The problem with the "what's best for the party route" is perception is often screwed--even when everybody can agree on what is best.
For example, I play a lot of wizards who sit in the backrow and hurl spells. Because I am so far removed from most battles (and have defensive buffs to boot) I rarely ever take any damage at all.
Because of that, I never get any bracers of armor, cloaks of resistance, stat-boosting items, or anything of the sort. After all, I'm doing fine.
And then something breaks past the fighter and kills me. Why? Because I didn't have a decent armor class or a belt of constitution.
try not to let that happen to your group.
I'm assuming that the reason you don't get any bracers of armor, etc. is that people who -are- getting hit a lot more often are getting them, right?
And the reason they are getting hit a lot more often is that enemy who would be attacking you aren't because they (the fighters et al) are working to keep you safe.
And you want to make these people who are working to keep you safe less able to work to keep you safe?
So tell me, who should get a cloak of resistance +3?
A wizard gets attacked less, but when they do get attacked, they need every bit of defense they can get. You cannot garantee that the NPC will always attack the fighter. In fact if your DM plays your foes with half a brain, they will attack your weak spots, and a low armor wizard is a huge weak spot.
Oldest rule of D&D, kill the mage first.
I have been down that road, and it leads to everyone argueing that THEY can best use item X.
So tell me, who should get a cloak of resistance +3?A wizard gets attacked less, but when they do get attacked, they need every bit of defense they can get. You cannot garantee that the NPC will always attack the fighter. In fact if your DM plays your foes with half a brain, they will attack your weak spots, and a low armor wizard is a huge weak spot.
Oldest rule of D&D, kill the mage first.
I have been down that road, and it leads to everyone argueing that THEY can best use item X.
I can't tell you who should get the +3 cloak of resistance. I haven't played at your table.
I don't know how good your players are at team work or who is in your party or anything else about your table.
What I can tell you - all I can tell you - is that the people who are best able to decide who gets the +3 cloak are the people sitting at your table and that "everybody out for themselves" leads to everybody being more likely to die.
You haven't played at our table, yet you know your way of dividing loot is better....
Our system works great for our group. I never said it was for everyone.
The problem with the "what's best for the party route" is perception is often screwed--even when everybody can agree on what is best.
For example, I play a lot of wizards who sit in the backrow and hurl spells. Because I am so far removed from most battles (and have defensive buffs to boot) I rarely ever take any damage at all.
Because of that, I never get any bracers of armor, cloaks of resistance, stat-boosting items, or anything of the sort. After all, I'm doing fine.
And then something breaks past the fighter and kills me. Why? Because I didn't have a decent armor class or a belt of constitution.
try not to let that happen to your group.
I have this scenario playing out in a bi-weekly 3.5 game i'm playing at the moment. I'm a LN Wizard (divination specialist) in a party of mostly CN, and a halfling rogue that should have CE marked on his sheet due to the obscene amount of greed he displays. I'm forced to retire my wizard so i may bring in another character that better fits the group. A barbarian/fighter, as we lack any real front-liners, and the rogue wouldn't dare touch his stuff.
A wizard gets attacked less, but when they do get attacked, they need every bit of defense they can get. You cannot garantee that the NPC will always attack the fighter. In fact if your DM plays your foes with half a brain, they will attack your weak spots, and a low armor wizard is a huge weak spot.
Yep!
Smart (or cunning) creatures know that the artillery is an easy target, and needs to be neutralised!
I'm with you on loot division to be honest.
A lot of items are just not clear cut.
This "Rogue" in the topic should have done to him what the group I played with done to the Rogue.
This was all in character mind you, but some motivation surely arose from what the players heard being said around the table.
The Rogue was a CN Whisper Gnome Rogue in a party that consisted of a CG Half-Orc Barbarian/Fighter, a CG Elven Sorceress and a CE Teifling Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge.
He consistently (in character) managed to klepto things treasurewise here and there from under the party's noses, and stupidly - he was the party 'treasurer' since he had the only Bag Of Holding (BIG mistake).
So he helped himself here and there, when it came to dividing up the loot, the other characters for a while at least, never once questioned their share of the loot he handed them...all the while, omitting the occasional trinket, gemstone and so forth for himself (he never took anything too obvious, such as the uber shiny mithral magic swords and so forth which people remember).
This behaviour continued on for many many levels, and gradually, the players noticed the Rogue had a new trinket here and there which would pop up in game which they didnt remember him getting. He would always Bluff his way out of it, saying he bought it with his share of loot...but that washed for so long until someone one adventure asked to see the Bag Of Holding when the loot was being divided, they wanted to be sure they were getting their share.
Cue some tense interaction between the CE Teifling Wizard/Cleric/Mystic Theurge and the Rogue, who claimed they remember there being a very peculiar ring in the loot that the Rogue didnt mention when dividing up the treasure (they remembered the ring in particular because it looked valuable with the perfect ruby inset it and could describe it particularly well).
The Rogue claimed not to know what they were talking about and didnt hand over the bag...the other party members got curious and got involved....the result?
...The Rogue got grabbed and turned upside down, his pockets emptied and the bag confiscated...they found the ring alright and never trusted him with the loot again. Now any time they suspect hes taken some loot again, he gets routinely shaken down by the Half-Orc and if they find anything stolen again they have told him (the character) he'll have his hands chopped off. Suffice to say hes never done it again, despite the temptations here and there...lol
If the party Rogue is stealing things for himself because thats his character and hes a klepto, then by all means hes playing his character. All it'll take is one character to see him doing it, and soon the party will gang up on him and turn him upside down and shake out his pockets...plus they'll keep an eye on him in the future so hes unlikely to do so again.
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We had a case of a half-orc barbarian (claimed CG, but was definitely CN at best). He was the strongest and toughest and so he was our pack mule. Downside was that he started to believe that since we was the biggest, he deserved more of the loot than anyone else. However, he wasn't quite strong enough to take on the other half-orc, the two wizards, the monk, AND the paladin. So, instead of taking stuff from us, he just started taking it before we could claim it. This all worked wonders though when the DM, seeing this annoying trend set him up for a surprise. We were in the lair of an evil wizardess and he found a trunk. Upon opening it, he set his eyes upon a pair of black chain laced boots. He grabbed them and before anyone could detect magic he slipped them right on his feet. He then gasped in horror as the chains whipped up and surrounded his whole body. He was bound shoulders to ankles in those chains, and due to his behavior, nobody was willing to remove the boots. He spent the next half hour hopping around like an idiot before we got into combat, he promised to behave with the loot, and we let him loose. And just to show there is a happy ending; a while later, he and the monk contracted mummy rot. The paladin (me) chose to use his once a week remove disease on the monk. The half-orc wandered off and turned into a pile of dust. Yayy!!!
The Lesson: Half-Orcs are stupid
I mean...
The Lesson: Those who are jerk treasure hoarders always get what's coming to them.
This is the kind of distribution method I like too, although it tends to result in selling items that are sort-of-but-not-always useful (e.g. no one is really willing to pay for a Ring of Animal Friendship out of their personal share of the treasure, even though it could definitely come in handy from time to time).We sometimes have the party buy those items out of it's share, and sometimes hold off on splitting and selling things like that.
Our last campaign turned up a ring of invisibility back when we were 5th or 6th level... We left it unsold, and put it on people when it was necessary.
A ring of invisibility is ALWAYS useful, so that's not what I'm talking about. :-)
In the Savage Tide game I'm playing in, we got a Ring of Swimming. Now in one sense that's an occasionally useful item (to whoever's wearing it) because we spend most of our time on a ship and it's possible to get swept overboard. But no one really wanted to spend their PC's share of treasure on it.
This is the kind of distribution method I like too, although it tends to result in selling items that are sort-of-but-not-always useful (e.g. no one is really willing to pay for a Ring of Animal Friendship out of their personal share of the treasure, even though it could definitely come in handy from time to time).We sometimes have the party buy those items out of it's share, and sometimes hold off on splitting and selling things like that.
Our last campaign turned up a ring of invisibility back when we were 5th or 6th level... We left it unsold, and put it on people when it was necessary.
A ring of invisibility is ALWAYS useful, so that's not what I'm talking about. :-)
In the Savage Tide game I'm playing in, we got a Ring of Swimming. Now in one sense that's an occasionally useful item (to whoever's wearing it) because we spend most of our time on a ship and it's possible to get swept overboard. But no one really wanted to spend their PC's share of treasure on it.
Really? Because in that kind of an adventure i'd think the heavy armor guys would jump on a ring of swimming? Unless there were none?
Really? Because in that kind of an adventure i'd think the heavy armor guys would jump on a ring of swimming? Unless there were none?
My point is that, when offered the choice between 2,500 gp in cold, hard cash (or even 1,250 in cold, hard cash) and a Ring of Swimming, no one was really jumping for the Ring of Swimming.
(Note: we're still low enough level [5] that 1,250 gp seems like a lot of money.)
Really? Because in that kind of an adventure i'd think the heavy armor guys would jump on a ring of swimming? Unless there were none?My point is that, when offered the choice between 2,500 gp in cold, hard cash (or even 1,250 in cold, hard cash) and a Ring of Swimming, no one was really jumping for the Ring of Swimming.
(Note: we're still low enough level [5] that 1,250 gp seems like a lot of money.)
With the lack of jumping it sounds like they were needing a ring of jumping instead..... Maybe some boots of striding and springing?
One good way to get rid of odds & ends loot was always my VOP paladin,
The equal share and unwanted stuff became donations to the local chapter on behalf of the Paladin and the other members of the party, and anyone who needed a major spell could go in and get one cast...
This was similar to abank for the party, except the bank kept about 90% of the money and would give about 10% worth of spells....On the otherside they were always friendly!!!
Not a bad way to handle it, though if I have a VoP character in the party I usually just scale down treasure accordingly. But then again, it seems your dm did essentially that with this syster, just in a more flavorful way.
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The group I GM for plays with a "party stash" concept: loot found as part of a group adventuring belongs to that party stash and the party stash is split up (value-wise) when the adventure/encounter is over.
Sometimes the stash will have a weapon someone can use and they swap it out. Ditto for armor, cloak, ring, or whatever. But those items are accrued to the PC using them. So if a weapon worth 18k gp is in use by the fighter, that's considered to be part of their split of the loot. When they return it to the stash they get credit for it.
One night the paladin's player couldn't attend and the rest of the party recovered his ring of evasion (it was party stash) and used its sale to purchase other items for the party. When the paladin returned to the game the following week he was pretty livid! Of course, we also play that if you can't attend you can designate another player to play your character (so you don't lose out on XP). And the player running his character went along with it...
Personally I don't like this approach as I think it requires way too much bookkeeping. I prefer where each player gets one "point" per item in the stash. Then items are auctioned off with players bidding on items using "points". If two players are tied in the auction, they can each roll a d20 and the highest one wins the auction and spends their points. The other gets their points back to use on another item. This lets players bid high on items they really want, or wait until the auction is almost over and see who has points left to spend -- then bid on things that other player won't want for their character. :) A variation of this is to split all cash items first, then bid on items using cash. Any cash spent on a winning bid is then redistributed again.
Of the groups I am in, the general method of distribution seems to coalesce around:
Who needs/can get the best use out of/deserves/wants this item? Can the entire party use it?
We operate a rough system for distributing gear that ensures everyone gets something, gear that isn't used is sold and cash distributed, and if someone has an item they no longer want, it goes back into the party pool to see if anyone else wants it or it can be sold.
It's not something that anyone has actively decided upon, it's just something they all seem to have fallen into.
stuff
-Cross
I' think you are going a little overboard with the name calling. Just because my experience was different than yours give you no right to resort to personal attacks. I'm giving my opinion on what I believe is a good in-character solution, and you counter with insults.
This is a personality problem. Having played in the healing-starved World 0f Dragonlance, back in the day, I never met a Kender who WASN'T a "self-serving jerk"! The racial write-up was only yet another excuse for seedier people to play out their personal character flaws, hoping that others would be forced to accept such anti-social behavior. My honorable fighter started killing every PC Kender in they game. I failed only because so many others joined in. One sap tried 3 straight CN Kender Thieves before he asked for a clue (Wish I was there that night!).
LOL. You attacked the kender? All of them??? Geeze. My own experience was different (I was playing a human), and every player in the group loved the dragonlance books. It was our understanding that the entire race didn't know what they were doing. The player told the DM to make rolls to pick pockets without the player's knowledge, and I seem to recall that everyone at the table found it amusing. Perhaps my group were just good enough friends, or more mature, than the player(s) controlling the kender in your group. I don't know, I wasn't at your table.
I'm not against PC vs. PC conflict (I love the Paranoia RPG), but every one of the kender??? Wow!
My group at this point just gives any useful items to whoever needs them most and divides up the rest evenly.
Yup. Us too. When we get loot we divide coin wealth evenly among the party. If there are gems they are offered to the casters for any spell components they might need. If none are spell required folks have the option to take them for cash wealth or we sell them in town and divy their value evenly among the group.
Items are identified and listed and then whoever wants or needs an item puts a claim on it. When everyone has gone over the list and put down what they want then the list is gone over. Single claim items are all given out.
Items with 2 claimants are then examined by the group for which person can best use it and how much they have received and usually a consensus is reached and the item is awarded.
Same with items that have 2 claims on them.
This also usually makes it abundantly clear who are greedy and those who are not, since the greedy folks will put claims on nearly everything or at least FAR more than anyone else.
Anything not claimed at the end of the process is either portioned out to NPC's who have earned special reward or sold in town for cash, which is then divided evenly among the party.
Generally anyone who has recieved far more in previous divides is awarded less next time, unless the item is absolutely fantastic for their class or unusable by anyone else.
Need before greed is really the best policy on an adventuring party. After all if the rogue has +5 plate he never uses and the Fighter is in +2 Chain, then that just weakens everyone. If everyone is outfitted to the best of the groups ability then EVERYONE is better off. The fighter lasts longer then the rogue gets more sneak attacks. The Cleric lasts longer then the rogue gets more heals when needed, etc.
All this talk of kenders reminded me of this video.
Maybe NSFW due to language.
We generally play with an explicit all-for-one type spirit. No matter what your alignment, you are expected to treat the other party members as "friendlies". This means basically no attacks or opposed rolls against other party members. I find this to be a realistic approach considering you are expecting other party members to keep you alive, and watch you while you sleep. Most military organizations have VERY serious punishments for members who interfere with the groups abilities to stay alive.
I'm not sure why greedy rogues stealing from other party members became so common, but I think applying the same philosophy to other classes shows how out-of-place it is. Fighters don't stab fellow party members, wizards don't charm, them, and clerics don't smite them. Why should rogues be allowed to steal from fellow party members?
I have always been a fan of the Need before Greed ideal. Most groups I have been in are pretty darn fair about it, sort of trading a character's share of the loot for a particularly effective item for that character. Haven't worried too much about exact values as long as the character uses it to help out the party. When it comes down to it, that's the fun part of the game anyway.
Some of my favorite characters have been the Wizard making equipment for the party out of my own + party share of the loot, lol, people love to help the magic item crafter survive. Heck one of my best characters was a Water Shugenja with a MW Wakizashi and Scent as my most offensive spell. That character pulled the party out of so many binds (spontaneous ELEMENTAL healer in a DIVINE resources-poor world, the Gods being dead or imprisoned) that even though I didn't always act in combat (as in didn't need to heal) I ALWAYS got first choice of defensive items!
Had a buddy that usually DMed. The first time he PCed while I was around, he built a casting Cleric. I was playing a Dual Shortsword weilding Justicar. We found an awesome shortsword as random treasure (best magic item yet found - something like a +2 icyburst, keen shortsword). Guess who took it. Turns out he was one of those players that have to have that sort of Ultimate God-like Adventurer who can do everything!! With a 13 Str and 12 Dex, took the Shortsword, and decided he was going to start leveling up as a Fighter JUST so he could use the sword . . . wouldn't HEAR of giving the sword to the shortsword specialist. Yeah yeah, lol, slightly bitter, but sometimes these people aren't trying to screw the party over, just trying to create the character they've got in their imagination, even if it is ludicrous.
Here are some more Ideas we use in my group ...
Four ways we have divided treasure in the past.
1. Fair Division of everything, perfectly done by the highest level and most benevolent character under the wrathful eye of the Dungeon Master. Some times players will give gifts to each other or trade stuff this is fine.
2. Treasure division done by lethal combat between characters every time you find something. With this system there is swiftly only one character left and I soon send a huge Monster too kill him as punishment for his great greed.
3. An in Character treasure division system where each character is given their share by the most powerful character who bullies the other players into getting what they get and liking it on pain of death, While the other players stay silent and brooding and wait for their moment to strike.
4. Snatch and grab. Every man for himself grab it and stash it as fast as you can. This can wind up in some funny situations mid combat where the characters are looting bodies in the middle of everything. For example one character "Zandalf" was once hooking a golden crown off the head of a Skeleton King AS the skeleton King kicked the poo out of another member of the party. This form of treasure division soon degenerates into escalating threats followed by rolling for initiative...
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One time a DM gave the group a Ring of Regeneration because it would be a useful thing to have... Except, it was worth waaaay more than any of us were actually supposed to be able to afford, and the ring only heals damage you've taken while wearing it, so trading it as needed wasn't going to work... And this was in 3.5, so it was every hour = a day's worth of healing. We ended hawking it for half, since only backstabbing could come from one person getting 90% of the loot for that adventure... I still don't know what the DM thought we were going to do with it, especially in a 9-person party.
Rogues should always bear in mind that other classes can pick pockets too - they just beat you unconscious first.
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I've started my own thread detailing some issue's i'm having at the moment with my group in this thread
Basically, my dm has some messed up fumble rules, which almost killed me due to those rules. Talking to him did nothing, as he won't back down.
We generally play with an explicit all-for-one type spirit. No matter what your alignment, you are expected to treat the other party members as "friendlies". This means basically no attacks or opposed rolls against other party members. I find this to be a realistic approach considering you are expecting other party members to keep you alive, and watch you while you sleep. Most military organizations have VERY serious punishments for members who interfere with the groups abilities to stay alive.
I'm not sure why greedy rogues stealing from other party members became so common, but I think applying the same philosophy to other classes shows how out-of-place it is. Fighters don't stab fellow party members, wizards don't charm, them, and clerics don't smite them. Why should rogues be allowed to steal from fellow party members?
If you will remember back to our early days as a group, my halfling rogue/fighter/wizard/duelist got zapped by the evil card in the deck of many things. Despite my joy at being able to become a halfling rogue/fighter/wizard/duelist/assassin (yes, totally schizo character), the interpersonal tension created by this was very hard to deal with, and inspired me to seek out an atonement spell as quickly as I could.
It is just no fun to have one character in opposition to the goals of the rest of the party, even if the situation is artificially foisted on you by a very silly magic item. Anyone who enjoys this is not playing a character, but being a jerk and suffers from social problems. Better to boot them from the group if they don't get the point from a quick conversation, than to suffer the company of the socially retarded.
Alright-
Normally the fighter type's would get the thing that would enhance them right?
What happens when the rouge, who barely does anything (usually we travel with another rouge in the group because he won't even unlock and untrap things), takes the thing that would enhance the Fighter or the Barbarian?
The rouge is a strong enough character, good stats and all that- so it's not like the character sucks.
This rouge has "taken" things from, unique items that the GM has thrown into the game that would benefit the group that he does not even use.
One option which can help reduce conflicts over Loot is to use a tool like the Loot Divider: It can keep track of the total value each character has taken from Treasure. When two or more Players want the same item, it can simply be assigned to the Player who has been assigned the least treasure thus far.
Of course, if the players are incompatible in the first place, this is moot!
Well, it's still useful to share loot!:P
R