D&D 5E Looting Monsters?

[MarkB]

Have merchants buy the swords (assuming low-quality monster-made swords, or better-made swords that have been beat up or rusted from lack of care) for the value of the metal. That'll be a couple of silver per pound.

Why would the PCs only be fighting creatures who don't take good care of their weapons?

 

[Mirtek]

I did one adventure, as a beginner DM, where I let my players loot monsters that they kill of their weapons and armor, but they can only sell it for 1/4 of the original price. They still ended up getting too much money, so I stopped doing that, but I want know how other people do looting monsters, or if you do at all?

a) enforce weight tracking
b) enforce "bulk" tracking. Just because you could carry X based on it's pure weight, how excatly are you carrying it due to it's shape and size?

 

[Faolyn]

Why would the PCs only be fighting creatures who don't take good care of their weapons?

I'm building on what other people are saying here: that most low-level humanoid monsters (orcs, goblinoids, kobolds, etc.) and various bandits and raiders don't have really high-quality smiths, and mot grunts aren't going to take good care of their weapons. For instance, when Hristron said "weapon dealers will turn their noses up at “foul orc-make” or whatever."

Obviously, if you have a setting where such humanoid creatures do take care of their weapons, then merchants are more likely to want to pay higher prices for them.

 

[Helldritch]

All humanoid worth their salt will have weapons that can be sold for 25% to 50% of its nominal value in the PHB. That said...

Some weapons and armors are worth a lot more than others when you consider weight and encumbrance. My players will leave crude weapons such as clubs and spears but a war axe? A great sword? A plate mail? If they can use it themselves and have the skills to repair or adjust the plate, they will certainly do it.

But encumbrance is a thing and they often hire NPCs with carts and will load these carts with everything they can. The NPCs will follow the group at a safe distance and might even help out with a fight if they think they can make a difference and the group is keen on offering a bonus for risks taken. A quarter of the value of a plate mail is about 375 gold and it might go as high as 750 if in nice condition. Four orogs will bring four of these. At 25% this means a full pristine brand new plate mail can be bought or even two.

Why on earth would they leave such a prize if they are dungeon delving?

If all your adventures are of the type where characters save the world and have next to no time for proper looting I can understand your distaste for this method. But not all campaigns involve traveling the planes and thousands of miles in a non stop fashion.

And at high levels, bags of holding and, if lucky, portable hole will help out. Some players came up with the fabricate spells to create chests in which they put their loot and teleport said chest when filled with loot to their tower! The sky's the limit for the entrepreneurial adventurers!

 

[iserith]

All humanoid worth their salt will have weapons that can be sold for 25% to 50% of its nominal value in the PHB. That said...

Some weapons and armors are worth a lot more than others when you consider weight and encumbrance. My players will leave crude weapons such as clubs and spears but a war axe? A great sword? A plate mail? If they can use it themselves and have the skills to repair or adjust the plate, they will certainly do it.

But encumbrance is a thing and they often hire NPCs with carts and will load these carts with everything they can. The NPCs will follow the group at a safe distance and might even help out with a fight if they think they can make a difference and the group is keen on offering a bonus for risks taken. A quarter of the value of a plate mail is about 375 gold and it might go as high as 750 if in nice condition. Four orogs will bring four of these. At 25% this means a full pristine brand new plate mail can be bought or even two.

Why on earth would they leave such a prize if they are dungeon delving?

If all your adventures are of the type where characters save the world and have next to no time for proper looting I can understand your distaste for this method. But not all campaigns involve traveling the planes and thousands of miles in a non stop fashion.

And at high levels, bags of holding and, if lucky, portable hole will help out. Some players came up with the fabricate spells to create chests in which they put their loot and teleport said chest when filled with loot to their tower! The sky's the limit for the entrepreneurial adventurers!

Sure, if they have carts or the like, collect it all and liquidate it as soon as possible. Of course, protecting the NPCs and carts are a whole other concern. These are easy meat for wandering monsters in my games.

But if they don't have carts and NPCs (or mounts or whatever), and encumbrance is a real challenge, salvaging plate armor isn't actually as good as just going for gold since it's 50 gold pieces per pound. A suit of plate armor sold at half cost weighs in under 12 gp per pound. If you have to choose and nobody in the party benefits from just wearing the armor, better to go with the gold. (Or gems. Gems are even better in this regard.)

As well if I'm running a game where encumbrance matters and how much you can carry into the adventure location and how much you can carry out is part of the meaningful decisions the players must make, I would definitely not include bags of holding or anything like that in the game.

 

[Maxperson]

We use the optional rules for encumbrance. Having the players track their carry weight really does cut down on the amount of battered junk getting hauled around to be sold.

This. I know the rule is that arms and armor are poor quality, but I've never had to do that. Unless the fight happens in town near the store they want to sell it at, arms and armor are too heavy and bulky to carry around that much of. My players generally don't even bother.

 

[Helldritch]

Sure, if they have carts or the like, collect it all and liquidate it as soon as possible. Of course, protecting the NPCs and carts are a whole other concern. These are easy meat for wandering monsters in my games.

But if they don't have carts and NPCs (or mounts or whatever), and encumbrance is a real challenge, salvaging plate armor isn't actually as good as just going for gold since it's 50 gold pieces per pound. A suit of plate armor sold at half cost weighs in under 12 gp per pound. If you have to choose and nobody in the party benefits from just wearing the armor, better to go with the gold. (Or gems. Gems are even better in this regard.)

As well if I'm running a game where encumbrance matters and how much you can carry into the adventure location and how much you can carry out is part of the meaningful decisions the players must make, I would definitely not include bags of holding or anything like that in the game.

If the possibility is there. I see no reasons to prevent players from doing so. And since they do this at relatively low levels, it means that most wandering monsters will be low level too. So 5 or 6 enchmen can manage a random encounter or two.

Also, why would I prevent players from a perfectly valid strategy? Why would I prevent them from using their brains to get a bit more? It is not as if the amount of money they will get out of this will put the world's economy at risks. The local one, maybe. But at some point, preventing players from using any strategy is not an approach I would favor.

Also, why would they leave the gold and gems? It is not because you take what you can that you will leave out the rest.
And players can commission a wizard to create bags of holding which will cost them money which will in turn force them to adventure to get better gear to sell to get... It is a wheel that turns by itself.

That said. Not all campaigns will see that kind of play. This is best for small adventures approach like we had in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Big campaigns going from 1 to 15 are all the rage now and this strategy would not really work.

Currently, one group is in OotA and obviously do not do that strategy. The other group is exploring a "semi random" mega dungeon and they are doign that strategy all the way through. They are now 12th level (6 players strong) and their enchmen are on average level 6 to 9! So when they get back from a foray into the mega dungeon, they have people to help in healing, identifying magical items, repair stuff and to cook! These NPC are well paid and they make sure with Leomund's tiny hut that they stay safe and they get a nice share of the profits for a very small risk. When monsters start to reappear in earlier levels, they are the ones investigating. Sometimes, it means that the players take the role of their NPCs and start hunting where the main group have failed to find something. It is a lot of fun and it also change the pace once in a while.

 

[iserith]

If the possibility is there. I see no reasons to prevent players from doing so. And since they do this at relatively low levels, it means that most wandering monsters will be low level too. So 5 or 6 enchmen can manage a random encounter or two.

Also, why would I prevent players from a perfectly valid strategy? Why would I prevent them from using their brains to get a bit more? It is not as if the amount of money they will get out of this will put the world's economy at risks. The local one, maybe. But at some point, preventing players from using any strategy is not an approach I would favor.

I'm not advocating for anything more than presenting risks, trade-offs, and challenges. Want hirelings to carry more supplies and treasure for you? They're just at risk as you are of wandering monsters. What do you do to deal with that?

Also, why would they leave the gold and gems? It is not because you take what you can that you will leave out the rest.
And players can commission a wizard to create bags of holding which will cost them money which will in turn force them to adventure to get better gear to sell to get... It is a wheel that turns by itself.

I'm not sure I understand your question here. I was saying that gold and gems are better to take than a suit of plate armor for resale because the value is higher per pound. Assuming encumbrance is an issue.

As for the bags of holding, I would not include them in any game where carrying stuff into and out of the dungeon is meant to be a meaningful decision because it basically removes this consideration from play. As you go on to point out, that's not important in every game though, just some. It is important in my current hexcrawl. It would not be important in my pulp action serial Eberron game.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm not advocating for anything more than presenting risks, trade-offs, and challenges. Want hirelings to carry more supplies and treasure for you? They're just at risk as you are of wandering monsters. What do you do to deal with that?

?
Ô_o
Resolve the encounter when there is one?

I'm not sure I understand your question here. I was saying that gold and gems are better to take than a suit of plate armor for resale because the value is higher per pound. Assuming encumbrance is an issue.

And when you have the resource, why leave valuable metal in the plate rust into place?

As for the bags of holding, I would not include them in any game where carrying stuff into and out of the dungeon is meant to be a meaningful decision because it basically removes this consideration from play. As you go on to point out, that's not important in every game though, just some. It is important in my current hexcrawl. It would not be important in my pulp action serial Eberron game.

So? You are stating my stance which happens to be yours. So what's the probl?