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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 4132698" data-attributes="member: 57267">I will tell you why not:Simply put, this doesn't need a rule.This will vary from campaign to campaign, from gaming table to gaming table, from adventuring group to adventuring group, even from one item to another item of the dead guy's gear.There is an entire sub-plottish world to explore. Some groups won't want to explore this. Other groups will enjoy the rich possibility of alignment issues, legal issues, NPC greed issues, and other story elements that can arise from this kind of thing.Putting a single, heavy-handed rule in the DMG that mandates handling this in one certain way, regardless of what way is chosen by the DMG's writers, means that all the other gaming groups out there who would have enjoyed handling it differently are left out in the cold, or forced to house rule against the written word.No, what this needs, instead of a rule, is some discussion in the DMG about character death, a few paragraphs that explore the possibilities, the ramifications, and the possible game-breakage of overpowering the survivors and how a DM can cope with that. This should all be laid out in a format of "if you do this, then these things might be problems that you can handle by doing these things. If you do this other thing, then these other things might be problems that you can handle by doing these other things."There might even be a paragraph like "We suggest handling it this way, because that seems to work best within the framework of other rules and guidelines of the D&D system as published, but it is still up to you, the DM, to determine what works best for you and your players."That's how it should be handled in the DMG.This way DMs can decide how to handle it, and the major pros and cons of their decision will be known in advance so later in the game they won't be surprised by consequences of the decision they made.</blockquote>

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