For my players of the Blood of Champions campaign, please don't read this thread if you find it.
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I could use some GM advice here, because I'm in a bit of a pickle, between choosing between two possible problems. Some of it is my fault, some simply the players being particularly clever.
I am doing my own adaptation of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension and the Veinstone Pyramid; the short version is that the Veinstone Pyramid has no entry, but rather there are portals in from the other four pyramids. However, these portals do not stay open. Just in case my players read this, I'll keep it vague - there is a mechanism that allows moving around the main pyramid, but fully activating it deactivates the portal entries. At least, that was the plan.
I had established beforehand that the four lesser pyramids had been well plundered, but due to the difficulty of opening the portals, the main pyramid had barely been touched, and so had vast wealth within.
What happened: My party of 6th level characters found a way into the main pyramid and found one of the treasure hordes, but then couldn't work out how to leave. Before this happened, Shadows attacked... killing a character.
The player made a new character (actually, reintroduced an old character that he had switched from earlier) and I was left with a conundrum. I didn't want to just make the player wait around until the party solved the current problem, so I let him make his way to the pyramids, go through the portal, and rejoin the group. But... based on how I had already established the portals, his entry allowed the party to leave.
So now I have a 6th level party with the treasure of a higher level group - starting wealth between 7th and 8th level, so not a huge imbalance. But! This also allowed them to buy other things... like two scrolls of Dimension Door. They returned to the main pyramid, and found two more treasure hordes. (In fact, there is one more - one for each of the Pharaohs.) Now, this much treasure isn't a problem if they gain a few levels working through the pyramid. But if they leave and spend it, I have several levels worth of really over powered characters.
This is where the Dimension Door comes in. The arcane spellcaster (actually a monk with a single level of wizard) uses a scroll to take him and another party member out of the pyramid. Two are left behind. The treasure is with these two, thankfully. And they portal they were using to enter the main pyramid has been deactivated. (They don't know this yet.)
But now I'm stuck...
I can either change my mind about the stuck portal (in which case they can rejoin the party fairly quickly, I don't have a split party, but now they can easily leave and will have a large budget to go shopping with and (given that they haven't made it public knowledge of how they got in and out) no worries about someone plundering behind them -OR- I stick with my plan, which means I have to deal with a split party; the two outside will have to have a separate adventure to find a way back in (or use their other scroll of DD which nips the problem in the bud anyhow), while the two inside will have to survive until their comrades return. Separate game sessions aren't really that feasible (we game at one player's house most of the time, so I can't run a game for the other two without him). In addition, I still have the problem that if the two outside find a way back in (whether with the portal they have previously used or a different one) the whole party gets out and cashes in the loot they have found, thus, overpowered again.
TLDR - I planned treasure thinking my players would gain several levels before being able to cash it in, but they found a way around that required a party split; looking for ideas that would maintain wealth balance without requiring long term party split.
OK, they've got the treasure. But how are they going to spend it? Is it mostly treasure items -- gold, jewels, art pieces, generic magical items they won't want to necessarily use themselves -- or are there lots of magical items that they will personally find useful?
If you've already told them what the treasures hold, you may be a little stuck, unless they're receptive to the idea, "hey guys, I came up with these treasure hoards in the anticipation that you'd be a couple levels higher when you got them. Any chance we could dial it back just a bit?"
If you haven't told them what the treasure holds, make it mostly things that they'll have to sell in order to make use of them. Then consider what the effect of trying to dump all the treasure at once on a limited market. How big is the city they're in? How long will it take before no one wants to buy yet another tapestry of the ancients, and they have to travel to another big city to sell? They may have to contract with art dealers, gold brokers, and so forth to sell the treasure. They may need to agree for magic item dealers to take the items on consignment and get their cash when it sells.
If you've told them what it holds, and you planned lots of items they can personally use, or they've got access to the markets of a major metropolis, you can simply adjust things. Wealth of two levels higher can be treated by increasing the APL by one level, and making encounters more challenging accordingly.
The treasure was left vague, but generally stuff they need to sell to get money. However, the nearest city is Sothis, which is a major metropolis and in Golarion pretty much the top spot for selling treasure plundered from pyramids.
I may just have to bump up the challenge ratings, as you said. Lol, or just throw something of their current APL at each half of the split party. If they TPK, well, it's stuff they could have handled if they hadn't split... ;-)
(I'm kidding on that last. Mostly.)
Though I could say that their first haul temporarily exhausted the market and it needs a bit of time to recover, but they may decide to wait anyhow... unless one of my other active plots, or a brand new one, makes that infeasible.
It's not always a terrible thing for PCs to be off of the APL on occasion. Sometimes an adventure will leave you above or below APL for a while, and then over time your level catches up to your loot, or your loot catches upto your level depending on which one was behind.
A time spent below APL is a challenging time, and the treasure that eventually catches you up feels all the more rewarding. A time above APL is a time when the players can enjoy feeling particularly powerful for a while. Neither situation is really a problem unless you get stuck in it, or continue to move further and further away from APL instead of eventually heading back towards it.
...As for the split party: honestly you may want to just weasel them back together as quickly as possible (probably by unsticking the portal) and let them enjoy being powerful for a bit. Sitting around and watching other people play because the party is split isn't a fun experience.
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I like the idea of exhausted markets, give the players some downtime. While they're waiting for good prices, get the party attacked by a group of bandits/raiders that heard about them getting the score of a lifetime. put the bandits a couple levels higher then an party to give them a real challenge.
Did any one in the party appraise/detect magic on any of the treasure? give them some cursed loot- something they could use, but unless they really investigate the loot, it has some consequences.
you could alternatively, encourage the players to invest rather than just outright spend the cash. donate some cash to a clergy or church as a precaution to character death.
They could hire some cohorts from said church that could follow them around and keep them healed up between encounters- and each use of the services is credited to the amount they donated to the church.
investing in other services, like the blacksmith, apothecary, scholar, etc could be used, so when they decide to say upgrade their weapons and armor, instead of spending the cash- it's credited to what they already invested.
The Mummy's Mask adventure path had something similar where due to all the government sanctioned grave robbing, the market was flooded with artifacts (historical, not artifact-artifacts) and stuff so the resale price was a lot less than it would have been. So you could do a thing where do to reasons, the market isn't giving as much cash or value for the goods.
As with seems to be quite normal for a rob the graves adventure, there are always people wanting to rob the robbers :) Robbery can occur as traditional, or via merchant robbery through pricing and stuff :P
The party being split is fine. There are a ton of creative ways to group the players together
Too much money isn't to huge of a problem. Shave some gold for off the reward for the next few levels and increase the cr a little until then
Also money is a very effective adventure hook. Especially in the form of old valuable relics. This can easily attract bandits, archaeologists, cultists, insane collectors, con men, a wizard that needs funds for research, anyone who needs a loved one resurrected, pickpockets, dragons, an amoral adventuring party, a shady sheriff who accuses them of being bandits, etc.
Splitting the party is manageable. You just have to switch between each group relatively quickly so both groups are engaged. Like, every 5 minutes or less.
I once accidentally split the party in three! Two pairs of PCs had a couple battles simultaneously and the poor cavalier soloed a bunch of empty rooms. At least he got to practice sundering doors. If I had to do it over again, I would have added a combat encounter for the cavalier too (it was in a mostly abandoned temple, so no social encounters).
I would tell your players you screwed up, and introduce a minor ret-con.
It makes sense that other than the portals, teleportion/dimension door doesn't work in the pyramid, otherwise it would have been looted long ago. Put your PCs back together in the pyramid, let them continue the adventure, and when they get out the wealth shouldn't be a problem.
Changing the past isn't great, but in this case I think it would make your game a lot better and I expect your players will understand and be forgiving.
New character could come in via a spell mishap from a planar travel spell. Result: Stuck halfway through the portal, and the party needs to UMD him the rest of the way.
Why the planar spell? Misidentified scroll + UMD failure. Cursed item. Undefined plot hook for later. Whatever.
/cevah