The party my pally is running with has spent quite some time on a quest without coming across any towns, merchant caravans, etc so all the loot we have found along the way we are trudging along with us. We have spent about 4 levels in a dungeon and have just made it out at the end of our last gaming session. This has taken prolly about 6 or so gaming sessions. During this time one of our PC's met with an untimely death. We buried his corpse in the dungeon. (He was my youngest son, kinda getting bored with gaming and decided he wanted to watch instead.) We have also had one player decide she did not want to play any more either (Also a youngster). Now, the character the lass was playing has been picked up by her father who also plays our cleric for the extra firepower and in game realism. Now that we are out, we are going to role-play that character deciding to strike out on her own and leaving the party.
Now for the question, as a paladin would it be proper for my character to offer the leaving character her share of the loot, even though it would essentially be throwing money away? Also, would sending the dead characters share to his family, clan be proper?
The greedy side of me is at odds with the paladin mindset I try to bring forth when making character decisions. Any advice would be great.
Sending the dead's possessions "back home" is also showing compassion for the deceased and their family. It isn't much different than allowing the character to retire with their share of the loot.
It also makes it much easier for the DM to have the appropriate treasure amounts for the appropriate number of characters. ;)
Sending the dead's possessions "back home" is also showing compassion for the deceased and their family.
I suppose you'd have to know him well enough to know where home is. In one of our old 3.5 adventures, one of us died at level 1. We'd barely just met. We didn't have enough gold to rez him, so we intended to create a pyre ship to burn the body over water in a ceremonial way. But since we didn't have a proper pyre ship, we just said a prayer and send the corpse down the river on a raft. Then we divided his loot among the surviving party members.
If the character was there and contributed, they get their loot... Sending the dead's possessions "back home..." isn't much different than allowing the character to retire with their share of the loot... It also makes it much easier for the DM to have the appropriate treasure amounts for the appropriate number of characters.
The exact same points that I was getting ready to make until I saw that Kouk had already posted them.
And I don't think it's metagaming.
Example:
Bob the Fighter: We're finally out of this hellhole! By Pelor, I never thought I'd feel the sun of my skin again... *Bob gets a odd stare in his eyes and turn to face the party* I'm sorry folks, but this is it for me. I'm done crawling in those monsters infested holes... I'm going home.
Jim the paladin: Er... *looks a bit stunned* And what are you going to do?
Bob: I might pick up farming. Or Blacksmithing. Live peacefully.
Jim: Ah. Well then, surely you won't need that Thundering Greatsword you got from the Orcs. You understand that we will keep fighting. We will keep destroying evil. Our actions may very well save you farm or smithy one day... and the better equipped we are, the easier it will be.
Odds are the rest of the party agrees with Jim... either for similar reason, or by selfishness. Bob is now facing 3+ people who think he should let them have his finding.
So what does bob do? Keep the sword and run? Jim is right. Magical items are worth crap when sold, so why would he hang on to it? The adventurers may let Bob leave with some gold and stuff (his fair shaire of gold and 1/5th of the magic item's cost, as if he had sold it to a merchant would be very fair)... but letting him leave with his 'fair share' isn't fair, it's stupid considering he'll be a level 6 farmer very soon.
Unless Bob is full of **** and lying to them and he just want to split and keep adventuring on his own.... in that case, he's not 'retiring'. And it's 100% in character to be mad at him and roleplay accordingly.
PyrosSilvercaster, I think it is appropriate for you to offer the departing character her share of the treasure - she presumably helped get it. It is also kind of you to send some money to the family of the dead character, as well as a great in-character thing to do.
As for part of his treasure... really? The way my group always run thing is this - its OUR treasure. We split as evenly as possible and decide collectively who will use the item as best benefit the group. He wouldn't have gotten the item if the group wasn't there.
Isn't Bob being selfish and greedy for keeping the sword when it'll most likely end up in a dusty chest under his bed and never see the light of day?
It works both way, it depends on the people involved in the party.
As for the fact that he's a paladin...
You think a Paladin of Kord would be happy too see a fighter turn his back on Battle? Hell no. He'd probably be outraged and demand the sword remains in the hands of one who will use it for what it was created. On the other hand, he might be willing to give treasure to the family of a fallen warrior.
A paladin of the Raven Queen doesn't believe death should be mourned... why would he send money to the family of the deceased? Make no sense.
A paladin of Erathis has no compulsion to honor the dead or be fair... he wants to build empire and advance civilisation. It's easier to do with a Thundering Greatsword... you don't need it to be a blacksmith.
Etc.
Whatever happens to the loot really should be a 100% in the hands of the players, not the DM. Roleplay it out, figure it out.
Accusing the players of metagaming or being un-paladin-like because they want to keep the wealth is... well, wrong.
Accusing the players of metagaming or being un-paladin-like because they want to keep the wealth is... well, wrong.
Absolutely. Heck, a paladin might be the most adamant that the useful items stay with the party instead of leaving. Having those items could help the paladin in whatever quest he desires to complete in the name of his god.
I'm not sure the fighter would think in terms of 'Well, I bet whatever attacks my new village will be easy to defeat with a normal weapon.' He's slogged through dank dungeons, fought creepy monsters, even seen a team member die. I would want the most powerful weapon I had to take with me anywhere I go, to give me the best chance at staying alive no matter what occupation I decided to take up.
Giving gold to the dead team members family, well, I think that's a bit murkier. Do you know the character's family? If so, maybe you'd want to ease the message of his death by making their lives a bit more stable for a while? If not, did he have a standing agreement that if he died his share would go to his family?
As tyrandor said, it is 100% up to the other players. Roleplay it out, bring it up to the other party members, get their opinions, decide collectively what to do with the loot. It shouldn't throw the DM off balance - if you guys decide to keep all the loot, the DM can just scale down the treasure you get from your next adventure and balance it all out!
If you were to work for somebody and get paid evey two weeks and you decide to quit. To rationalize that bob the fighter doesn't get the magical sword would be akin to the people you work for saying "As you're leaving and not coming back its better for everyone else if we just split your paycheck between ourselves. Its only fair seeing as you're not going to be contributing any further"
Now if you aren't an upstanding sort of fella, well screw em. "Hit the bricks Bob, we don't need you anyway. You already hogged too much treasure"
The way my group always run thing is this - its OUR treasure.
COMMUNIST!
Really though, I think it's reasonable for someone who quits adventuring to keep some mementos of the good ol' days. The items could be used to defend the retired adventurer or his village later on (and magical items work WAY better than mundane items, don't try to argue), or they could be passed down through the generations for younger adventurers. The point is, every adventurer works towards aquiring the treasure, so every adventurer is entitled to a fair portion of it. It doesn't matter what he wants to do with the treasure.*
*Unless he intends to torture puppies, in which case you may openly oppose him with a clean conscience.
It doesn't matter what you, or I think.
What matters, is what the player character think.
The whole point of my post was to show that there's a way to stay in character and not metagame... and still go 'Hell no you're not taking that sword farm boy!' without being an evil bastard.
And in some case, it's actually the proper in character attitude... so again, saying it's metagaming/unpaladin like and just ruling that the players do this without actually playing it out is massive rail roading.
Still...
COMMUNIST!
Meh, honestly - if a party of 5 find a sword and it ends up going to the Fighter... it goes to him because the 4 other people decided to let him have it. He's seriously outvoted here, if they all said 'It would make a great pot stirrer for the wizard's cauldron' - he'd be screwed.
So when the fighter says '**** you guys, I'm going home!', you think it's irrational for the 4 other people who sweat, bleed and risked their lives and limbs to get that stupid sword to not speak up? >_> ESPECIALLY if someone else in the party can use the sword (say a paladin) and was passed over for whatever reason?
Long time adventuring company (well, in my players' case) often ended up sharing all their gold in a 'party chest' so to speak. If you left the company, you were SoL. But as long as you stayed, you could expect it to buy your items, spells, etc, for you.
Roleplay it out... if he ends up leaving with his stuff, well then good! If he doesn't... equally as good. But at least you didn't just decide what your players will do.
Me personally i wouldn't be content to let all the money & items be "party" possesions. I can easily forsee party members voting in blocks creating internal party politics. But hey, to each their own
And it's not like the party is getting hosed on money. Now the loot they sell is split in one less direction, depending on how quickly the character leaves. Bottom line: the leaving character is entitled to the loot he's worked hard for, which includes gold and magic items.
Usually there are not that many members of a group who use a specific type of weapon, if only so as to not compete when it comes to found treasure. If the fighter was a weapon focus, kensei whatever with a longsword, and the rest of the party was a cleric with a mace, a wizard with a stick, and a rogue with a shortsword, then hell yeah the fighter should keep the sword.
If you say, "You don't need that sword anymore," how do you know? Obviously the character is pretty much ceasing to exist, but the PCs just know that one of their trusted friends is retiring or something. If he's been using that sword for a level or two as opposed to it was just stuff recovered immediately prior to the retiring, it is basically his in the absence of a contract or title. Maybe the player just wants to try a different character for awhile but eventually decides he likes the fighter better and comes back.
I think if you are an adventurer higher than level 1, you can't really just go back to being a normal farmer. Everyone knows trouble follows PCs around like their shadows... :P
- I run my game under the assumption that the party has an internal agreement amongst themselves that if one of them dies or retires all his personal belongings are sent elsewhere. It's up to the players to decide exactly what that means, but the bottom line is that if a character retires from play then so do all his items and his share of the party gold. This could mean that the dead character is having all his items sent back to his distant family, or having them donated to his temple, or even having his items put on public display or enshrined or buried with him. (I'm mainly talking about magic items, not the non-magical ones.) Likewise his share of the party gold is sent to his next of kin, donated to the charity of his choice, or otherwise spent in funeral costs (tombstones and monuments aren't cheap, and neither is buying rounds of drinks and food for 50 people at a wake.)
- I also impose a "death tax" of 1/4 the component cost of casting Raise Dead on the character if that character dies and is retired. So if a heroic tier character dies the party loses 125 gold from its party loot. This tax is a disincentive to encourage players to not just get their old characters on a whim knowing they can bring in another "new" character with the same skills. The money represents funeral expenses, the cost of properly sending the character's belongings to next of kin, buying a monument in town for the character, or whatever else the party feels is an appropriate way to spend the money. The party can describe how they spend that money however they like provided that in the end the effect is that the money is lost. With this death tax in place, the players have some monetary incentive not to let each other get killed and also in the metagame don't feel quite as bad if they spend the extra money to get their old character raised. ("Well, it would cost us about 125 gold if we leave him dead, so why not spend 500 gold and raise him?")
Obviously that's all just my personal homebrew system. But my players agreed that it's a fair system and so far it's worked pretty well (we've had two deaths due to a combination of slightly bad player tactics and bad luck).
If you say, "You don't need that sword anymore," how do you know? Obviously the character is pretty much ceasing to exist, but the PCs just know that one of their trusted friends is retiring or something.
What's to say they will still be friend after he retires? >_>
Unless it's properly roleplayed, choosing to be mad because your 'friend' abandoned you to go grow wheat when you needed him most is pretty damn realistic as well.
Honestly guys, you're the one doing meta gaming.
'Assume' that the players will be okay with the loot going away. 'Never thought' that they'd have a different looting system.
You're essentially telling your players 'When X situation happen, you will react this way. Because I said so.'
If your players are fine with it (like Bodyknock's), then all his good. There's no problem. If the players have agreed before end to it... again, no problem. If they roleplay it out and that's how it goes anyway, then no problem.
But if one of your player say 'Wait, I want Bob's sword!' and instead of roleplaying him out you give him the reason why YOU think he shouldn't want it... that's extremely poor DMing.
I also find it pretty damn aberrant that it appears none of your players have ever roleplayed their 'adventuring agreement'. You're about to spend possibly years with those other adventurers you probably don't even know all that well... and you draw no policy as to how wealth will be delegated and other responsibilities handled within the group? I guess such consideration are always hand waved and it's just assumed the parties are bunch of super-friends from the get go?
I guess such consideration are always hand waved and it's just assumed the parties are bunch of super-friends from the get go?
Not super-friends, super-heroes :P. Generally most of us play in goodcentric games as opposed to neutral/evil, and that goes with the inherent assumption that the PCs are good, respectable, upstanding people with a mind toward fairness.
If my players want to discuss with the outgoing character about leaving some of his gear behind, that's fine. I won't stop them. If the leaving character just says, "Hey you're right! I don't need any of this awesome treasure anymore, you guys take it!" then that is pretty much crossing the line.
If the party establishes that all loot stays with the party in advance, fine. In the absence of such agreements -- and I suspect quite a lot of groups don't feel the need to codify that, nor want to establish that clause -- it is assumed to be equal shares all around and found loot goes to who can make best use of it. I actually find an agreement that anyone leaving has to leave all his stuff behind for the good of the company to be "aberrant."
Things that are obviously beneficial to the party might be left, like scrolls of raise dead or healing potions, but not the tools of the guy's trade. You don't ask a Cleric to leave his holy symbol behind "because he won't need it anymore" do you? Same with a Fighter and his weapon.
Considering though that most people don't use overlapping sorts of equipment, keeping the outgoing characters' things would just be for some extra cash. It also disrupts the party's expected wealth and magic items when a new character comes in with his own complement of magic gear. Best thing to do is for the DM to just give less treasure in the future from a game mechanics point of view, so it is basically an issue of, "Do we keep the old guy's stuff, or get fun new treasure?" for the players.
Frankly, I'd put it to the group and DM. The trick is, if another member joins the party, will they be underequipped if they only have the starting eq appropriate for their level. If yes, you guys should consider writing out at least one of the shares of treasure.
Not super-friends, super-heroes . Generally most of us play in goodcentric games as opposed to neutral/evil, and that goes with the inherent assumption that the PCs are good, respectable, upstanding people with a mind toward fairness.
I suggest you pick up a copy of X-Men, The Avengers, The Authority, Rising Stars, Squadron Supreme, JLA, JSA... or hell, any super-hero team comic book ever printed in the 100 years since the medium has existed for a good example of how 'super heroes who are good, respectable and upstanding people with a mind toward fairness' don't always get along.
In fact, relationship between teammates is what makes the story much more then whatever villain their fighting that month. I remember the rivality between Wolverine and Cyclop, the love triangle between cyclop, wolverine and pheonix, the romance of rogue/gambit, the feud between Batman and Green Arrow, etc - much more then I remember what two bit villain the author threw their way in that specific issue. Hell, what makes Spider-Man one of the best selling character of all time is how much people can relate to his 'life away from the mask'.
In the same vein, Inter-party roleplay and making 5ish people with vastly different background and field of expertise get along together and forge respect, friendship and maybe even romance... or disdain, dislike and hate... are possibly the greatest part of a roleplaying game. It's shame to just assume 'We're all good, we all get along!'
Your average adventuring group as little more in common then a thirst for excitement and greed for treasure.
If your players are fine with it (like Bodyknock's), then all his good. There's no problem. If the players have agreed before end to it... again, no problem. If they roleplay it out and that's how it goes anyway, then no problem.
But if one of your player say 'Wait, I want Bob's sword!' and instead of roleplaying him out you give him the reason why YOU think he shouldn't want it... that's extremely poor DMing.
That's an interesting hypothetical question. How do you handle it if one of the players legitimately wants to keep a magic item that belonged to a dead or retiring character? In terms of roleplaying it's hard to justify not allowing it. But in terms of game balance it could lead to the party having too many magic items for their level.
One good way to handle it is to allow the party to keep the old item in question, but then have the new character that joins the party lose that same level magic item from their starting equipment. So if the party wants to keep that level 5 magic sword that their dead fighter wielded, they can. But then the new level 5 paladin that joins will be a little poorer than normal and won't have a level 5 magic item in his starting equipment. (On p.143 of the DMG, under 7. Choose Equipment and Magic Items, it recommends characters normally start with three magic items: a level +1 item, an item their level, and a level -1 item.) If the magic item they want to keep is particularly low level, you can just deduct its monetary value from the gold of the incoming character.
I think the above method is fair to both players and the DM. It lets the players decide on their own if they want to keep a particular item, but it also helps the DM keep the overall magic item value of the party from inflating when new characters join. And it does so in a way that doesn't conflict with roleplaying.
I'd also say that if the party willingly parts with treasure, giving it to characters that aren't coming back, that's an XP award for Roleplay, for sure. Our DM gave everybody an extra 100 XP (on top of the 300 for the encounters) for roleplay, and gave a few people another 50 for specific things they'd done (like the Warlock setting a little kid free who was being used as bait by kobolds, after the Paladin and Cleric looked at it and said, "it's a trap," and kept going.)
I disagree. I think their reward for paying out a share of the treasure to someone who went on the adventure (bearing in mind that she was leaving) is not getting a reputation as a pack of cheats. Refusing to pay one of the members of an adventuring company her share of the spoils because she wants out of the business is robbery any way you spin it.
Unless Bob is full of **** and lying to them and he just want to split and keep adventuring on his own.... in that case, he's not 'retiring'. And it's 100% in character to be mad at him and roleplay accordingly.
Wait, what? What business is it of the rest of the group if he does? Joining an adventuring company isn't necessarily a lifelong committment. Some groups are formed to solve specific problems or address specific threats, but there's not supposed to be any assumption in the game that the group is going to stay together from one adventure to the next. This ain't the army. It shouldn't matter if Bob is going to use that thundering sword to have adventures of his own, or if he's going to wrap it in oilskins and use it every ten years when orc hordes descend on the little town to which he retired. A deal is a deal.
Ganging up on Bob is a doublecross, and if you think you might need a new Bob at some point, you'd better think twice about robbing him of the share he earned and then letting him live to tell the tale.
I'll repeat my point once again - I am not saying that Bob should not get to keep the sword, I'm saying assuming he will and not roleplaying it is railroading.
I can think of several of my groups over the years where a death/departing character would have kept his stuff... and several other where leaving would be seen as a betrayal and the quitter would be lucky to leave with his life, let alone his loot! It depends on the campaign and the group.
That being said, let me take this one apart.
Wait, what? What business is it of the rest of the group if he does?
It highly depends on what kind of group you run and also how/when the item was acquired. In any case, it is not far fetched at all for a group to be mad that someone is leaving a group after they got him a magic weapon.
Temper might get even hotter if the item is a recent acquisition.
Joining an adventuring company isn't necessarily a lifelong committment. Some groups are formed to solve specific problems or address specific threats, but there's not supposed to be any assumption in the game that the group is going to stay together from one adventure to the next.
Assumption. It depends on the company and the campaign.
If the party made a blood oath that they wouldn't stop until they finally killed The Dread Necromancer and took back the lost land of Timor... then yes, that's what we call a life commitment.
This ain't the army.
Assumption. The party may very well be a mercenry company or a military unit. It that case, it is indeed, the army.
It shouldn't matter if Bob is going to use that thundering sword to have adventures of his own, or if he's going to wrap it in oilskins and use it every ten years when orc hordes descend on the little town to which he retired.
Depending on the situation, the kind of party that are in there, the way they handle their in party policy and hell, the personality of each individual in the situation - it may very well matter.
Again, you're assuming it shouldn't matter.
A deal is a deal.
You're assuming a deal was made. And assuming the deal said 'You get to leave with your share'.
For the most part, it seems most people do not roleplay any kind of deal or agreement... they simply 'assume' it'll go that way.
So yes, a deal is deal... assuming a deal was made. Reading this thread, it seems very few people bother to make it. Considering this, how can you be honestly shocked if somebody says 'Wait a minute...'
The position of the 'Death/Depearting pc should always keep their gear' holds on assumption from the DM/player and metagaming (Can't skew the wealth level) and not on roleplaying and facts.
Ganging up on Bob is a doublecross, and if you think you might need a new Bob at some point, you'd better think twice about robbing him of the share he earned and then letting him live to tell the tale.
Assuming there is a deal, then yes, it is double crossing.
However, double crossing somebody, while an evil act, doesn't make you evil and is well within the range of things an unaligned character would do.
And yes, if the departing character stay alive, it's perfectly fine to have him badmouth them and have them deal with a tarnished reputation.
It also disrupts the party's expected wealth and magic items when a new character comes in with his own complement of magic gear. Best thing to do is for the DM to just give less treasure in the future from a game mechanics point of view, so it is basically an issue of, "Do we keep the old guy's stuff, or get fun new treasure?" for the players.
If a DM ever seriously did that, I'd probably toss them out the window upon realizing this. (regardless of edition. A long time ago I made a post on DM cheating, and this was one of those big points, rolling up fantastic treasure.)
Just want to start off saying I am playing a Paladin, and happen to be party leader as much as you want to call it that. On that note I have a question about splitting up the loot.
Now for the question, as a paladin would it be proper for my character to offer the leaving character her share of the loot, even though it would essentially be throwing money away? Also, would sending the dead characters share to his family, clan be proper?
The greedy side of me is at odds with the paladin mindset I try to bring forth when making character decisions. Any advice would be great.
Yes even if its because as a paladin that would be the lawful thing to do, it also depends on your dm because a nasty one could bring you up to account since back in the day this would be viewed as not necessarily evil but still worthy of questioning depending on what deity your character is a paladin of.
If you're playing a holy warrior of a faith then its even more definite but as a player character you can get around this by making it a party decision, still that character could then be brought into play as a npc villain because the dm would have grounds to make them embittered at being denied their rightful share to that treasure.
And as for the deceased character, it would be a good sign to donate something towards the memory of their late comrade however thats up to the party as they can't really argue about it.
If a DM ever seriously did that, I'd probably toss them out the window upon realizing this. (regardless of edition. A long time ago I made a post on DM cheating, and this was one of those big points, rolling up fantastic treasure.)
I'd laugh at a player wanting to "audit" my treasure distribution for trying to rebalance the game.
The fact is, you can try to "role-play" your way around the expected wealth by level all you want, thinking you're pwning the system, but a DM could try to rebalance things afterwards, and he'd not be doing anything wrong.
DM cheating, really!
That being said, unless you have PCs quiting and joining every other week (and somehow leaving their share of magic items with the party), rebalancing by reducing future treasure is probably not worth the trouble. After a few levels, the extra share is only a small percentage of the total party loot, hardly game breaking. Also, the items become obsolete eventually, and are then worth only what you can sell them for.
As a DM, the only time I'd intervene in such a situation would be in the case of artifacts. They're usually tied to the campaign, so they'd have to stay with the story, with the party.
Aside from that, if the players come up with a good enough explanation as to why a retiring PC would want to "leave part of his retirement fund with the company", I'd let them do it.
If a DM ever seriously did that, I'd probably toss them out the window upon realizing this. (regardless of edition. A long time ago I made a post on DM cheating, and this was one of those big points, rolling up fantastic treasure.)
Oh. Well then I'd be sure not to tell you. Odds are you would never realize anyway if I did it slow enough :P
In 3rd edition expected wealth by level was a bigger deal. You also tended to find all sorts of miscellaneous gear to get you to the amount of wealth for the next level, so you couldn't "count parcels". It would be very tough to tell how many magic items you should be finding because there wasn't really that kind of guideline. Even in 4th I'm under no obligation to say, "OK, that was parcel number 4 for this level guys, just 6 more to go!"
The magic items in 4th have a bit shorter lifespan of importance, and there are also much fewer of them that any one character will use, so I have more leeway to decide whether adjusting the future treasure is worth it or not. If the outgoing or dead character leaves his stuff behind, I will just consider the level-appropriate and useful gear as going toward the next treasure parcels.
If there is gear that is below what the party would be finding, or items they can't or won't use (nobody else uses a flail) then I may take it out of the "cash" of future treasures (counting the items as 1/5 the value) because they will most likely sell those things in a little while. If they were honestly keeping an item for sentimental value and not using it, then I would ignore it because it may as well not be there as far as the rules are concerned.
Game balance is fairly important I feel, and keeping the treasure in line before it becomes a problem will be easier to deal with than suddenly noticing "Oh darn these fights are totally inappropriately scaled because they have so many magic items," as the party walks all over "tough" encounters.
Players generally like challenging fights after all, so it is just as much for their enjoyment of the game that the DM keep things balanced as intended by the rules. I'm not trying to cheat the players out of items, I'm trying to help provide them a good game experience.
Thus my party usually has tons of treasure as I bring in thousands of gold worth of magic stuff with every character. Since we had this wide array of minor goodies, eventually the DM said that they had to equip me (or whoever died... like that ever happened to anyone but me... except for one session where we had one survivor out of 6) whenever one of my characters came in. Seemed a good solution.
Of course it's always better to raise a party member than bring in a new character, but the one time I've had a game get that far before I never died...
Now for the question, as a paladin would it be proper for my character to offer the leaving character her share of the loot, even though it would essentially be throwing money away? Also, would sending the dead characters share to his family, clan be proper?
The greedy side of me is at odds with the paladin mindset I try to bring forth when making character decisions. Any advice would be great.
Which class you play really has no effect on this decision, instead think about what your character would do in such a situation. Since you are probably playing a religious character you might want to consult the doctrin of the diety he worships.