I've got a player (don't we all) who loves to loot, thanks to vidya gaems. Was thinking of some ways to get around this, and was wondering if anybody has used a loot table before?

It would be great if there was some threat in there to deter looting, such as chaos-touched items/weapons from cultists, broken stuff which will injure players, or simply things that don't work and can only be sold for minuscule price.

This way I don't have to be the **** GM who says everytime "Oh you can't loot those 5 autoguns and power sword because...OH LOOK OUT a chaos demon is coming!"

This way I don't have to be the **** GM who says everytime "Oh you can't loot those 5 autoguns and power sword because...OH LOOK OUT a chaos demon is coming!"

Well, if you don´t want to be (censored) GM who says that...simply don´t say it

In second edition, there is no "selling for coin" (only this trade-in mechanismen..that is kinda strange to me), so no need to deny them the five autoguns. And if I used five power swords against them, I usually say it is fine to give them at least one of them. My approach to this is two-fold

1)The Inquisitor has "first pick"

...and this first pack is as large as he wants. He funds you, he sends you around, he has the right to claim whatever you, his servants, have claimed. My players run along with this, because

2) Most things you find are not better than the tools you alread have

This whole "loot thing" is, outside of a post-apocalyptic setting or one where the characters need to fund themselves in evey aspect, a thing about an arms race between the gear of the PC and the gear of the NPC. Whatever the PC have, the GM gives his NPC better gear, which the PC loot and the GM now needs better NPC with better gear.

I stopped this. The PC in my group have very good gear (they get it on a mission to mission basis from their Inquisitor) and only loot things they need right now or stuff that is superior to their stuff. And guess what? If your characters have RARE to VERY RARE gear and your NPC have SCARCE gear, they don´t get looted that often. Especially if the Inquisitor has "first pick"

After all, you don´t need to arm your NPC with weapons that by-pass PC armor completely and with armor that shrugs off the blow of the PC. You can heighten their potential by adding Talents and Skills, increasing Attributes and by simply increasing their number.

Back-2-Topic:

Now, that was not what you asked for in the first place. You wanted "loot tables", like "generate reason XYZ why this stuff cannot be looted/used by the PC". Right? Please take note: I advise -against- using such. But, here we go!

(d10)

0###The gear is stolen, and the rightful owner (powerful person or organization) wants it back AFTER the mission

1### The ammo/energy source is not "munitorium standard". Once you leave this world, it is EXTREMELY RARE

2### The gear was manufactored by unsanctioned means, and thereby it must be destroyed according to Mechanicus rules

3### The weapons are actually poor quality. "What, my dice rolling did not reflected it? HEY , I AM THE GM! TRUST ME!"

4### The weapon has the "custom grip" upgrade, which means everyone else has a penalty. "Re-working it? ...erm..it got broken!"

5### Due to a clerical error, the case containing THIS loot was lost between missions and has now been given the status "lost in transfer".

6### Local custom dictates that up to three generations of the traitors family have to be executed with the very weapons they turned against the Imperium. In public. "You want to wait till that is over? Sorry, next mission is waiting for you."

7### The belongings of the heretics have to be sold so that a post-mortem penalty fee can be paid to one of the Adepta.

8### The planetary governour sizes all of the traitors belongings, including the gear of those you killed

9### You got partially brainwiped after the mission, and thereby forgot the loot, and thereby, you cannot claim it.

Please take note: No, I am not serious about this.

EDIT: Corrected some of my bad gramma. I shall not type in my lunch break *sighs*

I made up a 'loot table' for my DH1 campaign that has serves me well. See the first post in the ARCANA ARCHIVE link in my signature below.

It would be great if there was some threat in there to deter looting,

First look at the motivations for looting:

- Loot they want to use.

- Loot they want to sell.

If you want to deter looting, remove those motivations. How do you do that ?

Loot they want to use

Players will look for two things to loot from the enemies. Gear better than their current gear and ammo for the weapons they currently have. If the enemies don't have either, the players won't be looting for personal use.

On top of that, I'd suggest giving most members of a cult a similar loadout. That way if there is something in the standard cultist loadout the players want to use personally, they are likely to pick it up from the first cultists they kill. They ones in between aren't going to be worth looting except for ammo. If the cultists have las weapons, then the ammo isn't worth looting as las weapon power packs are rechargeable if you have access to a power source. The only time they risk having the power packs fail is if they have to recharge them in a fire.

Loot to sell

The rules are quite clear on how to sell gear. Read trading in items on page 143:

- They can trade in one item per requisition test.

- The item they are trading in must be more common than the item they are trying to acquire.

So limit how often the players can make requisition tests. My plan is one requisition test per player per session*, with a successful test meaning the item arrives at the players base before they next leave it (meaning they can write down they have it instantly, but can't use it till they return to base). Do this and large piles of loot become worthless. For example, say the players find a pile of 1,000 bolt pistols. They might try to carry a few of them away for tradeins or personal use. But most will be left behind because they won't be making enough requisition tests to trade them all in. Even if every single test was for something they could trade a bolt pistol for.

*With no thought given to if it makes sense for them to be hunting for items at that time. The most I'll do is say "you aren't really looking for the item now, you ordered it a while ago and it's taken some time to arrive".

Finally: enforce carrying capacity . Use the table on page 248. If they can't carry it, they can't loot it. If they have to dump their personal gear to carry loot, then looting is less likely.

Great responses!

@Gregorius - I get what you mean! I think I will just buff my enemies through stats and talents, and not weapons and gear! Actually I do want them to get nice stuff, and I've given it as an end-of-mission reward too. And actually I was thinking more like a table where 1-20 are bad, 21-80 are average, and 81-100 is good loot I'm not being terribly sadistic!

@Adeptus-B - Will check it out!

@Bilateralrope - Yeah I have been keeping cultists armed with the same sort of stuff, and actually my players with shotguns or psyker powers don't look for loot at all for that reason! One requisition per mission sounds great. They're starting a new mission tomorrow on Port Aquila and they will have a chance to shop around, if they need anything. What I've found is also good is when you tell the players they have no 'base' per se and nowhere to store big amounts of loot (a player wanted to keep a motorbike...).

One requisition per mission sounds great.

Expect to see players using a lot of las/melee weapons so that they can use their requisition to get better gear.

Yeah, most encounters my players have are with people whose equipment is below theirs. So looting that matters isn't common, or they loot things for others instead of themselves. The Tech-Priest tends to collect fancy tech the group doesn't want for refurbishing to the Omnissiah, and the Sniper tends to collect cheap weapons for his armory/hidden weapon caches that are everywhere...

Yeah, most encounters my players have are with people whose equipment is below theirs. So looting that matters isn't common, or they loot things for others instead of themselves. The Tech-Priest tends to collect fancy tech the group doesn't want for refurbishing to the Omnissiah, and the Sniper tends to collect cheap weapons for his armory/hidden weapon caches that are everywhere...

Same for me, generally cultists and regular ennemies are weaker and cheaper than said acolytes and my encounters count on strategy, planification and devotion to the death of the PC.

If the PC surprises people, I think it's okay for them to just wipe them off entirely.

And some time, I give them truly good ennemies, but yet again, they are not THAT much equipped more than the players, like light carapace armour, lasweapons with laser sight and photo-contacts.They tend to have a few special weapons, with limited ammo, and such.

@Gregorius - (...) Actually I do want them to get nice stuff, and I've given it as an end-of-mission reward too. And actually I was thinking more like a table where 1-20 are bad, 21-80 are average, and 81-100 is good loot I'm not being terribly sadistic!

Hmm...but...for what items? The weapons and the armor? You would need to design those BEFORE the fight starts. After all, if a weapon is "Poor craftsmanship", it will not have turned into this just the moment that a player character picks it up (well, unless they have been fighting orks, perhaps). Or are you talking about more "personal belongings" here?

@Gregorius - (...) Actually I do want them to get nice stuff, and I've given it as an end-of-mission reward too. And actually I was thinking more like a table where 1-20 are bad, 21-80 are average, and 81-100 is good loot I'm not being terribly sadistic!

Hmm...but...for what items? The weapons and the armor? You would need to design those BEFORE the fight starts. After all, if a weapon is "Poor craftsmanship", it will not have turned into this just the moment that a player character picks it up (well, unless they have been fighting orks, perhaps). Or are you talking about more "personal belongings" here?

Yeah I would say for rummaging around in pockets, armour etc. But I think i will just keep enemies with either equal or worse grade weapons, and maybe a boss will have a awesome weapon which may require some special training to use anyway (if its bolt or plasma etc). The mission they're about to start will have mutants with claws (the Dark Hold mutants from the bestiary here) and some unsanctioned psykers, so they won't need weapons. But I will allow them a requisition since its a space port filled with stuff.