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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuindordm" data-source="post: 3728266" data-attributes="member: 5435">But in some sense, the "taking their stuff" is a relic from first edition's wonky xp rules.In 1st edition, you hadGP=XP=level up!This was better than killing things to level up (you could do that too, but it took a lot longer), because it encouraged players to avoid combats (sometimes, at least). On the other hand, to level everyone up the DM had to place lots and lots of gold. Often the really big prizes were hidden, but you still ended up with:Level up=stinking rich!The gold is a reasonable way of giving out a blanket story-based xp award for the simple tomb-robbing scenario. But something had to be done with all the gold. So you hadLevel up (XP) needs training=GP!So characters were scouring the world for gold to spend on training to level up, and in a properly run campaign became wealthy rather slowly.The point is that the whole 'loot the bodies' thing is a holdover from the circular logic of dungeon-based 1st edition campaigns. In a campaign where most XP comes from other kinds of story award, then there is no need for all the gold.3rd edition, on the other hand, embraced the gold pool as a way of balancing the magical resources of the PCs. It was a clever idea, and they did a pretty good job with it. I agree with WotC's apparent attitude for 4e: if the magic items aren't of the +X to Y variety, then they don't really need to be balanced.  Gold and magic should be a secondary goal of the PCs, not a primary goal, unless they really need it for plot reasons.Cheers,</blockquote>

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