I've started playing Eclipse Phase with a group of friends. Most of them have a Dungeons and Dragon history, and love getting magic items and such. I've already made up my mind to take the party on more dungeon raids, but what specifically can I do in the way of loot? It is a hard science fiction setting; no magic. It's noted in the core book that some brand-name weapons and items will have special features, and there is something called Psi that is basically watered-down psychic abilities. What are some recommendations you would make for drops and treasure caches?
[RPG] High-Tech Dungeon Crawling in Hard Sci-Fi
dungeoneclipse-phasetreasure
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If you read the 4e DMG 1 the Parcel system in D&D 4 is a recommendation. I.E. "If you want to fight X Monster of Y Difficulty then you will need Z gear." The modules Wizard wrote were designed with the recommended progression of monster power, character power, and attendant treasure. Somehow it this got transformed from a recommendation to "This is how it done." To change the feel of the treasure system then you need to change this assumption.
If you want break away from the predictable 4e treasure system then I recommend your or your referee play the setting more realistically. Note this is not the same as realism in mechanics. The mechanics of 4e can stay the same. By realism in the setting you have a more natural distribution of treasure and monsters. Which is roughly like a pyramid.
The implication of this is that once you move beyond low heroic you will be fighting a low of creatures on the low end of the scale while traveling through wilderness or town. The treasure will likewise be low end stuff. To find the better treasure you have to seek adventure and go to places that are more challenging. You find those places by roleplaying and tracking down rumors and legends.
I realize that this doesn't sound too much different. However unless you go seek those place, put yourself in harm's way,you will never gain better treasure. You may continue to level because you overcome various roleplaying challenges. This system divorces the gaining of treasure from the gaining of level.
Doing this will go a long way to restoring the mystery of finding treasure.
"Construct" a Dungeon (pun intended)....
After some research spawned by A_Soo's comment/suggestion, I have discovered another option.
The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is a 3.0 source (but as it was never updated to 3.5 it is still current material for all 3.x games) that covers in extensive detail constructing any sort of stronghold: a lonely wizards tower, a cottage, a minor keep, a huge castle, a dungeon complex... even mobile strongholds are covered: walking, swimming, flying; not to mention traps, wondrous architecture, magic items, portals, multi-dimensional aspects, and more.
Some points of note:
Stronghold Space: An abstract measure of volume within a building. While stronghold spaces don’t have a fixed size, an average stronghold space is equivalent to a 20-foot-by-20-foot room with a 10-foot-high ceiling.
Table 1–4: Stronghold Sizes
Stronghold Type Size in Stronghold Spaces Cottage 1 Simple house 4 Grand house 7 Mansion 15 Border tower 4 Keep 12 Castle 20 Huge castle 80 Small dungeon* 30–60 Medium dungeon** 60–120 Large dungeon† 120 and up *Such as the sample dungeon provided in Chapter 4 of the DUNGEON MASTER’s Guide.
**Such as the dungeon found in The Sunless Citadel.
†Such as the Crater Ridge Mines found in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.
Wondrous Architecture: Essentially a stationary magic item. Wondrous architecture often covers an entire stronghold space.
(Note that a Wondrous Architecture could also cover more than one stronghold space... you simply calculate how many spaces you want to cover and then pay the cost of the effect x the number of spaces covered.)
You can tie your stronghold’s mobility to a single object within the stronghold (which may be activated by anyone touching the object and uttering a command word), a location within the stronghold (which may be activated by anyone standing within the location and uttering a command word) or to a single creature within the stronghold (who can activate the movement from anywhere within the stronghold with a command word).
(The keyed item or room or creature mentioned here is what could become the Dungeon Core. There are a number of large crystal orbs mentioned in the SBG, normally used for weather control, but they could certainly be repurposed as a DungeonCore.)
Remember that dungeons are a form of stronghold. Even when you’re not building strongholds for characters, you can use the wondrous architecture presented here to spice up your dungeons.
So, combining all of these with DMG p.269, Table 7–30: Item Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, and Capabilities which indicates the cost for making an item... such as a crystal orb or stronghold space... intelligent. In order to make an entire dungeon intelligent, you'd simply need to pay the Base Price Modifier from Table 7-30 times the number of stronghold spaces your dungeon takes up.
The Leadership feat provides minions, the Landlord feat (from the SBG) provides a pool of funds to build (or expand) a dungeon, and once your dungeon is intelligent...
Intelligent items can actually be considered creatures because they have Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. Treat them as constructs (see page 307 of the Monster Manual). Intelligent items often have the ability to illuminate their surroundings at will (as magic weapons do); many cannot see otherwise.
... the dungeon is now considered a massive construct in it's own right. Once it is a construct, it could take construct levels in order to gain more hit points and feats and skill points, not to mention potentially other class levels.
The Monster Manual gives the rule we need to allow Intelligent items to gain construct hit dice:
Increased Hit Dice: Intelligent creatures that are not humanoid in shape, and nonintelligent monsters, can advance by increasing their Hit Dice. Creatures with increased Hit Dice are usually superior specimens of their race, bigger and more powerful than their run-of-the-mill fellows.
There is even a type of ooze which can summon creatures... just in case you want to go all literal with your linked example. Maybe it could be your first cohort or minion.
So, go all crazy and build the Goblin Labyrinth from the movie, or have fun starting off with a single room.
Best Answer
The biggest difference between fantasy and sci-fi notions of value is that: ideas have value
Therefore, besides the standard stuff players receive, they can also discover what amounts to IP.
One of the oddest forms of IP is actually Real Estate, as it's a purely symbolic agreement that X owns area Y, even though X may not sit on Y with guns. (Note how this doesn't exist in most fantasy worlds.)
So one of the most interesting (from a cognitive dissonance point of view) rewards that players can get is the dungeon itself. They clear out an asteroid full of Nanoinfested Bots? They now own the asteroid and derive value from it. Our heros don't engage in Loot, Pillage, Burn any more, instead, they secure the objectives and get a stream of income. Sure, they can sell it, but it's far more interesting to present to them a tally of their "investment holdings" and recent events on each one. Plenty of plot hooks there and a way to get exactly the level of loot into their hands that you want without having to find ways of pushing the shiny things into the mission de jour.
Other forms of IP are roughtly grouped into the "valuable memes" grouping. So, one thing of great value would be an ancient mpX player with some hit songs from the 20th century. This is, of course, only of great value if managed correctly, but enterprising players will see the value in rare memes. And if they don't, then the first few times they release the IP into the infosphere, they get flamed/praised for their generosity.
And so on. The notion of value was hugely changed by the Industrial Revolution (that we're still in, arguably.) and by hitting home with the idea that "ideas have value" you can give them loot and emphasize the non-fantasy setting in ways that will make the less thinky players quite squeamish (yay! cognitive dissonance!).
Of course, they can be compensated for their efforts with upgraded gear and stuff, but that's expected.