[Starscream]

Session closed.

Traveled to the town of Dagger Rock to investigate Lord Russet. Learned quite a bit about him, none of it good. He overtaxes his subjects, punishes them for criticizing him, treats his employees like dirt, and may be behind the poisoning of several people. He employs multiple soldiers, a gnomish alchemist, and a new bodyguard (possibly because he is getting increasingly paranoid about something). And he used to send lots of cash to some guy who calls himself "Dr. Ghastly" (also apparently an alchemist), but no longer does so. You also sold your excess treasure, bought some new gear, helped cure a young man who had been poisoned into paralysis, and confirmed that there is a thieves guild active in the town.

Experience:
1 Advanced Dire Lion slain and butchered: 1000 xp for everyone
1 Level 5 Rogue sent packing: 750 xp for Ornald and Midila
Story advancement: 1000 xp for everyone

The only treasure acquired this session was the necklace and platinum coins you got from the belly of the lion, so that's already been added to your wealth. The woman whose son you cured also insisted on paying, although she couldn't afford much, but she made sure your inn stay would be free. And you made a little bit of money selling cantrips and religious advice to the locals.

Could everyone please post approximately how much wealth (including magical gear) you possess? I know you are currently below WBL, but that will be corrected eventually. I just need to figure out how much correction is needed.

It's just a little side effect of the "three free levels" house rule. Because you are taking down encounters more appropriate for higher level characters, but being treated as lower level characters for xp purposes, you level quite fast. But because you are being treated as level 5 (rather than 8) for xp, you are also being treated as 5 for appropriate wealth, to keep things a little easier to balance. And because the amount of money an encounter is worth isn't affected by the level of the party, like xp is, you'd be getting a lot more.

So you'd have the wealth of a level 8 character, but be treated as level 5 for all other purposes. This doesn't cause too many problems at low levels, but the difference between, say, a level 20 character's wealth and a level 17's is a bloody fortune. And a level 8 character is expected to have 3 times what a level 5 is.

I ran into this problem last time I did this. Wealth is one of the factors in determining appropriate challenge ratings. It's assumed that at a certain level you have a certain amount of magical gear. A CR 1 monster is appropriate for a group of ECL 1 players. If the ECL 1 players all had +5 swords it would no longer be challenging. By keeping you at the lower ECL for wealth, I can more easily justify keeping you there for xp rewards as well. And who can honestly say they wouldn't rather have more xp than more treasure anyway?

Problem is, I overcompensate a bit too much and it may seem I'm being rather stingy. This is unintended. You'll get what's coming, honest.