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

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think the "verisimilitude" argument on issues like this is based on false premises.

Those arguments assume that what PCs see is a fair random sampling of the world they inhabit - that any given forest is teeming with goblin raiders, that any given cave has a dragon sleeping in it, et cetera. But 4e makes it very clear that the PCs are NOT "average" in any way. They are heroes, protagonists, favored by fate and the gods.

As such, they tend to run up against exceptional circumstances. They may feel like they're surrounded by powerful magic, high-level NPCs and powerful monsters, but that's because they're movers and shakers themselves, and because they've just got that kind of luck.


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ANYWAY, if all that doesn't convince you, here's a pragmatic "simulationist" explanation: there are fairly simple enchanting and disenchanting rituals in 4e, and it makes sense that anyone with access to those rituals would use them to get rid of low-level items they don't need so they can save up residuum for powerful stuff. So most characters, PC and NPC alike, would end up with a lot of items at or above their own level, and few items far below their level.

 

[Danzauker]

Good point.

I remember at one time I'd roll randomly several times until I got something that 'felt right'. 3e with its 'expected treasure levels' worked against that somewhat, as random rolling could provide something way above the expected treasure level.

Eventually I decided that it worked better for me to just decide what was available - although I completely appreciate your choice, and that random 'spark' of inspiration is a good thing.

Cheers

I used to do this sometimes in 3e too.

I got a little app that after putting in appropriate values would generate treasure.

I used to run it 10 times and then pick up the treasure I liked most, after maybe some tweaking.

The point here is that I needed some darn app to do it, because no way I would throw dice for hours bevore coming up with a random treasure that maked sense!!

 

[bardolph]

When reading the parcel system, it felt like reading "secrets of the pros".

The parcel system tells you exactly how much treasure is "appropriate" for the party level, then relies on DM judgment to place it appropriately in their adventures. This will beat the "Treasure Type X" system any day of the week, and twice on Saturdays.

 

[Wormwood]

The DMG explicitly states that with published adventures you ought to sub in an equivalent level item appropriate for the party.

Exactly.

Thanks to the wish lists I got from my players, not a single item in KotS is 'vendor trash'.

 

[Hellzon]

Iron rind of the Dwarf Lords

Aah, legendary dwarven cooking.

I loved the parcel system the moment I saw the relevant preview.

 

[Psychic Robot]

Verisimilitude is over-rated. I always thought it was kind of funny that you could get gil from a wolf in Final Fantasy, but there has to be some level of abstraction. If you're just giving out trash items as a reward with the expectation players are going to sell them, what's the point?

I kind of think verisimilitude is used as a cover by GMs who want to be jerks. "Oh, you beat Orcus, he has 5 magic items... *roll roll roll* Oh, looks like you lucked out and got a +1 longsword, a tanglefoot bag, and a potion of cure light wounds."

The junk that adds so much wonderful flavor to the simulation just annoys players. The way parcels are decided now is like saying "Hey... give your players what they want, don't be a jerk, and take off the cape."

I can't help but respond to this once again since my previous response garnered a warning:

This is an idiotic strawman argument that needs to die in a fire. All it does is serve to obscure the true nature of verisimilitude, which would be "you get everything Orcus is carrying, including a bunch of loot that he was keeping back in his lair." It adds nothing--nothing!--to this thread, and it paints the people who like an organic loot system as jerks. This is, of course, no better than painting anyone who likes an inorganic loot system to be an uncreative dullard, but I can't help but imagine that my response--which was designed to demonstrate the nature of CountPopeula's strawman--was somehow less well-received than his own.

The reason I like the 3e treasure system is because it makes sense for players to pick up the loot that monsters drop. There's no reason a monster wielding a +5 longsword of doom should not actually drop that but instead give a +4 rod of pew-pewing.

 

[Vael]

The parcel system is so wonderful I'd leave my partner for it ... if I weren't already single. It's simple, efficient and allows me to react to the party's needs. I had an encounter turn more difficult than I had anticipated, so I added some treasure to the encounter that included some healing potions to allow them to press on. It's incredibly easy, I drew up the list of treasure parcels while one player was busy finishing up his character sheet.

The main thing is learning to pace yourself ... my PCs haven't yet reached the halfway point to leveling up ... yet I've given out more than half the treasure. Oh well, I've saved some of the good stuff still.

The savings in time and ease of use, to me (a very inexperienced DM), trump any other considerations.

 

[eleran]

I can't help but respond to this once again since my previous response garnered a warning:

This is an idiotic strawman argument that needs to die in a fire. All it does is serve to obscure the true nature of verisimilitude, which would be "you get everything Orcus is carrying, including a bunch of loot that he was keeping back in his lair." It adds nothing--nothing!--to this thread, and it paints the people who like an organic loot system as jerks. This is, of course, no better than painting anyone who likes an inorganic loot system to be an uncreative dullard, but I can't help but imagine that my response--which was designed to demonstrate the nature of CountPopeula's strawman--was somehow less well-received than his own.

The reason I like the 3e treasure system is because it makes sense for players to pick up the loot that monsters drop. There's no reason a monster wielding a +5 longsword of doom should not actually drop that but instead give a +4 rod of pew-pewing.

I'm quite certain you are going to paint me as a dullard for asking this but how does the parcel system keep the PCs from picking up whatever the monster was carrying and had stowed away back in his lair?

 

[Obryn]

The reason I like the 3e treasure system is because it makes sense for players to pick up the loot that monsters drop. There's no reason a monster wielding a +5 longsword of doom should not actually drop that but instead give a +4 rod of pew-pewing.

I'm scratching my head at this one.

If the bad guy is carrying a +5 longsword of doom, you can pull his +5 longsword of doom off his corpse. Or steal it from him while sleeping. Or whatever.

The key philosophy in either 3e or 4e here is that you include that +5 longsword of doom in with the expected treasure when planning the adventure.

-O

 

[vazanar]

Is this thread about looting rocks and metals as opposed to wood and fiber, or is the title just misleading?

Fully misleading. However, to be fair popular culture and food marketers have redefined what organic and inorganic mean. While teaching chemistry, it can be quite annoying.