What item daily rules do people use?

Garthanos said:

How about the philosophy that heros should be awesome because of themselves not their toys? i think that is why daily limits centered more around the hero make sense.

Think of it this way - My hero has 1 to 4 dailies of personal power AND they limited item dailies to be 1 to 3 dailies.

Your personal game took the powers items and personal power provide and melded them into boons which is rather huzzah but they are juggling where the awesome comes from and you don't have to.

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Well, as you point out, my operating philosophy is that its up to the players and the GM, by way of how they unfold the narrative, to arrive at an answer to this question. So, for example, there is a boon in HoML, 'Student of the Sword', which has a couple of "you wield your sword competently" powers you can pick up from it, plus you get proficiency with a type of sword.

You could recast that ('Embody' it in HoML parlance) as an item. Lets call it a 'Sword of Expertise'. It would have the same two powers attached to it, and presumably you'd wield it with proficiency whenever you used it.

Which of these embodiments, Training, or Treasure, will you use? Or you could pick Imbuement, you become a Student of the Sword due to being exposed to some magical force, etc. Maybe it was a Grant, one of the gods simply granted you sword swinging chops. Finally you could simply 'manifest' a boon, through some process that isn't covered by the other possibilities (IE a birthright or something).

GMs provide the narrative response which indicates the manifestation of a boon, but usually the players are selecting what sort of a thing it will be by how their characters act during the game.

So, yeah, once we move outside the realm of strictly talking about 4e's magic system then there are a lot more options and less constraints. Of course you could revamp 4e to work like HoML does in this respect. It probably wouldn't be THAT hard...

AbdulAlhazred said:

So, yeah, once we move outside the realm of strictly talking about 4e's magic system then there are a lot more options and less constraints. Of course you could revamp 4e to work like HoML does in this respect. It probably wouldn't be THAT hard...

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Martial Techniques, Boons and Grand Master Trainings has that angle

Right, you could in fact go entirely to where my system is without really breaking anything. You could even have advancement in level based on getting boons like I do. I was pretty tempted to just do it in 4e, but then I really wanted to fix so much else.

Marshall said:

Nope. Rarity, in toto, could have been replaced by a single rule that said multiple copies of any non-ammo or consumable item dont function more than once a day.
...or , ya know, fix the exponential wealth curve that makes item 5+ levels lower than current essentially free.

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Lance; said:

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.

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Add those to the PHB rules and it works without depriving those who want to have a hand in outfitting their characters and without encouraging Mother May I with the DM about what equipment they get.

And Disenchant

The ritual destroys a magic item of your level or lower, and the item can be common, uncommon, or rare. The ritual returns an amount of residuum based on the item’s rarity: 20 percent of a common item’s gold piece value, 50 percent of an uncommon item’s gold piece value, and 100 percent of a rare item’s gold piece value.

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I might change this to 50 percent all the time.

Does anyone know why the return on disenchanting was made so low originally? AND could it work as always 100%? ie wouldnt that make it easier to predict the impact of it?

Garthanos said:

Does anyone know why the return on disenchanting was made so low originally? AND could it work as always 100%? ie wouldnt that make it easier to predict the impact of it?

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To not simply allow players to get exactly the items they wanted as the default rules set.

MwaO said:

To not simply allow players to get exactly the items they wanted as the default rules set.

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Exactly, a 100% return on Disenchant means that literally 100% of all items will be recycled into one of the optimum build items. It just makes the character of items meaningless and eliminates any non-mechanical impact they have on the game.

What Disenchantment is FOR in 4e is to allow the PCs to recycle those items they no longer need. When you get the +2 sword, you disenchant the +1 sword and use the resulting residuum to cast a few rituals, buy some potions, or maybe chip in together with the other PCs to construct AN item of a particular type that the players especially want.

Truthfully, this obviates a LOT of potential issues with multiples of items, since the PCs simply won't ever have sufficient resources to constantly shift around into specific things.

If the wealth curve had been, say, an order of magnitude less steep, then the system actually would have worked great without even having daily use restrictions. Rarity could then be implemented as simply a type of color where the rare items are hard to figure out how to make. The scaled Disenchant return rates could then work, at say 10%, 30%, and 60%. Lower level items would be possible to make, but not in great multiples, and unwanted items could be turned into substantial reserves of cash for use in consumables/rituals, or for filling in gaps and making a few cool interesting things. It would even be possible for PCs to make their signature items in that case, particularly if enhancement bonus was simply done away with in lieu of inherent bonus.

AbdulAlhazred said:

It would even be possible for PCs to make their signature items in that case, particularly if enhancement bonus was simply done away with in lieu of inherent bonus.

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My players through out every edition starting at 1e and other games have rarely been that interested in off the shelf items they specifically have wanted to be involved in the color and design of items.
Other games almost to the one allowed that in some fashion ... D&D seems to love lock down. I think the sense of fun paradigm has been broached. This sounds like a failure in that department.

To be clear looking at level 3 and 8 you would basically have to disenchant 25 +1s to make a +2 item.... who in hell is running around with 25 items of 5 levels lower than their current? (that arent still somewhat useful)

Even if you got 100 percent back that would be 5 and might be somewhat plausible.

Garthanos said:

To be clear looking at level 3 and 8 you would basically have to disenchant 25 +1s to make a +2 item.... who in hell is running around with 25 items of 5 levels lower than their current? (that arent still somewhat useful)

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Gold is exponential. Assuming items you find are roughly level+2 to +3, an item you don't want in original rules set is a perfect item of level -2 to -3. Find a 9th level item you don't like as a 7th level PC? That's a perfect level 4 item you can pick out.

That's really powerful and you're arguing it should be better than that...

MwaO said:

Gold is exponential. Assuming items you find are roughly level+2 to +3, an item you don't want in original rules set is a perfect item of level -2 to -3. Find a 9th level item you don't like as a 7th level PC? That's a perfect level 4 item you can pick out.

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So bloody what? You are a 7th level PC if a level 9 item is inferior to a level 4 item then it isnt the money that is broken it is the item levels. (or a level 8 is worse than a level 3)

It seems to me it just makes more sense to let players have their fun and play the characters they want if that means their story is making items that suit them (and I have had many where that was definitely part of it) then perhaps DMs should just deal with it. Or the system needs adjustment so that can happen.

Also Goal posts... AbdulAlhazred was saying disenchant was supposed to (at least sometimes) allow converting lower level trash items to something better. 25 +1s to get even a +2 is ridiculous. It isnt happening.