Magical items of dead PCs

[IceBear]

I already told you what I do.

The half-orc barbarian died leaving behind his +1 chain mail and his +1 axe. The rest of the party divided up his goods as they saw fit - the cleric took the armor and the fighter took the axe. I then allowed the player of the dead PC to create a new character using the wealth guide from the DMG, but I had veto rights to any magic item he took. So, in the party I now had a cleric and a fighter who were ahead of the other PCs in weath. All I did was insure that by the time they reached the next level, their wealth was back in line with the DMG and the rest of the party (ie, the fighter and the cleric didn't find any magic items for them while the other PCs did). Once everything was rebalanced, then everything went back to normal.

It's not really that big of a deal. If it is, tweak the religion in your campaign to one that the deceased like to be buried with their prized possessions - then the other PCs will have to let all the gear be buried with the deceased or be cursed or haunted.

[Edit] Just saw the above post. That's happened in my campaign too. Just that in the example I gave above, the half-orc didn't have any family.

You could always have the PCs draft a will of who gets what.

Also, perhaps the cost of burying all these foolish adventurers have forced the government to tax them

IceBear

 

[Speaks With Stone]

In our current campaign, we've had 3 character deaths. Each time, we kept what we needed and gave the bulk of the material goods back to the character's family. New characters came in with a new set of goods.

We haven't become overly powerful, because half the time we can't use the other character's stuff and if we sell it we only get half value.

Besides, in this campaign we have had stuff stolen by kobolds, destroyed by acid, and confiscated by local authorities. We have more than enough problems without the GM looking for out of game ways of screwing us.

Oh, yeah. The last character death was in such a way that we had no time whatsoever to recover any of his goods. We were too busy running away and hoping that we did not join him. Drat, he had the haversack with lots of our common loot/stuff.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

In fact, it's not unlikely that there's laws about this sort of thing. Anyone but the lowliest PC is a sufficiently significant figure that he's not going to just drop off the face of the earth unnoticed. The dead character's next of kin might not feel too kindly about his corpse being looted by ... well, by anyone. He might express this to his governmental bodies, who might themselves take umbrage at a loss of estate tax.

This would be hardly unreasonable.

 

[Henry]

I like kreynolds' idea for this. For each item that remains in the party's total inventory (given to another PC, kept for the new PC, whatever), the GP amount should be deducted from the New PC's default DMG wealth total. This would give a big incentive for the PC's to give the wealth back to the PC's family, or to burn it on the funeral pyre with them, give it to charity as per the PC's wishes, or what have you.

Alternately, you can make them instead use the wealth table for NPC's, which is about 1/3rd that of normal, or use Icebear's suggestions on sensible placement. The DM's veto rights kind of go without saying, I would think - unless the new PC is capable of creating magic items.

 

[Conaill]

If yes, is that a little unbalancing doing so? After 5 or more different PCs death you end up with 5 times more magical items than usual.

You also wind up with a group that has 5 fewer character levels! Assuming of course that you don't let people come back at the same level as their previous character.

To balance things out, I would only give new characters as much equipment as they would be willing to trade in for one extra character level.

 

[Tar-Edhel]

We simply divide the items amongst ourseselves. Some minor items may not be od interest to anyone so those items become available to the new PC.

Never heard of a wealth limit so obviously, we don't use that rule. But we rarely sell magic items. We keep them in case they become useful for someone.

But I certainly wouldn't like to be penalized on my starting wealth because my (to-be) party members decided to keep the items of some dead guy I never met.

 

[Chimera]

Gee, is everyone forgetting the concept of Inheritance?

Uncle Bob the Adventurer is known to have a nifty magic sword and a nice bag of gold. Don't you think his family might put a claim on some of his wealth?

Junior goes out and makes a small fortune for himself. You think his poor mother might have a better claim to it than his buddies?

IRL, the courts would be clogged for decades as every remote cousin and pretender came out of the closet to lay claim to a dead adventurer's wealth. In a more civilized environment, it is less likely that the adventurer's buddies will be able to claim his goods.

Another option is Government Intervention. Don'tcha think that Grand Duke Dudley might be interested in acquiring that +3 vorpal Longsword? Legally or otherwise? This is an especially probable and useful option when it comes to major magic items. NO WAY a major government would stand by and allow some of those items (such as a Mirror of Mental Prowess) to pass into just anyone's hands.

 

[hong]

As for a surplus of magical items, Monte Cook recommends every major adventure module have at least one creature that can permanently destroy a magical item (sunder, rust monster, disintegrate, various oozes, nimble fingered thief, scroll of disjunction)

Wau, did he actually say that? If so, that'll be the first time I've disagreed with Monte on something.

 

[Jeremy]

DMG then again in talking on his website I believe.

I could be wrong. But I believe it was him.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Re: Magical items of dead PCs...

Seriously though, I don't care what the surviving party members do with the gear. If they can keep it without going over their wealth limit, so be it. If they wanna recover it from the belly of a beast, I won't stop them.

What do you do if it DOES go over their "wealth limit"?