How do you tell when your dm is holding back on the treasure?

[Drake2009]

My group is level 8 and our magical items are listed here
Slippers of spiderwalk , a few +1 weapons, Wand of lightning (I made it though), Ring of feather fall, Cloak of resistance, Cloak of elven kind and bracers of armor +1. (oh and gloves of giant strength made by me.)
I am pretty new to dnd and I am the party wizard. I just kinda want to get a few items like a headband of intelligence. I did talk to the dm and he said he would put in a few things like that so im happy. Just wondering if i am being treasure hungry or if I was right about the holding back. P.S There are 6 people in the party.

[JaronK]

Check the Wealth By Level tables in the DMG, page 135. That shows roughly how much wealth you should have at your current level.

JaronK

[Yora]

There is a very rough estimate of what the average value of equipment for an average characer in an average campaign should be like for each level.
But since there are very few average characters and few average campaigns, that wouldn't say much.

[The Glyphstone]

My group is level 8 and our magical items are listed here
Slippers of spiderwalk , a few +1 weapons, Wand of lightning (I made it though), Ring of feather fall, Cloak of resistance, Cloak of elven kind and bracers of armor +1. (oh and gloves of giant strength made by me.)
I am pretty new to dnd and I am the party wizard. I just kinda want to get a few items like a headband of intelligence. I did talk to the dm and he said he would put in a few things like that so im happy. Just wondering if i am being treasure hungry or if I was right about the holding back. P.S There are 6 people in the party.

Slippers of Spider Climbing = 4,800 GP
3x +1 weapons = 6,000 GP
Wand of Lightning Bolt = 11,200 GP
Cloak of Resistance +1 = 1,000 GP
Ring of Feather Fall = 2,200 GP
Bracers of Armor +1 = 1,000 GP
Cloak of Elvenkind = 2,500 GP
Gloves of Giant Strength = 4,000

Total party treasure of 32,700.

At 8th level, the average WBL should be 27,000 GP. Across a 6-person party, that would be an expected total of 162,000 GP worth of items. So either you guys are using up consumables (healing and buff potions, scrolls, wands) like they're candy, or you're only getting about 20% of the treasure the game expects you to have.

[Techwarrior]

Slippers of Spider Climbing = 4,800 GP
3x +1 weapons = 6,000 GP
Wand of Lightning Bolt = 11,200 GP
Cloak of Resistance +1 = 1,000 GP
Ring of Feather Fall = 2,200 GP
Bracers of Armor +1 = 1,000 GP
Cloak of Elvenkind = 2,500 GP
Gloves of Giant Strength = 4,000


Fun= Priceless

That's the real question.

[ZamielVanWeber]

In DnD the DM cannot "hold back" on treasure because it is not owed to you, the player. That being said, CR believes that you have a comparable WBL when you face the challenge, so your DM will need to keep that in mind. Otherwise your Techwarrior is right.

[ddude987]

Slippers of Spider Climbing = 4,800 GP
3x +1 weapons = 6,000 GP
Wand of Lightning Bolt = 11,200 GP
Cloak of Resistance +1 = 1,000 GP
Ring of Feather Fall = 2,200 GP
Bracers of Armor +1 = 1,000 GP
Cloak of Elvenkind = 2,500 GP
Gloves of Giant Strength = 4,000

Total party treasure of 32,700.

At 8th level, the average WBL should be 27,000 GP. Across a 6-person party, that would be an expected total of 162,000 GP worth of items. So either you guys are using up consumables (healing and buff potions, scrolls, wands) like they're candy, or you're only getting about 20% of the treasure the game expects you to have.

The WBL table is suggested for by the end of 8th level. If they just reached level 8 of course they will not have that much wealth. Although for 8th level players unless you are playing a low magic setting that is a very low amount of wealth. How much do you all have in terms of gold, gems, jewelry etc...?

[Rukia]

One thing I don't get in these types of responses is that everyone always assumes the DM is in the wrong when there is another variable never discussed. Consumables. Just because you're supposed to have "x" wealth at a certain level doesn't mean you can negate any consumables that you've burned in that time period.

If you have a wizard, how much wealth is invested in his spellbook at that level? How many scrolls/wands/potions/etc.. have been used up during that time which is essentially wealth down the drain? Has there been any deaths, and if so how many times have you forked over the 10k for a resurrection? You can't simply take stock of your current items for your level and then say you're behind if you've already used up some of that wealth on items or services that don't stick around.

I admit I haven't been DMing for long, but at my table I would count all of that in the characters wealth. If they blow 50k on resurrections, scrolls/pots that they've used up, etc.. then I don't simply reimburse them so that their current inventory meets up with what the DMG says it should.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

Keep in mind that WBL guidelines offer a total significantly lower than the one you'd get if you added up the wealth of all the encounters needed to reach a given level.

For example, a party that reaches 8th level through normal adventuring has gone through 90+ fights, with way more treasure than 180 gp per fight.

That's because the WBL table takes into account standard expenditures, consumables, changing your items over time rather than improving them and so on and so forth.

[Drake2009]

actually we almost NEVER use consumables like potions,wands,scrolls that kinda stuff. Oh and i forgot we do have a +1 whip that we need to sell and I think our dm is going easy on the monsters. Though he may be factoring in our power cause i just torched a flesh golem alone. Almost died from his 2 bows though but the cleric healed me up. Anyway I guess ill talk to him about it but we are doing pretty well. We are mostly facing drows. We did fight a few different things like a Flesh golem, some giant squid which i shocked with my wand and the gunslinger shot, and we fought a level 8 barbarian drow then leveled to 8 ourselves. I think hes probobly trying to keep us from destroying are enemies to easy. Plus we might have gotten a few potions like 2 sessions ago but i kinda made a giant stinkbomb out of them with a fireball.... Needless to say I and the evil drow leader were ticked.
Edit: None of us have died and If you need the amount of money we have we all have about 2,000 gold each. OH WOW. I totally forgot this one.
Infinite magic spellbook. Lets me contain about a thousand spells i believe. Probobly a huge thing lol.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

The WBL table is suggested for by the end of 8th level. If they just reached level 8 of course they will not have that much wealth.

Where are you getting this from? Why does the table start at 2 and go to 20 then?

[RFLS]

One thing I don't get in these types of responses is that everyone always assumes the DM is in the wrong when there is another variable never discussed. Consumables. Just because you're supposed to have "x" wealth at a certain level doesn't mean you can negate any consumables that you've burned in that time period.


- So either you guys are using up consumables (healing and buff potions, scrolls, wands) like they're candy -

These two things may be relevant to each other. Posts 7 and 3, respectively.

[navar100]

Is every combat a frustrating series of near TPK? During combat, are you having fun along with the sense of danger or do you spend your thinking moments worried your character will die next round and dread when it's the bad guy's turn?

If you can answer in a positive light then everything is fine. Even if the DM is being a bit stingy he's not punishing you for it. He's doing his job right because you're having fun. If you answer in a negative light then you have a DM who hates his players lauding over the power he has to make your lives miserable. Being stingy is a common trait among such DMs because they hate PCs being more "powerful" than they deserve, which is little to being with. However, I'm doubting this is the actual case because the treasure you do have is more generous than what that type of DM would give. The Gauntlets of Strength and Wand of Lightning Bolt are too fancy for their tastes. You would instead have had a couple potions of Bull Strength and a Wand of Magic Missile caster level 3 at best.

[Togo]

Edit: None of us have died and If you need the amount of money we have we all have about 2,000 gold each. OH WOW. I totally forgot this one.
Infinite magic spellbook. Lets me contain about a thousand spells i believe. Probobly a huge thing lol.

12,500gp, assuming it was empty when you found it.

[Rukia]

actually we almost NEVER use consumables like potions,wands,scrolls that kinda stuff. Oh and i forgot we do have a +1 whip that we need to sell and I think our dm is going easy on the monsters. Though he may be factoring in our power cause i just torched a flesh golem alone. Almost died from his 2 bows though but the cleric healed me up. Anyway I guess ill talk to him about it but we are doing pretty well. We are mostly facing drows. We did fight a few different things like a Flesh golem, some giant squid which i shocked with my wand and the gunslinger shot, and we fought a level 8 barbarian drow then leveled to 8 ourselves. I think hes probobly trying to keep us from destroying are enemies to easy. Plus we might have gotten a few potions like 2 sessions ago but i kinda made a giant stinkbomb out of them with a fireball.... Needless to say I and the evil drow leader were ticked.

That wasn't actually aimed at you, it was more about the responses I usually see in these types of threads that pop up frequently. If you're fighting encounters that are low CR for your group then it would make sense to have low overall wealth. Treasure goes along with EL so if you were a lower level group taking on higher EL then you'd become rich quicker, whereas doing the opposite does just that.

You may well be under standard WBL but if you're fighting low CR enemies then you don't necessarily rely on it. WBL is a number representative of your overall expected power at any given level. If you are below that then you would probably have a tough time with proper CR enemies. However if you're fighting things that are low CR for your level then you're probably ok.

Keep in mind your DM might be fully aware that you're low on wealth and purposely doing it which is his prerogative. In my current game I kept my players at low wealth for the first 4 levels in order to make it a bit more difficult on them and because they had a rather large reward waiting for them when they completed their mission. It was very intentional on my part and in the end they wound up with a higher WBL than had they simply gotten "x" per level as by the book.

In a previous game I made the mistake of giving more WBL than I should have early on and had to fight that mistake for awhile. It's much harder to slow down treasure gain after players are spoiled than it is to keep it slow and then give them big rewards here and there to make up for it. I literally had to not give them hardly any good treasure for 2 levels to get them back on track and they were painfully aware of it.

[Mirakk]

Another thing many people seem to forget is plausibility of rewards given.

I ran a party of 10 once, and it was a nightmare trying to make loot for them all. People expect to have a certain quality of equipment, but it's hard to explain why the party's reward for killing the local bandits at level 3 was over 10,000GP.

It did help that they decided to skip a pile of custom-built treasure that was sitting on a large chessboard in the middle of the forest. Even after they killed the chess themed badguys, they refused to step on the board because "it was surely a trap" no matter what the Rogue said. :smallbiggrin:

[Drake2009]

Yeah my dm is probobly gonna do that too cause we are working for these elves and he said we get our reward once were done.