Can encounters give partial rewards?

[GM Chyro]

Hello,

So the team's fought against, and lost to, the final encounter's villains & henchmen.

The group of bads was almost defeated but one of two main villains did them in eventually, and the team is wondering if one can get partial/% credit for it, as the greater majority of opponents was defeated.

(credit; > money rewards)

As far as i know, and have done so far, one gets an encounter's reward only if the encounter is beaten.

So just to get their returning questions on the topic a definitive answer, yes or no?

[RealAlchemy]

If a villain "did them in" as you say, it is very difficult for dead people to loot a room and get the treasure.

[GM Chyro]

Well, to be more specific,

One survived, stabilizing far in the negatives. Had the villain make a heal check to see if they were dead or not, and the villain failed.

So far that they'd spend 16 hours of rest before waking up, at which i said all valuables were taken.

The hideout was compromised, after all.

[BigNorseWolf]

No to that one. The money you get is the bosses loot liquidated and divied up. Didn't defeat the boss? No loot to divy up.

[GM Chyro]

Ok. That's as definitive as it gets.

That's how i ruled it, but they really wanted to be sure there was truly no other option.

[Philippe Lam]

Partial rewards are the rarity and usually happen in noncombat situations. During combats, the norm is the all or nothing.

[BigNorseWolf]

I mean, if there are two bosses and you down one, pick up his body and leave your comrades body and run I suppose thats a way to get half loot...

[Philippe Lam]

Given one of the goals of the Society, there should be the opportunity, true ! They would need to depict the amount of earned GP NPC by NPC, in an absolute wouldn't be that difficult to calculate the percentages during an encounter.

[nosig]

I have seen several encounters in scenarios where the "loot" was actually something unknown and/or overlooked by the "monster". Is the "reward" an actual reward for killing the "villains & henchmen"? Do you get 5 gp a head for the goblins, and 25 gp for killing each of the bugbears? Killed 5 gobbos and one of the bugbears earns you 50gp... Did the last villain run away before the townsfolk showed up, or did he loot the PCs bodies of the valuables they had on them?

so - to answer your question "Can encounters give partial rewards?" I'd say it depends on the encounter and the reward... but for the most likely, no.

By the same token, if the PCs were put down and looted themselves... (even if they were not killed...) loosing an encounter can get expensive.

old story time:

Long ago in a long running home game, the PCs were captured and had their equipment taken from them. Later, after escaping, they encountered a group of Henchmen that had been outfitted with their stuff... It was really grim being on the receiving end of the magic weapons they had worked so hard to get in the first place! and we don't want to talk about that wand of fireballs!

[Belafon]

In Pathfinder Society play...

You can occasionally end up with partial rewards from an encounter, but usually only when one side or the other flees. The two ways I’ve seen this happen when playing/GMing:

1. Boss hits his “run away” condition and successfully flees. Party gets room loot and the loot of the other NPCs but not the items the BBEG was holding.

2. Party flees a tough fight, gears up/buffs, and returns. If they take a long time, the BBEG may have finished what he was doing and just left. They wouldn’t get his items, but they might get some hidden/securely affixed items from the room and maybe the items of any mooks they had killed earlier (if the BBEG didn’t take them). I tend to be pretty generous in those situations.

If the party outright flees and doesn’t return, they would only get whatever they grab on the way out. If the party is TPKed they wouldn’t get anything from that encounter but they wouldn’t lose anything from earlier encounters or from their gear. (Though of course they would have to pay for body recovery and raise dead/restorations.)

[BigNorseWolf]

Kevin Willis wrote:

1. Boss hits his “run away” condition and successfully flees. Party gets room loot and the loot of the other NPCs but not the items the BBEG was holding.

The boss was defeated, the party should get the loot unless the scenario says otherwise (and it really shouldn't, there's really not a lot you can do to stop a prepared casting from leaving)

[schattenstern]

@BigNorseWolf: There are some scenarios where you do not get a specific item the boss was usiing on the chronicle if they manage for flee (mostly semicharged wands) but you still get full GPs for the encounter. (You might not fulfill part of the secondary sucess conditions if that happens)
But even then this is more of a rare case and beating the boss so he flees will give the same rewards than killing him most of the time (and if not it is specifically written in the scenario -> For Example: If BigBad manages to escape cross the wand of greater Invis (4 charges) and the wand of dimension door (1 charge) from the chronicle)