A few things- do your antagonist NPCs fight smart or just charge blindly? Because let me tell you, even with primitive weapons, a group of three random dregs in a bar is more than enough to pound any acolyte group into the dirt, especially at rank three or below. I know this from personal experience, as until a small brawl in the Barking Saint spilled over into a thousand round ballistic buffet, my party were getting their collective posteriors handed to them on a rather dirty platter. Essentially, have your goons flank, out number, aim and all those sneaky tricks players seem to think are theirs alone to get the best possible bonus, then use called shots, full auto, scatter or whatever to try and beat them. Don't be afraid to gang up. You don't have to kill your group, just make sure it's clear the bad guys have the upper hand. If the NPCs have microbeads, have them keep in constant contact. Talking is a free action,so have them call for support, get their friends to pull the wounded out of there and above all- disengage and retreat in good order when they start losing, and make sure they grab their fallen on the way out. Hell, have the goons loot their own dead in battle for more ammo, grenades, a slightly better weapon, etc.

I also recommend having the Inquisitor give them a working budget- I gave my group 3000 thrones to begin with, plus free bed, board and transit. So far they have only looted three bodies, two of which were plot-related (the third was a loot of opportunity, as they had to search fast and skedaddle before the Magistratum arrived). Admittedly, that looting netted them a bolt pistol, two power blades and a best quality autopistol, plus access to a rather full account with a transtellar merchant banking conglomerate, but the point stands that they've generally avoided looting in favour of maintaining a low profile because they felt they had the funds to keep them sufficiently tooled up and badass (a cleric and a noble in the party probably helps).

I'll also note that they have, in the last session, spent the entirety of their Inquisitorial budget, plus pretty much all of the locally available cash in the Goldenhand account they looted, in order to tool up for a planned covert ops insertion, and pay for an emergency astropathic message to their boss, and so now all have armour-plated stealth underwear...

It is therefore possible that they'll be doing some serious looting later, but given that their next payday is in a couple of Imperial Year Fractions, I slightly doubt it.

I've got to admit that I fail to see the problem.

Firstly, Mono is not some miraculous stuff. It's readily available for everyone who wants his melee attacks to compare to modern guns.

Then, there are quite a few legitimate opponents for acolytes they can't loot profitably - a lot of those are in the Disciples supplement. That Ogryn is dangerous because of its extreme strength, not because of their highly sophisticated meat cleaver weaponry.

Still, if they're content with looting ganger weapons, let them - they'll usually be of poor quality and sell for half of that price if the characters don't have stable connections to the local black market (guess where the Scum comes in!), but they can make a few thrones on the side which don't bite into their boss' budget. Also make sure the PCs are usually well-staffed in terms of useable ressources. They're not given quests by some stranger in a tavern, they're acolytes of an inquisitor who is among the most powerful players in the Imperium of Man.

Finally, make sure everyone gets some goodies now and then. For my campaign, I'm already planning who will get what at which point. It just feels good for the group's assassin to receive a gift-wrapped Power Sword on the eve before the day they go up against that Ashen Tear heretek assassin, to say nothing about the Sister gaining access to her holy power armour at the end of her noviciate.

If the players are looting just for cash, then all the above suggestions are great. Initially with my group I am assigned weapons and equipment by the mission, any other requests need to be filled out in triplicate. One the other hand, if I were playing an alcolyte, as the situation allowed and the equipment was right (unmarked and untainted/corrupt) I would loot to set up a weapons and equipment cache on just about every world I did a mission on. Never hurts to have that sort of back up available when it hits the fan.

Salcor

In other game systems I have always had problems with random looting of enemies. In dark heresy, you are paid wages, and at least in my system recieve decent rewards for missions completed.

This has virtually eliminated low level looting, combined with the fact that most scum, gangers etc either have poor quality weapons, or they are branded in some fashion to show the owner if its of a halfway decent quality. Go to a local arms dealer trying to sell your 10 autoguns all marked with a gangs logo, and see how he has to ring to check how much they are worth. When the pcs leave the shop, the gang are informed, a bounty is placed etc.

I have nothing against them taking weapons that are better than what they own. I generally ask them to explain where each weapon they are carrying is going to be put. If it is holstered, in a backpack etc. This allows me to keep tabs on what npcs can see, and encourages them to minimilise excess weaponry, also stopping looting.

Can anyone realistically justify carrying more than 2 pistols and two rifles? A scum maybe could justify multiple pistols, but thats it. I usually say each character has one long arm slot, two pistol slots, then either an extra rifle, or two more pistols. Anything extra has to go in bags, and is not easily accessable for combat, and someone has to carry them.

Another effective method is just ask them, where are you selling these weapons? As you sure as hell cant walk into a gunshop with a collection of smoking guns, blood stained swords and ask to sell them. You need to know the right people, and these right people will know you can't sell them anywhere else, so will offer bottom dollar. Getting offered 10 thrones for an autogun will probably make it more trouble than its worth!

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is no financial crisis.

I've been thinking about this to and glad to see so many good answers, personally I'd prefere to let my players loot whatever they want, but there will be limits to what they can carry and they should only loot things that would corrospond to their character, so no looting of heretical items for instance.

If I were you, I would sit down with my players and remind them that this is not an MMO, it's not all about getting the best items so you can defeat the big boss, then loot him and take his gear so you can defeat and even bigger boss, it's about portraying characters within the inquisition and if they have a hard time understanding this, then maybe they should play another game...I know it may seem harsh, but I guess I'm a bit tired of players not really interested in the roleplaying and more in the looting and killing.

All good ideas. The one thing that I enforce in my games is dammage to loot done by battle.

For example if there fighting a cult magos with a plasma pistol and they gun him down with a hail of SP fire I would say theres a 95% chance that the plasma pistol was hit and dammaged beyond repair. Or could be repaired by the tech priest for a hefty price. Also I intend to exparament with possibly cursed weapons. That looted comm bead could have a Schismatical echo inside of it. (Creatures anathema) Or that bastardsword could have a lesser deamon or unclean spirit inside of it. Jest waiting to leap out and attack the first non-insane person to use it.

>>Course you can always play the "captured and your equipment is taken away" card.<<

Do not do this, as a player there is nothing I hate more than a gm taking away my hard earned stuff. If he didn't want me to have it, he should not have made it available to begin with.

That said, don't make it available. Like others have suggested, use the "these items are covered in heretical script", or "these items bear a sense of taint", "the only person who is going to buy random weapons from a group of thugs is a fence ... if they don't mind doing things illegally, made finding one an adventure in itself ... and, of course, the fence won't deal with the Inquisition or anyone who feels like they might be setting him up.

Then, be strict about encumberance and have them harassed by city guarde for wandering down the street with an arsenal.

Come up with all sorts of reasons they can't use everything they find (but let them still use some of it or they'll get frustrated) just don't take it away without a VERY good ic reason.

One thing I have intended to use when I start my campaign is allowing my players to loot whatever they want, as long as it does not go over a certain amount of weight allowance and they can come up with a reasonable way to carry the stuff.

If they want to carry around 3 autoguns, a bolter and an stubber, be my guest but I'll need a decent explination as to how they would do it, and carrying it on their backs is not decent to me. hope it makes any kind of sense.

It's been said before, but enforce encumberence and make the weapons either tainted, or valuable to specific persons. The players pick up a finley wrought mono-blade, soon enough, they are contacted by the Ecclesiarch, the mono-blade is a weapon used by one of their chapels guards, failure to return it is a crime against the Ecclesiarch. Or something...

Just give them stuff every so often and it be fine don't dump a whole lot of loot on them. Give them other types of awards say they find a book that has a print out from a long since lost STC. If they give it to the Adeptus mechanics you could give one of them a contact for free (Inquisitors Handbook) maybe the tech priest after examining the STC realises it's for a new type of weapon and goes about trying to make it and after close study he realises that if he were to dissemble most of the weapons the acolytes had picked up over the adventure he could mix and match the parts to make something new.

Rewards in a game shouldn’t always have to be weapons could be books, social rewards, or in doubt plot devices for future events.

Ahh the Mechanicus, you can always count on them to take what you want

If you put the PCs up against people with Power Swords, then the game shouldn't be unbalanced when the PCs take those power swords and use them against other people. It isn't an arms race - the NPCs shouldn't be using vast amounts of clearly superior equipment all the time. If you don't want the acolytes stripping goods from the dead all the time, then make sure that the dead don't have anything worth taking.

Telling the PCs that their loot has been confiscated or that the bad guy's plasma gun is 'broken' when they steal it will just annoy them. Just make such cool equipment rare, the kind of thing that the cult boss uses. That way they'll enjoy the feeling of overcoming their opponent even more.

So far, my players have looted 1 chainsword and a flamer, along with some ammo. I believe one of them picked up an autogun, but only because he'd lost his other one in a previous fight.

I try to discourage my players from being "married" to their equipment. It should be possible for your gear to be stolen, lost or destroyed. So, sinking everything you own into that rifle you've always wanted, only to lose it next session, would suck.

equip my NPCs with whatever makes sense for them to wield, with little or no regard for my players. If they find something they can use, they are more than welcome to loot it... fortunately all of them agree that lugging around several basic weapons isn't realistic, so when they pick up a spare weapon it's usually for a good reason.

I think it's a matter of players and GM seeing it in the same light. Don't be afraid to discuss this issue with your players between games. I think the worst thing you can do is trying to discourage looting through arbitrary rulings. Weapons don't mysteriously break. They don't mysteriously run out of ammo (unless that actually happened during the fight...). Don't arm your Malfian noble heretic's elite bodyguards with zipper guns (unless it, for some reason, would make sense).

Lastly, it's not like exotic weapons are that much better than the cheap stuff. A melta gun might hit hard, but the ammo capacity makes it nearly useless (unless you have a personal retinue to carry spare clips ). Power swords are cool... but few people are proficient with them at rank 3, and mono weapons should be more than sufficient at that rank anyway.

That just leaves selling their newly looted gear... which you're very much in control of. Having lots of cash doesn't help very much if it takes three months of intensive searching to actually find the gun you want. And trying to offload exotic weapons on the black market is bound to have in-game consequences.

So in short: Talk to your players, and don't worry about it.

I would be wary of what you are defining as loot. I see two distinct types as a gm and a player, and they should be treated differently.

Firstly, powerups. These are better equipment, that the players might like, but certainly can not afford. I would count bolters, provided they have some ammunition in here, but generally weapons in the multiple thousands, or best quality cheaper weapons. Things they would keep. I have no issues at all with them taking these items, as they are usually thought about in advance by me as a GM to something that will give them help later in an adventure, or are character enhancing for certain players.

Secondly, loot. These are commonly availiable weapons up to 100 or so thrones. Usually carried by enemies enmass, i frown on most of the group taking these to sell. However if the scum wants to suppliment her meagre income, then she can usually sell enough stolen loot to bring her on par with the rest of the groups income.

Monoweapons and a long las are quite reasonable weapons for Rank 3. There's nothing wrong with that.

1) The players will loot the dead if the dead have ammo they need or better gear. If you don't want an arms race, arm NPCs with weapons that are equal to or inferior to what the PCs have.

2) PCs will loot the death if the problems imposed by carrying the loot are worth the money it brings. Since things like used ganger autoguns won't be sold at anything close to full value in most cases, this limits their ability to rake in cold, hard cash. Throw around a decent amount of operational funds in addition to their salaries and mass looting will get less and less attractive. Alternatively, have the Magistarium or their superiors take an interest in their loot fencing. I'm sure their bosses will take a dim view of them spending half their time trying to get a good price on weapons or that the Magistarium might find their explanations for why they have so many blood stained weapons that they were trying to sell for a quick buck . . . unconvincing.

3) Higher end gear like hellguns, carapace, bolters, Lathe weapons, etcetera isn't just expensive but it is rare. Use that to control player access.

I normally let the scum fence things at around 20% value. By offering around 15-20 thrones for a gun, they really are not worth selling. If they try to sell too many I tell them that the fence can't afford to buy that much.

Basically I have no problems with small scale looting, but anything industrial sized then I would have arbites arresting them for arms dealing or something similar, to encourage them to play nice.

If you give them enough money, people do not tend to loot.

Mark It Zero said:

I agree whole heartedly. The one about the one about a chaos cultists items being "corrupted" (marked with chaos symbols etc is very good. It also goes with cannon and fluff.

The only thing I think needs to be added is this is not the first time I have heard complaints about mono weapons. The effect of monoing a weapon is +2 pen and removing the primative trait, or am I wrong? Honestly I am not seeing the overpowered here unless you are running a feudal world campaign.

Do they need routinely to loot?

Are their opponents routinely better equipped than they?

Is their Inquisitor a miser?

Part of the fun of such a game is to play with cool toys.

If you put power swords in the hands of their adversaries, it`s natural to take them.

Do they need routinely to loot?

Are their opponents routinely better equipped than they?

Is their Inquisitor a miser?

Part of the fun of such a game is to play with cool toys.

If you put power swords in the hands of their adversaries, it`s natural to take them.

and if thinks go bad throw som granade after them on some non solid ground and give them faling dam. A way to give them dam if they have powerarmour and other things with high AP