Hi everyone,
I'm curious as to how looting works? Been reading through the Lost Mines of Phandelver book and I see that in some instances the book will give descriptions on what a person/creature is carrying incase my players decide to loot them. Now my question is, how would I deal with situations where my players wanna try loot a body but the book doesn't even give any hints of what the body holds? Should I just say for example on a goblin; it only has it's ripped leather armor and wornout dagger or something along small weapons; or should I say the body has nothing of value?
But considering that a DM has control over the game, I could "put" loot on the body if I wanted to, maybe they just happen to find a potion if someone is low on HP and are out of hit die and healing spells?
Thanks in advance ;)
PandaMaster619 wrote:
PandaMaster619 wrote:
Thanks for the info guys. I have to admit, I only recently got the DMG, MM, and PH books and have only skimmed through a few chapters. I've only been using the basic rules I got off the website until now. I see as a DM I have a lot of reading ahead of me.
This may be off topic now but, as DM's, do you all encounter moments where you have to refer to the books or should I try learn everything first? My friends and I are just so excited to start our own D&D group that I may be looking into the books more often than not. Though the starter set pretty much covers majority of the basics.
PandaMaster619 wrote:
Like most games, you'll need to know the rules before you play.
D&D is different in that only the DM needs to know the rules. The players can just get by. And there is really only 1 rule. After that, the rest is bookkeeping, and you will pick it up.
So what's the 1 rule?
bawylie wrote:
PandaMaster619 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
PandaMaster619 wrote:
I usually do kind of what iserith had stated. I try to make it obvious that an enemy has something of possible value, but I always think of WHY a creature might have something on them. I don't run my games like Diablo: kill a wolf and it drops a suit of armor. Important enemies usualy carry something of value and if a player gets hit with a wand or something, they will probably try to take it if they kill the enemy.
One thing I like to do is put loot in hidden areas. A crafty wizard will probably hide a stash of gems in a false tome, a skilled swordsman will have a prized weapon on his walls for display, the trolls will hoard their tresure under some ragged mats strewn about their cave lair.
Kind of reminds me of when I was in animation school in a way: function defines form. In this case, enemies define weapons.
Breakdown of loot I hand out:
- animals and such. nothing. it's a wolf, it doesn't carry gold. however some things can be skinned, teeth stolen, eyes plucked out etc. which I allow.
- 'regular mobs' like bandits, goblins, orcs, all types of fodder etc. these guys will usually have basic equipment and perhaps a little bit of gold they have scavenged from bodies
- knights, soldiers, assassins, spell casters etc. this group of guys are a little more prepared and equiped than cannon fodder. they will have some gold of their own, not much but a little bit. they might have a lesser healing potion or two
- 'bosses', elite mobs, named enemies, dragons, important NPC's and such. these guys will have a decent stash of gold, an item of some value like a spell scroll, wand, ring, weapon etc. they will probably have a stash somewhere in their lair or base as well
thats just a sort of guide line I use.
D&D 5th edition is really simple. As a new DM, I would recomend the DM screen. It gives you all the needed stuff right in front of you, like all the conditions and what they do. DMing for the first time can be a daunting task and just with anything else, practice makes perfect. here are my tips:
NOTE: I am not a great DM by any means and I'm still "new" when it comes to experiance. But these are things I have noticed after my first sessions as a GM.
1. You are not doing as bad as you think you are. I remember DMing for the first time and I felt like my players were bored and not having any fun. I also hesitated a lot which got to my head that I was also doing a terrible job. After the game, all my players said they had fun and wanted to play again. So hang in there and keep DMing!
2. Visualize what is happening, Then describe it. This is one of those think before you speak things. In my experience, at first, I would get nervous and just start talking before I really had the scene planned out. Imagine the setting, imagine the characters in that scene, imagine the characters' moods, and then describe it. Short pauses to visualize followed my nice descriptions are much better than descriptions with a ton of short pauses and "uhs" within them. Not that you won't have those, because you will... just less of them.
3. Players get tired of flat, open terrain during combat. I think every single one of my combat encounters in my first severl sessions of DMing was nothing but plain, flat ground with enemies and allies just starting about 50ft. away. This makes every encounter go the same way. The fighters run up and attack until the enemy dies. The casters stand back and cast until the enemies die. In just about every encounter try to think of one ( or more) things to make the battle different. If the battle does take place on flat, open ground try to make that one thing be something unexpected that happens during the battle, like a 3rd party of enemies or heroes that show up or make the enemies use interesting tactics, like grappling or attempting to Break the PC's weapons instead of just attacking them.
4. It's ok to suggest to players what they can do. I remember describing a scene and then giving the famous lines "So, what do you want to do?" and all of my players stare at me and blink. Some players are not good at figuring out what to do, while a lot of the times this could be an issue with the DM's description or story. Either way, these moments will happen, especially in a mystery or intrigue style adventure where not everything is straight forward or involving combat. In these times, it is better to suggest a couple of courses of actions instead of just getting frustrated.
5. Say YES. Players come up with some crazy things to do. Sometimes this will totally go against your plans and sometimes these will totally mess up your entire plot! At first, you may want to just say no or just not let a player pass a skill test even if he rolls a 20. My advice, is to instead say "yes!" and if they roll well on their ability check let it work! These moments, even if they mess up your plans, are usually the things players will enjoy and remember the most. Players who are constantly told no when they want to try something cool (at least to them), they are not having fun.
How to Prepare for your first session(s)
1. Read the PHB section on Skills and the Chapter on Combat. (same day, or the day before your first session) ( I still do this before every game)
2. If possible, write down (or print off) the statistics of the monsters you know the players will fight so you don't have to get out that huge tome.
3. Write a list of random fantasy names on your notebook so you don't have to think too long about the name of a charaacter the PCs run into.
Optional stuff, that can make you better, faster:
After each session, ask what the players liked/didn't like and what they think YOU could improve on.
Read books/watch movies and try to think about how that story, character, event, battle ect. would work in a D&D game.
Watch people play real D&D on youtube and twitch.tv
Thanks for all your advice guys, really given me more motive to get me group started on D&D haha
Synjin wrote:
PandaMaster619 wrote:
I told my players right from the start that non-magical equip from monsters can't be sold so they should only take it if they need it for themselves.
When I noticed that after every combat we wasted a lot of time searching the corpses, I just made it automatic. After combat I just list all the normal loot the corpses carry. If there's something more interesting to loot I say "corpse X requires separate investigation".
Rya.Reisender wrote:
Hmmm, if they never tell you they want to search other corpses and you didn't make any agreement with them that it's automatic, I wouldn't directly prompt a perception check for items they've completely missed and not searched for at all. I'd probably point out that the corpse is there and if anyone of them wants to generally search the room, I'd also make him notice the item on a good roll even if he didn't specifically said he wants to search the corpse.
Generally if I feel like my players could improve a certain playing aspect, I'd rather do that after they finished a chapter by telling them in a "What could have been" session what other options they had and stuff. Then for they learn from it for the future.
PS: Keep in mind that you should only encourage playing styles that you and your group actually enjoys. If none of them enjoy "looting corpses" you might as well not play out that aspect of the game.
Rya.Reisender wrote:
I've typically automated the "search and loot" portion of an encounter. Early on in our campaign the group agreed that, unless stated otherwise or prevented from doing so, it was likely that they would check any dead baddies for loot. So isntead of waiting for them to say they do a search, or prompting them to make rolls, I just tell them how much treasure they find on each corpse. There might be a few situations here and there where I want them to roll to find something hidden, or again when searching isn't really possible (being chased by other monsters, for example), but we treat those as the exceptions.
PandaMaster619 wrote:
If you're doing adventure league, you're stuck - you can't add treasure. You can, however, take treasure the party missed and reassign its location!
If you're just doing a regular game, you can decide. But no, I don't encourage putting a healing potion on a dead body when they are down on hitpoints - it's just one more step towards a disney world ride style game.
I wouldn't babysit them so much as in telling them "Oh no you totally need to search that place to continue later on!". That's too much babysitting. If there's a key they need to proceed and none of the PCs even mentions that he looks around, they won't find it. They reach a door and try to open it. I tell them it's locked. At this point at least some of my PCs automatically get the idea that there could be a key, I don't need to tell them that. But more often than not, they will simply not care about it and instead just kick the door in or picklock it. I encourage that they think of alternative ways to solve things, so I go with whatever they want to. Of course they might fail their ability checks and not manage to kick in the door or picklock it. But my players will figure out a way, I won't have to tell them. They might go back and search for a key. They made capture and enemy and question him how to open it. Whatever they want.
This is unrelated to looting after combat, though!
As I said in my first post, if your PCs are fond of looting every single body, then just ask them OOC if you should make it automatic. If all agree just tell them what items are available after each combat.
I personally decided that for rare items I list the corpses that need separate investigation because I'd like to know which PC has the first chance to take the item (he might opt not to tell the others after all). Plus it's more exciting.
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
My group tells me when they want to loot bodies. And they tend to do it in a role play way - the rogue always wants to checks pockets for copper pieces, the dwarven war cleric considers looting bodies beneath him - but they all know to check the main villain for letters, notes and other clues. I track the time though, assuming about 3 minutes per body per character to just look for lose loot. Five to ten minutes to remove armor from a dead, limp body. Oddly, when they say "we check the bodies for treasure" and I say "Sure, it will take about fifteen minutes of game time assuming one of you stays on guard" they often decide to not check assuming that time must be important because I mentioned. Over metagaming fools.... 
WorBlade wrote:
It's definitely no metagaming if they decide not to search corpses so they don't lose time. I know I wouldn't if I just had a battle in enemy dungeon and have the feeling someone next door might have heard me.
Noon wrote:
Rya.Reisender wrote:
Alright, I guess I understand that way to view it.
I keep telling my players how long something would take so eventually they don't see it as indication something is about to happen anymore. They know I do it whether it's time sensitive or not. Though sometimes I end up actually wanting my players to know they need to hurry because it makes the game more fun (like when the boss is escaping, I'd rather have them at least see him escape rather than entering the relevant room only when he's long gone, because they'd rather spend lots of time discussing, looting, searching or resting right next to it).