What item daily rules do people use?

pemerton said:

We use the standard rules: 1 use per tier, pus 1 per milestone, capped per item as per the item's description.

Because the players are in charge of the bookkeeping, I wouldn't be surprised if on the odd occasion the actual usage (per day more likely than per item) has exceeded the permitted usage.

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I like the milestone aspect it helps milestones have more oomph even.

BFP seems like a decent idea.

Frankly though, I think that the later rarity rule is a MUCH better notion in terms of item design space. The problem with the original rules was that it was quite easy to design items that were perfectly good, their daily power was quite appropriate, BUT being able to acquire several of the same item would lead to multiple uses of said power, which was not so good... A number of items fell to this problem and got nerfed.

Rarity simply prevented the multiples from ever existing. It also allowed for many more trivial daily effects. That opened up a lot of design space in terms of stuff that was OK as a daily ONCE a day, but not 2-3 or more times a day.

Plus it got rid of tracking stuff at the same time. I think the INTENT of allowing PCs to create ANY item (short of an artifact) was to allow for player freedom, not to make it easy to pull off 3e-esque system exploits. Rarity steps a little on players in theory, but it does solve a number of problems and at least relatively reasonable GMs should still give out what players want, without needing to worry that they'll enchant 12 level 3 items when they're 12th level and bork things up.

MwaO said:

I think that's actually a really good solution to the problem. You just need to be aware of the issues if you choose not to use rarity when PCs want to buy items.

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The problem is that the assigned rarities are all over the place...it might(and I seriously doubt it given the evidence of 5e) have been a decent system if all the items had been built from the ground up with it in mind, but with the capricious assignment of rarity based solely on popularity or usefulness its just awful.
Theres a fairly decent loose set of gudelines for what constitues a common, uncommon and rare item in one of the essentials books but fewer than 10% of the assigned rarities actually follow them. ALWAYS assigning too high a rarity to the item.
But, hey! All Rings are Rare, right? Despite every character having two Ring slots for its Max 3 Rare items...

AbdulAlhazred said:

Plus it got rid of tracking stuff at the same time.

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That is the only benefit I see...

Marshall said:

The problem is that the assigned rarities are all over the place...it might(and I seriously doubt it given the evidence of 5e) have been a decent system if all the items had been built from the ground up with it in mind, but with the capricious assignment of rarity based solely on popularity or usefulness its just awful.
Theres a fairly decent loose set of gudelines for what constitues a common, uncommon and rare item in one of the essentials books but fewer than 10% of the assigned rarities actually follow them. ALWAYS assigning too high a rarity to the item.
But, hey! All Rings are Rare, right? Despite every character having two Ring slots for its Max 3 Rare items...

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This... is the in theory and practice paradigm - it also to me showed a reduced commitment to doing things right.

AbdulAlhazred said:

reasonable GMs should still give out what players want

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There is your theory... what they did is actually change that paradigm of giving out what players want AND I disagree with that at a fundamental level it was more Mearles not understanding 4e and wanting his traditional DM domination instead.

I expect new players will be getting an axe when they wanted a sword.

Design items right so you do not need warning labels... the rarities were an excuse to be sloppy in design.

If one wanted some specific items usable once per day but which didn't impact an item use daily count why not just make those a special case. You know using the exception based architecture of 4e.

MoutonRustique said:

I'm curious to know - were you to use this idea, how would use BFP :
1 - as a free action that can used on a hit
2 - as minor action that must be used before trying to hit ?

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I think one of the things I really like about BFP ... not the name ... but rather how it correlates with the 4e concept of the "real" power being in the hero themselves not so much their gadgets.

Garthanos said:

MoutonRustique said:

I'm curious to know - were you to use this idea, how would use BFP :
1 - as a free action that can used on a hit
2 - as minor action that must be used before trying to hit ?

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While the minor action is tempting at low levels its not so good for the cases where the effect only has an effect on a hit.

Hmmm perhaps if you had a loss of a minor action as an after effect.

Definitely thinking about it.

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What if we gave it the reliable keyword? it so that in heroic if the power/attack associated with it missed BFP would not be lost?

Hmmm maybe not still think it would be a let down

Garthanos said:

"Some magic items might be a bit harder to identify, such as cursed or nonstandard items, or powerful magical artifacts. Your DM might ask for an Arcana check to determine their properties, or you might even need to go on a special quest to find a ritual to identify or to unlock the powers of a unique item."

I am pretty sure when it takes arcana or a quest to figure out even how to use such items that such items might also not covered by magic item creation rituals.

I am also thinking such unique or non-standard items which I design are potentially more awesome than the "rares".

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Note how this already left open the "design space" that allows for items you do not want produced in quantity, the item rarity rules were simply not needed. If WOTC wanted to be able to present more of this kind they could have.

Garthanos said:

There is your theory... what they did is actually change that paradigm of giving out what players want AND I disagree with that at a fundamental level it was more Mearles not understanding 4e and wanting his traditional DM domination instead.

I expect new players will be getting an axe when they wanted a sword.

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That's not really 4e's paradigm in the first place. The paradigm is that DMs and players should all be having fun — and a *possible* way to accomplish that is by having players list items that they find interesting and exciting and then have the DM place some of them for the PCs to find. And you shouldn't do something like give a player who wants a sword an axe, simply because they'll likely just sell it or disenchant it or enchant it into sword form.

i.e. people like to think 4e said the players should get the items they want, but it doesn't actually say that. A lot of 4e's advice is about how to make things more fun and it gives suggestions about how to resolve conflicts before they happen rather than afterwards — a DM can feel free to set house rules and say, "There are no X in my world. Period" and then there aren't any.

But it is a lot better to sit down and talk with the players and say, "Oh, there are no divine PCs in my game because all the gods are dead on Athas." and one player might say, "Oh, could I have some sort of divine spark hidden in me?" and you might say, "I'd really prefer you pick one of the non-divine PCs because the gods are really, really dead." or you could say, "That seems interesting — let's talk about what that means..."

Similarly, it suggests magic items in a wish list so if someone is doing a build that requires X to work, there's no sudden surprise about it 5 levels in. Your player tells you what they would find interesting and then you can look and go, "Hey, that's a lot of cold specialized stuff..." and then they tell you, "Oh yeah, I wanted to do X and I can only do it with a frost weapon..." And you find that out again then rather than 5 levels later — so you can then realize,'Hey that guy is going to do a lot more damage than that guy. Maybe I need to do something about it...'