Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[Christian]

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

'Cause it's more resource-effective to bury him & start a new character.

 

[Squire James]

The next new PC is found in chains hanging in the next villain's dungeon (try to get it to make sense) with no equipment (except things like spellbooks, which are somewhere nearby). If someone starts protesting, note that the current party's wealth matches or exceeds current wealth guidelines, and it is up to them to evenly distribute it (or not, if that is what they wish). Maybe some of that loot they acquired earlier in the adventure happens to be this new guy's stuff!

If it's still a problem, reduce treasure given out by future adventures by about half until the party gets to level 14 or 15. Yes, this means the NPC's have less stuff, and might be easier to kill than previous foes. Nothing wrong with that... this will help solve any "frequent fatality" problems you might have as well.

 

[Kalendraf]

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?

There are certain ways that characters can die that prevent them from being raised. For example, being drained by an undead and coming back as one of them. Last night's unfortunate episode had the 10th level cleric get jumped by a bunch of shadows which managed to drop him well below 0-strength, causing him to turn into a shadow. His corpse and items were still there for the party. I'm running them thru Hell in Freeport, so finding a proper place for burial, or a temple, etc is pretty much out of the question with their present situation. Ian't really blame the party for taking his items at this point.

The guy lost his character, he loses exp, but he gets to keep some of the gear.

Pretty tough to explain how you keep gear across a character change. Sure some items might transfer (cloak of resistance), but if the player decides to switch from a Fighter to a Wizard, there's not much point in letting the new wizard have +2 breast plate and a +2 shield.

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.

This is essentially their mode of operation. Items found during adventures belongs to the collective party, and stuff returns to the collective party when characters die. Characters that decide to leave can take their share of the loot when they leave. It's going to be pretty tough to shake them out of this mentality. The item loss option is probably easier to implement from a DM standpoint.

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.

For the most part, it's not the weapons that have gotten out of control, but rather the defensive items (cloak of displacement, rings of protection, etc) and attribute bonus items (+6 headbands of intellect, etc) that seem to be causing the most problems. There are characters in the party with saving throw bonuses in the low 20's already, and armor classes in the mid-30's. Is this normal for an 11th level party? I think not. Sundering might be a way to break some weapons, but I need a solution to the other items slots, much of which isn't even metallic.

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!

The cases where body looting has happened is where there was simply not a plausible explanation for the body being destroyed. I would have done that had iit been an option. My party might start getting suspicious if every encounter starts happening with a cauldron of acid/magical flames/bottomless pit right next to the battle scene. Not all encounters occur with monsters able to consume the body either.
As for the starting wealth, that's how we've done it, and changing it now would likely cause just as many problems as it might solve. At the point they've reached, starting with just normal wealth probably seems like a penalty all by itself.
As for the deaths, I think we've had a total of 7 deaths in 2 years of nearly weekly playing. Is that too much? I don't like to kill characters, but it happens. Of those deaths, only 3 have led to this influx of wealth problem, but each has caused headaches for me as DM. The latest death was last night, and I can already see where this is heading. I'm hoping to avoid further problems like this in the future, but I'm just not sure how to handle it easily.

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

I should have been more clear. Raising is also a half-level loss. The reason this was done is because the characters dying were the farthest behind on exp, and dropping them a whole level each time would have led to a party with characters about 4 levels apart. Instead, it's only 2 levels of gap now. So if you get raised or get a new character, it's just a half-level loss.

 

[Kalendraf]

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.

Please be so kind as to explain how to make this plausible. From what I just read it seems like what you are saying is basically the following:

A) If party takes the dead guy's items, they always come across a completely naked replacement.
B) If they leave his items behind, viola, a fully equipped character shows up instead.

The guys I game with aren't going to buy that...

 

[Seule]

My policy on new character level is that nobody can be more than 2 levels behind the highest level character. If someone levels to 10th, anyone who isn't at least 8th automatically goes to the start of that level. It kept the party split low, and also applied to new characters: You come in at the beginning of the level of the lowest level current character. Thus, you are automatically the lowest XP character.
On 'magic item creep' as a problem: One Mordenkainen's Disjunction can ruin their whole day. Remember, if you remove magic items and people complain, you can always ask them which is more important, the item or the character. Items do not define the characters, and doing without them can make for a very fun game. You can also point out that your options are basically a) remove items, or b) up the challenges. They'll get the point if they know what's good for them.

--Seule

 

[Zogg]

Kalendraf, you need to face it: you are currently (albeit subtley)rewarding the party for dying in the adventure. The PC that dies must be put at a disadvantage; as must the party that let the PC die.

1) Do you keep track of the party's encumbrance? After awhile all this gear is going to weigh them down. I sincerely hope they don't all have bags of holding.

2) You should make the new PC start 1 level behind the rest of the party. This a) is not that harsh and b) will make the PCs avoid death to a greater degree.

3) If you are not ballsy enough to tell your group "I am the DM and this current situation is BS", then perhaps you need to have a mighty and stealthy wizard descend upon the party in gaseous form while they are sleeping, materialize, cast power word: sleep on anyone that is keeping watch (or hell, all of them) and STEAL ALL THEIR CRAP....because they obviously do not deserve it. And if you think THIS is not going to anger them, well, it will. But it sounds like you are afraid to talk to your own group and tell them to stop screwing up the game....so here is an alternate solution.

 

[Kalendraf]

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

A million, eh? I know one of them - the treasure influx problem. Otherwise, the method seems to work pretty well. Contrary to what a lot of DM's might think, letting characters pick their new equipment for their character isn't that big of a deal. I was leary at first, but found that usually the players tended to pick interesting items I would have never thought of that aren't unbalancing.

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.

How do you explain every new Xth level character showing up to join the party's vacant slot only having 1st level character wealth? Hard to believe that every replacement character is going to be so poor.

At the party recruiting office (AKA the nearest tavern)
New guy: "Hi, I heard you were looking for new recruits. I'm a really formidible fighter, but down on my luck."
Party: "Really, what was your last encounter?"
New guy: "I got ambushed by 5 rust monsters, 2 grey oozes and 3 ochre jellies. All my equipment was destroyed"
Party: "Just like the last 3 guys we've met. Hmm... I think I see a trend. Sorry, but we were hoping to find a real warrior ready to adventure right now."
New guy: "Please let me join, I can't even fend off a lowly wererat by myself now."
Party: "Exactly! Next!"

 

[Zappo]

We assume that the equipment of dead characters is mostly eliminated one way or another if the character dies and can't be resurrected. Buried with the body, destroyed by the enemy's last hit, donated to a worthy NPC, there are heaps of explanations. Generally, the rest of the party may keep some minor items, but the best stuff, the "signature" items, are gone.

 

[Tzarevitch]

Didn't this issue come up before? Oh well, it might have been on WotC's boards.

Here is a simple solution that i use. If the PCs are operating in the territory of some nation or something then use inheritance/intestacy laws against them.

If the PC dies have a relative start a legal proceeding to get his stuff. Remember, "finders-keepers" is not the law in any civilized society. It doesn't matter which relative, nearly any direct relative or spouce can beat out the claim of a non-relation, even if the PC didn't know that that relative existed. Simply have agents of the legal or ecclesiatical authority find them somewhere and demand that they produce the items and the cash that belonged to the deceased. This works even better if the clergy of the god of wealth or death is overseeing the proceedings because they can perform divinations at the family's request to determine exactly what the deceased owned when he died. They can also enforce sanctions if they refuse to comply.

The authorities then take the goods and currency for safekeeping until the legal proceeding is over. The PCs are welcome to join in the legal suit for their companion's stuff but they have to wait until the (many month-long) proceeding is over before they can claim anything.

Note also that the PCs making out Wills in no way prevents the DM from using this tactic. It is fairly easy for relatives to tie an inheritance up in court for a long time by contesting any point of the will that sounds strange. Do this once or twice and the PCs should quickly stop expecting to see a windfall every time their companions die.

Another simple solution is for the deceased PC's ghost to appear in public and accuse the PCs of theft of his property. Like many ghosts destroying it just causes it to disperse for a day or two and then return later with more public accusations. The ghost will not rest until the party settles with it the issue of its "stolen" property. Remember, since the PC chose to start a new character the ghost is an NPC and just because the character was reasonable in life doesn't mean that his ghost has to be reasonable (or even friendly with the remaining PCS) in death. After all, his former "friends" are enriching themselves like vultures due to his death.

Tzarevitch

 

[Endur]

Mordainkainen's Disjunction

Every magic item in the party has to make a will save or lose all of its magical abilities.

A great spell when party magic items start getting out of whack.

It does require a high level spell caster (9th level wizard spell), but it could be cast from a scroll by a lower level spell caster.

Its actually a very good tactic for the Evil Mastermind. EM teleports in, casts the spell, tells his flunkies to destroy the now-defenseless (hopefully) party, and then teleports away.

Of course, the flunkies will lose to the party (its so hard to get good help these days). And the party vows revenge on EM.