How will the designers (or the players) deal with magic item influx due to PC death?

[RigaMortus2]

Wait.

What?

That's not 'metagamey' at all.. quite the opposite, actually, IMO.

Sorry... Let me clarify... The metagamey part is bascially the players coming to an understanding that it could be unbalancing if they continue to collect loot from their fallen allies, so they come up with some in-game reason why their characters would not keep the items, when in fact, it would be STUPID for them not too.

 

[see]

Unless they're not in the home country of the dead PC. Or the dead PC is an orphan, or simply never bothered to talk about his background with the other characters so that they don't know where to send it. Or nobody is around who cares enough to pursue the matter. Or nobody is actually keeping track of who all these dirty vagabonds are, much less their lineages. Or they all made each other mutual beneficiaries (the "gentleman adventurer" contract) in which case the property specifically DOES go to the surviving party members. Or the PCs have sufficient clout that the local authorities are unable/unwilling to try and put the screws to them. Or they're known to be busy saving the world/kingdom/etc. from a major threat, and no one could realistically interfere with that without being terminally Lawful Stupid. Or the local codes of law are more like historical codes of law, and are thus more interested in lands and incomes than with chattels.

Certainly, if the PCs are all chaotic neutral, without family attachments, and operating entirely outside of the reach of effective authority, laws and customs will have little impact on them either as the voice of conscience or in the person of NPCs. Since that situation is a problem I don't have any interest in, I won't bother offering a solution.

If the PCs are busy saving the world/kingdom/etc., you'd think, in a case that dire, all available assets would already be delegated to the effort of saving the world, and that the new PC would accordingly come into the party unequipped. If not, one has to wonder what he was doing with all that stuff last adventuring session, when the world was in peril.

And if laws are ignoring chattels with values on the order of a merchant's ship (10,000 gp for a sailing ship, 8,000 gp for a +2 sword) when it comes to inheritance, that implies some quite interesting societal features in general.

 

[Spinachcat]

Looting your buddy's still warm corpse is core D&D baby!!

30 years of gaming and this has never been a problem.

 

[RigaMortus2]

An idea, similiar to attuning might be "soulbinding" which could be less restrictive. Basically, as long as the "owner" of (or person who attunes) the magic item is living, anyone can pick up the item and use it. So if he falls unconcious in combat, his ally can pick up the item and attack with it. Or he can hand if off to an ally and they can continue to take advantage of it. Once he dies, it becomes a mundane version of that item? His soul is gone, so is the magic within the weapon.

If a BBEG gets the weapon, it will continue to be magic until the NPC dies. If the player ends up dying and you want the BBEG to continue to use the item in it's magical state, just assume he re-imbues it somehow.

Just spitballing here. I don't have the time to iron out all the details, but I hope you get the drift. So please save your "Yeah, but what ifs".

 

[iskurthi]

I can has lewt plz?

Could work. It seems kind of rude, though, that I can't pick up my fallen friend's sword and avenge his death.

More to the point, the guy who killed him can pick it up and hit you with it at full potency, but for you it's little better than an iron pipe.

 

[lukelightning]

This is why it's not always bad to allow PCs to raise dead. If it's unrealistic to allow players to bring their characters back from the dead, it's also unrealistic that somehow the universe keeps track of your party's wealth and will skimp on $ if you keep your deceased friend's goodies.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Certainly, if the PCs are all chaotic neutral, without family attachments, and operating entirely outside of the reach of effective authority, laws and customs will have little impact on them either as the voice of conscience or in the person of NPCs. Since that situation is a problem I don't have any interest in, I won't bother offering a solution.

If the PCs are busy saving the world/kingdom/etc., you'd think, in a case that dire, all available assets would already be delegated to the effort of saving the world, and that the new PC would accordingly come into the party unequipped. If not, one has to wonder what he was doing with all that stuff last adventuring session, when the world was in peril.

And if laws are ignoring chattels with values on the order of a merchant's ship (10,000 gp for a sailing ship, 8,000 gp for a +2 sword) when it comes to inheritance, that implies some quite interesting societal features in general.

Way to straw-man. Effective authority =/= interested authority. You don't have to be chaotic neutral to think you need that sword, when in fact looting the recently dead is what you do for a living. Also, characters with no apparent familial attachments are dirt-common in most campaigns. Also, these are "or" situations rather than "and" situations.

 

[kerbarian]

Or, he can speak with them rationally and let them know that in a metagame sense, they are artificially inflating their characters' power levels which means that the DM will be adjusting the difficulty of future encouters upward, and maybe adjusting treasure hoards downward until it is compensated. Or maybe he'll just do that without telling the players that's what will happen.

This seems like the best solution to me. Specifically, the version where the treasure stops rolling in until things are balanced out again. Let the party know that they can either take Fred's stuff and not get much new loot for the next level or two, or they can bury it with him, give it to his family, etc. and continue to get shiny new loot as they adventure.

It doesn't restrict the characters' actions in any way, and it preserves game balance. In fact, it turns the decision into a pure roleplaying one, rather than roleplaying + metagame, since the players know that their decision won't affect their long-term wealth. It also doesn't require any external forces to get involved ("I know you're saving the world, but I'm afraid we have to arrest you for taking Fred's magic sword").

 

[Stalker0]

I do think the fewer slots and lower dependence on magic items will help this problem. Although you do run into the situation where it increases the number of encounter magic item abilities a party has.

For example, let's say I have a +1 front greatsword, and you have a +1 fiery greataxe. If I get both, I can use the encounter power of the frost, and then switch weapons and use the encounter power of the greataxe. This gets even more apparent with daily magic item abilities. However, I don't think the abuse will be too great.

One thing 4e will do is greatly reduce the problem of npc wealth. Right now in order for npcs to challenge a party, you are supposed to give them X gold worth of stuff. Which means using npcs against a party inflates their wealth. In 4e, since npcs will rarely NEED magic items, that should be great reduced.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Maybe the loot of dead PCs can balance out metagame factors like, well, superior GM tactical acumen. If my players are poor tacticians, and I'm a good one, then I'll end up killing off lots of them. If they keep some portion of their slain compatriot's loot (barring TPKs), they'll end up being more powerful than they should be. Eventually, this will balance out their lack of metagame ability to remember to use flanking, etc.