How're we supposed to divvy the loot?

[gizmo33]

If the DM is doing his job then the items will be of a type and use spread over the players more-or-less equally.

The DM's job is to hand out magic items to players? I hope the 4E DMG makes that clear. I thought the idea of getting away from the "Christmas tree" effect was that this balance sort of thing wasn't as crucial.

If a good DM needs to hand out treasure without any regard for the setting, then why not do away with the pretense of creatures having stuff? Creatures possessing things is a simulationist concept anyway. The DM could instead just award some kind of "stuff points", like experience points. The awards would be equal across PCs and they could be used by PCs to make their things increase spontaneously in magical power when enough points are accumulated.

 

[Scribble]

Through the ancient tried and true democratic process known as: DIBS!

Failing that, you can always fall back on the next favorite... I got the pistols.. so I keep the pesos.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Another possibility is based on the Item level system as it appears in the MIC:

A level X item is worth about as much as 2 item X-2s.

Also +X bonus items could be a single X item but be purchased as several different items. In the MIC, a +3 longsword is a level 12 item, but can be treated as a level 9 item combined with a level 8 or a level 7 and a level 4.

 

[Engilbrand]

For the record, I actually like gizmo33's idea. Not in exactly that way of course, but as a concept. I think that's actually what the Disenchant and Enchant Rituals are going to do. "Residuum" will be those "stuff points". And I'm fine with that.

 

[keterys]

One of my games they actually get a certain number of life points at the start of each adventure that they can use to prevent people from dying, and at the end of the adventure the remaining ones turn into treasure points they can use to augment special loot (like the dwarf's ancestral armor, wizard's staff, etc)

That said, I do think the article touches well on why a DM should hand out treasure.

 

[baberg]

The DM's job is to hand out magic items to players? I hope the 4E DMG makes that clear. I thought the idea of getting away from the "Christmas tree" effect was that this balance sort of thing wasn't as crucial.

If a good DM needs to hand out treasure without any regard for the setting, then why not do away with the pretense of creatures having stuff? Creatures possessing things is a simulationist concept anyway. The DM could instead just award some kind of "stuff points", like experience points. The awards would be equal across PCs and they could be used by PCs to make their things increase spontaneously in magical power when enough points are accumulated.

You missed my point.

My point is that all magical items in the campaign are inserted by the DM or created by the PCs (using wealth inserted by the DM). It's the DM's responsibility to make sure the encounters are of an appropriate level for the PCs. To that end it behooves the DM to ensure that all PCs are kept on a roughly equal power level which means introducing items into the game world that bring all the PCs up relatively the same.

 

[MisterWhodat]

I have played with the same group for a long time now and I can say that the only time we ever had a problem with splitting treasure was when we tried to be diplomatic about it. We now roll for an order and take what we want, no one picks an item they can't use just because it may be worth more, although that was exactly what was happening the other way.

Anyway the OP just seems to be making it much more of it than it is...

 

[DM_Blake]

DKP or /roll for need

Yep, that's how it's done in most MMOs, no reason to make this one any different just because we use a battlemat instead of a computer monitor.

 

[Xyl]

If you really want to divide the loot fairly, it's simple:

Divide the gold evenly.
Auction the magic items among the players. Set a reserve price of 20% of book.
Divide the auction proceeds evenly.

 

[gizmo33]

My point is that all magical items in the campaign are inserted by the DM or created by the PCs (using wealth inserted by the DM). It's the DM's responsibility to make sure the encounters are of an appropriate level for the PCs. To that end it behooves the DM to ensure that all PCs are kept on a roughly equal power level which means introducing items into the game world that bring all the PCs up relatively the same.

Maybe I did miss your point, but I thought I addressed it. The whole idea of "the DM's responsibility to make sure encounters are of appropriate level" was never explicitly stated in 3E, and I have yet to see such a quote in 4E. Some people take the EL guidelines as some sort of mandate about design, but I see no evidence for or against that. In fact the 3E DMG describes the range of ELs that will kill the PCs, evidence that such a thing is possible.

Granted, many folks go on at length about how "anti-simulationist" 4E is. Taking their word for it, what I was suggesting is that the whole idea of creatures having stuff is simulationist itself, and leads to these problems.

So taking your position on it, and assuming that it behooves the DM to hand out evenly balanced treasure awards to the party members, why not use a system that facilitates that? Why continue to adhere to a design philosophy that was crafted in the days of simulationist thinking, where the treasure awards were often times determined before the party composition was even known? And where the advice (as in the 1E DMG) for treasure was based on modeling a plausible fantasy world?

If one of my PCs is specialized in a saw-toothed glaive, another is a trapeeze artist, and another a master of ooze-based magics, then I'd sure have a lot of work to do on the fly to customize treasure awards. If you can't deal with the obvious and inherent inequalities that arise from a quasi-realistic/simulationist treasure awarding scheme, and AFAICT some folks can't, then why not use something else? I wouldn't think a point system would be significantly different from a system where the players know that the DM is arbitrarily stocking the vaults anyway.