Dibs
What’s this? The pacifistic robot from The Meatgrinder has also travelled to Aqua Vita? And they’re keeping company with Artificer? The thick plottens! One can only hope that Swash/Buckle have friendly diplomatic relations with their fellow pirates. Of course, our ongoing city-risen-from-the-deep plot isn’t the subject of today’s drama.
We’ve talked about loot distribution once or twice or thrice before, but there’s something afoot today beyond the usual. We’re dealing with special loot here. Plot loot. Loot with an intended recipient and a specific history. I am reminded of my dog.
No, not that dog. I’m talking about my awakened cane corso barbarian/rogue. You see, my big bad Roman war dog was a gladiator by training and by inclination. He loved nothing better than grappling his opponents, ripping their throats out, and sharing the meat around with the rest of the party pack. The image of this musclebound war dog with a muzzle slathered in gore inspired my GM with a bit of homebrew.
Being of a fan of the classics, he set about building me a bit of kit based on Frank Frazetta’s The Death Dealer. It was a magic helm with glowing eyes and bad attitude. With a nod and a wink the my good boy’s gladiatorial showmanship, he made it an Intimidation item, figuring I could use it to strike fear into my enemies.
“So to get the fear effect, I need to roll Charisma (Intimidation)?”
“Pretty cool, right?”
“It’s absolutely cool. It’s super badass. I love it to pieces. Only thing is I’ve got a +0 on the check.”
“But see, it’s a bonus action three times per day. There’s not much of a cost, so it’s just a nice thematic bonus.”
I could feel my minmax hackles rising. I scented optimization on the wind. And I summarily marked my territory all over that poor GM’s tailored item.
“Hey Laurel! Your warlock’s got max Charisma, right?”
And that’s the story of how an awakened corgi got to wear the Death Dealer helm. Her li’l bork became a BIG WOOF, and no enemy could stand before it.
What about the rest of you kids? Have you ever realized your important storyline item would benefit the party more if it was in someone else’s paws? And as a GM, have you ever watched in dismay as the Artifact of the Ancestors got sold off for a bit of cash? Tell us all about your own item distribution mismatches down in the comments!
EDIT: Sorry everyone, the blog was posted in a separate draft than the comic–it’s fixed now!
EARN BONUS LOOT! Check out the The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. We’ve got a sketch feed full of Laurel’s original concept art. We’ve got early access to comics. There’s physical schwag, personalized art, and a monthly vote to see which class gets featured in the comic next. And perhaps my personal favorite, we’ve been hard at work bringing a thrice monthly NSFW Handbook of Erotic Fantasy comic to the world! So come one come all. Hurry while supplies of hot elf chicks lasts!
I don’t see a rant… but I am worried about what’ll happen next. ^^; Artificer, loose in and claiming ownership of an ancient hypertech vampire city…? Yikes!
The ancient vampires learned how to convert blood into oil, cutting out the middleman.
Well I mean, surely Artificer’s intentions are pure? It’s all for the advancement of science and stuff, right?
Oh no, Artificer yonik’d Claire’s commentary, AND the alt-text!
That’s supposed to be Thief’s job!
So, given our robotic friend showed up again, I’m guessing Artificer adopted them from back in ‘The Ancients’. And more importantly, they’re an official cast character now? We looking at a PC or an NPC here, class/role wise? What would their ‘player flaw’ be as a PC?
We’re currently polling these things in the Patreon. Currently we got ‘Inventor’ in the lead, but I still got my fingers crossed for NTR-L1. As for they’re quirk, from they’re previous comics, I’m guessing the player who constantly gets natural ones/terrible luck in general. To paraphrase C3PO “It seems it’s our lot to suffer in life.”
This may finally be the push I need to learn Pf2e properly. What does an Inventor do anyway? What’s the thematic difference to an Artificer from 5e?
They do seem to be rather similar. The argument could be made that they are basically the same class but called different things for these two games. Looking through, a flavour difference is the artificers are more infusing objects with magic while inventors are actually using technology. And mechanically, inventors stuff constantly risk explosions while artificers never have to worry. Now to keep them different in the Handbook world, we could view Artificer as more embracing the subclass Artillerist, considering the cannons on her ship. Just have her start wielding a lot more magic guns.
Isn’t the artillerist the gun with the spider legs? I think Laurel has drawn one of those before…
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1089934382/d20-tabletop-rpg-class-illustration?click_key=cd3d8877a49043c29f8998894b8dec7af0228c09%3A1089934382&click_sum=b5123f1f&ref=shop_home_active_17&sts=1
It would have to be simplified for Handbook style of course.
Makes loot splitting easier, a handful of rocks is lighter than gold 😉
If you look very closely, you’ll see that those “rocks” are screws and bolts and similar techno-mechanical bric-a-brac.
Yeah, well, he’s not getting so much as that proverbial pebble–
“With all ya got in ya, boys / Dig up Virginia, boys!
Shove in a shovel / Uncover those lovely / Pebbles that sparkle and shine.”
As a DM, man, I love making the most innocuous piece of trash in the treasure pile actually be the most valuable piece of the trove. While everyone exhausts their encumbrance or volume of their *items of holding* with potions and coins, the low-totem-pole party member who had to settle for “bag of marbles” is sitting on a gemstone agate and a *luckstone* (20,00 gp) buried amid the 20-some-odd aggies, steelies, and conkers (agates, ball bearings, ceramic, quarry stone). Throw in some random worthless shiny objects and a few “pretty feathers” (half of which are *feather tokens* [50-500 gp]), and you have a valuable haul wherein the most obvious treasure is actually a waste of time and effort.
There are few things more sinister than the silhouette of a conquistador planting flags on foreign soil.
Dig that treasure strat. You’ve got me curious though… How do you reveal the magical nature of the treasure?
I’ve been lucky to have a party that doesn’t do dibs. The incident that comes to mind is the time they exploded an adamantine slime and recovered its adamantine core. Everyone wanted it, and made different cases for what they could do with it, but in the end it was unanimously decided to give it to the party ninja, who didn’t have a powerful magic weapon yet. When they got back to civilization, she used the core to reforge her katana into an unbreakable blade. No feelings were hurt in the process; they just made sure to do what was best for the party and that every character was included. I play with good eggs.
> I play with good eggs.
Yeah you do.
Did the ninja name her new blade anything especially badass?
When it comes to loot my last few parties have had a pretty simple system: We split it into X+1 shares where X is the number of party members, with the +1 being for party expenses like resurrection diamonds (Socialized healthcare!) or travel expenses. If someone wants a piece of non-mechanical treasure like a cool crown, they buy it from the party when distributing loot. For mechanical stuff like magic items we generally work on dibs based on who can get use out of what.
So magic items are distributed according to need, while cash goes equal? Seems like a solid system.
Who claimed dibs over the rant before Claire could do it? 🙁
It’s so rare that I get ahead of Laurel these days, she didn’t notice I’d already clicked “add comic” on the backend and written my rant. She started a new draft of today’s Handbook on her own. Neither one of us noticed until the next day since we’d already both “done our part.”
Someone seems to have cast Silence on the rant XD
More like Maze. It was just in another dimension for a few rounds (see above).
The DM dropped a “Book of Exalted Deeds” into the campaign. The rogue took it, didn’t tell anyone about it in game, and read it. It clearly would have been better for our Paladin.
In hindsight this was our first attempt at D&D so I don’t think the DM noticed the “Only a good alignment creature can open it” clause. I never fully read the item block myself until now because I try not to metagame where possible.
Having just opened the item block, I can confirm that I don’t got time to read that whole novel.
Looks like the comic rant is fixed, but the alt text/transcript box strikes yet again.
Fixed!
My general suckitude remains a known issue though.
we know it’s fixed, it says right there at the end of the text. :-p
It’s a tautology or something!
Ah! Now on to the topic of the day!
Pity my poor buddy, DM of an otherwise-amazing session. The #1 prize was an adamantine battle axe that he intended for my cleric.
Me: Who? Me? My cleric can’t use any martial weapons other than his deity’s, the greatclub.
(next player over): Yeah, I mean, that’s cool and all, but my dwarf does more damage with his normal dwarven waraxe.
(3rd player in line): My barbarian? Nah, thanks. I use a bastard sword one-handed.
(lather, rinse, repeat) TLDR: The nifty capstone reward was unusable by anyone in an 8-member team, other than selling it or getting it melted down and reforged into something else.
Oh wow, I actually have one for this! It’s been ages though. Let me see if… Ha! Found it:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/weapon-focus
if DM is already home brewing an item, why not base the intimidation bonus of said item on strength?
Intimidation based on CHA instead of STR is one of those things I‘ll probably never understand.
In retrospect, I bet I could have got away with, “Can I use Strength (Intimidation) instead?” That would have got me to a +4… and Laurel’s corgi would STILL be three points ahead of me with a +7, lol.
I would argue the problem is also partially one of fantasy.
Yeah, there is no opportunity cost for the +0 charisma fighter to make the intimidation roll (without going into nitty gritty like bonus action attack options and so on), but there is also no incentive, because it’s not going to work. Statistically, they spend their bonus action, give a loving description of their intimidation effect, roll below a 15, and their entire effort is brushed off if not mocked by their foes.
That’s not to say that failure is inherently bad, but failure played seriously can be. There is a world of difference between “Fighter dramatically finished with a flourish, only to be ignored” and “skinny halfling wizard glows ominously only to be derailed by a well timed short joke from the opponent.” One feels like shenanigans, the other like wasted effort.
(To me, of course. YMMV)
Fair read on the situation. Being consistently “not taken seriously” is a bruise to the ol’ ego. Especially when your power fantasy is “big tough guy.”
I like the idea of magic items that mold themselves to their wielder. For instance, with the fear helmet, have it, in your character’s hands, give up some of it’s power (one charge per day) in order to resonate with the character’s raw power (substitute Strength bonus for Charisma on intimidation checks). Have the item warp and twist in their grasp, feel it pulling at them to flex upon those fools who would stand before them and will feed the pack!
Y’know, cool magic shit!