So the excellent thread on how to deal with the loot system in 4E reminded me of something that I wanted to get opinions on from the community.
The current system presumes that the DM will tailor the treasure to the players. My issue is I don't want to do that when it comes my turn to DM in 4E. While tailoring the equipment is a perfectly valid way to play the game I noticed that the general economic system in 4E (specifically the fact that you buy for 100% of an items value but sell for only 20%) struck me as a really excellent middle ground between 1st and 2nd editions magic model and 3rd editions magic model.
What I want to do is essentially return to the model of handing out random loot (or at least loot thats not decided upon based on the players but instead based on what makes sense for the adventure) but don't want to unbalance things to badly. Since the players have the ability to buy items as well (but it ain't cheap) this mitigates, to some extent, the problem of finding +1 Short Swords when the party fighter already has a flaming bastard sword.
During 1st and 2nd edition, one of the more interesting aspects of the game, in my opinion, was watching as the players decided what to do with the magic they found. 4E allows one to return to that with the caveat that if the item really sucks they'll pawn it.
Still I have to assume that if I'm rolling randomly to decide what the magic is going to be then the stuff coming up, on average, won't be as ideal for the players as it would be if I was taking a list from them and putting what they wanted. Now I've got no desire to gip my players. They should still get lots of sweet luchre and, on average I want their power level to stay about on par with what it should be for 4E.
So my question is how might I add to the loot in order to keep them about as powerful if I'm not tailoring the items specifically to the players.
Some of the ideas I'm considering is increasing the amount of coinage around. That will help with the players being able to buy some of the stuff they want but even if I double or triple the coinage it sure won't give out the same level of power. I'm also considering increasing the amount of magic they get. Possibly by adding in a higher tier item to the list - so a 1st level party should find 1 fifth level item prior to making 2nd level normally but I'd go beyond that and throw in a 6th level item as well. Or maybe its better to add a 2nd 1st, 3rd and 5th level item?
My other concern here is, if I add to the loot and the players will have more magic then normal, but it'll generally be weaker. Here I'm concerned that the rule that says you can only use one items power per mile stone (at the heroic tier) will be to detrimental because the players will have more weak items on average. I wonder if it will damage the game much if I increase the number of items you can use per tier by 1 so that in the heroic tier you can use up to two items per mile stone?
Anyway I'm interested in others opinions on how a more 'naturalistic' treasure system might be designed for 4E.
How can randomly rolling produce results that are appropiate to your circumstance.
If you don't want to give out wishlist items, by all means don't. Just select appropiate items as you see fit. There is litterally no reason (or advantage) to rolling randomly for versimlitude. If you want variety, choose a variety, If you want sensical choose sensical. Either way the only way a random table is going to do that is if it is jiggered from the begining (in which case your choose the items anyway...).
Random rolling works well in circumstances like 'What is in the Dragon's hoard?'. Unless one has a list of where and how the dragon (or many similar monsters) got its hoard you can't really go with a logical approach because you have no information to work with. You can make up something to back up any item you might happen to choose but you can do that with a random roll as well.
In these sorts of cases I prefer a random system for two reasons. One is that it can add to the story - While I can justify any item its often interesting and adds to the atmosphere of the dungeon when one rolls randomly and then incorporates that into the plot line. The second reason is I like avoiding bias when handing out the loot its simply a case that I'm certain I've acted in an unbiased manner if the dice have chosen what the sweet luchre is.
Two benefits stem from this; one is that I'm certain I'm not playing favourites with my players (or over compensating for fear of playing favourites), the other benefit is it avoids my own bias in terms of magical items. Experience has led me to believe that I have my own opinions on which items are the coolest and which ones don't really do much for me - thats fine but my bias might be keeping me from introducing an item thats actually plays better then it reads or, alternatively, while I might think an item is lame one of my players might think its cool, my opinions of the magic items might not be shared by the rest of the group.
Finally the fact that an item is lame does not mean that including won't actually be good for the game. I've been in some very fun sessions where my PCs picked up something they soon pronounced as Lame to the Max...the one liners and jokes involving the much derided item made these into great sessions. Such items are often remembered long after the cool stuff is completely forgotten.
All that said I don't mind choosing items if thats appropreate for the plot line. Story trumps mechanism in this case but even here I'm not paying attention to my players if I need to arm a Ninja or some such. However even in this case the item will be one appropreate to the Ninja and it may well be that none of my players have much use for magical throwing stars, for example.
The system doesn't actually expect the loot to be perfectly tailored to the group. That is actually the idea behind the 20% sale price, to some extent. It means that when the party finds the biggest magic item in the dungeon (a level+4 item), and it turns out to be useless to them, they can sell for enough cash to buy an item of their level, customized for their needs.
I suspect rolling will work out reasonably well (if you can find a good setup for doing so) - power level wise, there will be a hit, but not one beyond what the system expects. With a full group of PCs, most items will still find a home. And indeed, the expectation of the system is that you will find random treasure in the dungeon that is more powerful than your level, but also not guaranteed to be as useful as items you have chosen yourself. (Which you can buy with the cash you find, and the money you get from selling the unneeded items.)
If you did decide to alter the system, I would go with the idea of simply adding a little extra coin. As it is, I think you'll still be operating perfectly within what the loot system is designed for, so too much change should not really be needed.
I find it difficult to believe that the power level is nearly the same if one tells the DM what loot is wanted versus some completely arbitrary method that does not reference the players at all. Admittedly I have not tried using an arbitrary method. I guess its going to come down to how adaptive the players are to the magic that is found. If just about everything is finding a home - even if its not optimal then there will be less of a downgrade in power versus a situation where the PCs sell some high percentage of the loot they acquire.
I'd think a random method should not be that tough to manage to come up with. Reality is that lists of magic items by level are already very useful even if one prefers to choose items specifically for ones players. Adventurers Vault has a full list in their Appendix A. My bet is that, by the time, I'm the DM and not a player in 4E there will be good lists out there, maybe even ones already designed to be used randomly and if not I can add a number in front of each item easily enough.
I do think there can be a happy medium between choosing loot and customizing it specifically for the players. What I might recommend is choosing a general category, and then doing some randomization.
Say, decide the dragon's hoard will have a Level 8 Magic Weapon - and then randomize what type of weapon and what magic enchantment it has.
Oh I'm on board this far. D&D has always assumed that one got something that resembled level appropreate gear. If you kill a big Dragon you got to roll on treasure table XYZ and XYZ had some utterly uber stuff. In 4E terms I'll still know its a level 8 item, In fact I'd roll on the level 8 magic item table. I just won't know what kind of an item it is. Also if it is a weapon I'd probably roll randomly to find out what kind of weapon - the retraining ability in 4E should mitigate the problem with finding a Maul when you use a bastard sword - admittedly now you'd be a Maul using fighter instead but thats not necessarily a bad thing in the style of game I run.
Similarly, you can choose items specific for the circumstance without gearing them for players. I was filling out a hoard for a White Dragon, and while I placed one item (a weapon) specifically geared for one player, the rest was simply items of the right level that seemed like a good fit for the hoard. (Some ice themed equipment... and some fire themed equipment that presumably adventurers had used against the dragon, and then dragon had taken and kept preserved in blocks of ice.)I suspect your ideal circumstance would be writing up the adventure and placing loot before actually knowing what the PCs are playing
Definitely - I don't even keep copies of my players character sheets around. I don't want to know what they can do as it might influence my adventure design. In 3.5, where they buy much of their equipment, I'm often a fairly surprised DM when they actually use their magic items since I don't know what they have until they use it.
- but once the game is ongoing, that isn't really an option, so I can see where the randomization would help. I would recommend not letting it override your better judgement, but it can certainly give a good starting place - or help you polish up specifics once you have a general idea of what types of loot you want to place.
Well one does not have to keep an item around if its just not logical. One does not find magic books at the bottom of a well (well not usually) and part of my aim is to increase verisimilitude so I'm not going to allow random items that will break verisimilitude to stand.
However, my experience has been, that its often the items that don't quite fit that add interesting back story to ones adventures. While back story is a bit of a problem since players rarely discover it I've come to the conclusion that players may not understand the details of an adventure with a solid back story they often can pick up if one exists or not from the way the DM behaves.
I don't think randomizing items a bit will have much of an effect on balance. As long as everyone is getting those all-important +1 enhancement bonuses to defenses and attacks every 5-level sub-tier, I don't think it'll be a problem. Now if your players start to say "Oh great, a third everlasting provisions and two more potions of healing..." *sigh* "...that means we've hit the fifty potion mark, guys!" then it's time to rethink the whole randomization thing.
TS
Handing out random weapons won't hurt a party at all once they get access to the ritual that allows you to transfer the weapon's property to another weapon. I believe it is a level 4 ritual from the Adventurer's Vault IIRC.
Once they get that they'll be able to use any sort of weapon you decide to give them!
Handing out random weapons won't hurt a party at all once they get access to the ritual that allows you to transfer the weapon's property to another weapon. I believe it is a level 4 ritual from the Adventurer's Vault IIRC.
Once they get that they'll be able to use any sort of weapon you decide to give them!
Hmm...can you hire people to cast rituals for you in 4E? I mean beyond DM fiat. Are there actual rules for that and how much it costs?
Handing out random weapons won't hurt a party at all once they get access to the ritual that allows you to transfer the weapon's property to another weapon. I believe it is a level 4 ritual from the Adventurer's Vault IIRC.
Once they get that they'll be able to use any sort of weapon you decide to give them!
Indeed ...
In my campaign, the party ranger has transferred a +2 vicious greatsword to a +2 vicious warhammer to a +2 vicious craghammer. It has cost him 25 gp each time, but I know I don't have to worry about customizing treasure.
I distribute treasure randomly, btw, by first picking a level, then opening the DDI Compendium to the appropriate level and using random.org to choose my item. If it's something that I don't like, doesn't make sense in the adventure, or is too similar to something else rolled recently, I reroll. Then, I go back through the adventure and see where it makes the most sense to place it.
It seems to work fine. At 7th level, I can only think of 1 item my party is considering selling.
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Hmm...can you hire people to cast rituals for you in 4E? I mean beyond DM fiat. Are there actual rules for that and how much it costs?
You can just buy the ritual on a scroll. I think anyone can use them according to the PHB. If you still wanted a cost for an NPC to cast it for you- I wouldn't think it would be more than what the scroll would cost since you could just buy it yourself.
You can just buy the ritual on a scroll. I think anyone can use them according to the PHB. If you still wanted a cost for an NPC to cast it for you- I wouldn't think it would be more than what the scroll would cost since you could just buy it yourself.
I'm fairly sure you need to have a feat to cast rituals unless your a wizard or a cleric (and maybe a few of the none core classes also come with the ability to cast rituals). Anyway if there is no specific rules on hiring people to cast rituals I can probably come up with something but I'd assume that the caster would charge something for his time and talents.
I'm fairly sure you need to have a feat to cast rituals unless your a wizard or a cleric (and maybe a few of the none core classes also come with the ability to cast rituals). Anyway if there is no specific rules on hiring people to cast rituals I can probably come up with something but I'd assume that the caster would charge something for his time and talents.
Not according to page 299 of the PHB under "Using a Ritual Scroll". It says specifically that you don't have to have the ritual caster feat in order to cast a ritual from a scroll.
I really couldn't believe it when I first read it either but unless I am reading it wrong you don't need the feat.