"Alas, poor Yorick... Dibs on his boots!"

[kjones]

How do you deal with the problem of equipment of dead characters? (For the sake of this discussion, let's assume that resurrection is not an option.) I like to start new characters with WBL, or some substantial fraction thereof, so taking the stuff of the old character will give the entire party significantly more loots than I'd like them to have at that point.

One method I've concocted is to assert the existence of a cross-cultural taboo against taking the stuff off of a dead adventurer, since they'll need it to adventure in the afterlife.

Do you bother dealing with this at all? Do you have some other solution? I'd like to know.

[Premier]

That's a good idea you've got here, but make it an actual supernatural reason rather than a cultural one: if someone is buried without the proper last rights (and proper rite forbid the base looting of the body), then there's a chance they return as vengeful undead. With adventurers, who are already hardly tied down to a single place, this is a certainty.

[Flickerdart]

One method I've concocted is to assert the existence of a cross-cultural taboo against taking the stuff off of a dead adventurer, since they'll need it to adventure in the afterlife.

That just means grave robbing got a whole lot more profitable, and you can explain the traps since the guy's friends also had insane amounts of disposable income.

[subject42]

Generally speaking, a dead PC in my game is either A) utterly destroyed by something like disintegration, or B) somewhere inaccessible, like in a pit trap in a hobgoblin stronghold after the city-wide alarm went off.

It tends to make it easier to deal with when that happens.

[Ferrin]

Generally speaking, a dead PC in my game is either A) utterly destroyed by something like disintegration, or B) somewhere inaccessible, like in a pit trap in a hobgoblin stronghold after the city-wide alarm went off.

It tends to make it easier to deal with when that happens.

How do you deal with deaths in any other palce then? I don't see how this fixes anything unless you're playing like "Ok, you're dead now".

[Stompy]

Whenever a PC dies, his magical equipment becomes cursed in the hands of someone else, because the (once living) PC had a metaphysical connection to it.

This doesn't get around Remove Curse (without DM intervention), sadly.

[subject42]

How do you deal with deaths in any other palce then? I don't see how this fixes anything unless you're playing like "Ok, you're dead now".

The only time it's ever come up outside of a situation like that, the player dealt with it before I had to worry about it. He was a spellcaster, so he decided that rather than leaving a corpse, he just dissipated back into the spellweave.

Sometimes creative players are awesome.

[Telonius]

Let them split the loot evenly, let the new player come in with equivalent wealth to the average of the party ... and then subtract a few percent from the value of the next several encounters until the party is back to standard WBL.

[Optimystik]

Have the shopkeepers not want to purchase the dead PC's gear, because it smells gamey and has entrails stuck to it.

EDIT: I like Telonius' suggestion too.

[Aroka]

I've never noticed a problem. In a 5-person party, the death of one PC puts the rest at most 25% over WBL, which can be evened out in one or two levels. It's no big deal. Besides, most of the equipment will get sold for half it's worth, so the party will be more like 10-20% above WBL. For smaller groups, it still only takes maybe 2-3 levels to even out the imbalance.

[mcl01]

I don't think it's too big of a deal, especially at lower levels. Once you start hitting the high levels where a single death can put them at a whole level higher in terms of wealth, then it can become more of a big deal.

I would say if someone dies, allow them to loot if it's reasonable and adjust incoming treasure accordingly. Not so much that they notice you're being stingy, but enough that over the next several encounters, they're close to recommended WBL again.

You may not even need to adjust the amount of treasure they get - just alter the composition so that they're more curiosity/situational items or items they don't get too much use out of. They're less likely to feel jipped afterwards, since they're still getting their fair share of loot. They're still getting a sizable amount of it, but not much to directly increase their power level. They could of course sell it for half price, which helps you a bit as well.

[QuantumSteve]

Let them split the loot evenly, let the new player come in with equivalent wealth to the average of the party ... and then subtract a few percent from the value of the next several encounters until the party is back to standard WBL.

This is how I always handle imbalances in WBL. It helps that my players are really cool about party deaths, too. They always pay for funeral expenses and give a great big chunk of cash to his family. The last time a character died they even commissioned a statue. This may in part be because they know everything they keep affects future loot.

The DMG suggests starting the new character with less wealth, equivalent of whatever gear the party kept. I find that problematic. It's much easier to take away loot they haven't found than loot they have found.

[Ferrin]

The only time it's ever come up outside of a situation like that, the player dealt with it before I had to worry about it. He was a spellcaster, so he decided that rather than leaving a corpse, he just dissipated back into the spellweave.

Sometimes creative players are awesome.

That's just... weird. Not the spellweave, that was pretty cool, but that it never ever happens outside situations like that.

[lesser_minion]

Unless your character is actually pushed above the start of next level's WBL -- and possibly not even then -- being over is not too much of an issue.

At high levels, you will notice the difference, but it's still unlikely to be worse than the extra they gained from crafting.

If you're really worried, or if you do find this distasteful then you can assume that items won't accept as a master anyone who didn't best their previous owner in a fair contest. That provides a fairly strong incentive not to steal the equipment.

Note, however, that doing that does alter a lot of the campaign -- in particular, stealing an item never allows you to use that item against its owner, only deny it to the same owner.

It also means a lot of fluff considerations -- for example, there would be no magic item shops, because the magic items would essentially be worthless except to their 'master'.

In addition, thieves' guilds wouldn't make as much sense at high levels -- high-level rogues would be more likely to work for an organisation like the government, or as an extension to an assassins' guilds, since there's nothing you can benefit from stealing once you're high enough level.

[Ravens_cry]

Our group also had this problem. The gentlebeing agreement was that we carry them in one of the bag of holdings until we get home for a proper burial and then buried them with their gear, minus sundry plot items and group loot distributed to the them as the best person to use them, such as wands with those spells on their spell list.

[Sintanan]

Let them split the loot evenly, let the new player come in with equivalent wealth to the average of the party ... and then subtract a few percent from the value of the next several encounters until the party is back to standard WBL.

This is what I do. The party still hasn't caught on that they end up with diminished returns from other encounters when looting fallen comrades, and there was already one adventure that ended midway through the dungeon crawl with the party killing each other off for loot (the Paladin won). Different story there, though.

[Optimystik]

there was already one adventure that ended midway through the dungeon crawl with the party killing each other off for loot (the Paladin won). Different story there, though.

Wait, what?

[Boccobsblog]

You could have the enemy sunder some of his gear in the fight. You could also say his armor was destroyed or unusable. The same for his/her weapon, you could say that it broke/shattered when the pc fell.

[lesser_minion]

You could have the enemy sunder some of his gear in the fight. You could also say his armor was destroyed or unusable. The same for his/her weapon, you could say that it broke/shattered when the pc fell.

Not really a fan of the "let's arbitrarily destroy equipment" approach.

If it's already established in the campaign that, for example, a character's favourite magical gear shatters at the moment of final death, then perhaps that can work.

But pulling "oh, he accidentally broke his sword as he fell" seems a little less-than-positive, really.

[Optimystik]

Not really a fan of the "let's arbitrarily destroy equipment" approach.

If it's already established in the campaign that, for example, a character's favourite magical gear shatters at the moment of final death, then perhaps that can work.

But pulling "oh, he accidentally broke his sword as he fell" seems a little less-than-positive, really.

Player: "But it was Riverine!"
DM: "....He's fat?"

[subject42]

That's just... weird. Not the spellweave, that was pretty cool, but that it never ever happens outside situations like that.

Now that you mention it, it is a little weird. If I had to explain it, I think that it comes from my players being very big fans of planning. In the end it means that everything goes perfectly, or everything goes extraordinarily wrong.

[valadil]

I don't worry about it too much. If someone got killed, they could probably use the benefit of the extra loot.

[hotel_papa]

An organization or guild that the PCs belong to could mandate that a character's goods must be brought back and sold towards a raise dead or better attempt. Works better in Pathfinder, where the level loss is replaced by a permanent negative level, which can then be removed with Greater Restoration (for more money).

[merge]

It seems like you shouldn't need much of a special cultural taboo as long as (a) your PCs are reasonably good people and (b) they have some sort of families to whom they'd like to leave their stuff. This should both prevent a death from being a windfall for the companions ("He would have wanted his daughter to have his belongings") and allow interesting items to be "purchased" from the corpse ("Her nephew won't have any use for her magic sword, but I'll make sure to give him its value in gold").

Of course, a lot of players may be friendless outcast orphans, which would make this a bit more difficult -- but even then, long-lost distant cousins could conveniently show up.

[nedz]

I don't think that this is too much of a problem as it all tends to even out in the end. If it becomes an issue then there are plenty of remedies for dealing with it available to the DM.
eg:
1: have an NPC join them for a while. The NPC comes with NPC gear - which is much less than PC WBL. You'll probably find that the Players will kit them out a bit more when this becomes apparent. When the NPC says goodbye then the average PC wealth will be reduced.
2: have the new PC join with no kit
3: have one of the PCs lose their kit - this is seriously easy.
4: NPC rogues in a town practicing their slight of hand
5: Have a side quest require them to spend lots of cash (guess how much ?)
6: There are several monsters which destroy/eat/rust kit - guess what they'll be running into soon.
7: NPC sorceror spams Mordenkainen's disjunction
etc.

[kjones]

The suggestion to modify income for the next few encounters is a good one, and a reasonable way to deal with any such one-time income boost. However, one of the reasons I don't like it is that I often plan out treasure placement well in advance, so modifying treasure like that is extra work. Besides, I like to customize treasure placement to specifically suit my party, and to minimize the necessity of buying and selling magic items - if a character dies, and his party loots it, they'll have a bunch of stuff that probably isn't all that useful to them, so they'll try to go and sell it, which is not always possible in my games. (Lots of rural areas and dungeons, fewer big cities)

[Noedig]

With these ease at which resurrection is available at higher levels, my groups just generally wait till they have 5k diamonds.

With no resurrection, we divide the loot based on who has the best use for it, then the dead guy roles a new character. I run a non standard treasure acquisition system so WBL doesn't really apply.

[Xuc Xac]

6: There are several monsters which destroy/eat/rust kit - guess what they'll be running into soon.

Or just have some encounters with no loot at all to bring the average loot/encounter back down where you want it. They defeat the magical constructs/undead/fae/whatever made of gem encrusted stone/bone/flowers/etc. and just as they start to dream about the GP values of the bodies, they disintegrate into fine dust that blows away in the breeze without a trace (except maybe a clue/plot coupon to get them into the next adventure).

[Stephen_E]

We had some problems along this line but these days we all have wills.
Problem solved.
They die and the equipment, or aprroximately equivalent wealth, goes to ther person/s in the will.

Stephen E

[Psyx]

"because the (once living) PC had a metaphysical connection to it."

Eh: So is all the loot found in hordes cursed as well then?