How much Gold are monsters supposed to ave ?

[Iron Sky]

When I'm running games, I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that the designers balanced 4e's system on the assumption that the party receives treasure equivalent to the amount denoted in the treasure parcels section every level. No more, no less.

Based on that assumption, if the PCs miss some hidden treasure, that treasure "respawns" elsewhere so I don't short-change the players. If they level up before they receive all the treasure, then I add what they missed to the next level's treasure. If I give out too much treasure, then I borrow from the next level.

 

[keterys]

Totally your prerogative to do so, and it certainly makes a lot of sense.

That said, it also makes sense to have the party's choices and actions determine the results of their adventures.

For example, if a parcel is attached to successfully completing a quest, failing to complete that quest resulting in less treasure is one (of many) ways to ensure that the results of their actions are taken seriously. Or keep an NPC alive. Or figuring out from the clues they've found where something has been hidden or what route it left on so they can catch it in time.

If the PCs know that there are no penalties or bonuses for rewards, and the status quo will always be maintained, it removes some of the reward/penalty infrastructure of the game.

All that said, I actually tend to give out extra treasure rather than less, but the same still applies. If I tell the party they'll get an extra reward for resolving a conflict quickly and they rest instead, then they don't get the reward.

 

[Iron Sky]

Well, fortunately, none of my players track how much treasure I give out, so if they fail to get the quest reward, they still think they've missed out without actually doing so. Kinda win-win I guess.

In my games I generally make treasure as back-seat as possible. We generally consider treasure to be a mechanical requirement more than an in-game motivator, so it's mostly dealt with "off screen". This was true in 3.x and even more true in 4e.

If there was a PC tracking my parcel-expenditure/allotment, I could see it being more of a factor.

 

[FireLance]

The way I read the DMG guidelines is this: you are okay as long as you keep the treasure earned by the party in line with the XP earned by the party. In other words, if there are ten treasure parcels, the party should find approximately one treasure parcel every time it earns 10% of the XP that it needs to get to the next level.

The key idea behind this guideline is to avoid parties that are XP-heavy and treasure-light, e.g. parties who have fought several tough creatures that have no treasure, or vice-versa, e.g. parties who happen upon a stash of gold and magic items without overcoming any challenges that provide XP.

It does not mean that the party has to find every treasure parcel in an adventure: if the party misses Encounter #3, which has treasure parcel #3, it misses out on the XP and the treasure for Encounter #3. Doing so means that the party will gain levels slower than another party who has gone though the same adventure and did overcome Encounter #3. However, by the time the party has gained its next level, it would have had to overcome another encounter (possibly Encounter #1 of the next adventure) and in doing so, would have earned enough XP to gain a level and a treasure parcel approximately equal in value to the one they missed (or even the same one, if the DM wants to re-use it).

In short, XP and treasure should be bundled together as a single reward. A party can miss out on both, but should not miss out on one if it has already earned the other.

 

[Istar]

Average about 27 years of D&D experience per PC so we cleaned out the dungeon module and collected all treasure and even managed to collect enough armour and weapons from the dungeon and the initial fight in town to trade it for 20gp each.

We didnt even get the starting 100 gold as we began as level -1 nobody slaves.

We didnt spend any gold on supplies or equiptment just foraged for it and gathered enough stuff from monsters killed, although I did spend about a SP on clean underpants instead of second hand Orc ones

Taking all that into account having just reached level 3 starting the 2nd module of Scales of War.

Only having 191GP each just seemed quite pathetic, we are new to 4e and I just wondered if our stingy DM was on the right track or not.

 

[Infiniti2000]

You're missing at a minimum 8 magic items: 1 x LV2, 2 x LV3. 2 x LV4, 2 x LV5, 1 x LV6. Your DM is not only not on the right track, he's plum in the wrong city.

 

[keterys]

Looking at the first adventure, it has 14 parcels (1.4 levels worth) with 950g and 4 healing potions (200g) and 2 additional quest parcels with 200g each. Or 1.6 levels worth of parcels and 6 magic items (which matches up)

That number of parcels is 100% appropriate for 1.6 levels or so, but if you do every last single thing in the adventure and are completely thorough there is enough xp to just barely get you to 3rd level.

 

[Ryujin]

Looking at the first adventure, it has 14 parcels (1.4 levels worth) with 950g and 4 healing potions (200g) and 2 additional quest parcels with 200g each. Or 1.6 levels worth of parcels and 6 magic items (which matches up)

That number of parcels is 100% appropriate for 1.6 levels or so, but if you do every last single thing in the adventure and are completely thorough there is enough xp to just barely get you to 3rd level.

The other adventures in the series seem to be about the same, based on our play. On average we were receiving a magic item about every 2 levels rather than 5/4 of a level, with enough money to buy an additional one every level. We were being pretty thorough but our DM is the sort to have a dungeon collapse immediately after you complete the major mission, rather than allowing you to putter around and clean it out. As a result we were hitting level 7 with most of us having +2 items in the major slots, at best.

I would recommend that anyone who plans on running the Scales of War series take a good look at the adventures first and adjusts them to account for proper treasure allocation.

 

[keterys]

Well, it's not all that far off in terms of parcels. 1550g instead of 1800g, 6 magic items instead of 8.

But yeah, I'm surprised if they're using the parcel system and have clear ideas how much you'll level that they'd be off like that. Maybe they do assume you're only getting the 1.5-1.75 levels though and leveling soon in the next one.

 

[ki11erDM]

If I am not mistaken there is an old thread about the first 2 or 3 adventures being very treasure light (both the moduals and the AP), and someone at WoTC even talked about it and that they were going to try and do a better job in later publications. Which it seems they have as the newer dungeon adventures seem ok on loot.

As to what I do in my game, I try to keep the party close to what is recommneded. If they miss some loot I will normally add it back in... but it will instead be something suboptimal.