Who was right

[Greylock]

Jiminy Cricket! And here is poor me, with shiny blue eyes getting the shaft.

For example - did you get the 25,000 GP for that shield all by yourself, or was it bought with shares of party treasure? If the latter, there's the argument that it, and all items ever acquired using party treasure are all really party property. You were chosen to manage some share of the treasure, and you bought the shield. It's gone now. It is not your loss, but the party's. What to do about that is still a party decision, not yours alone.

I agree with Umbran with this take on the argument. I'm also curious, however, how much of this argument is transpiring as a roleplaying issue and how much is Real World. I'm also curious what manner of "Lawful" your character is.

 

[Mark]

I might be able to end this argument. By proving over half the players at the table agree with me.

(. . .)

That’s 3 players, at a table with 5.

Then you have already one, simply add 25,000 gp to your character sheet and remove that same amount from the sheets of the other players. There is simply no point in arguing any further. Please contact a moderator and ask for your thread to be closed.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

First off, I am not guided by greed. Greedy people want more. I just want what I lost. I would be perfectly happy walking out of the bad guys lair with the same stuff I walked in with. I dont need so much as one more gold peice in my pocket. How is that greedy? How is wanting thousands of gold more then what you started with, while your freind ends up with thousands less not Greedy?

 

[Herobizkit]

Shields are for sissies.

That said, it's a magic item. YOUR magic item. What happens to it as a result of damage, dragon breath, or disjunction simply does not matter. It's a tool of your trade, and it got broken during regular use. Too bad, so sad. Enchant a new one, or use something else.

By contrast, if you sunder an opponent's shield and, by chance, you take him alive, do you recoup HIM the losses HE took as a result of YOUR actions?

Party pools are just that - money and gear EVERYONE shares in. If your gear gets destroyed, a good party might offer to use the Pool to enchant a new shield. You're simply trying to use alignment as leverage to get what you want. If I were in your party, I might give you some extra of my share to help recoup your loss, but I'd never do it if demanded because "I'm Lawful".

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

There is a group of evil bad guys that the party is fighting. During the final confrontation with this group, one of them sunders my +5 tower shield, a 25,000 gold piece item. After picking my jaw up off the floor I said, “By any civilized law this guy, or his group, owes me 25,000 gold pieces. There isn’t a judge in the land that would rule otherwise. So remember that when we kill these guys, 25,000 of their gold is not theirs but mine.”

You are COMBATANTS. Civil law does not apply to your dealings between each other. Criminal law does not apply. You are combatants. There are also no "rules of war" like the Geneva Convention or war crimes courts as in the Hague that apply to your dealings with each other - and even if there are then certainly ONE of you isn't going to be a signatory to the binding legislation for it.

In any case, with one party in your dispute DEAD your issue is no longer with your enemy in obtaining redress for the loss of your 25000 gp shield. It is with your own party members in establishing an agreement wherein THEY would have agreed to compensate you out of party treasure for this extraordinary loss, which otherwise is simply the "cost of doing business" while adventuring. Your unwritten understanding obviously has been that the entire estate of the deceased is PARTY property, barring any agreements made BEFOREHAND. You have every reason to feel badly about it and WANT to be compensated, but you have absolutely no legal basis upon which to claim you are OWED and entitled to jack squat.

Any judge in the land would tell you so. JMH-IANAL-O

 

[Greylock]

I'd still pay good money, GOOD MONEY, to see this on Court TV.

 

[Moff_Tarkin]

I would not owe the bad guy anything for sundering his sheild. I'll give him a nice cell to sleep in. Also, if i did sunder the magical shield or armor of an enemy I know the party would be pissed at me for effectivly taking items out of potential party treasure.

It retrospect I should not have allowed the party to look his corpse. Instead I should have taken his corpes back to town, payed for a resurection which would cost less then a shield, and take his +6 gloves of strength as personal payment. Would that have been a more lawful way to do it?

The haul from that battle was 18,000 gold. So everyone else gets a 18,000 gold profit and I take a 7,000 gold loss. They are swimming in coins like Scrooge Mcduck, and I am running around trying to sell some of my magic items at a loss in order to get my sheild back. Imagine a paladin on the street shouting, "Hey man, I got this amulet. Only 500 gold. Come on man, I need the money"

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Moff,

First off, I am not sure there is an argument on this board that to 'win'. Are you trying to gain confirmation for your side here?


Second, 'legal' has very little to do with DnD 'heroes' looting bodies. The legal thing to do, generally, would be to take the bodies and loot back to the local constabiles and have the regained money go to the relatives of whoever the bad guys killed, robbed, or otherwize were bad to.

Third, as a Palidon and Lawful Good, what happens to your fancy item should matter less than the defeat of the bad guys and the success of the team.

Fourth, the most 'legal' you can get is based on the whatever agreement the party had about splitting treasure since you are presumably ignoring the other laws of the land {See #2 above}

And last, since you seem to like comparative examples:
Lets say your group was adventuring in the mountains and our shield was being carried by a pack mule that slips and falls over the edge, falling thousands of feet where he can't be recovered or is destroyed.
Are you owed money?

Sorry, having something sundered in battle against DnD bad guys does not, IMHO, somehow place the party in your debt financially.


Finally, this is really an opinion issue and you won't be able to 'prove' that your opinion is 'right'. The characters that gave your Pally extra cash to recompense may have simply felt sorry for you, or bent under the 'play nice together and avoid arguments' attitude.

YMM, obviously V...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I'd still pay good money, GOOD MONEY, to see this on Court TV.

Google for articles on mock trials held regarding compensation to Sauron for the loss of the One Ring. It'll tide you over. I believe someone had a link up here to one not long ago.

 

[Logos7]

Yeah this is like the shakiest argument in history.

Not even regarding the who actually paid for this shield argument, which i say is pretty much spot on, this is an issue of efficiency not torts or anything like that. What if the mage has his staff disjuncted, then, what if the mage disjuncts his own staff for a tactical reason? Etc Etc

Probably the most important questions was (WHAT WAS THE AGREEMENT GOING IN) if everyone was like equal shares, or had in the past run equal shares and reasonably expected to do that again, your just being greedy. Yes you lost a shield, but hey the monk lost an enchantment and perhaps next time the battlemage will loose his staff. That's WHY we split things evenly. Maybe it would be a good idea for you to get a shield back or the monk his enchantment back, but theirs a large gulk between bright idea and being owed it.

Short story, The Party perhaps feel bad for you and don't want a Interpersonal conflict. But I wouldn't call this a coup of role playing so much as interpersonal greed.

L