Looting rules

[Doomwhispo]

We had some arguments over loot and I wanted to prevent it in the future, so I set up some party Looting rules. I also intend to roleplay this and explain it in char in our next session. Am I going to far with this? Any advice ls welcome

1. All loot items and gold go in the group bag regardless of who picks it up. ( exeption ofc if someone steals or gets the item without the help of the party)
Every time we reach a inn or tavern we sell everything and split the wins equally.

2. If you wish to keep an item you can do so and the price of the item will be deducted from your part of the money when we cash in at the inn
If 2 people want the same item they will roll a d20. Winner keeps it.
If the item found is double for example 2 mirros. Than each gets one ofcourse. The items will also be deducted from your share of money when we cash at the inn/vendor

3. Gear like weapons and armor. That usually is for 1 specific class anyway. No money deduction from cashing at the inn.

4. Group items (bag of holding of flyng carpet for example) go in the group bag. Anyone can use them at will or even carry them if agreed by the majority of the group.
Healing potions will be considered group items

5. Magic items (potions, or other items with limited usages), go in the group bag if anyone wants them he can get them. If more than 1 person want it they can roll a d20 winner gets it. If multiple items say 2 potions of underwater breathing. They both take one. Again the worth of the item will be deducted from your part of the cash. Since this type of item can be priceless we will have a max cap of 100gc for now that will be deducted from your earnings when we cash in. The cap may go up as we get richer and the items get more powerful.

[CaptainSarathai]

This is pretty close to how our group handles things.
Anything which needs to be sold, we just write down as "party loot." My girlfriend, the lovely Paladin, is our 'party treasurer.' When we get to town, we exchange the loot for gold. We then divide all gold equally among the party, with any partial gold being left in the Treasury to cover things like inns, passage aboard ships, etc. The Treasury is also sort of a "party bank," where you can ask the party to borrow or just take some cash from the stores to buy something like gear or whatever you need to make yourself more useful.

We haven't fought over people who want the same loot though, and we all usually prefer the hard gold over something like 'a piece of art worth 250gp'. So ymmv

[Potato_Priest]

One problem you may encounter if you have newer players: They want it all. Yes, it's very often true. You'll end up with 8 str gnome wizards clamoring for a magic greataxe, and all sorts of crazy stuff like that. When 2 players want an item, we give it to the person who has the best RP reason to have it or gains the highest numerical benefit from its use. If it was, say, an ivory statuette of a monkey in plate armor with no numerical benefits, then we might roll.

Edit: Ah, I just saw your thing about weapons and armor. Musta missed it on the first read through.

[Tanarii]

We had some arguments over loot and I wanted to prevent it in the future, so I set up some party Looting rules. I also intend to roleplay this and explain it in char in our next session. Am I going to far with this? Any advice ls welcomeAre you the DM or a Player?

It sounds like magic items can be sold fairly easily in your campaign. But I have some questions:
If you don't sell a Magic Item, how is the value determined for taking it out of the group bag instead of selling it?
Are prices pretty fixed for selling Magic Items, or do they have to be appraised? Or is it whatever the players can get for it?
How quick is the turn-around time for appraising and/or selling a magic item?

[Doomwhispo]

I am a player. The DM said he wants nothing to do with how we divide the loot.

Yeah point 5 is the most difficult. The magical items don't have a fixed price and on top of that I won't be able to price them correctly most of the time I am afraid I'll just have to guess. (Any tips on how to gauge the value of a magic items are welcome ) Also I want all the magical items to be used in the group rather than sold. Since you cannot buy magical items anywhere and they are often very useful for the entire group not just the one using it. For now 100 gc is a lot for us so I figured it's a good amount.

[Doomwhispo]

Maybe 100gc is not enough should probably be 200gc?

[Tanarii]

I am a player. The DM said he wants nothing to do with how we divide the loot.

Yeah point 5 is the most difficult. The magical items don't have a fixed price and on top of that I won't be able to price them correctly most of the time I am afraid I'll just have to guess. (Any tips on how to gauge the value of a magic items are welcome ) Also I want all the magical items to be used in the group rather than sold. Since you cannot buy magical items anywhere and they are often very useful for the entire group not just the one using it. For now 100 gc is a lot for us so I figured it's a good amount.
Healing Potions are worth 50gp, so that's your baseline for consumables.
Permanent items are 100-500 gp if they're not too rare, which if you're low level is reasonable.
Your campaign may vary but most DMs I've know will allow them to be sold for 50% of their value without a lot of table hassle.
Note many DMs also only give you 50% of value of other loot, such as gems and works of art.

If you're doing everything by the 'gold standard', the 'proper' way to do it is:
Determine total value of all items. Estimate 'sale' value of magic items & other non-cash without actually selling them. That's the value of the pot.
Divide by players. That's a share value.
Taking an item out of the pot instead of cash counts towards your share value at it's 'sell' price.
Sell any items that players don't take out of pot.
Players claim remainder of their share values.

Edit: Note in the past when I've done this with groups, players can and very often DO take gems and easily transportable art objects (especially jewelry) out of the pot towards their share value, not always let that stuff get sold for coins. First of all, that's easier to transport than gold. Second of all, wearing your treasure is awesome. Third of all, many DMs who do the 50% of a quick & dirty liquidation will give you better value if you put some downtime into selling an item, so you can get more value out of things that way.

[Fishyninja]

This is very similar to how most of the parties I partake in (solely as I am the quartermaster for many of them).
Item's like rations, health potions etc are group items......All coinage, looted or gained from sales is shared out.

Sales of items must be agreed and if items are to be allocated you have to make a claim as to why you should have it (only needed if no one else claims it). I.e.:

Ranger: I wan't that +1 shortsword, any one want it.
Group: *No Answer*
Ranger: Awesome.

and

Monk: Oooh Ring of Protection, I want that!
Warlock: Me too!

Then we debate as to who would better benefit from it and the vote goes to the party

[Sigreid]

Yeah, I wouldn't agree to this if I were in your party, but my party is pretty mature. What we do is:

1. We divide the cash equally, less the occasional palming of a gem by the rogue.
2. Magic items are a quick discussion. They go to either the character that can put them to the best use, or if equally useful to multiple characters we decide who maybe hasn't been getting as much or as good of loot as the others.
3. Healing potions are distributed fairly evenly among the party so anyone can heal themselves or pour it down someone else's throat in an emergency. We try not to use them as a crutch.
4. Everyone is expected to use their items when needed. My wizard was bummed that he needed to use a fireball scroll instead of copying it to his book, but the party needed a big damage opener or we would all die.

This usually takes us about a minute to come to a good decision, and things that can help the party are put to immediate use. Of course this only works with a like minded party.

In another group I was in, we divided up 85% of the cash. The other 15% was for operating expenses whether that was food, a room at the inn or spell components.

[Contrast]

I am a player. The DM said he wants nothing to do with how we divide the loot.

Yeah point 5 is the most difficult. The magical items don't have a fixed price and on top of that I won't be able to price them correctly most of the time I am afraid I'll just have to guess. (Any tips on how to gauge the value of a magic items are welcome ) Also I want all the magical items to be used in the group rather than sold. Since you cannot buy magical items anywhere and they are often very useful for the entire group not just the one using it. For now 100 gc is a lot for us so I figured it's a good amount.

Just a reminder - your DM is the ultimate arbiter of what anything and everything is worth in your game. Something it only ever worth what someone is willing to pay for it. A +1 sword may be a priceless artifact due to being associated with an ancient legend. Or it could be worthless due to being held by folklore to be cursed so no-one wants it. Or it could be worth 100 gold down the local blacksmiths or anywhere else inbetween.

Basically, prime your insight check as you're gonna have to get an NPC to evaluate these things and hope they're not trying to shaft you :smallwink:

[ad_hoc]

I would divide up the loot based on how that division best helps the group survive and thrive.

It doesn't do anyone any good if all the characters are dead after all.

[Vogonjeltz]

Healing Potions are worth 50gp, so that's your baseline for consumables.
Permanent items are 100-500 gp if they're not too rare, which if you're low level is reasonable.
Your campaign may vary but most DMs I've know will allow them to be sold for 50% of their value without a lot of table hassle.
Note many DMs also only give you 50% of value of other loot, such as gems and works of art.

If you're doing everything by the 'gold standard', the 'proper' way to do it is:
Determine total value of all items. Estimate 'sale' value of magic items & other non-cash without actually selling them. That's the value of the pot.
Divide by players. That's a share value.
Taking an item out of the pot instead of cash counts towards your share value at it's 'sell' price.
Sell any items that players don't take out of pot.
Players claim remainder of their share values.

Edit: Note in the past when I've done this with groups, players can and very often DO take gems and easily transportable art objects (especially jewelry) out of the pot towards their share value, not always let that stuff get sold for coins. First of all, that's easier to transport than gold. Second of all, wearing your treasure is awesome. Third of all, many DMs who do the 50% of a quick & dirty liquidation will give you better value if you put some downtime into selling an item, so you can get more value out of things that way.

DMG rule is that magic items, if they can be sold (standard is no) typically sell for 50% or less value.

[Tanarii]

DMG rule is that magic items, if they can be sold (standard is no) typically sell for 50% or less value.
Cool. I must have missed that, since I generally don't encourage selling items. Although in 5e, since the DM sets the value within a wide range already, and the value is almost exclusively used to sell the item (since buying items is generally not encouraged), it is kind of a bizarre rule. :)

[Joe the Rat]

I haven't been enforcing anything, but for the most part the party does even splits... when they bother to split. For the most part the Dwarven Paladin('s player) tracks everything the party finds, and it's their resource pool for purchases.

Players on personal side jobs will typically get and keep what they find.

Magic items: They've gone pretty well, but I'm tracking distribution to see where they go. The main magic item hog is our eldritch knight, while our two holy men are item light. I've started shuffling items in that are more usable for some than others, and letting them settle.

Also, there are no "common magic items." Each enchanted object has a name, a maker, a purpose, and a history. Between Identify and Int checks (or a visit to the library), you can usually learn all of these. The story behind Heat Seeker (a Flameblade which acts as compass to an artifact) is fairly well known among Dwarves. The bronze Torc (of Protection) was taken directly from its maker, but he'd been (un)dead for a couple thousand years, so documentation is a bit sparse, and he wasn't very chatty. "Fluffy" the Serpent Staff was created centuries ago by an evil wizard to terrorize small folk. The warlock uses it as a point of ironic pride in mastering the monster.
It also means some of the items have rightful owners who are looking for them, will pay for them, or expect them returned when no longer in use.

[Deox]

This is something that my groups (as players) typically hash out during Session 0.

Almost always it ends up being:
Two people record everything (in case one person can't make the session)
Coins / art / gems are divided equally
When magic items are identified, we give them to the characters that would get the most benefit.
If multiple people would benefit from the same item, we do a round robin rotation.

Never had an issue so far, and everyone seems to be happy. Plus it allows for a lot of "hand me downs".