Item-swapping: what to do about it?

[Henry]

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!

AHHHH! CUT THEM OUT! CUT THEM OUT!

err, I mean CUT HIM OUT! CUT HIM OUT!

 

[Trainz]

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!

Obviously not. Also like the One Ring.

But, in D&D, magic items are numerous. They don't have the same symbolic value. Or uniqueness.

Take Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Han used it to open the tauntaun. And I think we can agree that Luke lighsaber is close to unique in that particular moment in the SW timeline. And in the books, I can remember quite a few times when a lightsaber was passed around to the most efficient use.

Notice how I conveniently don't mention Anakin's dual weilding in AotC with Ben's saber and his own... the first two movies don't feel quite canon to me...

 

[elrobey]

Jonny Nexus has it right -- I agree it's not an issue in a magic-rich world, where items are just gear, but in a magic-poor world, where each item is unique, it's an issue.

Began Aragorn, "You'll have my sword."

Gimli stepped forward: "And my axe."

Added Legolas: "And my bow."

Frodo looked at the pile of weapons. "This isn't what I had in mind!" he said, but they just kept on walking.

 

[Vlos]

I don't see this as a problem per say, we do it in our campaign, but usually on a adventure basis. For example who gets this very nice ring this adventure.As a GM that you can fix this or limit it.

First as stated, put items out only usable by certain classes/races. Also some items take a time to attune themselves before they can be used. This could be extended with a house rule that all items require to "bond" with their owners for a period of an hour or day or even week/month. That would be changing the rules and thus maybe not as desireable. Another thought is to start having encounters such that when they would tend to loan items the other party members would need them.

For example when the thief goes in to disarm the trap, it actually sets off a trap where the players are, or a group of monsters attacks. Or a smart wizard who owns the dungeon they are in, watches them do this a time or two then attacks when it happens. I wouldn't do that all the time, but enough that they start to think about it more.

Also talk to your players. Even though there is nothing stoping them from swapping items, if it was a special item given to a player from someone important, let them know that they may feel somewhat awkward handing it out. Just like a cleric wouldn't hand out his holy symbol or a wizard his spell book. The ring was given to the player by his dying father, etc.

 

[dinsdale]

I don't think that its a real problem, as long as the things are reasonably easy to swap. Just make sure you enforce time requirements if they swap armor, etc. And on rare occasions, let them get burned by having a wandering encounter show up.

Swapping rings only takes seconds, so it is just using good tactics. Switching undergarments of girth would probably take too long and they run the risk of being caught by a wandering monster with their pants down.

(as a side note, in a LARP I used to play, I would almost always take off my beltpouches, tabard, and chain mail shirt before I would disarm traps. Since it wasted less than a minute, it just made sense.)

 

[DarkMaster]

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.
.

Extreme ??? Yes Extreme Meta-gaming

Why shouldn't the rogue shine sometimes. Just the fact that there might be a creature on the other side should be enough. Because once they open the door and the monster saw them there is very little time to exchange the object. Also when preparing the adventure a good DM should adjust the encounters to reflect this reality.

 

[The_Warlock]

Likewise, I see no problem with the pooling of resources. It makes sense given the nature of how most D&D has presented magic items (as opposed to Artifacts and Relics), and the nature of an adventuring party that doesn't have a mean or greedy streak. In one of the runs I am in, any magic item the party finds is considered party treasure, and such treasure is routinely redistributed to the various characters to whom it would provide the greatest benefit whenever new items are found and identified. On the fly, those items that don't need "attunement" time, are handed off to a person or persons who will have to face a challenge we have time to prepare for and that only some have the skills to face. That said, on the fly switching doesn't happen often with that group, since we a regularly "re-optimized" if you will. In that particular group, any magic you meet the group with always remains yours, unless you wish to donate it, but we often share personal items that have little sentimental value on an as needed basis, and when a character leaves, he/she receives a pick of party items to most appropriately outfit themselves for their life beyond the party.

Now, the suggestions made for turning the tables on pre-loading parties are definitely good. Just don't do it all the time. You players' are taking the time to think through problems and meet them effectively, rather than trying to barrel through the DM's hard work. It also doesn't sound like it is taking them a bazillion years to figure out the best pre-load/strategy.

 

[Planesdragon]

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

Or to put it another way: "it's not keeping to genre or especially in-character."

IMC I've got a solution to this and i've never even had the problem come up. My current game is still too low-level to for the PCs to have used the solution, but I think it'll work very well.

The short form: magical items take a short while (hours - days) to "bond" to a particular charcter, and once having done so they work for that character and the character learns [most of] their effects. Another character wanting to use that item would have to adopt it, requiring a die roll and messing things up for the owner if they succeed.

 

[Kormydigar]

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.

This situation makes sense and can be realistic depending on the personalities and alignments of the group. I can easily see this type of activity as natural in a party of NG and LG characters. It would seem less plausible if the party were all CN or evil. I have in my campaigns made certain items require attunement for a period of time (such as a ring of regeneration) but not for most items.

 

[barsoomcore]

You can make it harder for your players to share items if that's the best solution for your game, or you can just let them share.

But keep in mind that loading all your magic items on one guy just means it's that much easier to lose all your magic items. Or, as someone pointed out, it's that much more likely that you won't have the magic item you need when you really need it, because you've loaned it to your buddy.

It sounds like your party has lots of time to consider every action, to take off and put on magic items before every encounter. You're being too easy on them. Press them harder, don't give them these long leisurely discussion periods where everybody goes through their gear list and determines the optimal combination of items. Make them pay for taking their time -- it takes time to take off and put on each item (in both directions), and that's time NOT spent killing the bad guys and taking THEIR stuff.