How much treasure to give to your players?

[flamingbunnys]

How much treaure is good to dish out to your players? Im new and i havent run any serious games, so i have no idea how much or of what kind of treasure to give. I read the suggestion in the DMG but its very confusing. can someone help?

 

[Aulirophile]

What do you find confusing about the DMG? The parcels are intended to note total wealth the group gets over the course of a whole level. Spread them out any way you want to, so long as the total for the whole level is fine.

Keep everyone's weapon, armor, and neck up to a reasonable Enhancement level.

 

[draquila]

I found using Masterplan to plan my adventure really helped me in understanding the concept of parcels. Once you set the level of your party and the number of players, it will show you what the expected treasure parcels are in the treasure parcels window (F5). Double clicking on each allow you to assign specific items or gold pieces to them.

So for a level 1 party of 5, you'd give out 10 parcels over 10 encounters, containing 4 magic items (levels 2, 3, 4, 5) and 6 parcels containing gold pieces or potions, as per the recommendations of the DMG. You'd then attach these parcels to encounters, where some encounters can have more than 1 parcel and some can have none.

 

[flamingbunnys]

Hey that program is pretty cool! do you use a mapper or something of the sort?

 

[Prestidigitalis]

The big issue I have seen is that the impact of properly selected magic items is enormous. A magic item melted down for residuum* is worth only 20% as much as one that is actually used, so carelessly picking a magic item that will not be used is like accidentally giving out 200 gp when you meant to give out 1000 gp.

So if your group has two characters in leather armor and two in scale, it doesn't really matter what level the chainmail you give them is, or what cool abilities it has. Oh, one of the characters *might* trade down to chainmail just to get the cool abilities, but even if they do, you can't count the "value" the same way -- it's a net gain, but probably not a very large one.

You also have to think about the items being replaced, and what will happen to them. It's a huge step up if the +3 Magic Longsword goes to a character who was using a +1 Magic Longsword, but not so much if the character was using a +2 weapon with really good properties. Also, does the old weapon gets disenchanted, or is it handed over to another character for whom even the old one is an upgrade?

This isn't to say that you can't give out items that you know the party will disenchant; it's just that you shouldn't count it as a full portion of the parcel.

Think of it this way -- handing the group a magic item that no one will use makes you like the grandmother who gives her grandchild socks and an 8-track tape by one of those groovy rock and roll bands that she found in the attic. (The tape was in the attic, not the band. Unfortunately.)

* Residuum, not residium. Pronounced as it is spelled, as everyone who plays 4e should know by now.

 

[draquila]

Hey that program is pretty cool! do you use a mapper or something of the sort?

You can create maps from tile libraries in masterplan (F2). The tile libraries can be obtained from dungeon_tiles : D&D Dungeon Tile Maps (WotC).

 

[flamingbunnys]

do you know of a dungeon mapper that you can download? i have touble because most dungeon mappers require internet access and i live in the middle of no where with dail up

 

[Ugghe]

After running 4e games for just over a year now, I have tried sticking to the parcel system for awhile; but I personally didn't like it.

I then switched to a free for all "if it makes sense to me, I'll drop it in" loot system.

Now I do a combination.

I have a spread sheet in front of me where I record all kinds of information. One thing I note is everything the party picks up. This allows me to worry free decide in the middle of a fight that a bad guys sword erupts in flame; and then when the fighter grabs it I just add it to the list.

If I ever start to worry the party is too poor / wealthy I can check my spread sheet vs the parcel system.

I think treasure is meant to have fun with. My party has starved for two levels with barely any loot (clearing a cave in the middle of east Jesus). Then one day they got a huuuuggggeeer truckload(literally hard for them to carry out) treasure horde.

Again, just have fun with it. The parcels in DMG works great, but any way you want to handle it is fine.

 

[flamingbunnys]

I just found the parcel system hard to incorperate into a game with out alot of before game planning. I think i will dish out treasure when i see the need. but i still dont know how often to give magical wepons... i guess i'll have to use the parcels for that.

 

[Ugghe]

I just found the parcel system hard to incorperate into a game with out alot of before game planning. I think i will dish out treasure when i see the need. but i still dont know how often to give magical wepons... i guess i'll have to use the parcels for that.

oh that's easy (kinda). If all you are concerned with is the math then you can just use the inherent bonus table as a guideline for by when should chars have the three core upgrades (weapon, armor, neckpiece)

Basically each character should have a +1 weapon by level 2. Then a +2 by level 7 and so on +1 more every five levels.

A character should have +1 armor and neck piece by level 4, a +2 by level 9 and so on +1 more every five levels.

This is according do DMG2 page 138. These are by no means hard guidelines, I've had players make it to level 4 before they got their own +1 weapon and the world did not end. It's just the inherent bonuses wizards suggests.