Helping a party stay accurate to WBL chart when they are terrible at Searching...

[ksbsnowowl]

I recently started running a D&D 3.5 party through the original version of Curse of the Crimson Throne. (Obvious spoilers for that set of adventures to follow...)

I've got more than four PC's, so I'm keenly aware of the changes that need to be made to keep the modules as difficult as they are supposed to be (25% or 50% more foes if I have 5 or 6 players present for the session). I've also been making sure to bump up the static monetary awards throughout the modules (if Croft offers 1,000 gp in the module, instead she offers 1,500 gp to the six-man party), as well as some of the treasure found in encounter locations (though many of them just state "two Derro," so I just roll up treasure for 3 derro when the PC's actually fight three instead of two).

Regardless, my PC's are vastly under wealth. They are just about to hit 4th level, and are nearly finished with the Dead Warrens. I intentionally placed extra treasure in the Dead Warrens, because they were in such bad need of catching up to where the WBL table says they should be (they should each have more than 5,000 gp in wealth, but they are averaging well under 2,000 gp). Part of this is a little stubbornness on their part; one of the items from Gaedren's stash of "keepers" ended up leading to a plot hook, so they haven't sold any of the other items, hoping they will also lead to plot hooks.

We've spent most of the last two sessions battling through the Dead Warrens, and after defeating the Otyugh, only one PC (not the rogue) decided to search through the muddy muck that the creature was wallowing in. He rolled poorly and didn't find anything. That was a big cache of treasure in that location (and I made it even larger; though instead of a static DC 25, I made the original treasure amount findable with just a DC 20, and made two sets of extra treasure found at higher DC's [25 and 30; hitting a higher number also found the lower DC's treasure]). Then the party defeated a group of derro, and looted them, getting some coin and gear, and left to heal for the night. Upon returning the next day, they had several more tough battles, but defeated everything they faced, and found some prisoners that needed rescuing. I applaud them for taking the time to escort the prisoners back to safety... but they forgot to loot the derro they had just killed! There are still two foes left... who are going to find everyone else dead, so they are going to loot their dead comrades' bodies, and leave the Dead Warrens (to show up again at an "opportune" later time).

The party is going to end up returning, in game about 45 minutes after they left to escort the prisoners, to find the place deserted. They'll be able to find the McGuffin quest items they were sent looking for, but much of the treasure will be gone (there will still be gear they can salvage off of corpses).

So... I've taken steps to ensure they can get the wealth they are supposed to have, but they are completely failing to find any of it.

At what point do I just let them continue on under wealth, and when they complain, tell them that the treasure was there, they just failed to look for it?

[BowStreetRunner]

Part of this is a little stubbornness on their part; one of the items from Gaedren's stash of "keepers" ended up leading to a plot hook, so they haven't sold any of the other items, hoping they will also lead to plot hooks. Here you might offer something of a Pawn-Shop to resolve the issue. They can pawn the items for gold, but if they need to recover any of the items because it turns out to be important they can always go back and un-pawn it.


He rolled poorly and didn't find anything. You might encourage the party to use the rules for Taking 20 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#taking20) when they are searching an area at the end of an encounter and aren't in a hurry.

[ksbsnowowl]

Here you might offer something of a Pawn-Shop to resolve the issue. They can pawn the items for gold, but if they need to recover any of the items because it turns out to be important they can always go back and un-pawn it.This is a fabulous idea! Thank you.


You might encourage the party to use the rules for Taking 20 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/usingSkills.htm#taking20) when they are searching an area at the end of an encounter and aren't in a hurry.

Perhaps a little meta-gamey, but a perfectly valid way to handle it. I might mention it after they leave the Dead Warrens the next time.

[J-H]

"Hey, are you guys going to do anything else, like check for treasure?"

They may be assuming that you'll tell them if they spot anything.

[Segev]

If you want to hint at it without coming right out and telling them, have them go back through an area they've cleared to find some kobold rogues looting the place. This can both hint that there's stuff they're missing by not searching, and give them a target to mug for loot they now don't have to search for.

You can also have a knowledgeable Expert or even Commoner who sees these obvious adventurers coming back with no loot offer his services as a hireling. All he asks is for, say, 10% of any treasure he personally finds for them, and he'll carry it all around and such. Give him good search scores, and he'll be filthy rich and moderately high level for a commoner before too long, even staying well out of the fighting.

[Mike Miller]

I have a lot of things automated for ease. One thing is a default search roll of 20 from the rogue if they have the time for a take 20 so that the party doesn't have to request it every.single.time.

I also automatically roll search checks for traps. Again, so the rogue doesn't have to request it 284749 times a session. Etc

This could help them find treasure. I also try to remember to describe the defeated foes after battle to keep the PCs interested in looting. Sometimes we do all forget, but it generally works well

[Torpin]

sometimes magic items glow, so give them a group of npcs to fight with obvious magic items, like give them a couple flaming swords.

[Torpin]

also instead of finding treasure, it can be payment from and NPC

[Sleven]

also instead of finding treasure, it can be payment from and NPC

I highly recommend obvious approaches like these.

Personally, I've never expected PCs to dig through Otyugh filth to find treasure. It gives things a real "gamey" feel. You wouldn't dig through crap just in case there was a gem in it. PCs are likely to feel the same. Unless the MM explicitly mentions a creature stashing gold in its feces, then it would be fair game. At the same time, opponents probably don't carry tons of cash on them (gold weighs a lot after all). If you want to help guide your players a bit, offer knowledge, profession, etc. checks related to the monsters or locations in question. Then you just drop clues on them. For example, the thief might recognize a certain area as being similar to a stash or dead drop. A wizard might know that a certain creature has a tendency to put shiny things in certain places. The cleric might recognize an item as a "plot important" holy relic, while the rest are obviously just magic swords. Etc.

[Nifft]

I have a lot of things automated for ease. One thing is a default search roll of 20 from the rogue if they have the time for a take 20 so that the party doesn't have to request it every.single.time.

I also automatically roll search checks for traps. Again, so the rogue doesn't have to request it 284749 times a session. Etc

This could help them find treasure. I also try to remember to describe the defeated foes after battle to keep the PCs interested in looting. Sometimes we do all forget, but it generally works well

I like to assume that the PCs are competent genre-appropriate experts in adventure-related tasks, and that emphatically includes finding treasure.

If there's no interesting decision -- if they're not being chased, or following someone, or otherwise pressed for time -- just let them find the stuff.



Personally, I've never expected PCs to dig through Otyugh filth to find treasure. It gives things a real "gamey" feel. You wouldn't dig through crap just in case there was a gem in it.

But if they don't need to mouse over every pixel, then they're not going to get the 80 hours of gameplay value promised on the box.

[MeimuHakurei]

Give your encounters valuable items? Even when not looking for treasure in dungeons, they surely should try to loot fancy items off of fallen enemies.

[lylsyly]

Give your encounters valuable items? Even when not looking for treasure in dungeons, they surely should try to loot fancy items off of fallen enemies.

This is what I do when I run a campaign with my SRD (-) rules. Put level appropriate magic items in the hands of fallen foes. ​Detect Magic IS a cantrip, right?

[Zaq]

Never, ever pick up the dice unless both success and failure are interesting.

To me, it's sounding like failure at searching isn't interesting. I mean, differently not interesting from "you can't start the adventure because you failed to roll to unlock the door," but still, it's clearly interfering with play, right? I'm not saying that players constantly need their hands held through the entire game, but there's clearly a disconnect here, and I wonder how important it really is that every single treasure be hidden in a missable manner.

I'm fine with rewarding players who use build currency (e.g., ranks in Search) and/or good at-the-table tactics to go above and beyond. But maybe we can reward by going a little above the baseline if they get really creative and interesting with their searches rather than punishing by obscuring the baseline wealth in a way that can easily result in a whole lotta nothing.

I admit to some bias here. I personally find it really hard to "believably" give out WBL-appropriate treasure. I'm heavy on the gamist side of things, though, so I'd rather hand out the goodies in a somewhat awkward manner than prevent the players from getting their toys because I can't narratively explain why [X encounter] in [Y location] would be hiding [Z treasure]. And also because, as other folks have mentioned, it's not trivial to communicate subtly that there's more here if only you look for it while balancing the fact that you don't want to spend hours of table time exhaustively trying to comb over every inch of every dungeon. I personally have rarely seen that done well, and I don't think I've ever really hit the sweet spot in my own GMing misadventures.

I've also had GMs who basically made all the treasure missable in other ways and other reasons, and that sucked too. Like "getting massacred at ECL 7+ by something with DR/magic that most of the party just can't break" sucked. So while I respect anyone who genuinely believes that they have the magic touch to make the players feel like they're exploring and actually finding treasure (versus just being given it) while making sure that they don't fall way behind, I'm also pretty comfortable with just saying that if you have to choose between extremes, I'd much rather just make sure that the treasure shows up than risk falling into the opposite pitfall.

For canned modules? That's a hard one, especially if you don't like really modifying them much. I guess just narrate past the searching part and get to the finding part when appropriate? Or, as others have said, get a search-heavy NPC involved or something.

[HouseRules]

I calculated the treasure per encounter, and if player always accumulate all treasure, that would give 150% wealth by level. Thus, players need to spend about 35% of their wealth as consumables. Players shall not ever get all of the Gears of an NPC when they defeat on. Therefore, NPCs need to have destructible gear.

On average, characters need to spend an average per encounter to stay within Wealth by level.

Level 1 spend 28 gp 1 sp 2.5 cp
Level 2 spends 45 gp
Level 3 spends 84 gp 3 sp 7.5 cp
Level 4 spends 114 gp 3 sp 7.5 cp
Level 5 spends 241 gp 8 sp 7.5 cp
Level 6 spends 290 gp 6 sp 2.5 cp
Level 7 spends 388 gp 1 sp 2.5 cp
Level 8 spends 562 gp 5 sp
Level 9 spends 708 gp 7 sp 5 cp
Level 10 spends 1063 gp 1 sp 2.5 cp
Level 11 spends 1209 gp 3 sp 7.5 cp
Level 12 spends 2008 gp 1 sp 2.5 cp
Level 13 spends 2495 gp 6 sp 2.5 cp
Level 14 spends 2983 gp 1 sp 2.5 cp
Level 15 spends 4370 gp 6 sp 2.5 cp
Level 16 spends 5345 gp 6 sp 2.5 cp
Level 17 spends 6826 gp 8 sp 7.5 cp
Level 18 spends 8926 gp 8 sp 7.5 cp
Level 19 spends 10651 gp 8 sp 7.5 cp
Level 20 need to look up Wealth by Level for Level 21


Of course, unwanted gear could be re-crafted by the spell casters in the party, so their value does not change. Sell for half, and cost half to craft.

Basically, if they on average spends within the limit I've calculated, then they will stay with the Wealth by Level.

If they spend less, they would be stronger, so send more strong monsters their way to make their wealth go down. If they spend more, they would be weaker, so send more weak monsters their way to bump their Wealth.
Reverse this if their level is 1-4 since it is backwards in these levels.

Remember that NPCs are the fastest way to increase player's Wealth since they provide more wealth to experience ratio!

Remember that expenditures would need to increase when NPC encounters are used.

[ksbsnowowl]

So we had another session. One of the very first things the party bard does (trying to impress Cressida Kroft, who his character has a crush on) is offer to sell the studded leather armor the party just looted at the end of the previous session to the Korvosan Guard. Croft visually inspects it, notes that it isn't really in the style of the Guard's standard issue gear, but offers to buy it anyway (the Sable Company does usually outfit in studded leather). That armor was magical and the party didn't even check for that before selling it off. They then proceeded to return to the Dead Warrens, where they found evidence of the dead derro having been looted of their small items of wealth (a trail of hastily gathered and dropped coins leading off down a side tunnel before ending [the escaping boss noticed the hole in his sack]; the trail was a gimme of ~200 gp value to give them SOMETHING, and to show they could have gotten more...)

They did loot the derro of their remaining gear, and proceeded to look through the rest of the remaining lair. The lair has a library of necromantic texts, that the module values at 300 gp. I had arbitrarily increased the value to 600 gp. There were also 6 arcane scrolls stuffed in the books (module originally lists two). The party did think to cast detect magic before looking at the books, but more from the perspective of not wanting to set off any magically trapped books. They loaded up the six magic-detecting books, and were planning to leave it at that, but with a little encouragement I got them to load up 10% of the library into the wheelbarrow they had found in the Otyugh lair... before they set the remaining books on fire! So in the end, they gathered 60 gp worth of necromancy texts that they can sell, but burned 540 gp worth of books...

I give up.

I'll make reasonable efforts to stick in some extra treasure where it logically fits into the story (such as letting them know they could salvage 200 gp worth of Alchemist's Lab gear from the wrecked lab; the party sorcerer wants to become an alchemist, so he can buy replacement lab equipment for his new lab, filling out the lab's missing equipment for only 300 gp (full lab costs 500 gp), but they're going to have to deal with the consequences of their choices for a while, until opportunities to insert some more wealth occur in the story.

[Segev]

Do any of the PCs have skills or backgrounds that would let them reasonably be aware of the value of things? You can have them roll skills by calling for it, or even just Int checks, and let the one(s) who score highest know, "Books like these would sell for 600 gp," or similar tidbits. Things their characters would know that they, as players, may not think of.

[Seneschul]

Here's how you can fix it.

One of those NPC rogues that cleaned up after the party left loot behind?

DM Fiat: the rogue had a change of heart, he's giving up his rogueish ways after a vision from the future of how the party will save the world, and how the the NPC rogue just felt the christmas spirit and had to give back everything he stole.

And have the rogue lecture them on leaving loot behind that they should keep for themselves, since they are on a thread of destiny meant to save the world.

Because destiny may not make the next NPC rogue give them back their stuff.

And then the rogue goes off and joins a monastery.

Takes you 15 minutes of interesting roleplay, gets their WBL back on track, and reminds them in character of the 2nd rule of murder-hoboism.

Pillage, then burn.

[HouseRules]

Here's how you can fix it.

One of those NPC rogues that cleaned up after the party left loot behind?

Instead of leaving anything behind, that rogue becomes the next target for the party by leaving behind clues pointing to that rogue.

[Seneschul]

Instead of leaving anything behind, that rogue becomes the next target for the party by leaving behind clues pointing to that rogue.

Murder-hoboism is not the only way. Why encourage it when you don't have to?

And you're going to suggest leaving clues for the party that can't find clues?:smallyuk:

[ericgrau]

but they forgot to loot the derro they had just killed!
Your players haven't declared each time they pooped either, are their colons about to explode? Real world time is much quicker than game time, where the characters have more time to go over minor details than the players do. After they kill an enemy, ask the players if they want to take the time to loot them or not. Actually in my games I take this as so automatic PC behavior that, unless the PCs were in a hurry, after a dungeon I just give the players a list of loot for all past fights.


At what point do I just let them continue on under wealth, and when they complain, tell them that the treasure was there, they just failed to look for it?
If OTOH they still refuse to loot fallen foes and/or never check side passages, never coddle the PCs. Let them figure it out the hard way, learn and correct. From day 1. That's part of the fun of a game, getting better. But don't expect them to be mind readers, and what you expect them to spell out they might not realize they need to spell out.

Or in other words tell the PCs there is water bodies to loot/unopened chests/etc. but don't make them drink loot/open/etc.

[MeimuHakurei]

Your players haven't declared each time they pooped either, are their colons about to explode? Real world time is much quicker than game time, where the characters have more time to go over minor details than the players do. After they kill an enemy, ask the players if they want to take the time to loot them or not. Actually in my games I take this as so automatic PC behavior that, unless the PCs were in a hurry, after a dungeon I just give the players a list of loot for all past fights.


If OTOH they still refuse to loot fallen foes and/or never check side passages, never coddle the PCs. Let them figure it out the hard way, learn and correct. From day 1. That's part of the fun of a game, getting better. But don't expect them to be mind readers, and what you expect them to spell out they might not realize they need to spell out.

Or in other words tell the PCs there is water bodies to loot/unopened chests/etc. but don't make them drink loot/open/etc.

That would've been my second idea - if the party won't even claim enemy loot properly, just run the game onwards without adjusting for the loss of monetary wealth. They may start to struggle, but should catch up eventually if they wise up. They'll probably want more wealth on them once they start running into DR/magic enemies or the encounter days become tough to bear without CLW wands.

[denthor]

So we had another session. One of the very first things the party bard does (trying to impress Cressida Kroft, who his character has a crush on) is offer to sell the studded leather armor the party just looted at the end of the previous session to the Korvosan Guard. Croft visually inspects it, notes that it isn't really in the style of the Guard's standard issue gear, but offers to buy it anyway (the Sable Company does usually outfit in studded leather). That armor was magical and the party didn't even check for that before selling it off. They then proceeded to return to the Dead Warrens, where they found evidence of the dead derro having been looted of their small items of wealth (a trail of hastily gathered and dropped coins leading off down a side tunnel before ending [the escaping boss noticed the hole in his sack]; the trail was a gimme of ~200 gp value to give them SOMETHING, and to show they could have gotten more...)

They did loot the derro of their remaining gear, and proceeded to look through the rest of the remaining lair. The lair has a library of necromantic texts, that the module values at 300 gp. I had arbitrarily increased the value to 600 gp. There were also 6 arcane scrolls stuffed in the books (module originally lists two). The party did think to cast detect magic before looking at the books, but more from the perspective of not wanting to set off any magically trapped books. They loaded up the six magic-detecting books, and were planning to leave it at that, but with a little encouragement I got them to load up 10% of the library into the wheelbarrow they had found in the Otyugh lair... before they set the remaining books on fire! So in the end, they gathered 60 gp worth of necromancy texts that they can sell, but burned 540 gp worth of books...

I give up.

I'll make reasonable efforts to stick in some extra treasure where it logically fits into the story (such as letting them know they could salvage 200 gp worth of Alchemist's Lab gear from the wrecked lab; the party sorcerer wants to become an alchemist, so he can buy replacement lab equipment for his new lab, filling out the lab's missing equipment for only 300 gp (full lab costs 500 gp), but they're going to have to deal with the consequences of their choices for a while, until opportunities to insert some more wealth occur in the story.

I love this!

Necromancy is considered mistakenly as evil. This,party is making what seems like arbitrarily decision-making. Burning the books? Good act prevented evil mages/clerics getting access to more spells.

You said they walked out the prisoners. Good act.

You may not see it. They are making a very [even if accidentally ] conscious decision to be good at the expense of their own comfort.

Have them stumble upon a bedroom or a records hall.

If bedroom. Body length Silver mirror 500gp. Chest of drawers cedar 600 gp. Inside the cedar chest are a love potion, comb of charisma +1 some jewelry 1,000 gp. My guess they will not see the mirror as cash nor the chest of drawers. They will not open and steal from a persons bedroom.

If a record hall birth death records. Two tables very sturdy 8 feet long one ash (for death) one pine (for birth) both worth 4,000 gp a piece. When I was younger I did not consider furnitureas worth any value. Not even for the wizard as a study desk.

If records hall make it a safe spot to hide.

[ksbsnowowl]

Your players haven't declared each time they pooped either, are their colons about to explode?
Funny story on that. I had a player once who claimed to have played for a DM that actually did have characters die from sepsis because they didn't declare going to the restroom. I later told the story to a new group, just as a "haha, that's silly; no you don't have to declare normal activities in down time." One player latched on to it anyway, and in any difficult fight, while attacking the bad guy, he'd declare that he relieved himself. It carried on for months. I don't tell that story any more.

Believe it or not, I do actually require someone to say "I loot the bodies." That's it. However, in this specific case it wouldn't have mattered, as they specifically pressed on, immediately after dropping the Derro (short buff spell durations). Then they defeated something else, and found the prisoners, and decided to immediately take them out of the dungeon, and back to safety.

In response to denthor, yes, I fully realize they are doing good things (or actions they judge to be good), and I have commended them for it. Some of those actions have built-in rewards that will come later (one prisoner will later return to the party with a reward), and another prisoner was a DM-salvaged opportunity to get a role play ad hoc XP reward that the party had previously blown off. That might result in a financial reward at a later date.


If OTOH they still refuse to loot fallen foes and/or never check side passages, never coddle the PCs. Let them figure it out the hard way, learn and correct. From day 1.Most of these players have played under me for 3+ years. I'm not doing anything different than I've done previously. What has changed is that the player who was the previous meticulous treasure-finder is no longer playing with this group. The group does still have a rogue, but he's not doing much to search for treasure.

[DeTess]

Funny story on that. I had a player once who claimed to have played for a DM that actually did have characters die from sepsis because they didn't declare going to the restroom. I later told the story to a new group, just as a "haha, that's silly; no you don't have to declare normal activities in down time." One player latched on to it anyway, and in any difficult fight, while attacking the bad guy, he'd declare that he relieved himself. It carried on for months. I don't tell that story any more.

Believe it or not, I do actually require someone to say "I loot the bodies." That's it. However, in this specific case it wouldn't have mattered, as they specifically pressed on, immediately after dropping the Derro (short buff spell durations). Then they defeated something else, and found the prisoners, and decided to immediately take them out of the dungeon, and back to safety.

In response to denthor, yes, I fully realize they are doing good things (or actions they judge to be good), and I have commended them for it. Some of those actions have built-in rewards that will come later (one prisoner will later return to the party with a reward), and another prisoner was a DM-salvaged opportunity to get a role play ad hoc XP reward that the party had previously blown off. That might result in a financial reward at a later date.

Most of these players have played under me for 3+ years. I'm not doing anything different than I've done previously. What has changed is that the player who was the previous meticulous treasure-finder is no longer playing with this group. The group does still have a rogue, but he's not doing much to search for treasure.

If you want to get the point across to your group, maybe start totaling the value of easily-lootable treasure they miss over a couple of sessions, and then share the amount with them. "Hey people, over the last 3 sessions you guys and galls missed 60,000gp worth of loot." ought to be a bit of a wake-up call. Just be prepared for a bit of a blow-back at that moment, but they'll make sure to loot stuff afterwards.

[BowStreetRunner]

If you want to get the point across to your group, maybe start totaling the value of easily-lootable treasure they miss over a couple of sessions, and then share the amount with them. "Hey people, over the last 3 sessions you guys and galls missed 60,000gp worth of loot." ought to be a bit of a wake-up call. Just be prepared for a bit of a blow-back at that moment, but they'll make sure to loot stuff afterwards.You can actually do this in-game with one of my favorite DM tools - the competing adventuring party. Have another adventuring party that shows up in the taverns and around town from time to time. Let the PCs get to know them and see them as rivals. Let them brag about how they took down a group of orcs - "not much effort, after all, but when we looted their corpses we found some really valuable stuff!" Let them also come late to locations the PCs visited and then talk about that in town too - "we got there too late to fight the goblins, but that didn't matter because whoever took them down never even bothered to loot afterward. We ended up with a nice haul for no work!"

[ksbsnowowl]

You can actually do this in-game with one of my favorite DM tools - the competing adventuring party. Have another adventuring party that shows up in the taverns and around town from time to time. Let the PCs get to know them and see them as rivals. Let them brag about how they took down a group of orcs - "not much effort, after all, but when we looted their corpses we found some really valuable stuff!" Let them also come late to locations the PCs visited and then talk about that in town too - "we got there too late to fight the goblins, but that didn't matter because whoever took them down never even bothered to loot afterward. We ended up with a nice haul for no work!"

I actually like this a lot. It even fits with the story for why the PC's are working with the city guard. The guard would have had other groups working for them during troubled times as well. I'll make sure to make up a similar, but slightly lower level, party that they encounter soon.

[tyckspoon]

If bedroom. Body length Silver mirror 500gp. Chest of drawers cedar 600 gp. Inside the cedar chest are a love potion, comb of charisma +1 some jewelry 1,000 gp. My guess they will not see the mirror as cash nor the chest of drawers. They will not open and steal from a persons bedroom.

If a record hall birth death records. Two tables very sturdy 8 feet long one ash (for death) one pine (for birth) both worth 4,000 gp a piece. When I was younger I did not consider furnitureas worth any value. Not even for the wizard as a study desk.

If records hall make it a safe spot to hide.

Well, it *was* a 500GP silver mirror.. then they banged the hell out of the surface and the decorative work on the edges trying to get it out so it doesn't reflect and all the art value is wrecked. Now it's just worth its lump weight as a precious metal. And stuff like a chest of drawers or really nice solid wood tables is just thoroughly impractical to loot unless you have heavy-duty extradimensional transport or are in the habit of having a bunch of porters and longshoremen follow you around to drag them out of the dungeon for you. Hard to blame adventurers for 'missing' this sort of treasure value.

[denthor]

Well, it *was* a 500GP silver mirror.. then they banged the hell out of the surface and the decorative work on the edges trying to get it out so it doesn't reflect and all the art value is wrecked. Now it's just worth its lump weight as a precious metal. And stuff like a chest of drawers or really nice solid wood tables is just thoroughly impractical to loot unless you have heavy-duty extradimensional transport or are in the habit of having a bunch of porters and longshoremen follow you around to drag them out of the dungeon for you. Hard to blame adventurers for 'missing' this sort of treasure value.


Wow!

I had a DM tell me that his group hand carried a desk out of an elevated cave party of 10.

Down a switch back with large round outs over 1/4 mile down. Five miles with an axe point man chopping trees in a forest to the road. Then hand carry the desk ten miles to another uphill switch back path without the large round outs. To salvage the less then 500 gp.


You know some very non greedy players. Or maybe I just run into the greediest of all.

[BowStreetRunner]

...I'll make sure to make up a similar, but slightly lower level, party that they encounter soon.I'll just leave the obligatory Linear Guild (https://oots.fandom.com/wiki/Linear_Guild) reference here. :smallbiggrin:

[bean illus]

I actually like this a lot. It even fits with the story for why the PC's are working with the city guard. The guard would have had other groups working for them during troubled times as well. I'll make sure to make up a similar, but slightly lower level, party that they encounter soon.

I was thinking the whole time I was reading, that it really doesn't have to be that hard.

Just have two local boys, commoners or low level, who could only find this stuff by take 20, and have them show up in town 30 minutes behind the players with thousands of gp and magic items.
Of course they tell every detail of 'all we did was look around kinda good'...

If that doesn't work, have the players earn a reputation for 'leaving more than they take', and have low level adventures show up following the party around scavenging (and making more than the players).

[HouseRules]

Old School Loot Experience is usually the best way to teach players how to Search for Treasure.

[zlefin]

Do any of the PCs happen to have ranks in the Appraise skill?
While by the sounds of it they don't; if any of them actually do, you could justify a houserule making passive appraise checks to recognize that things are potentially valuable.

[Segev]

Hm. If they're rescuing people at a cost to themselves, perhaps one or more of the rescuees will put together a fund to help support them? Maybe one's a scion of a wealthy merchant, and his father wants to become their patron.

[noob]

Hm. If they're rescuing people at a cost to themselves, perhaps one or more of the rescuees will put together a fund to help support them? Maybe one's a scion of a wealthy merchant, and his father wants to become their patron.

They escorted people directly after beating monsters and it is common knowledge that adventurers which does not stops saving you for looting are really good people since it means they consider your safety more important than their wealth.

[Segev]

They escorted people directly after beating monsters and it is common knowledge that adventurers which does not stops saving you for looting are really good people since it means they consider your safety more important than their wealth.

So maybe the grateful people or their loved ones give them money or items or support worth similar amounts in aggregate to get them to WBL.

[Florian]

Sorry, a bit late in answering this.

The best advise for running an AP is actually to drop the whole WBL thing and instead use the Automated Bonus Progression, which is basically a working Vow of Poverty. Remove everything but named/specific items and consumables and be done with it.

PF Unchained rules, but are functionally for anything based on D20: http://legacy.aonprd.com/unchained/magic/automaticBonusProgression.html

[ericgrau]

You can actually do this in-game with one of my favorite DM tools - the competing adventuring party. Have another adventuring party that shows up in the taverns and around town from time to time. Let the PCs get to know them and see them as rivals. Let them brag about how they took down a group of orcs - "not much effort, after all, but when we looted their corpses we found some really valuable stuff!" Let them also come late to locations the PCs visited and then talk about that in town too - "we got there too late to fight the goblins, but that didn't matter because whoever took them down never even bothered to loot afterward. We ended up with a nice haul for no work!"

To this and previous posts about dropping hints. Nah, as with pooping if you are going to require players to declare it then you must tell them. "After you defeat an enemy you must declare you are looting it to get the treasure." Done. If they forget after that, you can hint at it or tell them again or whatever. But they should be told before the first time they loot anything.

Personally I required my players to carry around necessities, but I told them during character creation and even gave a suggested list that would cover almost all their needs. Yeah, one of those was a poop shovel. Besides joking during character creation, not once has anyone mentioned their character pooping. But the shovel is still written on a couple character sheets. As for loot I give them a list between fights or at the end of the session. Sometimes they remind me about treasure, but they don't declare looting right after a fight. I know groups that handle loot immediately after a fight too, but whatever your method you must declare it to the players and not expect players to declare every last action they do. I understand looting is much more significant than peeing, but even so declaring every action would eat up a ton of real world time. That's actually why I often handle loot at the end or beginning of a session. Especially if it's wealth rather than magic items.

[Jay R]

There is nothing inherently wrong with a party that doesn't keep up with WBL, as long as the rest of the game assumptions are in line with it.

You often need to adjust the game based on the players' abilities.

A party with excellent tactics can face higher CR encounters. A party with very poor tactics will need lower CR monsters. [When I first started playing at college, there was one player that most of us soon wouldn't play with, because he would always do the stupid things that got PCs killed.]

Similarly, if a party is really bad at finding treasure, then you need to increase the amount of treasure, make it easier to find, or decrease CR to match what they are currently worth.

[Reversefigure4]

I'm also presently running through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and have run several other Paizo AP's.

It's worth keeping in mind that these adventures actually have an overly large amount of treasure available, rather than an overly small one. The Adventure anticipates that the players actively won't get it all, because they missed search checks, or an NPC got away, or they avoided a fight through negotiation, or because they gave the gear to orphans, or they didn't feel it was ethical to keep and sell, or any number of reasons. My party have left gear with surrendering NPCs, failed to overcome obstacles, also burnt treasure they feel can only be put to evil purposes, etc. The game doesn't collapse... well, unless there's enough of it going on.

Various solutions:

There's certainly no necessity to auto-give out treasure that's hidden behind Search checks (indeed, this trivialises investing in Search).
Assuming a certain level of competence on the party and having a number of actions happen automatically solves a few of your problems. If you assume that generally the party are experienced adventurers, they loot bodies of the interesting things and make a general Appraisal of them. Detect Magic is not a rare resource, so it's pretty trivial to assume they'll put everything in a pile and detect magic on it at the end of a dungeon.
If you don't want to hand-wave it away, that's fine, but remember that the GM is the player's perception filter for what their characters are seeing. The players may not have remembered to loot the bodies, but that's because they're thinking about work and dinner. The characters have corpses right in front of them with shiny longswords. If they seem to be missing something, you might want to prompt them. "Are you sure you don't want to loot the bodies before you leave?" "Perhaps you should check that armour before you sell it, it appears to be of particularly fine quality." If they've had a single player taking care of it who's now gone, the players probably haven't realised what they're missing.
As a part of rewarding them for helping the helpless, and a part of making the city feel alive and growing, you can have past NPCs show up later to reward them. That person from the Dead Warrens? In the intervening months, he's become a rich merchant, and he shows up in Book 3 ready to 'pay his debts' with some specialist gear for them. Use the opportunity to build bonds with the NPCs. Kroft shows up to see the bard, having realised that the armour was magical, and gives him the extra gold he's due, creating a positive bond between players and NPCs.

[Talakeal]

I skipped most of the thread, so sorry if this has already been posted but my advice for the OP:

Just assume they loot all of the non-hidden treasure. Rather than waiting for them to tell you they search the bodies, just tell them "You find X on the enemies," and move on with the assumption that they have taken it.

As for hidden treasure, you need to have an OOC talk with them and say something like "Hey guys, I have noticed you haven't really been searching for hidden treasure, and there is a lot of stuff you have missed." Then explain that searching for secrets is part of the game, but IF they don't like that aspect of play you will remove it.

If they say they don't like the searching part of the game then just stop putting hidden treasure in, OR, assume the characters find all of the hidden stuff without any player input, kind of lock the looting system. Just as part of the descriptive text when they enter a room add something like "And you find a chest of rubies hidden under a loose floorboard."

[ksbsnowowl]

I'm also presently running through Curse of the Crimson Throne, and have run several other Paizo AP's.

It's worth keeping in mind that these adventures actually have an overly large amount of treasure available, rather than an overly small one. ...This is very helpful to know, thank you. I'll just increase any static listed treasure value by 25%, and otherwise just keep an eye on things to make sure they don't get too far out of line.


Assuming a certain level of competence on the party and having a number of actions happen automatically solves a few of your problems. ... I'm still considering to what extent I might employ this. In the situations that sparked this thread, they were purposefully moving on quickly (spell durations, still foes in the complex), and they got the only magical gear. If a place is truly cleared out, I would just rattle off lootable gear, but when the PC's are still dealing with other pressing issues, I'm not going to assume they lollygag to do time-intensive things like get armor off of a corpse.

If you don't want to hand-wave it away, that's fine, but remember that the GM is the player's perception filter for what their characters are seeing. The players may not have remembered to loot the bodies, but that's because they're thinking about work and dinner. The characters have corpses right in front of them with shiny longswords. If they seem to be missing something, you might want to prompt them. "Are you sure you don't want to loot the bodies before you leave?"This is an excellent point; thank you for making it. I'll probably be a bit more subtle than your line in quotes, but pointing out "you leave the chaotic jumble of dead derro and blood-stained equipment behind, entering a skull-lined corridor..." is a good goal to keep in mind.

As a part of rewarding them for helping the helpless, and a part of making the city feel alive and growing, you can have past NPCs show up later to reward them.
The module already had this built in; one of the people saved in the slave pits finds the PC's a few days later to give them a wand (she had stolen, from a now-reformed life of crime). I increased the remaining charges in the wand when that NPC gave it to the party.


Just assume they loot all of the non-hidden treasure. Rather than waiting for them to tell you they search the bodies, just tell them "You find X on the enemies," and move on with the assumption that they have taken it.When there is no threat or pressing time issue, sure. When there are still bad guys loose in the complex, and the party is pressing forward due to running spell durations, then immediately leaving with the prisoners to keep them safe, no.


As for hidden treasure, you need to have an OOC talk with them and say something like "Hey guys, I have noticed you haven't really been searching for hidden treasure, and there is a lot of stuff you have missed." This has been pointed out to the players. There hasn't been an opportunity yet to see if they're going to get better at it (Christmas break, second module just getting started). They haven't expressed a dislike of that part of the game. The only big revelation was a miscomprehension on their part as to the value of books (in a pre-industrial age society). It's unclear if printing presses exist in the world in which we are playing (possible), but even with that, they could be exceedingly expensive (At least some copies of the Gutenberg Bible [printed c. 1455] are known to have sold for 30 florins – about three years' wages for a clerk.) Now, the Bible is an exceedingly large book, to be sure, but is a decent benchmark by which to get an idea of what books would cost in a pre/early-renaisance era.

According to Arms and Equipment Guide, a clerk earns 4 sp per day. We'll assume 5 days per week, and 52 weeks per year, times 3 years. That's 312 gp for three years' wages. So approximately 300 gp for one Gutenberg Bible. So basically one real-world Florin roughly equates to one D&D platinum piece, at least in this example. Interesting.

Taking this a bit further, there are generally considered to be 66 books in the bible. Dividing that out, a small booklet consisting of a single book of the bible (of average length), would cost a bit more than 4.5 gp. Round it to 5 gp for added covers. So a given small printed book costs ~5 gp. Generally worth looting, depending on circumstances (distance to buyer, whether or not the contents are objectionable, etc.) Heck, a Wizard's Spellbook costs 15 gp, and that's blank!

[Kelb_Panthera]

If they're -that- far behind, maybe it's time to just clobber them with the old clue-by-four. Have a hunk of precious metal or gems just big enough to catch them up fall from the heavens and blast into the ground at their feet (saves vs damage and/or debuffs are optional). Then tell them explicitly that this is a one time deal and to "start searching for loot, for Pete's sake."

If they don't take the "hint" then watch them start dropping and laugh.

[Malphegor]

Search? What's that? The thing we only do when we've killed a boss and never do any other time? :smallwink:

In the game I'm in, it's often the DM prompting us to search for stuff. I'm conscious that we desire loot, but I tend to assume the DM will highlight that there is items to find. Bad practice, and I'm conscious of it enough to start remembering searching for stuff from now on.

I think you might just need to nudge them occasionally to consider Search-ing the place.

for example, after they've defeated a foe:
"on a cursory look, none of you don't see anything of value nearby, but you get a sense there might be something in the robes that's worthwhile."