Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[drnuncheon]

The trick is to start using more equipment-destroying encounters:

* High-damage creatuers with Improved Sunder.
* Disenchanters, destrachans, rust monsters, and the like.
* A wizard with a scroll of disjunction - be nice and place it so that it only catches a couple of PCs. In the interest of survival (if they're in a place like Hell), the other characters should re-distribute those minor items to balance things out.

It doesn't have to be combat, either. If they're walking along (say, in Hell) with their weapons out (wise, in Hell), what happens if the thin stone bridge they are on crumbles under the feet of the lead character? Give them a Reflex save to grab the edge - but only if they've got a free hand. Either the sword goes into the bubbling lava beneath, or they do.

Since you're running Hell in Freeport, you have an excellent excuse to remove a bunch of unwanted items from them, assuming you haven't already passed it up. That would be (highlight for spoiler) the prison sequence. it says that all their gear is stored in a certain place...but this is Hell, and Hell is nothing if not corrupt. Some of the items undoubtedly got 'misplaced' during the inventory...

Hope these ideas help!

J

 

[Kalendraf]

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.

I understand they are getting a reward from the items and that is bad, and what I need to fix somehow. However, the character whether raised or replaced is still losing a half level which is punishment, and the party is losing their service for some period of time as well as losing that half level of character effectiveness, so the party does get punished somewhat as well.

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.

I think there are a total of 3 bags of holding and 1 portable hole in the party. I handed out the smallest bag a long time ago, and they sold stuff to buy the rest of those items. By the time a group reaches this level, why wouldn't they have bags of holding and/or portable holes. If they aren't intended for groups of this wealth level, then the price for getting them should be higher.

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.

I see a problem with this. If the character is already below the party level, then dying could turn into a level gain. For example, Party is 10th, new character enters at 9th. Rest of party levels to 11th, but this guy is still 9th (missed a session, behind on RP exp, etc) then the new guy dies and comes back in at 10th?!? I'm a firm believer that character deaths should have some kind of exp penalty, and a half level loss at a minimum seems fair.

 

[Umbran]

There's a very simple solution - let the character die. Let the party keep his wealth... then don't give them anything new until they come up in level, or they lose wealth. Yes, for a little while, they'll be tougher than usual. So, you throw tougher encounters at them, or you throw the same encounters, but give them less XP.

The players will likely soon catch on - they don't get nifty new stuff if they loot from the dead. They only get more of the same old stuff. If they instead choose to pack up the dead character's belongings and send them off to the heirs, or somesuch, they can continue gaining new wealth as usual.

 

[Kalendraf]

Since you're running Hell in Freeport, you have an excellent excuse to remove a bunch of unwanted items from them, assuming you haven't already passed it up.

That's actually what I'm hoping to do. I had thought about that before posting here. I know they players will be kind of pissed about it, but there's not a whole lot they can do. I'm just hoping that the encounter leading up to that goes smoothly. That will hopefully solve the problem in the near term.

I still need a long-term solution in case of future character deaths/replacements for item handling. There have been some good ideas posted, and I'll run some of these past the group. This is definitely something I'll handle much differently if I ever startup a new campaign.

 

[sabby]

Satisfying Players

If you're VERY interested in keeping the party "happy" then do something that will make them VERY happy. Reward them experience for no reason. Lots of it.

Suddenly, they're going up in level and not getting treasure. Eventually, they'll have less treasure than what would be expected for their level.

You can always do something less drastic, though. Keep a monitor of the equipment the party has, and plan around it. Get away from the "I sell the +1 Dagger at the shop, along with all the rest of the +1 Daggers." Eventually they'll not want to buy yet another +1 Dagger that doesn't sell well. And start rewarding them with +1 Daggers as part of the treasure.

All kinds of things you can do, but I've learned that the big key is that you should either do more book work and keep control of everything... Or you should just throw up your hands and say, "Hey, everyone is having fun. I guess being a Munchkin GM isn't killing me as much as it seemed like it was going to." Oh, and I just hand out less treasure, or I give out treasure in non-orthodox fashion. 1000gp 'treasure' for an encounter actually turns up to be a 1000gp DISCOUNT on an item that they are encouraged to purchase. If they pass on the oppurtunity, then they got less treasure ... but you still provided the treasure. (You got plausible deniability if they complain about lack of treasure oppurtunities.)

 

[d20Dwarf]

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...

Well, since I primarily run a playtest campaign, the players *buy* a lot more than they would if it was a true campaign. I should have clarified that in my previous post.

If I was running a true campaign, I would probably use the law and custom as a good way to rid the party of unwanted items. If the party's cleric lets the party strip the dead of their items (other than potions and scrolls, most likely), they are going to pay some very harsh penalties. The party might also gain a reputation as being defilers of the dead or somesuch, leading to negative modifiers when dealing with civilized people.

Otherwise, they'll just stop finding treasure.

 

[clark411]

1- The PC's soul must petition for the god of death's minions to allow the party to keep some of its items, otherwise, all of his material wealth is taken as a fee for transporting the dead character's soul to his or her appropriate heaven or hell. This requires a major work around of a long going campaign, but can be interesting for a new one with its own cosmology.

2- The law of society demands that returning the items of a fallen member of adventuring society must be turned over to his family / sponsor as soon as possible, with serious reprocussions for delay.

3- Measuring the wealth of the character, have the next few encounters have significantly less treasure until a balance is reached in player wealth vs level.

4- Hit them with rust monsters, disjunctions, zero wealth new characters, and everything else that makes the characters think there's some mysterious and powerful being in the multiverse attempting to make their newfound wealth vanish or be somehow balanced. (I'd avoid it.)

 

[MasterLich]

Well in a high lvl campaign i am playing in, our DM has limited the amount of gold we can spend on a item when we start off/die. We started at 10th which we get 49000 gold with a limit of 9100 on one single item. That limits things a bit. The max we can "buy" is under 10K when in the campaign. More expense items can only be found or the party has to craft the items themselves, thus losing XP.

When the character dies and they have something that they hold dearly, ie a sword that the fighter has grown attached to and the party has taken and sold, have the charac come bad seeking revenge on them, as undead or something, use yer imagination. Ex: My minotaur fighter/rogue in the current campaign has 2 axes, +2 flaming keen Greataxe, which lvls (Made by father) and a +1 keen Dwareven Waraxe (given by the dwarves), that my character would kill someone if they attempt to take them. I have already assaulted a royal guard because of this (bad thing to do), they tried to subdue me but couldnt hit me. This charac is gonna die soon. When he does the axes are going too, thus there would be no reason for me to come back. If they dont and the party sells/uses them, the DM has already agreed that revenge will be handed out, ie Tortured sole and such.

 

[Philip]

Solution 1 is always to talk with your players openly. Maybe they even have a few good suggestions of how to go about solving your problem.

I am always amazed at the huge number of rust monster/Mordenkainen's Disjunction/thieves like ploys come up. If you play such encounters out unfairly, its just like saying, I am going to take your items away regardless of what you do. You are setting yourself up as their opponent that way, and an opponent from which they always lose. On the other hand, if you play such encounters fairly, they might easily backfire if you destroy the items you didn't want to be destroyed, or destroying the items of the character who already has the least. Even then, its difficult to pull it of so subtle that your players won't get the idea that you're trying to take away their precious items.

Just talk first. Maybe just one of your players wouldn't mind reducing his +6 headband to +4, then maybe the next wouldn't mind turning his major cloak of displacement into a minor one. And if two players have sacrificed something, peer pressure will often force the third to give up something as well. Everyone's enjoyment will increase in the long run, although giving up some items may be painful on the short run.

If they don't cooperate, just say that you are imposing a maximum limit of wealth equal to that mentioned on page 145 of the DMG. You could even allowed them to choose which items can go, if you trust them enough. If your players still don't want to cooperate, you can always point out to them that there are two options left to you now:

1. Hit them with the rust monster and Disjunction and all those other heavy handed plans in an unfair way. You are the DM, they are gonna lose eventually.
2. Quit playing with them.

But still I strongly suggest talking with them openly. I think any DM can throw a Mordenkainen's Disjunction against the PCs, but it takes a truly good DM to talk openly about such issues and find a solution together.

 

[yangnome]

Another option to combine with some of the solutions above... Make a few situations that the party has to run away from, especially the ones that will liekly kill a PC. Don't give them a chance to recover the body or the equipment.. not only will that get rid of some of the equipment for you, it will put it in the hands of the bad guys, making the challenge larger for them if htey decide to come back and try to get their stuff back.. Further, if they do this, when they finally kill the bad guys that have their stuff, getting the stuff back they originally had turns out to be their reward. They feel good because they got their stuff back, you've given an encounter that was challenging for them and they realy didn't get anything for it. If they decide not to go back because the challenge was too great, well, you managed to get rid of some stuff.