Looting the Dead

[orion90000]

Simple question:

If you kill an outsider wearing equipment, such as a Bralani, do you get to loot his +1 holy scimitar and +1 holy composite longbow as well as the usual treasure?

The listing for the Balor includes his whip and vorpal sword.

On a side note... I know that if a Summoned creature killed on the material plane reforms on its initial plane. If an Outsider, via plane shift, is killed on the material plane is is destroyed or does it reform?

 

[Jack Simth]

Simple question:

If you kill an outsider wearing equipment, such as a Bralani, do you get to loot his +1 holy scimitar and +1 holy composite longbow as well as the usual treasure?

The listing for the Balor includes his whip and vorpal sword.

On a side note... I know that if a Summoned creature killed on the material plane reforms on its initial plane. If an Outsider, via plane shift, is killed on the material plane is is destroyed or does it reform?

Assuming D&D 3.5?

Depends on how they got there.

A Called critter (or one that got to you via Plane Shift or similar) is really there - you kill it, it dies, you can loot it's corpse, as it actually has one.

A Summoned creature goes back to where it came from (well, takes 24 hours to reform there, but still), and anything it brought with it is normally assumed to go with it when it does, as it's not truly where you are in the first place.

Note: These answers change for older editions of D&D!

 

[Nebten]

Special case with the Balor in 3.5. When it dies, it goes into Death Throes that causes an explosion automatically destroying any weapons the Balor is holding.
There maybe other special cases, but this one comes off the top of my head.

Otherwise, Jack's correct.

 

[orion90000]

Would it be safe to assume that any outsiders encountered through a random dungeon would be called as opposed to summoned since you don't get Experience from summoned monsters. Or am I wrong on that?

 

[AuraSeer]

If the critter is living in a dungeon, it's almost certainly called. Summoning spells usually last for just a few rounds, so a summoned critter would have vanished long before you got to the dungeon.

For game balance purposes, I give XP for anything that is fought as an encounter by itself. The "no XP for summoned creatures" rule is there to point out that the PCs do not get free points just because an enemy wizard cast summon monster III instead of fireball. But I've run situations where a big monster got summoned by a magic trap; I feel it would not be fair to deny XP in that situation just because of a minor technicality.

 

[Jack Simth]

For game balance purposes, I give XP for anything that is fought as an encounter by itself.

Totally reasonable way to do it.

The "no XP for summoned creatures" rule is there to point out that the PCs do not get free points just because an enemy wizard cast summon monster III instead of fireball. But I've run situations where a big monster got summoned by a magic trap; I feel it would not be fair to deny XP in that situation just because of a minor technicality.

If you're actually following the raw in the Trap of Summon Monster Z scenario, the party gets XP for the trap (which is, admittedly, a lower CR than that for the monster in most cases), but there is XP to be had.