Looting bodies. Eww.

[alsih2o]

I know people do it, but I run a game where the players don't. I imagine I'm the exception to the rule in that regard.

So, when soemone attacks your party with a really cool weapon, they just leave it with the body?

If they were out o equipment, and felled a bad guy, they leave his weapons and armor?

None of your bad guys have their treasure on their person, ever?

They don't take arrows from fallen archers? My archers would have been out of arrows 2 levels ago if the didn't loot the dead.

what about items they are searching for, they enevr check the body to see if it is in the backpack, moneybelt, pouch, or sack the bad guys are carrying? Or do your bad guys always carry nothing?

 

[Henry]

Looting bodies was around at least by 1977 or so - The G1 Steading of the Hill giant Chief thoroughly encouraged looting the bodies of the dead. (I say '77 because this was a tournament module before it was printed.) And the Drow in the D1-D2 series necessitated looting - you run into a 2nd level guy wielding a +1 sword, +1 armor, and a +1 shield and you are NOT going to loot him?

Seriously, it's been a practice since man first fought another man he didn't like, and took his stuff. The first "junk-kicking and wallet-taking" was probably over food, or a choice animal hide.

 

[alsih2o]

DMG page 51: Under monsters with treasure it specifically states that treasure is frequently found on the monsters.

DMG page 55: The gear that npcs carry serves as th bulk of their treasure. and more

So, it deos appear that looting the bodies is part of the game, even by the stadards of "Is it in the book?"

 

[Chimera]

Look folks... If you're going to create dead bodies, you'd better find the stomach to take their stuff. Don't go all wimpy on me just because they got dead when you are the one who made them that way!

 

[alsih2o]

DMG page 42:
specific examples of using a dead PC's loot for a new PC.

 

[Quasqueton]

American Frontier Battles and Looting

I remember seeing Last of the Mohicans in the theater with my then gaming group. When Nathanial, Uncas, and Chingachgook starting looting the bodies of the dead mohawks after that first fight, one of my game-friends leaned over and said, "Yep, they're real adventurers."

The American Indians of the 19th century always looted fallen enemies. They often also mutilated the dead bodies (to cripple them in the afterlife). Not to mention the practice of scalping. It was not uncommon to see indians wearing blue US Army coats, hats, boots, etc. Most of their firearms and ammunition came from the dead hands of their enemies.

Quasqueton

 

[Wolf72]

Amulet of Disinfection

Bye
Thanee

with the command word Lysol

 

[Wolf72]

As an aside, just imagine what a typical party of mid-level adventurers looks and smells like when they troop back into town at the end of a day in a dungeon: burnt, smelling of blood and ozone, with ripped up clothes covered in blood and weird dungeon substances... smelling of death, sweat and undeath... ugh! >holds nose<

imagine???? This can't be to far off;

how about a week on FTX, no shower, SoCarolina Heat and Humidty in August (odd how cold it felt at night though), marching, digging, more marching, filling in the holes you just dug ...etc. I tell ya, I went to the latrine and came out thinking "what is that smell?" ... I realized it was me. ewwww. Sometimes I miss the army, but it's only temporary lapse of sanity.

 

[Felix]

just imagine what a typical party of mid-level adventurers looks and smells like when they troop back into town at the end of a day in a dungeon

They probably smell something like the commoners that have been sweating in the sun, working with cow-dung fertilizer for the past 20 years without a bath except the occasional jump in the river, eh?

One of my favorite bits from Conan the Barbarian:

Does it always smell like this? How does the wind ever get in here?

Civilization probably smells a whole lot worse than uncivilized places, after all.

 

[Sejs]

Look folks... If you're going to create dead bodies, you'd better find the stomach to take their stuff. Don't go all wimpy on me just because they got dead when you are the one who made them that way!

Exactly. What, you're telling me that you've got the stones to cave in a man's skull, open up his belly and spill his innards, splash his blood all over the place, but once he's finally dead you can't bear to touch him because it's too icky? C'mon now.

I can see not looting the dead because of religeous observances, or because you think such actions are below your station, but not looting the dead because you're too squeamish - that just doesn't make sense to me.