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

[Celtavian]

re

I picked magic items for my monsters and NPCs. I picked items that were useful to my PCs. So I'm fine with this change. I never liked giving useless loot.

There was always plenty of extra substandard loot off the regular minions to sell. Not sure if that is still there, but if the party gets outfitted in appropriate items for their level, it shouldn't matter.

 

[Plane Sailing]

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?

I wonder whether he is thinking of the related issue about some monsters having 'assumed magic tridents' or whatever, and not to use the magic items in their loot.

I remember a lot of discussion about that a while ago as a result of one of the previews, but nothing much since then.

I wouldn't have thought it was really part of this discussion though.

Cheers

 

[Psychic Robot]

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?

Because all Demon Scythe monsters don't actually drop Demon Scythes when they die. They drop treasure parcels.

I wonder whether he is thinking of the related issue about some monsters having 'assumed magic tridents' or whatever, and not to use the magic items in their loot.

Correct.

 

[Obryn]

Because all Demon Scythe monsters don't actually drop Demon Scythes when they die. They drop treasure parcels.

...or they drop treasure parcels containing Demon Scythes.

-O

 

[Hellzon]

Because all Demon Scythe monsters don't actually drop Demon Scythes when they die. They drop treasure parcels.

They can drop schythes (and armor) just fine. It just isn't a Flaming Scythe +1, but rather a nonmagical steel scythe which might be nice to look at, but far too clunky to haul back from the Abyss for the 1 gp it sells for in Fallcrest.

Or it's actual Flameburst Scythes +1 that the DM included in the adventure treasure at 136 gp each because they are toting +3 weapons already and will just sell the scythes. Either works.

 

[Jack99]

I prefer looting hugs n smiles from the ladies.

There should be a system for that.

There is, it's called buying them drinks

 

[Psychic Robot]

They can drop schythes (and armor) just fine. It just isn't a Flaming Scythe +1, but rather a nonmagical steel scythe which might be nice to look at, but far too clunky to haul back from the Abyss for the 1 gp it sells for in Fallcrest.

Or it's actual Flameburst Scythes +1 that the DM included in the adventure treasure at 136 gp each because they are toting +3 weapons already and will just sell the scythes. Either works.

But the monsters themselves are carrying magical power scythes (according to the idea behind magic threshold). The players are just supposed to ignore these and get their treasure parcels, though.

 

[billd91]

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."

Whether versimilitude is overrated or not, I do think the parcel system does put a ding in it. That's because the treasure a monster has is not based on what the monster should reasonably have given its power and location, but on the level and make-up of the party that rousts it from its lair. It's like monsters are all issued Schrodinger's Treasure in which its actual contents are not determinable until someone actually wins it.

That said, I do like the parcel idea when it comes to designing treasure hoards. And whenever I have time, I'll work on an adaptation of it for 3.5.

 

[IanB]

But the monsters themselves are carrying magical power scythes (according to the idea behind magic threshold). The players are just supposed to ignore these and get their treasure parcels, though.

The magic threshold system is just intended to keep the numbers working balance-wise. It doesn't say anything about their items being magic. The same magic threshold system would apply when adding a magic weapon to something that usually fights unarmed - that doesn't mean that the githzerai cenobite has +2 magic fingers.

 

[eleran]

Because all Demon Scythe monsters don't actually drop Demon Scythes when they die. They drop treasure parcels.

Correct.

Well, at the risk of flaming, they dont really "drop" anything. Your breaking my verisimilitude by using MMO terms.

But I see your confusion now and I will try to give you an example from my own campaign.

I have an adventure path, for lack of a better term, laid out to get the PCs from 1st level to 3rd. As I was writing it I purposefully left out treasure because I wanted to use parcels but wanted to incorporate them into the path in a way that suited my story and my campaign.

So, with the first half written, with an XP budget that takes the group to just past 2nd level, I started puttign together treasure parcels and doling them out to the monsters and other areas within the part of the adventure I had written.

Based on the parcel tables and the suggestions in the DMG (which I do not have here at work) I had 6 items to place, + 2 healing pots + an amount of coinage.

I assembled that into one list of treasure and started placing treasure around the adventure. I did not necessarily keep items and coins from parcels together, I split, and combined and moved and removed to suit my tastes, but the total treasure haul when combined was my list generated by the parcel system.

One item was in a secret compartment the PCs did not find. So, I simply moved that item (since it was a weapon which would figure into their expected items of certain slots) into the next section of the adventure and added it to the treasure list I generated for the 2nd half. so that by the time they were 3rd level they will have the expected amount of treasure for their level. Or at least pretty close +/-, which is as far as I care to calculate.

One of the items was a suti of armor. I put this on a monster in one of the encoutners. Using the chart the monster did not derive any bonuses to his AC for the item, but he certainly got to use the encounter power the armor allowed and this made the PCs aware his armor was "special". And now the party Rogue wears the armor and is quite happy with it.