hello, about to run my first hard cover (Strahd) and curious how people run the finding of gold and treasure. There's a LOT of it (assuming the find it of course though)...way more than what the AL DMG 'strongly recommends'. I'm leaning towards 'hey, they find it, that's the reward for sticking through an entire book'.
Nope. The gold is given on level up in season 9 and is specified by level. The DM can give as much of that amount as they like in an adventure but a character can't receive more gold than the level limit allows. It is currently 80gp/level in tier 1, 240 gp/level in tier 2. The table specifies a recommended amount/hour that the DM can award but the total is capped at the level limit no matter how much treasure is in the module.
The reason for this is to make things even across all tables in all stores playing the same content. If you gave out tons of gold then the characters in your game would buy full plate armor, tons of potions and scrolls that characters at other tables couldn't afford. Then when those characters head off on new adventures playing with people who didn't play that content they have far more gold than the other characters. If you are playing a home game, do what you like, if you are playing AL where characters interact with other players and characters from elsewhere then you are limited by the AL restrictions on gold and magic items.
Nope. The gold is given on level up in season 9 and is specified by level. The DM can give as much of that amount as they like in an adventure but a character can't receive more gold than the level limit allows. It is currently 80gp/level in tier 1, 240 gp/level in tier 2. The table specifies a recommended amount/hour that the DM can award but the total is capped at the level limit no matter how much treasure is in the module.
The reason for this is to make things even across all tables in all stores playing the same content. If you gave out tons of gold then the characters in your game would buy full plate armor, tons of potions and scrolls that characters at other tables couldn't afford. Then when those characters head off on new adventures playing with people who didn't play that content they have far more gold than the other characters. If you are playing a home game, do what you like, if you are playing AL where characters interact with other players and characters from elsewhere then you are limited by the AL restrictions on gold and magic items.
i get the logic for AL adventures...definitely a broken rule though when it comes to books like Strahd...a character would have to level up twice just pay for one lost backpack as everything is 10x the phb cost (and forget about ever being able to replace a martial weapon or armor). Think I'll use the "As DM, you are empowered to adjudicate the rules..." to just do a downward adjustment if they make it out alive.
Also odd that when you look at something like Dragonheist, the AL rules specifically takes time to say that removing gold from the vault counts towards your GP Limit...there is no rule like that for Strahd, it just talks about which weapons you can't take out of the Plane, not that you have to scale down mundane treasure.
As for running the gold finding, I recommend having chests hold decent amounts of GP (or in CoS, EP) even if they normally don't allow it. Offer it as rewards for doing tasks, fill enemy/NPC pockets with it, etc.
In case they get extra (more than the AL limits per level), you could possibly throw in a friendly NPC (probably a Vistana) that helps them carry it around to pay for things the players may not consider, such as gathering information, tending to equipment damage and paying fees (like having such a convenient hireling do all these helpful things for them!). Lots of things can have costs that pile up over time. Trust me, being able to handwave some of the logistics helps.
Let the party be creative! A bard may bribe a tavern owner to blab about important guests. Given this does not really help the character get any stronger, refunding the spent coin through loot makes it feel more rewarding to roleplay.
Wizards in particular are VERY expensive to run, especially in Barovia. Almost everyone carries candles and torches nowadays, and a mob of angry villagers may burn spellbooks if they assume it'll keep the magic user from using magic on them. A new spellbook there costs 500 GP. Losing one at tier 1 is a death sentence.
Gold throttling sounds good for balance, but it really isn't; magic item limits are. Story items, like the Tome of Strahd, don't count towards this and stay with a particular party. Some of the items, according to this season's rules, are outright unusable due to the limit on legendary gear. Some things in Castle Ravenloft are going to be coveted by certain characters, such as Khazan's staff or Sergei's armor, so be prepared for that.
In the games I have been at the valuables found is mostly "fluff" / roleplaying. At the end of the session we get a certain abount of gold. If we bring some valuables they might be a part of those gold, but we do not get more total gold because of it.
In a game I played the characters liberated a pirate ship that they had access to throughout the rest of the hardcover. After that point any money we acquired in excess of what the characters were allowed to keep was handwaved as instead being spent on ship upkeep and crew wages.
In a game I played the characters liberated a pirate ship that they had access to throughout the rest of the hardcover. After that point any money we acquired in excess of what the characters were allowed to keep was handwaved as instead being spent on ship upkeep and crew wages.
A similar thing happened when I played through Dragon Heist in AL. Excess gold just got funneled to running our tavern. As DM you have some leeway, but you can't give the players any more gold than they would normally get when leveling up. So what do you do with COS?
- everything costs PHB prices. The players are unlikely to need to buy much but if they do, by setting the prices to PHB values then the character income from leveling and costs for mundane items retain the same relationship and it doesn't break anything. This is especially true if there is so much treasure in COS that buying mundane items is about the same since income has been ramped up by a factor of 10 to compensate for prices.
- treat excess treasure as some sort of Story Award. The characters do NOT get to keep it. However, they could use it for ongoing in game expenses but not for things that they can permanently keep on their character sheet. The gold is part of the campaign not the characters (this is already done with some of the magic items so it isn't much of a stretch to extend it to other elements of the plot that the DM deems to be important but which are not allowed to go to the characters).
In either case, the game remains balanced for characters both in the module and those who aren't. The characters are not receiving a material benefit or additional extra rewards. However, the story continuity is more or less preserved.
think i found an in-game solution without just saying 'uh, no, you now have $x gold)...if they make it out of Barovia, one of the party members is going to have a premonition and realize if they don't buy a boat with all their over-limit funds, someone's going to steel it. The boat is really just fluff and won't do anything other than give them an answer for how they get from different locations in different AL modules (especially considering the vast majority of modules either border the moonsea or are somewhere else close to water), give them a place to stash their goods, and a place to park their horses for those modules where they don't use mounts.
hello, about to run my first hard cover (Strahd) and curious how people run the finding of gold and treasure. There's a LOT of it (assuming the find it of course though)...way more than what the AL DMG 'strongly recommends'. I'm leaning towards 'hey, they find it, that's the reward for sticking through an entire book'.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
A rather comprehensive list of free WotC D&D resources
Deck of Decks
Nope. The gold is given on level up in season 9 and is specified by level. The DM can give as much of that amount as they like in an adventure but a character can't receive more gold than the level limit allows. It is currently 80gp/level in tier 1, 240 gp/level in tier 2. The table specifies a recommended amount/hour that the DM can award but the total is capped at the level limit no matter how much treasure is in the module.
The reason for this is to make things even across all tables in all stores playing the same content. If you gave out tons of gold then the characters in your game would buy full plate armor, tons of potions and scrolls that characters at other tables couldn't afford. Then when those characters head off on new adventures playing with people who didn't play that content they have far more gold than the other characters. If you are playing a home game, do what you like, if you are playing AL where characters interact with other players and characters from elsewhere then you are limited by the AL restrictions on gold and magic items.
i get the logic for AL adventures...definitely a broken rule though when it comes to books like Strahd...a character would have to level up twice just pay for one lost backpack as everything is 10x the phb cost (and forget about ever being able to replace a martial weapon or armor). Think I'll use the "As DM, you are empowered to adjudicate the rules..." to just do a downward adjustment if they make it out alive.
Also odd that when you look at something like Dragonheist, the AL rules specifically takes time to say that removing gold from the vault counts towards your GP Limit...there is no rule like that for Strahd, it just talks about which weapons you can't take out of the Plane, not that you have to scale down mundane treasure.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
A rather comprehensive list of free WotC D&D resources
Deck of Decks
As for running the gold finding, I recommend having chests hold decent amounts of GP (or in CoS, EP) even if they normally don't allow it. Offer it as rewards for doing tasks, fill enemy/NPC pockets with it, etc.
In case they get extra (more than the AL limits per level), you could possibly throw in a friendly NPC (probably a Vistana) that helps them carry it around to pay for things the players may not consider, such as gathering information, tending to equipment damage and paying fees (like having such a convenient hireling do all these helpful things for them!). Lots of things can have costs that pile up over time. Trust me, being able to handwave some of the logistics helps.
Let the party be creative! A bard may bribe a tavern owner to blab about important guests. Given this does not really help the character get any stronger, refunding the spent coin through loot makes it feel more rewarding to roleplay.
Wizards in particular are VERY expensive to run, especially in Barovia. Almost everyone carries candles and torches nowadays, and a mob of angry villagers may burn spellbooks if they assume it'll keep the magic user from using magic on them. A new spellbook there costs 500 GP. Losing one at tier 1 is a death sentence.
Gold throttling sounds good for balance, but it really isn't; magic item limits are. Story items, like the Tome of Strahd, don't count towards this and stay with a particular party. Some of the items, according to this season's rules, are outright unusable due to the limit on legendary gear. Some things in Castle Ravenloft are going to be coveted by certain characters, such as Khazan's staff or Sergei's armor, so be prepared for that.
In the games I have been at the valuables found is mostly "fluff" / roleplaying. At the end of the session we get a certain abount of gold. If we bring some valuables they might be a part of those gold, but we do not get more total gold because of it.
In a game I played the characters liberated a pirate ship that they had access to throughout the rest of the hardcover. After that point any money we acquired in excess of what the characters were allowed to keep was handwaved as instead being spent on ship upkeep and crew wages.
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A similar thing happened when I played through Dragon Heist in AL. Excess gold just got funneled to running our tavern. As DM you have some leeway, but you can't give the players any more gold than they would normally get when leveling up. So what do you do with COS?
- everything costs PHB prices. The players are unlikely to need to buy much but if they do, by setting the prices to PHB values then the character income from leveling and costs for mundane items retain the same relationship and it doesn't break anything. This is especially true if there is so much treasure in COS that buying mundane items is about the same since income has been ramped up by a factor of 10 to compensate for prices.
- treat excess treasure as some sort of Story Award. The characters do NOT get to keep it. However, they could use it for ongoing in game expenses but not for things that they can permanently keep on their character sheet. The gold is part of the campaign not the characters (this is already done with some of the magic items so it isn't much of a stretch to extend it to other elements of the plot that the DM deems to be important but which are not allowed to go to the characters).
In either case, the game remains balanced for characters both in the module and those who aren't. The characters are not receiving a material benefit or additional extra rewards. However, the story continuity is more or less preserved.
think i found an in-game solution without just saying 'uh, no, you now have $x gold)...if they make it out of Barovia, one of the party members is going to have a premonition and realize if they don't buy a boat with all their over-limit funds, someone's going to steel it. The boat is really just fluff and won't do anything other than give them an answer for how they get from different locations in different AL modules (especially considering the vast majority of modules either border the moonsea or are somewhere else close to water), give them a place to stash their goods, and a place to park their horses for those modules where they don't use mounts.
https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/rJ-0FZqrJU (open in chrome, not firefox)
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
A rather comprehensive list of free WotC D&D resources
Deck of Decks