Magical items from KotS useless for the Pregen party?

[Zephyrus]

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.

Thats basically kind of what I did. The party had gone back to town and only had about 300-400g each and had them tell me what they were interested in. Granted the money was only enough for a basic +1 weapon, implement or armor or maybe a potion but I had them tell me and then I made some percentile rolls to see if that particular item was available (40% or less to keep it from getting out of hand). It worked out fairly well, out of 6 possible items, 2 of them were available. A +1 Implement for the party warlock and a +1 weapon for the paladin. It kept things from getting out of hand but gave the party their choice of what they wanted. I will likely use something like this in the future, upping or lowering the % roll based on what weather or not that I feel that item might be available. thus still leaving a 'treasure' aspect to even buying things and that I'm not just giving away loot.

 

[Argyuile]

The other question of course is, if you build a scenario and you make the magic items and you make pre-gen characters then why would you put in crummy magic items for the pre-gen characters you made for the adventure you wrote?

 

[Switchback]

-dp-

 

[Switchback]

I'd prefer if my DM put something useful for the group as treasure, but it was still somewhat of a surprise.

I think the DMG suggestion of players writing what items they want ahead of time and then expecting to find them in various orders as they level as kind of against the spirit of the game. Maybe I'm old fashioned.

It also limits a DM's creativity in perhaps making new or altered items. These things will always be better than having no item at all, but perhaps less rewarding if they are worse than a specific item or two the player penciled down out of the books and was expecting instead.

"Oh it does what? That's cool, but I was really hoping for so-n-so instead." :\

 

[Cryptos]

I'd prefer if my DM put something useful for the group as treasure, but it was still somewhat of a surprise.

Yeah... it does seem kind of weird in a way.

When my mother was around, she used to do pretty much the same thing... "just make me a list of things you want and I'll get some things from it." It was nice in a way, but then I almost always knew what I was getting and I was just waiting for a certain day to get it. It wasn't like a gift... it was like pre-ordering or making reservations. When I was younger it didn't bother me as much, and as a kid I was too busy playing with whatever it was, but as I got older it was kind of frustrating, I sort of felt like "if you were paying attention, you'd probably have a pretty good idea of what I need, want, or like." Not that I ever said that out loud. I was glad for whatever she wanted to give me, and always taught to be polite when receiving a gift, but she could have done the same for the janitor or the mailroom clerk, with about the same results.

Well, enough petty baggage from me. But maybe that's why I don't like the idea here, either.

Plus the fact that, as you say, if the DM wants to be creative and make something up, rather than pick something out of the PHB catalog, he runs the risk of giving out something he worked hard on to a player and then them being obviously disappointed with it. If the DM has more leeway to begin with, then every decent item can be a pleasant surprise if it's appropriate to the character getting it. Not so if they select the things they'd like to have beforehand.

It might be an good idea for a new group or a new DM. But the prospect doesn't really excite me personally from either the DM or the PC perspective.

Since we're dealing in parcels now, as a DM I'd probably have private lists of my own, but they'd be more like: Parcel 1 - Magic armor or neck item ideally suited for use by the character with the lowest defenses; Parcel 2 - weapon or implement from the following, ideally suited to the character that has the lowest overall attack bonuses; and so on. At least it shows I'm paying attention to who needs what, and there's an element of discovery there as long as I don't make the pattern too predictable. Honestly, at this point since the OP probably has the CRBs he could just scrap the rewards in the KotS preview adventure and replace them with a similar private list.

As a side note, I also think I would have been much happier with a page or two more powers for each class in the PHB, and having magic items in the DMG again. It's okay that they're there, but thinking about all the things you can do with extra PHB space, I don't feel its a good trade-off.

 

[Regicide]

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

You mean aside from the fact that the Irontooth fight is a guaranteed TPK and that the players won't be facing another fight with the same encounter level for at least 3 levels?

 

[Switchback]

As a side note, I also think I would have been much happier with a page or two more powers for each class in the PHB, and having magic items in the DMG again. It's okay that they're there, but thinking about all the things you can do with extra PHB space, I don't feel its a good trade-off.

Definitely agree on the powers. It's great that the DMG this time has a lot of fluff for DM's about building campaigns and worlds, but if you move the magic items over there, you open up so much more space for things like powers or feats or what not, that will actually define the versatility of the game once everyone does already understand how to play. This is also the *4th* edition, so you might get the idea that new players aside, many folks already know how to do a lot of that stuff. And older books on world building, or dungeon crafting are certainly available and easily modified to new rules.

But about the treasure hand-out, I also agree, its just not that exciting to know what you will probably be getting. I think this is the area where you simply let players spend their gold and resources at instead and leave the actual adventures as something of a mystery where anything can happen and anything can be found.

Even if your running a magic sparse campaign there can always be one large city or black market dealer, or even let the players create an item over a long wait period if they want a specific thing. But don't have everyone know that when the Troll band goes down, your going to automatically get that ring of regeneration or whatever.

Sometimes strange or more random items, when they are properly used in moderation, can spice up a campaign and offer opportunities for creativity or new paths to follow down that even the DM might be surprised and excited by.

 

[zero skill LPB]

If you're currently playing in or plan to play in KotS, shoo. Go 'way.

The magic LOOTZ bug me too. It's almost mostly fine if you use the pre-gens. Almost.

the mostly fines:
+1 Amulet of Health = intended for any = okay
+1 Dwarven Chainmail = intended for Cleric = okay
+1 Vicious Shortsword = intended for Rogue = okay
+1 Symbol of Battle = intended for Cleric = okay
+1 Magic Wand = intened for Wizard = okay
+1 Blackiron Scale Armor = intended for Fighter = okay
+1 Magic Longsword (Aecris) = intended for Paladin = okay
Shield of Protection = intended for Paladin = okay
+1 Safewing Amulet = intended for any = okay
Bag of Holding = intended for any = okay
+2 Magic Dagger = intended for Rogue = okay

the problem children:
+1 Bloodcut Hide Armor = aiee!
complete absence of magic two-hander for the Fighter = duh!

Bloodcut fix = I'd change the Hide to Leather. Drop hints early (and often?) to the players that someone in the village might be able to use a ritual to resize items (Valthrun is a good fit for this). Poof, nice armor for your Rogue.

Two-hander fix = I'd have (or have had, in both my KotS runs) Bairwin Wildarson, owner and proprietor of "Bairwin's Grand Shoppe" in Winterhaven, have a +1 Greataxe for sale. For additional flavor and fun you might consider making this a skill challenge -- the Greataxe is being held for Thair Coalstriker, the village's blacksmith, and the PCs need to convince her to release her claim on the axe (In both my games my players were eager to roleplay with most every NPC they met and had already laid the groundwork for this prior to the axe being revealed as an option, but YMMV)

Plus, PCs get the mad money, yo. Bairwin's shop could contain some nice gap-filling gear as you see fit.

 

[kclark]

I don't know about guaranteed TPK. My group of 5 players got through it with 1 character death. They didn't think of buying any healing potions prior to going there which would have made a big difference too.
The warlock rolled dirt most of the fight missing with his daily and often with his at wills. That die rolled 3s and 5s more than should be physically possible.
The warlord who died would have done a lot better if he used his action point to Second Wind instead of whacking Irontooth again, which bloodied him, and made Irontooth's retaliatory attack all the more painful. The action point useage and extra rage die of damage is what dropped the warlord. Probably didn't help that I rolled a 10 for it.

Fight ended with the warlock and elf wizard making a fighting retreat while peppering an enraged Irontooth with rays of frost and eldritch blasts. Poor Irontooth couldn't catch up to them as the wizard moves through difficult terrain easily and was constantly slowing irontooth.

The group played well reserving the daily powers when Irontooth showed up. I did not even hint that they should, but they figured that the leader of the kobolds would be nasty after the kobold hit squad ambushed them on the road.

The group is raising the dragonborn and heading to investigate the Keep.
I am thinking about throwing in something to entice them towards the excavation (maybe a helper archeologist who was captured escaped and makes it to town) so they can get some more xp under their belt and that nice item there.

 

[Giryan]

You mean aside from the fact that the Irontooth fight is a guaranteed TPK and that the players won't be facing another fight with the same encounter level for at least 3 levels?

They happily didn't TPK Irontooth, not letting the slinger make it back inside did that, and they glued Irontooth to the floor would have helped, had the defenders realised that they could have disengaged, dispite hints like them making insight rolls to see that he only had melee weapons.
At that point we had 5 party members, ranger, rogue, wizard, figher and paladin, I think that the 2 strikers helped as one attacked irontooth and the other attacked the wyrmpriest. The two Dragonshields in the 2nd half also couldn't seem to hit anyone. :/