How do you handle Dead Players Equipment

[S'mon]

Do you all start new characters as fully equipped? I typically have new chars. start at a lower wealth level than their level would indicate. The overall party wealth will still go up, of course, but not dramatically. And slowing the accumulation of magic items for a few sessions usually bring everything back to normal.

Cullain

This seems to me like the most sensible approach. Maybe start the replacement PC with wealth from the NPC table (if lower) instead of the PC table - given 3e's concern with balance I can't understand why the two are different, anyway. The whole point of the CR system is that a 4th level NPC is supposed to equal a 4th level PC.

 

[Kichwas]

How do you handle the situation of a dead characters equipment?

This is a player concern more than a DM one.

Selise; my current character, is one to bury their goods with them but take back and redistribute things that were owned by the party pool.

Party pool is any treasure we find that could have a use towards bettering the group's goals.

Selise brow beats down anyone who wants to start claiming personal items before the threat is removed.


If the PC loot their dead there are things to consider:

From a player point of view your character really should start reconsidering if he sees the 'last wishes' of his friends being violated.

It's a darn good excuse to break up a party.


From a DM point of view you can consider that much of what a character owns will have markings on it of some sort.

Clothing and weapons might have a house insignia or livery depending on social class.

Magic items will almost certainly have identifying marks.

People might recognize these things and wonder why someone who doesn't have a right to them is walking around with them.

This can lead to trouble for the PCs.

In fact it's a great thing to consider for any magic items they might happen to find...


A group of adventurers would do best to negotiate an arangement for this ---before--- they go to the dungeon. People should draft up something like a will. Then if the bodies get looted the other players will have some framework to decided if that was wrong and if so what they feel about it.

 

[AstroGnome]

We had the same problem a couple of weeks ago, when two characters (including mine) died, and no raise dead/resurrecting was available.

We had a long and drawn out discussion about what to do with equipment bc it was _very_ good for our party level. The upshot was:

1. If the dead char owes anything, the claim holder is reimbursed.
2. Scrolls, potions and wands is distributed between the survivors
3. The survivors get to keep one thing each from the dead char as a remembrance (this to be done IC - preferable with a little speech). And there has to be consensus that the survivor has a 'right'.
4. The rest goes into the grave. The gods can guard it from there.

The final argument was from our GM who stated that if we buried it all, he would have an easier time to give us new exciting equipment. And lo! 2 sessions later we got our self a brand new Holy Avenger (too bad it was the paladin who argued for burrying us in our skivies).

/AG

 

[novyet]

Unless they were carrying something of vital importance to the story, such as a letter that we need to deliver, all the groups I've ever been in, have buried everyone with their gear intact and unlooted. It's seems pretty cold to just loot a comrade in arms after they die, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Tzarevitch]

If you really want to get rid of the dead PC's stuff, have the relatives exert their claim. Technically, the relatives are the ones with dibbs on the PCs stuff.

Of course this assumes that the relatives have any way of finding out that the PC has died.

In the Birthright campaign I play in, in the only real permanent death we suffered, the PCs goods were returned to his family. (Admittedly he was disintegrated so there weren't many goods left).

Tzarevitch

 

[Numion]

When my players started to die a lot in return to toee, I gave them a choise:

Either a) They lose the deceased PCs equipment and new PCs come into play with standard eq.

b) They keep the dead PCs stuff, and new PCs come into play with 100gp.

They chose a. Unrealistic, yes, but it sucks to play a high level pc with no equipment

 

[jujutsunerd]

So let's say a character dies, and for one reason or another, he isn't raised or ressurected or reincarnated or anything like that. But the party still has all his equipment.
[SNIP]
How do you handle the situation of a dead characters equipment?

Haven't had any permanent deaths till just recently, and in that case it so happened (quite accidentally) that there was no way the other characters could get at his stuff. (It was left in a rapidly crumbling tower on the other end of a now-closed gate to a universe that was being wiped out. Long story. ;-)

But one of the players brought it up and we talked it over, and came to the conclusion that it was best for the game if there was less item bloat, so we decided that all the equipment of dead pcs would not be accessible to the remaining characters (barring quest-items and such.) The actual means of disposal of the goods will probably vary by the situation, maybe it gets sent to the character's family, maybe it was destroyed by whatever permanently killed the character, maybe the tooth-fairy took it during the night.

/Jonas

 

[EOL]

If you really want to get rid of the dead PC's stuff, have the relatives exert their claim. Technically, the relatives are the ones with dibbs on the PCs stuff.

Of course this assumes that the relatives have any way of finding out that the PC has died.

In the Birthright campaign I play in, in the only real permanent death we suffered, the PCs goods were returned to his family. (Admittedly he was disintegrated so there weren't many goods left).

Tzarevitch

Yeah that's what I generally do, but as I mentioned at the top of the thread in my current campaign that's really not an option.

I also like the idea of burying the body. I can even imagine sort of an adventurer code of ethics. Since so much of the average adventurers wealth comes from looting tombs perhaps all adventures have a code that when one of them dies they give "something back". Like loggers planting a tree....

 

[Squire James]

I roll item saving throws when a character is killed permanently (normally the character just got hit by some massive effect that could logically destroy items). Since the items are unattended objects, normally half to 3/4 of the gear gets destroyed. If a Bag of Holding or Portable Hole gets it, so does everything inside (cloth generally has poor fire saves ). This usually holds down the looting possibilities to an acceptable level.

I plan on running an adventure in Asgard someday, where dead former PC's will castigate the current PC's about their lack of equipment in the afterlife (apparently they wake up every morning with the stuff they were buried with, nothing else, and are expected to fight)... maybe that will change their dead-looting habits a bit in the future. Then again, maybe not!