I have noticed that too. Sometimes the code awards the loot randomly for
some reason, but the majority of the time it awards the kill to the person
who does the most damage overall. I can personally verify this from my
time in the CB tower. Besides, the funniest thing I saw was my lvl 20 wiz
friend back when he was level 14 or so blasting Crush with his spell for
8dmg and getting the kill and the loot. Sometimes it is not perfect, but
it is still flawed IMHO. There is no way that a caster that does 200 dmg
should get teh kill over a group of 6 melee people who do 150dmg each.
That is unfair if one group does 900dmg and one guy does 200 and he get's
the kill.

Treilanin Bard of Kelethin
Honour Guard - Karana