Would you give your 2nd level party 30 thousand gold?

[Crothian]

Im still curious, what are the players planning to do with it?/what have they done ?
The last I heard they had each spent less than 1k - and that they were planning on splitting the cash and buying magic items.

So far they have had MW armor made for the half giant since he can't buy off the self. The dwarf also wants armor, but they are headed to a dwarven city so he's waiting to get it there. The mage wants to aquirte some pearls for identifies.

So far that's it.

 

[Tarangil]

So, in tonights adventure I gave the group, all second level characters, about thirty thousnd gold pieces in gems. It is connected to a plot, it just wasn't out of nowhere. But I'm just curious how many people would do this? I'm not taking it away from them later, well not all of it. One of the gems is going to be made into a very powerful magical item for second level characters, and item worth 5 times as much as the gem was. The players are in a town they can spoend lots of it, they have time to special order some things and make some magical items themsevles. That's a lot of money to give to second level characters, so is that somethign you would have done?

It IS alot of money to give to second level players. As part of a plot though there should be nothing wrong with it. Even then, 30000gp in gems will attract alot of unwanted attention, but I'm sure that may have been part of the plot.

As just a random treasure...-NOPE-, Not gonna happen

I've done something similar with Major magic items at low levels, but there's always a catch...again, just part of the plot. So YES I would give them 30000 gp but I'll be getting 95% of it back at the expense of the PC's and their Egos, and of course a good story and lesson learned.

 

[tennyson]

Two sessions ago, my players received 100k gp a piece for completing a major story arc (they're all 10th level). The reward meshes well with the story, but I definitely find myself on my toes when preparing battles lately.

I would imagine 30k at 2nd level would unbalance the game for a bit, at least until their characters are level 6+.

 

[Crothian]

It IS alot of money to give to second level players. As part of a plot though there should be nothing wrong with it. Even then, 30000gp in gems will attract alot of unwanted attention, but I'm sure that may have been part of the plot.

Everything is about plot and moving the story along. Nothing exists in a complete vacuum, not even the plane of that name.

As just a random treasure...-NOPE-, Not gonna happen

I don't believe in randome treasure or random encounters for that matter

I've done something similar with Major magic items at low levels, but there's always a catch...again, just part of the plot. So YES I would give them 30000 gp but I'll be getting 95% of it back at the expense of the PC's and their Egos, and of course a good story and lesson learned.

Right now the party seems concenered about spending it, they've talked about it but have yet to actually spend anything really. Its very amusing and intyeresting.

 

[Black Omega]

I would be impressed if I ever saw a player choose to retire his 2nd level character -- especially for the reason you describe above. I think that player's next character would deserve some sort of special bonus during the creation process.

Funnily enough, back in University I did this in a Rolemaster game. Playing a Barbarian, very first adventure. The GM wasn't very good and gave us some good magic items and alot of money. I made a deal with the other characters. I took the money, they got the items. The character then had enough to retire and start up his own caravan guard business while his poor buddies were left going out on adventures and risking their lives.

 

[was]

No, I wouldn't give them that much.

 

[Crothian]

No, I wouldn't give them that much.

Why not?

update: they are still trying to figure out how to spend it. They learned that one of the diamonds, most valuable, has a vbery old cut that is not common in this area. The clues are slowly unfolding in front of them. THey will learn more tongiht when we learn if the are Of Sound Mind!

 

[Altalazar]

Why not? Especially if it is part of a greater plotline.

It seems rather artificial to say that because of some arbitrary reason ('level') certain people in society can never get their hands on more than X amount of gold. Kind of the way it is artificial the way all encounters in some games are exactly balanced for the level of the players.

Sure, it may 'unbalance' things for a while, but then, so what? After all, the DM sets the encounters - I don't see why it would somehow be impossible simply to adjust encounter difficulty. Why not even let the players have an easy time for a little while. In the grand scheme of things, ultimately that 30K isn't going to mean much. You won't gain levels any faster. You may not necessarily be able to buy certain equipment with it anyway. Maybe you'd instead want to invest it in real estate (your own castle!) or something to that effect. There are a lot of options that can make for interesting plotlines, especially given the low level of the party. Plots that probably wouldn't be as interesting or challenging if you just got the 'standard' treasure, and only got your castle when you were much higher level.

So I say go for it - shake things up. I really disagree with those who see any sort of windfall for the players as a reason to penalize them in some other way.

 

[Crothian]

It lives!!

So, update. They spent very little in the town they recieved the money. Spent some in a second town the visted, but not much. And in the third place when they got ready to go after giants they made some magical items so spent some that way. But all in all they are still dairly rich having spendt the past two months or so after the giants and not in a situation to spend any of it. But they have leveld a bit faster then normal so by now if I were to care about level and gold ratio, they would probably be a bit low.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

So, in tonights adventure I gave the group, all second level characters, about thirty thousnd gold pieces in gems. It is connected to a plot, it just wasn't out of nowhere. But I'm just curious how many people would do this? I'm not taking it away from them later, well not all of it. One of the gems is going to be made into a very powerful magical item for second level characters, and item worth 5 times as much as the gem was. The players are in a town they can spoend lots of it, they have time to special order some things and make some magical items themsevles. That's a lot of money to give to second level characters, so is that somethign you would have done?

I probably wouldn't without good plot reason, like yourself. There would be no "random" encounter that could ever have that much cash. Though I think like many of you, most of my encounters are not random. It sounds like a great idea for a story, and I think it was a bold move on your part for handing out the cash. Good luck with the story!