Simpler Treasure System with (mostly) Random Loot

[eamon]

How do you raise an item by a level? I'm guessing you mean "randomly select an item one level higher", like if the adventure says "Darkleaf armor +1" (level 4) you would just sub in something like "Barkskin armor +1" (level 5).

Yeah, that's what I mean. If the adventure really gives an explicit item and it's well suited (flavor wise), you could just ignore it (and the players get an insignificantly lower amount of gold - fine so long as you don't do it all the time), or add a bit of gold (say, the difference between the item values or a bit less).

 

[eamon]

Great thread and well explained. With the prospect of having 7 players, fairly distributing treasure was a big concern to me. I might just go with your house rule. thanks!

Thanks for the feedback! If you do try it and have any improvements or other feedback, do come back and post em ;-).

 

[Animus]

Between this house rule and that random generator, my life as a paragon-level game DM has been made much easier.

 

[Noumenon]

edit: wrong thread

 

[clark411]

Very basic math questions:

1. How do you, or do you, adjust the price of rituals for this house rule?
2. How 'bout residuum?

 

[Neuroglyph]

Between this house rule and that random generator, my life as a paragon-level game DM has been made much easier.

I too have started using this house rule - the economics are sound and my players really think the change is for the better. They actually prefer random loot to "wish lists"!

 

[eriktheguy]

I'm gonna give this a very serious go in my campaign and let you know how it turns out. I always thought that the wish list thing was kind of silly. I'll be using the 'extra items' option instead of the 'better items' one. I'll probably also try to get a +1 weapon into everyone's hands ASAP just for the first level or so.

 

[Garmorn]

I am starting a new campaign with 6 out of 8 players having no recent RPG experence. Of those 6 the best most recent was over 10 years ago and maybe for a summer. A wish list is not going to work. I am also going for extra instead of higher.

Thanks for working all of this out.

 

[eamon]

Very basic math questions:

1. How do you, or do you, adjust the price of rituals for this house rule?

1. I don't adjust the price of rituals. Rituals have always (inconsistently) been half-price when selling them, so that's nice and easy to fit in. The DMG treasure parcels omit rituals entirely, and this system is modeled to be the same - just random - so it omits them too. In the spirit of including random rituals too, however, you might take a segment of the gold reward parcel per level and hand that out as rituals. The same basic balancing mechanic works for rituals too; so if you have money for a level N ritual but want to pick randomly, just pick a random level N+1 ritual instead. Equivalently, pick a level X ritual but account for it as if it were level X-1.

Realistically though, rituals aren't going to be a significant factor in wealth balance, so you'll do just fine handing out rituals randomly and not raising their level - they are such a minute part of overall wealth (and the system is quite self balancing to boot) that it just won't matter to PC balance anyhow.

2. How 'bout residuum?

Residuum is essentially just a form of money - just treat it like any other coinage, and you'll be fine.

 

[makeshiftwings]

I'm going to give this a try in my next campaign. I'm thinking of changing the parcels slightly. I have a party of six. I want to go for "more items" rather than "more powerful items", so I was going to use the 50% sell price (which I was already doing, and didn't notice any real balance issues), but remove the level+4 standard item, and the level+5 item that eamon suggests and replace them with an extra level+3, level+2, level+1, and level+0 item. Would that work out alright mathematically? Could I maybe throw in an extra level+0 or two into the mix?