Random Encounter Loot

[Xylok]

Anyone else notice that the random encounter loot (you could argue loot overall) is incredibly lacking? We just happened to be attacked randomly by a dragon... it could essentially one shot all of our characters, managed a way to beat it and it dropped.... nothing.

We are playing the new DLC on the hardest difficulty and haven't gotten one useable item from a drop other than maybe a few primed weapons, which come to think of it... may have just been quest rewards.

The encounters, even at this difficulty, just feels incredibly unsatisfying without some type of tangible reward.

It seems like all of the good gear is gated behind faction vendors, which I suppose I can understand to a point, but the balance seems off.

Thoughts?

[DiceWrangler]

Likely it is intentional to discourage players from "farming" random encounters.

[Ommamar]

Probably the best loot I have gotten from random encounters are primordial lava stones. Usually it is just gold, maybe a scroll or two, rations, low end ingredients and armor/weapon that I won't use so I leave it for the scavengers/forge to pick up.
I have noticed in Lost Valley a ton of magic items drop towards the end of the campaign. Mostly it is just stuff that is good to sell but I did get a +2 longbow at level 9 which my party could use. Over all I agree with the assessment that the best gear is locked behind factions in both the official main campaigns.

[Doombringer]

Main/side quests and rep vendors for good stuff.
In the original campaign only 1 generic mob that I'm aware of drops a useful permanent random magic item (archmage), and many drop random special ammo/poisons/potions/scrolls. Most of the scroll drops are completely random and can be anything, although level 6 spell scroll drops are rare.


D&D 5e is less magic item heavy than previous editions.
Pretty much the only thing a DM has to give you are +1 weapons for your non-casters before they start encountering stuff that requires magic to hurt.

In pen & paper by level 12 a party should get ~10 permanent magic items according to XGE:
https://5e.tools/book.html#XGE,2,awarding%20magic%20items,0

You get more than that in this game.
Solasta also gives you a lot more consumable magic items than you would get in pen & paper, and lets you craft weapons that are much stronger...

[Xylok]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

Main/side quests and rep vendors for good stuff.
In the original campaign only 1 generic mob that I'm aware of drops a useful permanent random magic item (archmage), and many drop random special ammo/poisons/potions/scrolls. Most of the scroll drops are completely random and can be anything, although level 6 spell scroll drops are rare.


D&D 5e is less magic item heavy than previous editions.
Pretty much the only thing a DM has to give you are +1 weapons for your non-casters before they start encountering stuff that requires magic to hurt.

In pen & paper by level 12 a party should get ~10 permanent magic items according to XGE:
https://5e.tools/book.html#XGE,2,awarding%20magic%20items,0

You get more than that in this game.
Solasta also gives you a lot more consumable magic items than you would get in pen & paper, and lets you craft weapons that are much stronger...

I really appreciate your response. I'm not someone who is really that familiar with the D&D ruleset. In regards to loot, I'm not really as much even talking about encounters that drop magic, OP gear... I suppose maybe some dragon scales or something I could sell to a vendor for a few hundred gold?

Something that maybe makes the engagement a little more satisfying? Same thing happened last night, jumped by a Dragon, it won the initiative and cone blasted and nearly killed everyone in the party... we came back and ended up killing it and... no loot.

I don't think any DM would make you kill a dragon and or have any encounter and receive nothing in return.

[Doombringer]

If you catch a dragon out hunting it won't have anything (unless your DM lets you craft armor/weapons from scales/bone like Skyrim or something.)
If you find it's lair there should be somewhere between a massive pile of gold to an overwhelmingly massive pile of gold ;)

Killing some big bad and getting nothing is a downer though.

[Ommamar]

Originally posted by Doombringer:

If you catch a dragon out hunting it won't have anything (unless your DM lets you craft armor/weapons from scales/bone like Skyrim or something.)
If you find it's lair there should be somewhere between a massive pile of gold to an overwhelmingly massive pile of gold ;)

Killing some big bad and getting nothing is a downer though.

How dragons are represented in a lot of games the fact that they have a hoard of gold in some cave somewhere. Exactly how did they collect it? If they are out hunting do they swoop down on back carriages to carry them back to their lair? Abduct princess to ransom them off? It would make sense for a hunting dragon to have something on them if they are out and about eating sheep for a snack while looking for the random treasure they could astound with.

It would also be awesome if there was armor that can be made out of scales. So far the only thing I have seen close is an item in Lost Valley that uses beetle carapaces, I find it really late in the last play through so I didn't get a chance to make it.