Okay so in my group I have been giving some enchanted items here and there when the right checks are made and it turns out one character seems to be getting all the right checks, I expected him to share the items buuut his character isn't exactly one for sharing so he has no accumulated too many enchanted items.
I had an idea to have his character get robbed or somthing to lose some of the items but he has a passive perception of 20, he is a high elf so he trances rather then sleeps. He can't be put to sleep and he has alertness so I am having trouble coming up with ways to be able to have him get robbed.... any suggestions?
thank you~
Well, it doesn't necessarily need to be a robbery. Have the other party members start getting suspicious of him. After all, he's walking around with quite a few items that probably look pretty valuable, yet he's not selling them. Which means they're very precious, so the other party members should eventually grow weary of his deception.
they are all too nice to do so, we have a druid who is really easy going and doesn't really care about that sort of stuff and then a paladin and a cleric who are both overly nice
"Hey, [player], when I gave out those items, I was expecting you to share them. I should have said something at the time, and I apologize for that. I would prefer it if some of those items found their way into the possession of the other PCs. We don't have to say that your character gave them away, of course, because that would go against the established characterization. Maybe he loses them to the other PCs in a bet or the like? What do you think?"
I have briefly mentioned it and he says it would go against his character which it's true that it would and none of them are into betting or competeing and such
RoguishDelight wrote:
I doubt he wants to give up the items either, his character is based entirely off of him so telling him he needs to get his character to give up the items somehow will offend him, hence why I want it more to seem like a random event that made him lose the items
RoguishDelight wrote:
So the player's selfish. In that case, a thief would be the best bet. Unfortunately for him, there are plenty of means of rendering someone innert. Perhaps even fully aware as well. Some Paralysis/Petrification magic should do the trick. Next time they stop off in a town, find a way to isolate him. Then blast him with something that's sure to put him down for the count. Even a rogue picking him at random and picking his pockets. If an object isn't held in the hands, it's fair game for pickpockets. Even with a passive perception of 20, a smart, accomplished thief can still get the drop on him and take what they want with devastating accuracy. And for good measure, have it a group of child pickpockets. When one takes something, they disappear through a network of twisting alleys; then the next comes along to take something else he really likes. I would have the thieves conveniently take paths itersecting the other adventurers, and for one reason or another, he needs to enlist their help to get the items back. Work with the other players to have their characters go along with so that each of them get the item they deserve.
Hello! What's that you say? An entire HERD of disenchanters has surrounded your campsite in the night? Good luck jerk player! 
But yeah, in all seriousness, Iserith is right on. 1. Talk to the player and be fair and honest and ask for his help, 2. screw the guy over by robbing him, or 3. take your lumps and lesson learned.
I suppose, if you REALLY want to make it look legit, you could put the party in an overpowered encounter against an enemy who won't kill them. It may actually play out like a TPK. But instead the enemy takes them prisoner (good guys wake up hogtied) and confiscates all their gear. You could make the next few sessions about escaping and getting the gear back. Naturally there are a million reasons why they might not get it all. Now is your opportunity to correct things. And it could be great fun on the way.
If anything happens that takes away this player's items, especially if they end up redistributed to everyone else, it will be transparently obvious to them that it was intentional. You can try to be clever and "legit" all you want, but people are really pretty good at reading each others' intentions. So good at it, we even invent intentions when there really aren't any.
This player just has a toxic attitude. If it's not fun for everyone else to have no cool toys while he hogs them all, this player needs to wake up to that fact. First do as suggested, have an OOC conversation about how this is bringing the table down. If they won't listen to just you, and the players (not their characters) have a problem with this, you should all discuss it as a group. Maybe they'll realize the problem when everyone confronts them with it.
I would never recommend robbing them in-game or contriving some other excuse to confiscate their stuff. It's petty and passive-aggressive. You won't improve the table mood by doing that, you'll only be getting revenge against your friend. Can you have the other players come across a similar number of cool toys? See about doing that in a way that doesn't break the narrative. (It's not a combat sim, and you can deal with PCs being a little more powerful). Stop rolling for them and make sure the right player gets them. Or say "the party finds Item X, discuss who gets it," so the one player can't take over. What kind of items does this player have? And how many?
What kind of checks are you requiring to obtain all those items, and why is it just that character that is making them?
Throwing a DM-ex-machina encounter obviously aimed at taking his items may lead to just resentment. Try to be relatively subtle if you can.
Possibly have the next few items that the party finds just not very useful for that character? Would the player be likely to just keep them anyway, or would they share around stuff they couldn't use?
For example if the combat-characters don't have magical weapons suitable for them yet, would the problem player give them some if he obtained them, or would they refuse to share? What about even if they were in a situation (such as fighting creatures needing those weapons to hurt them) where it would be to the player's advantage to share?
Also remember that consumable items are designed to be used. If one character is hoarding them, put the party in situations where they can use those conumables.
What class is the high elf? Can they actually use all the items that they are keeping?
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Does he find the magic stuff with Detect magic? Do none of the other characters use that?
Generally if there is a magic item around, you won't need investigation checks: it will be fairly obvious. They are too precious and rare to hide away: they will be in actual use of on display, and so easy to find. If your opponent was swinging a flaming greatsword at you before you killed him, or the gem on his headband glowed whenever he spoke, an investigation check isn't required.
Is this wizard seriously holding onto stuff that the other members could use rather than share? What would happen if the next few items happened to be heavy armour or weapons? If the wizard insists on taking those rather than passing them to the characters that need them, start taking a good look at the encumbrance rules.
What level are the party, and how are the rest of them off for items? Is it a fairly high-item campaign that you are running, or do the other characters have none to few items because the wizard is taking them all?
From your reading of the player, if the wizard had something that needed to be used for a certain situation, but only one of the other members could use it (eg scroll of a divine spell), would they pass it to them, or would they actually let the party fail rather than give up an item?
The other players might seem to be fairly easy-going about this, and prefer not to be put in the position of "taking stuff off" the character, but their characters would probably find northing wrong with ensuring newly found stuff is distributed fairly.
Change the way you hand out the magic items (at least the ones that you want the party to use).
You stated that you are hiding these items, and require the players to make checks to find them. And all the players seem to accept that the player that finds one of these items, gets to keep it. Because of his skills, the wizard ends up finding all these hidden items. The wizard seems to reason he deserves these items, because they wouldn't have been found without him.
Don't hide the items you want distributed across the party. Put that magic sword in the hands of the villain. Or as bait in the middle of an obvious trap. When all the players do their part in defeating said villain, or foiling that trap, they have equal rights to the magical loot. Or have the magic items as part of a reward.
Do hide some items for the wizard though. Finding these may be part of the fun. But make it items he can use to benefit the party, like a couple of scrolls with wizard spells.
As to the items he already has...talk to him that you didn't intent him to hoard those, but wanted them to benefit the party. If he doesn't want to work on a solution to distribute those items over to the rest of the party (with an in-game explaination for his character, like loaning them out or losing them in a bet), then just write those items off as monetary loot and start giving out the rest of the items differently.
It's not petty or passive aggressive, unless you think Gygax himself is petty and passive aggressive, since not only has he recommended solving these problems as a DM in game, but he designed monsters to help the DM so do. I called it "legit" because I would do the same to everyone. You can't feel targeted when everyone is targeted. And it's absolutely NOT revenge. And should not be viewed as such. It is a DM taking steps to rebalance his game world after he has made missteps. To not do this when other avenues (reasoning with the player) have failed would be a further failure.
I would not take his weapons and redistribute them. Of course. I agree with others here. I would simply be attempting to reset things for everyone and do what others have said, rethink future distribution. It's been made clear by the poster that the player is not willing to play ball. And that the other players are too kind to make an issue of his bullying. This is up to the DM to fix. It sounds like he has tried the rational approach and the player has refused. Which is why his options are limited.
To be more specific, I would probably have the group encounter some baddies, like the Drow. In big numbers, they could easily overpower the party. Drow don't kill. They take slaves. You have the players against drow and get captured. EVERYONE loses their sweet gear and not just Magic Items. So no motive is notable. This is a pretty typical D&D scenario. Now the game is about escaping. getting your stuff back as best you can(a drow archer they encounter has the rangers bow for example, or the prison guard is wearing one of the players armor). If your players EXPECT to get it ALL back, then you've probably been too generous over time. They should HOPE to get SOME back. But after they escape, through dealing with guards and other lower level drow underlings they find out their magic items were taken and sent to the high priestess to be used to fuel their ritualistic creation of Driders. They can happen upon the ceremony and witness their magical items being drained of their power. But not just the jerk players items and not all of them. Some from everyone (but definitely the problem items). This doesn't target the one player but provides a reset for everyone.
Now that you've corrected your misguided earlier distribution through a fun adventure narrative that sets the party on a hard fought road to recovery (which is a blast scenario!), you can then have the drow they're fighting have their own magic items. These will replace those lost so people shouldn't be so upset about losing stuff. And now you can distribute it differently so that others get a more fair share somehow. If you can't do this in such a way that it doesn't look like you're taking corrective measures, I would be very surprised. I've done things like this many times to rebalance things and no one has ever noticed. It was just a fun piece of the campaign resulting in the party looking a little different and I got rid of an item that was breaking the game that I had not anticipated would do so.
I have sympathy for the OP. Magic item allocation-- too many, too powerful, or too imbalanced -- can really suck the fun out of things. I've seen several campaigns go off the rails from that. Consider cutting back on magic rewards, however it may be too late for that.
Others have already commented that enemies using magic items against the party is the best approach. I love that method!
Another way is to have them specifically awarded to players based on actions. Example: my players had to rescue a dryad from a wizard who was conducting experiments on woodland creatures. I watched for who actually took her out of her cage and returned her to her tree. She specifically gave that PC a reward. From her viewpoint, he was her rescuer and deserved to be rewarded. It's a cheesy tactic if overused, but it's OK once in a while.
An alternative is to have the hidden hoard contain something that is valuable to someone else, and have the party trade it in for a reward. Then something else can control who gets the prize: the most heroic, the one who RP's the encounter best, the one who most closely matches the race/class of the gift-giver, etc.
One warning: do NOT make it look like you're favoring other players. Be fair. And good luck. :-)
I agree, putting the treasure out in the open for all to choose from should help. That’s generally how I handle it, though there are times when a certain PC grabs more magic items than his share should be. That seems to irk me more than it does the players, oddly.
If you want to get nasty about it, you can always start putting cursed magic items out there.
I'm so glad I don't have these kinds of problems anymore. I just play with friends these days.
Captain_Kobold wrote:
Wow, that sounds really bad. Have you thought about just telling the player, "look, playing in character or not, you're taking more than your share of the magic items and it's not fair to the other PCs."
mbeacom wrote:
Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
Barky wrote:
RoguishDelight wrote:
mbeacom wrote:
RoguishDelight wrote:
Um..... wow...
So I have been playing RPGs for a long time, with lots of different people, and I have *never* been in a group using 'finders keepers' logic. It just makes no sense. Heck, even with complete strangers at a Convention people were being sensible about who got what treaure and consumable magic. (Permanent magic has its own system)
I have a hard time envisioning a world where that player is not a douchebag.... I guess its possible, but having a hard time seeing it.
Some ideas:
Make the magic items more obvious, that flametongue should have been in use, so everyone knew it was there.
Make some of the items cursed.
You are giving away a *lot* of magic.... flametongues and not even lvl 5?
Consider altering the items so they use charges, maybe rechargeable, maybe not. (Don't even have to tell anyone about the change, pretend its always been that way)
Give other players magic via gifts and rewards, or only attuneable by certain classes.
Give out 'non mechanical advantage' magic. The wizard gets to 'hoard' things like a Tankard that refills with Ale 3/day, or a cloak that always stays clean.
I'm not sure what I would do with a player that insisted his *wizard* kept the magical sword, 'just because'...... how did you meet this guy?
And remember.... it is the *Player* that made the Conscious decision to Make the PC this way. The Player was given options, and the *player* is being selfish......
How do they deal with treasure and gold? I would talk with the Rogue, and have hims start using 'slieght of hand' and 'stealth' to steal all of the treasure before the wizard even gets to it.
Short term solution: Ignore the problem and just hand out magic items directly to the other players from now on (a gift from their mentor etc).
Long term solution: Figure out a way to get your group to collaborate as a team rather than acting as selfish jerks. I have found that a few humiliating party wipes and overcrushing odds tends to help out.
I'd buy him a copy of the book titled "Mine-o-saur" and give it to him next Game Day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxyjhWht5yI
Seriously though just talk to this guy and tell him he's being selfish. Not his character - HIM. Iserith already gave you the solution. Try and get him to help you come up with a reason for the magic items to wind up in the right pc's hands. He'll be much more accepting if he's part of the solution. If he won't do this, then he's a greedy jerk.
If you're dead-set on an in-game solution...
1. Have the players find out about all the magic loot this guy is hogging and then they can just leave him for being a greedy jerk. After hearing of their success, someone can approach the cleric wanting to buy the flaming sword that was rumored to be in that dungeon. He insists that it was there and describes it to them. They recognize it as the longsword the Wizard recently picked up. They cast detect magic around him and sure enough he's loaded down with magic items. My character would stop adventuring with that guy at the very least.
2. When he's trying to sell this sword he's going to have to start dropping info about it. Have the PC's hear about that.
3. Also, the other PC's aren't even curious about this behavior? This guy constantly turns his nose up at silver, but then he picks up a longsword and starts dragging it around? What other gear does he have? Did he take the time to pull the armor off a dead guy? "No seriously, I know you just saw me cast detect magic, but I only like the look of this chain shirt and feel like lugging it around... >.>"
4. Put a cursed item into the loot pile that only he could find. One that changes his alignment to Lawful Good. Or an intelligent ring that wants to be the only magic item in his possession and forces him to give the rest to the party.
- Eck
You mentioned that you think the player is hoarding items hoping to sell them later? Build on that, in a positive way.
Let him discover, gradually, that he won't be able to sell them for gold, ever, but that there is rumoured to be a marketplace, of a kind, in a distant city, where they can perhaps be bartered.
Create an arcane guild of high-level wizards who collect magic items so that they can disenchant them and recover the arcane power that went into their creation. The guild pays for items with scrolls. You get two spell scrolls of equivalent rarity for each permanent item traded in, so a +1 longsword, for example, (uncommon) might be worth one 2nd-level spell scroll + a 3rd-level spell scroll, using the table on p.200 of the DMG. You can even choose which spells you want - anything from the wizard list for that level.
Now make an adventure out of discovering the whereabouts of the guild, getting an introduction to them and negotiating a satisfactory trade. Any wizard worth his geedy, selfish salt will jump at the chance of getting more spells in exchange for items he can't actually use. There's your adventure hook. And you are being nice to him, aren't you? 
Eck wrote:
kalil wrote:
BoldItalic wrote:
The adventuring party uncovers clues that lead them to the isolated ruins of a wizard's tower. All above ground has long since been erased from sight, but the subterranean areas are still intact, though quite a bit of work is needed to reach them. The tower's owner, practiced and powerful in the ways of wickedness, has been dead for centuries, but traces of his magics, baleful and corrupting, still linger. They interact, with incresing severity, with the items carried by the entire party, until those items the characters once treasured now pose an imminent danger. Removal of the items from the tower's influence has no effect, for the underlying magics have been supplanted by something different, almost sentient. Ultimately, should the characters decide to try to salvage their possessions, they learn that nothing can be done, that their precious treasures must be destroyed to rid the world of their taint (<snicker>, he said taint).
Adventure hook. Mmmm, good stuff.
Also, note the attunement rules. They are there to stop characters hoarding large numbers of items.
As an aside, if we had just fought a bunch of, say, trolls, and I discovered the mage had a flaming sword but hadn't been using it, then I would be angry. Not my character, *me*. OK, my character would probably be angry as well, but the important thing is that actions you describe make me angry.
mbeacom wrote:
When the Party gets back to town and regales the locals with their exploits, rumors start travelling. A suitably greedy Godfather can figure out how to cast Detect Magic on the PC group while they walk around town - say in a marketplace. We all know who is going to light up like a Christmas tree. His right-hand man checks into a room at the Inn, and observes the PCs for a few days. Come Friday night while they are partying down in the Tavern until all hours of the morning ...
If you want to "be nice", have the drunken PCs walk in on the theft. If not, they notice by morning's bright light while they try to deal with their hangovers. Either way, the girl at the checkout desk noticed that one fellow, checked out in a hurry just after dawn, and took a taxi to the stagecoach station, said something about the EarlyAM departure. Do the PCs want to chase him down?
Elven immunity is to magical Sleeps, not a blanket covering all possible sources. The Drow venom will work on him; so would multiple stacking levels of Exhaustion. So will a sharp blow behind the ear, come to think of it.
Macv12 wrote:
RoguishDelight wrote:
After reading all the responses here as well as your first post again, I have to say: this is a legitimate problem that needs to be addressed. Personally, I'm all for sticking a cursed item into the loot pool next time they clear a challenge. Make it something innocuous, like a ring, but, the moment he puts it on, he's overwhelmed with reverence of the ring, like full on Bilbo Baggins style. But, include the added benefit of him absolutely detesting the thought of carrying any item on his person that isn't this ring. And when I say every item, I mean all the way down to his spell components. The mere thought of holding anything on his person other than the clothes on his back will fill him with the desire to vomit in disgust. I know you don't want to be the bad guy, but that comes with the territory, you have to accept the good with the bad when you take on the mantle of Dungeonmaster. So, when he looks at you with the most confused, scared, frustrated expression on his face, you just stare at him with the widest ****-eating grin you can muster. But don't make it permanent, it can be removed like any other curse; just be sure to drive home just how much of a jerk he was being. Have every cleric he passes from here to the end of the rainbow call him on his greed. Have them specifically state "Oh... You poor, selfish man. To have been targeted by the Ring of Greed Seeking, you must be a particularly sinful soul, indeed. Repent, good sir, before it is too late! Repent while there is still hope for you and your soul!"
darkclutches wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
Macv12 wrote:
RoguishDelight wrote:
Apologies for length.
darkclutches wrote: