Distributing treasure / magic items

[Tanarii]

How does your group(s) usually distribute treasure, including magic items?

The two most common methods I've seen for D&D (across multiple editions) are:
- magic items are distributed based on need & what you've already got, and then gold is split equally.
- magic items are given some value, and included in the division of gold.

My current groups count found magic items as 1/2 of their sell price toward the pot, currently using the values given in the XtgE sell magic item downtime. If it's worth more than their share of the gold, they add the difference to the pot. If no one can afford it (typical of Rare items found in T1), the person who takes it adds all their gold available to the pot. If no one wants it for the 1/4 value (most common with high value consumables), the item is removed from the pot, and distributed as an extra after the pot is distributed. Sometimes the group just uses downtime to just sell an unwanted item, in which case that gold is distributed equally.

[Lunali]

Note, I do not recommend this method, but currently our group is going by a method of whoever find the item gets it or decides who gets it. Normally this would end up very unbalanced, but we have an average investigation bonus of roughly 0. I don't expect this to keep working in the long term, but the group has bigger dysfunction problems at the moment.

[hymer]

- magic items are distributed based on need & what you've already got, and then gold is split equally.
This is the basic system that gets used by players in my campaigns. Sometimes a nonmagical item (like a suit of full plate early on) will get treated as a magical item, or a group will pool their gold to get something expensive for one of them.

[Lord Vukodlak]

The first consideration in our group who can make best use of it. When we found the staff of frost first thought was It should go to my wizard. But I convinced the warlock to take it as it would expand his powers while for me it would only save some spell slots.

In that group most of the art objects and such goes into party funds. Without a reliable source to buy magic items in 5e evenly distributing loot doesn’t accomplish much.

[Malifice]

The way we have always done it is roll off among the members of the party in session 1, and then (in order of rolls) we create a list of party members in that order. New members get added at the bottom after everyone else.

When a magic item (or items) get found, the next name on the list gets a pick of those items. It works its way down the list and then starts back up the top.

Sometimes you get a good item, and sometimes you get a **** one. Sometimes you might end up with a magic sword as a wizard, and sometimes you'ff get a wand as a fighter. It all evens out in the end though.

You find that people tend to leave scrolls and potions, and pick juicy items like rings, glowing swords and wierd stuff.

Players trade magic items (and magic item 'picks') freely. If the Staff of the Magi falls to the Fighters pick, the Wizard can swap whatever he wants for it (including his own pick later on, or multiple picks).

Wizard: Hey Fighter; I'll swap you my next three magic item picks for that staff?

The Fighter is free to sell the staff, trade it to the wizard or whatever.

[SLOTHRPG95]

This is the basic system that gets used by players in my campaigns. Sometimes a nonmagical item (like a suit of full plate early on) will get treated as a magical item, or a group will pool their gold to get something expensive for one of them.

Yeah we generally do this with anything and everything that's not cash or cash-equivalent (like twelve hobgoblin shortswords at level eight that nobody'll want). Doesn't matter if it's a magic item or a small bit of mundane red string, if it's not unanimously agreed that it's being sold then it's need before greed.

[Sigreid]

The group agrees to who gets what found magic item. Never takes more than a quick discussion.

Gold is divided equally. If someone wants an art object, they usually get to have it. We're pretty low stress.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The group agrees to who gets what found magic item. Never takes more than a quick discussion.

Gold is divided equally. If someone wants an art object, they usually get to have it. We're pretty low stress.

This is my way as well.

With my kid groups (teenagers in a school setting) I enforce the "everything fungible gets shared equally" rule, and tend to tailor drops to characters (except consumables). The adult groups just do whatever, we're all friends and working together.

In an open-table scenario I'd probably go with a modified "pay for items from share of gold" thing since you're not continuously working with the same people session after session.

[MrStabby]

Things tend to go to where they are most useful.

If I were to pick a system for a group that didn't do that I would probably say to just auction anything of interest at end of session. Split gold evenly.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Groups I've been in have mostly used either complete part inventory (we just have a list of everything we've gotten after character creation, no matter who holds it.) or separate but equal inventories, where we split gold and anything else if someone wants it they can have it. We rarely have two people wanting the same thing and not having 2 of the said thing. Mostly because we always create very different characters so needs and wants rarely overlap.

[Montesquieu P.]

Our group has a general rule, and an exception. The general rule is that the group benefit governs where anything goes -- each magic item to the character whose use of it is most likely to benefit our continued success and survival; and money, to the group's best shared interest. Early on, the dwarf fighter and half-elf wizard got most of the cash, so they could buy better armor and spells. Fungible cash gets split evenly nowadays, with that exception.

The exception is my character, the Ranger/Rogue. He doesn't particularly care for money or goods -- so he's given his partial share in a mine to the paladin, whose family needs funds to rebuild their devastated castle. He's talked everybody into chipping into the funds to deliver a group of human refugees across the sea to safety (at the same castle, where the locals could use skilled healers). He's also regularly sent cash back to his family, which has caused each of the other characters to do the same for their families.

Who says a Rogue has to be greedy, or acquisitive? It's driving the dwarf crazy -- between the paladin, ranger/rogue, and wizard, there's just no convincing the party to focus on the gold!

[Bluemanarc]

We will use the same system we used back in 2e.
Each adventure or module, we write down on the treasure list all the items and gold we get, so that's usually 2 or 3 levels of play.
Then at the end of it, we identify what we have and we roll percentage dice and the highest picks first etc until all magic items are gone.
Treasure is converted to gold and split up evenly.

Only downfall is magic users and clerics may not pick their stuff as they know that no one else can use them.
And potentially people may pick stuff to bargain back for things they really want.
Some items we may automatically give to a PC if we know only they can use, such as Cleric Scrolls for example.

Where is a Magic Item optimization thread on this or other websites for 5e ?

[DarkKnightJin]

At the 1st table, we usually find stuff and it gets stuffed into my Dragonborn Cleric's Bag of Holding.
He kinda dibs'd that in one of the finds. This is mostly because he has Identify as a (custom) Domain Spell, and can determine who gets what item after he's done the work to figure out what it does.
The Warlock got a nice (pink) Blanket of Comfort and some Boots of Elvenkind. He got the BoH and a Wand of Binding. Anything else that isn't distributed right away goes into the BoH for later use.

At the second table, items are usually kept by thr one that finds it, Identified when there's some downtime.. and then they decide what to do with it.
It's pretty friendly, in that it's usually the person that would get the most use out of it that winds up wielding the item.

[Tanarii]

In an open-table scenario I'd probably go with a modified "pay for items from share of gold" thing since you're not continuously working with the same people session after session.
That's pretty much the driving factor in my case. If it's a single party of friends, people tend to be much more "need" for treasure.

Of course, when we used to get XP for magic items just like GP, and not as a group but rather the final individual who got the magic item or gold, it was a slightly different matter.

Of course, I can't remember if that was the official way to do XP for GP or not. I vaguely recall reading something about power leveling at Gygax's table but I can't recall if that was the method.

[ad_hoc]

Based on need.

No one has any items if everyone is dead.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's pretty much the driving factor in my case. If it's a single party of friends, people tend to be much more "need" for treasure.

Of course, when we used to get XP for magic items just like GP, and not as a group but rather the final individual who got the magic item or gold, it was a slightly different matter.

Of course, I can't remember if that was the official way to do XP for GP or not. I vaguely recall reading something about power leveling at Gygax's table but I can't recall if that was the method.

In an open-table/west-marches style game, I'd probably pick an "official" way to do it and enforce that across all tables from the get-go. Sorta how most MMOs now enforce a particular method of loot-sharing on automatically-matched groups (ie those that use the system's matchmaking instead of old-fashioned LFG chat).

Probably giving each item a gold value and giving each player an equal share of the total loot. Taking an item comes out of their gold total and if a single item is bigger than their share, they have to make up the difference some how (or the party can waive it by unanimous consent).

Having a culture of share-and-share-alike (so that everybody's thinking of the party not the individual) makes it easier--if the fighter has a bigger stick that benefits me as the cleric because things die faster. Or whatever.

[nickl_2000]

We share gold evenly with the remainder when it can't be split going to my character (I have the healer feat and burn a lot of healing kit usages).

Magic items go to whomever needs it or wants it, with an unspoken gentleman's agreement to not be greedy. If you no longer need something or will use it, we give it to others if they want it. If an item isn't wanted, we trade it or sell it and split the profits.

It also helps that is a stable group that had paid together for years.

[Xetheral]

The default approach I recommend to my players is to assume that all items are worth whatever they can be sold for. Characters can purchase those items from the party at that price, and can do so on credit with the permission of the party. Items no one wants at that price are sold and the proceeds divided. Items multiple characters want are auctioned to the character willing to pay the most (for hard-to-find items, the final auctioned price can sometimes be higher than the "normal" purchase price, let alone the normal sale price).

In my most recent 5e campaign, however, the players elected to just jointly decide how to best distribute items. That works too, and since it's an IC decision, it's up to them, not to me.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

The group agrees to who gets what found magic item. Never takes more than a quick discussion.

Gold is divided equally. If someone wants an art object, they usually get to have it. We're pretty low stress.

Yep, same here. It's pretty simple provided you don't have a bunch of really greedy players and a DM who is generous enough with loot to give everyone something meaningful every few sessions.

[nickl_2000]

Yep, same here. It's pretty simple provided you don't have a bunch of really greedy players and a DM who is generous enough with loot to give everyone something meaningful every few sessions.

Sounds right, our treasure splitting is usually done via email.

Email 1: You all get 890 GP, 3 EP, 2190 SP, 12,654 CP. You also get X magic item
Email 2: Oh man, why do these monster keep having electrum pieces?... I don't need X magic item. So, someone else can have it
Email 3: I would like X magic item
Email 4: I would also like X magic item
Email 5: Oh, okay. Well I have lots of magic items already, so you can have it.

End.

[Waterdeep Merch]

As a DM, I don't interfere. My groups don't include magic items in their treasure divisions, and usually come to a party consensus on who needs it most. They rarely have any issues with this, except for when a specific player happens to be around and gets in one of his moods. Every now and then he has a tendency to argue for far more than his share of the loot (and is also the only one who has ever tried to use skill checks to abscond with more gold) and will make a play for an item even if he can barely use it. This has nearly gotten him kicked out of my games on at least three occasions I can think of, and he's been banned from a lot of other tables. I'm way too lenient, but so far my other players have kept this one guy in check and their system functions well, considering.

As a player, I seem to end up the leader of my party more often than not, and tend to dictate who gets what magic item after conferring with the group. They trust my expertise when weighing the pros and cons of what each player can do with the loot, and will draw a conclusion based on it. This essentially makes me the one who hands out magic items, and I think I get away with it solely because I don't tend to keep much myself- I'm confident in my abilities as a roleplayer, so I don't need magic item support as much as the other players might. So long as it sees use, I'm happy.

Both ways, every game has at least one instance where two or more players come together to use their gold to strengthen another party member. If it's just one player, the recipient typically pays it back later. If it's multiple, it ends up an even party tax- this is usually because making that player better at whatever it is they're spending money on is recognized as beneficial to the entire group, like paying money into obtaining plenty of diamonds for resurrections, or affording plate armor for a good front-liner so that they can properly defend their squishier teammates.

With the one exception, I've been pretty blessed with players that recognize that helping each other makes for a better team.

[Rixitichil]

Items given to where they can put to most use.
Coin is divided between members, with Magic items counting as their guessed sell value. The party slush fund is counted as an additional party member and gets any coin we don't want to split down.
It gets used to fund group expenses like inns, healing items, curse removal and diamonds. Occasionally the holder of the slush fund will ask for money if it runs low, but in practice we usually start taking money out of it and splitting it amongst ourselves once it gets too big.

[Tanarii]

Email 2: Oh man, why do these monster keep having electrum pieces?..
Theyre almost as valuable as gold, but twice as heavy per value. DMs friend as filler but not complete filler.

Now a real DMs friend for aggravating
players is 800 copper mixed in with 2000 gp. Thats 16 lbs they can't afford to take the time to separate in the dungeon. /evilgrin

[DrowPiratRobrts]

...(and is also the only one who has ever tried to use skill checks to abscond with more gold)...

We actually do this occasionally. Usually our kleptomaniac, Goliath Rogue by the name of Krawgg. But we all just as soon spend gold to help each other get some magic item or whatever, so it all works out. We just all see it as fitting that Krawgg's bag jingles with the weight of 6,000 GP while our noble, Treant Paladin has never had more than about 1,600 GP at once. I don't recommend this approach for groups who aren't close friends though. So yeah, whatever works for your party is good. There are a lot of good suggestions here that demonstrate a variety of approaches.

[Demonslayer666]

As DM:
Treasure should be split by roleplaying it out. I always want to interfere and tell them how to do it, but that's not "what would happen". I temper that by giving out several utility items, and items designed specifically for a certain player and keep it relatively even, with a few truly random items thrown in. When it comes to splitting treasure, I remind them who got what so they can (hopefully) be fair, but I leave the final decision up to them to decide.

As a player:
If you can, it should be as equal as possible. It depends on the game, specifically if you can buy and sell magic items. If you can't, it has to be need. If you can sell magic items, the items should be part of your split, or split when you sell them if its uneven. I hate it when someone calls need and then turns around and sells an item to get a bigger split of treasure. If you take an item as need and turn around sell it, it's now party treasure and we all get a split if no one else has any items! I also hate it when DM showers other players with magic items and I get nothing but an equal split of gold - regardless if it is truly random or favoritism, it sucks.

I'd had a game where magic items were so out of balance, I had a few uncommon items I bought myself from my equal share of gold, and the guy next to me had legendary armor, very rare shield, belt of giant strength, and a handful of rare to very rare weapons. :smallfurious:

[DrowPiratRobrts]

I'd had a game where magic items were so out of balance, I had a few uncommon items I bought myself from my equal share of gold, and the guy next to me had legendary armor, very rare shield, belt of giant strength, and a handful of rare to very rare weapons. :smallfurious:

I'd be more upset at the player than the DM. If he's holding more than he can attune to he should have no reason to keep that stuff from the rest of the party...even if his attunement slots aren't full, he still should've passed some of it on.

[Zippdementia]

Ah yes, the classic magic hoarding! Generally I don't find this to be a problem because I choose my players for their ability to work together as a team and my combats and dungeons are very challenging (so they need to spread out magic items or they will die if they concentrate them all on one person).

One piece of advice I have, though, is to make sure that in every major magic hoard, you are making sure that everyone gets an item clearly designed for their character. This can be as subtle as giving it bonuses that make it most appropriate for that class/character or as obtuse as literally saying it can only be attuned to that class. What happens with potions and minor items is not really going to bother anyone, as long as everyone has that cool item that's meant for them.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Items given to where they can put to most use.
Coin is divided between members, with Magic items counting as their guessed sell value. The party slush fund is counted as an additional party member and gets any coin we don't want to split down.
It gets used to fund group expenses like inns, healing items, curse removal and diamonds. Occasionally the holder of the slush fund will ask for money if it runs low, but in practice we usually start taking money out of it and splitting it amongst ourselves once it gets too big.
This just inspired me to set up an investment banking and insurance racket with my party. I thought "Slush fund, that's brilliant! Wait, I used to be an accountant. Why have I never tried banking practices and principles in D&D?", and it just sort of snowballed from there.

I presently own about 2/3 of the party bank thanks to my initial investment (I swear I never actually spend my own gold). There are some merchants that I plan to speak with soon.

So thank you for introducing the First Adventurer's Bank (FAB!). My DM had a very nervous look on his face when I explained it.

[Corran]

It is assumed that coins are distributed equally and each character carries their share on their person. But actually, there is always one person who just writes down on their sheet the total gold of the group (we use the same method for xp too). We mostly play without magic items, but in the rare times that magic items fall into our hands, we just give it to the character that makes more sense to have it.

[Tanarii]

Ah yes, the classic magic hoarding! Generally I don't find this to be a problem because I choose my players for their ability to work together as a team and my combats and dungeons are very challenging (so they need to spread out magic items or they will die if they concentrate them all on one person).
My players are skilled enough at working together as a team. If they don't, they inevitably manage to kill themselves.

The key here is a I don't just run a game for one party of PCs that adventure together in lockstep. The PCs and layers are often different for each session, although many of them have worked together on previous adventures, since the stable roster of fairly frequent players is only about thirty.

PCs often loan magic items to each other for the duration of an adventuring session, especially when it's obviously to the advantage of the party. But expect it back at the end of session, since there is no garuntee they'll adventure with the same PC in the near future. Sometimes they even rent them out to PCs going on adventures they aren't joining, although it's more common to just sell them in that case. It's not totally unknown for magic items to be outright gifted either.

[Rixitichil]

This just inspired me to set up an investment banking and insurance racket with my party. I thought "Slush fund, that's brilliant! Wait, I used to be an accountant. Why have I never tried banking practices and principles in D&D?", and it just sort of snowballed from there.

I presently own about 2/3 of the party bank thanks to my initial investment (I swear I never actually spend my own gold). There are some merchants that I plan to speak with soon.

So thank you for introducing the First Adventurer's Bank (FAB!). My DM had a very nervous look on his face when I explained it.

Glad this idea resonated. The idea started as an investment for a wand of healing back in 3.5, then carried on as it made dividing coin so much easier, (the joint fund doesn't object if it gets the small share, and no-one objects if it gets a larger share.)
The point where we were using it more often to bribe town guards than to restock healing items was the point it changed name.

[Sigreid]

Glad this idea resonated. The idea started as an investment for a wand of healing back in 3.5, then carried on as it made dividing coin so much easier, (the joint fund doesn't object if it gets the small share, and no-one objects if it gets a larger share.)
The point where we were using it more often to bribe town guards than to restock healing items was the point it changed name.

Played with a group for a while where we took 15% off the top of what we got adventuring to cover adventuring expenses including expendable components, poisons, transportation, housing, etc.