How do assign treasure to new high-level PCs?

[Plane Sailing]

This question is prompted by the current thread by Ormraxes, where he explains problems he has were the DM gives 10% of the NPC's expected treasure

But in the DMG it shows expected treasure levels for PCs and NPCs.

So I've got a couple of questions:

1. When a replacement character is brought into your campaign, how much treasure do you give him? The PC amount, the NPC amount or something else?

2. When spending this, does the DM assign an appropriate value of magic treasure, or does he allow the players to choose what they want within that value?

2b. sub-question: If a PC has, say, 49,000gp loot coming to him, do you put an upper limit on any particular item (e.g. no more than half of this amount on any single item) or is it free spend?

I'm adding a multi-choice poll to try to capture all of these in a non-scientific way, but I'd be really interested to responses from DM's and players about how this is handled in your campaigns.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

BTW, I'll post my thoughts and rationale after there have (hopefully!) been a few responses on the thread...

 

[S'mon]

From my campaign web page:

New Campaign PCs
My world is poorer and lower-magic than standard, your PC will start with an amount of money derived from the following table, eg 2,600gp of gear at 7th level, this can include magic items from the DMG if desired (eg +1 greatsword is 2,350gp, or +1 chain shirt 1,150gp, etc).
Level / Starting Money
1 Standard as PHB
2 600gp
3 900gp
4 1200gp
5 1600gp
6 2000gp
7 2600gp
8 3400gp
9 4500gp
10 5800gp
11 7500gp
12 9800gp
13 13000gp
14 17000gp
15 22000gp

- This is taken from the 'standard treasure by Encounter Level' table in the DMG - eg a monster CR 5 has an average 1600 gp, IMC a 5th level PC starts with 1600 gp also. This works fine for my campaign game (I raise some monster CRs, eg Ettin to CR 6, since the CRs are too low in a low-magic setting). Because wealth is restricted, I don't restrict magic item purchase wealth from this total at all (except that it should be from the DMG), however if I give PCs higher (eg DMG standard) starting wealth, eg for a tournament game, I restrict it to no one item may be cost more than 1/2 total wealth.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Thanks for posting your information, S'mon.

I'll nail my colours to the mast then.

I start new PC's with the level of treasure that NPCs would normally have, because I don't want dying to be seen as a benefit (and some of the other players probably *would* see it that way, even with the reduction of a level).

I as DM allocate the magic items which the new character can have (since I allocate all the magic items which have found their way into the campaign so far, this only seems fair! Plus it stops new characters optimising themselves (can you say "paladin with a cloak of charisma"? The one exception is if a new character has a crafting metamagic feat, in which case they could use some of the treasure to have made their own magic item(s).

When assessing what magic items I let the new PCs have, I put an upper limit of half the total wealth - so no character would start with all their wealth tied up in one uber-item, but instead they would tend to have more smaller items.

 

[Squire James]

The PC's in my campaign tend to run 2-3 times over DMG standard, so normal DMG amounts with player choice works fine. If Cloaks of Charisma exist in a campaign, well of course paladins will seek them out! I'm pretty sure most wizards would have traded their Wrestling Belts of Giant Strength for lesser Spectacles of Intellect long ago.

As a side issue, I had to make a rule regarding loot from dead PC's while running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil a while ago. When a PC dies, I immediately ask the player if he wants to be brought back. If he doesn't, his items has to make saving throws against whatever killed the character (which is usually something spectacular like a Flame Strike, but I'd do the same thing if the PC were bludgeoned to death by an ogre). I usually skew the saves so that roughly half the loot survives.

 

[S'mon]

I agree wholeheartedly about the 'death as a benefit' problem - for a typical game where the existing & recently deceased PCs who've levelled up the hard way have approximately standard wealth, allowing brand new PCs in with DMG wealth as well seems far too generous, the moreso if they have free choice of what to buy. I think for a standard-magic game, letting new PCs have NPC-level wealth is the best way to go, this should keep the amount of magic in the group approximately in line with the standard table.

As far as the level of new PCs goes, if the player is new to the campaign they start at the level of the lowest-level current PC, with minimum XP for that level. If it's a replacement for a dead PC they start with half the XP of their last PC, this puts eg the replacement for a dead 9th level PC at 6th-7th. Fairly harsh, perhaps (raise dead is hard to get IMC), but I pride myself on being 'tough but fair'.

The majority of magic IMC so far I think is actually purchased rather than found adventuring, however doing so is difficult and often expensive. At the end of last session, the local Sage-Sorcerer Botolf laid additional battle runes on the PC Viking Sigurd's broadsword (raising it from +1 to +2) for the basic 6000gp, but the PC Sorcerer Xyzzy had to seek far and wide for his +2 Cloak of Charisma (taking 20 on a Gather-Information roll), and pay a merchant 8000gp, twice book value, to obtain it. That's my approach to 'minor' items, anyway - medium & major would be harder to buy. Sigurd & Xyzzy are 9th level, this was the first time they'd gained so much money each (5000 gp each!) from a single mission, most sessions run to ca 1000gp/time. I'm running 'Lost City of Gaxmoor' and there's not much loot so far - but plenty of goblinoids!

 

[jmucchiello]

I agree wholeheartedly about the 'death as a benefit' problem - for a typical game where the existing & recently deceased PCs who've levelled up the hard way have approximately standard wealth, allowing brand new PCs in with DMG wealth as well seems far too generous

I don't understand this attitude. The Player whose character died has been playing just as long as the Players whose characters didn't die. Why should he be punished because the dice went against him?

Of course, I run a magic rich world and players can buy and sell magic items in any major city. So all players have essentially picked their magic items. Why shouldn't the player coming in from death.

 

[Crothian]

THe PC and I would pick them together. He would not get as much as any of the other PCs.

 

[S'mon]

I don't understand this attitude. The Player whose character died has been playing just as long as the Players whose characters didn't die. Why should he be punished because the dice went against him?

Well, I believe in 'punishing' failure, hence replacement PCs start with 1/2 the XP of the previous one, but you miss my point. Normally in the absence of a TPK, a dead PC's magic items remain with the group. If it's a group of 4 and the dead PC had standard gear, letting a new PC in with standard gear as well would raise the entire group's magic item total by 25% (if you used same-level replacement). Repeat a couple of times and the group will have vastly more magic gear than if no one had died.

In my experience, PCs hardly ever die simply because 'the dice went against them' - not after 2nd level, anyway. Normally it's because they did something uncommonly rash and foolish, possibly with bad luck in addition, like the sorcerer going hand-to-hand with an Ettin or the solo Monk PC going on after his Sorcerer friend had been killed by an ettin, then blundering into a gelatinous cube, or the replacement for the Sorcerer PC walking into the home of the group's arch-enemies after killing some enemies-of-their-enemies and expecting to be thanked (rather than imprisoned and executed)...

 

[Victim]

In my experience, a character death is often the fault of the entire group. Either there's a teamwork failure, or the situation is such that there is a substancial risk of death just from normal operations. When the wizard dies to a finger of death, and I could have death warded, it's partially my fault, even if he didn't ask for the spell. If the only way that we'll hurt the Balor is through melee combat, someone has to be the first one in, and thus run the risk of vorpal death. Since someone has to be first into the room which is probably a trap/ambush, why penalize just the player who choose to take the risk for the entire group?

I let new PCs come into the game at one level lower with standard PC treasure. Groups often work together on item creation, which allows them to effectively buy items at 1/2 cost, and also characters that have been around awhile tend to pick up some second string or non combat type items above their wealth guideline. Some guy will hold onto something that the DM has forgotten about, or the group will have an odd item that's there mostly for coolness- it is occasionally useful, usually in a non combat way, but doesn't add to much. One of those, "it's nice to have around" items.

A far bigger problem is what to do with the dead PC's stuff.