Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Killed a dragon, now they wanna strip it
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5101336" data-attributes="member: 51942"><p>I've seen a few responses here suggesting that it's OK to hand it out as treasure <em>as long as you balance that by removing equivalent treasure parcels elsewhere</em>. That's an admirable level of attention to the details keeping a campaign from going haywire, <em>but</em>...</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players will sniff this out. You'd like to avoid turning the game into a zero sum game, so, from that point of view, when the players actually get a good idea (or conversely, screw up and need to run, say) you really want them to suffer the consequences. It's more fun in the long run.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Now, if you just want to keep <em>balance</em>, mneme idea of a skill challenge or other mini quest is <em>brilliant</em>. See, it's OK if you hand out too much treasure so long as you also hand that out in XP - the game just progresses as if any other encounter had taken place; no sweat - and the players feel even more rewarded, they get XP <em>and</em> gold!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><em>You don't actually need to keep balance</em>. I think the best campaign I ever ran was one where I placed and quantified the amount of treasure before each session. The players walked into loot almost worth that of an entire level once; they missed an even bigger pile another time. They notice, and they start thinking craftily... The trick is, and this works <em>particularly </em>well in 4e, treasure value scales enormously as levels rise - character wealth goes up 40% <em>each level</em>. <br /> <br /> So, if you don't hand out 40% one particular level, but an absurd 200% (5 times too much) - well, now they have about twice as much as they should. That's not even a +1 bonus higher than usual for some perspective - the game won't break down. 4e extremely resilient like that. And <em>even if</em> you don't reduce future treasure, they may have 2 times too much now, but over the course of 5 levels it's just 20% more than usual, and 5 more levels, it's 4%.<br /> <br /> Now, you'd be slightly crazy to hand out loot worth twice everything the PC's have - but the point is that the game <em>won't</em> break down, even in that extreme example. So don't be afraid to skip over-precise accounting; keep an eye on the overall ballpark current wealth and don't sweat the details. Let the players notice that the fate of the heroes is in their hand. And once they've figured that out, you can take the kiddie gloves off <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" />.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Another sneaky trick you can use to work around handing out loot that's "too powerful" is to make it powerful in the current situation (say, resist cold whilst in icy northern climes) but less useful down the road when the campaign takes them to a different area. When they choose to sell, they only get a fraction of the worth of the item, and not selling leaves them with a fairly useless item - which basically means the item turns into a plot device for a limited time - as was intended.</li> </ul><p>So, don't be too worried about balance, there are a bunch of mitigating factors: the system can take quite a beating without breaking down; any wealth imbalances quickly fix themselves due the heroic levels of inflation in D&D; with some planning you can limit the usefulness of items to a given story arc without being too obvious; and you can fix the imbalance by handing out extra XP too (for some other cool stunt the PC's pull).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="eamon, post: 5101336, member: 51942"] I've seen a few responses here suggesting that it's OK to hand it out as treasure [I]as long as you balance that by removing equivalent treasure parcels elsewhere[/I]. That's an admirable level of attention to the details keeping a campaign from going haywire, [I]but[/I]... [LIST] [*]Players will sniff this out. You'd like to avoid turning the game into a zero sum game, so, from that point of view, when the players actually get a good idea (or conversely, screw up and need to run, say) you really want them to suffer the consequences. It's more fun in the long run. [*]Now, if you just want to keep [I]balance[/I], mneme idea of a skill challenge or other mini quest is [I]brilliant[/I]. See, it's OK if you hand out too much treasure so long as you also hand that out in XP - the game just progresses as if any other encounter had taken place; no sweat - and the players feel even more rewarded, they get XP [I]and[/I] gold! [*][I]You don't actually need to keep balance[/I]. I think the best campaign I ever ran was one where I placed and quantified the amount of treasure before each session. The players walked into loot almost worth that of an entire level once; they missed an even bigger pile another time. They notice, and they start thinking craftily... The trick is, and this works [I]particularly [/I]well in 4e, treasure value scales enormously as levels rise - character wealth goes up 40% [I]each level[/I]. So, if you don't hand out 40% one particular level, but an absurd 200% (5 times too much) - well, now they have about twice as much as they should. That's not even a +1 bonus higher than usual for some perspective - the game won't break down. 4e extremely resilient like that. And [I]even if[/I] you don't reduce future treasure, they may have 2 times too much now, but over the course of 5 levels it's just 20% more than usual, and 5 more levels, it's 4%. Now, you'd be slightly crazy to hand out loot worth twice everything the PC's have - but the point is that the game [I]won't[/I] break down, even in that extreme example. So don't be afraid to skip over-precise accounting; keep an eye on the overall ballpark current wealth and don't sweat the details. Let the players notice that the fate of the heroes is in their hand. And once they've figured that out, you can take the kiddie gloves off :-). [*]Another sneaky trick you can use to work around handing out loot that's "too powerful" is to make it powerful in the current situation (say, resist cold whilst in icy northern climes) but less useful down the road when the campaign takes them to a different area. When they choose to sell, they only get a fraction of the worth of the item, and not selling leaves them with a fairly useless item - which basically means the item turns into a plot device for a limited time - as was intended. [/LIST] So, don't be too worried about balance, there are a bunch of mitigating factors: the system can take quite a beating without breaking down; any wealth imbalances quickly fix themselves due the heroic levels of inflation in D&D; with some planning you can limit the usefulness of items to a given story arc without being too obvious; and you can fix the imbalance by handing out extra XP too (for some other cool stunt the PC's pull). [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Killed a dragon, now they wanna strip it
Top