Wealth by Level

[Sidereal Knight]

In the near future, I will be taking over DMing for our group. I'm planning to run Paizo's Rise of the Runelords adventure path for a party of 6 PCs (rather than the assumed 4-PC game).

I'm not worried about scaling the encounters to challenge 6 PCs. My concern is adequately rewarding the party. With 6 players rather than 4, I know that I will need to increase the treasure and plant appropriate magic items for the party.

In previous campaigns I've run, I sometimes feel like I'm either too generous or too stingey with money and magic. How closely do you stick to the "wealth by level" guidelines in the DMG? At what point is it appropriate for all of the party to have a significant magic item -- weapon, armor, etc... more significant than a potion or scroll.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Shin Okada]

Frankly speaking, I do not care too much. And just use the default rule for producing treasures.

It may sound too rough, but IMHO unless the total amount of the wealth really largely differ from the expected value, say, 10 times or more over suggested wealth total in DMG, the game works without much trouble.

 

[roguerouge]

Keep an eye on getting the party certain things by certain times, especially things to overcome damage resistance.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As a DM, I use it as a guideline for creating NPCs and PCs over 1st level, from which I will deviate if the campaign necessitates it. I don't use it in any other way.

As a player designing a new PC at higher than 1st level, I stick to it absolutely unless the DM tells me otherwise.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

As DM, I evaluate my players' wealth every three levels or so, and adjust the next couple of levels to compensate if necessary. For example, my PCs are currently above the wealth-by-level guidelines, primarily because of a power-gaming artificer. So the adventures I'm creating now are very low on treasure.

I disagree, BTW, about the disparity needing to be extremely large before affecting the game. I notice the effects, one way or another, at a 20 percent difference, at most. Probably smaller.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I disagree, BTW, about the disparity needing to be extremely large before affecting the game. I notice the effects, one way or another, at a 20 percent difference, at most. Probably smaller.

Yeah, it's hard to generalize for everyone's game and come up with an exact figure, but if pressed, I'd probably use +/- 20% as the range to stay in if you wish to roughly follow the wealth by level guidelines.