Treasure: Help!

[Sartharina]

I volunteered to run a D&D 4e game, but the last time I ran a game, it was a simple randomly-generated dungeon crawl from a site that I've lost since then, which had encounters and treasure all generated as part of the program.

However, reading through the DMG I have, I found the 'rewards' section to be nearly impenetrable and obtuse about what it's saying, dealing with things like 'parcels' and no clear definition on what those are (Are they ALL of these? Are they Any of these? Are they a checklist?), or how to properly arrange them - and it seems to be highly static and rigid as well, which leaves me confused.

Any advice for handling creating, awarding, and distributing treasure, especially in a way that rewards exploration, and doesn't feel too tailored for the party (Which can be alleviated by using more 'wrong' or suboptimal-for-the-build items so they can get what they really want or settle for discount treasure)? Or does the game break if WBL isn't strictly adhered to?

[NecroRebel]

Basically, over the course of a given level, a party is supposed to receive all of the treasure parcels for that level. It basically is a checklist. You don't have to give them in that order, of course, and you're very much encouraged to give multiple parcels for one encounter and none for others, which helps keep treasure more varied.

It is quite static and rigid, though - 4e was designed apparently from the beginning with a very specific set of maths for player and monster advancement, and if the players don't get enough treasure to keep up with the monsters, they're definitely going to fall behind. The math in 4e, barring a couple of goofs, is quite tight, and those goofs have pretty much been fixed by the expertise and to a lesser extent defense-booster feats.

The party doesn't really need this exact item to keep up, but they do need appropriate enhancement bonuses for all of their stuff. You should generally avoid giving out items that no one can use effectively, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should always give out the exact weapon that someone uses. Maybe the longbow Ranger finds a +2 shortbow when they've been using a nonmagical weapon at level ~3 or so, for instance.

You can also alleviate problems with "wrong" equipment if you make sure the party has a ritual caster and make a point of giving them opportunities to learn the Transfer Enchantment ritual (in the back of the first Adventurer's Vault), or just outright give them ritual scrolls of it as part of their loot. That ritual is very cheap and lets the party swap enchantments from one item to another so long as the target item can accept it. That means you can give out magical battle axes and your party's swordsman can still get their preferred weapon upgraded.

[Sartharina]

Hmm... maybe I can take a tip from AD&D and throw in a few extra parcels of treasure as 'hidden' treasures, and award experience for finding them to keep on the WBL guidelines.

[masteraleph]

The easier way to do treasure (vs. the DMG's solution) for a 5 member party:

Give the gold value they say (level -1 x 2).

For items, give everyone an item they want at level +1 or +2 (rather than giving 4 party members items at levels +1 to +4 and none to the 5th person).

The items they receive should end up being about the same in gold value as the items the DMG suggests, but you won't have to keep track of who missed out on getting an item at any given level.