AP Treasure and Random Encounters: Pre-calculated or Roll?

[DM Shade]

I'm DMing a Jade Regent game, and have been calculating treasure rewards for monsters and rolling for random encounters in Varisia (still book 1). An Ankheg here, a jade stone with a Sinspawn there, a small band of goblin raiders led by a commando ripped from RotRL--pretty much within guidelines for CR and treasure encounters.

But I'm starting to think if the treasure parcels are built-into the adventure. If that is the case, I'm giving players more treasure than I should.

So, is the amount of treasure in APs pre-calculated to follow Wealth per level, or should I continue providing additional treasure as per CR?

[Gwaihir Scout]

I had the same question when I started. The treasure the APs have built in is sufficient—more than WBL, even. You can ignore where the enemies say they have standard treasure for their CR.

On the other hand, the weapon and armor loot from random encounters that use them (the ones built into their statblock) usually doesn't add enough wealth to be worth worrying about. You can let the party pick that up after the encounter.

[taks]

I agree with Gwaihir Scout. In fact, the APs probably have a few levels ahead of WBL until near the end - being more than 1 level ahead at 17th level is difficult because the range is so wide at that point. I very rarely give out treasure during random encounters unless it is one based on a creature that is already called out in the AP itself. For example, if there are random patrols in an area with magical equipment, they'll get that equipment (Giantslayer book 4, in particular, had patrols with decent equipment).

Of course, I don't do random encounters often, either, but only because the APs also tend to have more than enough to get them through the levels appropriately and my parties scour everything (besides, it slows us down).