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When party members die do other DM’s allow the rest of the party to loot the corpses for treasure and equipment with out the any good or lawful players suffering any consequences like alignment changes always assuming that the party does not have a charter with a pre agreed arrangement to allow this?
I am getting tired of players treating character death as opportunity to get an new character equipped appropriately for his level and keeping all the magic items of the dead character(s) . I have only just broken from their habit of not even bothering to bury dead characters by the use of undead monsters. I am considering options like alignment changes and the deceased characters family hiring bounty hunters to retrieve the dead characters property. Any one got any ideas to discourage this practice or do you think I am being a tad unfair on the poor munchkin’s?
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When party members die do other DM’s allow the rest of the party to loot the corpses for treasure and equipment with out the any good or lawful players suffering any consequences like alignment changes always assuming that the party does not have a charter with a pre agreed arrangement to allow this?
I am getting tired of players treating character death as opportunity to get an new character equipped appropriately for his level and keeping all the magic items of the dead character(s) . I have only just broken from their habit of not even bothering to bury dead characters by the use of undead monsters. I am considering options like alignment changes and the deceased characters family hiring bounty hunters to retrieve the dead characters property. Any one got any ideas to discourage this practice or do you think I am being a tad unfair on the poor munchkin’s?
In our current game, most characters have wills, and we have a company charter that covers this issue. All items, unless bought out by the character, are company property. So upon death they return to the party. Items actually owned, whether bought or created as well as money are dealt with according to the deceased members will and wishes.
For mechanical purposes, just remember to check their wealth by level occasionally. If it gets too high, cut back on other treasure until it gets back to "normal".
For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
In my own game, I point-blank told the Players that there would be no "the group owns these items", and that when a character died his stuff would go with him. That goes with the Wealth By Level part.. if the party insists on looting their friends for personal gain, I insist on reducing future treasures to compensate.
I don't see a difference between the adventuring party exploring and looting a dungeon crypt, removing valuable items from skeletal remains and that same party removing what may very well be some of those exact same items from a recently deceased ally.
Common sense dictates you don't leave useful stuff lying around, and adventurers have a different set of ethics regarding corpses and their possessions.
Additionally, if we're talking the initial characters in a campaign, I'd love to see a disgruntled family member prove ownership of items recovered past the 1st-level starting gear.
Past that, I'm not going to allow my players to create sacrificial characters with a load of useful gear to replenish the party.
Fortunately, I don't need to worry about that, as they've never tried it, and most of them also GM their own games, and they'd disallow the same thing, were anyone to try it.
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For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
And exactly how does that work? Because if the family hasnt seen him since he left the farm with a greatsword and banded armor.....and he dies in a semi-far off dungeon lair to a demon....how exactly do they know what the character owned that should go to the family, like the vorpal flame toungue falachion?
And exactly how does that work? Because if the family hasnt seen him since he left the farm with a greatsword and banded armor.....and he dies in a semi-far off dungeon lair to a demon....how exactly do they know what the character owned that should go to the family, like the vorpal flame toungue falachion?For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
How do the families know where the adventurer is?
How do they know he's dead?
How do they get notified?
Who notifies them?
There's a lot of magic in the game, but I have yet to see the equivalent of a newspaper obituaries column that gets distributed worldwide.
And exactly how does that work? Because if the family hasnt seen him since he left the farm with a greatsword and banded armor.....and he dies in a semi-far off dungeon lair to a demon....how exactly do they know what the character owned that should go to the family, like the vorpal flame toungue falachion?For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
Maybe during the party's downtime he writes letters home? If I got a nifty-neato vorpal flame tongue falchion I'd certainly tell people about it.
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Maybe during the party's downtime he writes letters home? If I got a nifty-neato vorpal flame tongue falchion I'd certainly tell people about it.
Really? When was the last time your characters had actually wrote a letter to their families? I dont remember EVER it happening, nor dealingmuch with family until my current game. And thats only because its in Ptolus, where they never LEAVE the city.
How do the families know where the adventurer is?How do they know he's dead?
How do they get notified?
Who notifies them?
There's a lot of magic in the game, but I have yet to see the equivalent of a newspaper obituaries column that gets distributed worldwide.
Most families dont have access to magic. Some might. But how would they know to look for him dead, when he's been gone weeks, months, years without a peep?
Really? When was the last time your characters had actually wrote a letter to their families? I dont remember EVER it happening, nor dealingmuch with family until my current game. And thats only because its in Ptolus, where they never LEAVE the city.
Different gamers do things differently, so even though you may not do it, others may.
If I were playing in a game, though, and that particular train pulled into town, I'd be pretty annoyed with the GM if the player in question HADN'T written letters home as part of his/her roleplaying, and the GM decided to use that as a plot hook.
Even then, see my earlier questions below:
Most families dont have access to magic. Some might. But how would they know to look for him dead, when he's been gone weeks, months, years without a peep?
How do the families know where the adventurer is?How do they know he's dead?
How do they get notified?
Who notifies them?
There's a lot of magic in the game, but I have yet to see the equivalent of a newspaper obituaries column that gets distributed worldwide.
Exactly.
In my experience, the dead character's equipment usually goes towards paying for some type of raise dead or resurrection spell. Of course, at early levels that wouldn't be an option, but at that point the value of the equipment isn't high enough to make an impact anyway.
As Are says, we often ended up selling some of the PC's magic items to pay for Raise Dead, Resurrection, etc. The PC would get the rest of his or her equipment back. If the players are Real Men who don't believe in Raise Dead then the DM often dictates that when a PC dies all of his or her gear except for quest related items disappears. I find that making replacement PCs enter the game a level lower than the character they're replacing works pretty well for making people want to keep their PCs alive and maybe even get them Raised despite being a little embarrassed about getting whacked.
I am getting tired of players treating character death as opportunity to get an new character equipped appropriately for his level and keeping all the magic items of the dead character(s).
It sounds like this is happening over and over again, so IMO this is a player problem and needs to be treated as a player problem and not handled ingame with alignment or bounty hunters. Talk with them outside the game and tell them it is causing problems. Discuss it with them like adults and see what they want to do to solve the problem. If they won't listen or you can't come to an agreement, handle it in the metagame. All new characters start with only nonmagical equipment. If you want to give them some magical stuff, let the DM choose it - the players get NO choice in this.
And exactly how does that work? Because if the family hasnt seen him since he left the farm with a greatsword and banded armor.....and he dies in a semi-far off dungeon lair to a demon....how exactly do they know what the character owned that should go to the family, like the vorpal flame toungue falachion?For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
How do the families know where the adventurer is?
How do they know he's dead?
How do they get notified?
Who notifies them?
There's a lot of magic in the game, but I have yet to see the equivalent of a newspaper obituaries column that gets distributed worldwide.
As Shadowborn mentioned, maybe the character wrote home.
If the world is Golarion, there are printing presses. News of the their exploits could get around from that.
If the Faction Guide is in use, family members might hear through the faction.
Eventually, even word of mouth could get back to the family, though that might take a while.
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Lawyers are way worse than bounty hunters. ;D
That said, it is very situational.
The dead guy left a will?
He has relatives and he did cared for them?
Notorious properties that could be claimed by the crown for some reason? (for example a sword that was a crown gift to the character and his line for a successful quest and that should return to the crown if he die without a heir)
Significant others in town that will ask what happened to him and why the other member of the party are using his stuff?
Why the player want to ditch the dead character and bring in a new character? Why the characters aren't trying to raise/resurrect him?
"I have only just broken from their habit of not even bothering to bury dead characters by the use of undead monsters."
Before going around with that group I would get a clone ready as a form of insurance and when they are back in town I will pretend all my stuff back, backed by the local law.
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I agree with the post that this is a player discussion, not a game rule issue.
If that doesn't work, then maybe you should make dead characters simply reappear at a glowing "respawn point" an inconvenient distance away with a -2 to all rolls for 30 minutes and with all their gear intact, though slightly degraded so that they have to pay repair fees next time they are in town. Sounds like that might meet the expectations of your players a bit better :)
I don't think this is an issue the GM should be bothering with, with regard to saying "no you can't have it". From an immersion point of view how can one not pick the items up and take them?
1.If the players new wealth upsets the balance of things then give them less wealth until it evens out.
2.There would have to be a lot of player deaths in order for it to cause a balance issue, and the issue of all those deaths is more important than whether or not the gear is left there or not.
I would rather my gear go to my team mates. Keeping it in the ground with me is not going to help them live.
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I agree that this sounds like a Player problem, and not a Character problem.
After all, what self-respecting adventurer would leave perfectly good treasure just laying there on a corpse, even if that corpse used to be his friend/lover/brother/etc.
That being said, if my players try this tactic, they just find the enemies start having more and more templates, and less and less "treasure" on hand.
Bards, Clerics, and other "party support" classes can do just fine without a lot of magical valuables, especially if they have a small horde of potion-buffed, bardic-inspired, raging Orc barbarians to do the hurtin'.
Maybe you should stop the players from dying so much?
I would rather my gear go to my team mates. Keeping it in the ground with me is not going to help them live.
Unless you play denizen of Osirion who deeply belives that his belongings should be buried with him to properly equip his soul for afterlife - it would be demeaning to appear before Pharasma without the tools of trade, attire of your stance and spirit-nourishing foodstuff after all.
But specific burial customs aside I agree with Wraithstrike and Psionichamster.
It's been so long since this came up with the people I play with with that I can't recall the last PC corpse that was looted. We simply agreed in the metagame that if the new PC gets to start with full starting wealth, then the old wealth has to vacate the party. For us, it was simply a rules issue and since then characters are buried with their wealth or it's sent off to any known family members. The only exception being disposable magic, like scrolls or wands.
This is generally not an issue in my games. I try to promote RP as much as possible (and IMHO RP is more than speaking in character and such and is also reflected in the actions taken by the character) and give XP rewards for role-playing. If a player tries to look at a dead PC as just another source of wealth I first consider whether something like that is in libe with the character they have been playing and if it is not, I call him/them on it and have a quick discussion about the character's personality. If they insist on looting the corpse then so be it; the result is less of an XP reward for RP and if the wealth level gets to high then, as some previous posters noted, it is a simple matter as DM to reduce monetary rewards.
This has been my policy for years now and the players in the three campaigns have run have come to understand this. The result has been rewarding. In my Castle Whiterock campaign (great adventure for Goodman campaigns, btw), an inquisitor devoted to Iomedae recently died and the party brought his corpse and his gear to the temple to inter and notify the family, etc.
I think it depends on the group and circumstances.
In ROTR we had a player who kept doing impusive things that got his character killed. Even after selling his goods, the heroes needed to pony up their own cash to get his brought back. (Died 4 or 5 times between BO and SSM...)Eventually, the heroes just pocketed his stuff and left the body (or burned it to keep it from coming back).
And when a new character joined the game, they would often split up the old gear with the new character...
So far we've had a character retire (played dropped out) and a character death with subsequent Reincarnation. In both cases, there was no redistribution of wealth or corpse looting.
The retiring PC took all of gear with him when he left. Why wouldn't he? It's his, yeah? The dead character's gear was brought back to Stagfort and held for the deceased. When the "new" (reincarnated form) person showed up, she "bought" the dead person's gear.
In the case of permanent death, I expect that in the absence of a will, the dead will be buried with all gear it enjoyed in life.
That's how we do it. Hope this helps.
Player dies: others loot the corpse. Perhaps I throw some roleplaying things at them as appropriate.
If the party is undergeared after this (quite likely in my current game), I have the new PC come in at slightly lower than the party average, and all of his gear has to be approved by me. You should be using your current party as the baseline, not the wbl chart. That chart only works if you stick to it, and I have never seen a party that sticks to it closely.
If players abuse this (which I have not had yet), you can always do what one of my friends did in his campaign: Anklets of Explodie. When you die all your stuff explodes with you. Plot relevant items are immune. Every PC wears them, can't see them, and can't remove them.
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For a while, this was a BIG problem in my game.
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Respawning:
I had a relatively new player in the group who had previous experience playing war games and multiplayer video games, but not games with a heavy focus on roleplaying. This player was great at character optimization as a result and I allowed him to purchase some of the better magic items because I thought it would add value to his experience with his new characters. My mistake. He went through quite a few characters in a relatively short amount of time and their treasure was mostly recovered by the group, who immediately put it to optimal use...
"Optimal Use":
This game is not like life, in terms of personal improvement. In life, we prefer ways to better our flaws before our strengths, while in RPGs the opposite is nearly always true. In other words, a DM shouldn't expect a group to hand the belt of giant strength to the wizard because he's the weakest. (In truth, this makes complete sense, because the wizard will actually be better protected if someone else has that belt.) This is an issue to consider, if you haven't yet, but I digress...
Contributing Factors:
In addition to having a player going through characters quickly, there were also other character deaths and encounters that ended in treasure rolls, as usual. I had 6 players in this game and they had stats that were a bit better than heroic on the point-buy table, allowing them to take down higher CR enemies than first expected and rake in the dough. But they weren't, because I had stopped throwing creatures with treasure at them, in attempt to fix the problem. I was only able to keep it up for a while before things started feeling stale, and my players addressed the problem with me in some post-game feedback...
Undoing Loot?:
Feedback after a game is good, because I can fix problems during prep instead of on the spot. I did exactly that, and my players weren't the happiest with some of the resulting house rules, but they understood, and the game was salvaged...
I solved this problem in many ways.
- I threw some enemies at my group without treasure, and increased experience a little to compensate.
- I added some social encounters to the game that were engineered to make characters want to donate to NPCs and/or their organizations.
- I reminded the group that they could turn down a new character that wouldn't mesh with the group and find someone else instead. (In which case the player of the new character would generate another character. This might seem like a separate issue, but it strongly relates.)
- I suggested to the group that they write wills, if they don't want their own possessions to be strewn about if they die.
- I stopped rewarding player death with the ability to play a rich character. I did this by ruling that new characters enter the game at the level of their previous character, minus one (which of course is cumulative if a player dies a lot). I also decided that 50% of the starting wealth would be rolled on, with percentiles.
- I stopped being afraid of throwing loads of enemies at the players, instead of huge single enemies.
- I tailored much of the loot in the game, rolling about 25% of it randomly. The tailored portion contained stuff that was not in the books, and had lots of value aside from it's price.
- I gave the group options and incentives toward purchasing property, which is costly.
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Maybe during the party's downtime he writes letters home? If I got a nifty-neato vorpal flame tongue falchion I'd certainly tell people about it.And exactly how does that work? Because if the family hasnt seen him since he left the farm with a greatsword and banded armor.....and he dies in a semi-far off dungeon lair to a demon....how exactly do they know what the character owned that should go to the family, like the vorpal flame toungue falachion?For roleplaying, the angry families are fine.
I'm not sure if characters would write home about their leet new weapons. Good characters might not want to brag about their accomplishments and compartmentalise to protect their families. A lot of characters have less-than-cordial relations with their families.
In my games, characters don't really have occasion to write letters. They might write them if they don't have time to go there themselves, but only in case of imminent invasion (to mayors, lords, army commanders). Also, a lot of my adventures take place over a short time, so characters might pick up that falchion and then die before they can get back to town.
Usually, I allow characters to loot the bodies of their fallen comrades. They're already mostly antiheroes, and I can always compensate with less treasure later. Characters in my game are low-level enough that the specialised gear of one character will be mostly useless to another (and they tend to have low strength, so they can't lug around their armour).
Keeping it in the ground with me is not going to help them live.Unless you play denizen of Osirion who deeply belives that his belongings should be buried with him to properly equip his soul for afterlife
This! If it fits the flavour, then my players will go with it (unless, of course, their characters have no respect for the dead character). I'm grateful that they're not munchkins.
When characters die, I'm as likely to start them at first level as I am to let them start at the rest of the party's level.
In my games, when character's die, the typical method that is employed by the group is to loot the body and then bury or cremate it...regardless of whether or not the group has access to raise dead or resurrection. The new character comes in one or two levels below the average party level. As for equipment, the understood rule by everyone is that the GM chooses what starting equipment - mundane and magical with which the new character begins play. Player input is taken into account, however the GM determines what is appropriate for the campaign at hand NOT the player. We've been doing things this way since 1989 and have no plans to change it. Die at your own risk.
Well what if the party member wants his party members to loot his corpse.
Quote:This game is not like life, in terms of personal improvement. In life, we prefer ways to better our flaws before our strengths, while in RPGs the opposite is nearly always true. In other words, a DM shouldn't expect a group to hand the belt of giant strength to the wizard because he's the weakest. (In truth, this makes complete sense, because the wizard will actually be better protected if someone else has that belt.) This is an issue to consider, if you haven't yet, but I digress...