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In the instructions for Munchkin it states:

If something lets you have more than one Big item (for instance, the Dwarf race) and you lose the ability, you must either correct the problem immediately or get rid of all but one Big item. If it's not your turn and you're not in combat you can sell the excess Big items (as long as you have at least 1,000 Gold Pieces of Items to sell). Otherwise, you must give them to the lowest-Level player(s) who can carry them! If any Big items are still left over, discard them.

What if there is a tie for lowest-level players? Do you split evenly? How do you handle an odd number in that case? What if you are the lowest-level?

Does this follow the same logic as the #4 Charity Phase?

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I don't see any reason why either the Charity or the Looting The Body rules should apply here. (Yes, this situation is somewhat similar to Charity, but it's not the same.) Just taking the text literally, all it says is:

[...] you must give them to the lowest-Level player(s) who can carry them!

So that's it. The only restrictions the rules place on what you can do with your extra Big items are:

  1. You must give them away (if you can; otherwise the next sentence in the rules kicks in, saying you must discard them).
  2. You must give each of them to (one of) the lowest-Level player(s) who can carry it.

Obviously, that does not include yourself, or anyone else who's already at their maximum carrying capacity. Other than that, since the rules don't say otherwise, you're free to choose among the lowest-Level eligible players.

Of course, if the player you choose to give one of your Big items to is not a Dwarf, they'll probably become ineligible to receive any more Big items, which means that you'll have to offload the rest of your excess Big items onto other players. (Yes, you may use this tactically: first give your Huge Rock to the Level 1 Thief who just backstabbed you, and then spread your more valuable Big items among players you like more.) On the other hand, a low-level Dwarf could easily end up collecting all of your suddenly-unwieldy loot, whether you want to give it to them or not. That's just how things happen in Munchkin.

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  • Re "I don't see any reason why either the Charity or the Looting The Body rules should apply here", Because the former describes all the details of to how discard items that they didn't bother to repeat here.
    – ikegami
    Jul 31, 2015 at 18:43
  • Do you have any actual evidence (rules text, designer comments, etc.) for the idea that Charity is supposed to be some kind of a general mechanic for getting rid of excess cards, rather than just one of the turn phases? I'm not saying it couldn't be used that way (it would probably work perfectly fine), but I just don't see anything in the rules to suggest it.
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Jul 31, 2015 at 22:52
  • I never claimed anything of the kind. I said that when charity is invoked as it is here, the situation of a tie is covered by the rules. There are many situations where you aren't expected to be charitable
    – ikegami
    Jul 31, 2015 at 23:12
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This is obviously an application of the charity rule, which specifies the following:

If players are tied for lowest, divide the cards as evenly as possible, but it’s up to you who gets the bigger set(s) of leftovers. If YOU are the lowest or tied for lowest, just discard the excess.

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    "Obvious" would be a description like "Otherwise, use the same logic as in the Charity Phase for discarding any Big Items".
    – Ein Doofus
    Nov 3, 2014 at 19:09
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    That would be explicit, a level higher :)
    – ikegami
    Nov 3, 2014 at 19:47
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    What is obvious about "Otherwise, you must give them to the lowest-Level player(s) who can carry them! If any Big items are still left over, discard them"? You simply restated the hunch I had in my question in your answer but in a more confident way. That doesn't make it any more true.
    – Ein Doofus
    Nov 3, 2014 at 21:48
  • The charity rule tells you how to discard cards, and there's plenty of evidence to make it obvious it applies here too. But because you guessed the answer, we can't post that? Also, how can something be more true than true?
    – ikegami
    Nov 4, 2014 at 3:27
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    It's clearly not the same rule. If the lowest-level player can't carry the item, then "the lowest-level player who can carry them" is probably someone of a higher level. That's a different outcome than discarding the item. In particular, you can't carry the item (that's why you have to do this) so you're clearly not the lowest-level player who can carry it.
    – RemcoGerlich
    Nov 5, 2014 at 22:13
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If you want to be fair, rather than choosing a player then I'd go with the rules for looting the body:

Starting with the player with the highest Level […] in case of ties in Level, roll a die. If your corpse runs out of cards, tough.

So, to reword this for the question in hand (and to hopefully mitigate further discussion around some of the other aspects of this answer):

If more than one player is tied for the lowest level and can carry more Big Items, roll a die. If there are more players who can carry big items than you're giving away, tough.

In your case the players tied for lowest would roll. Note once again it's left deliberately ambiguous as to how to interpret the roll ;-) It's still up to you how you divide the items.

I think the issue I have with the suggestion "It's the same as Charity rule" is that the section "if you are the lowest discard them all" doesn't apply:

Otherwise, you must give them to the lowest-Level player(s) who can carry them! If any Big items are still left over, discard them.

Now it really then comes down to the reading of "the lowest-Level players who can carry them" - because (unlike Charity) it doesn't explicitly say "If you are the lowest…", it seems to make the "who can carry them" as important as the player levels. I'm then torn as to whether you should be giving them to players who have a higher level you but can carry them (i.e. you're level 1, with two level 2 players - should they get the items?).

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