Magic items in Playtest

Starbuck_II

First Post
So what is everyone's opinion on the magic items in the playtest.

2 potions: CLW, Invisibility

one boot: Elven

1 staff (cures 2d8 5/day)

one wand (besides charges ability boosts a spellcasters DC/hit with spells)

Magic weapon/armor

Cure for petrifying

Possible I missed a few.
 

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fba827

Adventurer
there are some that you missed. check out p28 of the Caves of Chaos adventure for an appendix that has them listed (it's the second to last page...the page before the map)
 

fba827

Adventurer
but to answer your question
a) I like that they aren't all just +X to roll Y
b) i like that this playtest has a variety to show different applications of where they expect to go with things
c) do i like each specific magic item...? well... on some i'm just 'meh' on others they seem cool. i have yet to play though, so i'm saying this entirely based on reading.
 

CM

Adventurer
Most seem pretty interesting, but that staff of curing is giving me flashbacks to 3e CLW wands. Why add items like this when they almost seem necessary/expected.

Just bake it into the classes or character HP recovery mechanics instead.
 

howandwhy99

Adventurer
Yeah, this is infinitely healing back in the game. i.e. the Staff of Healing.

To be fair, this is limited a great deal in terms of Per Person aid compared to how much any one could simply regain with a night's rest.

What is not taken into account is it's benefit to NPCs and what wealth it could bring to characters who use it for profit. The wailing 10's of 1000's of Greyhawk City would line up outside the doors of a temple were a Head Priest was using this to cure any ailing body. It is infinite healing unless destroyed.

I don't think they're pricing or balancing these things on the long term, exploration scale yet. Otherwise the list looks pretty good, an honest attempt to convert past edition magic items to the new game.

Personally, I suggest DMs spice them up a bit individually and by campaign. For magic items their powers are often their purpose, but their past, their construction, and their components can matter even if it doesn't affect "cost by power" analysis. For instance:

Oil of Etherealness - made from ethereal creatures in the Ethereal Realm. These could be trapped souls, ghosts, so their ectoplasmic gel (oil) is cool and unsettling when touched. Perhaps is can be felt to be scraping off when entering an area of protection vs. undead?

Potion of Strength - Made from the muscle fiber of an Owlbear. As such, it stinks like only a dead Owlbear truly can. Reaction checks could suffer a penalty.

Scroll of Protection from Undead - is a holy writ on papyrus from a long dead Priest of Anubis, the Aegyptian God of the Underworld. The description given to players is it protects against lost spirits of "Duat" and requires a certain Egyptian dance move to cast. If cast the scroll is used up, but if sold it is worth more gold than normally to its antiquity.
 

Tehnai

First Post
I really wish I had the opportunity to try the invisibility potion, but our rogue drank it the second he found it (curiosity, I suppose) and it was sort of wasted, as such.
 

Janaxstrus

First Post
I hate wands providing +s to hit. That is a personal preference.

I don't want to play Harry Potter as a default and "need" (in order to keep the power curve) implements to cast spells. I found that, FOR ME (and me alone, not speaking for anyone else) a needless kludge from 4e.

I was hoping since magic items would be less common and not readily available for sale, things like that would be gone.
 

I think, an implement to confer magicle bouses helps balancing magical items. If you don´t like it to be a wand, like in harry potter, make it your staff of power. It is an easy delivery mechanism for the mage and does not exclude him from the joy of something to enhance his magical attacks.

This said, I also don´t want the fighter to need magical weapons to compete. And so I only want a magical wand or staff to be a true bonus over your normal capacities.
 

fba827

Adventurer
slight tangent .....

do the rules (yes, i realize it's an incomplete playtest document) have a method for magic item identification? I haven't been able to find one...
historicaly, one way was that if you studied it for 5 minutes of downtime, you could figure out what it is and its properties (which was simple and streamlined but at the same time probably not the 'older edition feel that this edition is aiming for). another way in other editions was that you needed to "play" with it to figure it out as you used it (which made it more of a learn by trial-error thing but also, at least in my games, led to so much delay as people were timidly experimenting in unnecessary detail for fear of saying the wrong thing and getting a curse)

anyway, my point is, if there is a rule for identifying magic items, anyone mind pointing out which document and page number it's on? 'cause i can't see to find it if it's there. (but i've been known to be blind to the obvious before)
 

Keldryn

Adventurer
The Staff of Curing is directly out of the Basic D&D rules. The original version healed 1d6+1 damage to the target. It had no limit on total daily uses, but a specific creature could only receive the benefit once per day.

Pre-dated wands of CLW by a good 19 years or so.
 

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