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After having an enlightening conversation about the perceived problems with low level spell casters, it became clear that some tables are having trouble with the wealth distribution expectations of PF2 for treasure and rewards.
Table 10-10 of the CRB "Character wealth" (on page 510 of the CRB) is for players making characters that are coming in new to a campaign. It is a useful chart for GMs to keep in mind when players level up, to make sure no one player is falling behind the minimum expectations, but it is important to understand that it is a minimum expectation for how much useful inventory each character should have left at the start of each level, not a chart of how much wealth a character should earn over the course of a level. In game, GMs should follow table 10-9 (on page 509 of the CRB), for understanding how much treasure to give out to players in the course of actual play over a level. These numbers are much, much higher than the minimum amount on table 10-10, because it is an assumption of the game that players will spend their wealth on things other than permanent item bonus items.
Be sure to keep an eye on whether your players are taking the rune items that you are giving out and keeping 90% of the wealth by transferring those runes to martial weapons, but selling just about everything else and then dividing that remaining wealth up to everyone else. This will vastly unbalance the wealth by level in the party towards your martial players and leaving casters feeling like their characters are second tier characters.
PFS has very strong rules for keeping this from happening, and a GM that is homebrewing can keep a closer eye on the kinds of treasure they are putting in the party inventory (and looking at how it is getting used), but for GMs running pre-written adventures, I think there can be a tendency not to pay attention to items and character wealth except by keeping tabs every level on that minimum wealth by level chart. Be sure to look at the list of items at the start of every chapter in an AP and think about how those items will work for your party in play. Is it going to get distributed equally between all players? Are there items every player will find useful? Are the consumables listed likely to be used (and by everyone)? or are they going to get sold at half value all the time, reducing the amount of treasure for the party as a whole, while the runed items are going to be heavily used by martials and not accounted for in the sharing of treasure?
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I have (and this probably won't work for every table) sometimes marked consumables as "not-resellable" in order to encourage players to actually use them. Since things like "a 2nd level spell on a scroll" is much more useful for "someone who casts spells" than the 2-3 gold they would get after it's sold and the money distributed.
Certainly some consumables should be resellable, since you don't want to carry around 50 bulk of potions but I have found that if you reduce the calculus to "is now the best time to use the scroll" instead of "is using the scroll better than selling it and putting a downpayment on a permanent item" people actually use them more.
Obviously "non-resellable consumables" should not be part of the calculation for "party wealth." It's just an extra thing you do as the GM avoid the "playing field tilts towards martials" problem. IMO the GM should cultivate the belief that "using consumables does not make you poorer"
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Also to be aware of is with ABP. Spellcasters get very little from that, and in fact are actively penalized with the removal of things like Mage Armor.
The party and especially the spellcasting characters should be getting consumables still. And casters that need to learn their spells should either have the cost of that removed (leaving only the skill check and access requirements), be given additional bonus spells automatically learned, or be given wealth that can be used only for learning new spells.
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PFS has very strong rules for keeping this from happening, and a GM that is homebrewing can keep a closer eye on the kinds of treasure they are putting in the party inventory (and looking at how it is getting used), but for GMs running pre-written adventures, I think there can be a tendency not to pay attention to items and character wealth except by keeping tabs every level on that minimum wealth by level chart. Be sure to look at the list of items at the start of every chapter in an AP and think about how those items will work for your party in play. Is it going to get distributed equally between all players? Are there items every player will find useful? Are the consumables listed likely to be used (and by everyone)? or are they going to get sold at half value all the time, reducing the amount of treasure for the party as a whole, while the runed items are going to be heavily used by martials and not accounted for in the sharing of treasure?
The pre-written Paizo adventure paths are rather weak at giving treasure out at an appropriate rate. Some adventure paths, such as Rise of the Runelords, had a reputation for being short on loot in some modules.
And distributing treasure is one of the most difficult jobs for a GM. I might have a biased opinion about it because my players are very troublesome about loot. They give it away. They have done this for years in D&D, PF1, and PF2. For example, I commented on it back in November 2017, but it goes back to the 20th century.
My wife has played in RPGs run by many different GMs under many different systems. Some methods of distributing loot are dysfunctional. One D&D game she was in, the rule was that if a PC claimed a loot item, then it counted toward full price for their share, but if no-one claimed it, then it would be sold at half price and the wealth distributed evenly. This created an incentive to sell everything.
In my PF1 Iron Gods campaign, they distributed treasure by consensus to try to keep everyone at the same power level. The newbie player running the fighter felt shortchanged, so the party switched to even shares with one additional share for all-party resources such as wands of Cure Light Wounds. The fighter found that his budget was cut in half, because the other players had favored him as a newbie when distributing by consensus.
And I remember a D&D Greyhawk campaign where the party acted like family and just gave each item to whichever player could best use it. My wife's bard ended up with a collection of minor magic items. At 7th level the party was traveling through a hostile country in disguise with the bard pretending to be a evil wizard. We ended up in a fight with bridge tollkeepers who wanted most of our wealth as a toll. The bard stayed in character as a dark wizard and cast little wizardly effects with the consumables, boots, circlets, etc. that they carried. We had not realized how much magical power the bard had accumulated by gathering many limited-use magic items.
Unicore suggests giving the party gold to buy the consumables, such as scrolls, that benefit low-level spellcasters. Let me add that giving them the consumables directly in the loot does not work as well. I have seen potions and scrolls that I put into loot gather dust on the bottom of a bag of holding because the PCs have been saving it for later. And when later finally arrives, they are disappointed at the low healing or low damage or low DC of the item, because they are using it on a target 5 levels higher than the item after they saved the item for 4 levels. Let the party buy the consumable because a PC intends to use it soon.
PF2 wands are better, because the players understand that they get one use of the wand per day, so not using it wastes that daily use. But gold is the fairest treasure of them all.
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In my opinion, it's a general problem of PF2: loot of your level or under is not really interesting unless it's exactly the item the player wants.
I personally give higher level items. For a given level, I roll my loot on the next level table or even 2 levels above for big rewards. It makes everything more interesting and my players use items they would have sell otherwise.
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I think PF2 might be the most straightforward edition so far when it comes to planning loot. But you still need to plan.
Table 10-9 is the altar at which we pray. The message is simple: a 4-player party should get two on-level and two level+1 items each level. Just... figure out where you're gonna put those in the coming adventures.
This is such a big step up from earlier editions which were like "animals typically have no loot; dragons of the same CR have lots of loot; hope that most monsters you fight are rich". And then the GM has to keep track and try to balance it all out.
PF2 just cuts out the middleman and tells you what end result you're looking for and just plan to do that.
One point at which APs can easily fail: the CRB and especially GMG advise that half to three-quarters of the permanent items should be "relevant" to the PCs. Maybe not precisely what they're looking for, but close enough that you're hesitating to sell it for half price. But of course that's hard for an AP writer who doesn't know who's gonna be playing the AP.
So as a GM, when prepping a new dungeon layer, you basically need to figure out "what are the four permanent items written into this level, and are they an okay match for my party?"
The table 10-9 paradigm also creates an interesting situation: approximately half the party is getting on-level and the other half is getting above-level items. You'll want to keep an eye on whether there's enough rotation there with who gets the big shiny.
Another thing to keep an eye on: martial items and caster items. It's easy to predict that the martials will enjoy fundamental runes. Caster items are a lot more all over the place. A wand of a level 2 spell is a level 5 permanent item, but unless it's just the right spell, it might not really feel quite as good as a +1 armor rune. Even for the wizard.
I think PF2 might be the most straightforward edition so far when it comes to planning loot. But you still need to plan.
Table 10-9 is the altar at which we pray. The message is simple: a 4-player party should get two on-level and two level+1 items each level. Just... figure out where you're gonna put those in the coming adventures.
This is such a big step up from earlier editions which were like "animals typically have no loot; dragons of the same CR have lots of loot; hope that most monsters you fight are rich". And then the GM has to keep track and try to balance it all out.
PF2 just cuts out the middleman and tells you what end result you're looking for and just plan to do that.
One point at which APs can easily fail: the CRB and especially GMG advise that half to three-quarters of the permanent items should be "relevant" to the PCs. Maybe not precisely what they're looking for, but close enough that you're hesitating to sell it for half price. But of course that's hard for an AP writer who doesn't know who's gonna be playing the AP.
So as a GM, when prepping a new dungeon layer, you basically need to figure out "what are the four permanent items written into this level, and are they an okay match for my party?"
The table 10-9 paradigm also creates an interesting situation: approximately half the party is getting on-level and the other half is getting above-level items. You'll want to keep an eye on whether there's enough rotation there with who gets the big shiny.
Another thing to keep an eye on: martial items and caster items. It's easy to predict that the martials will enjoy fundamental runes. Caster items are a lot more all over the place. A wand of a level 2 spell is a level 5 permanent item, but unless it's just the right spell, it might not really feel quite as good as a +1 armor rune. Even for the wizard.
This gets at an important point that I feel is often overlooked when people are commenting about the effectiveness of casters. Especially lower level items (up until staves really) the permanent items that are designed for spell casters are incredibly easy to whiff on. I found a wand of sleep once as a level 3 oracle with a sorcerer dedication. I could use it...but it was a rank 1 wand of a spell with incapacitation. By level 3 it was a useless item. Had I been given 4 scrolls of sleep at level 1 though, I would have burned through them while they were still useful against targets I was commonly facing. Even things like a wand of rank 1 heal is of questionable long term utility compared to scrolls, because rather quickly it becomes an item I stick in my pack pack and only use between encounters when I remember it. It feels too rare in APs to find a wand that can cast spells that you get really excited about casting. Compare this to weapon runes and it furthers the myth that casters themselves are worse than martials, because it is very easy to see the utility of permanent martial items.
Wands are complicated further because it keeps occupying your hand after you have cast it once, so using wands in encounters is even more action intensive than scrolls. Like, between earning a wand as treasure, or an NPC who will make you one scroll of the same spell every day that you visit them, I would way rather get the NPC's scroll as treasure, even if I wasn't going to be able to visit them every day.
Future items or feats that let you do stuff like draw a scroll and use a metamagic action at the same time, or teleport different wands into your hand every round after the bandolier was activated would be cool caster focused treasure. Staves though can really pull a lot of weight once they become available, assuming you can find one with at least one top rank spell that you want to cast for several levels at the rank the staff has it, and a couple of lower rank spells that are useful as well. I am not sure if part of the balancing of spells attached to staves was awareness of "this is a good spell to be able to cast, even when it is a low rank spell slot" or not, but it makes a big difference when you are considering sinking a lot of money into a staff it is still going to be useful in 2 levels or if it is basically a really expensive clump of short lived scrolls with a decent resell value.
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The wealth by level table is not far off the party treasure level. Why you're making it seem like they are vastly different is beyond me.
And casters don't feel like second tier characters. This is a complete misnomer.
Party Treasure and Wealth for Starting Character
2nd level wealth by party 44 gold each versus 30 fold wealth per party member.
20th level 122,000 gold versus 112,000.
This is not making casters feel like 2nd tier characters. A total over exaggeration.
I don't know why you're buying the caster argument from a handful of people posting who don't have experience in this game.
It's same few folks who can't give up on the fact that casters are less powerful than PF1. Or wizard or witch players who find out those particular caster classes are bad.
Most caster classes are just fine. Consumables don't make caster classes any better because the complaints have nothing to do with number of slots and more to do with the high saving throws of enemies. Incap spells. Low damage of spells. Lack of magic item hit bonuses. None of that changes with consumables.
You're attributing something that isn't even close to the primary complaint of players complaining about casters. Casters could care less about consumables or scrolls for more slots.
They want spells to be more effective. They want incap spells gone or some change to make those types of spells feel like older versions of the game. They want items to add hit bonuses to their attack roll spells. None of that has anything to do with the amount of gold they get.
You spun up something that you think into a problem no one is having.
I don't use consumables has nothing to do with low gold or martials getting items. We have plenty of gold in my campaigns. It has everything to do with wanting enough gold to pick up my upgrades as soon as they are available. I'm not wasting my money on one shot items when I have to have a couple thousand to 17,000 gold available to get an upgrade at the level they become available.
That table you keep posting has nothing on it indicating I would get so much gold that I can buy those items, especially if I use that slightly more gold on consumables.
Hell, my group sells consumables because they are mostly useless and sell for good coin at you level up. Even a 4th level scroll is 70 gold, which sells for 35 gold each. That can add up.
Only buy high value items is how we run. Consumables are only high value if we need them to win, which is extremely rare.
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Some consumables are pretty ok, but only when you buy a few after the exponential gold scaling makes them a trivial investment. A scroll or two of spells you probably don't want to learn as a spont like water breathing for example. Or a fat stack of level 1 cognitive mutagens for your thaumaturge or level 3 energy mutagens for your martials.
I can't imagine wasting gold on a single use item near my level with pf2's economy.
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44 instead of 30 gp is almost 50%. It is a very big deal early on. At level 20, sure it is only just over 8%, but if it has been going on since level 1, it is a pretty big deal if the GM has consistently been doing it, and it very easily over rewards martials and punishes casters. That is the real overall point of this thread.
If you don’t like using consumables, that is a personal choice, but the game does expect you to use them and not for them to be treated like half value gems. You are definitely making things more difficult on the whole party if you are insisting on selling level 4 scrolls and not giving them to casters if they are of spells that can be useful. What that means will totally change from party to party, but hating them on principle is ignoring a very easy way to expand casters power.
A scroll of <first rank spell> is a level 1 item. A scroll of <second rank spell> is a level 3 item. IOW, the level of a scroll is the minimum level at which the magic user using it can learn and cast the spell.
A wand of <first rank spell> is a level 3 item. A wand of <second rank spell> is a level 5 item. IOW the level of a wand is the level at which the magic user using it can learn and casts spells of the next higher rank.
Given that scrolls are consumables and wands are permanent, this doesn't seem like a bad design decision to me.
Hm. The first level of Abomination Vaults has two 2nd level and two 3rd level permanent items, and 11 consumables of various levels up to three. In addition it contains at least 53 GP. It seems AV is a bit more generous than table 10-9. :-)
The APs generally are more generous than the table. The problem arises when the only loot that gets kept by the party is weapon and armor runes, and all the rest of it gets sold. Unless the martial characters are buying the runes they are keeping out of their own share, martial characters end up getting more treasure than casters, and table 10-9 and the text around it suggests that GMs try to make the permanent items and the consumables treasure the party will actually use. So if the party is selling it all, it can end up down closer to the floor of treasure to distribute to players, rather than a closer fit with that table 10-9 when playing that table generously to the players wants for magical items.
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Some consumables are pretty ok, but only when you buy a few after the exponential gold scaling makes them a trivial investment. A scroll or two of spells you probably don't want to learn as a spont like water breathing for example. Or a fat stack of level 1 cognitive mutagens for your thaumaturge or level 3 energy mutagens for your martials.
I can't imagine wasting gold on a single use item near my level with pf2's economy.
I am beginning to explore the possibilities of Orchestral Brooch with my 8th level Bard in PFS. Guaranteed critical on Inspire Heroics can spell the end of opponents when timed right.
Sure, it's a hefty amount of money, but it's an investment I am willing to make so that the party outperforms the final fights.