tales from the depths

So in Baldur's Gate, there's a (very optional) tough demon fight with multiple nasty surprises in it which I won't spoil at the moment. Getting through it at all took a LOT of tries and a lot of buffs (but hey, that's what all those potions and scrolls and the like I've been toting around are for!) and when I finally achieved something resembling a 'success' I had ended up with half my party dead - all the fighter-types, actually. It was the wimpy little mages who lived (Well, I *had* been trying to keep them out of harm's way.)

Problem:

To resurrect a character I need to take several days journey to reach a temple.

Dead characters drop all their equipment on the floor where they died.

If you walk off for several days journey and come back, all loot left on the floor disappears forever.

This can be worked around by hauling all the loot to the nearest container (in this case, a bookshelf) and stashing it there. Don't ask me why loot on the floor is eaten by rats but loot shoved into a bookshelf is not. Maybe rats can't climb. Also don't ask me how you fit several suits of armor onto a bookshelf.

Oh yeah. Armor. Did I mention it was the big strong fighters with their heavy full-plate-armor who were dead, and my helpful little strength-9 mages who were still alive?

(Not as bad as it sounds, since as a total packrat, one of the deaders had gauntlets of ogre power equipped, and that easily let me haul all the stuff. I also had one or two potions of strength floating around, although I mostly throw those out as I usually don't consider them sufficiently useful...)