Edgewatch Earned Income - Reward Alternative

[Imnotgoodwithnames]

My group and I started running Edgewatch last month. We are still in book 1, but thought I would share this because it could be useful for the other GMs on the forum. None of my group wanted to confiscate money or loot from the criminals in Edgewatch. They said it didn't feel right to them, and we had a great discussion about the ethical implications of paying city guards versus not. In the end, they felt like not being paid was a recipe for corruption, so I created a simple system where they are paid a stipend for being city guards.

The math is very simple. I use the Party Currency column from the Party Treasure by Level chart on page 508. Then I made an Earned Income chart based on those numbers, which each player rolls on at the end of the session. I figured that we usually take around 3 sessions per level, so I made a success roll on the chart the gp reward for that level divided by 3. For example, the total gp reward for a player at level one is 40, so I divided it by 3 for that session. A successful roll means they did a good job that session and received 13 gp from Edgewatch. For a critical success I divided the number by 2, on a failure I divided it by 4, and a critical failure I divided by 5. So at level one on a critical failure, they screwed up paperwork or something more terrible and only receive 8gp for the session. The great thing is that GMs can adjust the basic success number (and corresponding divisors) based on how many session you think the party will spend at any particular level.

The one caution I do have is looking at the numbers at higher levels. I am concerned that this method my not scale well at the high level. But for now my players are enjoying having a paying job in Absalom!

[Deriven Firelion]

I think I'm going to go a different path than this too. It seems a bit strange to tie in the murder-hobo idea into being cops who take what their prisoners have as pay. That would attract a whole lot of bad people to the profession.

[Benchak the Nightstalker]

I'm doing something similar--I yoinked the gp reward values from Pathfinder Society Organized Play, and I'm giving those out to the PCs each time they level.

Essentially, they get gold equal to what they'd earn for three PFS scenarios each time they level.

I copied the chunk from my houserules into it's own google doc, if anyone is interested:

AoE Treasure Houserule

Payout at level up is a bit game-y, but I've been playing it off as the funding for the Edgewatch being unreliable, and largely dependent on donations from fair organizers and wealthy citizenry--which tend to ramp up whenever the PCs capture notorious criminals or foil crimes (i.e. do adventurer stuff).

[O.W.]

I also set up an alternative reward system so that my players would not be forced to loot everything, to fine people as if they were shaking them down and to accept what would otherwise be considered bribes in order to stay relevant, and instead only be taking what their character would have.

I did not want to shower them under money, though, nor did I want to drop the plot point that the Edgewatch is underfunded.
So I told them their salaries were just enough to cover the cost of life and would not be taken into account in the game (as written).
Then, I set up a budget system, which determines a ceiling to how much money the Edgewatch would be ready to spend - for each PC - on equipment, consumables and other stuff. This budget rises as they gain recognition & influence, which are mechanically represented by the PCs' level.

I based myself on the Table 10-9: Party Treasure by Level on page 509 of the Core Rulebook, and divided the advised "Total Value" between each of them and tweaked the individual sums a bit.

The main draws of this system for me is that it feels quite plausible in the context of the AP, gives them a lot of liberty in their choice of gear (I told them that anything that wasn't uncommon or rarer was automatically available), gives some more life to the Edgewatch (I decided Corporal Batiste would be the one to manage this part, so it should drive them to interact with her), doesn't turn the PCs into gold hoarders since money is not - and never will be, nor should it - their objective in any way, and eliminates the incentive to power abuse.

[Philo Pharynx]

I've played and run the Zeitgeist adventure path from ENworld and it also has the PC's as constables.

What we did there was set a requisition value. Which is conveniently Wealth by Level. Basically, as they go up in ranks, they make more money. This has a great in-game explanation that they don't have much free resources now, but as they take in tax money from the Festival, they have more to offer.

Whenever they are at the precinct, they can turn in requisitioned material and request new stuff at a 1:1 ratio. Common stuff should be easy to get. Uncommon may take days to weeks, and rare isn't going to happen. This does let them refit if they know what they are going to face.

Officers are expected to turn in anything seized. The seizing officer has the first crack at requisitioning odd stuff that they find, so long as it's not considered a danger to the city. If they find out that they have stolen these items, it can lead to prison, fines, etc.

[narchy]

I handled it similarly to you. The party hated the idea of confiscating stuff.

I took the values from the party wealth table, and deducted anything they kept (Orvington's sword for example). One player has a relic, which I included in the calculation.

Then between chapters, they are free to requisition items from Edna, the Edgewatch's halfling quartermaster, up to that value. They know they can "bank" any unspent money.