Who was right

[Herobizkit]

In a battle of player vs DM, translated into player-character vs. DM-generated enemies, the DM ALWAYS wins.

If the DM said "I'm gonna break your shield", that's the DM (and not his erstwhile neutral game-controller persona) launching a personal attack in the guise of an in-game action. That is seldom cool - he couldn't figure out how to properly challenge (or 'beat') your character, and so he decided to exercise DM fiat and permanently remove the obstacle.

Even so, if you had kicked down the door and taken on the sheild-breakers yourself, sure, take all the loot you want. But if your PARTY agrees that all loot is distributed equally, you're still out of luck. It's not like you kept the offender alive to defend his case or anything, and Speak with Dead (or any magical spells of compulsion, even Zone of Truth) are inadmissible in court. If you REALLY want to push this, check out the old splatbook "Masters of the Wild"; there is a PrC called the Watch Detective that includes the Rules of Evidence that must be followed when apprehending a criminal. Good read, that.

Bottom line: The DM pulled an expensive fast one on you 'just because', and you're left holding your ... broken shield. It's got a foul taste, but that's between you and your DM. The players are right to not get involved. Settle 'out of court', or when the game's done for the day.

 

[robertliguori]

The 'loot' of the 'evil bad guys' that you were fighting belongs to the ruler of the realm in which you were doing the fighting. If you were lawfully carrying out the will of that ruler, I can see how he might be inclined to reward you with some monies in return for this service. Otherwise, your 'loot', too, is likely forfeit to that ruler, as well as your lives, for slaying the citizens over which he governs.

Also, the 'bad guy' that sundered your shield showed remarkable restrain in attempting to defend himself without taking a life. You, on the other hand, have shown very little restraint or respect for life in your wanton slaughter and barely disguised lust for money and power.

Later
silver

*descends from Mount Celestia, pulls out sparkling glowy briefcase*

"It is interesting that you would make this argument. You see, implicit in the very idea of law is the idea of hierarchy; that within different spheres, different authorities hold sway. While it is true that within the mortal realms, the mandates of the mortal law should be upheld, mortal realms, as part of the multiverse, are themselves subject to the laws of the multiverse itself, and that the laws of the mortal realms are inherently unable to contradict the laws of the universe. This principle has been upheld in Greenhilt and Associates vs. Azure City; it is tried and tested binding legal precedent. Moreover, one of the laws of the universe, specifically the principle of personal advancement (somewhat sadly summarized as the imperative to "Kill bad things and take their stuff"), holds that all income gained via adventuring and looting is non-taxable and not subject to confiscation. Remember, this principle is for your protection; depriving adventurers of their treasure throws off the destiny threat/challenge matrix, and can lead to impoverished adventurers suffering defeat and forces of darkness running rampant over your lands. So, remember mortals: not interfering with the treasure flow to adventurers isn't just a good idea; it's the Law!"

 

[Holy Bovine]

So most would agree that this bad guy did owe me a debt. The thing is a that killing him does not absolve the debt. A life is not worth 25,000 gold. A life is worth diddly, unless you're rich or someone rich cares about you.

Yup - you're a paladin alright!

Did you guys pay back the wizard for using that 250gp worth of diamond dust to cast stoneskin? How about the cleric blowing 5000gp on a diamond to bring Rusty the Dwarf back from the dead? Did anyone compensate Leeroy the Archer for the 3000gp in magic arrows he fired? Really you just seem to be trying to get something for nothing here.

 

[noretoc]

Well the way I see it, you owe the party money now. See when you joined the group, it was on the intention that for a share of treasure that you keep for yourself, you were required to fill certain obligations. One of them is to act as a defender of the party. Due to your ineptitude (remember the DM is a metagame concept, and Luck is not a legal term), you did not function in your role to protect your item well enough. Now that you have lost said item, you will not be able to function as well in your role as you have. When your contribution dwindles, so should your compensation. They should cut your share of the treasure.

 

[Kraydak]

this explaned alot to me i wonder how the guy sndered such a tough item i mean 10 hardness 70 hp and you can't crit it plus you draw a AoO from attacking it but now i understand the DM handwaved it so the corract action in my view is to toss the cheating DM on his ear. and all you other whinny DM that want to say DM can't cheat are wrong DM's can get away with cheating but it is still cheating and i don't stand for it i don't cheat they don't cheat. otherwise they are not the DM.

15 hardness, actually (+2 per +).

If the DM wants to forbid shields, are you are playing a tank, the only reasonable response is to commit character suicide. You *can* build shield-less tanks in DnD, but it takes a lot of work, and generally doesn't involve tank-like classes. If the DM was complaining about monsters missing you merely half the time, and sundered your shield due to that, well, money is the least of your problems.

On the other hand, since the DM probably sundered the shield by fiat, rather than constructing an NPC that could sunder it, if you manage to convince him that he is on crack (which it sounds like he is), you might manage a ret-con. Otherwise, drop the character, maybe the game.

 

[Umbran]

and then took the argument out of game and posted it on some message board. I would not look kindly on someone who aired our dirty laundry in public.

Crothian, people come in here with their gaming troubles all the time. Helping people figure these things out is part of the reason to have these boards. I haven't seen any identifying information about the party - it is all reasonably anonymous, as is proper. There's nothing wrong with what he's done.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I also notice that almost every post against me is based is saying that the party doesn’t owe me anything or that I shouldn’t take from party gold. None of these arguments are valid. I never said the party owed me gold. I am not saying that the party should give me 25,000 gold of their treasure. I am saying that the 25,000 gold is mine and not theirs.

And for the umpteenth time - this is where you are wrong. That gold is NOT yours. There is no law in place that lets you even make a claim that the bad guy owes you, personally, the cost of your shield. You have only the AUDACITY to make that claim, not legal precedent. The law does not even openly condemn OR approve the actions of you and your fellow adventurers in chasing down the bad guy and killing him. Your character being a paladin effectively makes you judge, jury and executioner, but that only means by virtue of your class you assume the right to:

A) decide that his initial attack upon your village and his ongoing deeds are wrong and evil and therefore you have not just the right but the obligation to stop him,
B) decide whether the punishment for his deeds extends as far as his deserving to die,
C) carrying out that execution either in battle or after he has been captured.

In short it gives you the right to fight him and kill him without worrying about being legitimately called a murderer. That's all.

The idea that he owes you the cost of your shield if he sunders it is CIVIL law, but civil law does not apply if the circumstances of its destruction are a result of events OUTSIDE of civil law - which is to say in open combat/warfare.

So then what about the laws of warfare? Even the laws governing the conduct of warfare in modern times do not extend so far as to assign financial responsibility for lost equipment resulting from combat - and this is an INSANELY modern legal concept you're attempting to argue for. If I enter combat with you with my personal tank and you blow up my tank you don't become personally financially responsible to me for the cost of the tank. It doesn't matter why we entered combat in the first place, nor why you chose to blow up my tank instead of a fighter jet. The laws of warfare apply to how you treat PEOPLE; civilians and soldiers. It's about how you treated soldiers in the field or that you've captured - NOT what you've done to their equipment when they fought you. In this modern day and age there is also the concept of crimes against humanity for using weapons of mass destruction, mass rape & torture, starvation of civilians, etc., NONE of which apply here.

They especially don't apply since you yourself claim this is a PERSONAL debt owed to you by the ESTATE of the deceased, as a result of his actions IN COMBAT, and to which you have first and absolute claim over any other POSSIBLE claims despite the rest of the mayhem, destruction and murder perpetrated by the BBEG prior to your ever entering combat. Assume for just a moment you're actually correct - that he owes you for the cost of your shield. If that's true then he ALSO owes lots of other people for the cost of their burned houses, lost revenue from destroyed businesses, dead family members, and so forth. Those claims would then also be legally levied against the value of the loot you find after you kill him. IANAL, but modern law might even give those claims precedence over yours because those losses happened first, but honestly the best you or anyone else could expect would be a percentage of the replacement value determined by a formula of the total value of the BBEG's cash and goods divided by the total value of ALL those claims against him. You'd be lucky to be able to buy a potion with what you'd get.

And then there's the idea that your fellow party members have an obligation to agree with your decidedly extra-legal assessment. They don't. The greatest likelihood is that you had an UNSPOKEN understanding about who would deserve what loot and why, and that understanding would have been... equal shares for everyone, period. The second most likely circumstance would have been a VERBAL agreement - again for equal shares. And clearly there was no formal or written agreement regarding distribution of treasure or this discussion would be moot from the start.

Now I sympathize with your characters loss. I've been there myself. It REALLY sucks. But your argument about this being a legal right is just so wacky and inaccurate that it's boggling.

I also sympathize with you regarding your DM's statements, and I sympathize with your DM himself - but he's got the wrong attitude as well. It is not a crime for a PC to be good at something and to say that he's just going to keep sundering any replacement you obtain makes him a bit of a jerk. If he really does have a problem running the game with a PC with a too-high AC then he should be talking to you about how to solve the problem, not just screwing your character over arbitrarily.

But no matter what - lose this silly notion of there being a legitimate and legally binding personal debt to a PC because of items lost in combat.

 

[Will]

Some observations:
Moff comes across as a weasel and a jerk. Anyone who disagrees with him is GREEDY, and he's completely unwilling to see things from other points of view.

His DM comes across as a weasel and a jerk. If you don't like someone having high AC? Ask them to focus elsewhere. Putting in a huge metarule that suddenly EVERYONE attempts to sunder his armor is a steaming pile, IMO. Additionally, if you have high AC due to putting all your money into it? It probably means your saves aren't all that hot, your damage isn't as good as the raving barbarian, etc. The DM sounds like a nitwit.


That said, groups I'm in have a simple rule: equalize treasure.

Every once in a while, we take stock of how much gear everyone has. (For sanity's sake, we usually ignore wizard spells) Some gear are considered apart, 'party gear,' like wands of CLW and the like (since they are used by anyone to heal everyone).

If there is any obvious inequity, we attempt to address that in future to even things out.

So in this case? If loosing a 25k shield puts the character well below his fellows? It behooves the entire party to give more loot to him, so he can perform his duties adequately.


The entire legalese stuff smacks of BS. First of all, the loot grabbed from bad guys is spoils of war; effectively, that loot doesn't 'belong' to anyone. It's not like once you kill them you are going to take all the loot and return it to their estates.

If you really DO think the dead guy 'owes' you 25k, go find his relatives and provide them with a bill.

 

[Satori]

His DM comes across as a weasel and a jerk. If you don't like someone having high AC? Ask them to focus elsewhere. Putting in a huge metarule that suddenly EVERYONE attempts to sunder his armor is a steaming pile, IMO. Additionally, if you have high AC due to putting all your money into it? It probably means your saves aren't all that hot, your damage isn't as good as the raving barbarian, etc. The DM sounds like a nitwit.

This part is very telling, as well.

Rather than challenge the player with touch attacks, save or suck spells, social encounters, skill encounters, or any other experience that exploits the PC's weakness...he instead decides to wave around his "DM Man Part" and arbitrarily take away something valuable to the PC.

This reminds me of the dreaded "1st ED Rust Monster" shtick. (i.e. When a certain PC acquires an item that disrupts game balance, a Rust Monster would inevitably show up and disintegrate the item)

I call Lame Sauce.

 

[Ourph]

Like I said before, most of you see this issue from the point of the view of the party, an you must understand this. The logic of the party is clouded by greed. No one is going to side with me when siding with me means less money in their pocket.

I have nothing to gain in this situation and I don't agree with your "logic". In every game I've ever played in, the party splits the treasure equally, based on the fact that all party members (generally) share the same risk during the adventure. In all the games I've ever palyed, when a Wizard character uses an expensive gem to cast Stoneskin on himself before the battle, he doesn't demand that the cost of that gem be deducted from the treasure and given to him before everyone takes their shares. Yet, the gem is "destroyed" during the attempt to defeat the bad guys just like your shield was. Yes, the Wizard chose to use the gem to his advantage, but you also chose to take the shield into battle as an advantage to yourself. Had you left it out of the battle, somewhere safe, it would not have been destroyed.

In this case, I don't think it is the rest of the party whose judgement is clouded by greed, it is your own.