Request: Reduce DM Award Gold

For the most part, I think the DM Awards given out for running AL modules is reasonable, but over the past year or so, having seen different characters both locally and at conventions being played 'organically' and being built via DM Awards, I began to suspect that DM Awards were being far too generous with their gold awards. Characters built with DM awards always seemed to have better equipment, tons of healing potions, and those characters were more than happy to step up and pay for party expenses incurred within a module, as if they had far more gold than they knew what to do with.

So I decided to do the math. I went through the Season Two modules, assuming a party of three PCs played every module except DDEX 2-1, earned the minimum XP award for each module, but earned every bit of treasure allowable in each module. (Note: in some modules, it's not possible to earn all the treasure in the final treasure list -- example, one module lists the treasure that can be looted from guards and also an award given to the PCs if they don't fight the guards. I left the smaller of the two amounts out of my calculations.)

First, a reminder -- every time a DM runs a Season Two (or later) module, she receives gold equal to half of the XP she earns from the module.

There are two adventures where a party of three PCs that earn all the available gold will end up earning slightly more than 50% of the minimum XP award -- the two modules that comprise the two-part Oubliette/Fort Dalton adventures. In each of those, each character in the party will earn just over 50% of the minimum XP award. However, in most of the adventures, such a party can be expected to earn roughly one-third of the minimum XP award in gold pieces, and in a few, the treasure seems very light in comparison to the minimum XP award (both DDEX 2-3 The Drowned Tower and DDEX 2-6 Breath of the Yellow Rose offer just over 22% of the minimum XP award in gold to each participating character), so that, for the season, a character who plays in every season 2 adventure and earns minimum XP will gain 19,500 XP, but who earns his max gold share will earn 6155 gold pieces, for a ratio of 31.5% GP to XP.

This is the greatest possible ratio of XP to gold available to a player character from a season 2 adventure: if you adjust the presumptions, you also adjust the final award outcome. For example, increasing the party size from three to five PCs doesn't change the XP award, but does change the per-character gold award, as there is no additional treasure added to the adventures, but there are two more PCs to claim shares, to the point where the GP to XP ratio falls from 31.5% to 19%. A PC who earns the 19,500 minimum XP award for Season 2 in a five-character party will have earned 3693 gold from the maximum possible gold award. Yet a DM who runs enough adventures in Season 2 to have earned 19,500 XP worth of DM awards will have nearly 10,000 gp from the same modules.

I suspect doing this same analysis for Season 3 modules will result in the same general conclusion -- PCs gain a much smaller share of gold as a percentage than DMs do. Keep in mind as well that this calculation gives the maximum possible ratio for PCs -- most AL tables likely do not earn minimum XP repeatedly, and likely also don't find every scrap of treasure available in a given module, so a more realistic estimate of gold earned by a PC as a percentage of XP would be significantly lower.

My feeling is that the maximum possible DM gold award that is justifiable given the possible awards for PCs would be to earn 30% of the XP award for running a module, and a more realistic award would be for the DM to earn 20% of the XP award. These awards would still likely be higher than almost all PCs get from playing the same modules by ratio, and thus characters fueled by DM awards would still have more gold than a PC built organically, yet the reduced award ratio would help to ensure that the DM character does not have so much more gold than an organic PC that it seems embarrassing.

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Pauper

I'm not sure why you see this as a problem. It's going to happen eventually anyway with every PC. There just isn't anything to spend gold on.

My level 7 tempest cleric got platemail, and that wasn't scrimping and saving, but "organically", as you put it. Now what does he have to look forward to buying? Nothing. Maybe he can buy a horse or ship just because, but...why?

So let them have their gear. It isn't like they can upgrade without finding magic items.

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You can't please everyone. There are people saying the DM awards are too generous and those who say it doesn't go far enough

KahlessNestor said:

I'm not sure why you see this as a problem. It's going to happen eventually anyway with every PC. There just isn't anything to spend gold on.

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There's plenty to spend gold on. Just out of the Player's Basic Rules:

- potions of healing (50gp) [more healing is always helpful]
- alchemist's fire (50gp) [useful against monsters vulnerable to fire and whose regeneration can be 'shut off' by fire]
- vials of acid (25gp) [useful against monsters whose regeneration can be 'shut off' by acid; can be used to damage objects and constructs that are otherwise immune or resistant to non-magical weapon damage]
- anti-toxin (50gp) [grants advantage on saves versus poison for 1 hour -- useful for non-dwarves]
- caltrops (1 gp for a bag of 20) [(1)]
- climber's kit (25gp) [everybody always wants to tie ropes to each other to avoid falling off cliffs and sheer surfaces; with one of these, you don't need to, as you can't fall more than 25 feet from the point where you used an action to anchor yourself]
- healer's kit (5gp) [automatically stabilize an ally with no Medicine check required; even better when paired with the Healer feat, especially at low level]
- holy water (25gp) [deal radiant damage to undead and fiends that are otherwise resistant or immune to non-magical weapon damage]
- lantern, bullseye (10gp) [sheds light in a 120 foot cone (60 feet bright; 60 feet dim) in a specific direction; very useful in dungeon environments, as few creatures have effective attacks from beyond this range]
- portable ram (4gp) [need to get through a locked door that your thief can't pick? Have any other character in the party help you wield this and gain both advantage and +4 to your Strength check to break down the door]
- mule (8gp) [carries 420 pounds of gear and/or treasure without slowing down, and at 40 feet speed is faster than most of the party, so doesn't slow overland travel]

(1) - Caltrops are so amazingly useful that I'm surprised I don't see them in every adventuring party -- you spread them out as an action and they fill a 5-foot square. Any creature that moves through that square (and isn't flying or moving at half or less of their ground speed) has to succeed at a DC15 Dexterity saving throw or stop moving, then suffers a movement penalty until it receives healing. This is very helpful for monks, swashbuckler rogues, wizards, and any other character that relies on being able to out-distance an opponent to prevent himself from taking serious damage. It's significantly better than ball bearings, a superficially similar item, in that the save DC is higher (15 vs 10), and the effect is much more significant (stop moving now and take a move penalty going forward vs fall prone).

My level 7 tempest cleric got platemail, and that wasn't scrimping and saving, but "organically", as you put it.

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Well, sure, I'm not saying PCs can't save up significant money. It's just that, if I used DM awards to start a character, I could start a level 3 tempest cleric with plate mail, because the 3000 XP I spent to get him to level 3 also gave me the 1500 gp I needed for the plate mail. That just doesn't seem equitable to me. If DMs were only getting 20% of their DM award XP in gold, you'd need to have enough awards to get to level 5 to start with plate mail, which still isn't wholly equitable, but since you're starting at tier 2, that at least seems more defensible as to why you'd have better armor.

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Pauper

kalani said:

You can't please everyone. There are people saying the DM awards are too generous and those who say it doesn't go far enough

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I'd like to think the campaign staff isn't quite so dismissive of reasonably thought-out arguments.

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Pauper

How many adventures would it take for a DM to earn that much experience and gold? How much experience and gold does the DM earn only considering running each of the adventures once? Does this take into account that the characters built organically would have magic items not available to the DM?

Also, your numbers seem off above. The 3000 XP would allow you to reach 4th level, which will get you to 5th level if your DM rewards include downtime. Third level would only be 900 XP, which would give you 450gp. A nice little start, but not even half-plate.

Pathkeeper24601 said:

How many adventures would it take for a DM to earn that much experience and gold?

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Based on my DM log, roughly two seasons.

How much experience and gold does the DM earn only considering running each of the adventures once?

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Many DMs run adventures more than once -- if only to get the appropriate DM award for that season.

Does this take into account that the characters built organically would have magic items not available to the DM?

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DM awards from doing DM quests, including the DM award you get for just signing up, include magic items.

Also, your numbers seem off above. The 3000 XP would allow you to reach 4th level, which will get you to 5th level if your DM rewards include downtime.

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Except, of course, you have to spend gold to maintain your lifestyle when spending downtime.

And the point was that you can get plate as a tier 1 character, which most PCs cannot do if they end up spending gold for other things, like tavern stays, meals, etc. Reducing DM gold awards so that DMs also have to generally wait until tier 2 to get plate seems more equitable.

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Pauper

Pauper said:

Based on my DM log, roughly two seasons.



Many DMs run adventures more than once -- if only to get the appropriate DM award for that season.



DM awards from doing DM quests, including the DM award you get for just signing up, include magic items.



Except, of course, you have to spend gold to maintain your lifestyle when spending downtime.

And the point was that you can get plate as a tier 1 character, which most PCs cannot do if they end up spending gold for other things, like tavern stays, meals, etc. Reducing DM gold awards so that DMs also have to generally wait until tier 2 to get plate seems more equitable.

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Pauper

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OK, so with 3000 xp and 1500 gp you can either be 4th with Plate (and nothing else other than starting equipment) or you can be 5th and some amount of gear worth up to 1480 gp that does not include Of course you can further spend DM credit to get a little more gold. Keep in mind you needed to DM approximately 30 Tier 1 games or 15 Tier 2 (more likely closer 20 mixed Tier assuming all where 4 hour modules and not the 2 hour ones that provide less). This doesn't seem all that far off. In fact, looking at those numbers you could make the case that the gold is fine and the xp should be increased to make the ratio you find acceptable.

So looking only at only DM rewards from running modules as specified above, the reward experience is only good for 2 things: having a Tier 1 character that doesn't have to start at level 1 when everyone else is probably 3rd and finishing out higher levels when you just need a few hundred for the next one. Letting a DM be a little OP for a narrow band of levels is not a bad thing. As the rewards stand now, I still can't get any of the other regular players to volunteer to DM so I can play any character with any regularity. The DM rewards mean very little if you can't play. The DM quest rewards are a bit more helpful in getting DM characters keep up at higher levels. I just spent all Season 4 quest rewards + about a year wortsh of DM reward to get my original character of 2 1/2 years to Tier 3 because of the possibility of someone else possibly running a T3 adventure at our local Con.

Pathkeeper24601 said:

OK, so with 3000 xp and 1500 gp you can either be 4th with Plate (and nothing else other than starting equipment) or you can be 5th and some amount of gear worth up to 1480 gp that does not include Of course you can further spend DM credit to get a little more gold. Keep in mind you needed to DM approximately 30 Tier 1 games or 15 Tier 2 (more likely closer 20 mixed Tier assuming all where 4 hour modules and not the 2 hour ones that provide less). This doesn't seem all that far off. In fact, looking at those numbers you could make the case that the gold is fine and the xp should be increased to make the ratio you find acceptable.

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I'm kind of at a loss of how you get from "DM awards give too much gold for the XP award" to "the gold is fine, you should give more XP". Granted, either solution would work to reduce the XP to gold ratio, but I get the feeling that the XP awards are much more deliberately chosen, and that the gold award was just eye-balled as being 'ballpark'. Guys, it's not ballpark -- it grants way too much gold for the XP and should be reduced to be more in line with PC awards.

Letting a DM be a little OP for a narrow band of levels is not a bad thing.

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Obviously I disagree, because 'being OP' isn't something that just goes away after a few levels, specifically because being a DM isn't something you do for a few months to build up DM awards and then stop -- DMs will generally always be DMing and always be getting DM awards with excessive gold associated with them. If you don't adjust the gold award, the situation doesn't just fix itself.

As the rewards stand now, I still can't get any of the other regular players to volunteer to DM so I can play any character with any regularity. The DM rewards mean very little if you can't play.

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And that has to do with the question of whether the gold award is too large, how exactly?

The DM quest rewards are a bit more helpful in getting DM characters keep up at higher levels.

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I'll agree with this, but clearly the DM awards aren't intended to keep the DM at exactly the same level as the players at her table, otherwise the DM award would be exactly the same as the player award at that table.

As long as we're using personal anecdotes, I recently sat down at a tier 1 table with a character built entirely from DM awards where I already had the best armor for my class (studded leather), a silvered dagger, two healing potions, and a magical longbow. Did I *need* all that stuff to contribute to the adventure? No, I didn't, but I could have it given the current DM awards structure, so why not?

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Pauper

Pauper said:

I'm kind of at a loss of how you get from "DM awards give too much gold for the XP award" to "the gold is fine, you should give more XP". Granted, either solution would work to reduce the XP to gold ratio, but I get the feeling that the XP awards are much more deliberately chosen, and that the gold award was just eye-balled as being 'ballpark'. Guys, it's not ballpark -- it grants way too much gold for the XP and should be reduced to be more in line with PC awards.




Obviously I disagree, because 'being OP' isn't something that just goes away after a few levels, specifically because being a DM isn't something you do for a few months to build up DM awards and then stop -- DMs will generally always be DMing and always be getting DM awards with excessive gold associated with them. If you don't adjust the gold award, the situation doesn't just fix itself.



And that has to do with the question of whether the gold award is too large, how exactly?



I'll agree with this, but clearly the DM awards aren't intended to keep the DM at exactly the same level as the players at her table, otherwise the DM award would be exactly the same as the player award at that table.

As long as we're using personal anecdotes, I recently sat down at a tier 1 table with a character built entirely from DM awards where I already had the best armor for my class (studded leather), a silvered dagger, two healing potions, and a magical longbow. Did I *need* all that stuff to contribute to the adventure? No, I didn't, but I could have it given the current DM awards structure, so why not?

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Pauper

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Exactly. Why not? You DMed. That's a lot more work than just showing up with a character sheet. It should be compensated as such. Not sure why the complaining...

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