Loot thread

[Merc]

[21:11] <GM> You find: 2x Studded Leather +1, 2x Buckler +1, 2x mw dagger, 3x mw crossbow (light), 4x potion CLW, 4x dagger, 40 bolts, bracers of armor +1, cloak of resistance +2, mw crossbow( heavy), full plate +1, heavy steel shield, Potion bull's strength, potion heroism, potion haste. And about 100 gp.

How do we want to handle loot as a group? Divide evenly into value, and have people 'buy' the items they want? Just have people take what they want?

Also, on unwanted items, do we want to sell it all, sell half/essence half, or get essence out of it all?

[Dracos]

I vote we have a party loot manager.  As evil folks, we'd try and short change each other.  Probably easiest really.  Man I hate dealing with loot.  Merc is who I vote for it :P.  He can complain and suggest a different solution.

Anyhow, I have interest in:
2x MW daggers
1 CLW potion
1 potion haste.
25 gp

whatever.  The cloak of resistance is nice, but I'll pass so I can get something nicer later.

Bracers of armor and full plate don't help anyone.  I say we should put them into merc's craft points or whatever for later?

Anyhow, actually whatever builds up money for me faster.  I need to get up to the Deathtouch bracers sooner rather than later. :)

[Dracos]

Merc, how does your crafting stuff work?  *Reads up on craft points

[Merc]

Divide market price by 25 for magic stuff. That's the number of Craft Reserve points I get when I use Retain Essence.

Edit:

Also, stuff Impulse would be interested in:
-Anything that can be R/E'ed.
-Potions of bull strength/heroism/haste
-Don't care about CLW potion or masterwork stuff except to sell for gold.
-cloak of resistance

[Navilee]

So you get base to-craft XP from Retain?  Huh, you can technically have infinite craft if you have enough GP to pump into it and the 25% XP cost reduction to make!

[Merc]

EDIT: apparently, we can sell in big cities for 5% loss instead of 50% loss. Adjusting

Stuff Keeping:
2x mw dagger
4x potion CLW
potion bull's strength
potion heroism
potion haste
cloak of resistance +2 (outlier, a lot more expensive than everything being kept, so harder to balance around)

Items to Sell: 3x mw crossbow (light), 4x dagger, 40 bolts, mw crossbow( heavy), 2x Buckler +1, heavy steel shield.
Market Price: 3717 gp
Gold earned (+100gp): 3631.15 gp

Items to R/E: 2x Studded Leather +1, bracers of armor +1, full plate +1
Market Price: 6000 gp
Craft Reserve (MP/25): +240 CR

Thoughts:
-Selling buckler+1 because it doesn't divide nicely by 25. It's more money, so nyah!
-I did not really count the value of cloak due to it's outlier price from everything else being kept. Otherwise, I'd end up with negative loot if split evenly, and it'd suck if every time we had an outlier item, we sold it or R/E'ed it just for an even split. If I don't give it some value though, Drac ends with much less gold than me due to the daggers and haste potion, so I gave them a temporary value around the secondary 'outlier' number, aka the MW daggers. I will probably do the same with other outlier items that pop up, and continue giving a bit more money to people that haven't gotten outlier items whenever we get loot and split it.

LOOT SPLITTING
Alis: 2x MW Daggers, 1x CLW Potion, 1x Haste Potion, 650 gp
Sim: 2x CLW Potions, 1350 gp
Karu: 1x CLW Potion, 1x Bull's Strength Potion, 1225 gp
Impulse: Cloak of Resistance +2, 1x Heroism Potion, 406.15 gp

Impulse's Craft Reserve Total: 150+240 = 390

[Merc]

Note on crafting stuff:
If you want stuff crafted, it will cost:

• (Weapons) Craft Reserve = 3 x [Market Price] / 200
• (Non-Weapons) Craft Reserve = 3 x [Market Price] / 100
• (You) Craft Points = [Market Price] / 10
• (Me) Craft Points = [Market Price / 5
• (You) Gold, gp = 3x [Market Price] / 8

Example:
-Drac plans to get deathstrike bracers, which have a market price of 5,000 gp.
-It uses up 150 CR, requires 500 craft points from him, and 1875 gp.

-Assuming Navi wanted to make Sim's masterwork shortsword into a +1 shortsword. This costs 1000gp to enchant.
-It uses up 15 CR, requires 100 craft points from her, and 375 gp.

Note on me crafting stuff for myself:

• I can have assistants. If I do not have assistants, I will run out of craft points twice as fast, and thus run out of craft points to 'instant' make stuff for you guys.
• I can have up to 3 assistants, who can pay combined up to half craft points required. Your craft points are worth 1/2 an actual craft point, as you guys lack item creation feats.
• Thus, when I make an item, each of you guys want to spend:
• Craft Points = [Market Price] / 3

[Merc]

Wishlist: (once have CR and/or gold for it)
- Dracos: Deathstrike bracers (5000 gp).
- Me: Essence of Tinkerer (5000 gp), Wand Sheath (4000 gp).
- Navi: nothing so far?
- Nama: ditto.

[Dracos]

Note: I'm near that amount for the deathstrike bracers so will want to make that transaction probably after next session if there is enough CR.

[Jon]

Okay, new loot house rule: You don't get any.

Rather, you get gold. This is an abstraction over (a) your salary and (b) stripping the loot off the corpses and robbing their houses and taking the proceeds to a reputable fence, etc. Stuff we don't really want to deal with.

So, for each XP gain I'll also announce a wealth gain. (basically, this will be the encounter XP * ∆ Wealth / ∆ XP where the ∆ represents the change between the start of your current level and your next level). If you've been looking for a particular magic item, I may at my option have that item be physical loot instead of you buying it, depending on rarity and encounter type. If you have the Craft Reserve and Retain Essence class features (hi Merc!) you can convert up to 40% of your gold earnings into Craft Reserve at a rate of 5 gold == 1 craft reserve XP.

[Dracos]

Awesome.  Very coolness.  Looking forward to next section rocking out.

A)Are we assuming in general that we can buy most things in any major city without incident?

B)For anything we can't or should be special, how do you want to handle it?  Us just indicate such, pay in, and have it be a loot quest or something retrieved in battle at some point in the foreseeable future?

C)How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?

D)Can we contribute to Merc's crafting pool?  It seems biased against merc at the moment.  Crafting generally sacrifices some portion of character advancement in exchange for neater items earlier.  If only merc is paying, he has a strong penalty for crafting.

E)Sell and buy prices the same?  I'd assume yes since we're abstracting away the loot selling in general, but asking.

F)Any caveats for temporary type items?  Potions?  Wands? Etc.  The problem usually with static known wealth is that it even more strictly discourages those kinds of neat things.  My suggestion: Note it, once used, the buyer can get back the amount at some non-immediate point in the future.  Alternately, just have those be our surprising loot, not included toward wealth totals since they're temporary.

[Jon]

D: You can craft things too, you know. If you want, and have the appropriate skills/feats. Merc just took a class that has crafting as a major part. The Craft Points rules have rules for people contributing, too; it's just that it doesn't make much sense for the life-force embedded in the magic item (that's what the XP is for, after all) to come from someone other than the maker. Unless he's a necromancer, draining the energy from his captives. Are you a necromancer, Merc?

C: 42

E: yes

F: yeah. I figure we'll just roll with whatever on that. You want something, let me know, and we'll figure it out.

A: yeah, subject to law -- certain things are illegal in Sharn, for instance. and you can get them. but it might affect things when the guard comes by.

B: certain things, like the dragonshards for Nama's psychic implants he wants, will require a loot quest. Other things might be more easily found in ancient treasure caches than the magic shops of Aundair, etc. In general, if you want an item and I say it can't be found in the shops, you'll get it in loot somewhere, but you'll deduct the cost from your paycheck just as if you got it in a shop. (For things that you don't pay for, say, an airship, I can do what I like with it without compensating you.)

[Dracos]

Sounds awesome.  Mainly just asking so the questions were out of the way and clarity achieved.

Are we going to air drop off an airship into the duke's mansion sunday?  :P

[Merc]

If you have the Craft Reserve and Retain Essence class features (hi Merc!) you can convert up to 40% of your gold earnings into Craft Reserve at a rate of 5 gold == 1 craft reserve XP.

Can we contribute to Merc's crafting pool?  It seems biased against merc at the moment.  Crafting generally sacrifices some portion of character advancement in exchange for neater items earlier.  If only merc is paying, he has a strong penalty for crafting.

You can craft things too, you know. If you want, and have the appropriate skills/feats. Merc just took a class that has crafting as a major part. The Craft Points rules have rules for people contributing, too; it's just that it doesn't make much sense for the life-force embedded in the magic item (that's what the XP is for, after all) to come from someone other than the maker. Unless he's a necromancer, draining the energy from his captives. Are you a necromancer, Merc?

Hrm...okay, some clarification. Does this mean that only -I- can convert my gold earnings into craft reserve points? Can the others, for example, donate their gold earnings to be converted into craft reserve points?

Because if I can only convert my own gold earnings into craft reserve, I'd end up with less money as I convert some of my gold into CR, then use that CR that came from my gold to make stuff for others. Ergo, in that case, I'd have to charge them to make stuff for them.

If they're donating gold to feed my craft reserve, and I use that craft reserve to make their items, that's fine, I guess.

To clarify (just in case), let's take Drac's hypothetical Deathstrike Bracers. Let's assume my craft reserve is empty, I have 4000gp and Drac has 4000 gp. To make the deathstrike bracers, I'd need 150 CR and 1875gp. If I use my gold to feed making 150 CR (150 x5 at the conversion is 750 gp) and Drac pays me 1875gp....my craft reserve remains empty, I am down to 3250gp, and Drac is down to 2125 gp and has bracers worth 5000gp.

I lose 750gp while Drac essentially goes up 3125gp.

On the other hand, same situation, but Drac feeds me some items hypothetically worth his gold and I convert that to craft reserve. He gives me 750gp (to feed craft reserve) +1875gp (the material cost). My craft reserve remains empty, I still have 4000gp so I have lost nothing nor gained anything, and Drac is down to 1375gp, but he also has his 5000gp bracers (so he's actually essentially up 2375gp).

According to either theory, Drac wins, but I come out of it either even or at a loss. The 'I come out of it even' situation is acceptable, since, hey, I'm also going to spend gold to feed reserve to make my -own- items, and I already have a base reserve to start off with, anyhow. So it's more of a 'whomever saves up to get a item made, always wins' situation.

So, yeah, I'd prefer that it's case 2, where people pay me to feed craft reserve and cost of item, and I make it for them at essentially a discount from if they bought it from normal vendors. If it -is- case 1, which I kinda get the impression (in hindsight) from the comments quoted...it's lame, but I'd be charging others to make loot for them (and would have to figure out how much to charge so it's fair to both of us).

Edit: An additional note on case 2. If the others -can- donate their gold earnings to craft reserve exchange, you'd -probably- want to up the exchange rate to 10 or 12 gold = 1 CR/Exp, which is more the equivalent assumption of us selling loot for half price vs us converting loot to craft reserve under normal conditions. If it is case 1, however, given how it seriously eats into my gold and that I'm the only one paying it, I'd appreciate sticking to the current ratio of 5:1. =)

[Jon]

Oh, sure. Yeah, they can give you gold to feed into craft reserve. (In the game-world, that's buying/finding a magic item and giving it to you to get XP from.) I've always been annoyed at the half-price-for-selling. It essentially punishes you for not needing whatever items the DM hands out.