How to limit min-maxxing in your game system.

[Tequila Sunrise]

because while ignoring minor expenditures like Scrolls of Goat Fucking does downgrade a PC's wealth for the rest of his career,

That's absurd. If it downgrades your wealth for the rest of your career then you can't ignore it.

I think you misunderstood my comment; I was trying to say that YES, if the DM ignores your minor expenditures you will suffer for the rest of your career. But that situation is better than the 'loot credits for useless scrolls or components for broken spells' situation which you spotlight.

What you actually have a problem with is how 3rd Edition priced permanent vs. nonpermanent expenditures, which has nothing to do with the wealth by level system.

If you can use that defense for 3e's WBL, I can defend 4e's explicit parcel system by claiming that ritual costs have nothing to with it.

If what you're actually proposing is that a PC's level of wealth is fixed and unchangeable except by specific DM intervention but they can pull any wealth-appropriate magical item out of the catalogue, that's okay. In abstract anyway; that would completely fuck over D&D's system where you're supposed to get excited about treasure piles, but I can understand where you're coming from.

Yeah, my 'page from WW' example isn't really exciting, and would have to be improved on for me to include it in a game. First, I assume that all gear available at a given wealth level is equal. Second, I'd leave it up to the GM to drop special loot -- maybe it's above the PCs' wealth level, or maybe it just can't be purchased.

4E actually scales the costs of its non-permanent expenditures like rituals and potions to your level so you're always taking it in the ass for a level-appropriate effect.

Lago, I'm sorry you feel obligated to DM 4e for your family, who have the good taste to like it. But every time I see one of your smarmy passive aggressive 4e remarks or one of your homophobic metaphors, what little cred you've built up in my mind gets drowned out by the taste of nerd rage in my mouth. It's a shame, because you could be really inspiring otherwise.

So where does looting the goblin lair come into that equation for D&D adventurers? What about consumables?

Well, you could use a sort of wealth-xp system for the typical D&D loot hauls; the DM gives every treasure chest a wealth value, and when the party accumulates enough wealth points they go up a wealth level.

As to consumables, they could be covered under the 'You may purchase X amount of minor items at this wealth level' clause, or they could be treated as that special special loot I mentioned. (Assuming that they're not totally lame like 4e healing potions are.)

[Koumei]

Second, I'd leave it up to the GM to drop special loot -- maybe it's above the PCs' wealth level, or maybe it just can't be purchased.

The latter. Make the "DM gives a present" items things that are actually different. Whether it's "You can buy items of fire and stab all the time, this item of fire and stab lets you cast fire spells and gives brief defence against heat or cold" or "You can buy magic items all the time, this one follows you around, has its own actions and calls itself Chii"

...maybe the world needs "Koumei's List of 25 Animu Magic Items for D&D"

[Thymos]

How about this:

If you do point buy make sure that the character creation system and the advancement system do not drastically differ like they do in Shadowrun or World of Darkness.

What I mean is don't let two different legal characters made using character creation have drastically different totals if they were built using character advancement.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you can use that defense for 3e's WBL, I can defend 4e's explicit parcel system by claiming that ritual costs have nothing to with it.

Sigh. You apparently didn't understand my rant at all about permanent versus non-permanent expenditures, so here's the tl;dr version.

There's no such thing as a permanent expenditure in D&D. When you buy that +2 defending bastard sword, it's permanently only until you find a better sword to play with. And D&D tells us that you will get a better sword to play with. So it's not permanent at all.

But when said sword becomes obsolete it doesn't matter in the long run. You can throw it down the well and get fully reimbursed for it later. Or you can sell it for half now and have money to play around with until you get reimbursed for it later.

Just like a scroll.

So when you complain about people loading up on scrolls of forcecage and then not having to pay the price for their nuke because they have WBL, that's one thing, but what's not true is that the person with the scrolls of forcecage ends up in a better position than the guy who bought the sword. The guy with the scrolls of forcecage only have a limited times of useage while the person with a sword can swing it all day.

The fact that it is cheaper and more powerful to load up on forcecage scrolls is either a problem with the spellcasting system or a problem with how 3E prices permanent items versus non-permanent items. That's not a problem with the WBL system.

Secondly, you're not supposed to reimburse people for rituals. That's a serious violation of 4E design principles, where there's not supposed to be any non-DM fiat class/feat/MI-independent or permanent effect in the hands of the players without some kind of cost.

The treasure parcels in the 4E do not hand out extra loot if a player burned their gold allotment on rituals or potions. In 3rd Edition, you're seriously supposed to be.

And when you're feeding me hardcore bullshit like people who paid money for an effect that benefited them at the time but is not benefiting them now should be getting reimbursed for them (by giving them extra DM treasure because the 4E DMG makes no allotment for them) but then saying that the wealth-by-level system sucks... well... I don't know what to say. It's a laughable level of dissonance.

Yeah, my 'page from WW' example isn't really exciting, and would have to be improved on for me to include it in a game. First, I assume that all gear available at a given wealth level is equal. Second, I'd leave it up to the GM to drop special loot -- maybe it's above the PCs' wealth level, or maybe it just can't be purchased.

And you know what? That's a good system. I'd be delighted if D&D actually switched to that and I think that if your version made it into the rules a lot of people people would love it, too.

But that's not what D&D wants people to use. Among other things, they wanted people to have a system where people consistently occasionally stumbled across higher-level treasure and also got some minor bupkis items at about the same rate.

You can't do that in your system unless you want to make all of the non-wealth rewards artifacts, which is defensible but has its own set of problems. D&D wanted to avoid the burden of DMs having to specifically insert artifacts into the game every time they wanted PCs to get higher-level (or lower-level) treasure, so here comes the treasure charts! That small wyvern nest you stumbled across in the mountains? There might be a chance that there's a +4 flaming flaming burst bow in there! Or you might get a scroll of Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer.

You cannot pull those things off in a system with tiers of unlimited fungible wealth. But you can do those things in a system with 3E's Wealth-by-level and 4E's treasure parcel system, which is why they did it. You are really supposed to get your treasure from cutting open the bellies of Purple Worms and fishing around in there rather than just having an offscreen armory of magic swords--as lame as the former is and as awesome as the latter is.

So hopefully you can see why I like your system better but you can also understand why the design teams of D&D (for all editions) might not want to go with that.

Lago, I'm sorry you feel obligated to DM 4e for your family, who have the good taste to like it. But every time I see one of your smarmy passive aggressive 4e remarks or one of your homophobic metaphors, what little cred you've built up in my mind gets drowned out by the taste of nerd rage in my mouth. It's a shame, because you could be really inspiring otherwise.

Gee, thanks Mr. Internet Referee, telling me that my points could go over better if I cleaned up my language.

My response?

Why don't you go fuck your mother for a week straight? Then afterwords wait for a few months, slice her belly, then eat the bloody fetus inside with a side of shit-filled intestine?

You'd have better luck trying to teach a turtle how to play fetch then getting me not to say these things.

[Midnight_v]

The problem comes when someone who min-maxxes ends up with substantially more screentime or awesomeness than someone who didn't. And while we expect a certain degree of payoff for people who work harder or know the rules better, it can quickly get out of hand.

I find myself thinking that such a thing is inevitable as long as you give people choices that matter At All.
Attempting to eliminate system mastery ie. Optimization. will almost always requires insurance that the players choice really doesn't count for much.
Essentially you have to do a whole lot of leveling the playing field to make sure everything stays equal if not then somethigs will always be vastly superior options.
For example. Sniping. There are great steps to keep sniping from being as effective as it otherwise would be in many rpgs. Hide + Ranged combat is superior to Melee assassinations many times over. Which is why people still sit around wondering who killed kennedy.
However it isn't "heroic" in what most people consider the fantasy sense so there is great effort to nerf it.
My point is this: As long as there are options that are better in anyway eventually someones going to realize that an accept "Thats the way things are" and proceede to perform better than those who are doing it "For the cool". "Cool" a statment which leads to more stupid decisions than any other many times.
Secondly. . . You could jolly well Mathematically go through and ensure that your game has an equivalancy chart of damage so that the
Karate man
Buster Sword Guy
Drizzt Clone
and Sniper wolf all do the same about of damage at any time on every level. That just stops numbers that doesn't stop things like "Tactics" which will assuredly lead to more screen time. Moreover that only works as long as everyone is attacking the same thing "Hit point total" and finally the Sniper who is not in direct melee will still have the "safest job" and can almost always get more screen time by a well placed shot all Norman Osborn style. . .

Which ultimately I find the attempt to actually "Limit min-maxing" to be a false start, because people are going to find the minimals and maximals of any system... then they'lll start to optimize. Which really there's nothing wrong with that.
I just wonder how it is one intends to make sure that tactics aren't superior or roles aren't ... when they clearly are in many cases.

Why don't you go fuck your mother for a week straight? Then afterwords wait for a few months, slice her belly, then eat the bloody fetus inside with a side of shit-filled intestine?

You'd have better luck trying to teach a turtle how to play fetch then getting me not to say these things.

Damn... justs damn

[Lago PARANOIA]

Now, TS, the wealth by level system had some extremely deep flaws in it. And I'll be happy to talk about those flaws if you want. If you really want to tear 3E's wealth-by-level system apart it's actually distressingly easy. You're just barking up the wrong tree.

The reason why I'm so hard on 4E's system is that it completely embraces all of the flaws of 3E's system and adds some new ones on top of that.

[Tequila Sunrise]

If you can use that defense for 3e's WBL, I can defend 4e's explicit parcel system by claiming that ritual costs have nothing to with it.

Blah blah blah...

Let me rephrase: If you can excuse 3e's 'loot credits' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem without broken spells and useless scrolls, I can excuse 4e's 'screw you for losing a copper' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem if rituals had no cost.

Yeah, my 'page from WW' example isn't really exciting, and would have to be improved on for me to include it in a game. First, I assume that all gear available at a given wealth level is equal. Second, I'd leave it up to the GM to drop special loot -- maybe it's above the PCs' wealth level, or maybe it just can't be purchased.

And you know what? That's a good system. I'd be delighted if D&D actually switched to that and I think that if your version made it into the rules a lot of people people would love it, too.

I must have missed the post where this thread became about D&D, but in the very first sentence or two of your OP you mentioned GM/ST/whatever.

Lago, I'm sorry you feel obligated to DM 4e for your family, who have the good taste to like it. But every time I see one of your smarmy passive aggressive 4e remarks or one of your homophobic metaphors, what little cred you've built up in my mind gets drowned out by the taste of nerd rage in my mouth. It's a shame, because you could be really inspiring otherwise.

Gee, thanks Mr. Internet Referee, telling me that my points could go over better if I cleaned up my language.

My response?

Why don't you go fuck your mother for a week straight? Then afterwords wait for a few months, slice her belly, then eat the bloody fetus inside with a side of shit-filled intestine?

You'd have better luck trying to teach a turtle how to play fetch then getting me not to say these things.

Hey, it's your God given right to be a classless jackass, and I won't stop you. In fact, I'm not above having a good laugh at your expense, so by all means continue.

[erik]

You'd have better luck trying to teach a turtle how to play fetch

Indeed!

[Lago PARANOIA]

Let me rephrase: If you can excuse 3e's 'loot credits' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem without broken spells and useless scrolls, I can excuse 4e's 'screw you for losing a copper' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem if rituals had no cost.

No, you don't get to do that because you apparently don't know the difference between having a problem with a subsystem and a problem with the actual system.

If you changed 3E's system to do what 4E uses, you would still have the same problems because the pricing schemes still favor non-permanent items and because the spellcasting system is broken. This indicates to me that the actual problem are those two subsystems.

On the flipside, if you fixed the ritual system in 4E, you would still have the same problem of being drilled in the eye with a horsecock because there are other nonpermanent expenses that fuck you over permanently. Wanted to buy a sailing ship? Wanted to use some potions? Wanted to bling out your castle with the garbage items in the AV2? Too bad, you're still paying for it for the rest of your life! Gotcha good, fucker!

I really don't know how to make this any simpler. When you're fixing problems you need to be able to determine where the problem originated from, otherwise we'll do something stupid like your suggestion and players still take it in the ass when it comes time to decorate a castle or go to the apothecary.

I must have missed the post where this thread became about D&D, but in the very first sentence or two of your OP you mentioned GM/ST/whatever.

You're the one who focused on one example and disputed the validity of it. That's fine, but don't you dare start whining about me focusing on a system when you're the one who actually brought up the problem.

Hey, it's your God given right to be a classless jackass, and I won't stop you. In fact, I'm not above having a good laugh at your expense, so by all means continue.

Laugh at me all you want; I really don't care as long as you don't use my vulgarity as an excuse to snivel your way out of a debate. Otherwise feel free to call me a profane, communist microdicked fatass with repressed homosexuality issues who likes to jerk off to anime porn. Or point out what a pathetic guy I am to your friends, because it's basically true--look at me, I'm debating D&D rules on the Internet. You think I'm cool? I'm not cool.

[shadzar]

Just go into the Feywild and steal/collect residuum, and bring it back. All the money you need.

[Tequila Sunrise]

Let me rephrase: If you can excuse 3e's 'loot credits' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem without broken spells and useless scrolls, I can excuse 4e's 'screw you for losing a copper' system by saying that it wouldn't be a problem if rituals had no cost.

On the flipside, if you fixed the ritual system in 4E, you would still have the same problem of being drilled in the eye with a horsecock because there are other nonpermanent expenses that fuck you over permanently. Wanted to buy a sailing ship? Wanted to use some potions? Wanted to bling out your castle with the garbage items in the AV2? Too bad, you're still paying for it for the rest of your life! Gotcha good, fucker!

Indeed. I'm well aware of the source of your nerd rage, I'm merely pointing out that if you get to excuse 3e WBL by claiming that attached imbalances could be fixed, I can do the same for 4e's parcel system.

3e: If spells weren't obscenely broken, if one-shot items were actually thought-out, blablablah...

4: If rituals didn't cost anything, if one-shot items refilled every level, blablablah...

Now, combining the best of both systems might very well be better than either; but I never argued otherwise and I don't care to.

I must have missed the post where this thread became about D&D, but in the very first sentence or two of your OP you mentioned GM/ST/whatever.

You're the one who focused on one example and disputed the validity of it. That's fine, but don't you dare start whining about me focusing on a system when you're the one who actually brought up the problem.

For someone who's constantly whining about every game in sight, it's amusingly defensive of you to jump down my throat over a simple question.

I suggested a way toward a better wealth management system, and then you whine that "That's not the way D&D wants us to play." Well hell, if we cared what D&D wanted, we'd still be using Thac0, percentile Strength and all that other bullshit. And we certainly wouldn't be playing Exalted, Feng Shui, or *gasp* writing our own games!

Hey, it's your God given right to be a classless jackass, and I won't stop you. In fact, I'm not above having a good laugh at your expense, so by all means continue.

Laugh at me all you want; I really don't care as long as you don't use my vulgarity as an excuse to snivel your way out of a debate. Otherwise feel free to call me a profane, communist microdicked fatass with repressed homosexuality issues who likes to jerk off to anime porn. Or point out what a pathetic guy I am to your friends, because it's basically true--look at me, I'm debating D&D rules on the Internet. You think I'm cool? I'm not cool.

Ah, the "What are you, chicken?" of the internet nerd world -- how trite. So far you're the only one who's had to resort to insults and word combos I haven't heard since 6th grade, I suppose to make up for a general lack of confidence and to get attention.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I can do the same for 4e's parcel system.

Ugh, I'm getting tired of repeating myself. Let me try another track.

If you ported 3E's wealth-by-level system over to 4E wholesale, it would solve many problems while introducing no new ones--assuming we value the same thing. If you honestly believe that people should permanently take a hit for buying potions or building castles sometime in their career then you're not going to like it. But if you don't agree with that, 3E's system is better.

If you ported 4E's treasure parcel system over to 3E wholesale, it would cause a bunch of new problems while fixing nothing.

Or if that's too abstract for you, let me put it another way. Imagine you owned an electric stove and you wanted to bake some cookies with store-bought cookie dough for a church potluck. You put the dough chunks on a pan and put it in the oven, following the directions perfectly.

When you take the cookies out, they taste like ass. I mean, they're just awful. You can't serve these, but you still need to make cookies. So you need to fix whatever before you can complete your task of making cookies.

So. Do you fix the stove's internals? Do you clean out the stove? Do you wash the pan first next time? Or do you throw out the dough and get some new cookie dough? You don't know right now. You check and clean the stove and everything's working out okay, so you narrow it down to the cookie dough you used.

So. Even though you can't bake good cookies with your setup, is it the stove's fault they came out bad? Well, no. If you just got some better dough the cookies would come out okay. That's 3E's system.

Similarly, your friend is baking cookies with their own stove. The cookies came out tasting like ass, too, and the stove is broken. It doesn't heat up to 400 degrees, stopping at a balmy 200 degrees and getting no higher. So your friend buys some prepackaged soft cookies, dusts them with egg whites, then bakes them at 200 degrees, and then they come out still not tasting that great, but better than before.

Do you understand what went wrong here? You're blaming 3E's wealth-by-level system (stove) for the resource (cookies) coming out tasting like ass, even though the 'stove' works just fine.

You can tell me all day that 4E's magic item system in aggregate works better--even though that's not true, but that's a separate reason from anything discussed. You can NOT tell me that 3E's wealth-by-level system is worse than 4E's treasure parcel system because you get to fiddle with the inputs to get better cookies.

For someone who's constantly whining about every game in sight, it's amusingly defensive of you to jump down my throat over a simple question.

Hey, I don't mind whining. I'm the biggest whiner on this board, except for maybe Frank. I mind hypocrisy. You were being a hypocrite.

My post was originally an overall design principle thing, I just used D&D examples because that's what most people are familiar with.

You criticized my example because you didn't agree with it which caused a change of subject. That's fine. What I don't appreciate is you changing the subject and then bringing up the fact that the subject changed like I fucked up somewhere. You were the one who shifted the focus to D&D in the first damn place.

I suggested a way toward a better wealth management system, and then you whine that "That's not the way D&D wants us to play." Well hell, if we cared what D&D wanted, we'd still be using Thac0, percentile Strength and all that other bullshit. And we certainly wouldn't be playing Exalted, Feng Shui, or *gasp* writing our own games!

Just because you don't like the design goals doesn't mean that the game didn't take steps to achieve them.

3E and 4E wanted a degree of certainty in their wealth accumulation systems but also wanted a good deal of randomness in it. One system does a good (if not perfect) job of achieving both. The other system fails in more areas while also not providing any benefit.

If you don't like randomness in your treasure accumulation system, that's fine. I don't like randomness. But D&D had a design goal of randomness. It's a defensible design goal. And if you don't like it then you can houserule it or just grin and bear it.

Ah, the "What are you, chicken?" of the internet nerd world -- how trite. So far you're the only one who's had to resort to insults and word combos I haven't heard since 6th grade, I suppose to make up for a general lack of confidence and to get attention.

Are you out of your mind?

When you make it sound like everyone here is all classy and never resorts to insults except me like in your twee little phrase 'so far, you're the only one who resorts to' it makes me think that you are intentionally being deceitful in order to prop up an argument. Or you don't have a clue what's going on around you.

I never try to prop up my arguments just by swearing. I do it for color. If you don't like my style, you can go soak your fat head.

[Psychic Robot]

Tequila, you were the one who started whining that Lago was using bad words. Cut it out.

[Tequila Sunrise]

I can do the same for 4e's parcel system.

Ugh, I'm getting tired of repeating myself.

So stop. I can tell you right now, no matter how many times you repeat your opinion, it won't become fact. I can also tell you that it'd be more productive to figure out why you have this emotional need to hate 4e, and then fix it.

You can tell me all day that 4E's magic item system in aggregate works better--even though that's not true, but that's a separate reason from anything discussed. You can NOT tell me that 3E's wealth-by-level system is worse than 4E's treasure parcel system because you get to fiddle with the inputs to get better cookies.

Okay, then YOU don't get to tell me that 4e's parcel system is worse than 3e's WBL because you get to fiddle with 3e's inputs.

For someone who's constantly whining about every game in sight, it's amusingly defensive of you to jump down my throat over a simple question.

You criticized my example because you didn't agree with it which caused a change of subject. That's fine. What I don't appreciate is you changing the subject and then bringing up the fact that the subject changed like I fucked up somewhere. You were the one who shifted the focus to D&D in the first damn place.

Go back and read my first post again. I could have specified that I was suggesting an omission of a D&D mechanic to improve other games, but that's implied in a thread about general rpgs. Nowhere did I say "this is how to play D&D better."

Ah, the "What are you, chicken?" of the internet nerd world -- how trite. So far you're the only one who's had to resort to insults and word combos I haven't heard since 6th grade, I suppose to make up for a general lack of confidence and to get attention.

Are you out of your mind?

My friends do occasionally say so, but I'm fairly sure they're joking.

When you make it sound like everyone here is all classy and never resorts to insults except me like in your twee little phrase 'so far, you're the only one who resorts to' it makes me think that you are intentionally being deceitful in order to prop up an argument. Or you don't have a clue what's going on around you.

Gee, I'm so so sorry to imply that you're the only classless jackass around here. /sarcasm

I didn't mean to.

But you are the one whose idiotic idea I happened to read, and you're the one who proceeded to defend yourself with a laughably juvenile tantrum when you didn't get your way.

Tequila, you were the one who started whining that Lago was using bad words. Cut it out.

I don't whine. I do occasionally give people advice who are too immature to hear it without getting pathetically defensive.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, then YOU don't get to tell me that 4e's parcel system is worse than 3e's WBL because you get to fiddle with 3e's inputs.

Honestly, is there any reason in my continuing to press this point with Tequila Sunrise? I really don't know how to make it any simpler. I keep pointing out that it's the dough that's making the cookies taste like ass and TS keeps telling me it's the stove.

If there's a flaw in my argument or presentation, could someone who is not this guy tell me where I screwed up?

[Crissa]

I don't even understand his point, Lago, sorry,

Certainly if you use system A it's better than system B, even though A has negatives.

The theory behind system B sounds good, but as written, is worse than A is written.

-Crissa

[shadzar]

So both 3rd and 4th economic systems taste like ass?

[Ice9]

Wait, how are 3E and 4E even different in this regard?

3E: There is a chart that shows how much gold you start with when creating a character above level 1.
4E: There is a chart/rule that shows how much gold/items you start with when creating a character above level 1.

3E: In the course of a level, you will get a certain amount of treasure (from foes), although it can vary significantly based on what you're fighting.
4E: In the course of a level, you will get a certain amount of treasure.

3E: You can also get extra treasure through cons, schemes, and exploits. This may or may not piss off your DM.
4E: Ditto.

Note that neither one has any kind of rule where you automatically get extra/less treasure for being under/over-equipped for your level, except for the DM doing so at their discretion. Thus neither one has a rule-enforced "Wealth by Level" system, except for starting characters.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Um, 3rd Edition had Wealth-by-level. They totally did. It wasn't just starting wealth, but the DMG specifically told DMs to keep PC wealth around this level.

Character Wealth
One of the ways in which you can maintain measurable control on PC power is by strictly monitoring their wealth, including their magic items. Table 5-1: Character Wealth by Level is based on the average treasures found in average encounters compared with the experience points earned in those encounters. Using that information, you can determine how much wealth a character should have based on her level.

The baseline campaign for the D&D game uses this "wealth by level" guideline as a basis for balance in adventures.

So, no, it doesn't specifically come out and tell DMs that PCs who have too little wealth for their level should be getting more money, but that's just common sense. If a PC is too poor, how do you get them up to baseline? You give them more friggin' money. If a PC has too much swag, how do you get them to their baseline? You stop giving them so much swag until their money matches what they should have for their level. Obviously it's a lot easier to give underperforming PCs more money than it is to give overrewarded PCs more money; for the latter, if a PC's wealth level doesn't go down much I just recommend sharply curtailing rewards for awhile until they gain a level or two. That way their old overinflated wealth is suddenly 'normal' for a new level.

[Username17]

So, no, it doesn't specifically come out and tell DMs that PCs who have too little wealth for their level should be getting more money

Yes. It totally does.

Monitor the progress of treasure into the hands of the PCs. For instance, you may want to use lots of high-treasure or low-treasure monsters, yet still hand out a normal amount of treasure overall. The PCs needn't have average treasure at every stage in their careers, but if an imbalance (either high or low) persists for more than a few levels, you should take gradual action to correct it by awarding slightly more or slightly less treasure.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Oopsie daisy.

[Sunwitch]

...Um.

...maybe the world needs "Koumei's List of 25 Animu Magic Items for D&D"

Yes. Yes it does.

[Judging__Eagle]

Honestly... I'm just going to bypass this all, and just have the PC's employer offer items and gold for doing their job.

The looting of temples is lame and boring imo.

[Koumei]

The looting of temples is lame and boring imo.

Looting in general, I agree, but temples are special: what's the point of killing stuff in a temple if you're not going to steal the art off the walls, break the sacrificial altar, steal the eucharist to turn into +1 Holy Penicillin and urinate in the font?

[Judging__Eagle]

Oh, that's the destroying of temples.

I'm cool with that. I just hate having to bother with how much GP worth of Emeralds the group has stolen from the temple, after using Stone Shape to make all of the embedded emeralds come out without breaking them.

Even when I'm the player, I hate that stuff.