Problem: character deaths are leading to enormous party wealth

[Kalendraf]

Fundamentally, the problem is that you're penalizing the party more for raising fallen characters than for bringing in new ones. And they are responding based on that reward structure. It's that simple. Period. End of story.

Therefore, to solve the problem, you have to start by bringing in new characters at lower level and with less stuff. Otherwise you are not addressing that one simple problem. Others have pointed this out, but it is not clear to me that the message is getting through.

You're oversimplefying the situation.

While player's can make that exact choice, the fact is that nobody has exercised the choice option to abuse the situation. When bodies were able to be raised, they have been. The problem has come in the situations where raise dead was not an option (character turned to undead, etc), but the character's loot has remained behind. We originally did enforce a rule where new charcters came in lower than the lowest party member, but that quickly backfired and caused some horrible level gap problems in the early going. That led us to the current rule which is definitely better from the aspect of keeping the party level more manageable. New characters always have less gear than the rest of the party even if I allow them standard equipment for their level, so that's already being accomplished.

The problem is really how to handle the dead guys loot. In most cases, the dying characters have no family or other affiliations besides the party, so the party has as much claim to it as anyone. That seems to be the root of the problem. Ideally, the equipment would just go *poof* when the character dies, but there's no logical background to explain this behavior in my campaign. Introducing one at this point would seem extremely tacky.

 

[Seule]

Anecdote:
In a campaign I play in, when we were 20th level, we were transported to Ravenloft. Our GM basically laid down a restriction of 5 magic items each, ditch the rest. It meant that each of us could keep our most important and signature items, while losing all the accumulated items that give lesser boosts. There was some complaining, noteably from the guy who kept two artifacts (!!!), but on the whole, we were all getting the same treatment, and we knew that the GM had plans, so it went fine. The important stuff we lost was some stat boosters, some AC enhancers, and some scrolls and wands (including my freshly scribed scroll of Gate ), but we all kept the important stuff.

It worked for us, you might try something similar.

--Seule

 

[S'mon]

Firstly, here's how the long running campaign I play in deals with it:

Level / Higher Level Starting Money
2 600gp
3 900gp
4 1200gp
5 1600gp
6 2000gp
7 2600gp
8 3400gp
9 4500gp
10 5800gp
11 7500gp
12 9800gp
13 13000gp
14 17000gp
15 22000gp

Seems to work out OK, because we still get decent treasure handed out to us. And it stops your problem straight off.

This works for my lowish-magic & wealth campaign setting. For a high magic & wealth setting, where most NPCs have wealth assigned according to the NPC wealth by level table, giving new PCs wealth as per NPCs ought to work ok. What doesn't work is giving new high level PCs in a campaign (as opposed to a one-shot) wealth by the PCs-wealth-by-level table. IMO that table is handy to eyeball as a guide to the maximum wealth PCs should have at a given level, but starting them with that amount is a recipe for disaster, as this thread attests.

 

[sabby]

Keep in Mind

You all should probably keep in mind that the players may enjoy having easier challenges and having tons of stuff. If the players are entertained and the GM is able to present a story, then given them 20th level gear at first level. It's a bitter pill to swallow as a GM, but I've started to learn to love the munchkinness of 3rd Edition.

I tried running a much lower magic world. Heck, I tried running a world where plate armor was rare... I also tended to spare the character's lives. No one ever talked about my games as much as they brought up their past games, where they had X and oh so many people die.

I am now known as a killer DM and not a munchkin DM. Yet, people come back to my games. I feel like a horrible, evil villain. I still don't really hand out tremendous amounts of magic, but I started to use the DMG's guidelines. And players die in my world, and their stuff is inherited by other PCs. (The PCs are criminals before they even enter the world, the campaign was focused on the PCs being from slave races.) The equipment just never was SOLD because there really wasn't anywhere to SELL it to... Except this one merchant, and he was buying from the PCs in a "credit" fashion. Once in a while, he'd have some OTHER item for sale. But, I definitely took suggestions from the players. You want a Headband of Intellect +4... Strangely enough, someone sold one to the black market just recently.

There's an assumption that the PCs have certain gear at certain levels in the system. The saving throw DCs that are required at a level assumes that the PCs have saving throw items.

I've also learned that I can speed up character level to match treasure by throwing higher challenges at them... ostensibly, someone caught wind that a weak party has hold of high magic. They're willing to give quarter, provided the party abandons some equipment. Nice way to introduce a villain that the party will PLOT and PLAN and FROTH AT THE MOUTH to defeat. They will EXPEND resources to do so. (I have a mindbender that my old party really wants to defeat, and he is now lower level than they are...)

Oh, and a side note: If you ever want to challenge a party without giving them more experience, throw high amounts of lower CR encounters at them. 8 monsters 2 CRs lower than the party provide a lot less experience than their EL would indicate. Plausible deniability.

 

[smetzger]

I've just let the players choose wealth for the new character as per NPC wealth.

 

[Kalendraf]

First off you have to remove the problem not the symptoms. Start replacement characters at the level of the lowest level survivor. Eventually they'll balance back up again for you.

Evidence in this campaign seems to prove otherwise. We have one character who has never ever died, and seems to rarely even get hurt for that matter. The only reason he's not 13th level right now is because his player has intentionally chosen to skip a few adventures while his comrades level-up. On the other hand, we have some extremely accident prone characters/players who are always seeming to blunder into situations they shouldn't have. There are two players that each have 3 deaths on their characters, and these are the same ones who always seem to be the closest to dying in every adventure.

If I were to continually start replacement characters at the lowest level as you suggest, I'd have the following situation:

Two 12th level characters
Two 11th level characters
Two 8th level characters

Is that an ideal situation for the party or the DM? Only penalizing a half-level for deaths or replacements keep sthings a lot more manageable. Using that method there's still a 2-level gap they're having to struggle with, but at least it's not 4 levels.

 

[Kalendraf]

What doesn't work is giving new high level PCs in a campaign (as opposed to a one-shot) wealth by the PCs-wealth-by-level table. IMO that table is handy to eyeball as a guide to the maximum wealth PCs should have at a given level, but starting them with that amount is a recipe for disaster, as this thread attests.

This isn't the basic problem. See one of my above posts - the issue is how to handle the items that are looted off the dead PC. That's where the sudden burst of wealth comes from. Introducing a new character with suggested wealth merely keeps them in line with where they should be, IMHO.

Ideally, the PC's would have a max wealth value, and if was ever exceeded, it would cause extra items to vanish. Then the balance would be kept, and this newfound wealth off of the dead PC simply wouldn't happen. The problem is finding a way to implement it into a campaign and keeping it believeable.

Some people argue that if the party decides to keep the dead guy's stuff, then the new PC should start with no wealth at all to make up for it. That method doesn't address the fact that the party may not be generous with these old items they grabbed off the dead guy. Remember this could easily be a party of chaotic or neutral alignments. The party's line of thinking here might be:

"We adventured together when we found those items, so they now belong to the remaining members of that adventure. We'll either use them or sell them. New characters aren't eligible for those old items, but new characters are eligible for any new items found on adventures they partake with us in the future."

I can't really fault that line of thinking. These characters are loners with no real affiliation to anyone or any group besides the party. So there aren't really any NPC's hanging around to come claim these old items.

As a result, if new characters are now forced to come in with no equipment, they will be at a severe disadvantage. Let's see that Xth level character in a regular chain shirt and a regular weapon try to fend off creatures with damage resistance. These new characters, who are already coming in at a lower level than the old character will be even more prone to dying. The death rate will likely increase at an even faster clip for these new characters, and then the party level gap will widen, and the whole campaign will probably go right into the toilet. There would be no plausible way for the new characters to ever catch-up to the surviving characters' experience or wealth. Thus, the only fair method I've found is to allow these new characters to come in with standard wealth for their level. That at least gives them a fighting chance. So the problem isn't the new guys starting wealth - it's the old guy's leftover wealth!

 

[Kalendraf]

Regardless, I see that you have 2 major problems: dead PCs are returning at too high a level, and that they're coming in with too much magic. Both are game group policy problems.

I strongly disagree with that. As I mentioned in the previous post, new characters must come in at a compatible level with the party, and they must be given a fair amount of wealth. Otherwise, they will be at a severe disadvantage compared to the surviving PC's. It's not like I hand out loads of treasure every adventure - the wealth earned here is primarily due to the campaign running for 2+ years. At these higher levels, forcing a character to start with much less than the suggested amount of loot is going to severely cripple them, IMHO. Either their AC, saves, damage dealing abilities, or some combination of the above, are going to be so pathetic that they will quickly become the first casualty in the next adventure. The player would probably just up and quit after a few more deaths like this, quickly coming to realize his situation is hopeless. The other option would be to end the campaign right there and have everyone start over. Neither of those are options we want.

I keep my campaigns at a fairly reasonable (slightly lower than usual) magic level, so it's no surprise that not many people are running around with thousands of gp's worth of magic items. Magic items are gained while adventuring with an adventuring group (and for PCs, within the framework of the game. *Period*). This works for us (and, you will note, I'm not the one with the magic item proliferation problem).

I have run several low-magic campaigns in the past, but intentionally chose to run this campaign with standard magic/wealth as per the DMG this time around. I can see how having a low-magic campaign works to offset the problem I'm facing. So long as no character ever dies, the rules using standard wealth in the DMG work just fine. However, in a long-term campaign, characters will be replaced at some point. This is something that isn't really covered in the rules at all, but perhaps should be discussed somewhere in the DMG. The moral of the story is that if you're going to use standard wealth rules as per the DMG, then you need to find a way to handle or remove dead character wealth. Otherwise, you're going to run into some major problems as I have.

 

[Psion]

Four things I do:

1) Wealth is passed down by family. If a warrior from a noted family dies, his family has the right to claim it as an heirloom.

2) Warriors are buried with their weapons and armor. To my pleasant surprise, this one came from one of my players (who is a stickler for history), not me. I have since adopted it as a cultural norm in my campaign world.

Of course this creates lots of tomb robbers. Of course, this is culturally verbotten. Woe betide the character who gets caught toting around the burial heirlooms of a powerful family.

3) The nemurani rule, derived from d20 Rokugan. Magic items are awakened spirits, and respond to their their owners. They can be given but they cannot be looted.

In my game not all items are like this, but there is a percentage chance that any permanent item is.

4) The "deadly blow" house rule. Any attack that slays a character requires that a random item make a save or be destroyed, just as if the character rolled a 1. Any area attack that slays a character requires saves of ALL his items.

 

[Conaill]

In that case, I really only see two reasonable solutions:

1) Give out less treasure for a while until their level has caught up with their wealth. It may not be entirely "realistic", but this is only a game after all. Besides, it gives the rest of the party a good additional incentive to keep their friends from dying!

2) Try to enforce the item damage rules much more stringently. Add some reasonable houserules if you need to (e.g. fireball has a chance to set things on fire). That way, the more PCs get killed, the more of their items will tend to be destroyed as well.