Scavenging and Loot

[DragonBelow]

Hi Everyone,

I am running a game in which I've made a house rule about scavending (picking up every last copper piece and stripping down lowly enemies to sell their stuff), for all practical purposes it's forbidden, but I handle extra loot, and good loot at that, so there is _no_ need to scavenge, in fact they are above the avg wealth for a party of their level, and by a good amount.

Last session one of the PCs died due to a dragon's BW, and one of the players is talking about stripping him and selling his stuff. I want to rule that most of his stuff is destroyed. Do you think this is fair?

Thanks in advance.

 

[XCorvis]

It kind of sucks from the player's point of view, but sometimes you can appeal to them in meta-game terms: "I want to keep you at the appropriate wealth for your level, so either his stuff is destroyed or you won't find treasure for the next 4 adventures."

More practially, you could roll the items saves vs the breath weapon to see what survives. Most of it will probably go "poof" anyway, but you'll still have to deal with the same issue next time another PC dies.

 

[Lorehead]

Depending on where you've set the campaign, and who the deceased was, you might tell the players that the equipment now belongs to the rightful heir. That person might agree that the slain PC's closest friends should each receive some bequest to remember him by. If the players respond by drawing up wills which say that their estates should go to their adventuring companions, you can just shrug and reduce treasure values accordingly.

If this would not be satisfactory, you might go one step further and adopt a particularly strict set of inheritance laws, such that a person cannot disown his own family, and the estates of people who die with no family fall to a church, or to the crown.

In your place, this is a battle which I, personally, would not choose to fight.

 

[Travinkel]

According to the RAW, scavenging another player is forbidden. As far as I recall.

This is primarily due to the act being immorale.

 

[Lorehead]

According to the RAW, scavenging another player is forbidden. As far as I recall.

This is primarily due to the act being immorale.

Do you have a reference for this?

 

[Travinkel]

Do you have a reference for this?

I guess it was a misconception. I probably read it in a White-Wolf product, hency why I couldn't find the page detailing it.

 

[XCorvis]

According to the RAW, scavenging another player is forbidden. As far as I recall.

This is primarily due to the act being immoral.

While I've never seen it in writing, it could certainly be written into a game. Perhaps the looting of dead comrads is frowned upon by the gods and results in a curse. It's fine to do whatever way you want, but you need to make sure that the players know it (and agree) before they start playing.

 

[Lorehead]

While I've never seen it in writing, it could certainly be written into a game. Perhaps the looting of dead comrads is frowned upon by the gods and results in a curse. It's fine to do whatever way you want, but you need to make sure that the players know it (and agree) before they start playing.

This is, I acknowledge, true within the broadest meaning of the word "could," but it strikes me as heavy-handed. The game has mostly moved away from pronouncements that "you can't do that" because of the arbitrary whims of the gods.

A similar idea you might consider is to adopt the ancient Egyptian belief that you can take it with you into the afterlife, but only if it's buried with you. You might also combine it with the Norse belief that the best afterlife is a neverending cycle of feast and battle (but tweak it so only a warrior buried with his arms can participate), or the Greek belief that a person buried without the right items is trapped on the borders of the underworld. That helps to explain why so many great personages interred themselves in heavily-guarded crypts with all their wealth and magic items.

 

[the Jester]

What I do is subtract the value of the scavenged gear from the new pc's starting equipment. This prevents the party from getting insane amounts of gear if they have a bad run of deaths and new pcs, and in a metagame way it encourages them not to scavenge (because if I do it to you when you die, you might do it to me when I die).

 

[Lorehead]

What I do is subtract the value of the scavenged gear from the new pc's starting equipment. This prevents the party from getting insane amounts of gear if they have a bad run of deaths and new pcs, and in a metagame way it encourages them not to scavenge (because if I do it to you when you die, you might do it to me when I die).

So, not only do the other party members get more treasure than they should at their level, the next character starts with nothing? The deceased PC's gear is normally worth more than the starting wealth of a new character of the same level or below, is it not? Or have I misunderstood?

I'm leery of relying on metagame logic for a solution. Not only is it a bad habit in general, it leads to inexplicable behavior. How, for instance, would these characters explain why they're willing to loot the bodies of anyone but the PCs?