Quick poll about magic items in a typical campaign

In the past couple of weeks I have wrote down quite a few notes and ideas I may want to try out in the D&D campaign currently DMed by me about the role of magic items in the settings. When I have thought more about it, and cleared out those ideas, I will post them here for your opinion. For the moment I am curious to know how many (if any) percieve the same kind of issues with magic items as we do - I suppose some do, since I have often read of groups playing in low-magic settings

The 4 options in the poll sum up what I don't like very much in the typical 3rd edition settings about magic items, although I have always lived with it. Each option is presented twofold, first the players perception and next the possible reason.

I didn't include other possible options like "we need more magic items from book" since that was not a problem in our group's opinion but you can tick "other issues" and add your comment.

Mmm... I think I have to elaborate something, I didn't notice how badly I worded this poll

These thoughts of mine were triggered because this spring I was writing up a Sorceress for a FR campaign, and it was very challenging to choose spells, feats and various abilities. After a few weeks of work, we started the campaign and were given a lot of gp (8th level PCs) to buy equipment, and suddenly we were all loaded by magic items. I got 2 rings, 5 wondrous items, and 4 wands, and after a couple of battles I already found another wondous item and a magic weapon.
The spell selection that I put so much care on lost some of its appeal since my equipment almost doubled my low level spells.
Of course I bought a Cloak of Charisma +2 and Gloves of Dexterity +2, basically it would be quite bad strategy not to buy them for a Sorcerer, they are almost no-brainer.
Now the sorceress is covered in lesser magic items, as well as everyone in the party, and everytime she casts Detect Magic the players toss the joke that she detects her comrades...
We are already at a point where half of the magic treasure is thrown in the backpack because it's "just another Ring of Protection +1" and no one has available fingers.
When we rest, we always go to town, sell a pouch of Rings of Protection +1 for half price, carry around thousands of gp each (wondering where?) until they are enough to afford what we really want at the magic supermarket.

More or less, magic feels like technology. In some setting it can actually be very fun, but in EVERY campaign... is it starting to be boring.

Neverthless the game is designed with this level of magic, therefore it will be quite a challenge for us to address the problem without unbalancing the characters or turn adventures into trouble, but it will be interesting to see what will come out

I think this poll needs an "All the above" option. Games that I run tend to be low magic (at least where magic items and other gadgets are concerned). The awe and mystery that should surround the acquisition of items of power starts to lose its kick when everyone in the party has a +3 Dagger of Ogre Slaying

I've deliberately made my campaign low magic, with higher creation costs for items (though reduced XP costs as I use a revised XP chart and as it takes 2000xp for second, 6000 for third level, etc I didn't want to make it too hard for MU to get advancement), and I make it necessary to get trained to get the item creation feats.

All of the above.

DnD magic is too mechanistic and magic items as stat boosters has become both endemic and a crutch.

IMC The Item crafting feats are only available to Experts, and are NOT for sale - instead PCs must either find them, receive them as 'boons' (potions and the occasional +1 weapon mainly) or negotiate ic to have items created for them (I provide patrons for this purpose)

I also only have unique magic items (so no Production line Sword +1's) and often disguise them as something else (eg a Feather token can only be acquired as a gift from some flying monster eg as a boon from a Coatl or similar and Thors Hammer might be disguised as a walking stick)

Part way between gadgetised and none of the above for me.

I think the 'special powers' themselves are fine, IMO the system is built around having them and is all the better for it... For my group, I'd say it's one of the big lures to playing DnD instead of another system. I find it's that they're tied to a host of weird sounding gizmo's that can be a problem, particularly at higher levels where the numbers can really run away!

My homebrew fix uses an imbued magic system, that I stole from Hong and altered a little, gives you the powers in exchange for xp. Main difference is that the powers are attatched to the PC rather than their items, so more flavour rather than mechanics. The PCs have DMGish levels of magic, but only a handful of items. Works fine so far... Had some nice side effects - looting corpses has really tailed off!

We also play low magic. My take is that PC classes are really powerful, rare and special... Most 'normal' people wouldn't know magic if it leapt out of a hedge and bit them.

Cymex666 said:

I think this poll needs an "All the above" option

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You can vote more than one option, just don't vote "none" + something else at the same time!

First of all I forgot to mention an important thing! Scrolls, potions and (partly) wands are not a problem for us, as long as they are just storage items for spells. Mostly the subject here is about magic weapons/armors and everything with special abilities (wondrous items, rings, rods), plus staves which will get a special treatment aimed towards making them like magic weapons with spell storage capacity.

Tonguez said:

IMC The Item crafting feats are only available to Experts, and are NOT for sale - instead PCs must either find them, receive them as 'boons' ... or negotiate ic to have items created for them

I also only have unique magic items...

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These notes of yours are definitely part of my current idea, which is basically to drastically reduce the number of max magic items per character to something below 3-4, for example 1 item per 4-5 character level.

The idea will revolve around concentrating the same set of benefits into a single item. As an example, my Sorceress has:

- hat of disguise
- amulet of natural armor +1
- cloak of charisma +2
- vest of escape
- gloves of dexterity +2
- bracers of armor +2
- ring of feather falling
- ring of counterspell

With the new system, she could have a single magic item, for example "The Robe of Vanara Vajra" (herself ), with all the same benefits. This way, she would still be as powerful as she is in a standard campaign. The key is to make those effects appear in time, and be tied to the PC, like she is discovering those features by wearing the robe and experimenting for years.

It's very early to go further, but if you want I can tell you more that I have thought up to now

Cymex666 said:

I think this poll needs an "All the above" option.

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Why? Multiple answers are allowed. You can just go and vote for all of teh above individually (or in any combination you choose).

Has to be none of the above. I think the lower level, low costing items are not as exciting as they used to be. I find that equipping NPC's nearly always results in them having the same type of equipment. Cloak of Resistance, Ring of Protection. The variety in cheaper magic is lacking. Kill a monster - get yet another 'Ring of Protection' as the original poster said. In my campaign, I try to add variety to that low level magic so that a party finding stuff will not automatically assume they know what it is. That magical cloak of the 3rd level critter you've just killed might not be a Cloak of Resistance, but instead something novel and interesting. Sometimes I even add in a little history to the item to make it interesting and more than just another low level item.