How to talk with a GM about treasure

[Superglucose]

There's a wealth by level problem in a game I'm playing. Our roleplaying and interactions with the world are great, he's got awesome and fun adventures for us all the time, but there's a huuuuuge problem.

I have a level 3 party who's finally getting their first pieces of MASTERWORK armor. Magic items? Don't make me laugh! My total wealth, excluding starting cash and including all the copper pieces I've thrown away, is approximately 200gp. 200. By level 3.

I understand that we're playing in Ravenloft and that means (apparently) absurdly difficult encounters, but we're barely inking by these CR 8-9 encounters as a level 3 party and we're already this far below WBL tables. I'm scared, honestly, about what's going to happen as we approach the mid levels, 7-9. I'll be fine because I'm a Wizard, I don't need items, and we've got a Druid and a Cleric who'll be able to hold on ok, but we have two fighters and a rogue in the party! Already one of them is bloody useless (by player choice, though, and he can't understand why no one seems to like him IC or OOC), but the Rogue is going to approach useless in combat very quickly, and the other fighter is baaarely managing to stay in as an AC tank.

I kind of want to talk to my GM about it, because he's a reasonable guy. I don't mind us being way below WBL if we're having encounters around CL (so long as we don't fall below 1/2 WBL, which we already are), or having encounters significantly above our CR (you know, the CR7-9s as party level 3) but giving us WBL.

An example is a CR 9 encounter (as calculated by d20 encounter calculator), which gives an expected treasure of 3915.8

We got:
~400 gp
~700 sp
~300 cp
12 small sized scale male which we can only sell for 10gp because the GM likes to make us pay more and sell for less than RAW price
A mwk half plate, small sized
12 hand axes
12 light crossbows
and a mwk hand axe.

Total it up and we end up at ~ 1000gp if we could sell at half price like we're supposed to be able to. Instead we have to sell it all at 1/5 price, which means we're looking at a treasure value of maybe 700 gold... for a CR9 encounter! (10 kobolds, 2 Kobold Fighters with poisoned bolts, 2 3rd level kobold wizards or sorcs, 1 4th level kobold sorc, 1 6th level kobold fighter, 1 2nd or 3rd level kobold monk. The fight was on their terms after we had been mercilessly poisoned for the last two days and were at approximately half-stats because the GM kept ruling that we couldn't sleep for whatever reason)

The more I look at this, the more I realize I *have* to talk to the GM about it. I'm sure he thinks everything is fine because we're managing to pull through his absurd encounters, but we're pulling through them because I'm going nova every bloody encounter. I've taken flack for a while from not being particularly effective in fights where I sit back and let everyone else do most of the work, but I've always held that a Wizard's job, at low levels, is to sit back just in case the encounter starts going badly, and then come in and end it before it gets too disastrous.

I was mostly saving myself for boss fights, and the like, so that my Color Spray of the day, for example, will have more effect then downing two kobolds the fighters should've killed anyways. But I know from my side of the dice the only reason the party is hanging on by the tiny thread it is is because I'm extremely aggressive when playing a low-leveled wizard, something the GM still doesn't seem to expect.

Should I bring this up with him?

[Rixx]

Only if you think that this is a genuine oversight on his part, and he isn't limiting your treasure on purpose (which, by all accounts, it looks like he is).

[Flickerdart]

Well, you could invest heavily into buffing spells and try to weather it. What I'm wondering is how a level 3 party with no money can beat CR9 encounters!

[Vizzerdrix]

Either that, or start casting and selling walls of salt. Or better yet, threaten to cast them in the fields. Farmers will either lynch you, or pay your ransom to prevent their fields from being useless for years if not permanently.


Barring that, Get everyone to agree to take a year off to raise funds. Craft and profession fun!

[Flickerdart]

Either that, or start casting and selling walls of salt. Or better yet, threaten to cast them in the fields. Farmers will either lynch you, or pay your ransom to prevent their fields from being useless for years if not permanently.


Barring that, Get everyone to agree to take a year off to raise funds. Craft and profession fun!

This is Ravenloft. The farmers are all demons or worse and if you take a year off, you'll have to roll 365 checks against horrible death.

[elonin]

Good luck with that. I've had a few dm's whose idea of running the game was to control pc wealth. One dm wouldn't let us sell npc weapons/armor at all saying it was all useless, but then not give us other items in compensation. I've actually heard another dm nix a item generated randomly while muttering that that item is genuinely useful. On another topic I've had a dm who said flat out that he assigns 125% of full hp for all our fight encounters.

Well I ended up leaving both of those groups and told the one dm that he controlled me right out of his campaign. But then again he had a bunch of house rules that he just dropped on us during play (no forewarning or discussion) in a way to nix my class abilities.

[GolemsVoice]

Well, I'd definitely talk to your GM. Unlike some other games, D&D isn't really cut out for the kind of horror that your DM wants to play. Of course his intentions are good. He displays a world just like it really would be, and a great part of horror is helplessness, but I think he is taking things too far. Talk to your DM, explain your problem, ask him why he's running the game the way he does, make suggestions. If you're both sensible adults (or sensible teenagers, or sensible elder gods) you should be able to get to an agreement, or at least you will know why he's doing it this way, and he will know that you might have a problem with that.

[Tavar]

Well, you could invest heavily into buffing spells and try to weather it. What I'm wondering is how a level 3 party with no money can beat CR9 encounters!

If you look, it was made up of several lower level creatures. Strategy, tactics, and resource expenditure (going nova) can help even the odds. Of course, there are notable weaknesses with this strategy, and even if the odds are even that just means that you will lose as often as you win.

[huttj509]

Go to your DM in a non-confrontational place (not in front of the rest of the group), and say something like:

"Hey, we seem to be really scrounging for loot here. It seems you're lowering it on purpose, but have you thought about what will happen with the melee types when they need +1 weapons and such to hurt the monsters? Might be lowering it a bit too much. Just wanted to make sure you had thought things through."


This invites either "I know, they won't be useless, just hard up, I'm watching the balance carefully" or "Oh, I hadn't thought of that"...or of course "how dare you question me, blargleargleargleargh!"

But it gets the issue out there.

[Vizzerdrix]

Shadowsmiths can make some magical gear. It isn't a great option, but better than nothing.

So can Kensai, and the Ancestral Relic feat and Item Familiar feat can also help to get stretch the little bit of cash you are getting.

And Flickerdart:: So what? Regen and state that your new characters are doing the same damn thing. Repeat endlessly. Or abuse VoP. Or just make silly builds or fight nude. The DM should eventually get the hint that the party is not getting what it needs to survive. Adventurers are adventurers for a reason you know.

Also, I wanna turn your name into a spell. Something rare, like a conjuration cantrip maybe.

[arguskos]

Yeah, I'd say that your DM likely isn't doing it to be a bastard, but because it's Ravenloft, and he's kinda encouraged to do such stuff in Ravenloft. Bring it up in a non-confrontational way, such as over lunch or something, and say, "hey dude, I'm not really hurting for gear, but the others are gonna be pretty soon. Maybe you could give us a big haul or two so we can get back on track and really handle these encounters better?"

[valadil]

It's perfectly reasonable to ask him if he's going under WBL on purpose. If that's something he's chosen to do specifically for this campaign, he'll probably be happy to tell you why. Just be reasonable and don't make demands.

[Superglucose]

Well, you could invest heavily into buffing spells and try to weather it. What I'm wondering is how a level 3 party with no money can beat CR9 encounters!

A wizard did it.

[Sinfire Titan]

He may be trying to encourage the 3 casters in the party to take Craft feats to supply the frontliners with magic items they need.

[Ashram]

He may be trying to encourage the 3 casters in the party to take Craft feats to supply the frontliners with magic items they need.

Which, by the sound of it, wouldn't happen because they still wouldn't have the crafting money necessary.

[Flickerdart]

You could make a habit of preying on humanoids of your size, thus either getting lots of loot since they have to rely on gear for strength, or lots of XPs because they'll fall like wheat to a scythe.

[Another_Poet]

Go to your DM in a non-confrontational place (not in front of the rest of the group), and say something like:

"Hey, we seem to be really scrounging for loot here. It seems you're lowering it on purpose, but have you thought about what will happen with the melee types when they need +1 weapons and such to hurt the monsters? Might be lowering it a bit too much. Just wanted to make sure you had thought things through."


This invites either "I know, they won't be useless, just hard up, I'm watching the balance carefully" or "Oh, I hadn't thought of that"...or of course "how dare you question me, blargleargleargleargh!"

But it gets the issue out there.

This.

Even with your large (6+ person?) party you won't hold out against these overpowering encounters forever. Better get it out in the open.

[grautry]

Sure, just ask him what his intentions about this are.

If he's throwing very difficult encounters at you when you've only got a small chunk of your expected WBL then maybe he expects for you to optimize like hell.

Is he new to D&D 3.5? Maybe, the matter is as simple as the fact that he simply doesn't understand the CR system and has no idea that he's throwing very difficult encounters at you. Maybe he comes from 4th edition where multiple enemies of your CR = standard encounter, whereas the 'standard encounter' in 3.5 is a single monster of your level.

If he's new at the game then it could also be as simple as the fact that he doesn't understand that WBL is part of character's power and it's assumed that they have to have at least that much gear in order to be competitive.

It's the DM's job to make encounters that are appropriate to the level of player skill and character power. Unless everyone is fine and dandy with very difficult encounters while handicapped that is.

Just talk to him. Obviously, he's not doing this just to frustrate you so there must be one reason or another.

[Flickerdart]

Or abuse VoP.

An Exalted character in Ravenloft? That'll fall faster than a Paladin.

[Daefos]

This is Ravenloft. The farmers are all demons or worse and if you take a year off, you'll have to roll 365 checks against horrible death.

Only one a day?

[Glimbur]

An Exalted character in Ravenloft? That'll fall faster than a Paladin.

Or you'll glow. Drawing attention is bad.

[Grumman]

Only one a day?

Horrible death has a good union.

[Superglucose]

Just sent him an email saying that while it didn't matter for my character, I was concerned that several other members of the party were underequipped. I pointed out that WBL for level 3 starts at 2,700 and that I have not received more than 300 gp of treasure since the beginning of the campaign, and that I'm worried that what are already nearly insurmountable challenges are going to quickly elevate to impossible if we continue receiving wealth at that rate.

I told him I understood that Ravenloft is supposed to be difficult, I understood that he probably had reasons for it, just that I would like to see some more items come our way. I also thanked him for his great characters (the roleplay really has me excited for the first time in years) and the great game.



Things are getting so difficult it's causing problems at the table, tbh. Most of our fights are because we're nearly dying every encounter, and no one's having a good time with the combats. This is just spilling into bad blood between the players, and, consequently, the characters.



Keeping magic and money down to heighten the danger. Druids, Sorcerors, and Wizards it is then.

Well, since it's Ravenloft, I think I'll open a "Mount" based horse-selling business.

[Tyndmyr]

Step 1. Go to walmart.

Step 2. Find those little post it stickies with an arrow on them, used to mark pages.

Step 3. Put one on page 54 of his DMG when he's in the bathroom.

Step 4. Wait a week.

Step 5. If nothing changes, go back to step 3, double the amount. Repeat as necessary.

[Flickerdart]

Until you're using entire packs of stickers at a time? Covering every other page completely? Printing out a poster-sized WBL chart?

[Superglucose]

Step 1. Go to walmart.

Step 2. Find those little post it stickies with an arrow on them, used to mark pages.

Step 3. Put one on page 54 of his DMG when he's in the bathroom.

Step 4. Wait a week.

Step 5. If nothing changes, go back to step 3, double the amount. Repeat as necessary.

Hmmm...

I'm actually going to wait before doing anything because he might have listened to my plea but wanted to protect his pride. I know people who do that, who pretend to say they're not listening but actually *do* listen just because they want to appear "in charge." I do it all the time

After that, every time we enter town I'm going to have an absurd number of fine light horses for sale, then I'm going to take Craft Wondrous Item and start getting myself items, and for the players who are nice to me. It is, after all, my experience I'm buying their stuff with. Also my money.

Until you're using entire packs of stickers at a time? Covering every other page completely? Printing out a poster-sized WBL chart?

Another wonderful suggestion

[Tyndmyr]

Absolutely. Say absolutely nothing, but wallpaper the damn room with it.

Bonus points if you use highlighters on the line for your current level.

[Kylarra]

Things are getting so difficult it's causing problems at the table, tbh. Most of our fights are because we're nearly dying every encounter, and no one's having a good time with the combats. This is just spilling into bad blood between the players, and, consequently, the characters

This tells me that it's time for an intervention. If no one but the DM is having fun, then there's something wrong with the campaign.

[Lysander]

Perhaps if he's not eager to just give you loot for any random monster he can build quests designed just to get you loot. Bank jobs and quests for buried treasure and such.

Or maybe compromise. Instead of loot he can give you bonus feats or extra abilities to make up.

[Yakk]

You could try "the melee characters are already falling behind due to the lack of magic items. The casters are doing fine."

Advocating for someone else makes it more likely to be accepted by the DM.