I am curious as to how other GMs provide monetary rewards for their groups? Most items in the armory (especially armor, cybernetics and such) are quite pricey. The players don't earn too much with the monthly incomes the characters receive given that most adventures take place over a week or two. Sure there may be a couple months travel between destinations, but all in all, "working for a living" doesn't pay that well.

The game does allow for characters to be creative in obtaining funds, but there may not be enough time (in game time and/or real time). The most obvious source of extra income I can see is from the sale of gear from the various foes that they vanquish. Used equipment would typically sell for a significantly reduced rate from the "full price", allowing for adjustments upwards based upon successful barter attempts. Captured gear can also be a good source of equipment upgrade.

But what about other sources of wealth? The few adventures that I've read through thus far make no mention of NPCs carrying or possessing any money or other items of value.

Your thoughts?

Hi,

a gift from the Inquisitor from time to time is a nice option. Mine gave the pc Bolters, but they have to pay for the ammo themselves.

I usually give the pc a couble of month "downtime" between their missions so they can get in some money. Priest, Mechaniucs and those who opted for a Trade Skill (most Psykers) will get a lot of money as well since they are all paid 120+ money per month. So, they ARE able to safe some money. After three sessions, they are normally should be able to have 1000 spending money (3x 3mont downtime plus the mission time itself).

This will not help in regard to cybernetics, I happend to "sponsor" a cybernetic arm to one of the players (a fight with some powerblade wielding kybernetic assassine on Ambulon left him...disarmed). They have knack for looting enemies, so this is where they get some money from as well. They do not loot EQUIPMENT (unless it is better) but empty their pockets and wall-safes and what-not on a regular basis. If they go up against criminals, 1000 thrones in cash are not totally unknown of if they go after the kingpin in his home/headquarter.

And to be honest, I normally give them some "war funds" from their Inquisitor for necessary bribes, acquisitions, lodging etc.

Thanks for the suggestions. Some of what you mentioned was along the lines that I had already been thinking. But it's always good to hear ideas from other GMs and to receive confirmation of mine. :-)

I like to very much restrict the amount of money my PCs get, it means that good equipment does not become common. But the players have to spend a few sessions on working toward their next equipment upgrade. But they do have some interesting ways of getting extra equipment, such as one time they were rooting out some heretics in a PDF base and managed to talk their way into the Quartermasters stores, they walked out with lots of extra ammo, some upgraded runs, and a few rarer things, and this was 3/4 good planning on their part and 1/4 good luck on the rolls. But other than that, I dont usually leave much in the way of looting, armour tends to be damaged after a fight, runs are low quality or out of ammo, or get damaged by grenades... Also when they had a chance to pick up xenos equipment they were scared enough of their Inquisitor to actually take / sell it, except for the scum, but with an intelligence score of 28 what do you really expect?

But anyway, by restricting money it makes that next piece of upgraded equipment all the more sweet and it also means the players can not rely on firepower or cool toys to get them though a problem, they have to think and actually solve the problem instead of blasting it to bits. Makes the game more fun in my opinion.

Gregorius21778 said:

A nice boss, here the gun u buy the ammo... hope they have a Noble with them

I make money and issue aswell. To make it more of a challenge for the players, and see what they come up with to get more money. For example last session, my group went to a mining town to find a courier. The adept got them in by promicing the locals to help them count up the ore they needed to send out. He found out they had enough. He however decided to lie to the Head Mining officer about it. He passed the decieve check, and told the guy he cut a deal with his administratum contacts. The adept told the officer that 2.5 % of the ore had to be transported to the capital in order to help the town out. The mining officer agreed to this. So all told that 2.5 % of the ore equaled out to roughly 62.8 Kg of ore. On a mining planet where ore is important to the mechanicum's manufactorum on said world, he will most likely make some cash on this though it will be hard with it not being refined and all. So my advice is telll your players that all options are open, as long as theyre willing to risk their lives and other resources on making some extra cash (and also if it makes sense in game/fluff). Hope this helped cheers.

Yeah, with bolters, giving them free ammo (i.e. 3 clips per mission) will soon get much more expensive .

I started the PCs on Edge of Darkness, and there's an option there for a pretty large monetary reward. So now we have the psyker in guard flak, with a death light and steel burner - on level 3. It helped that the character rolling inquiry checks for him rolled fairly well - and they were in Scintilla, so availability wasn't such a big problem.

Then again, I told them not to expect such gratuitous rewards the next place they are going.

It's also worth considering the effects of Warp travel on players income.

In other words what happens if the players one week jaunt in Warp Space actually sees them emerge into real space three months later?

The first, nice, option is that the bureaucragy of the Inquisition is impossible to stop and the players have been credited in the ledgers with three months worth of salary. The fact that they have not been spending it has ot registered and so they can go on a spending spree.

The second, not so nice, option is that their superior (perhaps the inquisitor) has put in claims for three months pay for them all but only passes on one week's worth as they have only worked for one week.

The way I do it is similar, but different.

The Cell have access to a Munitorium at the Tricorn, where they can get on loan any type of equipment and then some. Granted, to not suffer the eternal problem of having everyone requesting a power weapon/bolt weapon/power armour every chance they have, the cell have a clearance code (currently Clearance F) which will limit what they can get (with reasons of course)

This, mixed with months downtime between missions, means that the PCs can manage to accumulate their pay and buy that special bionic or weapon or piece of gear they wanted, all the while not having to face off the Enemies of Man with a sharp stick and a bag of rocks while they're saving to buy that lasgun.

Their Inquisitor have also given them a good quality leather longcoat (Ap4 primitive) and a good quality folding knife, so they will never be without armour or without a decent weapon (the knife does 1d10+2+sb after all; custom made =I= knives by the Lathes tech-priests), also access to a 15K expence account in case they need cash 'on the fly' (the 15k was taken off a body of a long-dead Inquisitor- for their own inquisitor, that's giving out to the cell without moving his own ressources around)

The only problem I got is that my players more or less know the gear available for them (i.e. everythign in the books) which makes the 'shopping' part before leaving for the mission more about the NPC quartermaster giving them special kits for whatever mission they're going on, rather than them pointing out what they want (it happens, just less than first planned), other than that, everyone got spare money to spend, so meaning I can put an adhoc "pay for info/passage/gear' part without having the Pcs flipping over becasue everyone barely got enought to eat.

In our game we have included the influence trait from Ascension, starting the Cell with an influence of 5. By the time they get rank 8 it should be around 40, and they can use it to access special equipment on a temporary basis, as well as 500 throne purses from the secret accounts of the Tricorn. All of this is without petitioning. Petitioning is then when the Cell is asking to use their Inquisitor's influence, in place of their own. Its more doable at the start of the game, when they have their inquisitor's ear. IN game, however, its a last resort and takes time to set up.

So far its worked well. It also doubles as a way of managing the Cell's personal influence, compared to their inquisitor. If the Inquisitor grants them a Writ of Question into a particular matter, then it reflects that inquisitor's influence trait, but if they look into stuff not mentioned in the Writ, they must rely on their own influence trait.

As for spoils of battle, I can't remember where I read it, but I thought I read that a lot of that stuff needs to be cataloged and sanctioned as it could be sources of corruption. Sure, that bolter the heretic was using looks normal, but who's to say it is. Your inquisitor! That's who. That way the GM can keep a lock on the PCs getting too many goodies. Of course a PC could not report that the bolter, but then that has its own consequences "Did you guys here something? I thought someone was whispering to me ..."

Fussing over money has occupied much of my players time. I never used to quibble over ammo costs but i think i might do so on my next game.

I never liked the income for different kinds of characters. It makes no sense to me that a scum should earn less than an assassin (or whatever). They are all employed by the inquisition for the same job. Now fair enough if the scum and assassin are free lancing. I always paid everyone the same amount based on rank per month.

I've often had the players be given a slush fund to get a job done and my players always immediately used it to upgrade weapons and armour. I think next time i'll have their inquisitor require them to keep "books" and fiddling these books will inevitably come up at the next loyalty testing. That should make them only spend slush money on actual business needs. Then i'd give them their monthly salary. And maybe a bonus every now and then when the boss is feeling generous.

Note that a bonus doesn't have to be gear or cash. In my game, after a particularly long mission in which many wounds were acquired, the inquisitor paid for them to recuperate on a paradise world. recovering in the lap of absolute luxury did wonders for them.