Burial Rights for Adventurers

[DragonLancer]

My players do tend to take the belongings of a deceased character for the simple reason that why waste it all by burying/burning/whatever it with the body. This stuff could be handy and possibly save their lives. If nothing else they can reclaim the gold for it and put it to something else they need.

 

[Wippit Guud]

BBEG shows up an hour later, as he had been scrying the party, digs up the corpse, takes all the magical stuff, and then just to be sadistic, animates the body and sends it after the PCs.

Everybody wins

 

[hong]

That's a really silly offer to make if you don't trust your players - there's not really much to stop them from taking B and deciding that the 'new guy' doesn't get diddly, making him decidedly ineffective.

That Wizardry CRPG was 15 years ago, d00d.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

As a player, if it's a 'good' campign, I really dislike corspe looting... It makes me feel distinctly cheap and unheroic. I'd far rather bury the stuff with the owner.

If one of my good friends died, my first thought wouldn't be to pinch their wallet and shoes?

Still, it's difficult...

As a DM, I'm about to start a new campaign and I'm looking at ways to make special powers more a function of a character rather than their equipment. Not as easy to get right as I hoped it might be

 

[Wippit Guud]

If one of my good friends died, my first thought wouldn't be to pinch their wallet and shoes?

Well, if you were in the army, and one of your teammates died, would you bury him with all his stuff, or divy up the ammo/gear among the rest of the people first?

 

[DragonLancer]

If one of my good friends died, my first thought wouldn't be to pinch their wallet and shoes?

Your typical man in the street wouldn't I agree, but adventurers are a different breed and they spend their days in situations that regular commoners would never dream of getting into. They need the equipment their deceased companion was carrying.

 

[Gnimish88]

I gave my group a choice:

either

a) they roleplay so that the dead PCs belongings are buried / given away / get rid off and new PCs come into play with equipment per DMG (appropriate gold for the characters level)

or

b) they can take the dead PCs stuff, and new PCs come into play with equipment per PHB (only 1st level starting gold)

They chose a)

I made this so that the partys net worth wouldn't increase as PCs die. Very handy in lethal games.

Hmmm.....
If the game is lethal enough that the extra equipment is not slowing the rate of party death, then I would say that is isn't causing any balance problems.

As far as having the player start of with no equipment, why add insult to injury? Do you want them to be useless?

 

[nsruf]

Page 2 and no one has done it, oh well...

[spelling nazi mode] You meant burial rites, didn't you?[/spelling nazi mode]

When I read the thread title I thought it would be about who in the party gets to bury the dead guy. Something about clerics of different religions maybe.

Although, reading a dead guy his last rights could be funny, too: "You have the right to remain silent..."

 

[Bagpuss]

Although we don't normally bury all the PC's equipment with them it is common in our games to bury them with their weapons and armour. We have burried a +3 Flameblade before now, together with magical fullplate and shield.

After all if we didn't do that what would our future characters have to loot from people's tombs.

 

[Wippit Guud]

[spelling nazi mode] You meant burial rites, didn't you?[/spelling nazi mode]

Actually, I thought the discussion was about the 'rights' of other players to loot the dead guy blind. We weren't talking about prayers and ceremonies, after all.

No soup for you!