Gear Value for Levelled Monsters

[the Jester]

All right, here's a question... say you have a monster with class levels; does it have treasure, gear or both? My assumption is that it would have gear like any levelled npc... but how much?

As an example, let's say our creature is an otyugh with 3 leves of rogue. Does it have gear equal in value to a 3rd level character's? How about a 7th level character's (CR7)? How about a 9th level character's (3 levels of rogue and 6 levels of otyugh)?

To make matters more complicated, what if the creature doesn't have standard treasure? A lizardfolk druid has a 50% chance to have any items?? I don't know if that makes too much sense. Sometimes if the creature has no loot it can make sense to not have gear (like a remorhaz with a couple of barbarian levels), but not always. And do monsters with double coins get more starting gear? What about those with double items?

Perplexed...

 

[Dave Blewer]

My guess (and it is a guess) is that you roll (or choose) the treasure for the standard CR of the creature and then choose the gear for the Character Class that is added on.

So hypothetical Otyugh would have treasure as per a CR 4 standard monster plus the gear of a 3rd level Rogue...

 

[dcollins]

For simplicity I sake, personally, I would just award treasure according to the overal EL (and monster description adjustment).

If you read the fine-print of the Core Rules, they do say that "a creature with class levels has equipment worth an amount based on the total of those class levels" (DMG p. 24). So, your idea of adding monster treasure to class-based equipment is in fact supported by the text.

From what I've read, I get the impression that the preceding quote rule is changed in the Forgotten Realms and Tooth & Claw books, but it stands in the Core Rules.