So, as a new DM, I don’t exactly know how much treasure or experience points to give to my players per hour. The tables in the DMG are useful, but I find it difficult to know when to award XP away from combat (if that even is a thing), or split treasure evenly between the players, particularly when my players spend hours squabbling over petty loot. Nor am I sure how quickly the players should level up. Any advice?

If you are using milestone levelling, you can just ignore the XP tables and then just award a level up whenever you as a DM feel like they have done enough to earn it. In my groups case, we play for 1.5 to 2 hours each week. So I award a level-up every 3 to 5 sessions. Except the early levels, players should go from 1st to 2nd after the one session, two at the latest. And from 2nd to third within three sessions after that.

Treasure is a bit harder. For permanent magic items, I would award a tier appropriate item every 2-3 levels. Something like the following:

• By end of 3rd level:
  • ONE of
    • +1 weapon
    • Advanced Armor (half plate or full plate)
    • Utility Item

• By end of 6th level:
  • Utility Item
  • One of
    
    • +1 weapon
    • Advanced Armor (half plate or full plate)
    • +1 Spellcasting wand
• By end of 10th level:
  • ONE of
    • +2 weapon
    • +1 spellcasting wand
    • +1 armor
    • Powerful Utility Item
  • TWO of
    • +1 weapon
    • Advanced Armor
    • Utility Item
  • ONE additional utility item.

You will want to sprinkle consumables throughout like varying strengths of healing potions, scrolls, etc.

If your players fight over items often, consider tailoring adventures where the adventure is to gain an item for an individual player. For instance, one of my players (a druid) wanted non-metal half plate, so for one of the sessions, they had to parley or fight a tribe of girallon to gain access to the magical wood needed to create it. Or give each player loot individually by faction or backstory NPCs.

Alternately to all of that treasure stuff, if infighting is that big of an issue, just use the AL rules for treasure. So you get a certain amount of Treasure Points each time you level up and then can spend them on stuff that is tier appropriate.

Thanks for the great advice! I’ll be sure to use it in my sessions :)

I'm just going to steal this from BioWizard since it is so well said.

I look at it this way. The maximum + you can have (at least by the book) is +3. If that is so, then you will be at +3 at level 20 -- can't really have more than that. (Though higher items usually do +3 and then something else, like a Holy Avenger does.) If that is so, then with 3 bonuses across 20 levels, that's about +1 per 7 levels. That means to me that by level 7 the whole party should be into +1s, by level 14 they should be into +2s, and by level 20 they should be into +3s. So I could see expecting to be at +1/+1 by level 7 for everyone in the party, and they get these items bit by bit over a few levels. Then between 7 and 14, slowly they start finding +2s, weighting them more toward the back side (11-14) than early. Then in the higher teens they find their +3s.

Now, this is a guideline for magical weapon (and it easily translates to armour as well) but it's a very good guideline as to what kind of loot they should get at what level. The Dungeon Master's Guide also has some advice on page 37.

As for how much loot to give and how often players should level up, that depends on your campaign and what kind of playing style you are after. Personally I tend to start small with the loot (remember, it is easier to give more loot than to take away things the players already have), give out consumables or stuff that is cool but not too powerful. A handful of beads of nourishment will allow the party to save on supplies and a cloak of billowing is cool but doesn't really do much, stuff like that. If you look at mythology and stories, often the quest for magical items is the story itself. Being able to pick up a Cloak of Protection from a random bandit is hardly heroic, is it?

When it comes to leveling up, I prefer it when the first few levels go by fairly quickly, then you can linger around levels 3-4 for a few sessions before you go to level 5. Then you can take a bit slow for the next few levels and let people enjoy and explore their new abilities before they level up again and so on. 

Now, it's hard to say exactly how often players should level up or how much loot they should get, per session, since that depends on what the characters do. If they hang around a carnival and just hang out with their favourite NPCs, that's probably not a reason to give them lots of gold and xp (though they might win a stuffed bear) but if they go to chase down a hydra for its treasure, they should get something. 

And remember, the only way to get better at DM-ing is to keep at it. No-one starts out all fantastic, but usually players have a lot of fun anyways. :)

On loot spoils. I have done it this way for cash. Cash / # of pcs or Cash/# of pcs +1. The +1 being the party bank. Oh items which everyone can use. Roll for it. Roll for it but only pc with out magic get a roll.  Or pcs pays into the bank for item. The adventure league has some okay milestone leveling ideas but their gp per hour/module is bad. 

I am a fan of milestone leveling because we often do a lot of non-combat things and figuring out how much exp to give for things outside of combat is not fleshed out very well. I also like to give a little adventurer downtime during the level-up so they don't just somehow learn two random spells or a major class feature overnight in the middle of a dungeon.

So I generally level up the party every 2 adventures, where an adventure is a quest with a goal consisting of generally 3-8 encounters that may or may not be handled with combat, several exploration scenes, and maybe an extra optional side-quest. If they manage to blow through an adventure without facing many encounters or if they fail one or more adventure goals, it may take 3 adventures to level up.

Magic items can be tough. As written in the DMG, you certainly can't keep everyone stocked with +1/+2/+3 versions of all their gear every 7 levels unless maybe that's all you're giving out. Default is closer to one magic item per level, assuming a party of 4 or 5. So disregarding magic items you might be able to buy or craft with optional rules, each character ends up with 4-5 magic items at level 20. A lot of people give out much more than this, and some give less. It depends on what you and your players want.

What's worked for me is dish out about the equivalent of 1gp per XP. In the early levels about half the cash equivalent goes into healing potions and the rest turns up as  hard cash. As the adventurers start wondering what the hell they're going to do with the big pile of unspent money they're accumulating I start adding in expensive mundane stuff (e.g. a suit of plate), common magic items as the equivalent of 500gp and low level spell scrolls. Then it's rinse and repeat at higher levels, moving onto rare (equivalent to 5,000gp) and very rare (equivalent to 50,000gp) items at higher levels.

About the time they get to 17th level I start thinking about breaking the rule and doling out the odd legendary item.

Quote from Lostwhilefishing >>

I'm just going to steal this from BioWizard since it is so well said.

I look at it this way. The maximum + you can have (at least by the book) is +3. If that is so, then you will be at +3 at level 20 -- can't really have more than that. (Though higher items usually do +3 and then something else, like a Holy Avenger does.) If that is so, then with 3 bonuses across 20 levels, that's about +1 per 7 levels. That means to me that by level 7 the whole party should be into +1s, by level 14 they should be into +2s, and by level 20 they should be into +3s. So I could see expecting to be at +1/+1 by level 7 for everyone in the party, and they get these items bit by bit over a few levels. Then between 7 and 14, slowly they start finding +2s, weighting them more toward the back side (11-14) than early. Then in the higher teens they find their +3s.

Now, this is a guideline for magical weapon (and it easily translates to armour as well) but it's a very good guideline as to what kind of loot they should get at what level. The Dungeon Master's Guide also has some advice on page 37.

 

I don't think you want to get your +3 weapon at level 20 when essentially your career is over.

I think it makes more sense to match your + weapon and armor with your tier levels

So +1 weapon/armor at level 6,  +2 at level 11, and +3 at level 16.