Generating treasure by type vs no. encountered

[Random Axe]

I have a question regarding how you generate an amount of treasure, based on the number of creatures encountered. If a creature is listed as a given CR, is the treasure type rolled (based on the treasure tables in the DMG) based on one of those creatures, or a band, or the whole tribe? For instance, when I am looking at the "Organization" under the ogre stat block which says you may encounter one ogre, a pair, a gang, or a band, how exactly do I adjust the CR3 treasure results to account for there being one ogre or several?

Example at hand.
The party is about to encounter a whole "band" of troglodytes at their lair (20-80 trogs). Troglodytes are CR1. I roll against the CR1 level in the treasure table, and the final results show a treasure of 500 sp; but does that result give normal treasure for one monster or a hundred?

And before ANYBODY chimes in with response of "Just use your judgement", well, I'd LIKE to, but I need to know the rules of thumb beforehand -- what standards are already in place for adjusting rolled treasure against the number of encountered beasties.

Thanks

 

[green slime]

The rule of thumb is the guidelines concerning expected wealth per level, as outlined in the DMG. If, when reviewing their characters (I generally ask mine as to how much dosh-worth of stuff they have, and they have a pretty good tag on each other, which helps minimize "accidents") it turns up a bit short, then I know I can get a bit generous in handing stuff out: throw them a few bones.

I never worry too much about it. If I want them to find a king's ransom, then that is what they find.

 

[AuraSeer]

Treasure listed in the entry is for one creature. If the PCs encounter ten monsters, you may either roll ten times on the table, or roll once and multiply the results x10. (The former is more time consuming, but does gives more randomly distributed results.)

Consider this situation. I encounter and kill a troglodyte, search his pockets, and find a CR 1 treasure. Then I open the next door and find his 99 close friends. If I kill all of them and search their pockets, logically they should have 99 times as much treasure as he did. It's common sense, no?

 

[Random Axe]

Treasure listed in the entry is for one creature. If the PCs encounter ten monsters, you may either roll ten times on the table, or roll once and multiply the results x10. (The former is more time consuming, but does gives more randomly distributed results.)

Consider this situation. I encounter and kill a troglodyte, search his pockets, and find a CR 1 treasure. Then I open the next door and find his 99 close friends. If I kill all of them and search their pockets, logically they should have 99 times as much treasure as he did. It's common sense, no?

So you would say for the band of troglodytes, that I would roll on a CR1 level treasure, and then multiply that result by 80? Is that the general procedure?

 

[Michael Silverbane]

You could either do that, or combine all of the critters into a single 'encounter' of a slightly higher CR to determine their treasure. So... For all 80 troglodytes, maybe grant them treasure as for a CR 8 critter at the end.

Later
silver

 

[Shin Okada]

It seems that many people are misunderstanding how to use the treasure table.

When using the treasure table in DMG, you use Encounter Level, not CR.

So, for example, if you made an encounter with 8 troglodytes (CR 1), that is an EL 7 encounter. So you roll once against EL 7 on the treasure table. You should not roll against CR 1 and multiply by 8 (nor roll 8 times).

Even if the entire dungeon have 100 troglodytes, they are usually divided into several encounters of reasonable EL. So, determine treasure for each encounters. Then, if you want, put all of those treasures in the "central treasure room" of the dungeon if you want to do so.

 

[frankthedm]

When using the treasure table in DMG, you use Encounter Level, not CR.

Actually the Text says use CR, the Table says use encounter level. When text and table disagree the text wins.

 

[Shin Okada]

Yeah. When text and the table are different and both of them make sense, we should take the text. But in this case, I say the text does not make sense as a rule. Because "the CR of the monsters in the encoutner" does not define anything because each encouters are composed of multiple monsters (of various CR, often). If an encounter is composed of, say, one CR 4 monster, one CR 5 monster & four CR 3 monsters, what is "the CR" for "monsters in the encounter"?

 

[Random Axe]

So, for example, if you made an encounter with 8 troglodytes (CR 1), that is an EL 7 encounter. So you roll once against EL 7 on the treasure table.

Thank you Shin Okada. Now this leads to my second question, is there a standard formula to convert a certain number of CR-value beasties into a final EL-value? I have noticed that doubling the number of a CR4 encounter by default makes it a CR6 XP value.

Seems there ought to be an easier way to do this.... :\

 

[Michael Silverbane]

In general, when you double the number of creatures of CR = X, you get an Encounter Level of X + 2. This only works up to a certain number of creatures... About 8.

So... If you have 2 CR 4 critters, they are an EL 6. If you have four CR 4 critters, they are EL 8 (the same as two CR 6 critters). If you have eight CR 4 critters, they are EL 10 (the same as two CR 8 critters, or four CR 6 critters). If you have more than eight CR 4 critters, they are still not much more than an EL 10... They might be worth EL 11. Maybe.

And, again... CR and EL are guidelines! You will have to use your best guess to determine whether or not those four CR 4 critters were really worth an EL 8, or if they were worth more than that due to really efficient synergization, or if they were worth less than that due to glass jaw syndrome.

Later
silver