Just to make sure we are on the same page, the rules say that you can:Originally Posted by Madame_Zelia
During early playtesting we started out letting folks pick up larger amounts of loot. I don't really remember it speeding up the game, but it did make the game more imbalanced toward the stronger melee characters (Roy, V, and Belkar). It let them kill a bunch of monsters for XP and then immediately pick up a lot of the loot too. By limiting how much loot they could pick up, it gave the weaker melee characters a chance to walk in and share in the loot. We also liked the loot-gathering mini-game that would spring up whenever a large loot pile formed (especially in the lower levels). It also had the nice side effect of giving the characters another reason to stay close to each other.
- Pick up 2 loot if you clear the last monster in the room (by killing or displacing)
- Pickup 2 loot if you rest in a room that contains only loot (no monsters)
- Pickup 1 loot and then move to a new room and have the rest of your turn
- Move into a room and pickup 1 loot assuming that the room contains only loot and one or more other players so no new monsters are played.
To further help with the loot balance, Haley, Elan, and Durkon also have other ways to increase the amount of loot they collect in the game (Haley has a shtick that simply lets her pick up extra loot, Elan has a shtick that makes him more attractive when offering loot for assistance in battle, and Durkon can offer to heal other players in exchange for loot).
Because we felt we had balanced the loot gathering and the shtick gathering, we decided that they should contribute equally to the victory condition. At the end of the game, some characters tend toward having more shticks while others tend toward having more loot. We tried a lot of different variations and the rules we finally settled on seemed to hold up the best across numerous play tests.
If you happen to try out some rule tweaks, please post your results. We would be interested to hear how your change affected the gameplay (either positively or negatively).