Hi folks, I had a couple questions I was hoping you could help me with.

First question:

I've been trying to figure out how much money to be handing out to players, but I haven't found anywhere stating a good rate to give out cash. I don't want to be too stingy but I don't wanna overload my players in cash and all of a sudden they are loaded and are buying platemail...but I do want my players to "upgrade" gear, etc at a certain rate...

One example that comes to mind is a player-made adventure where the hook NPC offers players 20 gold for some random investigate the evil task, which I thought was a ton.

My players just recently finished Eye for an Eye, and I had Lord Aschaffenberg give each a gold coin for their troubles. I have no idea if that's too much or too little for essentially saving him from a chaos cult living in his basement.

How do you manage monetary rewards in your game, and what do you think is reasonable to hand out?

Secondly, I have a player in my group playing a High Elf Envoy, and I've been having a difficult time thinking of motivations for her to be in Reikland, and to be adventuring. I'm not that familiar with all the lore, and wasn't even really sure what the elves were doing in Reikland. I know that the elves are important in regards to teaching humans wizardry, but apart from that what else do they do? Are they selling goods (fancy jewelery?) Are they trying to claim lands? I just don't have a very good idea for what high elves are doing in the Empire.

My party is a priest of sigmar, a dwarf thug and a dwarf slayer as well, which makes it harder to balance combat & social aspects. What I ended up doing with her was stating that her superiors sent her to the Empire to observe the Cult of Sigmar and see how they're doing to combat the forces of Chaos, with the logic that if the Empire falls to chaos, the elves are next. So she doesn't really have a good reason to be here, besides the fact that her superiors assigned her to watch this priest of sigmar, and I'd like to give her more motivation besides that.

Thank you very much for your help!

Yeah, I dont really have concept yet of how much to reward players. They dont really have much to 'buy' in terms of equipment (beyond the mundane). So it's not like them having money is likely to break anything, but I think it's better to keep them 'hungry'. Once they have all the gold they need, there is less you can do to manipulate them with money.

I think the player made one with the 20G hook is the Snow White one I did some conversion work on? If so - the 20G is offered to entice the group - the 'hiring agent' is evil and fully plans on killing the characters at the end rather than pay them - hence the huge fee offered.

For (1) benchmarking to adventures, in Gathering Storm the task of fetching Father Grabbe from graveyard (a day's work through possibly undead infested territory) is 50 silver each. The same is the offer to go deal with rustlers later. Page 72 of rules gives daily wages and 10 silver is a daily wage for a mercenary - so consider the first short job as premium pay for a mission from a burgomeister that involves personal stuff and supernatural, second is about right if you assume they are expected to spend a few days on job.

As reknown rises etc, rates would go up of course but keep an eye on page 72.

For (2) the high elf is present for a few reasons. Consider career card info. Ostensibly to look out for trade interests perhaps (they have trade with mainland via Marienberg etc) - "public face of trading families" but also to keep an eye on growth of chaos and oppose it is the most central. They know humans are weak but that the "battle is fought here". They may also be perhaps looking out that humans aren't abusing the gift of wizardry from Teclis, ensuring elven artifacts lost from war of axe end up in right (elven) hands, keeping an eye on waystones etc.

I make them work hard for any penny they get their hands on. Like when working for nobles, they instead of getting any promises of gold, they get hounoury titles like warden of the (petty fiefdom). it may seem impressive but in reality they are worthless, unless you have the blood to prove it. Beside nobles hate to pay for something if they think it can be done for free. they can be greedy bastards saying things like " What you have done for us is beyond to be rewarded with coins. No you are true heroes of the empire, and rewarding you with mere coins would tarnish your reputation and make you seem like simple mercenaries . Your honour and valour demands a title, and a title you shall have . Further I will donate enough money (a lie) for the greatest of troubadours to sing of your deeds. I will even tell the duke of your selfless heroism. tsk, tsk, do not talk about money in a moment of this to diminsh your great act. Servants! there will be a feast in the honour of these heroes.

Less is more. give them less is always better than too much. If they get their hands on a lot of coins, why not let them invest? in my old D&D campaign my players where swamped with gold, so when an opportunity rose to purchase a rundown but popular tavern "the Mystic Hen" they took it. Only to find out the tavern was close to bankruptcy. The roof was leaking, the employees where stealing from the register, or where downright lazy, and the contract with the local brewery ran out, because of credit issue. Soon they had to spend a lot of money to get the tavern up and running properly.
Long story short: in the end they hired a professional innkeeper to handle the business, while they went on with their adventures, now almost with no coins in pocket. But at least they had a place to stay, where everybody knew their names.

Good gaming