Some basic questions on spells and treasure

[Dwarfi]

Hello again everybody.

Scroll to the later question further down in the thread please.

EDIT:
Since the question further below has been answered already, I would like to check something else about spell casting that I was a bit uncertain of.

1) Casting a spell -line of sight/line of effect: I find the PHB to be a bit confusing about this. On the one hand it says that I have to specify one corner of a square, so I would have to see the point and aim at it. But then it says that its enough for spells like summon monster to just be specified in some way. The difference in both is if you can cast a spell (lets say fireball) into an area that you can't see, like darkness or a fog cloud.
So, do I NEED line of sight or is line of effect sufficient for a fireball?

1b) If you can cast it blindly, what would happen if you dont actually know the distance to a surface? Lets say you are in total darkness, cast a fireball and dont know that 10ft in front of you is a wall?

We had a bit of confusion yesterday, as a monster was inside a fog cloud and we wanted to shoot ray attacks blindly into the square the beast was supposed to be.
Reading up on it later, I am sure that rays are to be handled like ranged attacks with a bow. But a fireball doesnt work like that, its not "thrown" like a missile, it actually emminates from one spot.

2) Do cloud effects stack? Lets say I cast a 2nd acid cloud inside of another acid cloud. Does that work or does it just replace the previous cloud?

3) Touch attacks as attack action? The wiz uses a touch spell and tries to touch a target. The first time he does this he uses his action to cast the spell including the touch attack. Lets say he misses , then the spell is still charged. In the next turn he would have 2 attack actions (thanks to fighter lv and total Lv) can he now make 2 touch attack -attempts (or until discharged) ?
I would say yes, as the casting of the spell is what stops you from doing it multiple times in the first round. Equally, touch attacks as AOOs (the spell was cast before but is not discharged)?


Thank you again.

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I am currently running a campaign in which I usually was very stingy with treasure in general as the book that I follow gave away some very powerfull items but barely anything else.

Now I am checking what a treasure of the current Level would look like and I would like some advice on that.
The group so far:
4xLv12 Well equipped I would say with 20-25k extra for shopping, which they just cant spent anymore as they already shopped the town empty by buying for 10-15k each.

The next encounters are dangerous at times, but from 6-7 encounters only 2 give treasure and one+2 item of choice/character from the story itself ) if I follow the Monster manual:

1EL13 (2xCR11) normal treasure (13k) in a hoard
1EL14 (2xCR12) double treasure +3 large longspear (2 elder celestial salamander)

The 2nd one is giving me some problems. When checking the DMG, an EC14 encounter should give~17k, correct? The +3 longspear alone is worth that much already (~18k) do I subtract that from the treasure?
Or does this really mean that I should give the group 2x +3 longspear AND treasure worth 34k (because double)?

Of course they might not even get all the treasure, if they dont find the hoard or dont kill both monsters.

I am not used to this, so I would like some advice on this from someone who is more used to reading treasure tables and creating them.
Thanks.

[Samwise]

I did adventure editing for the Living Greyhawk campaign for years.
It took about six adventures for me to realize that NPC and other special monster gear absolutely DESTROYS the DMG guidelines for treasure by encounter level.

A single group of NPCs in a "level appropriate encounter" will, according to the WBL chart, carry enough treasure for 4 encounters just in gear. (According to the relevant tables, a 6th level NPC gets 5,600 gp worth of gear. An EL 10 encounter should provide 5,800 gp worth of equipment.)

That is of course BEFORE considering the absurdity that a party of 4 6th level NPCs is an "equal" challenge for 4 10th level PCs. If you actually decide to challenge the PCs by putting them up against a group of NPCs of equal level, the NPCs will be carrying enough gear to account for near all of the wealth gain for the level. (A 10th level NPC gets 16,000 gp worth of equipment. That is 64,000 gp total for 4 of them. PCs should gain 77,314 gp going from 10th level to 11th level.)

That is also BEFORE considering that using the NPC WBL guidelines, it will be next to impossible for PCs to ever encounter "level appropriate" equipment as treasure. (According to the MIC, a 10th level item is valued at 5,001-6,500 gp. A +2 weapon is over 8,000 gp. That is both over item level for a 10th level NPC, as well as being more than half of such an NPCs WBL.)

And then you have an adventure where the majority of the enemies are goblins or orcs or somesuch with levels. In an adventure like Red Hand of Doom, that adds up rapidly, to the point that random encounters with patrols are more like supply caches from the potions and scrolls the party can pick up. (And this was why drow equipment turned to dust in the sun back in AD&D - they all had levels, and magical arms and armor. Even without WBL hardwired into the system such treasure would destroy the game.)

What can you do?

Well, the cheesiest solution is to give the NPCs almost all consumables that you can ensure they use before the PCs get into combat with them. The biggest problems there are the low cost making the NPCs TOO effective, handwaving the timing of all of getting used, and of course PCs figuring out how to ambush them and get the loot anyway.
More difficult is ignoring the charts and tables AND ignoring standard resale, and just reassessing WBL every so often, tossing out surplus loot.
Or you could just stick to "book" monsters with no treasure, saving actual loot for special placement, and hoping nobody notices the lack of NPCs or well-equipped monsters.

[Dwarfi]

Thank you Samwise.
Thats some usefull feedback.

I faced loot and treasure problems before, but since this adventure feels particulary item restricted, I think I will go with designing the treasures myself.

The problem is that the story gave us a bunch of very powerfull divine objects (needed for story) that can each be equal to a +5 weapon or higher. Which obviously results in problems caculating the total wealth.
Which is why our group didnt get anything more than a +2 item (max) in all other regards and feels starved on otherwise common items, except flat out Gold. Which is particularly hard to spend, as we just come into small cities or countrysides.

[Dwarfi]

I know the questions on the spells are basic knowledge, but I would love some clarification on it. Thanks again.

[ketaro]

If you designate a fireball to travel 50ft forward to a spot you want it to go boom, but it gets interrupted by the wall 10ft infront of you that you can't see, the fireball goes off early and you go boom instead.

Firing off AoEs blind is easy. Not being able to see means little when you don't need to see the specific enemies to cast an AoE at. It's merely a matter of being able to justify remembering roughly where they were when you last saw them and hoping they haven't moved (and that your party mates haven't moved either).
"I cast a Fireball sooooome I dunno 40 feet forward and slightly (10ft) to the left." Boom, done. At worst you rely on some sort of skill check (Listen and/or Spellcraft maybe?) as the character making an attempt to remember where who was when casting into, say, a Darkness effect. Or, if the caster got blinded, maybe a similar Listen or Wisdom check to find the space an enemy is in/remember where they last saw the enemy.

I guess I'm basically saying firing AoEs blindly is like hunting for an Invisible character without magical detection spells. At least, that's the easiest and, to me, most sensible way to deal with the situation.

[kitep]

1) Casting a spell -line of sight/line of effect: I find the PHB to be a bit confusing about this. On the one hand it says that I have to specify one corner of a square, so I would have to see the point and aim at it. But then it says that its enough for spells like summon monster to just be specified in some way. The difference in both is if you can cast a spell (lets say fireball) into an area that you can't see, like darkness or a fog cloud.
So, do I NEED line of sight or is line of effect sufficient for a fireball?

Whether you need line of sight or line of effect (or neither) depends on the spell being cast.  Since you mentioned "one corner of a square", we'll start with area effect spells like fireball and fog cloud.  For these you need line of effect.  Doesn't matter if you can see it or not.  If for some reason, the area you choose can't be reached (eg, wall in the way), the spell fizzles.  Fireball is an exception to the fizzling, because the spell description trumps the normal rule, and the spell says

You point your finger and determine
the range (distance and height) at which
the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized
bead streaks from the pointing digit and,
unless it impacts upon a material body or
solid barrier prior to attaining the
prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball
at that point. (An early impact results in an
early detonation.)

Summoning monster requires that the creature has a solid surface to appear on (it's not in the description, but it's written down somewhere).  If you summon a bear "25 feet ahead", and don't know there's a cliff in 20 feet so the bear would appear in mid-air, the spell fizzles and nothing is summoned - but the spell is still used up.

Spells that require line of sight are usually the spells where you have to pick and choose who's being affected - eg, magic missile, charm person, finger of death.  Being able to touch the creature is as good as seeing it, if you can't see for some reason.

[/quote]We had a bit of confusion yesterday, as a monster was inside a fog cloud and we wanted to shoot ray attacks blindly into the square the beast was supposed to be.  Reading up on it later, I am sure that rays are to be handled like ranged attacks with a bow. But a fireball doesnt work like that, its not "thrown" like a missile, it actually emminates from one spot.[/quote]

You can shoot ray attacks blindly, but like trying to hit an invisible creature, it's considered to have "total concealment", which means you have a 50% miss chance.  That's assuming you're shooting at the square it's actually in; if it's in a different square, you just plain miss.  A fireball doesn't care - it hits if the creature's in the square, or within the area of effect (eg 2 squares over).

2) Do cloud effects stack? Lets say I cast a 2nd acid cloud inside of another acid cloud. Does that work or does it just replace the previous cloud?

I'm not sure.  I would think the acid damage stacks, but the other parts don't (slow movement, penalty to hit)

3) Touch attacks as attack action? The wiz uses a touch spell and tries to touch a target. The first time he does this he uses his action to cast the spell including the touch attack. Lets say he misses , then the spell is still charged. In the next turn he would have 2 attack actions (thanks to fighter lv and total Lv) can he now make 2 touch attack -attempts (or until discharged) ?
I would say yes, as the casting of the spell is what stops you from doing it multiple times in the first round. Equally, touch attacks as AOOs (the spell was cast before but is not discharged)?

Assuming the touch attack is discharged on a successful hit, then I think you have it exactly right.  One attack the round you cast the spell.  Multiple attacks the following rounds, until you finally hit.  You can use it as an AOO assuming the spell was cast earlier and not dispelled.
  If the touch attack allows multiple touches (eg Chill Touch), then it gets confusing.  We just had a discussing about it on another thread, and I was left feeling like the rules didn't cover the situation well.

Good luck!

[Dwarfi]

Thanks a lot Kitep, that cleared most of it up.

Thread can be closed.

[Kerrus]

Thank you Samwise.
Thats some usefull feedback.

I faced loot and treasure problems before, but since this adventure feels particulary item restricted, I think I will go with designing the treasures myself.

The problem is that the story gave us a bunch of very powerfull divine objects (needed for story) that can each be equal to a +5 weapon or higher. Which obviously results in problems caculating the total wealth.
Which is why our group didnt get anything more than a +2 item (max) in all other regards and feels starved on otherwise common items, except flat out Gold. Which is particularly hard to spend, as we just come into small cities or countrysides.

Never use quest items to count towards WBL, because they break it as you're seeing here. Either as a DM or a player helping the DM, consider it from the angle of-  you're essentially deliberately restricting the players' options because they have to carry around the necessary quest item.

[Dwarfi]

@Kerrus: Maybe Quest-item was a wrong choice of words now that I think about it.
Quest related sounds more fitting.

Examples:
A short sword +2/ +4vs evil
deals double dmg to undead and outsider/3x dmg on crit and an arrey of extra effects like true seeing, ignore AC once a day or week...
Not a quest item, just related to the story, but not necessary.
Would equal a +5 or +6 weapon if not more.

A holy dragonlance - Acts as +5 Con drain, dragon and evil killing keen weapon in the hand of a good character.
Sadly there is no good character in the group, just a neutral one that can at least use some of the powers.
Not a quest item, but a weapon of legend in the current adventure.
~150-200k  in worth I would guess if not more.

Flaming burrst, fire whip of speed ....no quest item. That thing alone equals a +6 weapon ~72.k in worth.
 
2xpearls of a good goddess: Both gain a charge/day - Use up x number of charges to cast any of 10 different healing spells. Kind of like a really powerfull wand or rod.
These actually are quest items and are needed later on.
Give+4 to +5 AC for the user.

An evil dagger with some sick con dmg effects

.... So thats the base.

Plus the DM who ran the start of the adventure gave everyone a free mithrall armor with some fire resistance.
The adventure tends to have more of those treasures around - Its either easy to miss the loot all together, you get nothing or you get an epic item with divine powers.
Not to mention the 25k+ that each character still holds in riches.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Thank you Samwise.
Thats some usefull feedback.

Yes it is. He's very knowledgable about items. Most DMs will chose to not do extra work by rolling on treasure tables. Likewise they are likely to not follow MiC guidelines so strictly, instead relegating it to an eyeball guideline for what PCs can find in magic shops. The magic item guidelines are often confused for hard and fast rules. See any thread about custom magic items.

Also DMs can still use NPC WBL, just not often without throwing PC WBL off track. I don't consider this a problem since an NPC is defined as a leveled character a PC could legally play (but they aren't right now). Monsters however often lack LA and therefore are not chosable and should never have class levels unless listed so as an exception.

[Dwarfi]

I know its just a rough guideline and varys anyway.

12th    88,000 gp
app. gain per LV: 22.000
13th    110,000 gp

- Lets just say:
A mithrall breastplate: 4200 GP
A +2 weapon 8ooo GP
2x +2 Abil items 8000GP
other protection items ~12.000 GP
+potions ~2000GP
other stuff: 5000 GP

25k in jewels or others

+ a selection of unique magical items as described above.
This is a very basic idea of one of our characters that I based this on:
evil dagger with con drain effect
Fiery Flaming burst whip of speed
Amulett of water breathing
Scabberd of keen edges

I guess its the rather unusual concentration of wealth in form of those epic items that throws me off.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

The rule I have referred to in the past is on DMGp43. Non level 1 characters can't spend more than 50% WBL on a single item.

[Kerrus]

The rule I have referred to in the past is on DMGp43. Non level 1 characters can't spend more than 50% WBL on a single item.

Yeah, and then it goes on to provide the caveat that certain classes can't actually buy much shit, so they shouldn't necessarily be limited like that.

[Dwarfi]

Update:

As this is the finale of an adventure, I am currently preparing the next one, which would be the final book of a trilogy.
The book was rather open about the level the group should be by the end of the 2nd book 12-15 (currently 12), but the next book very cleary states that you should be 14 at the beginning of the next adventure, which causes me some trouble.

One Lv up can be covered by the bosses our group is fighting through, and the other as a reward for solving the adventure.
But that Lv boost also makes it tricky in terms of wealth.

After the book, a player should gain ~60.000 in wealth from Lv12 to 14.
The adventure itself doesnt give the players a really expensive treasture, just the ability to add +2 to any nonmagical item. Which isnt that much, when we talk about Lv12-14.
To make it worse, the book actually wants the players to give away a major artifact (if they do it or not is another matter)
The party can gain some more wealth when starting the next adventure (depending on where they go), but overall I am a bit at a loss and hope for some ideas from you guys.
How would you go about this and fix this.

Furthermore I rarely ever played with Lv13/14 characters so I dont really know what sort of gear a character of that Lv would ususally have. (Core only, so no fancy MIC stuff or alike.)

[Samwise]

Well, getting into the fancy stuff can certainly help, particularly with a lot of the options out there.

As for how to give wealth to PCs, that is easy - just throw it at them.
Come up with random people they have helped who decide to spontaneously reward them.
If you really need to make them "work" for it, or just don't want them to cherry pick specific rewards, have the patron reward be a treasure map, then "conveniently" include a walkover level encounter with disproportionate loot.

For specific items, that depends on your group, but the basic standbys as far as I am concerned are:
heal sticks (cure light wounds; lesser vigor if you go non-core)
stat bumps (+4 items of everything for everyone!)
pearls of power (with memento magica non-core for any spontaneous casters)
loot sacks (because handy haversacks mean never having to say "goodbye" to gratuitous copper pieces)
I don't think I ever met a party who said they had too many of any of those.

[Dwarfi]

I finally managed to get an estimated wealth, each character in our group has (mine not included as I DM at the same time, but its not much)
Although its a bit rough and might not be 100% correct as not every item has a price tag.

Lv12:
Fighter/Cleric: ~68.k (the 2 biggest divine items not included)
Wizard: 80-90k + Spellbook + divine item
Fighter (loot hoarder) 150-200k a big part comes from the +1 fire/ flaming burst/ speed whip

Now the current LV wealth should be around 88k
With the 2 Level ups ( raising wealth to 150k) ahead I get closer to the loot hoarder, but the others fall behind. So I will see that they get some stuff in the near future.

Edit: The boss leaves a lot of +4 items behind, so that should take care of it. But I will have to keep an eye on some of the characters.

[Dwarfi]

The group right now is a bit more balanced out in terms of wealth/level. (Lv14 and mostly +2 items and very few higher ones+some artifacts)

We are closing in on the next level up (+50k GP in wealth) and we actually didnt gain that much stuff so far.
And what do you know, a group of 6 assasins comes along, each wearing stuff worth 56k.
Lets see, if I would give all that to the players that would be:
6x56.000 = 336.000 (Treasure for that ECLv after the PHB would 25.000)
lets say they dont want to keep anything and sell it:
336.000/2 = 168.000
/4 players = 42.000 per each PC

I expect them to keep at least some of the items (like +2 nat armor or +2 AC ring for some PCs) beyond that they are likely to sell it or hoard part of it.
Spending the money though is hard in this universe as there are rarely any citys with more than a 15k price limit. Which is really low for Lv14-15 characters

A tricky thing this treasure management. Especially since the entire adventure is filled with human like enemys. But rarely with anything better than +2.