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The Role of Rewards

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 102
Much of the famously addictive appeal of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and its predecessor games lies in its variety of reward mechanisms. These most obviously include experience points, treasure, and magic items, but also such in-story advantages like information, property, status, titles, even the possibility of eventual godhood.

Rewards mark the PCs’ victories. The act of scribbling down a new item or quantity of coins on a character sheet solidifies one of the game’s key pleasures. These moments cement the players’ commitment to the game by connecting them emotionally to what has just happened, while at the same time hooking them with the promise of future gains. Players revel in the success they’ve just scored, while also looking forward to the future triumphs their characters will be able to rack up after leveling up, using new gear, or making use of a long-forgotten scrap of lore.

Expect responses to rewards to vary from group to group and between individual players. Some players enjoy constant rewards and actively alter their play styles to maximize the benefits they receive. Others regard them as a bookkeeping necessity they’d rather keep in the background. Observe your players’ responses to see where they fit on this continuum. As you make decisions affecting reward distribution, seek out the sweet spot of compromise that makes the experience as compulsively entertaining as possible for the majority of your players.

Generalizations don’t always hold but can be useful as a starting point in determining what your players will enjoy. Younger or less experienced players often tend to prefer frequent rewards, with no benefit too small to lovingly describe. Even the most jaded players can remember their first few sessions, when a measly clutch of copper coins wrenched from a stinking kobold warren seemed like the most awesome haul ever. Older players, especially ones who are squeezed for time and can only meet for short sessions, may prefer to move the rewards process to the background. In this mode, shopping, swapping, and leveling up usually occurs outside of precious session time.

Whatever their amount of experience, some players remain more oriented toward rewards than others. Players heavily invested in their characters' abilities and in slaying monsters tend to want their rewards as soon as they can get them. Becoming more powerful is their biggest thrill. A steady stream of small power boosts suits them just fine. They don’t want to go into the next fight until they know they’ve squeezed every last iota of potential ability from their past accomplishments.

Players more focused on characterization or story progress may look at reward management as a form of homework. They’re more interested in seeing what’s on the other side of that hill, or talking to the crazy hermit, than stopping every scene to add up their XP totals or divide treasure. They’ll find it easier to stay engaged with the game if you bundle rewards together, dealing with them all at the same time.

The diagram on the next page lays out in graphic form the various considerations to take into account when deciding how much emphasis to give to rewards over the course of a session. Factors on the left side of the continuum lead to giving out awards in occasional bundles. Factors on the right side argue in favor of giving out rewards throughout the session.

Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 102
Experience points are the lifeblood of the Pathfinder rewards system. They determine the rate at which the PCs progress, and form the currency with which the most spectacular and reliable abilities are acquired. By deciding when and how to give out XP, you’re establishing the expectations the players will bring to the rest of the game’s reward system.

Backgrounded Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 102
Track experience points throughout the session, without mentioning it to your players. Announce awarded XP at the end of each session, after the evening’s narrative has concluded. Players may level up only between sessions, even if they pass the level mark during a game session. They're expected to arrive at the next session ready to go with all of their character changes. Players who don’t own the rules set should show up early to update their character sheets.

This timing scheme suits groups at the bundled (left) end of the rewards continuum. It preserves session time and keeps participants focused on the fictional proceedings. Backgrounded awards remove the temptation for players to undertake ridiculous, tangential, or out-of-character actions just to acquire the last few XP they need to level up.

Downtime Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 103
Track experience points as they accrue. Whenever the party stops in a safe haven, or the story leaps forward in time and place, announce a period of downtime. All of the XP accumulated since the last period of downtime is awarded and characters may level up. When the PCs leave downtime, the normal story resumes. Again track experience points while they are accrued, and hold off awarding it until the next downtime phase.

Downtime experience suits groups falling in the middle of the rewards continuum. It compromises between players who live for rewards and those who view them as an occasion for homework. Downtime awards make leveling up seem like something that happens in the world. The characters only become visibly better at their tasks after taking some time to rest, reflect, contemplate, and train. One danger with downtime awards is that they can tempt players to take otherwise poorly motivated rest stops just to gain their XP awards and level up. Depending on the pacing of a given session, a break for downtime might completely deflate the game’s momentum and make it hard to recapture your players’ attention. On the other hand, it might give you a much-needed break to work out an upcoming encounter, dream up fresh story events, or simply let your brain idle for a few minutes.

If players seek out downtime at an ill-placed moment, you can always deter them with a plot development requiring immediate action. This interruption might range from a simple wandering monster attack to an elaborate new wrinkle in the campaign’s ongoing storyline.

Immediate Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 103
Award players experience points as soon as they earn them. Allow the characters to level up at the end of any scene, as soon as they have accumulated enough XP.

Immediate experience suits a group at the frequent (right) end of the rewards continuum. It focuses the game more obviously, for good and for ill, on the acquisition and expenditure of experience points. As the name suggests, this system gives the players immediate gratification when they succeed.

When using this timing scheme, be prepared for the game to stop at a moment’s notice, shifting into rules-scanning mode while the players level up. Characters also risk becoming unsympathetic or unbelievable as they chase the biggest XP results at the lowest risks.

Handwaved Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 103
Ignore XP altogether. Decide how many sessions you want the group to spend at each level. Allow your players to level up each time they hit that milestone. This option suits groups at the far left side of the rewards continuum.

Ad Hoc Experience

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 103
Many players recall with great fondness sessions where the dice were never rolled. When a game spends considerable time developing plot and character and places fighting monsters and accumulating XP in the background, however, some players may feel that they’re being penalized. In these situations, reward out-of-combat successes with ad hoc experience awards.

When the group takes part in an entertaining scene that takes 15 minutes or more, consider awarding ad hoc XP. Ask yourself the following questions:

Did the scene move the group toward an important, identifiable objective?
Did the group face significant negative consequences if the events portrayed in the scene went against them?
Did the players take an active role in the scene, as opposed to listening to your descriptions or NPC dialogue?
Did most of the players make a noteworthy contribution to the scene?
Did all of the players appear attentive and entertained? If you can answer at least four of these questions in the affirmative, you should award ad hoc XP. The following steps can be used to determine a baseline figure for ad hoc awards:
Roughly determine the amount of real time it takes you, on average, to run a challenging encounter.
Divide this into 15-minute increments. So if it takes you an hour, more or less, to run a challenging fight, you have four increments.
Take the XP award the group would normally get for a challenging encounter (usually APL+1) and divide it by the number of increments. This is your baseline ad hoc award.

Once you have decided to award ad hoc experience for a scene, roughly estimate the amount of real time the sequence took. Award your baseline amount multiplied by the number of 15-minute increments as ad hoc XP.

Revise the baseline as the group increases in level. Take into account any increases in the average length of encounters, as well as the experience awards the characters garner. Additional individual ad hoc experience points can also be awarded to players for particularly good roleplaying. If you decide to use individual awards, be careful not to show favoritism. All of the characters should have opportunities to receive such rewards at some point.

Players on the right side of the rewards continuum probably prefer heavily action-oriented games. If your game consists mostly of exciting combat sequences with a minimum of plot to connect them, it’s probably not worth bothering with ad hoc awards.

Treasure

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 105
Game balance depends on rewarding the treasure values as given on cost of living guidelines in the Core Rulebook provide an easy way to quantify such expenditures. You can place specific treasures in particular encounters, making sure that the overall amount equals the recommended character wealth by level by the time the characters reach a new level.

In extreme cases for the left side of the continuum, you can handwave treasure altogether. As characters level up, award them the cash they need to bring them in line with Table 12–4. The assumption is that they’ve picked this up along the way, but in a way that wasn’t interesting enough to make a big deal about. Similarly, assume that the characters spend enough to keep themselves in reasonable comfort while in towns and leave it at that.

On the other hand, more reward-focused groups on the right side of the continuum often enjoy tracking treasure. To please them, you can research historical economies and describe each treasure horde in loving detail. For variety, include art objects, gems, and notable or valuable mundane equipment. For example, in the medieval era, items of luxury clothing were among the most highly valued trade goods. A little later, spices became wildly desirable.

Some groups prove particularly cash-obsessed, more interested in leveraging the economic system than killing monsters. If so, assume that they’ll go the extra mile to get a higher than usual percentage of the base price, and build that into your game. Peg the ultimate cash values of their treasures to the amount they can get if they coax, haggle, and swindle maximum prices out of their merchant partners. Use this interest to build in plot elements. They might happily spend more time spying on rivals, muscling out competitors, and fending off bandits than they do fighting orcs and demons. Rather than discouraging this behavior, you can go with it, building your treasure values and plot elements around it. The profit motive may not be traditionally heroic, but it does provide an easy source of story hooks. For example:

The Skull of the Crimson Khan might fetch little in the farming community surrounding the dungeon, requiring a dangerous overland journey to the Bazaar of the Silver Kingdoms.
The corpse of a bizarre aberrant creature, if properly preserved and maintained, might fetch a pretty penny from the crazy wizard-sage of the Spiral Tower—if his automaton rivals don’t swoop in and steal the coffin first.

Magic Items

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 105
Magic items are an integral part of treasure calculation in the Pathfinder RPG. The system determines a baseline treasure haul per character for each level, assuming that most of the treasure will be used to buy magic items.

Rewards-oriented groups, on the right end of the continuum, enjoy finding, trading, and selling magic items. Often they’ll enjoy the economic aspect of the game so much that they’ll set up lucrative side businesses making and selling enchanted objects. Let them feel rewarded for these activities, while subtly reducing dungeon treasure hauls to keep the group’s overall access to cash in line with Table 12–4. They might face early successes only to see the value of manufactured items drop as they contribute to an oversupply. Let them get away with what seems like a score or two, then add complicating factors that can also act as story hooks, such as:

Other shady adventurers come after the characters, as easier sources of treasure than dungeons.
Competing enchanters target the PCs for elimination.
Supplies of raw materials dry up, requiring quests into the dangerous wilds.

Keep detailed treatment of magic items low for groups on the left side of the continuum. Ask them for wish lists of items they desire for their characters. Use these as the items they find while dungeon crawling, adding in just enough variation to maintain a sense of surprise. These groups usually want to use their magic items without fussing over them. The odd item might serve as an epic plot device, but most magic items should remain quietly in the background.

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