Pathfinder 1E Living Pathfinder

[HolyMan]

What I have found out also is sometimes you put "treasure" in a game and your PC's don't want it or won't take it LOL. You put in a nasty smelly ogre and nobody wants to touch the magical armor he's wearing, and the weapon is to big to use and they don't want to haul around the extra weight.

Now with PF having detect magic at will I think alot of treasure won't get missed (that happens to).

Guidelines are what we need and we need to keep an eye on characters so they don't fall behind or get to far ahead.

Which reminds me what if you have a party of four 5th lvl characters and all are killed but one. That last character is suddenly very, very rich.

HM

 

[Aldern Foxglove]

Yes I agree guidelines would be handy, though ideally not too hard and fast. As a DM I've had the opposite problem to what you describe PCs who find ways to turn stuff that's not meant to be treasure into treasure, lol. Though often these efforts were so entertaining I simply let them have it, I remember a group trying to move a sixty foot tall statue at 3rd level. Turned into a major plot line, lol.

I definitely agree with keeping an eye on characters, though we don't want to heap more on character judges than we need to. Is it policy to list an items standard value beside it on the wiki even when the items found rather than purchased - if not it would make it easier to evaluate wealth.

As for looting comrades I think we should simply say it is a major taboo - up there with cannibalism - and it simply is not allowed, unless an item belonged to the party or to the surviving player, etc. Some of the items might be sold off to fund a proper funeral, etc. Anything else is dangerously imbalancing imo.

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

The following will be copied over to the Social Group for discussion as well:

I think we've got this covered, actually. Somewhere in our voluminous discussions we decided that using the handy dandy 'Treasure Values per Encounter' table (Core Rulebook, pg. 399, PFSRD Gamemastering) is the best way to keep everything fair. You can generate this randomly, or place items specifically for certain characters. GMs are free to ask players for a 'wishlist' at the start of an adventure and drop something into an encounter from that list. Also, so long as the total treasure doesn't exceed what's expected from the total number of encounters there's a little wiggle room to drop something more valuable than expected into one encounter by adjusting the treasure from another encounter downward.

Sorry, but I really don't think it's enough to handwave this away with a "Well, we'll just keep an eye on it and make sure anyone who gets too far out of whack will be taken care of." I have two main reasons for this thinking:

1. Different people will have FAR different ideas about what's 'out of whack.'
2. Once a character gets 'out of whack' how is his wealth to be adjusted? In my experience, taking things away from characters almost always leads to bad feelings, and making them take a smaller share of the loot from an adventure (or from time awards) will do the same, plus be a bookkeeping nightmare.

 

[Scott DeWar]

I agree with mowgli on this issue. I was going to mention that the wealth by encounter is the best method. I have a level 5 fighter with now magic armor or weapon. he has mwk on both issues and plans on magicing them as they are named item: "ilk's bane' and "Halina's defense" are his two main weapons and he would just as quickly sell a magic sword just to have one of those magicked. It is his personality. He lost his shield in a previous adventure as well a having some much needed potions stolan. Yes that sucked, No, it was not unfair. It was the encounter. That is what made the adventure. That is what made the challenge.

Do I like it when I have things stolan from a character? Heck No!

So, Keep to the book's guidelines and if someone wants more money, they can join a group and go adventuring. Pendrake Utherman is a fighter 5 with a bunch of level 1 and 2 characters hunting some nasty sea slime things. I hope to get treasure and expect very little xp. That is the sumation of things.

on a light note, has anyone ever see these:

 

[Aldern Foxglove]

I think the treasure per encounter table solves things rather neatly, I don't think we need to do anything else at all - well done Paizo.

 

[Scott DeWar]

dice: colon number 1 through 6 colon

: 6 : with out the spaces

 

[GlassEye]

But my newest game already has 4 tengu in it and they "do" have items so I need to watch out for what you said about someone keeping it to use and another selling it for half.

Selling for half is always problematic and makes it really difficult for the DM to calculate the accurate amount of treasure. That's why, when I ran Frog Hunt, that once I calculated the amount (using the treasure per encounter table that Mowgli so kindly linked to) and determined the specific items, that I allowed the characters to sell unused items for their full value. Doing it any other way would've been too much hassle because I, as a DM, couldn't know which items they would choose to keep and which they would choose to sell. This neatly (imo) sidesteps the whole difference of wealth levels for characters who sell useless/unwanted items and those who don't.

The problem with listing exactly everything the group will find in an adventure is the randomness of the Time GP. No way to know how long or how much a group will earn (I didn't know my Kobold's Keep game would go long enough to let everyone level up).

Time-based Gold is NOT random. It is calculated to give the same percentage of gold for a level that an equal percentage of experience gives. As I posted in the social group thread, its flaw is that it rounds up to the nearest gold piece and so over a long period of time, gives a bit more gold that is warranted for an equal percentage of experience. I don't really think a little extra gold is a big issue, though.

DM's crafting adventures should follow the treasure by encounter chart and not worry about giving out the gold earned over time. Not everything needs an explanation; we are giving a sum of experience with no in game explanation, we can certainly do the same with a sum of gold pieces. Gold and Experience earned over time has no effect on the amount of treasure that should be gained through a specific encounter.

 

[GlassEye]

Also due to the power creep and the 'easy money maker syndrome.'

Actually, I think PF fixed that second issue. If I remember correctly, crafted magic items can only be sold for half value. There is still the power creep issue, however. (Core Rulebook, pg. 140 under Selling Treasure).

 

[Maidhc O Casain]

Selling for half is always problematic and makes it really difficult for the DM to calculate the accurate amount of treasure. That's why, when I ran Frog Hunt, that once I calculated the amount (using the treasure per encounter table that Mowgli so kindly linked to) and determined the specific items, that I allowed the characters to sell unused items for their full value. Doing it any other way would've been too much hassle because I, as a DM, couldn't know which items they would choose to keep and which they would choose to sell. This neatly (imo) sidesteps the whole difference of wealth levels for characters who sell useless/unwanted items and those who don't.

I've been pondering this question exactly, and came to the same conclusion. Selling for half works well in a stand-alone game . . . not so much in a Living World. I think the value listed should be the value used. Not very realistic, as it negates haggling completely and brings the question "How to the vendors make any money, if they're selling for exactly the same price they're buying," but it's the only way to avoid those bookkeeping blues . . .

Time-based Gold is NOT random. It is calculated to give the same percentage of gold for a level that an equal percentage of experience gives. As I posted in the social group thread, its flaw is that it rounds up to the nearest gold piece and so over a long period of time, gives a bit more gold that is warranted for an equal percentage of experience. I don't really think a little extra gold is a big issue, though.

DM's crafting adventures should follow the treasure by encounter chart and not worry about giving out the gold earned over time. Not everything needs an explanation; we are giving a sum of experience with no in game explanation, we can certainly do the same with a sum of gold pieces. Gold and Experience earned over time has no effect on the amount of treasure that should be gained through a specific encounter.

I agree completely. Characters will be somewhat more wealthy for their given level than the Core Rules table indicates. But that table was written primarily as a guideline for generating characters that start at levels higher than first, not for characters that level up through adventuring. There will be some discrepancy between different LPF characters wealth at equivalent levels - due to the differing times it will take different groups to do the same number of encounters - but that's fine with me.

 

[HolyMan]

Ok I think I have figured out all my numbers and wanted to post them here first before adding it all to the rewards post in game.

Treasure found... lots of random stuff

Total value: 3,600gp

Broken down by encounter:
1st kobold encounter (CR 2)- 800gp
1st fire beetle encounter (CR 1) - 400gp
2nd fire beetle encounter (CR 2) - 800gp
trap (CR 1) - 400gp
2nd kobold encounter (CR 3) - 1,200gp

Now to divide the above I believe it would be only right that Fenris's character only get a division of the treasure based on when he played. So his character would only get a share based of the 1st kobold encounter. It would look like this:

1st kobold encounter (CR 2)- 800gp divided by 5 characters = 160gp each
1st fire beetle encounter (CR 1) - 400gp divided by 4 characters = 100gp each
2nd fire beetle encounter (CR 2) - 800gp divided by 4 characters = 200gp each
trap (CR 1) - 400gp divided by 4 characters = 100gp each
2nd kobold encounter (CR 3) - 1,200gp divided by 4 characters = 300gp each

So given the encounter gold, the service fee rewarded, and the time gp this would be the treasure for each player's character:

Characters:
Pari - 1,582gp
Zelena Adu - 1,582gp
Orlando Furioso "Fury" - 1,582gp
Tahn Staful - 1,582gp
Mordjn - 492gp

Broken down that is 860gp (encounters) + 642gp (time) + 80gp (service fee) for everyone but Mordjn
Mordjn = 160gp (encounter) + 252gp (time) + 80gp (service fee)

Well those are my numbers someone please double check them for me and I can wrap up Kobold's Keep.

HM