Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Asmodeous 11-24-03, 08:58 PM	Im starting to have a real dilemna with all three of my currently played 3.5 characters. My dm simply does not give us good magic items. character 1). level 5 paladin. Half plate armor, standard long sword, large steel shield, about 8 gp in coins. No magic items. character 2). Level 10 wizard/envoker. Ring of Sustenance, number 1 bag of holding, 3 scrolls or various low level spells and some cure potions I bought. 3- 4000 gold pieces of personal wealth. decent spells in his books though. about 6-7 level 5 spells. character 3). level 15/4 cleric/elemental servante. ring of protection +2, quiver of ehlonna, number 1 bag of holding, Mithral breast plate (unenchanted), about 7,000 gold personal wealth. I dont know if I qualify for some kind of record or not, as the poorest player characters in the known universe But im kind of sick of our campaigns. Surrounded by npc's dripping with +23 armor, epic this, paired holy avengers, personal flying citadels, etc etc. Ok, I might be exagerating a bit here, but you get the idea. The amount of epic npc's in the campaign with bulk super duper items gets a bit annoying after a while and dragons that drop 3,000 gold pieces of items gets totally boresville. The most powerful item any of my characters has ever possessed, which i might add, i purchased for 72,000 gp in various items/gold/gems which was my level 15/4 cleric, a +5 composite bow with 1d6 lightning damage (+6 total) Seriously, I want to join another gaming group, but finding one is probably next to immpossible (i dont live in america) So, my next choice is to give up gaming all together. Anybody have any suggestions? And please. include humurous ones as well cause I could use a good cheering up. :(
Silver Under Glass 11-24-03, 09:25 PM	Stoopid question I know but, have you said anything? Point out that CRs assume that your party has an appropriate amount of gear of appropriate levels. For example incorporal creatures can only be hit by magic weapons, I'm not sure if any incorporal creatures are CR 5 but a spectre is CR 7. It wouldn't matter how far above the CR a character is if they are not equipped appropriately, a level 30 fighter without any magic gear would actually stand less of a chance than a seventh level fighter with a +1 toothpick! Failing that scrag one of his super-equipped NPCs and pinch their gear :D
green_yawgmoth 11-24-03, 09:29 PM	Beat him in the face with a shovel screaming "give us better magic items! Why didn't you hug me daddy?!" Or just ask him to let you have access to better stuff. Is he throwing things at you that are unreasonable for your level of equipped-ness? If he isn't you may have a dificult time getting them. Maybe telling him that letteing you have better stuff lets him do cooler stuff will help.
Limit 11-24-03, 09:51 PM	I dont know if I qualify for some kind of record or not, as the poorest player characters in the known universe But im kind of sick of our campaigns. Surrounded by npc's dripping with +23 armor, epic this, paired holy avengers, personal flying citadels, etc etc. Ok, I might be exagerating a bit here, but you get the idea. The amount of epic npc's in the campaign with bulk super duper items gets a bit annoying after a while and dragons that drop 3,000 gold pieces of items gets totally boresville. Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with low magic campaigns, but whatever my NPCs and monsters use is available to the players. Sometimes they miss it, as I have one city that is high magic and they've never gone shopping there. But, if your campaign has epic NPCs with magic items, then they had to get them somewhere. Worse comes to worse, kill the next NPC with magic items you want :)
bolobaby 11-24-03, 10:37 PM	This is a problem in our campaign, too. Look - not having magic items is OK as long as the DM is keeping the encounters an appropriate level. If the encounters seem particularly hard, it could be because you aren't properly equipped. At that point, you should probably point out that you guys are having a hard time with encounters and that it is detracting from your fun - either tone down the encounters or equip the characters appropriately. One way to make sure you guys get some magic items is to take magic item creation feats. Make the magic items you need. If you need to make money to properly equip yourself, tell the DM that you are taking a break from adventuring in order to set up a shop and make some money creating magic items. This will be likely to infuriate the DM because he wants you adventuring, so be gentle. :)
Asmodeous 11-25-03, 12:14 AM	Our campaigns are defenitely not low magic campaigns. its just that its only our player characters that dont have any. the level of encounters is what you would expect, our last session, our level 5 party, paladin, barb and wizard ran into a undead group, a dozen ghouls, 2 ghasts and a vampire which was a very tough encounter. The vampire was a rogue so it snuck attack on my pally and nearly killed him out right with a back stab. the only thing that saved us was the npc wizard and his spells against the vampire. With our high level characters, my level 15/4 cleric, its become second nature for myself to buff everybody up, 3-4 greater magic weapons, magic vestments, protection from energy etc etc. our last fight was against a adult dragon which nearly wiped the floor with us, My cleric saved the day with a crit bow shot which I rolled a crit on the crit check as well which finished the dragon off before it could kill the fighter. My cleric has craft weapons & armor but cant really craft much because crafting costs money! with 7 grand odd in gold atm, I could craft +2 or 3 on my armor or weapon, but come on, what kind of equipment should a level 19 character have? certainly not +2 or 3 thats for sure. In game, our characters decided to deliberaty seek adventures that hopefully didnt involve powerful monsters, but every time we go to do something, get that item, clear out this dungeon, etc etc, we keep running into dragons, pit fiends, powerful golems that need admantium weapons to hit etc etc. Our characters want to fight vampires, umber hulks and other monster around cr12-14 not friggin cr 14 + Oh, and the dm keeps saying that my character is one of the most powerful clerics of her church, and Ive asked time and time again, can I make any money casting spells for those who come to the church, and nothing! i cant sell a heal spell for 10 gp! Im sick of reading and seeing the npc's carrying and doing this sort of stuff and not the players!
AlteredEgo 11-25-03, 12:51 AM	(edited for realization of brain-spasm...watch this space for actual comment later...)
Daydreamer 11-25-03, 12:56 AM	Nah im playing a character in a no magic world, we have way worse stuff than you and im 12 level. Just as long as your dm creates a world that this makes sense in. From your discription that is not the case approach him about it, problem is eventually its up to the dm to fix it or not.
ThorvaldHafgrimsson 11-25-03, 01:07 AM	Play a really skilled thief. Steal from the NPC's. Magic Galore
RPG 11-25-03, 01:24 AM	Just do what my players do when they really want a particular item. Bribe your DM. Seriously. I'll give you whatever you want (as long as you're still within your character's suggested-wealth-by-level category) for 20 bucks or so. You buy me a book I'm too lazy/cheap to go and get, I'll give you a level. :D
Asmodeous 11-25-03, 02:35 AM	is that the case day dreamer? where the player characters have basic magic items, or no magic items and the npc's, the characters the dm plays are epic level characters running around with epic rods of leadership, holy avengers, staffs of the magi, and more artifacts than you can poke a stick at. the only time our characters gain a powerful magical item, its always on a temporary basis, part of the dm's game story plot line and pretty quickly, the character looses the item. I honestly think that the whole idea of role playing is that the player characters and npc's are roughly equal in level and power as in possessions and wealth. I know that the dm has to enjoy the role playing as well, he isnt a tool for us players to use just to enjoy the game. But in our campaigns, its the dm who gets to role play the powerful characters, epic characters, gods, demi gods, avatars, and super duper powerful wizards with a staff of magi in each hand. Its no fun for us players at all!
Bait the Bard 11-25-03, 02:47 AM	Your DM seems very unreasonable to me. Have you tried pointing out the wealth-by-level table in the DMG? It has the amount of money+equipment that a character should have. Otherwise, if no common sense is bashed into his head, you have very few choices: - leave the group; your DM is being unreasonable and you do not seam to be having much fun - get someone else to DM; if one of your other players want a go at DMing, let them try and hope they'll be better - be DM, and show him what its like Hope this helps - the annoying bard
Xavim 11-25-03, 03:33 AM	What is your wizard doing toting around 3-4000gp in personal wealth? You DO realise that you have item creation feats right? So if the DM doesn't give you any, Freakin' make your own! In the game I'm playing in the DMs give out very limited wealth, but through borrowing, and hording every penny My character is currently toting about a dozen scrolls at level 3. Any wizard worth their salt knows that keeping gold coins around is useless. Invest all of your wealth into those items. And if your DM is being difficult about giving you time to make them. Have your character refuse to adventure until the wands, etc. are made.
Gold Dragon Of The Black Edge 11-25-03, 03:40 AM	Why not talk with your DM about getting out of dungeon crawls, into more of a city-crawl, or a RPing campaign? The city crawl will give access to magical items, as any enemy worth anything will have at least one, and an RPing campaign doesn't depend on items - it depends on how well you act your character. BTW, I say this as a DM, not a PC. I would expect a PC to do this, if they had a problem with a campaign of mine.
Mike the DM 11-25-03, 08:06 AM	I'm stuck trying to figure out how a 5th-level paladin, 10th-level evoker, and 15th-level cleric/4th-level elemental savant are adventuring together... ...or are there three different adventuring parties, each with one of these three characters? - Mike the [BRAINDEAD] DM
jasper 11-25-03, 08:36 AM	new players, new dm, same old problems. Talk with you dm and ask why do the npc have magic and you have none. And ask if he taking into account the lack of magic loot.
Alderic 11-25-03, 10:41 AM	"i cant sell a heal spell for 10 gp! " I "sold" a Meteor Swarm for 10 gold with my lvl 18 fire elementalist (back in 2nd ed) at that time I think he had a load of +1 long swords, maybe a +1 protection ring, and that was it. Next campain I guess I had a +1 longsword and a +2 shortsword at lvl 15 or so....of course the character was a fighter/mage/priest, so she could compete with the stuff the DM kept throwing at us. I don't think she ever sw any money, but that was 'cause we had a dragon pc in the party, that took everything ;) Latest campain. I decided to play a ranger, just for the fun of it. At lvl 6 he has a +2 dagger and a +1 dagger (he dual wields them) pretty good start.... Then he ends up against some kind of undead monster, that's more or less a 2nd ed death knight (complete with 20d6 fireball and death spell) I'm back to something that can kill dragons barehanded at lvl 5 w/o any magical item -_- In short, don't rely on what you DM is willing to give you, either get your own, or get the best out of what you have.
Noriass Gato 11-25-03, 11:10 AM	As a GM, i am strict on magical equipment as well... Currently running two campaign, into one PC hit level 8 from level 1, into other stated at 3 and are up to 5 now... In no one i am allowing a "magic shoppe universalus"... Into first, there is a high level wizard, PC can go and arrange for magic items to be created... Problem is, wizard wants not just money but some favours... Something that several of my PC's loathe... They have chaotic strings in them... One of them even claims to kill siad wizard once he feels ready... Luckily, he says it OOC ... Of course, they also get all items their opponents were using, and they have foughgt several that gave quite good things. Drider with Ring of Invi, several magic weapons, several others ordered from the wizard, several lesser magical stuff, like elven cloaks and elven boots (party is elven). All fighters got magical weapons for now, some good, some lesser, and some who not yet has + weapons have instead ability to make them so with spells... I dont count potions they purchase from various sources.... They had easy purchased lot of low level scrolls, but they ran into problem with scrolls of level 3+... Wants needed to be custom ordered... And sometimes the big bad boss escapes, and when he runs, he carries his stuff with him (The last BBEG got away with some cool stuff, but PC still got his loot, his lab and his storage...) In second, PC fought so far a low-lever opposition, and just accumulated money, but now are into a BIIG city and have already marked several shops to pay a visit once they deal with moneychanger to get their 1000+ years old coin loot exchanged for modern currency For your campaign... 1) get itemmmaking skills, and make items for sale. You earn money in exchange for experience, and after some time, you get money for getting better stuff for yourself. 2) do you fight those epic level NPC? Do you win? Then you are entitled to all they carry around! Dont let your GM get away with this. 3) 3) dont use "point up the wealth chart to GM" trick - it wont work. It definitely wont work for me, and most possibly wont work for Your GM. "My campaign, my rules, take or leave."
Luminous Crayon 11-25-03, 11:37 AM	Take some item creation feats and make your own; you even get to pick and choose what you want.
Bacon and Eggs 11-25-03, 11:43 AM	Originally posted by Asmodeous Anybody have any suggestions? And please. include humurous ones as well cause I could use a good cheering up. :( Have you tried sitting on your DM and tickling them until they give something up?
eudas 11-25-03, 02:02 PM	I face a similar situation, though not quite as extreme. Really, there's not much you can do. You can take item creation feats; that mitigates it some, and will at a bare minimum get you a fair number of low-cost magic items. However, the DM can still control the amount of resources that are available to you. To get around that, you need to be inventive (such as creating an iron wall, wall of stone, etc) or purchase Craft/Profession/Perform skills so you can make money. Even if you make money, if you need special or rare materials, the DM can still get you there too, so if you're fortunate you've gotten yourself at a maximum up to medium-ish level magic items. High powered magic items are still in the DM's control through component/material rarity. Truthfully, if the Dm really doesn't want you to have magic items, it's a serious uphill battle to get them, and there's not alot you can do about it. You control your character, but he controls the entire rest of the world. The final thing to do (or the first thing to do, if you want to just skip all the passive/aggressive intermediate steps above) is to just talk to your DM and let him know that you want to play the game differently; you want more magic, more magic items, and you are tired of being low-powered. Standard negotiations move from there with the 1) he gives in; 2) you accept it his way; 3) you DM instead; 4) you leave the game; options. eudas
Rian Lightblade 11-25-03, 02:32 PM	Speaking as a DM I can say that I have found offerings of Beer or Mead to work very well in convincing me that your PC needs a +12 Hackmaster. Seriously I'd talk to your DM. The increase in CR assumes that the player has the adequate equipment to face the encounter (magic items, magic weapons, armor, etc). If your DM expects you to overcome more difficult encounters he should make sure he provides you the appropriate tools (i.e. magic items, magic weapons, armor, etc) or allow you to create them yourselves (Item creation feats).
cthulhu42 11-25-03, 03:04 PM	Next time you play have your character gather the other PC's together and say, "Listen boys, time to face facts that we're severly underequiped to deal with the kinds of foes we've been faceing. Loos like we're going to have to get jobs so we can earn some gold so that I can craft us some magical items." Do all of this in front of your DM, pointedly ignoreing him. Then, look at him and calmly say that your heading for the inn and asking for a dishwashing job. If he balks, just say, "Well, if I can't make any money adventureing, I'll do it the old fasioned way. I'm through taking on pit fiends without having anything to fight them with!" From that point on, ignore his plot hooks with a vengance! Turn the game into a bore fest until he gets the point, which should take about twenty minutes, especially if the other players go along with your plan (which is pretty vital).
philopharynx 11-25-03, 06:18 PM	Have you tried DM'ing for a change? that would let you set the level of magic. And if so many NPC's have amgic items, steal them!
Boudewijn Brendergast 11-26-03, 10:51 AM	Originally posted by Asmodeous Anybody have any suggestions? And please. include humurous ones as well cause I could use a good cheering up. :( Get him as drunk as you can. Ask for magic items. If this doesn't work go back early the next morning and start a 4 man strong orchestra of percussion/pan/lid players. Ask him for magic items again, and again, and again. Agree only to stop if he gives you magic items....
Asmodeous 11-26-03, 10:10 PM	Originally posted by Mike the DM I'm stuck trying to figure out how a 5th-level paladin, 10th-level evoker, and 15th-level cleric/4th-level elemental savant are adventuring together... ...or are there three different adventuring parties, each with one of these three characters? - Mike the [BRAINDEAD] DM The later. we have two different gaming groups with the same dm. My Wizard isnt actually being used atm, he is kind of a spare character that I solo with the dm when ever we get the time. Xavim. My wizard is carrying around that kind of loot because he cannot buy any magical items. Our dm plays the game world as there is no "magic shop" mentality so finding somebody with these items for sale is half the problem. Also, this character is nuet evil, he would prefer to take the magic items from the bodies of his victims so few people would trust him to trade with, and as far as finding anything on his victims, well thats something our dm controls. I should mention that im hosting the group at my own home. If i say its over, the others will have to find another venue so im a bit loathe to do that, but it looks like its my only option. Myself and others in the group have talked about the situation with the dm before and his view is that version 3, characters advance far too quickly. he is deliberately "peg legging" my cleric who is 2 levels higher than all the other characters in the group in an attempt to equalize all the party characters. I dont have a problem with this, but the other players characters have stuff all magical items so my character gets even worse. Ever heard of a level 13/4 warrior/sorcerer with a +1 sword as his primary weapon? Mycleric spends most of her buff spells suping the fighter up as well as her self. I think Ill be dumping this group. Hopefully the place where we buy our dnd stuff from has a notice board or something for people looking for groups, other wise this is the end of my dnd days. :(
Xavim 11-27-03, 01:03 AM	I never ment to infer that you should buy them. What your wizard should be doing is MAKING the magical items. With 4000gp kicking around you could make a decent wand. or a cluster of scrolls. It doesn't matter if the DM doesn't have magic shops because you're the one making the items. Scribe Scroll was a bonus feat for a reason man. Use it.
green_yawgmoth 11-27-03, 03:42 AM	Originally posted by Boudewijn Brendergast Get him as drunk as you can. Ask for magic items. If this doesn't work go back early the next morning and start a 4 man strong orchestra of bagpipe/sitar/gong players. Ask him for magic items again, and again, and again. Agree only to stop if he gives you magic items.... fixed.
Asmodeous 12-02-03, 12:06 AM	ok. had it out with our dm on the weekend. Telephoned one of the other players who totally agreed with me on the subject so the two of us "ganged" up on the poor dm. One thing that i should mention is that our high level party died some time ago, and all our equipment was obliverated along with our characters which explains why my level 19 cleric is so poorly equipped currently, but it has been several sessions since that and i really think that a character like mine should be able to get more than a silly ring and bag of holding in that time. also, before our deaths, my character had a net worth of 100 - 150 kay gold which is a long way short of the suggested wealth for a level 19 character of 590,000 in the dmg. we had a discussion in this subject at least twice before, though only casually. this time, we got serious. the dm was basically trying to balance the party out because of my character is 2 levels higher than everybody else. our party dc was only 17 but every dc 17 fight we got into, we would win easily mainly because of my character, hence the peg legging with the items. the dm was peg legging my character's items, but the problem is that to peg leg one character item wise, the whole party has to be disadvantaged because anything found is divided evenly. We came to a bit of a agreement. I agreed to "burn" a bit of xp up thru crafting and/or 3-4 miracle spells boosting my stats or something, and the dm has put together a rather interesting quest. our party during our campaigns role playing in the changes of second ed to third ed, did one of those "the whole world is gunna end unless 4 adventurers can save it" scenarios. at the end of this, the world was god and magic devoid for a few years . Our characters have always had a blank spot in their memories from this time as our characters had spent time on the plain of the gods while saving the world and that knowledge was removed from the characters memories. well, its been revealed to our characters, that during that time, we where avatars of the gods who did a few things on the world using our bodies. during this, the gods found a few nice trinkets, but knowing that the world ws about to be magic and godless for a few years, they hid these items for our characters to recover later on in life rather than let us have then now at a time when they where all about to become useless. so basically, we now have to run around trying to figure out where the heck they hid the stuff, then we get our mitts on a good pile of goodies which the dm said should boost us up to about the amount we should be.
da chicken 12-02-03, 02:13 AM	Play a Monk or a Druid. Let class abilities be your magic items.
philopharynx 12-02-03, 10:30 AM	There's also the vow of poverty in the new book of exalted deeds. Oh wait, you're evil. Nevermind. :)
FriendoftheDork 12-02-03, 12:15 PM	oh this seems oddly familiar with my old greyhawk group. And it was a bit depressing to get almost no magic items when the EL of encounters was unchanged (or ususally higher than reccomended) We complained forever. ... but now we have given up. We play of our own free will (at least that's what WotC wants us to think) and after all, roleplay is more important to us than magic items and easy encounters where we don't have to be afraid of dying. Not to mention how fun it is to get a +1 sword when you've convinced yourself that such things don't exist in the campaign.... :) best magic item i got in that campaing was a elvish longbow +1 that enchanted arrows with 1d6 cold damage whenever I said "freeze" in Elvish. Almost lost it once in an underground river and almost got myself killed on the expedition to retrieve it. Oh it was an elven archer btw. best item in same group: wand of colorless fire... pretty much a Suel doomsday weapon and we had to store it away it was TOO powerful and uncontrollable.
Skrayper77 12-02-03, 01:49 PM	Well, I would point out to him that it's obviously NOT a low-magic campaign, because he's got NPC's running around with enough firepower to destroy mountains. If that doesn't work, I hear that baseball bats make great motivators.
Pongolyn 12-02-03, 02:47 PM	As a DM I have to wonder what is happening to the equipment of the monsters you're fighting if they're so well-equipped. Is it vanishing as soon as they die or something (I really hope not, or your DM needs serious help)? Fighting tougher monsters=bigger payout, and if it's not in equipment it ought to be in gold/wealth. Okay, so the golem might not be fighting in +2 full plate, but it had better be guarding a huge chest of gold or something appropriate to a CR 14+ creature, and you should be able to use the gold to make some magic goodies (or bribe someone else to do the same). If you aren't getting the equipment of defeated monsters, and you're not getting the gold, then it's likely your DM is either 1) paranoid (and if he just nixed all your old equipment, he probably felt it was unbalancing) or 2) doesn't understand the rules in the DMG for equipping monsters and generating treasure. Send him back to the books. Pongo
theDwarf 12-02-03, 03:22 PM	Originally posted by Rian Lightblade Speaking as a DM I can say that I have found offerings of Beer or Mead to work very well in convincing me that your PC needs a +12 Hackmaster. Um, no one in my HackMaster game has a Hackmaster+12 ;) Although one guy does have a ring of Heafty Healing ... he won it in a tournament (HMA) :D
Dorian H 12-03-03, 06:34 AM	Among other options : - take the Vow of Poverty. I think this feat was created exactly for people in youy situation. - steal the NPC's item - flee from every dungeon (instead of going further) even at the beginning of the session if you start encoutering skeletons and other "give you nothing" monsters. Go and get a beer. Now options I wouldn't recommend as they don't bring fun around a table : - if your are evil, go to small towns and ask for a tribute for your "protection". If Super NPC comes to save the town, ask him why he got paid so much to get rid of you, else explain him that he could make more money ransomming the villagers - don't undertake the proposed quests. Go for quests that give you loot. - optimize your characters. If you DM fears about the balance of the game, show him what spiked chain half-ogre trippers, heavy multiclassed PrCers and their U(be)r-Priests can do. Then he will see that game balance relies on cooperation, not on pure nerfing However : - As a DM he is perfectly right to nerf all the features and items he finds broken. I personally only accept new items with a case by case approach (wich mean I say yes to about everything I review, but I review it first and sometimes say no). What he shouldn't do is give you too little loot.
Asmodeous 12-04-03, 01:27 AM	Pongolyn. Our dm has some very creative and has some interesting ways out of giving us loot in our adventures. One example is when we fought a paladin, not something we liked doing. The paladin was sworn not to let anybody, good or evil past him, even though we truly had a good reason to pass. We fought him, which took quite a bit to bring him down as we where fighting to subdue him, not kill. eventually we beat him and began talking. we came to an arrangement where we didnt need to get past him. he could go into the room he was guarding and do what we had to, we convinced him the goodness of what we where doing, but he couldnt let us past because of his oath. anyway, the paladin went into the room, did the deed and returned, only to die as he was actually already dead, and bought back simply to serve this last task, so he disapeared and left his pile of gear behind, magic armor, rings etc, and a two handed holy avenger. so off we went to the paladins church with the gear hoping to trade it for some shinies but the clergy told us the items where celestrial created and basically worth zilch. we managed to trade the lot for a +3 sword so basically we defeated a cr 18 or so paladin and got what? 8 grand? pretty typical or the way it goes for us. other way outs for our dm is when we killed a level 17+ wizard, two apprentices and shield guardian. The wizard had nothing on him except for a gem key. We did a few divinations on the gem key and did quite a lot of search on it to find the location of the wizards treasure room, but by the time we found its location, other people had heard of the wizards demise and beat us to it, leaving us an empty bunch of chests and one lot of well hidden gems which the thieves before us had obviously missed. This kind of thing is the normal for us. To fight some monster standing on a huge pile of gold/items is a pure fantasy. Dorian H. Our dm has a number of house rules in place. A couple of examples are the persistant spell feat and the forsaker prestige class are broken and not allowed. the persistant feat was declared broken when my cleric archer character had the extend feat already and went level 18 ready to take her next feat which instead became.......improved initiative. :mad: Nice to let me know at the last minute. at least now I have the pleasure of wathcing him trying to nerf a cleric with extended cats grace, 16 for dex and improved initiative! he cant throw any air elementals at us because my cleric would command them so he has to settle for beholders and other uber initiative monsters. on the flip side, the fly spell has been swapped back to 10 minutes a level which is a huge consolation for my air domain cleric! (not)
ManTimeForgot 12-04-03, 01:45 AM	Originally posted by Asmodeous This kind of thing is the normal for us. To fight some monster standing on a huge pile of gold/items is a pure fantasy. Unless of course the monster in question happens to be a dragon who likes to sit atop its hoard, in which case it still is a fantasy, a dream come true actually, but nontheless a monster atop a pile of treasure. I understand the reasons why not to give out magic items. I made the mistake (this was back in 2ed and it was like my second or third time DMing) of giving the party loot which was generated from one of every treasure class. For those of you unfamiliar with 2ed, this would be not unlike handing out 1 in 5 magic items (regardless of minor/major classification) from the 3.5 DMG. I think magic should be a rare thing and should be something which is only used sparingly (though to great effect when it is). But even then, if you take down a CR 18 encounter, you should get something more than the character wealth of a 3rd level character as your prize. Something which takes the whole party to take down (and must then split the value of) should be of enough value to matter to the party. If a bunch of level 20's got a single item worth 15k gp for beating the tarrasque, then I think the PCs are getting screwed. Keep magic items low? Ok fine. Just realize that the encounter system is designed in such a way as to assume characters have wealth equivalent to what is presented in the DMG. If your character is level X and doesn't have wealth equal to what is posted in the DMG, then your DM had better realize that he is can't throw equivalent CR monsters at you guys any more. Thank You all and have a nice day. Signed, The Man Time Forgot
Asmodeous 12-04-03, 02:13 AM	Dragons sit on top of their hoards? Except in our campaigns. Let me see, one or two green dragons, a blue, possibly two and at least one red. all of them between adolesent and adult. One was older. We would be lucky to get 20, 000 gp from those encounters. I can understand what you are saying about second ed. Our dm has never used the tables, because of the chance our characters would get something decent. generally the only way our characters get good items is to trade gold, gems, platnium and minor magic items for them, or use the wealth and craft them our selves. Generally, if we find something in our loot more powerful than a +3 weapon, we all think to ourselves, "hello, what plot hook is embedded into that and how many minutes will we actually be able to hang on to it?"