Item-swapping: what to do about it?

[elrobey]

My playing group has a longstanding habit of pooling resources. This is perhaps altruistic, but it's not realistic.

Whenever there is a task to be accomplished by only one or two members of the party, those who are not participating in the task load up those who are participating with every useful magic item that seems relevant. For example, if the rogue is going to go forward and investigate a potentially locked and trapped door, the wizard loans him his ring of resistance, the ranger loans him this, the fighter loans him that ...

It's not a huge unbalancing problem, but it just strikes me as aesthetically bad. What can be done about it?

You can raise the transaction costs by saying that a magic item needs time (hours? days?) to bond with its user before it begins to function, but that's not very satisfying either.

 

[GlassJaw]

Why isn't it realistic? Seems perfectly valid to me. If you are in a group with people you trust, why wouldn't you equip each other so you have the best chance of survival as a group?

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Yeah, I'm also failing to see the problem here.

Of course, they're putting all their eggs in one basket, but that's not as risky when the eggs are helping to defend the basket.

 

[Henry]

I don't see anything wrong with it, and my reasoning goes something like this:

When dealing with people who are depending on one another in a life or death situation, you'd better believe I'm gonna help out my buddies in any way possible. If I'm in a foxhole, and my squad partner is out of ammunition, I am DEFINITELY going to lend him some of mine, EVEN if this means that my supply is limited. Two people firing to save both your lives are better than one. By the same token, if one person's victory means I get what I want, then I support them in any way possible. If the Rogue gets past the trap door, then great! I get a share of whatever he finds.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

Seems valid to me, too. I mean if I were in a group of adventurers or on a real life journey somewhere (involving danger), I would have no problems loading my friends up with whatever necessary to help him (and the rest of us) meet some difficult challenge. Someone goes up to what looks like it could be a trap, I would give my friend the bullet proof vest, my other friend would give him a hard hat, and someone else would likely give them a flashlight.

 

[Piratecat]

I think it's fine too, so long as they pay attention to stacking rules. Heck, many groups would love to get this degree of teamwork. If you really want to subtly discourage them, have the one guy with all the items get swallowed whole by a monster. That'll scare them!

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Yeah, this is just good play. I'm not sure what the problem is here other than the added workload for the GM. You just have to plan around what they are doing.

For example, in the trapped door situation: The wizard loans him his precious ring of fire resistance 20, the fighter his boots of striding and springing, and the ranger his cloak of resistance +5. This indeed makes a tough rogue and the door opens with a huge bang and the rogue comes out unscathed. However, the pit with the nessian hounds opens behind the party as part of the trap and they rush up and start breathing fire on the wizard and ranger who have just passed away some of their protections against the breath weapons and the fighter can't get back behind them because he doesn't have his boots that will let him tumble through combat without taking a beating and getting knocked prone.

Now this is a bit of an extreme example, but here's some general guidelines.
1.) Make all encounters party encounters. Don't let a single person have the option of becoming invincible without the rest of the party suffering for giving up their magic. As per the encounter above, the trap involved the entire party instead of just the rogue.
2.) Break out of your predictable mannerisms. It would seem that you are becoming prone to presenting situations where the party knows how to load somebody up to bear against them. Alternate your elemental damage on spells and traps, attack from a direction they aren't expecting, even throw a random non-combat encounters into the mix where combat would be a BAD thing (a polymorphed astral deva belittling the PCs to test their humility, or a LN nation employing hobgoblins as mercenaries and have the party come up on the hobgoblins attacking an attractive human [who is a reknowned theif and has been resisting arrest]).
3.) Keep an inventory of all of their gear and when you are sitting down and designing next weeks adventure guess at what they might do in a given situation and if it isn't a challenge as you consider their options then scrap or change the encounter.
4.) Create a nemesis for the party. Nemisi (???) usually know exactly how to defeat the party so you can design encounters with him or his minions that will exploit the party's weaknesses, and you'll have solid IC backup by noting that this nemisis has been researching them.

Just some thoughts that I hope are helpful, but one final thing to remember is that they are having fun solving your puzzles and while it is annoying, I'm sure that if you were constantly designing things to specifically thwart them they would feel equally annoyed so remember...all things in moderation. Let them have their victories from time to time, but use the suggestions above to put them in their place if they get too cocky.

 

[Jonny Nexus]

Why isn't it realistic? Seems perfectly valid to me. If you are in a group with people you trust, why wouldn't you equip each other so you have the best chance of survival as a group?

Well that's fine for mundane items, but I have to say that to me it doesn't feel right when you're talking about magic items which - traditionally, in legend and story - were usually associated with a single person.

I mean Excalibur was very much Arthur's sword, for example. It wasn't left hanging in a rack beside Camelot's front door for the use of whichever knight of the round table happened to be going out that day!

 

[Piratecat]

One other thing you can do is to give out magic items that only work for certain classes, races or people. If a sword is bonded to a person, it's less likely they'll lend it.

 

[Rel]

Well that's fine for mundane items, but I have to say that to me it doesn't feel right when you're talking about magic items which - traditionally, in legend and story - were usually associated with a single person.

I mean Excalibur was very much Arthur's sword, for example. It wasn't left hanging in a rack beside Camelot's front door for the use of whichever knight of the round table happened to be going out that day!

Yes, but "legend and story" differ substantially than the baseline world of D&D presented in the Core Rules books. Magic items are much more common than in many fantasy novels and certainly moreso than in most of our legends and mythology.

That commonality would, in general, tend to make people view such items more as "tools" than "legendary artifacts".