Pathfinder - Encounters and treasure

[Calemyr]

I recently started DMing a Pathfinder campaign at the local gaming store. I'm pretty pleased with it so far, everyone's having fun and they're getting into the story, but I've noticed a deficiency in my DMing that I was hoping you folks could help me with. Namely the treasure. And, to a lesser extent, the encounters themselves.

My party (5 level 4s) broke a local slaving ring. Over four encounters, they took out 16 level 1 brigands and archers, 10 level 4 enforcers, a level 6 rogue, and a level 8 rogue. They dismantled the ring handily, using a combination of a clever party leader and a brutally powerful party tank to turn what should have been dangerous raid into a routine clean-up. Now, however, there's the question of the treasury and I find myself second guessing what I had for them.

The thing here is that this ring doesn't traffic in manual labor but in magical talent. They kidnap low-level mages and sell them to their clients, stripping them of their magical items and spellbooks and whatnot before shipping them off. It seems logical to me that they'd have a good number of minor magical trinkets but how much is too much and how little is simply insulting given the situation? I mean, they're clearly already pretty powerful (the fighter is, at least), but this should still be a nice payday, right? I'm just having a hard time figuring out what ballpark that payday should be in. I'd really love some advice if anyone has some.

The other part I'm having a little trouble with is the encounters themselves - I mostly wing it because there is no planning for these guys. But I feel like I'm making it too easy on them. I meant the slave ring to be somewhat easy (despite their numbers and fortified stronghold, they were undisciplined and arrogant in their consistent successes), but their remaining objective is against properly trained soldiers and so should be much harder. If anyone has any pointers for creating humanoid-only encounters, I'd appreciate it. I need to find some way to make it challenging without making it too daunting. It's a casual game, after all.

[Kol Korran]

Hi there! I can't much help you with the treasure, as that is highly specific to your situation, and the info is not enough- what sort of stuff do your players like, what do you feel make them over powered and such. If you think the warrior is too powerful, I'd suggest to give a lot of miscellaneous treasure (All those odds and bits of wonderous items), most of them useful mostly to the casters, but with cool and strange effects that might inspire creativeness.

My usual approach is to assume what sort of treasure the party is supposed to have By their level (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement) and place treasure accordingly ahead. There are a few other small "tricks" to treasure placement, but they won't help with the current situation.

About making encounters more interesting and challenging, here are a few principals I keep. They require a bit more planning, but not by much:
1) Choices: What makes any element of roleplaying great is true here. Different kind of enemies, different kind of goals, interesting terrain to interact with, complications such as the scene changing, traps, time limit, and more. Make the player pause and think what course of action to pursue. That will greatly help. A bit more of an explanation:
- different types of enemies: I'm not talking about "boss+ minions" (99% of players will hit the boss as hard as they can) but rather similar power enemies of different types: front liners and ranged ones, perhaps a caster or two, perhaps some behind cover, some not, or just different types of foes, who employ different tactics. Kudos to you if their tactics complement each other.

- Different goals: Not everything is "Kill everyone": perhaps there is something the party needs to take, but there are swarms of enemies to deal with? perhaps they need to destroy the portal spewing monsters? perhaps the need to defend a local from monsters? Perhaps they need to protect a specific person through hostile area? and more and more...

- Interesting Terrain: Forgot the boring 20x 3o rooms or whatever- open terrain, rough terrain, pillars, asymmetrical rooms, trudging through water, acid, a source of fire/ tainted magic/ wild magic zone/ an encounter with levels (Say some archers from a roof- can the fighter climb that with his heavy armor?), even simple things like cover (Makes some enemies REALLY hard to hit), smoke/ (Suddenly stealthy characters really matter. pesky concealment! :smallwink:) or even bad lighting (when was the last time darkvision and low light vision mattered to YOU?) Even as simple as making BIG rooms, where the 20 vs 30 ft movement have tactical significance.

- Complications: Now this really takes the cake. I'll discuss "something old, something new" a bit later, but add something to the encounter that gives it a whole new feel. A few suggestions: Have the party be attacked while planning, or an ambush! Have the enemy compound not be linear, but rather a mesh of tunnels/ rooms, or have a secret tunnels so you can get behind the party, and attack those squishy casters at the back. Have reinforcements come after a few rounds. Have a time limit- sure we can trade blows with them for 1 more minute, but in 3 rounds the mayor's daughter suffocates in the water tank! (Never tell the exact time, have them panic). Have some enemy turn out to be something else (shape shifters), have concealed enemies (either just hide, invisibility or whatever), Have a hidden trap in the room: Warrior- "i charge at the Gnoll!" DM- "And you fall into the pit trap in the middle..." Party- "Wha...?" Have an enemy keep a certain ability till a certain situation (Someone gets close, they identify who is strongest, half their forces are decimated)- Suddenly the enemy has used some power that incapacitates someone, or put someone at a greater risk, or make them much more of a threat and so on.

2) :Something old, something new": In order to have the players feel accomplished, yet not bored, I like to put some elements their characters learned/ know/ deducted in an encounter, but also some things that are new. SURPRISE is very important, and an integral part of the game. This can be known type of foes and new types, or perhaps old tactics and new tactics, and such. This way the players can say "Ok, watch out, we know they'll ..." Which will give them a sense of accomplishment. But there would also be the element of "Wait, what just happened?" Which will make the game more challenging, more exhilarating. I try to have some sort of a surprise in most of my encounters. Some encounters don't need that. (The "Kick ass" encounters detailed a bit later) but for most- some surprise is a MUST.

There are all kind of smaller principals and tricks, but I have to go now. The above 2 are really the most important ones. I hope this will help.