What is the fairest way to distribute party loot?


Advice

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I also like interesting, relevant and rewarding treasure and making my players actually want the treasure more than selling everything. But it has also to be some stuff that was meant to be sold.

On a side note, I like to add pieces of art, like the statue you mentioned, jewelry, clothes, etc. because some of my players love keeping some of those when they are not expensive.

In WotW one of the PCs is a former pirate and he's keeping a lot of jewelry and wearing it.


Doomed Hero wrote:

If I was in a game where we got a +3 cloak, and the party decided the fair thing to do it to to sell it rather than let the player with the lowest will save have it, I'd probably quit the game. I don't need that kind of stupidity in my life.

Thankfully I game with people who have better things to do than obsess over imaginary wealth.

Giving a powerful item to one character helps the party way more than selling it for half value and splitting up the meager profits.

If you'd quit your group over it, wouldn't you be the one obsessing over imaginary wealth?

I'd prefer to do it your way, but remember that Not Everyone Plays The Same.

In one game, wasting a powerful item like that pushes up the chances of a TPK.

In another game, the party can sell the Cloak of Resistance +3 and use the money to craft two +2 Cloaks. There's no 'half value' problem because crafting is also half price.

In a third game, the GM is balancing WBL anyway - you could blow your nose on the cloak and throw it away, and it would just turn into more items later on.


So, when the PCs finally obtains the artifact Two-Handed Sword that is the only mean of killing the demigod BBEG, what do they do?
Giving it to the Barbarian wouldn't be fair to the others, so yeah, let's sell it.

Now the happy party members, each with their rightful share of loot, have two options:
1) try a suicidal attempt at stopping the immortal final boss;
2) go shopping until he destroys the world.


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Megistone wrote:
So, when the PCs finally obtains the artifact Two-Handed Sword that is the only mean of killing the demigod BBEG, what do they do?

They act like adults and recognize that the artifact is a tool that is needed by the party as a whole. That item is placed into the party "ownership" category, and is used by whomever can best deliver its potency when the time comes. It is not sold.

Now, if that same sword happens to be uber-powerful-OMFG-awesome all the time and the barbarian uses it all day every day while the rest of the party has nothing similarly uber, then the DM has done something unfair at the design level. I'm not a fan of customized magic items unless the DM is very good at doing their job.


Anguish wrote:
They act like adults and recognize that the artifact is a tool that is needed by the party as a whole. That item is placed into the party "ownership" category, and is used by whomever can best deliver its potency when the time comes.

So why not do that with all magic items?


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So evil enchanter uses mind control to get what he wants isn't a fair method?

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

Anguish wrote:

Total up the resale value of everything that's found. The "party" gets 1 share. Each member gets 2 shares.

each member can "buy" any items from the loot pile before they're sold off.

This is the "most fair" way. When I'm a player, it's the way I'll use unless I get STRONG objection from other players.

In my system, you don't divide up until all "edits" have been made to the item sell queue. I could call it swap out mechanics.

Say the sell queue contains a +3 ring of protection, you buy it from the "sell queue" by providing cash or "sold equivalent items". For example:
Ring of Protection +3 is 18,000 and sells for 9,000 gp.
A player with a Ring of Protection +2 wants it and is the only one.
They put their +2 in the sell queue for 4,000 and they put in an additional 5,000 gp.
They now have a Ring of Protection +2 in the sell queue. Someone else might be interested in buying it from the queue.

You can buy with "upcoming shares" of the undivided loot, but you owe all of it from your swaps. So if after the swaps, you don't receive enough. You must contribute from previous cash to make "good" on your purchases from the sell queue.

In the one game where I received strong objection and the desire to use "need" or "want" or whatever you want to call it, one of the players "due to need" had a little over 370,000 gp in value by level 17 of one of my Adventure Paths I played. I had 43,000 gp in gold and items. I don't "need" something as a player unless it's on my buy list, so I never put in for any items that I wouldn't have bought.


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Inter-party combat!

Seriously, though. The parties I'm in always talk it out. Yeah, the meat-shields wind up with more stuff because - well, meat-shields. If I'm playing a squishy I want my first line of defense to be the guy up there taking hits for me. So if that means he gets the ring of protection +4 before me, then so be it. As the mage, I'm the last line of defense / the guy who grabs the corpses and gets us all resurrected.

In practice what it means is that we look at the loot list after a battle and we decide collectively not "What we want" but rather "what's best for the party". Protection-stuff goes to the front line, scrolls to the back. Yeah, the bard can use a scroll once, but if its something that isn't in the mage's spellbook and its a reasonably decent spell it makes no sense to "one and done". Anything that's not immediately useful gets sold for cash and that gets divided up equally for the party. (which is usually spent on the mage crafting magic items anyways - which he does, free of charge for reasons enumerated above).

note: this only works when you're playing with a group that meets regualarly. If you are playing PFS or something like that, I'd imagine you'd have to go the accountant route. I've never played PFS so I have no experience there.


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Anguish wrote:
Megistone wrote:
So, when the PCs finally obtains the artifact Two-Handed Sword that is the only mean of killing the demigod BBEG, what do they do?
They act like adults and recognize that the artifact is a tool that is needed by the party as a whole. That item is placed into the party "ownership" category, and is used by whomever can best deliver its potency when the time comes. It is not sold.

This actually happened during our last campaign. The uber-sword which was clearly meant for the paladin wound up in the mage's hand (who had taken proficiency in the longsword for previous plot reasons) when the paladin went down momentarily during the BBEG fight.

Dark Archive

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Why are you having martials be meatshields? Summoned creatures do that jib better and dont ask for loot. A druid can do that job better. Casters can make meatshields if they even need them.

Why have martials taking up the party slots?


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@James Risner. More or less what I do when I'm the GM. I think it's equitative and fair with all the players.

@Wszebor. When I have a very good group with no unreasonable or greedy players I like doing that and I definitely like when I am able to play like that, with my most trusted players. But when I have some players that need to be controlled so they don't become conflictive or new players that I am still testing I have to make very structured rules for looting to avoid conflict. Until now, it's working fine.

When I GMed The Key of Destiny Dragonlance campaign in the beginning I had 3 players.

Dalindra was a Druid, sort of a veteran and played by my boyfriend.
There was a Dwarf Fighter and an Evocator Wizard too. Both had previous experience in D&D.

As I didn't was an expert in GMing D20 system I made many mistakes.

Dalindra and I were afraid that the other players thought I was favoring him above the other players, specially because a huge ammount of bad decisions and poorly built characters had Dalindra solving all the situations.

So I gave Dalindra virtually no loot. Everytime there was any kind of loot Dalindra would refuse to take it so the other PCs did better.

At level 10, the other two PCs had a bunch of magic items. Dalindra had a belt. And still she was the only one to solve the situations because the other players were completely lost, even if I wanted to help them they wouldn't listen.

The worse part, they'd get all cocky boasting at Dalindra how cool the things they had were. They called Dalindra a «hippie» and harassed her for being nice.

Then I decided not to care about what they thought and set a fair looting system instead of favoring them above another PC. Since then, I had next to zero issues with loot.


James Risner wrote:
Anguish wrote:

Total up the resale value of everything that's found. The "party" gets 1 share. Each member gets 2 shares.

each member can "buy" any items from the loot pile before they're sold off.

This is the "most fair" way. When I'm a player, it's the way I'll use unless I get STRONG objection from other players.

In my system, you don't divide up until all "edits" have been made to the item sell queue. I could call it swap out mechanics.

The one thing not resolved by the above is when two people want the same item, who gets it? Random dice rolls can be used, but they aren't always "fair" over the short term due to a string of bad luck.

Example: In the +3 Ring of Protection example, you listed that one character bought it for 9000gp from the loot. To get one for themselves, the second character had to pay 18,000gp for it. Both have 18,000gp worth of loot (9000gp if you go by sell values). Yet, one character paid twice as much.

If that happens once? Okay. If one person loses three rolls in a row? They are substantially behind, which creates an unfair situation.

The OP's split method has the fairness aspect and explicitly determines who gets to pick first if there are two people who want an item. There is an actual strategy element involved too rather than random luck.

As a bonus, it also gives a handy GM tool on how much loot each person has come by and if someone is getting slighted by the AP's listed loot. Why is this tool important? The person who never picks anything from the adventure's loot is going to be shorted by about half the wealth compared to the person that gets all their gear from loot dropped by the adventure lists. Reality exists somewhere between these two extremes.

That's a hidden discrepancy of wealth gained by even "fair" split methods. Some GMs can use this to pad the fighter's or rogue's comparative wealth on the sly. Other GMs can work to balance desired loot for all characters a bit more easily with the handy GM tool.

Cheers!


Halek wrote:

Why are you having martials be meatshields? Summoned creatures do that jib better and dont ask for loot. A druid can do that job better. Casters can make meatshields if they even need them.

Why have martials taking up the party slots?

Some players want to play martials because they don't enjoy playing casters. Besides which, a party without any martials still has to decide how to divide up loot between all the casters. What problem are you solving here?


The issue is that your are more likely to encounter/fight martials, so loot for maritals is going to be more common.


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And what if they are not married? Only uncommon loot?
Sorry. Had to make fun of the typo.


Summoning is not all it's cranked up to be. Seriously. Using the SM/SNA spells, very quickly you start getting creatures very far behind the APL. With SM1, the critters are CR 1/2. SM9 gets you a CR13-14. Unless you have spent a large part of your feats to improve them, they are even further off. Only a very few critters actually contribute in combat. Some have decent SLAs or skills or movements that are useful. So sure, if the GM sets the enemies to kill the summons, it is still a valid tactic, but the correct response to summoning is always to ignore the summons. Sure, drowning the field in big summons can give you respite, but even so. Given the choice between a summoner and a competently designed martial holding the line, I would always go for the martial.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

Rory wrote:
The one thing not resolved by the above is when two people want the same item, who gets it?

GM in charge of this. If he sees this, give out a second one in next combat. Or the GM can enforce "this item must be sold" or "this item requires full value to buy from sell queue".


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We do the "put it all in the pot, give everyone a share, then buy from the pot" approach that most people seem to follow, except we assign a full share to the party, so we divide by (n+1). Though we generally don't start a party share until after L2 since there's no money.

We also assign temporary ownership of items as we come across them. Our other rule is that, until disbursement time, everything we have come across is fair game to be used. Since we started doing things this way, we've found that more one-shot items have actually been used during the game instead of just being saved for cash later. That means less money at the end, sure, but it's made the game more fun.

Really, really expensive or unique items (some AP's do provide special items intended to be owned and used that are basically priceless or outrageously expensive) aren't counted as part of the pot. We make these judgement calls on an individual basis. It doesn't come up often.

Same goes for items that are truly party-wide in their effects. Healing items, scrolls or spell effect items that cover the whole party (Haste, et. al.). This comes up more often but there's almost always agreement on what constitutes a party-wide item. It's hard to define on paper but "you know it when you see it".


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For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

Is this a "throw everything in the sack and we'll count it later" solution? What if someone wants to use the new thing for the next fight? Do you let them use it if it's something that doesn't run out (like a sword or a cloak) on the proviso that they don't "own" it?


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John Mechalas wrote:


Really, really expensive or unique items (some AP's do provide special items intended to be owned and used that are basically priceless or outrageously expensive) aren't counted as part of the pot. We make these judgement calls on an individual basis. It doesn't come up often.

Same here.

There are some plot related items that can often only be carried by one member of the party.
When I'm going to GM a story where this kind of items appear I try to subtely encourage that only one character is an appropriate owner to the item so there is no conflict.
I also try to add something special for the other PCs so they don't feel less special when a single character gets the powerful reward.

Quote:


Same goes for items that are truly party-wide in their effects. Healing items, scrolls or spell effect items that cover the whole party (Haste, et. al.). This comes up more often but there's almost always agreement on what constitutes a party-wide item. It's hard to define on paper but "you know it when you see it".

Again,I agree with that.

And if a player is getting, say, a Extend Spell Rod that is supposed to be for buffing the whole party but is only using for himself, I'll ask to change the way he's using it or pay for it to get it as his part of the loot.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

Is this a "throw everything in the sack and we'll count it later" solution? What if someone wants to use the new thing for the next fight? Do you let them use it if it's something that doesn't run out (like a sword or a cloak) on the proviso that they don't "own" it?

I only do math every few sessions and always out of playtime.

Meanwhile, the characters are able to use the items without buying them. If they don't come to an agreement about who's going to use the item, I make them just put in the pile and not use it or choose as a GM who gets to borrow it. It depends on the situation.

Many times they use items for a while even if they want to sell, because they can be useful meanwhile even if they are too much expensive to be worth keeping them on the long term.


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Sissyl wrote:
So sure, if the GM sets the enemies to kill the summons, it is still a valid tactic, but the correct response to summoning is always to ignore the summons.

If your DM has the enemies always use the "correct" tactics, then he is metagaming. Dumb enemies are dumb. And an enemy capable of ignoring the summons will also often ignore the martials.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

Using the OP's method, any character can pick up and use an item immediately upon finding.

A character can also claim it permanently immediately by simply adding the value to their running picked loot value total. If there are two or more characters that want it, the character higher in the list (e.g. lower picked loot value) has dibs.

With the method, you can split items one at a time, or as a whole group of items. Meaning, you don't have to pause (well... no more pause time than adding two numbers I suppose) to split that new sword found in that last battle.


Melkiador wrote:
Sissyl wrote:
So sure, if the GM sets the enemies to kill the summons, it is still a valid tactic, but the correct response to summoning is always to ignore the summons.
If your DM has the enemies always use the "correct" tactics, then he is metagaming. Dumb enemies are dumb. And an enemy capable of ignoring the summons will also often ignore the martials.

True. Which means relying on summons for defense is a non-starter against reasonably intelligent enemies.

And with martials, the difference is that the enemies can't just ignore the martials. Serious single target damage is still serious damage, plus various effects the martial can add.


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Alynthar42 wrote:

This is what's causing arguments.

Our system wasn't causing problems until we found a few potions in a bandit base we'd just trashed. Two of us wanted to count potions towards your total value, because we felt that the basis of the system was to keep track of your gold spent and your effective wealth by level. In other words, we don't have personal cash deposits because this system allows us to get more items and is less hassle, but we are trying to evenly distribute wealth anyway. One of our players objected to this, saying that once a potion is gone, it is no longer of value to him. We explained that that was the point- if we were keeping track of individual gold, he would have to decide whether he wanted to buy a potion or save that gold for bigger items. A potion represents a cheap, immediate boost of power, while a magic item represents a powerful, long term one. In our mind, the reason this system works best is because it makes the players ask "Do I want that potion badly enough to put off my magic items a little bit longer?" If they decide that no, they don't want it that badly, then somebody else gets it or it goes into the bag of holding for emergencies.

We dont even bother with consumables and hand them out, more or less free to whoever needs them the most.

Liberty's Edge

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To reward my players for keeping the loot even when it is not the uber optimal item in the Paizo books, I was considering having it count at selling value rather than full cost when calculating WBL.

Has anyone tried this and what were the results ?


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And perhaps guys, maybe let us not turn this into yet another caster vs martial debate?


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Our table consists of a core group that are good friends, non-competitive, and have gamed together a long time. We generally distribute according to "best use", which even sometimes ends up in "you take it, no you take it" debates with us. When we sell loot items, the proceeds go back into party loot to be split again. This works really well for us because of who we are and the kinds of characters we play. We do not use any accounting or math (at least not typically).

"Best or fairest method" is going to completely depend on personalities involved.

In the most extreme, the fairest method is to sell everything and split the money. Or, to have the PC wanting the item really bad will pay party-loot for it. Is this the most fun? Not likely.

You can also break out a massive spreadsheet and give priority to those who are under-valued, but this breaks down at all kinds of places. Consumables, especially. But also, players may opt of helpful loot waiting "for their big chance to score something".

Realistically, try and think what a group of people adventuring together would decide...


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justaworm wrote:
Our table consists of a core group that are good friends, non-competitive, and have gamed together a long time. We generally distribute according to "best use", which even sometimes ends up in "you take it, no you take it" debates with us.

For posterity, when I implemented the system years ago that the OP described in the first post, it actually solved those "you take it, no you take it" debates. There was a person (and more than one at times) who would never ever pick anything that anyone else might remotely want.

The goal of the new system was that that person could readily see that it was their turn "to pick" and that it was fair and okay to pick it. And finally, they did start picking stuff (although invariably he remained in the lower half of the picked loot value, but he was picking stuff!)

The biggest problem of the system turned out to be that there was another player that worked to exploit any and every loophole. He started listing as picking everything. He dropped to and remained at the very bottom of the list. He didn't care. He could just sell everything that no one else wanted after he got it. And the cash would be his.

Technically, he was right. Technically. He was called out for dubious practices (wasn't the first, nor the last) and quickly stopped it.

That is something the OP will want to make sure doesn't happen for certain. The Virtual Gold variation would have stopped that, 'cuz the party wouldn't have to issue additional virtual gold, which stops the abuser.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

We calculate values of known & identified magic items ourselves between game sessions. Our GM gives us values of liquid assets and appraisal values of art, etc. We occasionally make use of the Appraise skill to determine what to take, and when selling strange items as one-offs.

Quote:
Is this a "throw everything in the sack and we'll count it later" solution? What if someone wants to use the new thing for the next fight? Do you let them use it if it's something that doesn't run out (like a sword or a cloak) on the proviso that they don't "own" it?

Yup. Everything is fair game to be used. The game has been so much more fun for us when consumables get used instead of hoarded for cash. It's a recent change in mindset in our group and I am glad we did it.


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Buy a bag of holding and give it to the rogue. Then give all of the loot to the rogue for safe keeping. At the end of the adventuring day, the rogue splits it up and gives everyone their "fair" share. The rogue is the obvious choice because of her "mercantile connections."

Distributed!


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Halek wrote:

Why are you having martials be meatshields? Summoned creatures do that jib better and dont ask for loot. A druid can do that job better. Casters can make meatshields if they even need them.

Why have martials taking up the party slots?

because not every one wants to play a caster, because a martial is a way better wall than a caster i can have a martial with 45+ ac arround level 10 and deal out 130-150ish damage a round with each save getting arround a +25 and a pretty good cmd would love to see a caster try and do that


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The way my party does it is, "Does anybody want this item?" If one says yes they get it. If multiple say yes their characters settle it and we move on. Anything the party doesn't want gets sold and the gp is split equally. Quick and simple. This isn't vanilla WoW raid loot. Also not everything is Hunter gear.

The Exchange Owner - D20 Hobbies

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PossibleCabbage wrote:

For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

Is this a "throw everything in the sack and we'll count it later" solution? What if someone wants to use the new thing for the next fight? Do you let them use it if it's something that doesn't run out (like a sword or a cloak) on the proviso that they don't "own" it?

"Loot admin" player does it. The player who likes math and looking up prices.

"Pile and calc later" which translates into once a session when they visit a city each player gets a loot drop.

Picks and edits to loot are done on the fly, as they don't change the loot drop. If you buy an item on "credit" the loot Admin handles it.


All my groups have completely different people in them, and I was always the player not the GM

In my Kingmaker group most of the players were brand new to Pathfinder. I was pretty experienced, so I basically kept all the loot and issued people what they needed with their input (I was a player not GM). Everyone was pretty happy with this, as they got more into the system they'd create a wish list and I'd fill the list when I could. I generally kept things fair, but there were times when I'd drop a large chunk of change on someone (Druid with Wild armor springs to mind) if they needed it. I don't recommend this method when you have a lot of people that know what they're doing.

In my Jade Regent group, we didn't use any non-quest loot. Every level everyone got their WBL in gear as if we were creating a new character. It didn't start out that way, but we had players join and quit, fade in and out, so it was easier than trying to keep track of we lost. It's probably the most fair way, but it does lose some of the flavor and immersion of the game

In my Reign of Winter group, two players got everything because they always said "I take that". I'd put my foot down, explain how they've gotten 95% of the loot so no. This would last a few game sessions, they would start doing it again until I got annoyed again, and the cycle repeated.

In my Legacy of Fire group - We did math. Basically everything is owned by the party. If you wanted something, you were borrowing it, if you ever sold it, the money got distributed to everyone. If it was something you wanted to be yours, you bought everyone else out. There were 4 of us, so if you wanted something that cost 2000gp, sell price was 1000gp, each of us would get 250gp, so it would cost you 750gp, and that item was yours. This method worked really well, but in fairness there were only 4 of us, and all 4 of us worked hard to make sure everything was fair. I used 4 to make the math easier, but there were 4 players, but 5 shares. The 5th share was party items, like Cure Light Wounds wands and potions.

As far as the Wizard debate: At 15th level I've spent 44,590gp on my spell book. That's almost 1/5 of WBL. I'd say that's a pretty significant chunk change. It's about 5k less than a +5 weapon.


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If the "most fair" way is to give martials more loot to compensate, it would no be even "more fair" to no have martial in the first place?


I think making sure the martials have enough stuff is the GM's job, not the party's job. After all, if there's plate mail and greatswords in the loot pile, the wizard and the cleric probably won't be clamoring for them, and it's probably better to just give them to the fighter than to resell them.


PossibleCabbage wrote:

For people whose approach involves doing math, does the GM figure out the total value of the pile (and thus what a share is) in advance, or do you pause the game so that people can do accounting?

Is this a "throw everything in the sack and we'll count it later" solution? What if someone wants to use the new thing for the next fight? Do you let them use it if it's something that doesn't run out (like a sword or a cloak) on the proviso that they don't "own" it?

My gaming group uses a Google Docs spreadsheet. It's set up to automatically calculate the values that people put in the 'sell' column, and split out an equal share to each of the PC listed elsewhere, showing how much loot they'll have. They can put their name next to it, which shows how much they've 'claimed' from the loot.

And they can use it in-between, until they sell crap. Considering that last time they did this, they went a whole adventure path volume before selling, this can be a lifesaver.


PossibleCabbage wrote:
I think making sure the martials have enough stuff is the GM's job, not the party's job. After all, if there's plate mail and greatswords in the loot pile, the wizard and the cleric probably won't be clamoring for them, and it's probably better to just give them to the fighter than to resell them.

+1 Well said


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edduardco wrote:
If the "most fair" way is to give martials more loot to compensate, it would no be even "more fair" to no have martial in the first place?

Just the opposite. In theory the WBL tables are there for a party of four, one each from the iconic roles. If, as claimed here, spellcasters dont need magic items to rule the game, then the DM should simply cut treasure by half or even more if no martials! ;-) Ipso facto!

But again, my plea- can we PLEASE not make this into YET ANOTHER useless and pointless casters vs martials debate?


We just give each item to whoever wants/needs/would benefit the most, but we also exercise sensibleness so as that no one gets too far ahead or behind the others in loot.

If multiple players have an equally valid claim to a certain piece of loot, we usually just choose semi-randomly and agree that whoever got it, will have lowest priority next time.

At the risk of sounding condescending... It's really not hard at all when players aren't acting like greedy, selfish brats. :P


DrDeth wrote:
But again, my plea- can we PLEASE not make this into YET ANOTHER useless and pointless casters vs martials debate?

Fair enough. I really think that there is not a fast formula for this, and and needs to be analyzed and discussed in a case by case basis, in some cases in will be best to give certain loot to the character who needs it more, in others to the character who can use it more effectively, and why not sometimes to the character that just want it :)


How do "accounting for loot" systems handle items that literally only one person in the party can make use of? Say a weapon only one character has proficiency in, a logical metamagic rod when there's only one psychic caster, A phylactery of positive channeling for a party with only one character who can channel, spellbooks with only one wizard, etc.?

Does "taking the item that I obviously should have because nobody else could even use it" cost the same as an item that potentially everybody might want?


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PossibleCabbage wrote:

How do "accounting for loot" systems handle items that literally only one person in the party can make use of? Say a weapon only one character has proficiency in, a logical metamagic rod when there's only one psychic caster, A phylactery of positive channeling for a party with only one character who can channel, spellbooks with only one wizard, etc.?

Does "taking the item that I obviously should have because nobody else could even use it" cost the same as an item that potentially everybody might want?

It's up to the party. Sometimes they say: "Pfft. That epic longsword goes to the fighter. We're not even going to enter it on the spreadsheet."

But usually? Unless it's an artifact or single use, I've never seen them not put it on the sheet. And they always put it in as its full sale value. *shrugs* I don't dictate this.


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PossibleCabbage wrote:
Does "taking the item that I obviously should have because nobody else could even use it" cost the same as an item that potentially everybody might want?

Yes. If you sold it the whole party could use the money.

Again, with my favorite system, the party owns everything, you can borrow things but if sell the item it gets split between the party. If you want to own the item, for example a belt of DEX that you want to upgrade, you have to buy out the other party members (pay the sell cost - what your share would be).


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Texas Snyper wrote:
The way my party does it is, "Does anybody want this item?" If one says yes they get it. If multiple say yes their characters settle it and we move on. Anything the party doesn't want gets sold and the gp is split equally.

^ this is the best way.


DrDeth wrote:
Alynthar42 wrote:

This is what's causing arguments.

Our system wasn't causing problems until we found a few potions in a bandit base we'd just trashed. Two of us wanted to count potions towards your total value, because we felt that the basis of the system was to keep track of your gold spent and your effective wealth by level. In other words, we don't have personal cash deposits because this system allows us to get more items and is less hassle, but we are trying to evenly distribute wealth anyway. One of our players objected to this, saying that once a potion is gone, it is no longer of value to him. We explained that that was the point- if we were keeping track of individual gold, he would have to decide whether he wanted to buy a potion or save that gold for bigger items. A potion represents a cheap, immediate boost of power, while a magic item represents a powerful, long term one. In our mind, the reason this system works best is because it makes the players ask "Do I want that potion badly enough to put off my magic items a little bit longer?" If they decide that no, they don't want it that badly, then somebody else gets it or it goes into the bag of holding for emergencies.

We dont even bother with consumables and hand them out, more or less free to whoever needs them the most.

this.....so much this, keeping consubale book keeping just seems to be a headache

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