What seems a good balance for rewards in your campaigns?

I was having a PM discussion with DrWorm, and I guess I"m pretty stingy with rewards (ok, Scrooge is more like it), but at the end of Huegeldal, the Reckless Dice Gm allegedly handed out 10 gp to a PC. 10gp seems like a lot too much for me (2 gp seems like too much). PCs are going to be dragging around cannons and have contingents of mercenaries doing their dirty work at that point and then you've got issues with all kinds of other problems.

I typically do a maximum of about 50sp per session per PC..and sometimes worse than that..they get robbed on the way to the bank and don't have enough to repair their broken weapons and armor (oh wait, they can't afford armor

What typically has your group ended up with?

jh

Too much money can ruin a campaign too little will frustrate the players.

If players have no goals for their character they will get what they get and like it, if their is a goal in mind and a good story can come of it.

Maybe not money but favors that add up to the big gear reward, but not chests full of coins.

hungry adventurers will jump thru hoops.

If we get any cash at all I consider it a good day

Having said that though, it is annoying as magic items are even more rare than a cash reward. At rank 3 I have exactly one magic item (rune armour with a rune of shielding) and a MW weapon which I saved up for because some of the pre-written adventures give decent cash rewards.

I like to know what the PCs are working towards and to provide avenues for them to work towards reasonable character goals, but I can't see handing out 10gp per person for an adventure. On the other hand if the a rank 2 pistolier has been saving and working towards a repeater then I want to give them some way to get one.

I sometimes offer them specialisations in very minor areas. I have a player running a physician career (followingon from scholar) - playing with a dwarf soldier, they were running Storm of Chaos

[spoiler alert]

After they ran into the squig patrols, they had some really nice teamwork involving the Trivial Knowledge and Expose Weakness cards that got them out of a really iffy spot.
As a reward to the physician, he now has a specialisation in "Squig Anatomy"- giving him 1 white dice against melee checks versus a squig.
From a different incident, the dwarf has a necklace of Goblin parts giving him 1 white dice against goblins when not outnumbered.

Nice perks; but nothing to overpowered (At least from my view)

It completely depends on the characters, the adventure and how much of a feel of poverty and desperation the GM wants. Whoever is handing out the rewards should really give out whatever the GM feels is appropriate for his character and station. If that is too much: the GM should not have introduced that NPC as a possible reward-giver.

You do not limit rewards by calculating how much you think is right for the game, you limit who will actually consider giving the characters a job which they can be rewarded for.

If the tone is "poor and desperate" then the characters are poor and desperate and no rich merchant or noble will even consider them for a job. Only people slightly less poor and desperate will hire them. They have to earn access to people who can pay well.