Luke about to get his rules lawyering/role playing/winning game on. After the visit from Mihawk of course.

Mihawk already came and went...

...I'm an idiot aren't I? I legitimately forgot about it until you mentioned it.

Mmmm, yess, Luffy! Stretch those arms and choke him! Choke the crap out of him! Yeah, just like that. Now kiss him a little, but make it mean.

I do not Blame Luke's actions, This entire campaign has been 'INTENTIONALLY' difficult and was likely a player assassination attempt and now the DM is trying to squirm away with no loot(used to fix the ship), no new teammate AND No Auto-Injector?! He is not just the upset. He has a monopoly on being Upset.

Yeah, we had a DM pulling stuff like this with a continual stream of CR+11 encounters carrying no loot and then wondered why our Gnome would swap bodies with the Tarassque

I can't decide if I'm laughing harder at the thought of a PC in the body of the Tarassque, or the thought of the Tarassque suddenly in the body of a gnome.

Don't Tarrasques have a compulsion to eat anything in front of them? That's hilarious!

Yes they do, and yes it was funny seeing a 5str gnome acting like that.

Loot is kind of tricky as a GM. If you are trying to go for a realistic vibe then often the cR 11 monster battle isn't going to have loot. I find what I tend to do is bulk loot rather than trickle it. Every so often the PCs will find a gnoll cave full of loot to make up for the 4 fights prior where they got very little to maintain the legitimacy. Probably not the best system though, sure.

In this case, I have no problem with the way the GM has handled it. The characters are intentionally overpowered, so placing challenges that reflect that is fine. Sure they may be level 8s facing CR18 battles, but they are winning, I think that is what it is really about. Making the challenge just hard enough that characters almost die.

A good compromise is (if your characters are fighting mindless beasts) to have them find the fallen warriors of the past that went up against the beasty they just beat and failed. That way there's a legitimate reason why this cave spider has a +2 Flaming Bastard Sword just lying around in its cave.

Shouldn't the adventure itself be the reward, though, as long as everyone had fun?
Plus, the only challenge designed specifically for Luke's PC was Don Krieg himself. I don't see a problem with occasionally (emphasis on "occasionally") doing that sort of thing, as long as one doesn't go overboard with the difficulty (plus, let's be fair, the GM expected the entire party would be present for this - one with a Cleric, too).

Granted

You know, I did not foresee Luke shanghaiing Sanji into his crew, but it is totally in keeping with his character (not to mention the fact that he just fought a huge battle for no loot).

This is pretty much what Luffy does every time he sees someone he wants on his crew.

Don't remember if he had to do it for Sanji, though.

The GM is like "no, you're not getting a auto-injector. you character is broken enough already"

Yeah, with all the DR he already have, a auto-injector might be too much.
Now he should take the lobster canon. I'm sure there's a way to make it usefull.