Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[Hypersmurf]

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.

"Certainly, sir. As an employee of Adventurers Unlimited, Inc., your brother earned a monthly wage of 4 silver pieces. Given his time with the company, and taking into account our generous Death Benefits scheme, you're eligible for the rather tidy inheritance of five gold pieces and two silver pieces. No no - I'm afraid all that shiny magical gear is company equipment that your brother used in the execution of his duties. Hands off!"

-Hyp.

 

[Angcuru]

Kalendraf, here's what you do: AN EPIC LEVEL THIEF COMES ALONG AND TAKES ALL OF THEIR STUFF WHILE THEY"RE SLEEPING! HAHA! Then they'll wish they'd have played Forsakers.

 

[Scarbonac]

Huh. I don't really see a problem; guy dies, the party gets his stuff -- although my wife and I have our players in our campaigns write up wills so that there are some guidelines as to where the stuff goes.


Also, all of our players have multiple PCs, often running on seperate adventures parallel to each other, so we don't have to immediately replace any dead ones and we usually opt to raise or resurrect 'em anyway (the Adventuring Organization that we set up in my wife's campaign maintains a Resurrection Fund into which everyone donates a small percentage of the loot from each adventure); we just had to bring back a character who was disintegrated, which depleted some of the fundage. So YMMV.






The idea that the gear automatically belongs to the ''collective party'' does bother me, to a degree; 1) What is this, the Borg? and 2) What is this, the Borg?

As for the ''send in the thieves/authorities/rightful heirs/ghosts of the PCs/et cetera to mess them up'' , this smacks of heavy-handed railroading to me.


1) Thieves? How do they know what goodies the party has? If you're using your DM's Knowledge to do that, it's as bad a case of meta-gaming as a PC who attempts to make gunpowder in a campaign world where it is unheard of. Of course, if the PCs are fond of announcing that they use their Hammer Of Unerring Splattage, openly and publicly, by all means have a go at them; they're begging for it.


2) ''Inheritance laws''? Do the ''Authorities'' have a laundry-list of the belongings of every individual person within their boundaries? Do they have special magical ''spy-satellites'' that follow everyone around, taking note of their actions and possessions? What if the party is in the Wilderness/Abyss/''Lawless Area''/Thundering Crack Of Doom, et cetera?





3)''Relatives''? Do your group's PCs even have relatives? I know that several of my own PCs and those of my fellow players simply don't have any family, or they live in an obscure, far-off place. Any relatives who would know where the PC is, or even be aware of the relationship? Did these relatives happen to see on the 6:00 Crystal Ball that Valdon the Valorous (a distant cousin) died in The Cavern Of Unutterable Horror, 100 (or 1000, or 100,000) miles away, or on another Plane?


If there are established relatives who give a damn, or the existance of such relatives is left vague by the player (''Uh, I think that Valdon is the last of his tribe''), then fine, do it. But I wouldn't just make some up for the express purpose of relieving the party of goodies that you let them have.


4)''Ghosts'': I know that as a player, I'd cry ''foul'' in a hot Greyhawk minute if the spectral form of a dead PC were to show up and start demanding ''his'' stuff if it would be out of character for him to have done so in life, and so would the other players in my group.


As a DM,the idea makes me cringe; dead or not (unless actually converted via in-game events into an undead) the PC still belongs to the player. I'd be damned before I'd stomp all over the memory of that PC's portrayal and the rights of the player, just to screw the party.


That's cheese, IMNSHO, pure and simple.



5) Rust Monsters? Ick. Few things say ''Cheese Alert!'' than Rust Monsters (or Disenchanters).


(I will admit that I used Disenchanters against an arrogant PC [or was it the player?] about 20 years ago cos he said that his treasure room was ''so secure that even the Gods couldn't get into it and-'' *boom*. Disenchanters. Heaps of 'em. All over the place.)


6) The God (or Gods) of death want them as payment to ''cross over''? Meh, why?


An option that you might try (speaking of relatives) is have the new PC that the player makes up as a replacement be the stiff's ''rightful heir'' (brother/sister/cousin/best friend/et cetera), and then give them first level gear and money plus the ''inheritance''.


If the party balks at giving up the goodies then, the new PC could institute legal proceedings. Might lead to an interesting court battle (assuming that the legal system to support it exists) full of juicy role-playing.


Damn, that actually sounds like fun.

 

[drnuncheon]

"Certainly, sir. As an employee of Adventurers Unlimited, Inc., your brother earned a monthly wage of 4 silver pieces. Given his time with the company, and taking into account our generous Death Benefits scheme, you're eligible for the rather tidy inheritance of five gold pieces and two silver pieces. No no - I'm afraid all that shiny magical gear is company equipment that your brother used in the execution of his duties. Hands off!"

"Are you Mr H. Smurf, claiming to be of Adventurers Unlimited, Inc? I have the honor to be Wegwort Snive, Royal Auditor. Are you aware that your company has failed to pay incorporation fees, guild taxes, death tax on the deceased members..."

Alternately:

"Mr. H. Smurf, Adventurers Unlimited, Inc? My name is Roland Mikkelson, representing the family and heirs of one Dunbar Rodericksson, aka Dunbar the Mighty. The gentleman beside me is Legate-Champion Artisius of the Royal Judiciary. It has become known to my clients that the aforementioned deceased was an employee of your firm. Do you have a contract containing the terms of his employment? I see. These are rather unusual terms for a person who risks his life on a daily basis, aren't they? Mr. Smurf, my clients are prepared to bring this matter before the Royal Courts on the grounds that the ex-employee would not have signed such an agreement unless under physical or magical duress. Until the matter is resolved Legate-Champion Artisius will take custody of the disputed items as a representative of the courts..."

J

 

[Sir Whiskers]

Just a few ideas:

1) Is the party a group of heroes, i.e., good-aligned? If so, create a scenario where good npc's need to be equipped - a temple that the party has reclaimed, but was completely sacked and the original clerical order needs help rebuilding/re-equipping, or an adventuring group the party rescues, but had all their equipment stolen, etc. IMC I've found the players tend to be very generous with excess items, even magic items, if there's a reasonable excuse for it.

2) Parties tend to acquire lots of the same items (+1 weapons and armor, wands, cloaks, bracers, etc). If they only get a maximum of half value when selling these items, the total party wealth will eventually balance out. Also, since they don't get full value for these items, I find players are more willing to donate them (see 1. above).

3) I don't know about your campaign, but I have no problem running encounters with little or no treasure - in fact I sometimes have trouble including significant treasure, depending on what the party is doing. As long as the party is facing a decent number of unintelligent opponents, you can cut back on the amount of treasure given for a while without being heavy-handed about it.

 

[drnuncheon]

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.

No, see, you're misinterpreting it.

Most DMs shy away from such encounters in general because the players don't like them. Then when the players have too much magic and they want to use them, it seems unfair because all of a sudden, all of these equipment-destroying encounters crop up out of nowhere.

The secret is to have them in there all along. Hit them with that kind of encounter once or twice a level to knock down their gear. Don't ever let it get to the 'overstocked' point. Then it doesn't seem as arbitrary - it's only as arbitrary as anything else the DM does.

J

 

[Ace]

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.

No offense to you Zappo, YMMV and all that but Blech!

This is the purest and most disgusting form of game think out there
.

That +2 breastplate and +2 shield and the rest exist (in game context obviously) without the characters attached to them

If the characters choose to dispose of the stuff or they are destroyed in combat or by legitimate means than OK but otherwise having "Gods of GAME BALANCE" arbitraily "abstract" them from play is just bad DMing IMO

 

[Angcuru]

Perhaps the PCs anger some local nobles who in turn believe themselves to be entitled to repayment, and send out a party of high-level fighters with Improved Disarm to obtian 'payment'.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Alternately:

"Mr. H. Smurf, Adventurers Unlimited, Inc? My name is Roland Mikkelson, representing the family and heirs of one Dunbar Rodericksson, aka Dunbar the Mighty. The gentleman beside me is Legate-Champion Artisius of the Royal Judiciary. It has become known to my clients that the aforementioned deceased was an employee of your firm. Do you have a contract containing the terms of his employment? I see. These are rather unusual terms for a person who risks his life on a daily basis, aren't they? Mr. Smurf, my clients are prepared to bring this matter before the Royal Courts on the grounds that the ex-employee would not have signed such an agreement unless under physical or magical duress. Until the matter is resolved Legate-Champion Artisius will take custody of the disputed items as a representative of the courts..."

"Hey, it's the same contract I signed myself... and it's witnessed here by a High Priest of Tyr, with an annotation stating that the negotation took place within a Zone of Truth... take your best shot..."

BTW - have you read the Fencer Trilogy?

I bought the first book on the strength of one phrase in the back cover blurb - "Fencer-at-Law".

-Hyp.

 

[Ace]

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.

Well the social custom is cool but as for the other

Whatever works for your group I guess.

If you tried that with my group the players would leave the game.

Heck they would have to push me out of the way

Unless it is discussed up front that treasure will be lower, there is a certain xp/treasure profression rate expected. The DM needs to keep his end of the agreement and not "control freak" about "game balance"

Again IMO if you can't scale encounters to a comfortable level based on the players actual capability than you need to get more DMing practice. I am a mediocre DM and even I can scale encounters