How do you distribute treasure?

[Dalebert]

I know there are treasure guides out there which say how much wealth a character should have according to level. How many people are using that as a guideline? If so, aren't you in effect rewarding them for being fiscally irresponsible? Aren't you penalizing them for being economically creative, like taking feats to make their own items or a rogue who takes a little risk to pilfer some extra?

I recall someone saying that it's not a big deal to invest in and use expendables because the DM is just going to give you more treasure to catch you up. Seems to me that a more appropriate way to give treasure is in proportion to the challenges PCs are facing. Obviously they will face more difficult challenges at higher levels. Hence, they will find more treasure as they progress. If they spend more of it frivolously, they will have less to spend on other things. No?

[molten_dragon]

I know there are treasure guides out there which say how much wealth a character should have according to level. How many people are using that as a guideline? If so, aren't you in effect rewarding them for being fiscally irresponsible? Aren't you penalizing them for being economically creative, like taking feats to make their own items or a rogue who takes a little risk to pilfer some extra?

I recall someone saying that it's not a big deal to invest in and use expendables because the DM is just going to give you more treasure to catch you up. Seems to me that a more appropriate way to give treasure is in proportion to the challenges PCs are facing. Obviously they will face more difficult challenges at higher levels. Hence, they will find more treasure as they progress. If they spend more of it frivolously, they will have less to spend on other things. No?

I give the PCs what I want them to have. Or if I'm running a module, whatever the module gives them. I'll usually ask them every few levels if they can total up the GP value of what they have just so I can get a rough estimate of where they are compared to WBL. I don't give PCs who have spent a ton of gold on expendables extra money though, or take it away from ones who have item creation feats.

[Harlot]

I ignore the rules stating that this-and-this encounter should give so-and-so much coin, items and goods. They do find treasure, mainly magic items that I know are useable for their characters and they get rewards (gold) for completing side-quest/quests. I am rather stingy with rewards I guess, mostly because the campaigns we run are rather short, stretching maybe two-three levels at the most.

[nedz]

I give out Random treasure from the books for monsters, plus add in some random-ish placed loot in chests and the like. They normally seem to end up fighting opponents with class levels though, so NPC gear forms most of their loot; I choose this for the NPCs rather than using the standard kit lists in the DMG, the value will be about the same though.

I may also place interesting items {Artefacts, McGuffins and the like} mainly for flavour. It's quite likely that these are of questionable real value, whatever the DMG would have one think.

I look at PC wealth v WBL on occasion, just to see if I need to use monsters with more cash. I generally find that they are behind the curve for the first 5 levels, before pulling ahead slightly — but that's mainly to do with how good they have become at Search rolls.

[Urpriest]

I rarely use random treasure unless I need inspiration, but I tend to stick with treasure values for encounters that match the book's expectations, and to balance out encounters such that, for example, if the PCs fight a Dragon or NPC with triple treasure then they might later fight two golems or vermin or the like with no treasure. I don't "catch up" the PCs if they spend more than the book expects them to, and I don't give them less treasure if they find creative (non-encounter-based) ways of making money.