Need help with Loot Division

[Kraydak]

The 4e parcel system has two significant assumptions:
(1) The loot is tailored to the party. Optimal loot division from a party power POV must both be fair and not leave any item gaps. If the DM won't/can't fulfill those conditions, the parcel system is unusable.
(2) The party has to split loot from a party power POV. If the party won't/can't do that, the parcel system is unusable.

If the group can't fulfill both those conditions, the easiest fix is raising the magic item resale value to near 100% and dropping the magic item purchase tax from 1d4X10% to near 0.

 

[fba827]

One option that has worked with _some_ of my past groups was mentioned above... where basically any magic item is bought by the highest paying party member, the proceeds of what he spends is split among the other party members.

Another option that may work since 4e assigns level, everyone keep track of magic item level totals. All persons need to be within the same 'range' of total magic item level.

probably more ideas but those are quick off the top of my head.

 

[Leatherhead]

The only truly fair system is to just give out and equal share of raw gold treasure to everyone and have all the npc items be inoperable(and worthless) after they are taken away from whatever badguy had them. I am fully aware of how much people hate "magic item shops", but they exist for a good balance reason.

Yes it is boring and lackluster, and may even be abhorrent to your way of gaming, but if you can't trust your players to make decisions for the good of the group, then there is no better system.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Okay, your party needs a contract. An agreement that says how stuff is divided AS IF THEY WERE A COMPANY! All goods will have a cost determined and total will be divided as determined in the contract.

So, what does this mean...all loot will be placed into a pot and divided by 100, the 1/100th is called a share. The math is up to you, it can be 10 or 15 or even 1000. Each party member has a number of shares and the contract breaks this down!

Company or Party (general fund): 20 shares (money used to equip the party and pay off those bills)
Founding member of the party: 10 shares each (6 party members: 60 shares)
Normal Henchmen: 1 share each henchman (NPC that travel with the party)
Special Henchmen: 2 shares (cleric or ranger - mostly secondary characters that are used for a couple of sessions - not founding party members)
Investments: Number of shares left over, normally back to the company (this can be fun, as you can have your players buy shares)

So, you look at the loot, come up with total, divide by 100 and split the shares. Find loot that comes out to be around 5000gp, means a share is 50gp each. Company gets 1000gp, founding member gets 500gp each (3000gp), each henchman gets 50gp and the secondary characters 100gp. The rest goes to the market places or is divided equally as profit.

So, a player wants that wand, value is 2 shares, he takes it and 3 shares in gp. If the value was 8 shares, player does not have it, item goes on the market where he has to buy it.

This can get fun if you sell shares, player can get a lot of shares!

 

[Obryn]

Huh.

Every group I've ever played in or DMed has handled it about the same way. It's not even written down; it's just kind of understood. It's like this template exists in their heads, and they just follow it without even thinking twice about it.

(1) Will one person benefit more from an item than anyone else? If so, do they need this item? Will it improve their specific abilities? If so, they get it. Wands for Wizards, armor for fighters... You know the drill. If it's less-than-useful, or more valuable as money, skip to step 3.

(2) If it's generally helpful, the people who don't have anything comparable or better will just agree on who gets it. People who got a lot of items from step 1 tend to voluntarily bow out of this debate. Some kind of rotation gets set up, but it's only casually enforced.

(3) If nobody wants it or nobody can use it, it's sold and converted to monetary treasure.

(4) Monetary treasure is divided evenly among the group.

Those are the unwritten rules I've pretty much seen followed everywhere, IME.

-O