Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[Kalendraf]

One of the campaigns I DM is around 11th level. There have been a few character deaths along the way. In many cases the characters have been raised/resurrected/reincarnated and the character has kept his equipment and other wealth, even if they've chosen to leave the party for good. This is fine.

The problem I'm running into is when characters die, but the party has no way to raise them. This leads to the party looting the dead character, taking their items and having the player roll up a new character w/ new equipment for their level. Our house rule is that new characters come back at a half-level below the level their previous character was at. So an 11th level character death comes back at level 10.5, etc. A 10th level character has a suggested wealth of 49,000gp. So a 10th level character death, the subsequent looting, plus the new replacement character w/ equipment winds up leading to a huge influx of treasure for the party - just like they hit a 50K jackpot, all for doing nothing besides having a character die. Suddenly the party has way more treasure and equipment then a group of their level should have. In addition to this, the characters' deaths tend to keep the overall party level lower than would be expected, which makes the problem even worse. Party levels drop, but party wealth continues to increase.

This group has been adventuring long enough to merit the characters all being at least 12th to 13th level, and the rewards (gold, magic, etc) have been in line with what is suggested for that level. However, due to the character deaths, most of the party is only 10th or 11th level. If I were to add up the wealth of their gear, I bet the value is more in line with what a 13th to 14th level character should have. All of this is primarily due to this influx of wealth that happens when old characters die and new ones are brought in.

The extra magical equipment floating around is making it much harder to challenge this group. I can try to toss harder monsters at them, but raising the EL's too high can just as easily backfire and lead to more character deaths. I've found that most EL's at or below their level are way too easy, but stuff just a little above their level quickly becomes too hard. I guess this is one of the side-effects of this overly-equipped party. From a DM standpoint, it makes it very tough to properly challenge them as the line between cakewalk and death is now ultrafine.

The problem is the equipment itself, but I'm not sure how to deal with the equipment w/o having a bunch of pissed off players. Simply destroying or stealing these items seems very heavy-handed, but it may be the only way to truly save the campaign long-term. One of my other options is to just run with it, and hand out very minimal rewards until the party reaches a level worthy of this amount of wealth, but that could take a while, and as I mentioned, finding the right level of challenges is very hard. Another option is to just start over, but I would only consider that as a last resort.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this? I'm especially interested in knowing how other DM's have handled this looting of dead PC's, and how they've avoided the wealth problem that follows. Tips for saving my campaign would be appreciated as well.

 

[Zogg]

Uhm...couldn't you just EXPLAIN to them that what they are doing is screwing up your management of the game?

If not, you could tell them that looting the body of a dead ally is considered an evil act (hey, it could be, and hopefully the party is mostly good) and that the proper thing to do would be either:

a) bury the equipment with the dead PC
b) find the dead PCs family and give the items to that family; or
c) sell the items and donate the money to the temple of a deity the dead PC was akin to worship.

I mean, what they are doing is pretty tacky in addition to wrecking your game. So tell them from now on, unless they do A, B, or C above they are going to take hits to their reputation and possibly suffer shifts in alignment - assuming these guys are good - and you will also be docking their role-playing XP - assuming you give any out.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Not only is what they're doing tacky, but in any even quasi-civilized society it would certainly be illegal. Your stuff doesn't belong to whoever happens along, it belongs to your heirs. After tax.

Now, of course, with some groups that would just lead to the problem continuing, except that everybody would write a will bequeathing all of their stuff to their party.

I am puzzled, though, how it could be that a vastly wealthy 11th-level party would be unable to raise somebody. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I wouldn't handle it at all. The guy lost his character, he loses exp, but he gets to keep some of the gear. That takes the sting out of the loss.

That being said, I gave my bad guys magical tatoos for this reason. The tatoos give me a "reason" to increase the power of the evil NPC without adding to the NPCs treasure. So the party is fighting NPCs of the right challenge rating but not getting as much gear out of it.

Option 2: Have the party hired go after an NPC who possesses The Sundering Blade, a +2 sword that ... well ... sunders. The party knows about the danger in advance, so they can prepare for it. They'll still be dissapointed when the NPC kills one of their weapons, but they won't be surprised.

Option 3: Teleport them to the Plane of Rust Monsters.

Happy gaming!

 

[Vocenoctum]

1) ruin the equipment when you kill the PC (have the body carried off, or incinerated, etc.)
2) don't start the new PC with full starting wealth. (It's also not fair to the other players that he gets to pick X amount of items, when they've been getting items they don't want and trading them and such, so feel free to put limits on what he starts with.)
3) Stop killing them so often!

 

[d20Dwarf]

I just have a simple rule: your new character can start with his normal allotment of equipment, or the party can keep the old guy's stuff. Simple as that.

 

[Conaill]

So... let me see if I got this right... A player who lots a character has two options:

1) lose a full level and pay for being raised/resurrected, etc

OR

2) lose only 1/2 a level and get a whole new outfit for free

Hmm, yeah... that does seem like a problem...

 

[Arnwyn]

Well, I can see a million () things wrong with your "character death" policy that are leading to your current dilemma.

The posts above (noteably d20Dwarf's and Conaill) note some problems/solutions.

I like d20Dwarf's solution best. (I take it one further IMC and have new characters come in with Level 1 equipment.) This seriously reduces the insane magic-item and equipment proliferation that *will* occur otherwise.

 

[The_Gneech]

The house rule in my game is that new characters have the lowest level of the surviving group, minus one. (For instance, if the group has a 4th level wizard, a 5th level fighter, and a 5th level thief, the new cleric joining up is 3rd level.)

As for splitting up the dead guy's stuff, why aren't they SELLING it to pay for the character's resurrection?

-The Gneech

 

[Bubbalicious]

First of all, unless your players are jumping on the "suicide express" (thank you Philip Jose Farmer) to intentionally acquire this wealth, they should not be punished. When on a quest, especially an altruistic one, the completion of the quest is the only importance. If you are trying to save the world (or a city or village or individual), not using powerful equipment from a fallen comrade to help acomplish your objective is doing a grave injustice to those whose existance is dependant on your success. If, for example, you are trying to slay a dragon that is terrorizing a town, and your party member that wields a dragon slaying axe falls it would be great hubris to bury him with the axe out of "civic duty".

Secondly, there are many ways to resolve your problem. Send a band of rogues/thieves after a particularly powerful item (or items) in their possession. If you, as GM, give them another concern pressing enough that they cannot afford to waste time recovering their treasure, they will have no choice but to write it off. Just remember that if the stolen item is vital to the completion of their quest, they will have no choice but TO pursue and retrieve it.
You could also use monsters with acidic blood that renders weapons used against it useless.
In our current campaign, we had a character cheat death (by resurrection) three times. To make a long story short, a very powerful entity said that the Drow who would come to claim their price could be paid (in magic items) to slow their search for us.

You are God where your world is concerned. With a bit of creativity, you can make happen anything you wish!!

Hope this helps.