Homemade items: Rules vs House Rules

[CRGreathouse]

Truth is, we don't really care whether such questions end up in Rules or House Rules. . . we just want to be consistent.

It's probably bst that it goes in Rules -- it gets so much less traffic these days, since the basic questions hve been addressed and the old debates have been hashed out....

 

[Chacal]

Just want to interject that it is positional disputes on threads like this that make me really keen on getting my categories hack working - that way the same thread can "exist" in multiple catergories at the same time. When that hack is up and running I'm sure the mods will look into reordering the forums, but in the meanwhile we'll make do with the current system.

Sounds very interesting (it could even bring back some of the low trafic forums in use) but I wonder if it will be possible to prevent abuses.

- by limiting the use to moderators ?
- by creating a limited set of combos ?

Good luck with this work !

Chacal

 

[Deset Gled]

Does anyone else think it might be a good idea to post a poll about this topic in the Rules (and/or House Rules) forum, and use that to decide where posts on this topic would go? I don't know how much agreement there was on this subject on the private boards, but there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus here. I think that opening the question up to the general public rather than a purely administrative decision would be a generally good thing (no offence to the mods). At the same time, I don't think it's appropriate for me to go about posting such a poll if the decision has already been definatively made and the poll has no way of changing anything.

 

[dcollins]

Please put item pricing in House Rules -- that's where it belongs.


Here would be my main points in brief:

- Look at DMG ch. 1: "Changing the Rules: Additions to the Game". It says "As DM, you get to make up your own spells, magic items, races, and monsters!". All these things go under the same heading in the DMG, "Changing the Rules", what we normally call "House Rules".

- The item pricing table in DMG ch. 8 is not a set of rules, they are explicitly "guidelines". Look at the sidebar in that section. It says:

The easiest way to come up with a price is to match the new item to an item priced in this chapter and use its price as a guide. Otherwise, use the guidelines summarized on Table 8-40: Calculating Magic Item Gold Piece Values... The formulas only provide a starting point.

Pricing new items is a very subjective creative process, and this is borne out in those discussion threads, that there are always a very wide range of suggestions without agreement.

- Similarly, there is a table in the DMG for "Maximum Damage for Arcane/Divine Spells" by level, yet we all agree that new damage spells should go in House Rules. I'm failing to see the distinction that puts new spells in House Rules, some new items (those with table guidelines) in D&D Rules, and other new items (with funky powers not on the table) in House Rules. By DMG ch. 1, these are all in the same category of "new stuff the DM gets to make up".

- Monte Cook (by all reports, author of that section) has clearly gone on record as saying that D&D magic item pricing is supposed to be a subjective process by the DM. For example (from http://www.montecook.com/arch_dmonly3.html#marketvalue ):

Some days I look at Table 8-40 on page 242 of the DMG and wish it wasn't there at all. At these times, I wish the rule was simply, “Match your new item as closely as you can with an existing item, then give it a similar price.” That's really the ultimate pricing rule... At the very least, we should have called the table "Estimating Magic Item Gold Piece Values" rather than "Calculating Magic Item Gold Piece Values."...

Do not -- I repeat -- do not allow players to look at that table and see what they can make for X amount of gold... The most important thing to remember is, Table 8-40 doesn't determine prices. It suggests them.

Here are my points more fully fleshed out in the past:
http://superdan.net.home.comcast.net/dndfaq3.html
Thanks for the consideration of this here, I think it's worthwhile.

 

[Len]

- Look at DMG ch. 1: "Changing the Rules: Additions to the Game". It says "As DM, you get to make up your own spells, magic items, races, and monsters!". All these things go under the same heading in the DMG, "Changing the Rules", what we normally call "House Rules".

By your reasoning, all questions about vampires and lycanthropes should also be in House Rules, right? Because those are templates for creating new monsters, and new monsters are house rules.

 

[dcollins]

No, a template is a rule with specific effects -- like a feat or a class level.

A new template, with debate about what the CR adjustment should be, would go in House Rules. Even though WOTC published Williams' article "How to Create a New Monster" with tables of guidelines for CR.

 

[dcollins]

Any other insights on this issue? Do these multiple statements that "The formulas only provide a starting point" in the book, and by the author, count for anything?

 

[Piratecat]

Not in my opinion, Dan. The vast majority of the magic items in the DMG are clearly constructed using these guidelines, and the costing formulas are clearly laid out in item construction feats; that pretty much defines "rule" for me.

 

[Len]

Any other insights on this issue? Do these multiple statements that "The formulas only provide a starting point" in the book, and by the author, count for anything?

There's lots of other stuff in the core books that is guidelines or starting points - formulas for calculating EL and awarding XP, and monster combat tactics are a couple of examples off the top of my head. I don't see why this one issue should be in House Rules, as opposed to everything else. If I have a question about how to apply a formula from the rulebooks, my instinct is to look for the answer in D&D Rules.

 

[dcollins]

...the costing formulas are clearly laid out in item construction feats; that pretty much defines "rule" for me.

Eh? Perhaps you're talking about the potion/scroll/wand costs? I agree that those are laid out in the construction feats in the PHB, but those are an entirely different issue. Those really are fixed rules, and I agree belong in the Rules Forum.

But recall that the DMG Magic chapter makes a categorical distinction between "potions/scrolls/wands" versus "all other items". Prices for honest-to-goodness "new items" are very subjective, not in the PHB, and explicitly marked "not a final judgement" in the very DMG itself. When Monte says "Do not -- I repeat -- do not allow players to look at that table...", he's trying to hammer home the fact that you cannot go to your DM and force him to honor those calculations.

PC, the thread you just posted about a "free teleport ring" is a prime example. There's no discussion of rules in that thread at all -- the discussion is entirely about your personal campaign, the particular cohort who'd like to have it, your level of desire as DM to give it to the players, and therefore how much they can afford. This is what almost all these threads look like. That's great and interesting, but a discussion that turns primarily on what the individual campaign looks like to generate a number isn't a "Rules" question.

Let me put a key question out there, also touched on by Monte. Consider the next time a player comes on the forum and says "Wow, I can buy a use-activated item of unlimited cure light wounds for only 2,000 gp?". By the rules-as-written, is the answer to that "yes" or "no"?