Looting Dead Comrades

[Vigilance]

Soldiers in war take items from fallen comrades on a fairly regular basis.

Id say the Paladin's FIRST duty would be to get his living comrades home safely, then use any wealth the party had to care for any family members of his dead comrade.

 

[Sejs]

(Boards ate my first attempt at this post. Let's give it another go.)

Because culturally, there is a common law precedence that says by default, your relatives get your stuff. This is the ways things have been done for thousands of years, and it stands to reason, that if the GM hasn't defined it differently, it works the same in the game world.

So, unless you say where you want your stuff to go, your friends are stealing from your family.

Heh, the first thing that popped into my mind when you bring up "common law precedence" is Common-Law, rather than a precedence in law that is common. Which has me thinking along the lines of family law, which, thinking about it, is rather relevent.

Allow me to submit that the situation be looked at like so: Speaking generally, of course, but in divorce, assuming all things are equal and there's no need to balance finances to make up for a difference in income and so on. Assuming all things are equal, if you have something that is your sole possession from prior to the relationship and was not considdered communal property in same relationship, then when the distribution of property comes around, those things are are solely yours are not put on the block. If it belongs to just you, always did belong to just you, and wasn't used for the benefit of the couple at any time, then when the distrubution takes place, the other party has no claim to it what so ever.

Same deal here, just instead of divorce, it's the death of a party member, and instead of distribution between spouses, it's distribution between the surviving party members.

The other thing to considder, when it comes to inherritance, the only family the law is talking about is your immediate family - your spouse and children. They have claim. Unless you expressly state in your will something to the contrary, no other family member - parrents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc - none of them get anything that was yours.

What this means:
if the party is idly standing around your body, wondering what happens next, your stuff technically belongs to your next of kin. In most cases, the only way next of kin will get the stuff is if the party delivers it (or news of it)

if the party is idly standing around your body, wondering how they'll beat the evil Lichymandius, they should take your holy sword and layeth the smack down.

Oh, no, granted. I don't think anyone's saying that if there's an immediate need for something that's vital to the party's success that they should just pitch it aside. No argument there.

if the party is idly standing around your body, wondering what your stuff will go for when they get back to town, then you're family is being robbed. You can hope your next PC, brother of DeadBob hears of this.

Well, again, as stated above, Brother of Dead Bob has no claim. He was never robbed - it was never his to begin with. Now Son of Dead Bob is another matter. Legally speaking, of course. Also of course, considder that for the most part, most adventuers won't have any spouse or children. It's not often that the lifestyle lends itself to settling down. It's certainly not unheard of, but it's a far sight from common.

As for being robbed - what about the people that had a stake in the acquisition of said items in the first place? They have more claim to them than someone who never participated at all, shouldn't they?

There's probably a big difference in ethics on the matter, if your taking an item to help in against an immediate threat (like versus the same thing that got a party member killed), versus wanting the dead PC's stuff because of greed.

The immediate threat issue nobody's arguing. But what about the extended threat issue? Joe Partymember has far more use for Dead Bob's ring of resistance +2 because he's out adventuring, putting his life on the line, than does little Bobby Joe the two year old estranged son who lives in safety spending most of his time playing in the sand box. Is the extended threat issue strictly avarice? I submit that it's not. Little Bobby Joe has absolutly no need for that wand of fireballs. I do.

Given that a normal party has everbody equipped appropriately, in theory, nobody NEEDs the dead guy's gear. If you take it and sell it before the replacement PC comes in, then you've got no gear to equip the new guy (especially dangerous if the DM does not give the new PC any starting money, but does give him a similar level).

Well, that's an issue that'll vary from DM to DM, though it can be a sticky one. If the new character comes in nude, what happens if he's a different characer than the previous one? My old fighter's platemail +1 isn't going to do my new wizard any good at all. On the other hand, if the new guy comes in with level appropriate gear, then a PC dying is a free lunch. *shrug*

Like I said - that one'll differ depending on how the individual DM wants to handle things.

Additionally, would you want your PC to be stripped down by your vulturous friends?

They're my friends. I would much rather see my possessions help them to survive and prosper than I would see them sitting around collecting dust on some mantle or sitting with me in a coffin where they're doing no good to anyone.

 

[Imperialus]

This is why my own characters always have wills. My current character (a wizard) for example has the bulk of his actual gear devided up among the characters that he feels would benifit most from individual items. For example his bracers of protection go to the party sorceress, his pearl of power goes to the bard, ect. His spellbooks and a few other ge-gaws of mostly personal significance like a cerimonial sword go to his mentor along with 1200 gold to allow him to continue the search for his mother and to set her up with a reasonable lifestyle when she is found. Any remaining hard cash goes to fund the "Falin M'Or Memorial Library" in the village that the party has a vested intrest in.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

"Let us take a moment to remember our fallen comrade."
*pause*
*pause*
"So what's on the body?"

Okay, so that isn't what I would expect from a paladin. That however, is what my Fighter in Ravenloft would do. Though sometimes he'd skip that taking a moment bit as he was in a hurry. In Ravenloft this sort of behavior would result in a powers check, so I can't imagine it is exactly a good act. Someone posted something about honoring the fallens last wishes, I think if these wishes were honored then there would be nothing wrong with a redistribution of wealth. Of course if the fallen had no last wishes, as a Paladin (and I've played one with this attitude before) I would say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," and redistribute the wealth.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

What is it with paladins in particular being so intent on acquiring material wealth...?

It's a vice that's not specifically forbidden to them and they have ample opportunity to indulge in it.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The paladins code does not directly address the question of "looting" dead comrades. It INDIRECTLY addresses it by requiring the paladin not to perform evil acts and to act with honor. The question then becomes one of culture - does the culture consider it not just abhorrent but genuinely Evil (with capital 'E') to take the belongings of the dead? Does the culture consider it dishonorable? Most DM's are NOT going to have thought about it one way or another.

One thing is pretty certain - it's very much a meta-game issue, greatly moreso than an in-character issue. Peter Paladin doesn't loot Frank Fighter of his sword because he thinks by default that anyone in the party has some particular claim to Franks belongings. He doesn't loot it because he's reflexively thinking of the Widow Franklina at home either (95% of PC's over the last 25+ years of playing D&D have never had a moments consideration of the possibility of having immediate family). He loots Franks corpse because the PLAYER is not going to walk away leaving valuable magic to rot regardless of whether it's on the corpse of the vilest orc or a PC who was a friend and compatriot to his own PC. As I said it's something that most DM's (or players either) are not going to have given a great deal of thinking to so EVERYONE'S responses in and out of character have to be taken with a grain of salt. The appropriate response is going to be dictated by a large, complex combination of input - what the DM thinks is appropriate for the culture of the PC's (and that culture may be different among PC's - whether living or dead...), what the players want and need, what the players roleplayed reactions are, what the dead PC's specific and vocalized desires were in the matter before death, what the specified or unwritten agreements were regarding treasure distribution among the PC's, whether the in-game situation lends itself to ben considering abandoning valuable magic to fate, and so forth.

 

[Hammerhead]

The paladin's distribution of the dead PC's items is the right thing to do because the paladin decided it was. No other PC has that kind of moral authority.

Similarly, if the paladin had decided it was proper to leave the items where they fell, that would be the right thing to do.

When the party is in any murky ethical situations, the paladin decides the correct course and everybody else respects his judgment. That is his job.

Tony M

Yeah, that's funny. Any of my characters would take issue with that philosophy, and probably stop associating with the paladin who proposed it.

 

[blargney the second]

The same issue came up in our game very recently: an 8th-level PC died for the first time since this campaign moved to Eberron. The first thing the paladin did, even before grieving, was to grumble about not having enough money. Honestly, that irritated me to no end.

I ended up having the dead bard's mercantile house collect his body with all his possessions and arrange for a funeral. They used speak with dead to determine his last will and testament. (I asked the player, then embellished a little.) He was burned with most of his belongings on a pyre that the whole city could see, and the remainder of his gear was to be used as a bounty on the head of his killer.

-blarg

 

[ken-ichi]

Heh, I remember that old code. A paladin in an old party was slowly turned into a horse by his god for constantly ignoring that aspect of the code - he was a walking Wal-Mart.

That is where all those paladin mounts come from.

 

[Hjorimir]

There is a reason this question is being asked. The mere fact that it is being asked should tell you that it is probably uncharacteristic.

To all of you who suggest that the paladin and others may need the gear for future battles vs. evil as a means of justifying the denial of heirlooms to the fallen character's family, guild, house, etc., I say, "Sophistry!"

I could see certain things being used in the immediate intern, but all of the items should ultimately go to the family.

Just a note about this post: As these threads often degenerate into pointless arguments, don’t expect me to reply further on the topic or to any counterarguments made. The truth is that this is a subjective question that has a different answer amongst different groups.

Not all truths are unequal.