Patlin
Explorer
azmodean said:I don't see anything prohibiting that, subject to judge approval, however IMO, it's an item that shouldn't be showing up as treasure for anything less than an el10 encounter, and even then it's going to be the bulk of the treasure recieved.
Also, if you include a scroll as treasure because someone specifically needs it, then it starts to look like circumvention of rules.
When things happen in my campaign because I need them to in order to continue the story, I call that "plot." Plot is generally non-random. My games are PC-centric, and when the PCs die unexpectedly, it screws up my plot.
As to treasure, I generally try to make the whole adventure balance out to the recomended wealth level, rather than individual combats. One thing I'll sometimes do is to throw in a lot of low to no treasure combats followed by a big score. Rest assured, if I throw in a scroll it means the party is going to be down a bunch of treasure they would otherwise have received. There are a lot of ways to impose the pain of a death penalty without destroying a character with whom the poor player has an emotional attachment.