Question about Treasure

[Marco]

I have a question about treasure parcels. I'm curious as to how they are handled in 4th Ed.

1. It is my understanding (from what I have read elsewhere) that the parcels give you a pretty exact money and magic item count per level.

2. If that is true, what if I have optional encounters. For example: I have the mission out of the town but I also have a giant-rat based maze under the town that is really only vaguely referenced to the players--but if they go look, there it is.

What kinds of treasure can I--by the rules--put down there. I realize I, as the GM, can stock it however I want--but I'm curious about the actual rules in the DM's guide.

If I put some treasure from the parcel in there and the PCs never find it, they're "under" for that level. If I put additional treasure (above the parcel) in there and they find it, they're "over."

Does the DMG say anything about this? What's the by-the-book interpretation?

-Marco

 

[NMcCoy]

If I put some treasure from the parcel in there and the PCs never find it, they're "under" for that level.

How do you figure? That encounter never happened, so they don't get the experience for it, so they have a different encounter with an appropriate treasure instead on the way to the next level. It's not like they can skip that encounter and still level up at the same point - they'll need another encounter to take up the XP slack. If you're pacing your experience and treasure roughly in parallel, then skipped/taken "extra" encounters shouldn't ever cause a discrepancy between level and loot.

 

[Mort_Q]

Is it time to bring up Schrödinger?

 

[Marco]

So no optional encounters? Or do I just move the treasure from the optional encounter to another one on the fly?

In other words, if I'm building a world and laying out several potential encounters--some of which the PCs may not find, do I just move the treasure around as they hit them?

Or are optional encounters contrary to 4e?

-Marco

 

[Mort_Q]

Unless it's a specific piece that the party is questing for, just don't put the treasure in the chest until they open it.

 

[Marco]

I can move it around--but I have a set of encounters that'll get the party to 2nd level laid out (with full treasure parcel). I was going to scatter some encounters around in case they went exploring off the beaten path--but I wasn't sure how to stock them for that.

It's still not clear to me if I already have a full L1 parcel for the "main quest" if optional side-adventures should have treasure above that.

-Marco

 

[Thasmodious]

The easiest way to do it is to just keep a list of the 10 parcels with your DM notes. You don't have to design what sits exactly where for every adventure site. In a dungeon, include a couple chests or treasure locations but don't write what specifically is in there. Then, when the PCs are actually proceeding through a series of encounters, gaining XP, you can drop in the parcels as needed and mark them off your list.

You have a set of encounters that will get the party to second level. But if they go off the beaten path, those encounters will give them XP and "mess up" the other perfectly calculated set of encounters. But that's no worry with your parcel list, just put some treasure where it makes sense on the side quests and try to get it all in before they level. If you still have a parcel or two left over, its no big deal, just group that with the first bit from your lvl 2 list.

 

[Aegir]

For starters - and this is by no means a certainty, but it appears to be the case - treasure isn't anywhere near as unbalancing as it was in 3.x, because so little stacks. There are no +stat items that give bumps to everything associated with those stats, no non-armor items that give bumps to AC - in other words, no endless stacking to uber augment a specific category. Most all magic items are either weapons, armor, implements, or various other items that give specific bonuses, instead of general stat bonuses that affect everything.

So long as you follow the magic item level rules and don't give out stuff too far beyond the groups level (a little beyond in exchange for an exceptionally tough quest shouldn't break anything), it shouldn't be a problem. That is one of the bigger improvements of 4E: its much harder to unbalance things; pretty much, you have to intentionally do it for it to happen.

 

[Alkiera]

Not every encounter should logically provide treasure. If they somehow level faster, toss an extra parcel into the next logical reward. Keep in mind that quest rewards also dig into the parcel system; if an NPC is giving a reward for doing something, that should be a parcel. If they miss an encounter that you'd assigned a parcel too, say a secret treasure room with a hidden door, then suddenly the quest reward is more than it would be otherwise, or the BBEG had a larger than expected hoard.

So basically, yes, you move them around. Not every group of kobolds that show up in the middle of a road drops a parcel of treasure, so sometimes players will miss one due to failure to look hard enough. Just lump it in with something else later.

 

[bert1000]

Well, you can do it a number of ways if you want to include treasure in the optional encounters:

#1 -- If the optional quest (s) happen, and give xp to the party, then they are prob going to level up to level 2 before all your "main" encounters happen. In that case, feel free to add level 1 treasure parcels to the optional quests. You will then most likely have to adjust your final "main" ecounters to be level 2 encounters and include level 2 parcels.

#2 -- you can add level 1 parcels to the optional encounters and remove some level 1 parcels from your level 1 "main" encounters.

Really, the thing is once the party decides to pursue the "optional" encounter it becomes part of the level 1 encounter stream.