Gold found within scenarios...


GM Discussion


Ok I am quite new to PFS scenarios so I am not sure if this is old ground.

I understand that gold allocation for scenarios works in such a way that the players do not retain anything they pick up during the scenario and instead are allocated gold based on their performance (and the tier) at the end.

(Sadly it doesn't seem like my players have read and/or understood this)

My problem comes in that in some scenarios there are two things that can occur:

- You can encounter enemies who are holding gold coins
- You can pay NPCs to get what you want (usually a bribe)

Where I am going with this is that my PCs tried to pay a bribe to someone using coins they have taken off of his men (Scenario 5-04 Stolen Heir).

I called hell no on this and had the men shout about having their gold taken so the captain knew. He then insisted on them paying out of their own funds.

But this begs the question - can players use money obtained in the scenario to pay for other things in the confines of the scenario (and I don't mean healing afterwards or anything like that)

To me it would seem like that is not the intention

Right now the players are talking like they will still be up in gold which I don't think will be true (Scenario is actually only halfway through as I lost control a bit and they swallowed every red herring possible - but I will post about that in the Stolen Heir thread (or perhaps elsewhere if no-one sees that)

Thanks for any help

5/5 5/55/55/5

That is very much an oh hell no situation. That gold is part of your pay.

The only way something like that would matter is if you have a broke character, who picked up some gold to spend on a bribe. They can do it despite not having the gold on their chronicle sheet but they still have to pay for it at the end.

3/5

The season 8 guide has this comment of page 19:

Season 8 Guide Guide wrote:
Expendables: Any wealth spent or resources expended during the course of an adventure must be tracked and recorded on either the Chronicle Sheet or Inventory Tracking Sheet as applicable.

It is ok for a character to sell plundered loot mid-adventure for some extra pocket change, but that spent resource is still an expense that is coming out of their pay. So that does not get them 'free' gold.

Now taking this into a tangent where there are some inconsistencies: players are not charged for consuming looted loot in other ways (potions, wands, sundered items), but they are penalized for consuming looted gold on 'non-permanent costs' (tolls, bribes, living expenses and such). So we have a case where they can consume a looted Cure Light Wounds Potion without penalty (25g value), but if they spend 25 looted gold on a bribe they must cover the cost. I'd like to hear if others find this inconsistent?

5/5 5/55/55/5

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It is inconsistent but i'm fine with living with said inconsistency as long as it means we don't need to track the potion chugging contests

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I actually like that inconsistency because it means there are whole classes of items that get used in PFS that would never get used otherwise. Arrows of Slaying, strange expensive scrolls, unusual wands, feather tokens... it's one of the quirks I enjoy having. Even if it does make things a little inconsistent.

Plus do you really want to track wand charges and deduct those from the cost of the wand on everyone's chronicles? Seems like too much of a pain to be worth it, to me.


Thanks everyone.
Your responses are in line with what I thought

3/5

Ya, I definitely do not want to track wand charges spent from loot "Here is a looted wand, but remember every charge is 7.5g out of your paycheck". And I agree that it encourages use of odd and unusual items, which makes a better play experience.

What about being more lenient about using gold found in the scenario? There is rarely enough to effect how the scenario plays, and any retained purchases would by tracked and paid for as normal.

(I think this is a bad idea and is to easy to be cheesed - but work is slow today).


Well in the scenario I am referring to someone wants a 50gp payments and you can take 48gp off his men you fight immediately before hand

To me this misses the point of his intentions. He wants to make up expenses for sitting in the vineyard for days. I would assume they would be the expenses of the whole group. They are in the same net position if gold is taken from the brigands and given to the leader

That is mainly why I am reluctant. It makes the decision too easy . And promotes too much unscrupulous behaviour in the future. You cannot pay someone in wand charges per the text...

2/5 5/5

Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Huh, it was my understanding that anything (gold, consumables, etc.) described as loot in the text of the scenario could be used in the scenario without penalty at the end (unless specifically called out). But I'm very new too, and could be wrong.


That might be the case. But in the scenario I am describing I would think it is against the spirit / intention of the author

It also doesn't make any sense to pay a captain with his men's money and then send them all off back to where they came from

The Exchange 5/5

Ward Davis wrote:
The season 8 guide has this comment of page 19:
Season 8 Guide Guide wrote:
Expendables: Any wealth spent or resources expended during the course of an adventure must be tracked and recorded on either the Chronicle Sheet or Inventory Tracking Sheet as applicable.

It is ok for a character to sell plundered loot mid-adventure for some extra pocket change, but that spent resource is still an expense that is coming out of their pay. So that does not get them 'free' gold.

Now taking this into a tangent where there are some inconsistencies: players are not charged for consuming looted loot in other ways (potions, wands, sundered items), but they are penalized for consuming looted gold on 'non-permanent costs' (tolls, bribes, living expenses and such). So we have a case where they can consume a looted Cure Light Wounds Potion without penalty (25g value), but if they spend 25 looted gold on a bribe they must cover the cost. I'd like to hear if others find this inconsistent?

I actually hit this is an unusual way. I really like the spell coin shot, and use it a lot. Early on in my adventuring career the party recovered a stash of loot that included some scrolls, some Cure Light Wounds potions and some gold. The Alchemist in the party grabbed the potions to use with his discovery Healing Bomb (so he could throw them as part of a bomb). One of the other PCs picked up the scrolls - stating we could use them as bribes if nothing else... but when I scooped up a dozen of the gold pieces to use with the spell coin shot, it was explained that using those coins would reduce the party treasure (requiring us to calculate how to split 12 gp five ways - if I actually used all 12. If I only used 4, then we would all have our gold award reduced by 0.8 gp each). Rather than reduce the party gold, I just offered to reduce my own share by the 12 gp... which seemed to work, though the Judge stated he was being nice to allow me to use money that had not been awarded yet... as we didn't actually get access to the GP from the adventure until we got the chronicle at the end of the game....

Sense then I've been real careful to always keep 21 gp, 21 sp, and 21 pp on my PC - just so I have enough coins to use with the spell... realizing that I actually can't use the coins we find until after the game we find them in.

But it's ok to throw the CLW potions we find.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

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I can't find the post right now but one of the previous Campaign Coordinators (Mike Brock, I believe) confirmed that if you spend gold you find - or sell treasure then spend that gold - during the scenario it reduces the amount earned on the chronicle.

The reason was that a bright line needs to be drawn somewhere. Using the gold to pay off a planar ally was the extreme example. But you can lower that bar again and again. Needing an in-game restoration. How about an NPC casting heroes' feast? Transportation bribes? A couple of coins for coin shot? No matter where you put that line, there is going to legitimately be a use that is "just a little bit more, why not allow this one more thing?" So the line is drawn at Zero.

The rest of that post goes on to say (paraphrasing) "Yes, you are allowed to use found items. If it's too unfair that you can use items and not gold, we can explore the possibility of not allowing players to use items found in scenarios either."

Anyone able to find that post?

The Exchange 5/5

Kevin Willis wrote:

I can't find the post right now but one of the previous Campaign Coordinators (Mike Brock, I believe) confirmed that if you spend gold you find - or sell treasure then spend that gold - during the scenario it reduces the amount earned on the chronicle.

The reason was that a bright line needs to be drawn somewhere. Using the gold to pay off a planar ally was the extreme example. But you can lower that bar again and again. Needing an in-game restoration. How about an NPC casting heroes' feast? Transportation bribes? A couple of coins for coin shot? No matter where you put that line, there is going to legitimately be a use that is "just a little bit more, why not allow this one more thing?" So the line is drawn at Zero.

The rest of that post goes on to say (paraphrasing) "Yes, you are allowed to use found items. If it's too unfair that you can use items and not gold, we can explore the possibility of not allowing players to use items found in scenarios either."

Anyone able to find that post?

You cannot use "found money" to bribe an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. Got it. This would reduce the gold you earn during the adventure. unless you happen to be in the correct faction, have the faction card for season 8 and have completed 2 faction goals to earn the Slush Fund... then you are reimbursed the expenses..

But you can use a "found magic item" to get an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance!") Got it.

It just seems kind of weird that we can have PCs that throw treasure gained (like using Healing Potions for Healing bomb, or Scrolls with the Archetype that uses them for weapons/shields) - as long as that treasure you throw at the monster ISN'T money. I mean, the money isn't SPENT, it's used as a weapon.

But we can't use "found money" as weapons - that's using the money.

But then I also think it's kind of weird that we can use a Fly[/] potion we found, but we can't swap it at the local Potion shop for a [I]lesser restoration which is valued at less that half the cost.

The Exchange 4/5 5/5

First Person Shooter wrote:
But you can use a "found magic item" to get an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance!") Got it.

We are very much in shades of grey here, but you can't give an NPC a non-consumable item (unless you are willing to give up the gold reward you would have gotten for it at the end). It's no different from throwing the cloak into a river of lava; you lose treasure for doing so.

Consumable magic items are treated differently. Because the expectation is that the PCs will use them in the standard fashion (drink a potion, read a scroll, etc.). Are there other uses? Sure.

But again, Campaign Leadership doesn't want to have to make an exhaustive list of what is and isn't allowed because there will always be another edge case that isn't covered in the list. Paizo simply doesn't have the personnel resources required to get far enough into the weeds to keep the campaign wealth level equivalent around the world. So there's only two options: you can use consumables (however you want) without losing treasure or you lose money every time you do so much as drink a potion of cure light wounds you found in the adventure. Right now we can use consumables without penalty. I prefer that to the alternative.

The Exchange 5/5

Kevin Willis wrote:
First Person Shooter wrote:
But you can use a "found magic item" to get an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance!") Got it.

We are very much in shades of grey here, but you can't give an NPC a non-consumable item (unless you are willing to give up the gold reward you would have gotten for it at the end). It's no different from throwing the cloak into a river of lava; you lose treasure for doing so.

Consumable magic items are treated differently. Because the expectation is that the PCs will use them in the standard fashion (drink a potion, read a scroll, etc.). Are there other uses? Sure.

But again, Campaign Leadership doesn't want to have to make an exhaustive list of what is and isn't allowed because there will always be another edge case that isn't covered in the list. Paizo simply doesn't have the personnel resources required to get far enough into the weeds to keep the campaign wealth level equivalent around the world. So there's only two options: you can use consumables (however you want) without losing treasure or you lose money every time you do so much as drink a potion of cure light wounds you found in the adventure. Right now we can use consumables without penalty. I prefer that to the alternative.

and so...

in Confirmation:
the players should then loose 1000gp of treasure value if they give the Cloak of Resistance to the Gilman in the cave? (that would be something like 500gp sale value? or the 1000gp value of the actual Cloak?) Seems kind of harsh - but I guess I can start reducing the GP rewards by 100gp or so per player... but only if they give the Cloak to get the Diplomacy bonus that the scenario mentions, and seems to push the PCs into doing... and so that's why my comment above was ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance?!")

...or is this an exception to the "you can't give an NPC a non-consumable item (unless you are willing to give up the gold reward you would have gotten for it at the end)."?

Dark Archive 4/5

First Person Shooter wrote:
Kevin Willis wrote:
First Person Shooter wrote:
But you can use a "found magic item" to get an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance!") Got it.

We are very much in shades of grey here, but you can't give an NPC a non-consumable item (unless you are willing to give up the gold reward you would have gotten for it at the end). It's no different from throwing the cloak into a river of lava; you lose treasure for doing so.

Consumable magic items are treated differently. Because the expectation is that the PCs will use them in the standard fashion (drink a potion, read a scroll, etc.). Are there other uses? Sure.

But again, Campaign Leadership doesn't want to have to make an exhaustive list of what is and isn't allowed because there will always be another edge case that isn't covered in the list. Paizo simply doesn't have the personnel resources required to get far enough into the weeds to keep the campaign wealth level equivalent around the world. So there's only two options: you can use consumables (however you want) without losing treasure or you lose money every time you do so much as drink a potion of cure light wounds you found in the adventure. Right now we can use consumables without penalty. I prefer that to the alternative.

and so...

** spoiler omitted **

...or is this an exception to the "you can't give an NPC a...

Actually, in your example, if you do that, you're supposed to cross the item off the chronicle sheet. So yes, there are written in repercussions for giving an NPC an item.

The Exchange 5/5

Alanya wrote:
First Person Shooter wrote:
Kevin Willis wrote:
First Person Shooter wrote:
But you can use a "found magic item" to get an NPC in game to supply you with information you want. ("What do you mean, give him the Cloak of Resistance!") Got it.

We are very much in shades of grey here, but you can't give an NPC a non-consumable item (unless you are willing to give up the gold reward you would have gotten for it at the end). It's no different from throwing the cloak into a river of lava; you lose treasure for doing so.

Consumable magic items are treated differently. Because the expectation is that the PCs will use them in the standard fashion (drink a potion, read a scroll, etc.). Are there other uses? Sure.

But again, Campaign Leadership doesn't want to have to make an exhaustive list of what is and isn't allowed because there will always be another edge case that isn't covered in the list. Paizo simply doesn't have the personnel resources required to get far enough into the weeds to keep the campaign wealth level equivalent around the world. So there's only two options: you can use consumables (however you want) without losing treasure or you lose money every time you do so much as drink a potion of cure light wounds you found in the adventure. Right now we can use consumables without penalty. I prefer that to the alternative.

and so...

** spoiler omitted **

...or is this an exception to the "you can't give an NPC a...

Actually, in your example, if you do that, you're supposed to cross the item off the chronicle sheet. So yes, there are written in repercussions for giving an NPC an item.

The players loose the access - but not the gold. If they use the item as suggested in the scenario, (as a bribe) they still receive the gold reward (83gp each for recovering the item - that they use later as a bribe). It is not a consumable, so "spending it" would be reducing the treasure reward... only it doesn't... but this is sort of a non-issue. No one wants to penalize beginning characters for doing "the right thing" - and not playing greedy murder-hobos. "Yeah, you did the GOOD thing there giving him the magic item, so I guess I'll reduce the gold you get on the Chronicle by 20%". No one does this. We let the players "spend the equipment"... Heck, the loss of the item was originally to be off-set by gaining access to a partially charged wand (per the author), but that seems to have been cut during pre-publish editing.

I'm not really upset by the way things are done now - it just strikes me as kind of odd that the players are allowed to "spend recovered equipment" for things like bribes, but are not allowed to use coins as weapons (because the destruction of the coins counts as "spending recovered money" which must be paid for out of final gold reward.).

And really - it's at most 30 gp per spell cast (used three attacks - and normally only 3 gp per spell cast), about what a flask of holy water costs. (Just remember - if you use up a recovered holy water flask attacking a monster, you don't have to pay for it, but if you use up a recovered gold piece attacking a monster, it comes out of party treasure).

;-)

3/5

Any suggestions on a better way of doing things that doesn't devolve into using looted gold for high cost temporary boosts (planar binding) or involve pawning looted gear to make a very large petty change account.


In 5e organized play you get to distribute looted gear between the party members and they can keep it (nice and social and RPGish :)). You can also use acquired items and treasure during the adventure. That part is pretty much consistent and logical. It also feels more immersive for players if they actually get to keep (and use or sell) the loot they acquire during the adventure... Giving players access to buy at the end of adventure items acquired in the adventure by the party (which are on the CS) is a nice bonus.


Re: 5e

So is it only treasure they keep and not items ? Or do they get to keep the items and have an option to buy it? That second sounds daft and is just a pitch for the type of player who want everything

Also what if there is one extremely powerful item in the scenario? Only one person gets it. That would lead to fights. I assume it is just low value items ?

As an aside I didn't realise there was a 5e organised play. Where did organised play originate? I have only heard of pathfinder so it would suggest more attempts by wizards to piggyback off of paizo success after the 4e debacle. But I am almost certain I am wrong and the organised play existed before PFS (it is just a tricky thing to research)

I also like the gold reward at the end because it means the group are not encouraged to murder everything they encounter. Or be demotivated by some scenarios that there is clearly no treasure (like Library of the lion). Or be encouraged to avoid encounters or leave items behind (again like Library of the lion )

Sovereign Court *

Organized play existed for decades before pathfinder existed. PFS is simply standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before them.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with this, but it is far, far from original to pathfinder.


The King In Yellow wrote:

Organized play existed for decades before pathfinder existed. PFS is simply standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before them.

Mind you, there is nothing wrong with this, but it is far, far from original to pathfinder.

I assumed this was the case but had never had the exposure to have heard of it

What systems used it?


Lanathar wrote:

Re: 5e

So is it only treasure they keep and not items ? Or do they get to keep the items and have an option to buy it? That second sounds daft and is just a pitch for the type of player who want everything

Also what if there is one extremely powerful item in the scenario? Only one person gets it. That would lead to fights. I assume it is just low value items ?

As an aside I didn't realise there was a 5e organised play. Where did organised play originate? I have only heard of pathfinder so it would suggest more attempts by wizards to piggyback off of paizo success after the 4e debacle. But I am almost certain I am wrong and the organised play existed before PFS (it is just a tricky thing to research)

I also like the gold reward at the end because it means the group are not encouraged to murder everything they encounter. Or be demotivated by some scenarios that there is clearly no treasure (like Library of the lion). Or be encouraged to avoid encounters or leave items behind (again like Library of the lion )

In 5e organized play is called D&D Adventurers League. They keep all the treasure, consumables and magic items (everything that is listed under the treasure/loot). Most of the monster equipment you can't sell because it is of low quality but you can use it if there is really need for something like that. If there are six of you in the party and you find/loot/steal/take one magical sword - you need to decide as a group who would (permanently) get it and who would have most use of it, and you should distribute equally magical (and other) items among the party members (usually there are multiple of magical items per adventure as it is taken into account that there is a party of PCs). You can also trade magical items between other players in organized play, so there is that. Not a big deal if you miss some magical item unless you are really a crybaby. But they don't get the option to buy multiple copies of one item, or that they would have to buy the original item/items if they want to keep them, like you get to buy them in PFS/SFS if you get access to them in the CS.

4/5

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I've run a couple different forms of Organized Play, and I actually prefer the "you have what's on your Chron Sheet" rather than the "as a group of strangers, you need to decide who is getting what." Sure it's less realistic, but it cuts down on inter-table conflict. (Yes, I've seen where the later has been a problem.)

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