A 4E magic item conundrum

[Morrus]

Through no fault of their own, my group suffered a near TPK last week. Two players were absent, and of the remaining five, four died while the last fled to safety.

Between them, the party (all 2nd level) had two magic items at that point. The surviving member had both of the when he fled.

Now they're generating new characters; our house rule is to generate characters at the same level but only 1 XP beyond what is needed for that level, the reasoning being that losing levels is just not fun for players, but there has to be some penalty for dying.

So, they're generating their new characters and I get a call; apparently the rules state that when generating a character above first level, you get three magic items.

So we go from a party with 2 magic items to a party with (2 + 3x4) = 14 magic items. Quite the power boost! Death, it seems, has proved to be quite lucrative!

I haven't decided what to do (not really asking for advice - I'll make a decision I feel is appropriate to my game - but more just relating a curious effect).

 

[Delta]

This is similar to the accident in 1E AD&D when Unearthed Arcana assigned really steep price values to any wizard's spellbook.

The easiest way to see a massive inflow of cash for 1st-level parties was (1) roll up wizard, (2) get him killed, (3) sell spellbooks, (4) repeat. Of course, step #2 was so easy you almost couldn't avoid it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

This isn't an edition thing. It's always been the case that the greatest profit is to be made, not by defeating monsters, but by ensuring other party members die.

This is why I ruled that one couldn't profit from the death of another PC in my last campaign, all their property was assumed to go to relatives. This time round I think I'll just start new PCs without any magic items and rule on the old PC's items on a case-by-case basis.

 

[el-remmen]

I don't see why there is anything "to do". . .

Just have them start with a number of magic items commensurate with the power level of the party when they died, which I personally would interpret as "no one starts with any," but could be as generous as, "everyone starts with two" (to match the surviving guy).

Personally, the idea of second level characters having thee magical items each is crazy talk!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This time round I think I'll just start new PCs without any magic items and rule on the old PC's items on a case-by-case basis.

At levels 1-8 that probably won't be a huge deal, but by the time you're looking at 12+, the game is expecting a +3 to hit and damage for all your abilities through weapons and implements, and a +3 to all Defenses, and what, +3d6 to crit damage? And it'd be hellish if you rerolled a character at that level and had no items, really. The DM would have to soft-pedal things severely and start handing out items quickly or you'd potentially get into a campaign death-spiral where people didn't have them items they needed to survive, and thus died, and had no items and thus died, etc...

I mean, the reason they give you three items is precisely to avoid this. I'd ignore the rule before level 4, myself, though.

 

[Wormwood]

My KotS players are nearly 3rd level and none of them have the 'standard' magic item distribution. My solution for replacement characters:

1. New characters begin with magic items of equivalent level and cost as their old charcater.

2. Gimme a wish list ASAP.

 

[Obryn]

I metagame the crap out of these situations.

In my AE game, I straight-up informed the players that looting the corpse of their previous companion will directly affect the starting equipment of the new character. I explained the gameplay reasons for this, and my players took it all in stride... only looting one or two items.

"Buddies loot your corpse" has always been a D&D tradition, but not a heroic fantasy one.

-O

 

[drothgery]

So, they're generating their new characters and I get a call; apparently the rules state that when generating a character above first level, you get three magic items.

So we go from a party with 2 magic items to a party with (2 + 3x4) = 14 magic items. Quite the power boost! Death, it seems, has proved to be quite lucrative!

2nd level is a bit of a corner case in the rules (especially since your party hasn't finished their first adventure yet, and so has an odd distribution of treasure); note that a new 29th level character would also start with 3 magic items.

It's probably a lot less fuss to have the PCs make 2nd level characters by the standard rules and just strip some loot out of the current adventure.

 

[Jhaelen]

2nd level is a bit of a corner case in the rules (especially since your party hasn't finished their first adventure yet, and so has an odd distribution of treasure); note that a new 29th level character would also start with 3 magic items.

Yup. I'd argue the rules for npc treasure start to be accurate at about level 5. That's when the party has found an average of 16 items, i.e. the first time every party member (assuming the default party of five) will have found at least three items.

 

[Foxen]

If you're the DM, you set what you want...whether be it 3 magic items per player, or none at all. If they complain and you don't to flood them with magical gear, they get THREE (3) Healing Potions each...heh. Or if you really don't want to flood them with magical items for now, give the items a limited lifespan...like say after 3 use of teh Daily power, the item goes dead etc. At the end of the day, the DM is the arbiter of the game, and if the party is doing fine without the magic items, and you think the magic items will unbalance the group, do as you wish...for you are the DM and have powers greater than whatever the books state!

Fox