Looting

Looting is the action of taking items off of monsters ingame after you kill them, or otherwise receiving recompense from the quest other than the reward offered by the questgiver. Unlike most MMO's, in DDO most monsters do not actually drop loot. Instead most loot is gained from treasure chests.

Chest level

Chest level affects the minimum level of any randomly generated loot that appears in that chest, and is usually equal to the quest's Normal CR, -1 on Casual, +1 on Hard, +2 on Elite, +any current global or personal loot boosts. Some chests are special and can have higher or lower level loot than indicated by quest level. "Ransacking" a chest (i.e. looting it too many times in too short a period of time), will decrease the loot level.

According to the Update 29 Release Notes, treasure tables went up to chest level 40 between 2015 and 2022. There was some discussion during 2015 and 2016 about whether the system was working properly at high levels, such as in this thread ^{ARCHIVE ME!} - in May 2016, fixes to the top end of the system were announced in this thread. ^{ARCHIVE ME!} Although it seems probable, it is unclear whether the loot level cap was raised along with the level cap in Update 55, and if so what it currently sits at.^{[Unverified"Although it seems probable, it is unclear whether the loot level cap was raised along with the level cap in Update 55, and if so what it currently sits at." has not been verified in-game. Please verify it!]}

The expected coin drop is directly related to chest level.

As of Update 30, a "particularly lucky" loot roll causes a chest to glow blue. Nowhere is it indicated what constitutes "particularly lucky" - 91+ or 96+ seem like good potential candidates.

Breakables

With Update 16 all breakables can now drop a wider variety of items, including equipment. (Common: Money, Gems. Uncommon: Potions, etc. Rare: Items. Very Rare: Tomes)

Challenges

Chests in Challenges used to be capped at CR 25 (Feather of Sun in Aug 2013 ^{ARCHIVE ME!}). Sometime in 2022 or earlier, this cap was removed. As a result, the highest level the Night Revels chests were reported to drop exceptionally high quality loot (e.g., +16 ability scores, +7 insightful) (DDO Forums ^{ARCHIVE ME!}).

Loot boost

Increasing the odds of finding named loot

• An Elixir of Discovery boosts your chances of finding named loot by 5 to 15% for a few hours. The VIP Discovery Boost from the VIP Loyalty Program gives a small additional permanent buff (+1% at month 9, raising to +2% at month 21) to active VIP accounts.
• Playing on a higher difficulty increases your chances of finding named loot considerably - excepting a few very rare cases where loot drop chances are fixed, playing on Elite often gives you over triple the chance of finding an item compared to playing on Normal. Playing on higher difficulties is also necessary for loot to get a chance of having a Mythic bonus or Reaper bonus.
• While it won't increase your chance of finding loot directly, re-rolling chests with Astral Shards (see below) gives you extra chances to find the item you were looking for without restarting the quest, and increases the number of times you can check a chest before it ransacks.

Quote:
Originally Posted by (executive producer) Severlin on April 25, 2018 The general numbers we’ve used for getting the Named Loot Table in the last few years’ worth of updates: Normal/Epic Normal: 10% Hard/Epic Hard: 16% Elite/Epic Elite: 33% Reaper boosts Elite’s numbers by 1% per skull, I believe. The potions directly add to those numbers, so a 5% potion would push each of those up by 5.

Increasing the loot quality

• Treasure Hunter's Elixirs don't modify your loot level, but instead increase your chance of finding maximum effects for the given level. (Master Craftsmanship)
• Elixir of Hidden Potential increases the odds for an extra ability (Augment, combined abilities, and/or an extra affix).

Increasing the level of random loot

The following effects only affect the level of loot for the player who has the effect when they open the chest. It does not affect the level of loot for anyone else in the group.

• Jewel of Fortune: +1 to +2 loot level.
• Pirate Treasure Map: +1 Loot level.
• Bash the Breakables Cargo Bay: +1 guild bonus to loot level.

Loot boost for everyone

• Greater Dragonmark of Finding: Provides a +1 loot boost for entire group. See: Dragonmark of Finding for more information.

Treasure Finding might actually reduce loot level.^{[Unverified"Treasure Finding might actually reduce loot level." has not been verified in-game. Please verify it!]} September 2017 ^{ARCHIVE ME!}

Rare loot

Beginning with Magic of Myth Drannor's release in Update 69, some named items in that expansion and all content released since have been found only as part of a rare loot list. Normally, when a named item drops from a chest with a rare loot list, only some of the potential items and/or Lunar and Solar Gems can spawn - there is only a small chance (estimated to be around 3%, although data is limited and chances seem to vary between contentneeds verification) that a random item or Gem on the rare loot list will drop instead. An item marked as "rare" on its page or on a quest's loot table is on a rare loot list.

(Lunar and Solar Gems can drop in multiple quests, but if a given type of Gem is marked as rare in one quest, it will always be on the rare loot list in other drop locations. Currently only Solar Gems seem to have the capability to be marked as rare. If a rare Gem drops in a quest that appears in a Saga, that Gem will be a possible drop from the Saga's end reward.)

Re-rolling chests

Since Update 19 it is possible to change the content of a non-raid chest for you by clicking the "Re-roll Loot" button. You can use this function up to three times per chest. You cannot use it if you have already looted something from the chest, or if another player passed an item to you in the chest.

While the act of re-rolling does not count towards ransack penalty, you will continue to accrue ransack as you normally would for repeated runs. Re-rolling a ransacked chest will result in the loot quality of the re-roll being equivalent to the standard chest ransack thresholds. U19, Introducing Chest Reroll

Re-rolling chest content costs Astral Shards. The amount depends on the level of the chest (taking into account also any active loot bonuses, such as global loot bonuses or Jewels of Fortune.) The cost is roughly equal to quest level / 2. Only your loot is affected, not that of other players.

Options / rewards based on player class

On quest end reward lists that are entirely random, and have no chance of any named or special items appearing (including crafting ingredients such as from Necropolis or The Vale of Twilight), if the Class-Based End Rewards option is checked on, it will restrict the base type of the items that appear to specific types based on your class.

It has no function on any reward lists that can include any named items or special ingredients (nor does it affect chest loot), and it does not restrict the effects that can appear on an item - only what types of items you'll see.

See also

• Dragonmark of Finding
• Ransack
• Tomes
• Steelstar answers a bunch of questions about loot mechanics (2018) ^{ARCHIVE ME!}

External links

• Tome tracker/drop locations guide ^{ARCHIVE ME!}
• Loot table querrys, U14 before & after ^{ARCHIVE ME!}
• U29 random loot changes: First look ^{ARCHIVE ME!}, Second look ^{ARCHIVE ME!}, Effects per slot ^{ARCHIVE ME!} (Lamannia dev threads)

Chest models

• 
  Wood Small chest
• 
  Red chest
• 
  Gold chest
• 
  Shavarath chest
• 
  Old epic chest, with token
• 
  Strongbox-type chest
• 
  Metallic chest
• 
  Demonweb chest