D&D 4E 4e's Inorganic Loot System: Yay or Nay?

[FadedC]

You can always give the dragon a bunch of low level items in his horde and just assume the players will sell/disenchant them. If you do that you should probably just consider them treasure and only count them as 20% of the value of the items. Your players might even find it handy to have a source of residuum in the middle of the adventure like that.

I kind of like the parcel system, but I could see it being a little wierd if you never deviate from it at all. It would get a little silly if your players know that a 3rd level item must be coming up really soon because they have already found a lvl 2,4 and 5 item as loot. So in my opinion at least it's probably better to view the parcels as guidelines instead of hard rules and shake things up a bit.

 

[jensun]

The current loot system--if I'm understanding it correctly--does not allow for high-level monsters to have things like a bag of tricks.

The current loot system doesnt require you to do anything, it simply provides a guideline for the sort of wealth that the party should be expected to have by various levels.

Diverge from it if you want. The game isnt going to fall apart.

 

[Terwox]

You can always give the dragon a bunch of low level items in his horde and just assume the players will sell/disenchant them. If you do that you should probably just consider them treasure and only count them as 20% of the value of the items. Your players might even find it handy to have a source of residuum in the middle of the adventure like that.

I kind of like the parcel system, but I could see it being a little wierd if you never deviate from it at all. It would get a little silly if your players know that a 3rd level item must be coming up really soon because they have already found a lvl 2,4 and 5 item as loot. So in my opinion at least it's probably better to view the parcels as guidelines instead of hard rules and shake things up a bit.

Dead on.

I really like the parcel system, however so far in running the game I've ignored it completely.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One of the best things about the parcel system is that it has the concept of "treasure you would expect the party to get across this level", rather than working out "treasure per encounter".

Regarding the presence of 'lower level' items - doesn't the DMG talk about swapping some monetary value things for potions or some-such? Even if it doesn't, there is no reason why a DM shouldn't either:

a) Just include some low level magic items, on the basis that it won't materially affect the balance of the high level party

or

b) convert some of the money into its equivalent amount of lower level items

I wonder how many people ever did random rolls for treasure anyway? I know I haven't for at least 20 years, and probably longer - I always assigned treasure that seemed appropriate for the creature and the context.

Cheers

 

[MeMeMeMe]

I kind of like the parcel system, but I could see it being a little wierd if you never deviate from it at all. It would get a little silly if your players know that a 3rd level item must be coming up really soon because they have already found a lvl 2,4 and 5 item as loot.

It might be silly, but what harm does it do? Knowing a 3rd level item is coming doesn't tell you what that item will be: there are a decent number of 3rd level items, and will be even more with later sourcebooks.

In any case, it may not work exactly like this.

Let's say, the GM has designed a dungeon o take the characters up a level, and so, there are various treasure parcels scattered around. However, the players miss out the room containing a 3rd level item.

Next adventure, the GM creates a new set of treasure parcels, and has to account for the fact that the players have either gone up a level or soon will. So he might not include a 3rd level item in this bunch of treasure.

 

[Danzauker]

I really like the parcel system and I also view it as a set of sound guidelines in order to keep the game balanced.

I don't think it's intended to be a "per encounter" or "per creature killed" loot system like it was in the past.

The parcels encompass all treasure the party is expected to get in the course of an adventure.

This means they could get all together after killing the BBEG, or that the coolest item is what the party's sponsor promises them as a reward for the quest, or any combination of placement the DM feels appropiate.

This is SO narrative!

That the players can influence magic item rewards, IMHO, is only good for game and roleplay. Let's remember this is not a videogame where you go buying items between levels a la Diablo. DMs and players are expected to make up roleplaying background for treasure placement. That's where the fun is!

If a player really likes a Flaming Sword of Awesome, the DM can just have him look for the Count of Someland that will give him as a reward for killing the dragon that rampages his lands. Or maybe he will set him on a quest to retrieve the ancient heirloom of his family, which incidently is such sword.

Really, i see mor epossibilities from the parcel system than hindrances. Listening to your players is always a good thing. If a paladin never gets a Holy Avenger is not verisimilitude. It's frustration.

 

[small pumpkin man]

I kind of like the parcel system, but I could see it being a little wierd if you never deviate from it at all. It would get a little silly if your players know that a 3rd level item must be coming up really soon because they have already found a lvl 2,4 and 5 item as loot. So in my opinion at least it's probably better to view the parcels as guidelines instead of hard rules and shake things up a bit.

This assumes the players are going out of the way to count the items and their levels. Or to put it another way, if the players metagame, they can see the metagame constructs of the world. If this gave them an advantage, if there was a some sort of motivation to do this, it would be bad, but there isn't, so unless players memorize magic item levels it's just not going to even come up.

This is one of the many 4e things where if you just sit there and read it, it looks metagamey, but doesn't actually intrude into play.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Seeing as how It's the DMG nd completely optional anyway, it's no big deal.

Swap cash for crappy magic items. Use the "sell value" (leave out the snipes - PS) to swap, so sane player can just sell them. If you need to swap a useful item, swap it for gold at the "buy value"

 

[Jhaelen]

Actually the parcel system is very similar to what I've been doing in my games for ages.

I'd select a couple of appropriate items and since I like random rolls, rolled for the rest. To avoid non-sensical distribution of treasure I'd add up all of the random treasure for a given adventure and redistribute it so it makes sense.

It's nice to see that my method is now sort of 'official'

 

[Danceofmasks]

On the one hand, giving the party stuff they can't use vs. stuff they can use = shafting them of 80% of the loot.
'cos you sell at 1/5.

GM's responsibility here isn't to follow the formula, it's to make sure the PCs aren't underequipped. So ... if you give them stuff they can't use, change sell rate and/or hand out more nonmagical loot.