How to Give Out Treasure in Pathfinder or D&D, DM tips. 

You are one of the few channels on YT that I can keep coming back to and re watch videos. Keep it up you always make my day!

Thanks for the Advice! I am having issues with Treasure right now so i appreciate You input.

Thank you for this video, its incredibly helpful and well made.

You do a great job putting it simply there, well said.

You're certainly welcome. Glad to be of help.

Hands down my favorite intro of all time! Barbarian since 2011

Thank you for these videos first time Dm and my players which include a DM from an old game love it.

Yes, when you have only a small amount of treasure, it makes your character so much better as it gives you more to work with.

Just found you on YT and subscribed, as I DM a weekly pathfinder game for my friends I find your vids invaluable!!!

This was a waay better reward than magic items in my opinion. To have my actions make a real impact in the world. My respect and appreciation for my gm has been positively affected because of it.

Something else I like to have them find are bits of art. Villains would collect the stuff, and characters might not know how valuable it is. It might or might not have magical properties. It can also give clues. That silk tapestry shows a woman in unusual armor, with a strange sword, fighting a man clad all in black who is holding a metal star. Three game session later the characters overhear a rumor about a black-clad assassin who kills by throwing metal stars.

He certainly produced a good starting point.

At one point it lead to my gm getting a little annoyed with me and "making" me take and keep a magic item because everyone else had several at this point and a lot more money. But later she did something really cool. Over the course of the story we have crisscrossed our path and revisited several of the places we had been before. She described to me the places and how they had changed based on the money I'd given. She even worked it out that I'd developed a great reputation in several regions.

Strong video, this is something that I have been comfortable with for a long time, knowing that gear and abilities can throw off a game. They can if in great players and game masters hands really make a game amazing as well, when everyone is surprized even yourself as you do something that is within your capabilities that no one expected and you just saw it and it was a perfect opportunity.

That really depends on a lot of things. But it is usually best to work those sorts of details in slowly when you can, it lets you have more to work with. It also continually reinforces to them that this is a special item & makes it mean more & more.

Thank you, I'm glad to have you aboard. Look forward to reading your comments.

You channeled some Dusty Rhodes there, much appreciated lol. Even though it is pretty much forgotten, I am still waiting for that right time for my players to finally find the Apparatus of Kwalish lol. Been waiting 20 years to give it out still lol. Good advice btw..especially putting it out there that a GN, especially a good one, needs some respect too. The game is a two way street.

I'm not a DM, but I've had an idea for how to distribute loot and such. Let's say, the characters loot an armory, which is occupied by, say, soldier's ghosts and such. And in this armory, there's one final room which has a magic random item, which could be used by a character class, but not any of them. So, the group all huddle together and do a rock-paper-scissors to see which one of the compatible players gets the weapon. This could cause jealousy in the group, and the events would be rare.

We use to do that all the time. It was a lot of fun. Knocking people right off their stools. Great times.

Once again, very good tips. I pretty much avoid having magic shops too. If there is a magic shop the most it will have is a few low level spell componants, possibly some mild potions. If a player wants a certain magic item, not a +9 sword, but if they want a bag of holding or something, tell me. You won't find it in a shop, but I MAY make it possible for you to earn it.

There certainly are a lot of way you could go about it. Changing them up can make for interesting play.

thank you very much for this video. me and my friends are all new to the game I have a few months of game play ahead of them and found myself being asked to be the game master so that we could all play since non of them have played before and I have learned alot about being a gm over the past few days and what I was banging my head over the most was how to approach loot and after seeing this I now feel I have a pretty good idea on how to approach this mechanic

In terms of gear made especially for a character I think some of the best most powerful gaming can be done with a character painstakingly working on creating items or abilities. When the character finally starts to have some success in this vein they really appreciate what they have done. The other great time for custom kit, is when someone else that has something invested in the character comes along and does something for them or makes something for them over time.

I'm a huge fan of alchemy and having players find potions, poisons, alchemical bombs, and blade oils is something I like to do to give rewards without having the characters dripping with magical gear. I'm also a huge fan up upgrading items. When the orc barbarian reinforced the spear his father gave him with the bones of a Young White Dragon (making it +1) it became this object of great pride. As he worked, we did childhood flashback scenes of warrior training in the orc village, it was great.

I'm not going to lie. When I first started watching I was going to turn it off. But getting into it, I feel your knowledge and insight will definitely help me in my DM planning. Especially the character in weapons instead of a +1! Thank you

@woodwwad Potion testing is the bizzomb. Hey, there's a use for a gnome... potion sniffer/taster.... You probably do this too but I have 80% of potions look, smell, and taste the same as others of its type so when the characters identify one, there's a good chance they know another when they see it. "A green viscous potion that smells like troll snot? That's Regeneration." Of course there's that 20% that's always a wild card...

I completely agree, even when I do throw in the odd gnome merchant (because I love gnomes as scamming peddlers) The highest level magic items there are like one use wondrous items. Like Sovereign Glue or Universal Solvent.

That's when you take the ever burning torch to their face.

Thank you, I'm glad you find my vids enjoyable.

"teleport that shit right out of your game." love it. DnD simply isn't fun to me without the long epic JOURNEYS. by traveling you can really flesh out the life of the land the players inhabit.

Great way to handle magic items and loot. I agree with you there doesn't need to be the "designated" monetary or magic reward at the end of EVERY mission or story arch. Life's not that regulated, and neither should a story be.

@SailorBarsoom great point about the clues, I've used that myself but don't be too largely counting on the players getting them unless you really make a deal out of it. It is nice when a player makes mention of something like that, that hapened 6 games ago & puts it together though.

glad to hear that, you sound like you are enjoying the game. That's great.

Another great vid, MM! Excellent advice. I have to admit, though, that 'sickle-ing the hell out of someone' sounds like fun. (sickling?, sickeling?)

@ulkem Well keeping it light certainly has a lot of advantages to it.

Actually, speaking of Excalibur, he did trade up for the Singing Sword (a stronger version of Excalibur) even with excalibur's history (rather than repair excalibur when it was broke)

Thanks for saying so and thanks for the sub. I look forward to hearing more of your comments.

@23penguins32 Thanks for the compliment sir. She was indeed going a little bit off of the suggested gold reward list from the core rule book. But I think in the end she'd made a great role play decision.

PC's were role-played treating my group and I differently based on the things I had done. There were even a couple of places that I'd given money and items to, that had been lead by corrupt leaders that had squandered my charity. I thought this was awesome. I haven't had the chance to Do anything about this in character yet but I can't wait too. I was proud of my gm friend that was cool role play.

Other treasure ideas: awards, trophies, titles, land grants, mounts, pets (hounds, falcons or exotic magical equivalents), admission into institutions (holy orders, academic societies, arcane academies, etc.), legal immunity, tax breaks, business monopolies. But I do love magic items. If you only give out a few they will need to 'grow' with the character. Otherwise they will lose their luster and soon go unused.

I'm a big fan of Ye Olde Magic Shoppe. Where else will my players get those incredibly necessary everburning torches and tanglebags? Wait, what is that, PC? You want a WHAT? A +3 sword? Have you not seen this fine line of everburning torches? They never go out!

Right on, I can get on with that.

@DerrylTheHero with your mind ;) It is all about how the items are put over. You could build up a non-magical sword to be the total joint, if done right.

So she started giving out more gold, more magic items. I wasn't crazy about this so I decided that my character while not a paladin or cleric was of the mind that he would give at least half of his winnings to various local towns and organizations that were down and out. I tried to do so anonymously, so that in game no one knew I was doing so.

@nerosfiddle putting draw backs on items can work out wonderfully.

@SailorBarsoom It is very important to look at DMing as you are here. If you can identify areas you need improvement on, you can & will improve on them. It is when people cannot recognize they have a weakness that they cannot improve it, so good for you.

@SailorBarsoom The Flying Carpet of the Undead! You certainly bring up a good point, items need to have a certain flavor but you could certainly have a country that was based on france, egypt & the arabia. Blend them together & make it seem less real world but give you a jump off point. I'm a huge fan of Objects De Art.

@ulkem yes, that can certainly work well.

You have essentially described all the things I did wrong. The players essentially destroyed my planned story in a matter of minuets.

I've never had the issue with giving too much treasure, however my players have learned to get by without much treasure. 3e, and 4e both assume the players have a monty haul of treasure. Mind you, after playing for 3 years on the same game, if we get to level 10, it would be a big shocker.

@Samwise7RPG well they certainly have an interesting feel

I decided a long time ago that anything with 2 or more pluses was a named item with a history. This automatically meant that their wouldn't be very many of them, because I can only create so many names and histories if I'm going to do anything else. I also decided that certain items (and monsters) don't belong in certain places. If you're someplace modeled on medieval France, there better be one hell of a good reason to find a flying carpet (or a mummy). Not saying it COULDN'T happen, but...

Ah giving magic item tailor-made for the pc is a sin I commited far too often in my teens. What you say about teleport is so true, it destroyed the last pathfinder campaign I played in.

Great tips, I was wondering how I introduce item names and stories other than having a quest give the info or having the item have name or markings written on it.

Certainly the prestige associated with having a signature named weapon is of great value to a character. It certainly ups your cool factor.

@skuzzyknuckles I channel the dream often, if you weeeeeeeeeeeelllllllll One of my all time top 5 workers. Certainly is a 2 way street paved in creativity.

@herkles1 I love items like that, not needing to be cursed. But they could simply have terrible flaws but huge upsides too which can make the item far more interesting, if you give reasons behind it. Having a villain coming after you for an item can be a great idea for a game.

I never really understood why people would want to use Vanilla magical items when it's so much fun to create your own. I'm a new GM with only 3 sessions of Pathfinder under my belt but my group just got a magical item I created, it was a large knife that an Ogre Magi living alone had enchanted for himself to easily create fires with, when it struck a hard natural surface like stone the blade would ignite for 1d4 rounds and deal 2d4 extra fire damage. Essentially flint in weapon form :)

Here is an extract from the Pathfinder Core Rule Book Page 97, Skills, Handle Animal Fetch (DC15) The animal goes and gets something. If you do not point out a specific item, the animal fethes a random object. What im after is a random loot table that could be used to perhaps determine what the animal fetches i.e. a stick, a stone, a small frog or perhaps something else of value, just to make the game a little more random + unpredictable. I have had a look around but so far I have not found 1

thank you good sir, i am a new gm (about 10 sessions) and that is my total rpg experience. i have given items out without thinking about what you said. im always looking for tips for a new gm. the bit about the poison was quite evil, i may steal that. anyway looking forward to more pearls o' wisdom.

@TabletopTitan Yes, I've heard that same argument. There is always one player who really wants to have it.

@WickedOne00 Ah I see, a good clarification, thanks for that.

I always like slipping in a spyglass. It's a valuable item, but you always get the arguments over selling it vs. keeping it. No one ever thinks to buy one.

@samthejuggalo509 Thank you ninja, glad you enjoyed that one.

I have been DM for a group of new players for about 2 months now, myself I have only about 1 years experience. In my current campaign I have given them a room full of gold, then when they left the gold turnt to sand and they were left with a few items of value only. One of the players I even penalised for being greedy and made her reward entierly at the mercy of the dice.... thankfully my dice love me and it gave her a ring of feather fall.

@SailorBarsoom The key when you do something like that is to make sure you give details like that even when they don't matter. So it doesn't just stand out as red arrows pointing to a clue, you know?

@woodwwad This is true, and this is one spot where I've fallen down quite often. Of course when I do remember to do it, it's great. But yeah, it's an area I need to work on.

I say make them CREATE! Let them struggle Smithing then search for an Enchanter, powerfull magician and make him/her willing to enchant. And even then if they don't understand from magic, they won't know what kind of magic their beloved items have. They have to use identify scroll or make a Knowledge(Arcane) check to make sure.

Sure, well check out some of the other videos & see what you think there.

I just linked my DM to this video. I hope he watches it.

I'm a big fan of ogre magi, and I think the weapon you made there is good. I agree, you need to put some into your magic items. Make them interesting.

Major magic spells like Dimension travel are never on an item. Even casting a spell like that, I treat the same as I treat resurrection. It isn't just readily available. You need to work for it. Research, Quest, and ceremony. When my characters needed to dimension travel, they had to do all that. Now I did give them a talisman at the same time that would allow them to Dimension travel in order to leave that dimension, BUT it was only good once and then it was destroyed.

@Onionkid99 Potions & the like can be good for that. I'll have to do a vid at some point when not figuring out what potions do can really jack you. Things like that are an especially good way to make skills like craft actually mean something.

You damn right I do!

@23penguins32 Very well said, you are lucky to have had a lot of good people around you early. I pretty much had the opposite experience to that.

@IamJLOVEGREN Thanks, always appreciate people passing my videos on

Glad to have you aboard, if you'd only been playing for a year, I'd suggest you check out my campaign world builder series. The playlist is on my page for ease of use. It'll give you loads of ideas that'll be helpful in your game.

I think magic item brokers are a cool idea. However they're not just going to sell you items because you have the gold. Perhaps the better way to deal with teleport rather then banning it is giving them incentive not to teleport. My biggest problem with the bag of holding is it's ability to mitigate curse items. I think it's a good idea to give them what they want sometimes but make them work for it. Like you said the items should matter to them.

I DM for a game with my buddies, and at the moment we're playing a very high-powered campaign. My one buddy accidentally discoevered a really broken Summoner build for Pathfinder, so that added a whole new level of high-power(He does like 50 DPR with his damn Eidolon at lvl 8) we also have alot of magic items, and there are magic shops. But this is my experiment, next we'll do a low-magic low-power campaign. I wanna see where they fall in the spectrum.

Yeah, those are powers you want to be careful with.

@SailorBarsoom well, there are lots of ways to find more people to play with.

@tetsubo57 I once had my characters from a city where only the nobles, their guards, and certain other people were allowed to wear weapons inside the city walls. When my characters got their permit (they became "certain other people") they were as thrilled as any magic sword. After all, that +4787957 weapon isn't much use if it's in the guardhouse, waiting for you to leave town before you get it back.

I am indeed . . . the preacher of RPGs!

good video, I am curious what do you think of items that are powerful but are cursed and do bad things to the characters? ie lowered stats, actual curses, and so on? I also think that any smart monster/antagonist would want their treasure back. you kill that lich and steal his prized items, but forget about his phlyctery being half way across the world. I would assume he would try and steal back his rare and powerful treasure, particularly ones that you are going to use in finally killing him.

@Benoc13 Beg, borrow and steal, take everything & anything you can make it yours, that's my thoughts on GMing. Glad it was of help to you.

@SailorBarsoom Exactly.

@tetsubo57 what sort of trophies have you given out? A lot of very useful ideas here. I'll vote this up, as this is quality info for a DM interested in this question.

@QuinnSilver thanks, glad you had a laugh/

@YourDungeonMaster Magic items in a players book seemed very odd to me too. Buying magic items is the ballz for sure, strips them of all their cool factor.

LOL I totally called out a GM on that potion shit. He happened to have 4 healing potions and didn't do shit even though he had more than the opportunity. "Human fool, had all these fine elixir yet not the foresight to use them." Still this game is getting quite bad, when at level 9 in D&D and we got sent on a quest by a too beastmode paladin to do a job right in his backyard he could have done by himself, and he's helping us! Taking my kills, doing my jerb. Yet I'm still getting paid... -_-

Glad you found it useful. The easiest way to ruin your game is throw treasure at players.

I just wouldn't give them a lot of loot. Don't make loot a requirement, it ends up turning into a crutch. Magic items should be special. I would also recommend putting a lot of thought into magic items, give them back stories & cool quests things like that can mean a lot more & should mean a lot more than the bonus an item has. Players enjoy a lot of flavor. Make your own Excalibur or Aegis that'll be something the players remember.

I'm a real skimpy DM. My current group doesn't know it though. Their all new players. I've always been skimpy though and only ever had one complaint, durring a 3.5 game. The complaining player's character was a mystic theurge, (so broken mechanically). We finished the adventure and he asked me ooc, as the players left the catacomb, "Hey where's our magic item?" *Glare* My regulars smirked. We never played with him again. Not for that reason, he was a hardcorer powergamer. Nice dew by the way.

@SaudiLindsey4 Brag all you like, this is certainly the place. Yes, treasure should only be one reward & shouldn't just show up if it doesn't matter. Reputation is a great thing to have, it'll be a stat in the game I'm working on. Yes, that does sound like cool rp for sure. It'll allow you all to get more out of the game. As a player if you can give the GM something to work with to add more elements to the game, you've done well.

Yeah, teleport can be really bad. Movement is something you really want to watch as it is massively powerful.

Hell yeah you want that

@ZigCopasetic Had a great 1 of those in my last D&D game with a rogue opening a pirates chest at 1st level & nearly getting killed from the trap (which was one of 2 or 3 traps I used in the entire campaign). It was amusing.

they go digging in to that delightful morsel. Oh no they didn't! For the rest of that game session they are under performing sick as vampires. Feeling the effects of something that was deadly to the mortal only sickening to the vampires. Maybe they even have to work to get over this making deals with people or things they would not just to be rid of this foul feeling.

@woodwwad My group, back in the day, was pretty sharp because knew I did stuff like that. I guess if they don't get it I could always have another tapestry show up or have another rumor.

I was pissing within 18 seconds of the Vid,HAha thanks starting me first DM gig 2morrow Good to know this Peace !