When you DM, how much do you customize loot for the party?

[Mindflayer_Inc]

Yoink! (sorry couldn't help it)



I think I'll steal this for my homebrew game as well. I always felt letdown in CRPGs when the things you fought dropped irrelevant loot (animals dropping clubs or ruby rings, what?!?). But even worse are the times you fight something that has a flaming weapon, and you loot a common shield and some armor.

In a table top setting, it's pretty easy to get overwhelmed in 'grey' loot - 15 kobolds yield 12 sets of subpar leather, 3 ratty robes, 15 crappy crossbows and a few potions of dubious quality... hauling that quantity of loot out of a dungeon, and getting a few gold for it tends to make it not worthwhile (especially when there isn't a computer doing all the calculations for you on the fly). I think I'd do it kind of like Diablo, where you loot quality items, but everything else is automatically converted to cash. So, you kill the 15 kobolds, you get maybe a decent dagger out of it, and 4 gold. The premise in the loot section of the PHB being "mundane items are converted to their gold equivalent after every fight. You could request to find a specific piece of gear instead, but is generally discouraged."

Then it's just a matter of updating mostly humanoid entries in the MM to include their 'loot coinage upon death' calculation. If you do all the work upfront, at game time it should be pretty quick and seamless.

"A good DM is inspired by others, a great DM steals from others." - The Gygax Principle (or something like that)

[Cheesegear]

Honestly, I would respect the hell out of a boss fight where the gimmick is "roll on the magic item tables three times, that's what the boss uses for this fight".

That's generally how I create my adventure bosses. It can spike the difficulty of the encounter (e.g; Oops, Necklace of Fireballs). But generally speaking I don't care if an encounter kills a character or two - especially if the characters die during a fight with the BBEG of the adventure. I only get...Disappointed?...When a character fails a skill check, falls, takes 5d6 damage and just I roll 28 and the character just dies 50 ft. down away from the rest of the party and can't be healed and that's game...
(Guys, don't one of you have a Potion of Climbing? Why didn't you use that...)

Most of the time when I plan a storyline I plan ahead of time who or what the final boss is. I don't know what all the middle fights are going to be. But I do know that I want the final boss to be a Green Slaad. Planning a few magic items for one encounter should be easy. Rolling a hoard ahead of time, and putting any usable magic items in the hands of the boss, is relatively straightforward. You can easily do that two or three sessions ahead of time.

Keep in mind that tailoring the loot to the party doesn’t mean you just give them whatever they want.

Then you aren't in the same conversation as the rest of us. Because that's what the rest of us mean when we say "tailor." It means bespoke ordering, specific to a character. ...Uhh, like tailoring.

It means you give them whatever is appropriate for them to have.

Well then the random hoard tables have been working appropriately for the past 10 years.
It's the XP tables that are wrong.

[Vegan Squirrel]

I customize loot for the enemies. I often use the stuff they would have/own/use/hide. Now if the players take and use the stuff, great. But they can always keep it, look for NPCs whom want is, meet more people, ect.

I do this a lot.

About a third of the time i use tables/generators.
About a third of the time i pick/make items based on the NPCs/environment they are coming from.
About a third of the time i pick/make items based on the PCs they are going to.

Actually, that's probably closer to my approach. My starting point is the NPCs — What should they have? What have they been collecting? Where would they keep it? How would they protect it? A lot of the time, this ends up meaning custom magic items, because the ones in the DMG can be either boring or an awkward fit. And yes, of course the NPCs should be using the loot!

Then I'll go to the random tables (either rolling or eyeballing for something interesting) to fill out the hoards and make sure there's a suitable amount of treasure. I also like making custom common magic items that are just unique little toys for the PCs to play with, but those are all about flavor and the wonder (or creepiness) of a world with magic in it.

Then I'll also keep an eye on the characters' wants and weaknesses, and sometimes I'll plant something they'd find useful in an upcoming site (possibly letting that item inspire the whole adventure). Similarly, if I just want the party to have a specific ability, I'll figure out a way they can come across it (e.g. they fought a rug of smothering and, after mending it, ended up with a weakened carpet of flying).

Finally, every so often they'll receive an actual tailor-made gift or boon, obviously fitting within the story. My players recently visited an oracle who judged them worthy and gifted them magic items I designed for each of them—not necessarily the most powerful items, but items that fit the characters well.

So, looking all of that over, I guess I customize a lot of the loot! But I don't tailor it to the characters too much. I tailor it to the adventure, for sure. Speaking of tailoring, it's often the mundane clothing they find that my players seem to get most excited about, anyway!

[GooeyChewie]

Then you aren't in the same conversation as the rest of us. Because that's what the rest of us mean when we say "tailor." It means bespoke ordering, specific to a character. ...Uhh, like tailoring.

Tailoring means you make sure the loot they get is something they want, not that you give them whatever loot they want. Like tailoring, it means making the loot fit the character, which doesn’t necessarily mean making it as big as possible.

For example, suppose you gave a party member who uses whips. They may want Mastix, Whip of Erebos, the legendary artifact +3 whip from Theros that does an extra 2d8 damage and heals the wielder when they attack. If I say no to that, but instead have the party find a +0 Whip of Warning that manifests the warning as playing the theme song from Indiana Jones in the character’s head, I have still tailored the loot to the party.

[Unoriginal]

I think I'll steal this for my homebrew game as well.

Thanks, that is high praise.

In a table top setting, it's pretty easy to get overwhelmed in 'grey' loot - 15 kobolds yield 12 sets of subpar leather, 3 ratty robes, 15 crappy crossbows and a few potions of dubious quality... hauling that quantity of loot out of a dungeon, and getting a few gold for it tends to make it not worthwhile (especially when there isn't a computer doing all the calculations for you on the fly). I think I'd do it kind of like Diablo, where you loot quality items, but everything else is automatically converted to cash. So, you kill the 15 kobolds, you get maybe a decent dagger out of it, and 4 gold. The premise in the loot section of the PHB being "mundane items are converted to their gold equivalent after every fight. You could request to find a specific piece of gear instead, but is generally discouraged."

IMO past a certain point you'renot supposed to loot that kind of stuff.

Like unless you play a character that is super-greedy and you do the effort in spite of the
diminishing return, you should get enough valuables that you don't have to strip corpses of their old leather armor and rusty daggers.

That's different from situations where you need the equipment for its primary function, of course. Either for yourself in an emergency or to equip allied NPCs.

Then it's just a matter of updating mostly humanoid entries in the MM to include their 'loot coinage upon death' calculation. If you do all the work upfront, at game time it should be pretty quick and seamless.

I thought of doing that calculation, but mostly out of curiosity. I'm curious of how much money/time it would take to equip the various equipment-users, and see hos it relates to world building

[Cheesegear]

Tailoring means you make sure the loot they get is something they want, not that you give them whatever loot they want. Like tailoring, it means making the loot fit the character, which doesnÂ’t necessarily mean making it as big as possible.

Which is the premise of the thread; How much do you customise loot for the party?

Ignoring other players and party dynamics, you have a Polearm Master:

Random. You find a Warhammer +1. Obviously, not helpful.

a) Sell it, and put the funds towards Plate. Or finding a way to get a magic item.
b) Tasha's allows you to change your Fighting Style at points, and as DM you can probably find some arbitrary way to retrain a Feat that isn't as prohibitive as the rules say.
c) As a Fighter, you get a Feat every four seconds. Your next Feat can be Shield Master. The Polearm Master + Sentinel combo will have to wait because pre-planned "builds" don't make sense in an organic game.

The dice said you don't get what you want. Now what?

Earn it. Of course you cam have a Glaive +1! There's a retired Paladin in town. You buy a Glaive. For the price of a Level 2 spell (Magic Weapon), he wraps the Glaive in purity seals and mumbles something. He says if you can slay a significant creature of evil intent, the Glaive will become magical.
(This creates tension in the next boss fight, because the party has to ensure that the Fighter gets the kill...Otherwise we start all over again)

Of course you can trade gold for magic items. The DMG simply says that it shouldn't be as simple as walking into a shop, because "magic shops" don't make sense.

"Coincidence." You're a DM. You know what Polearm Master does. You create an adventure about an Eladrin Shadow Monk, stuck in her Winter Form, going around teleporting and serial killing people. Because she can teleport, using her Eladrin and Shadow powers, she's really hard to catch. When the party finally defeats her, she drops a Quarterstaff +1, because Monks have those. And holy **** do you remember that time she teleports behind you, nothing personnel, kid! The meme wrote itself. This Quarterstaff is symbol of that crazy Elf that we defeated. Awesome. 'Member? Yeah I 'member!

a) Near enough is good enough. A Quarterstaff isn't a Glaive. But the fact that it is magical and does work with Polearm Master, the Fighter might not even care that it's not the "perfect" weapon.
b) It it isn't a good enough...Treat it like you just got a Warhammer. You can sell it. Or, you can make a conscious player decision to better use it and/or accept that the "perfect character" doesn't - and shouldn't - exist.

Hard Tailoring. DM, give me a Glaive +1. Okay! In the next treasure hoard, for no reason, there's a Glaive. What do you mean if Orcs had a magical Glaive in their trove, someone would be using it? No they wouldn't. The Glaive is a forgotten relic that no-one cares about, even if it is magical. The Orc Shaman did a Detect Magic, looked at the Glaive, saw that it was magical, shrugged their shoulders, and threw it on the pile. Monsters don't actually use items in their hoard. Why would they? That's stupid.

[JNAProductions]

I generally don’t, because I’m usually running Gestalt nonsense, and they’re strong enough without magic items at all.

If they help a significant organization or whatnot, they might get access to an armory and get something nifty they pick. But random loot is generally gonna be random.

I do like when a DM helps the PCs out, though. :)

[Veldrenor]

I always customize the loot, but don't really give the players exactly what they want because I determine the loot before they ever really know what they want.

When I start a new campaign, once I have the character concepts I randomly roll all the magic items for the duration of the campaign. I then go through the list and re-roll anything that is class-specific for a class that's not present (ex: no Holy Avengers if there are no paladins). I then list the magic items under each character that I think would find a use for the item, listing some items under multiple characters if I don't know which of them might end up taking it. Then if any character is over/under represented I do a few more re-rolls to even it out. At that point I know every item in the campaign and can distribute them in the adventures where they make sense - magic weapons wielded by enemies, scrolls tucked away in libraries, etc. If a character dies then I replace the undiscovered items that require attunement by their class with equivalent-power items that require attunement by the new character's class. It's a fair amount of work, but it means that there are no useless disappointing items, every item that shows up makes sense to be where it is, and there are no wonky loot distributions.

[KorvinStarmast]

When I start a new campaign, once I have the character concepts I randomly roll all the magic items for the duration of the campaign.

How many rolls is that, and on which tables?

[da newt]

Only a little - I'll add the magic property to the item that allows at least one PC to use the item or allow some crafting / enchantment to make an item better suited for the party (often requiring some cost or a follow-on quest).

I've had too many experiences where the DMs were too generous with items and the bloat / power creep left a sour taste. I prefer to find the best way to use the stuff you find over always finding the perfect thing for every PC.

[KorvinStarmast]

I prefer to find the best way to use the stuff you find over always finding the perfect thing for every PC.

This. So much this. Plus Eleventy.

[Veldrenor]

How many rolls is that, and on which tables?

The number of rolls depends on the duration of the campaign and the number of players, and I use my own tables expanded off of blackball's treasure distribution. I started a 1-18 campaign a few months ago and rolled for 137 items. Including rerolls and rolling the spells on scrolls, maybe around 200 rolls. I used random.org to make a whole bunch of rolls all at once rather than rolling manually. However, I imagine that I could do the same thing without custom tables: use Xanathar's for how many items of each rarity are expected to show up, then the DMG tables for the items themselves.
Levels 1-4: 9 rolls on tables A-C (6 common, 2 uncommon, 1 rare), 2 rolls on tables F and G (2 uncommon).
Levels 5-10: 28 rolls on tables A-D (10 common, 12 uncommon, 5 rare, 1 very rare), 6 rolls on tables F-H (5 uncommon 1 rare).
Levels 11-16: 24 rolls on tables A-E (3 common, 6 uncommon, 9 rare, 5 very rare, 1 legendary), 6 rolls on tables F-I (1 uncommon, 2 rare, 2 very rare, 1 legendary).
Levels 17-20: 19 rolls on tables A-E (4 rare, 9 very rare, 6 legendary), and 6 rolls on tables F-I (1 rare, 2 very rare, 3 legendary).

[Leon]

Broadly I never have, wont ever and what the concept of crafting/ going shopping is for.
And as an addition to above I would prefer that as a player that I am not catered to specifically but to be able to create or go looking for things that suit.

[rel]

Every magic item that shows up in a 5e game I run is going to be custom.
For various reasons I don't use published items at all.

As to whether the loot will be customised to the PC's, it depends on the game.

In general, if the opposition is customised to the PC's, then at least some of the loot will be as well. Usually such custom loot will be used to boost up any weak or struggling PC's, or cover unwanted gaps in the parties skill set.

Conversely, if the world is what it is, and the PC's need to find a path through it that they can follow given their powers and limitations then the loot will also be what it is.
It's up to the PC's to make good use of what they find or beg, steal or trade for something better.