Share and Share Alike
When you look around the table and take stock of all the shiny magic things that aren’t yours, it’s only natural to feel a twinge of jealousy. Does Bob have more crap than me? Yeah, he definitely has more crap than me. And Claire’s bard took the vest of bloviating last session. It should have been mine! This is the dragon-sickness that Tolkien warned us about, and it affects gamers as easily as deposed dwarf lords. So even though it’s hard to say “loot distribution system” with a straight face, I’m actually a big believer in this sort of thing.
Take my long-running megadungeon campaign. There was a growing sense that some of the (many) PCs in the game were getting screwed out of their fair share of the loot. Tempers flared. Suggested Character Wealth by Level tables were referenced. It was clearly time for an audit.
(A word to the wise though: Don’t call it an audit. That’s the sort of word that makes folks uncomfortable in every context, gaming included. You might call it “lootsmanship” or “Pencils & Paychecks” or “Scrooge McDucking” instead.)
Any dang way, I had everyone count up their crap, factoring in a % share for group items like the carpet of flying and the rod of security. A boatload of addition later and we’d figured out how far out of whack we really were. The result? We’ve now got “personal loot” and “group loot.” If it’s stuff that only one PC can use (class-specific items, for example), it stays with the PC in question. Everything else goes on a notecard and into “the umbrella stand.” When you leave the guildhall to go adventuring, you take whatever you need out of the umbrella stand. When you return home, you drop all your notecards back in the box.
That’s worked out OK for my group so far, but what about the rest of you guys? When it’s time to decide who gets the helm of brilliance or that coveted +5 cloak of resistance, how do you decide? How do you keep things evenly distributed at your table? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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There hasn’t been much argument on that matter in my campaign. I just throw magic items in the world from a random table, and occasionally put in a specific item that benefits the character that’s been getting screwed over on the loot rolls.
If the worst comes, I’ll suggest that each player’s gold and loot be calculated and compared to the rest of the party.
I do recommend it as an exercise. When magic items are in the mix, tabletop becomes a resource management game. And if you’re gonna play that game, you’ve gotta know what resources you have available!
Surely noting gets hands sweating more than saying “I roll for need.” But in all seriousness, we usually discuss things with our group over who needs what more. But there have been a couple cases in which my DM does things behind the ‘late to the table’ people’s backs.
Of course, all loot problems can be solved by adequate time, sufficient funds, and a dedicated crafter. Some DM’s don’t understand the importance of these things, opting to often ban magic item crafting out the gate, then proceed to screw their players out of getting their intended wealth by level.
I don’t mind getting screwed out of intended wealth by level. Those charts are just guidelines, and if the GM is trying to fine tune an experience for a grittier game, I’m fine with that. My beef comes in when (as you say) the GM doesn’t “understand the importance of these things.” If I bring up the chart and you go “What chart?” then you aren’t fine-tuning squat.
“My beef comes in when (as you say) the GM doesn’t ‘understand the importance of these things.’ If I bring up the chart and you go ‘What chart?’ then you aren’t fine-tuning squat.”
This is why games like Pathfinder totally fail for me. What a way to make magic feel utterly mundane and video-gamey. A game where the GM has to “understand the importance of these things,” and players can complain about getting “screwed” because the DM is not bestowing an approved allotment of boring, generic items is not a game I want to play.
No need to go edition warrior there, broseph. It’s got nothing to do with system. If you drop 20th level loot on a 1st level 5e party, you’re going to have a bad time. Same deal in Pathfinder.
It’s like cooking. You have to know how to… You know what? Ima let Ratatouille handle this metaphor for me:
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f6fc15a2-7764-4408-9d1b-7ee260948ce3
It has everything to do with system. You’re speaking a completely different language from me. I have no idea what “20th level loot” means.
This is different from the game-changing impact that introducing extreme power to the PCs has. You are talking about expectation of certain levels of magic items and how you feel screwed or something if you don’t get what’s “expected.” In order for that to be a thing there has to be some sort of systemic expectation of specific types of magical items at specific levels.
I don’t think that really existed in any edition of D&D except 3rd and 4th.
5e DMG. Page 133. Last paragraph. There’s a pretty good breakdown over here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?402507-Deconstructing-5e-Typical-Wealth-by-Level
It may be simplified in 5e, but expected wealth by level is still there. My point is that it’s a good idea to have a sense of the loot levels the designers had in mind before you start futzing with them. Turn the dial down to gritty low-level 1 or up to Monty Hall 11 and it’s going to affect gameplay. That’s a powerful tool for a GM to use. And like any powerful tool, you should probably be aware of what it can do before you use it.
I think you’re looking at this through a pre-conceived lens and seeing what you want to see. Look at what’s actually written:
“***You can hand out as much or as little treasure as you
want.*** Over the course of a typical campaign, a party
finds treasure hoards amounting to seven rolls on the
Challenge 0- 4 table, eighteen rolls on the Challenge
5- 10 table, twelve rolls on the Challenge 11- 16 table,
and eight rolls on the Challenge 17+ table.”
In fact, the designers specifically said that the system is deliberately magic-item agnostic. In one of Mike Mearls’ Legends and Lore articles about designing 5e he said:
“First, we don’t assume magic items are part of a character’s abilities. The math behind the system assumes that you receive only the specific abilities and bonuses granted by your character class and race.”
Certainly none of this suggests that there is any level of expectation of receiving magical items–quite to the contrary. The fact it is possible to painstakingly reverse-engineer an “expected” wealth/level table based on the super broad strokes “typical treasure” of the quote above is not very persuasive or meaningful.
Look back at the argument you’re trying to make based on your quote–that the DM should have some sense of the “intended” recipe and only deviate from it with understanding and intention. That’s precisely the opposite of what the system explicitly says, and also the opposite of what the designers intended.
I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this point. I count myself among the number of dudes thanking the OP over in this thread for giving us a rule of thumb:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?395770-Analysis-of-quot-Typical-quot-Magic-Item-Distribution
The system and designers may not intend for us to have this information. I find it useful anyway.
I’m not saying you can’t use a reverse-engineered thingumy and decide to play based on expected distributions of magical items. If it works for you, that’s great.
But you took the position that 5e expects *everyone* to do that (or something like it) from a design standpoint. That’s just not true. The system is explicitly and intentionally not dependent on a expected progression of magical item handouts.
“My beef comes in when (as you say) the GM doesn’t ‘understand the importance of these things.’ If I bring up the chart and you go ‘What chart?’ then you aren’t fine-tuning squat.”
This statement makes no sense from a 5e (or OD&D, or AD&D, or 2nd ed.) perspective.
“What chart”?
“The chart that’s not in any book, but that I found it on ENworld, finally enabling me to bolt a Pathfinder concept onto my 5e game”
“This is why games like Pathfinder totally fail for me. What a way to make magic feel utterly mundane and video-gamey. A game where the GM has to “understand the importance of these things,” and players can complain about getting “screwed” because the DM is not bestowing an approved allotment of boring, generic items is not a game I want to play.”
I think the point you are touching on here is an important one, and one that really needs to have more attention brought to it. As I see it, there are two fundamentally different approaches to magic items in any kind of fantasy game (but especially in ones like D&D, which can easily be played either way).
On the one hand, you have the “magic items as technology” approach. In this approach, magic items are a normal and well-understood part of the world. NPCs are probably equipped with magic items appropriate to their level, and players can freely purchase magic items if they have sufficient funds and access to the resources of civilization. Even stuff like a +5 sword is like a Ferrarri or a private jet: expensive and rare but totally purchasable if you have enough money. For players who use this paradigm, the GM not letting them buy or craft magic items would be like playing a campaign set in the modern era and telling the players “you aren’t allowed to buy guns or cars or cellphones or anything else that was invented after 1900.”
And then on the flipside you have the “magic items as wonders” approach. Here, magic items become rare and special, wonders that let the PCs bend the rules and do what nobody else can. If magic items can be crafted at all, it requires jumping through hoops and special quests to secure rare and unique components. For players who use this paradigm, making magic items freely craftable and purchasable destroys their wonder and mystery, makes them feel “boring and generic” just as you said.
You can even mix-and-match these approaches a bit. Perhaps potions and scrolls are freely purchasable, but the secrets of crafting magical swords and armor are lost and you’re limited to what you can find in the dungeons. Perhaps a mortal spellsmith could craft a +1 flaming sword, but a +3 fiery burst sword is beyond the skill of mortal work and if you want one you’ll have to go on a special quest to win one from an angel.
Point is, neither of these approaches is wrong. You’re perfectly within your rights to say “I want my magic items to be unique wonders that can’t be purchased or crafted” and look for GMs and players that use that paradigm, but another player is equally within their rights to say “I want my magic items to be standard gear and freely purchasable” and look for games that use *that* paradigm.
Huh. Organized Play settled this with loot being liquidated and converted in to a paycheck at the end of the mission.
My old homegames were actually pretty light on the gear, but they were light on the combat as well. We barely got any magical item upgrades, but we usually didn’t need them all that often.
…you know, I’ve never actually had the ‘traditional’ dungeon/loot experience. That’s still on my bucket list.
I love me some ‘traditional’ dungeon/loot experiences. Had a blast with in-game lootsmanship last session. Here be my story. Ahem.
So after much hardship we sprint out of the dungeon with fistfuls of loot. We catch our breaths, give the dungeon the finger, and then roll on the loot table. We roll high. It’s a freaking Helm of Brilliance, and the party is only level 4-5.
So there we are gobsmacked, reading through the abilities one by one. We’re rolling for # of gems. We’re ogling all the ridiculous abilities. Each one of us is mentally preparing his own “I deserve it because reasons” argument. And then we get to the last bit.
Suddenly everyone is unsure. I mean, who wants to wear a potential TPK as a hat? So there we are eyeing each other. Eyeing the helm. Thinking maybe we should just sell it.
“Hey Boss. Can I have it?”
All eyes turn to the chain pact warlock’s imp familiar. He’s perched on a lit torch. He’s immune to fire.
We wound up titling the session “Pimp My Imp.”
I love a good familiar/pet story. I can only imagine how fun it mush be for the little guy to wield theparty’s most powerful tool. And I bet it’s a fun roleplay hook as well. Good for him!
Also, I’m visualizing this thing as an imp wearing a bejeweled Magneto helmet that’s one size catagory too small. Magic item resizing rules be damned.
A dude on the Reddit thread I originally posted that story on suggested that the imp should wear it like a Koopa Copter: https://www.mariowiki.com/images/thumb/c/c2/BJ_NSMBW.png/180px-BJ_NSMBW.png
I developed a google doc that can support any number of people and shows purchases, sales, loot claims, IOUs, trades, and current wealth of each player.
We haven’t had any real need for anything with that amount of detail yet, so we mostly just keep a loose need vs greed system going to keep everyone mostly even.
If an item being it’s the party as a whole (I.e. Any healing item) then it isn’t even counted in loot value.
Yeah… Hero Lab calculates your wealth for you, but it doesn’t track consumables you’ve already used or your share of group loot. That stuff is tough to estimate after the fact! Next time I start up a campaign I might have to put together a “Master Loot List” to fill out as I go.
Pencils and Paychecks for days!
I had a disagreement in a Planescape game a while back. Several sessions earlier, we had found this large jade orb in the chest of a Colossal Construct we fought. Noone could carry it but me. When we appraised it, we discovered it was worth about 1k and since noone else wanted it, I could keep it.
Fast forward a few sessions and it turns out that the orb is hollow and has stuff in it. Now that the orb was worth something, everyone wanted their cut, but according to my character, they had given it to me, so by right, its contents were mine as well.
They argued I was being selfish, but I replied saying that the others were selfish for demanding I share something that they agreed I could take as my share of the loot.
The contents of the orb were simple. The orb was worth 1k, and inside was about 3k gold pieces and a small little magical construct medallion, along with a few gems worth about 2k combined, including a 1k diamond.
So what I had previously taken as a seemingly useless item to keep all of a sudden became worth something, and everyone wanted their paws in my loot. When I refused wholeheartedly, the cleric decided to withhold healing from me.
His argument was that an evil party needs to be forced into equal shares of loot or else they turn on themselves. I argued that only “that guy” (sic Dickish) players would turn PVP, especially after a previous incident resulted in experience loss for the party.
Anyway, in general, I think people can be left to share the loot without being forced into a system by each other, and if something happens to be worth more than previously thought, the owner of that item doesn’t owe the rest of the party. Instead, just accept the loss as a reason to put more ranks into the Appraisal skill.
Now see, this is an interesting example to me. It sounds like you were coming at the issue from an in-character perspective. They were going at it from a tactical, out-of-character perspective. I think that matter of perspective is worth discussing as a group.
I stand by my closing statement. If the only thing holding your character back from killing everyone else’s characters for everything they’re worth is that everyone has equal shares of the loot, you’re playing wrong.
If that system is the only thing keeping you from being a dick, you need to step back and look at your own maturity and not project yourselves upon others.
Sure, out of character, I should have been willing to share some of it, and the agreement we reached ended up sharing some of it, but overall, it was an unnecessary discussion.
The final conclusion we reached was to share the non-diamond gems with the guy that fully appraised it and found the opening mechanism, as payment for his services. The diamond was to be shared as a material component for Raise Dead if we needed it. There was a plot-item in the jade orb as well, so I gave that to the guy holding on to the other plot-items.
Everything else I kept for myself in the jade orb that only I could get into (as I was the only person with ranks in Disable Device). I would not budge on my side any further, and that was what brought about the healing-withholding.
It’s been a couple weeks since that argument, but I really do think we’d reach the same conclusion over again, just because of a stubbornness in each player’s values.
Mostly, the folks I’ve played with are friends out of character, and there isn’t a great deal of dissension over who gets what. Often, the order of the day is to shore up weaknesses, followed by maximize strengths. This means that the first cloak of resistance goes to the wizard, so he doesn’t always fail, and the second goes to the paladin so he always succeeds.
On more than one occasion, I’ll play Hard Mode for myself and split the bounty 4 ways in a 5 man group, relying on what I can borrow, steal, and loot to equip myself with (the normal idiom doesn’t work as well) instead of taking a share. If my buddies are 25% better equipped, that turns into me not having to spend as much time worrying about them and I get to pay attention to my own hide. Plus, the desperate fights are the really fun ones. Killing the babau with 50 out of 60 hit points left on your character isn’t
a memorable brawl, but killing it with 3 remaining is one that’ll get talked about for the next week.
Hard Mode sounds like and interesting premise. What kind of class do you play when you do that?
I was doing it with Inquisitor, but I suspect that it’s most fun to do it with the rogue type folks. Fighters -need- their equipment to be up to date, and casters hardly need equipment at all.
Honestly, maybe I’m blessed, but in all the games I’ve played, across the years, spanning great lengths such as the sea of othersystems, and the continent of variedgamegroups, I have never encountered a beast such as dragon sickness. I hear the tales, and have seen the salt upon the forums en-memorium of such afflicted heroes, but alas, my gaming tables have all had the fortune of being entirely comprised of mature grown ups. Okay, maybe just mature for this, specific case…
No tense roll-offs? No hurt feelings? Never once? Well shit, son. We need to get some blood samples from your group and develop a dragon sickness vaccine!
Loot distribution in the game I run is weird. I hand out items multiple PCs might want and then when I ask who actually takes said item they discuss it and tend to try to give it to each other and often wind up just looking to me for a suggestion. Which I shouldn’t give as an impartial game runner. But I totally do wind up giving as a person with the bias of wanting the game to actually move on from an issue that should have been resolved several days ago.
I now picture you players as these guys: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/88/a6/17/88a6178f7ed1c5aceef2c5a793edb5e8.jpg
These guys would be more accurate: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/Bradypus.jpg/220px-Bradypus.jpg
Running a 5e game, relatively low magic. The way I’ve handled it is being very careful on how I hand out loot. My favorite strategy is making a single custom magic item to each player at low levels that gets stronger as they do. This way they get attached to this single really awesome magic item and as their magic swag increases they get excited about what goodies they get rather than arguing who gets them. I try to make the items bonded to a player so in the event of player death no one gets the now souped up magic item (example: a bear totem barbarian’s totem is his magic item, but the spirits won’t give that power to anyone else.)
Most other magic items are low powered so not much fighting. The exception is when they raided a pirate ship, and I gave each an allowance of 3,000 gp to spend as they like on the this table: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424243-Sane-Magic-Item-Prices. These were the items they “found” on the ship. They really enjoyed that, and no arguing over who gets what because they had the same amount of gp and got to pick the stuff themselves.
After writing this, I realize my solution is mainly being super controlling about who gets what loot. It works for this campaign, but might not so well in future campaigns. Fortunately the comments are giving interesting ideas for other methods.
I think that, from the GM’s side of the screen, a mix of item distribution methods is a good idea. You roll for random loot one time, pick loot for the characters the next, allow them to go shopping occasionally (as in your ship example), and then futz with scaling magic items too. That keeps the loot experience fresh and exciting.
We use a ‘ladder roll’ system. End of every game all players roll a straight d20 roll and the results are recorded. Person who gets the highest goes first, it proceeds in lowering chronological order. The last person gets 2 picjs then it goes back the chain and repeats. Not always fair depending on amoubt of treasure but whoever is running usually tries to put in close to an even amount.
We also homebrew a lot of items in thr games too so it stays fresh.
Nice! You wouldn’t happen to have the list for a “typical haul” lying around? I’d be curious to see what the average session’s worth of loot looks like in your game.
“The math behind the system assumes that you receive only the specific abilities and bonuses granted by your character class and race.”
It was this comment, or others like it, that convinced me not to bother with 5e. It means the system is incomplete. You can’t get any magic, or other, bonuses without endangering the system. If the math assumes you are +5 for class and race, either a +2 for magic is smuggled in some back door, or you find the battles too easy, or no magic is allowed and you find the battles too hard. In theory, one can still have balance, but only by making the official math a lie.
Oh I dunno. I’m mostly run Pathfinder, but I can’t deny that 5e has its charms. I’d encourage you to give the system a try. Its ease of use is a huge selling point, especially when you’re dealing with newer players.
In fairness, I’m not convinced that even 3.X characters “need” those specific boosts and stat enhancing items in order to succeed. There’s a degree of wiggle room in both versions of the game that allows for the presence or absence of “must have” items. That wiggle room is arguably larger in 5e. What I appreciate about 3.X though is that the dials and switches that govern the relationship between CR and character power are more visible. If you’re trying to fine tune your game, you’ve got a solid reference point to start from rather than having to recreate the “hidden math” yourself.
Lootsharing isn’t really a problem in either of my groups. In one, the DM tends to just drop large piles of money which we can then divvy up evenly between us and just buy what we want. The other group tends to debate for a while on who would make the best use of a specific item and then gives it to the player with the most convincing argument for. Neither is particularly concerned with “wealth by level” or everyone having an equal amount of funds/assets. I like playing casters, who can usually make up for a discrepancy in loot with spells, so I generally allow others first dibs on the loot unless it’s something that really would benefit me the most.
I always thought that the idea of a “loot-based class” was an interesting design space. Since martial dudes need armor and weapons to do their thing, it makes sense for that to become a central part of the character. That’s why I was so tickled to learn about the Advanced Weapon Training build out of Pathfinder:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/4q1yi0/turn_your_fighter_into_a_caster_by_using_advanced/
It all depends on the game, I think. And even then you can get some surprises… In the RQ party that I was in, we had very little problems, as most of us wanted to make sure we were more or less evenly spread in items and wealth. And the same goes for my D&D group.
In Pendragon there is not that much loot anyway, it’s more about the Glory. And it is mostly the ransom that you get for defeated enemy knights (apaort from the Glory), so you best him, you get the money from him, and any other loot goes to your lord, who usually send you on the mission in the first place.
Same goes for James Bond, unless it is nifty gadgets, which you try to filch from Q. All the rest goes (back) to Her Majesties Government. After all, you’re on the payroll, and although the expense account sometimes seems unlimited, the Queen does expect some return on investment…
In Star Trek, the loot is usually technical\alien artifacts, so that goes to the Science guys, either on your ship, or on a star base.
But to come back to the question for D&D, our group also had the personal\group loot thing going. And most of us were aware of the fact that in the end, it did pay more dividend to have all the appropriate classes have their exclusive stuff, and occasionaly grant another player his\her “special request”, as that would usually make that person better able to stay alive, and more inclined to help the gracious one.
We’ve been pretty good about loot sharing. All coins and gems are divided equally. Any class specific items are given to who it’s for. (The homebrew collar that gives an animal companion the Dire Template for 3 rounds a day? Dibs!) Anything else is discussed. For example, if that Cloak isn’t a merged Muleback Cords so my little halfling can carry stuff, she’s not interested. The Agile Dagger that can hit Touch AC once a round? She is going to talk with Rogue to decide who needs it more. (It went to Rogue and he makes good use of it.)
Identified a cloak of the manta ray that gives you 60 ft swim speed and lets you breathe underwater. Gave it immediately to the gnome cleric who sank like a rock when she fell off the boat and was only saved by an en masse party effort to reach her before exhaustion/drowning kicked in.
Last campaign, they had a fairly good system of loot distribution, where gold was equally shared, and the PC’s differences meant that there was little overlap in the magic items each PC used, despite the party for most of the campaign consisting of a fighter and two paladins. Though there were occasional squabbles, for instance when the high-AC paladin took +1 studded leather instead of the squishy warlock, for the most part the party distributed loot well. In the current campaign, however, the evil drow bard was put in charge of loot distribution. For some reason. Our rogue and fighter don’t listen much when I’m describing the loot, just switching on to hear their share, and while our monk does listen, he isn’t IC interested in the loot and doesn’t meta game, so for 13 levels the bard has been… altering… the loot distributions. The fighter eventually learnt about this out of character, and being a huge meta gamer the monk has now been put in charge of loot distribution.
In Pathfinder, my gaming group has a fairly detailed system of loot distribution, with one share set aside for group expenses. The loot usually accumulates for an adventure or so before it’s properly distributed.
In 5e, we just hand out magic items to whoever needs/wants them. It’s amazing what a change of system can do to a party’s greed—sometimes we don’t even bother to request payment for our heroism!
Best way I’d found (for Pathfinder). Divide total treasure value by n+1, for n players. Each player gets a share, plus 1 share for group stuff like healing wands, diamond dust for restorations, or other things that either the party as a whole needs or things that it’s not known who will need it before using it (a scroll of fly, for instance might fit, if it’s not known whether it’d be useful to give the fighter a chance to fight an enemy, or the rogue a chance to scout, or the wizard an escape route, or what not). If a player takes an item it counts as half value, since that’s what it’d sell for. If everyone who wants an item is at their “share” value in loot, it’s a roll-off for who gets it. If one player has less than their share they get first dibs, and if a player has more than their share they can only take an item by consensus decision. Usually there’s enough gold/art pieces/trade goods that nobody stays too far outside their share (+/-10% or so is usually treated as if it were even), especially once any unclaimed items are sold. Thankfully devices at the table aren’t a huge issue in my group, so we just have a google doc that we track it with, that calculates things for the most part, so it’s not as much of a headache as it seems it would be.