HoboGod
First Post
Treasure rewards are one of the most aggravating game mechanics to follow. After you've banged your head against the wall figuring out attacks of opportunity, challenge ratings, and the encounter levels, all you have to do is give out experience and treasure. Experience isn't so bad, the table is pretty easy to follow and just requires a bit of math. Treasure isn't all that bad either if you've already figured out encounter levels. In fact, there's online calculators out there that eliminates the math and table work. If you do everything by the books, then things work great and you don't need anything I'm suggesting. However, if you tend to reward ad hoc experience, your game doesn't match the 13 encounter system, or you have players of different levels, you've likely been depriving your players of appropriate treasure or giving them too much, and additionally your lowest level players are being excelled too quickly to have the appropriate treasure for their level.
My variant is not a variant at all, it's how the DMG suggests you as a DM should award treasure. DMG says that reaching A amount of experience requires having B encounters which average C ECL each and then give D amount of treasure for a C ECL encounter B number of times. There is direct correlation between experience and treasure, my table is the math behind that correlation which reduces it to a 1-to-1 ratio.
So, all the numbers are in place, with a little number munching, it's easy enough to say "Hey, lets just give an amount of treasure based on experience!" If the treasure you gain at next level is based on 13 balanced encounters, then the treasure value you gain can be calculated based on the sum of 13 encounters equal to your character level divided by the experience required to reach next level. I pulled out my spreadsheet tool and quickly derived the numbers. These numbers are rounded for convenience sake.
So, for example, a party of three 8th level and two 6th level players fight five ogres, the 8th level players get 400 exp each and the 6th level players get 600 exp each. The 8th level players each get 400*163=65,200 cp (652 gp) worth of treasure, the 6th level players get 600*121=72,600 cp (726 gp) worth of treasure. You can justify the newbies getting more loot because they need it most and are the poorest of the group.
Another way of handling this variant for those DMs that wish to let their players divide wealth on their own would be to calculate the treasure given to the highest level player and multiply that amount by the number of players. In the example above, the party would receive 3260 gp worth of treasure. Note that if the 6th level players were not given inflated starting gold, they shall never reach the same wealth once they catch up to the 8th level players in experience.
The added advantage is that this variant grants higher control over how much wealth your players accumulate. I've seen too many games broken when wealth gets out of control. Your party will never reach too much higher than the values listed in the DMG, page 135, for wealth per level.
My variant is not a variant at all, it's how the DMG suggests you as a DM should award treasure. DMG says that reaching A amount of experience requires having B encounters which average C ECL each and then give D amount of treasure for a C ECL encounter B number of times. There is direct correlation between experience and treasure, my table is the math behind that correlation which reduces it to a 1-to-1 ratio.
So, all the numbers are in place, with a little number munching, it's easy enough to say "Hey, lets just give an amount of treasure based on experience!" If the treasure you gain at next level is based on 13 balanced encounters, then the treasure value you gain can be calculated based on the sum of 13 encounters equal to your character level divided by the experience required to reach next level. I pulled out my spreadsheet tool and quickly derived the numbers. These numbers are rounded for convenience sake.
Code:
Current Level Treasure per exp
1,2,3,4 98 cp
5 104 cp
6 121 cp
7 138 cp
8 163 cp
9 189 cp
10 222 cp
11 265 cp
12 325 cp
13 395 cp
14 477 cp
15 569 cp
16 688 cp
17 849 cp
18 1043 cp
19 1300 cpSo, for example, a party of three 8th level and two 6th level players fight five ogres, the 8th level players get 400 exp each and the 6th level players get 600 exp each. The 8th level players each get 400*163=65,200 cp (652 gp) worth of treasure, the 6th level players get 600*121=72,600 cp (726 gp) worth of treasure. You can justify the newbies getting more loot because they need it most and are the poorest of the group.
Another way of handling this variant for those DMs that wish to let their players divide wealth on their own would be to calculate the treasure given to the highest level player and multiply that amount by the number of players. In the example above, the party would receive 3260 gp worth of treasure. Note that if the 6th level players were not given inflated starting gold, they shall never reach the same wealth once they catch up to the 8th level players in experience.
The added advantage is that this variant grants higher control over how much wealth your players accumulate. I've seen too many games broken when wealth gets out of control. Your party will never reach too much higher than the values listed in the DMG, page 135, for wealth per level.
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