ZEITGEIST Zeitvice: one GM's guide to the best AP

[Crispy120286]

My group uses Pathfinder which is a much more Magic Item dependent system. If we went with the core requisition rules of 1 Favor/1 Magic Item, it would take weeks to outfit my party members because they tend to buy a lot of potions, scrolls, and inexpensive utility wonderous items.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

For Pathfinder just give them Wealth by level at each level. Do not use requisitions for this its a waste of time and effort and won't work well. The book lists an amount of gold at each level, but that basically comes out as WBL, so give them it at each level. Don't count used up expendables some are expected to be used at each level so give them full value.
There are some points where the expected levelling will be a bad place to give them new gear so in those cases delay it or if you think they need the boost give them the stuff early.
If they need an extra scroll of Raise Dead , or Clairvoyance or something use requistion for this to resolve a specific problem.

If they want to keep items from foes defeated let them , then as the campaign recomends deduct that items value from the amount they get at the next level. I let them keep flavourful but fairly useless items like the icons for free I also did not count artefacts like the Weapon of Dhbisu , the swords of Ssramma or the humble hook against wealth

 

[Crispy120286]

That's how I have been doing it so far. But my party has started the habit of never looting or confiscating loot from the enemies they defeat because its not mechanically advantageous. they know that anything they loot will just get turned into the RHC so they just don't even bother. As a result they have skipped over a few unique and named magic items. Except they did pick up the Sword of Srasama in the Crypta Hereticarum.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Thats there problem! Tell them that they can keep anything they like as part of their share, you could even give them half price on it as it does not have to be crafted by the Risuri(same as if they had the feat to make it) or just tell them when an enemy has something more interesting than a +1 sword and let them decide. Really though most cool stuff is largely useless and mechanically less useful than a +2 to stat.
The reasons for this are not a flaw in the Zg AP but the mechanics, the save DC for all the neat special abilities on items is incredibly low , combined with the fact that even pc spells have trouble keeping up with saves and most special abilities trigger only on a save of 1 , so are worthless.
My pc's did not loot they did not feel it was appropriate for officials, they did note they picked up anything magical for the stores and when in the field would consider using something they just picked up but it was almost never useful. They are not big on disposable except a few scrolls of useful but niche cleric spells for the day they really need a neutralise poison

Pretty much none of the npc items were considered worthwhile by my pc's but it depends on the character (the artefacts were all interesting though and they kept all of them)
It has been a long time since my players seriously used loot from random foes in a PF campaign they usually have craft wondrous item and craft (arms armour) and that covers 90% of all the magic items they use combined with most npc's having inferior equipment and looting is just for cash anyway. I assume this is why 5th ed removed economy and looting so the wonder of loot was back, along with unfair distrubution of items, uneven power level , gettign the wrong sort of magic weapon and all the annoyances you get in 1st and 2nd edition I was happy to leave behing last century