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Thread: D & D Megadungeon Sandbox and 4E
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Old 29th October 2008, 08:33 PM   #14 (permalink)
Badwe
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Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 211
Badwe Goblin Sharpshooter (Lvl 2)
Keep in mind those conversion ratios though: At no point does the 4th ed DMG advocate 1 floor = 1 PC level, but it does advocate that 8-10 encounters at PC Level X = enough XP to go to PC level X+1 and 10 treasure parcels of item Levels equal to X+4 through X+1 and some gold/gems/art/etc. If I had the DMG handy I might do some more elaborate analysis, but for now let me speak generally.

So you have this first floor. The PCs walk into it when they're level 1. It's big, really big, bigger than 8-10 encounters. You don't know what order the PCs will clear it, you don't even know how much they'll clear before stepping down to the second floor. You could assume second floor = level 2, but you already know that's not your intent.
What you DO know is the following: after the PCs do roughly 8-10 encounters of their level, they will go up by 1. In the course of that, they'll get 10 treasure parcels. They also will go up another level if afterwards they manage to do enough encounters to equal 8-10 of their new level. This, too, will yield 10 parcels. If you took the two PC levels as a whole, they're close enough that doing a certain order may speed up or slow down the process, but they should still hit 20 parcels total.

This is the logic behind the treasure parcel backup list: combine enough of the different groups of 10 item parcels, and you can seamlessly go from encounter to encounter. It doesn't really matter if they do all the EL 1 (to borrow a 3.x term) encounters and then move on to all the EL 2 and then move on to the EL 3 etc. etc. They'll get their either by taking down big baddies or by stomping lowbies, or a mix of both. Creating lists of equivalence between multiple tiers of items gives you the flexibility to adapt to whichever strategy they employ, ensure you're giving out level appropriate rewards, and creates a subtle nudge to delve deeper when the treasure dries up that isn't so heavy handed.

When I have some free time I may try to post an actual example to clarify what I mean.

Edit: this works in reverse as well: If your players are bold and quickly skip down below, equivalence tables ensure that those low level parcels find their way into their hands.

Last edited by Badwe; 29th October 2008 at 08:36 PM..
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