Loot recycling and fight-clubs

[Gray Warden]

I'm GMing a modified version of Rappan Athuk, where the players are trapped inside the dungeon. An NPC is the only bridge between the inside and the outside, "sponsoring" the PCs by giving them WBL according to their level (duh?!): equipment can enter the dungeon from the outside, but it cannot leave it. As a result, PCs have equipment worth their WBL plus whatever they find in the dungeon which, usually, is rubbish to them.

I don't want to modify the loot found in the dungeon to make it suitable for the PCs, since they already have automatic WBL, and I don't want to give them too much wealth, but at the same time I want to make it worth the fights. Any idea on how to make it a bit more interesting?

Something I though of is the following. Like them, many other adventurers have been trapped in the depths of the dungeon during the years, and I was planning to introduce a micro-society of once virtuous heroes who, now tired and somehow gone insane, have accepted their fate and, rather than keep pushing towards the depths of the dungeon, have decided to settle and spend the rest of their days challenging each other in a fight-club, trying to forget their misery.

The PCs could join these non-deadly fights once in a while (for example, when they don't feel like exploring the dungeon, or one of the players is absent), also giving me the opportunity to play some decent NPC from time to time, using the loot they found in the dungeon as an entry token: the higher the value of the items they invest, the harder the fight, the better the prize. The prize will of course be worth as much as the entry token, but hopefully more useful to the PCs.

In this case my question would be: how to choose the prize? Should I make it entirely random or should I somehow make it dependent on the entry tokens from the two parties? If so, how to justify in game terms the "merge" of the items?

This was just an example, but I'm open to all suggestions. Feel free to share your experience on this matter if you have had any. Thank you all for your help.

[zza ni]

have an appraiser judge the ante and color code it to have 'interesting fair' fights. difrent colors for difrent worth of items and how hard are they to come by. if there are any crafters the ante might also be valuble parts of monster kills that can be used for crafting.(troll blood for curatives, spider's venum for antivenom etc)
the idea is that some1 more capable is able to preduce a more powerful item, but not always. they might also face a high level monk gambling on his last healing potion.

remmber that it would also be likely that bets on the fights are also done. with lower (or higher) stacks.

[Meirril]

The fight club sounds like a way to end up with more junk the party doesn't use than a way to get rid of it.

Narrow down the fight club a bit, and make it more of an unofficial 'Town' in the dungeon.

Pick a monster that is fairly common in the dungeon. Make sure that monster has some bodypart that isn't too gross when you save it, and very distinctive. Like minotaur horns, dragon claws, or hell hound ears. That is the currency used in the settlement. The locals have hundreds of them. One of the locals acts like a 'bank' and makes gold and silver encrusted versions of them. Those count as 100 or 1,000.

When you enter town you need to have 10 body parts or you can't enter. You can try to exchange magic items for parts with the 'bouncers' who change regularly. Diplomacy and other social skills can make the price vary wildly. There is no set price for magic items, book values mean nothing here.

The bar serves awful drinks. The bar has better drinks, but the bartender serves what he feel like you deserve, and noobs get the worst of the worst alcohol. Or milk if he wants to make fun of them.

The fight club is the fastest way to earn teeth/claws and the fastest way to up your reputation.

There is a guy that offers to 'buy' magic items. Any item, no questions asked. He offers some cheap consumable magic items, but at high prices. He always wants to trade magic for magic and he trades 5 to 1 in his favor. Once your rep gets high enough that he knows you that goes down to 4 to 1 then 3 to 1 is his best offer. He scavenges magic items to make stuff. His goal is to make a way to leave the dungeon and be filthy rich on top of that.

Gold is junk here. If all you want is gold you can carry away 100,000gp right now. If you can support the weight (50 coins a pound). Most of the barricades use sacks of coins for support. The wooden doors most things are made from are considered more valuable than the gold.

[Ryze Kuja]

If you want to do random loot, an easy way to do this is hop on Donjon and copy/paste the loot list into an excel document and then do 1-100%.

One flavorful thing you could allow the PC's to do is gamble on the NPC fights in the Fight Club. I did something like this in a Colosseum-style setting that the PC's visited once and it was pretty fun. Basically, I would have a Fighter vs a Sorcerer or a Barbarian vs an Alchemist (or whatever) and give the players the odds of winning between the two combatants; like, the Barbarian is favored to win 4:1 odds, so 1-80% would depict the Barbarian wins, and 81-100% depicts the Alchemist to win. The players make their bets, and then roll the dice, and then get paid out accordingly. If the player bets 2000g on the barbarian, and the barbarian wins, the player earns 2000/4 = 500g, but if the player bets 2000g on the alchemist, and the alchemist wins, the player gains 2000x4 = 8000g. The PC obviously loses their investment if their chosen champion doesn't win. It's simple and fun, but modify this to suit your own style of how you'd like to do things.