, but that they are unlikely to even be able to sell. Who wants a +1 ogre hook? Unless you let it be re-hafted as a halberd or some such.

I can see there being plenty of rich, specialty collectors that would be interested in strange weapons from the uncivilized wilds of Varisia.

Any GM that doesn't allow Weapons, Armors, Items to resize to fit the character is missing a huge time/frustration saving technique (think the One Ring from the opening scene of LotR when it shrinks down to fit Isildur). That one houserule alone with make loot division and keep versus sell decisions so much easier to handle.

-Skeld