Andy Collins: "Most Magic Items in D&D Are Awful"

[Ridley's Cohort]

Hmmm. Item Level. Kind of like CR, but for the rewards. I like it.

 

[Agamemnon]

Now, if the MIC allows you to (modestly) add these features to other items, you solve both problems.

A Cloak of the Bat that adds +2 to saves.
An Amulet of Health that adds to Natural Armor
Gloves of missile snaring that augment your dex.
A floaty shield of repulsion that both enhances your shield AC and grants a deflection bonus...
Bracers of Armor with Spell Resistance 21
A TRUE Cloak of Protection (Enhancement AC and Resistance Saves)

There's a one-page table of properties for exactly that purpose in the appendix. It contains the key properties of the "big six": ability boosts, natural armor bonuses, deflection bonuses, SR, bonuses to saves. Alas, I didn't look at it very closely, so I cannot quote you the numbers, but I can take a look later tonight once I'm back near my bookshelf. There were also suggested body slots listed for each property, as guidelines to stop the creation of potentially silly items like Boots of Speed & Charisma or Goggles of Minute Seeing & Natural Armor.

 

[blargney the second]

Boots of Speed & Charisma

Those actually make sense for my girlfriend's character.

 

[Agamemnon]

Hm. It seems the suggested additional properties cost exactly the same as the items do separately. So Cape of the Mountebank and Cloak of Charisma +4 together cost as much as the new Capecloak of the +4 Charismatic Mountebank.

 

[Remathilis]

Hm. It seems the suggested additional properties cost exactly the same as the items do separately. So Cape of the Mountebank and Cloak of Charisma +4 together cost as much as the new Capecloak of the +4 Charismatic Mountebank.

Well, that's no good. A Cape is 10,080, a Cloak +4 is 16,000. Together, they are 26,800, or 10,000 less than a Cloak +6. If you have the kind of gold to get/make/buy a Capecloak, spring a bit more and get the cloak +6...

Ponder this, I must...

 

[Agamemnon]

I think the idea the designers had for it was that you find a Cape, and instead of selling it for a Cloak, you imbue the Cloak's properties to the Cape, thus having your cake and eating it, too. The bonuses are also presented incrementally, so making the Capecloak a +4 now won't stop you from turning it into +6 later (which would cost you 20,000 gp)

 

[Remathilis]

True enough, but I was still thinking a 80% cost to imbue an already magical cloak is a better incentive to enchant a already expensive item vs. selling and using the gold to make something new...

 

[Agamemnon]

Well, the Cape of the Mounteback wasn't the best possible example, I think, since its resale value is rather high. the Compendium is full of many interesting items that I could see a character wanting to retain the benefits of even if doing so costed more than going the BigSix route.

For example, strongarm bracers allow you to wield weapons like you were one category above your normal size, a benefit that would be beneficial to weapon-using characters at any level, and methinks it would be worth it to imbue an ability boost onto them instead of having to swap them out if a pair of bracers of dexterity +4 come along.

In any case, it's probably situation-dependent. A lot of the new items have interesting and useful properties that would go well together with the more familiar, "flat" mechanical bonuses to create treasure items suitable for any character level.

 

[Remathilis]

That is true. A Cloak of Invisibility (3 uses) that also grants +3 to saves is more valuable and flavorful than a regular +3 cloak, and it gives value to the cloak after that third use is done...

I think I need to scrape up some money and get this thing...

 

[Metus]

Ugh. Reading the 9 pages has nearly sapped my desire to post. I don't really care one way or the other, but Wulf's post way back on page 1 brought up something I wanted to mention.

Why not just have magic weapons/armor/gauntlets/cloaks scale with power automatically as the user's level increases? Then the statistical advantage of the item is an afterthought, and players can begin to appreciate magic items for their additional "quirky" powers and not have to discard them or trade them out as they level up.

Take, for example, the Sword of the Sirene... It's a +1 short sword, waterbreathing. At 6th level, its bonus increases to +2. It's part of the character's lore; he has a sword that allows him to breathe underwater!-- and he's not compelled to trade it in for the short sword +3 in another 4 levels or so.

This is what Midnight does, and I'm surprised no one has mentioned that setting yet; Iron Heroes got some mention, but not Midnight.

Because it's a low-magic, low-currency setting, they have the scaling weapons and those paths you choose when making a character that give inherent bonuses when you level up. I really enjoy that and wonder why no one has used such a thing more.