D&D 5E How often should a party be rewarded?

[Herod]

Greetings all, been thinking of this for a while and thought id get outside advice. I play with a group of 6, most of us DM and play characters and we switch off adventures every now and then. We all have different styles of doing so. I enjoy giving loot to players when i feel its appropriate and ither DMs refrain from doing so for balance issues.

Im wondering what other people are doing about this. How often do you reward your party with magical items?

More specifically how much loot should a lvl 7 party have?

 

[Doc_Klueless]

With the new attunement rules, all the time. They can only attune to three items (depending on the items, of course) so it's fun to watch them agonize over which three they think they'll need. Plus they're adventuring in the hinterlands (more or less) with no one with enough money to even think of buying the magic items they don't use.

I also give lots of finite use items (potions, rings and wands with 2 or three charges, etc.). Those are my favorite to hand out.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

How often do you reward your party with magical items?

Whenever it feels appropriate, such as when they've completed a task for a wizard with a few spare magical what-nots and are receiving the item(s) as payment, or when they dispatch a famed and terrible monster which numerous other adventurers have died trying to defeat (that's how dragons accumulate an assortment of magic items that they have no use for, such as swords and armor)

More specifically how much loot should a lvl 7 party have?

However much they have earned, or chanced upon.

There is no specific "correct" amount.

 

[Satyrn]

Not often enough. I know that because my players tell me so.




But it's actually true, too. As a player, collecting loot is an exceptionally low priority for me - I don't even bother thinking about looting fallen foes most of the time - and that translates into my DMing.

 

[iserith]

I generally go with one item per character per adventure location plus 2 consumables that would be useful somewhere in that adventure location. For example, if a have trolls in the dungeon, I put a potion of red dragon's breath somewhere.

That's 6 items total per adventure which I try to split between the three pillars of adventure. So a couple of items can be recovered via defeating monsters in combat, two more by exploring the environment, and the last two by engaging in social interaction.

My adventures typically advance a PC one to three levels and I only ever have 4 players at a game. Sometimes they get all the items, sometimes they don't.

 

[dmnqwk]

Somewhere between never and all the time is absolutely fine.

Since the items have been moved away from simple combat modifiers to a more diverse range including magical weapons with non-standard benefits (such as a Magical Quarterstaff that provides no inherent combat bonuses but offers the wielder the ability to ignore difficult terrain while travelling can still damage any creature who requires a magical weapon) or the regular support items (like cloaks of elvenkind) to DM-created magical items (such as a broach of elocution that gives advantage on persuasion checks and allows the wearer to cast the Tongues spell 1/day).

For level 7 it's also worth considering granting non-magical benefits to some players, such as a finely-crafted longsword that deals 1d10 (2d6 versatile) due to the quality of the process, or allowing them to obtain Full Plate Armor, or a Tower Shield that maybe lets the wielder plant it for 3/4 cover from missile attacks.

Ultimately there is no right or wrong answer and if you, like me, enjoy giving magical items because you love receiving magical items don't be afraid to offer them as freely as you feel comfortable wont ruin game balance, especially if you make full use of customization so they have a choice.

 

[ccs]

I've never bothered following any particular WBL guidelines.

Assuming the players succeed in the encounter/successfully search/etc, then they get whatevers listed. It's entirely possible for you to miss loot in my games. It will NOT follow you around, jumping ahead so that you get it anyways.
Modules/APs list what's to be found.
Stuff I write has loot generated randomly (my default system is the old 1e alphabet charts) as muchas possible.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

Consumables are almost always great. Arrows, potions, oils, etc. make for great treasure because they're A: valuable B: useful and C: don't represent a major permanent boost in party power.

Even if you intend to say, skip permanent magical items or non magical enhanced equipment, consumable items can make excellent rewards, in no small part because without Wealth By Level, using them no longer represents eating into the parties imaginary gold budget.

 

[Lanefan]

The answer completely depends on the kind of campaign you want to end up with and is, in the end, completely up to you.

If you want a high-magic game where items come and go all the time then chuck more items into the dungeons, make said items fragile and easily broken, open up a magic item economy where they can be bought, bartered, and sold; and have at 'er.

If you want a low magic grim-'n'-gritty type of game then pull out nearly all the magic (your call whether or not to put in non-magic treasure to compensate), do away with any thought of a magic item economy, and have at 'er.

The only thing to keep in mind is that if you're using level-up training rules and said training has a price tag it's probably a good idea to make sure there's enough treasure for the PCs to be able to afford to train.

Lan-"experience tells me I can put all the treasure I want to in my dungeons safe in the knowledge that even if the party does well they'll still probably only find half of it"-efan

 

[Azurewraith]

I tend to chuck consumables out the wazoo at them my favorite container for these is the corpse of a long dead adventurer! See that dead guy with 3 full health potions in his backback guess that was his mistake and up ahead is a not so intelligent monster.