Magical items from KotS useless for the Pregen party?

[Giryan]

I'm running KotS at the moment, we're just in level one of the keep, and so far the players have defeated Irontooth and the Torturer and got their loot.
But neither of the items are much good for the party and I was wondering if other people thought that was the case too?
We have the 5 standard pre-gen chars, and also an Elven Ranger.

The Dwarven fighter is using the Dwarven Chain, which has left her with the same AC, a -1 skill check penalty, and the bonus healing surge, which is useful, but wasn't exactly "Yay, here's the first 4th Edition Magical item"
And then last night they defeated the torturer, and I thought cool here's an item that they'll really like, but no-one in the party wants it
The Elven Ranger is the only one who it would be reasonable for, but as he's an archer he's declined as he didn't want to take the -1 skill check, and he's always trying to stay out of combat so the power's not great for him either.

 

[Tuft]

DMG, page 125, right column:

The trickiest part of awarding treasure is determining
what magic items to give out. Tailor these items
to your party of characters. Remember that these are
supposed to be items that excite the characters, items
they want to use rather than sell or disenchant. If none
of the characters in your 6th-level party uses a longbow,
don’t put a 10th-level longbow in your dungeon as
treasure.

A great way to make sure you give players magic
items they’ll be excited about is to ask them for wish
lists. At the start of each level, have each player
write down a list of three to five items that they are
intrigued by that are no more than four levels above
their own level.

 

[Alvoros]

I am DMing the party through right now, and the party IS finding the items useful. But, as a DM, part of your responsibility as I see it is also to manage the items given to the party...."tweaking" the items so they better suit the party is something I do from time to time to keep the party balanced with each other, and also balanced with the monsters they will be facing as well.

If I know they are going into a new module full of fire breathing monsters, and everything granted to them previously prevents acid damage....well you understand.

But so far, our party is enjoying the module/items.

 

[Giryan]

DMG, page 125, right column:

Exactly, you'd have thought that the designers at WOTC would have read it.

I don't really want to have to go through the magical item lists to find stuff thats suitable for the pregen party.
I can, but I have precious little time to prep as it is.

And to be fair it's a learning experience for me too, I didn't know what the base AC bonus of hide was, or off the top of my head which classes can use it.
Had I just been running KotS as presented to us(pre-Core Books) I wouldn't know either.

The party and I are loving the adventure in general, this was just a small thing that stood out for me from the greatness of it as a whole

 

[Calbos]

While I'm not running the module yet and wouldn't use the pre-gens, I understand what you are saying.

For me, when I'm running a campaign where magic items are somewhat limited (and the default understanding for 4E seems that way compared to what my PCs prefer), I prefer to make them much more meaningful for the characters.

Instead of awarding an item that some characters in the party MAY find useful (sometimes having to settle on frustrating changes), I'll put something in that is either perfect for one (maybe two) characters, can be used with minor changes by 3/5 of the party, or that is minor but can be useful to anyone.

Sure it may not be "realistic", but it's definitely more fun for everyone involved. I wouldn't even think twice about making that armor scale armor so that the fighter can use it (just make sure to think of making tweaks for everyone). Just try not to do it after the fact; adjust the npc stats accordingly beforehand. This way you can keep it believable and prevent the:
DM: "He's has a suit of Dwarven Chain +1."
Fighter PC: "Hmm, that doesn't change my AC and gives me a -1 to my skill checks."
DM: "Oh, really? That sucks. Okay, then make it Dwarven Scale +1."

Sure, you don't HAVE to make changes, and I'm sure some old school DMs might see the whole thing as cow-towing (FWIW, I'm both old-school and new-school, ie, DMing since early-ish 1st ed, but adaptable, open to new ways of doing things, and willing to make changes to keep everyone having fun). But for a lot of people it's important to keep things fun.

Once we finally start playing 4E (We're still in the middle of a 3.5 campaign that is actually turning out to be a lot of fun, though most of us have the 4E books already) I plan on going through H1 and making sure that the treasure total is up to par, maybe adding in a couple of low-level ritual scrolls and some small amounts of ritual components to go with it. Once everyone drafts up their PCs for the campaign, I also plan on changing the MIs around somewhat. I'll most likely be keeping the levels of the items and the specific enchantments (can we call them that again) the same or similar, but I'm going to customize the specific types to what the PCs are using.

Have fun!

edit: So I took several paragraphs to say what other posters said in a few sentences. I suck.

 

[keterys]

The cleric can use the dwarven chain... but, yeah, just make sure the items are stuff the party actually wants in advance. Keeghan's... maul... yeah...

 

[Tuft]

Exactly, you'd have thought that the designers at WOTC would have read it.

I don't really want to have to go through the magical item lists to find stuff thats suitable for the pregen party.
I can, but I have precious little time to prep as it is.

Don't go through the lists yourself. Let your players do that, give you their (short!) wish lists, and then you only have to look at the items on the lists and choose one there.

 

[Giryan]

Don't go through the lists yourself. Let your players do that, give you their (short!) wish lists, and then you only have to look at the items on the lists and choose one there.

Ohh, that's a great idea.

 

[Tuft]

Ohh, that's a great idea.

Only summarizing what is in the DMG.

 

[Giryan]

Only summarizing what is in the DMG.

Oh, LOL, doh. Yeah, I read the first paragraph, and posted that wotc could have read it, and moved on.