Treasure Questions, 3.0 or 3.5

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A question to the room at large: How do you allot treasure in your p&p campaigns? I've been using the table in the DMG for the most part ... except when it's infuriatingly innapropriate, that is. The group I'm running is 2nd-level, but I've got material bringing them out to about 8th, so I'm staying ahead of them.

Usually, it goes like this: I roll up the loot for an entire dungeon/floor, and then from that lump sum, hand-place it where it seems most appropriate. Seems to be balanced, for the most part, but ... is there a better way?

Final question: The treasure table in the DMG applies to a standard party of 4 PCs. I'm running 5, and about to pick up a 6th. How do I handle this with the table/etc? Multiplying by 1.25 or 1.5 works for coins, but quickly becomes unbalanced for gems/art/magic items and whatnot.

 

I think your method of hand-placing a lump sum is a perfectly fine method; if isn't broken, don't fix it.

I have some issue with rolling directly from the table, because it's possible, by sheer chance, for a low-level party to wind up with something powerful like a +1 shock defending longsword, but it's also likely for them to end up with nothing more than a few measly potions and silver pieces.

When I was DM'ing, I had five 4th-level characters. I looked at the total treasure and gear in gold they should have had by 5th level (45,000) and compared to what they had currently (18,000). The difference was 27,000 worth of gold, so I kept track of approximately how much treasure I was doling out through the time between those 2 levels.

So my advice is to use the chart to generate ideas, but to maintain balance, make sure that you know how much you've given and how much they have (if you are obsessive like me ).

One last comment: about a year ago, some person on a different message board experimented with the average amount of treasure gained from the table versus the expected amount of the recommended wealth table. The former was slightly higher, so it just goes to show that you can't always trust the dice when it comes to planning things as a DM.

 

Yup to the random retardation of the treasure table; my party is impoverished right now, it turns out, according to the expected gain tables so, I guess ... I'll have to place some fun stuff which corresponds to the value they're missing.
The chances of getting a +1 shock defending longsword are less than 1/1000, I recall--but more often, at low level, you get nothing--some coins, and not many of those. But that's the glory of low-level play. I think if a 1st/2nd lvl party came up with any single item worth more than, call it 5000gp, I'd nip that in the bud.

Off topic, but not really: experience. Do you generally try for one level/adventure, in the lower levels (1-5)? I always used that as a guideline in 2nd ed. but ... it doesn't seem to work as well in 3.0/3.5, and I know the book says "13.33 encounters to reach next level," to which I cry bullpuckey. If the party's level 2, I like to throw cr1, a couple cr2, mostly cr3, and a boss-fight/main encounter/final riddle/nasty trap cr4 to end the thing.

 

Again, when I was a DM, I calibrated for experience and treasure. The party was 5 4th-level characters, so most encounters were EL 4 or 5. IIRC, most encounters were around that area, but a few were EL 3 just to give the characters some sense of satisfaction or because it seemed for a random encounter (e.g. a pair of hungry wolves encountered in the wilderness is believable even if your average party level is 4 or 5). Ironically, it was an EL 5 encounter that did them in, mainly due to lucky rolls on the enemies' part.

But I would have to keep the average EL, for a party level 2, at 2. Maybe something like 15% EL 1, 65% EL 2, 15% EL 3, 5% EL 4. Characters can be pretty fragile at that level anyway.

 

You guys worry all too much about numbers and tables. You just give out what you think is reasonable. (And I do believe that expected wealth of nth-level characters is extremely high. A lot higher than waht I find reasonable. So therefore the players gain less.)

 

Yeah, Firestorm, your method has merit--it is precisely the way I handled the situation when I was playing GURPS: I gave out what I thought was reasonable, and it was always less than the character had hoped for. This is why I disagree with you in the case of D&D: it largely depends on what level of campaign you're running. Super-powerful, as in you want your party to go toe-to-toe with the Red Wizards at some point? Then give extra--how much extra? The table's a good tool.
Medium-to high, but not super? Use the table, or the references, because they're pretty balanced (scads of money for playtesting was not wasted).
Slow-moving, low-combat, low-powered, etc? Give less.
The tables are still good references--D&D is one of those games that quickly devolves into silliness if you throw rules away without MAJOR reasons. Systems such as GURPS, which are specifically adapted to work at whatever level of complexity you desire, are better for rules-light, rules-FLEXIBLE, etc.--I very, very seldom bend in D&D, which is the game I run to for comfort when I need additional structure in my life.
And yes, my tongue was firmly in cheek for that last sentence, but the statement is still essentially tru, in my eyes.