Magical items

[Syrsuro]

It wouldn't be a 'shop'. There shouldn't (imho) be enough of a market for such items (and they should take too long to make and be too expensive) to justify a 'shop'.

But certainly there might be individuals who have the ability to make such items, especially the more mundane items. For a price. If you can find them, and convince them to take the time.

Carl

 

[Ydars]

The whole premise of PCs having so many magic items they want to get rid of them is ludicrous. It just kills anything magical about the game at all for me, and is utterly game-breaking, in terms of atmosphere. The most annoying thing about all the 3.5E games I have run is the rampant magic item avarice of many players and the fact that they are all decked out like the proverbial X-mas trees by 10th level.

Magical items should be so rare that they are items NO PC would EVER give away. I feel they should fulfil specific story and plot goals rather than simply being another way of taking a stat/power increase.

This is why I love the design premise of 4E; if it is true that the mechanical role of magic items is now so explicitly stated in the DMG that you can remove them, then I will srip em all out and jus find story driven reasons for the PCs to get the increases.

I think 4E will really turn magic items back into something that makes sense. It might actually also turn the feel of D&D back into Fantasy as opposed to something that looks more like magical SF to me.

 

[AllisterH]

The whole premise of PCs having so many magic items they want to get rid of them is ludicrous. It just kills anything magical about the game at all for me, and is utterly game-breaking, in terms of atmosphere. The most annoying thing about all the 3.5E games I have run is the rampant magic item avarice of many players and the fact that they are all decked out like the proverbial X-mas trees by 10th level.

.

I'm pro-4E but I got to stick up for 3.x. People keep saying that PCs in 3.x were magic-laden but that's not true at ALL when compared to the treasure from your typical 1E adventure.

Seriously, I'm not sure going back to the 1e/2E method of item creation is valid either. You either have to tailor your treasure to the characters in the party ("wow, that's another elven full plate we've run across, I thought elves didn't like being paladin") or the party members tend to use the most common item (everyone pretty much used a longsword in 1E/2E due to likelihood of rolling one).

There's also the issue of "what the hell do we do with the excess" that creeped in. In 1E for example, you got xp for selling magic items (strange you can SELL them but you couldn't BUY them) but in 2E, you literally walked around with 10 +1 longswords by level 7 if you ran any published adventure.

Yet, even though people would obviously pay money for those excess items, you couldn't sell them (items in 2E didn't come listed with a gold cost). WTF.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In 2nd editionn we sometimes buried magical items wit their former owners... usuall people can´t buy magic items because they are too expensive... and in ADnD by level 10 you could give those magical items to your followers...

 

[Intrope]

I'm pro-4E but I got to stick up for 3.x. People keep saying that PCs in 3.x were magic-laden but that's not true at ALL when compared to the treasure from your typical 1E adventure.

Seriously, I'm not sure going back to the 1e/2E method of item creation is valid either. You either have to tailor your treasure to the characters in the party ("wow, that's another elven full plate we've run across, I thought elves didn't like being paladin") or the party members tend to use the most common item (everyone pretty much used a longsword in 1E/2E due to likelihood of rolling one).

There's also the issue of "what the hell do we do with the excess" that creeped in. In 1E for example, you got xp for selling magic items (strange you can SELL them but you couldn't BUY them) but in 2E, you literally walked around with 10 +1 longswords by level 7 if you ran any published adventure.

Yet, even though people would obviously pay money for those excess items, you couldn't sell them (items in 2E didn't come listed with a gold cost). WTF.

THIS.

At one point in the early 90's, I was in a party that ran through a number of classic modules as written, gathering the wealth therein.

By 14th level, the Paladin had:
A Holy Avenger
2 Frostbrands
4 Flametongue swords
at least one of each 'Slayer sword
And enough +1/+2 swords to equip an entire company of soldiers (no joke!)

Which is to say that 1e especially handed out gobs of magic--most of it effectively worthless! (Who made all these +1 swords? OCD the mage?)

For my part, I would like 4e to be more sane about magic items than 1e/2e--and less commodity than 3e. That looks likely, from the examples given.

 

[FadedC]

The whole premise of PCs having so many magic items they want to get rid of them is ludicrous. It just kills anything magical about the game at all for me, and is utterly game-breaking, in terms of atmosphere. The most annoying thing about all the 3.5E games I have run is the rampant magic item avarice of many players and the fact that they are all decked out like the proverbial X-mas trees by 10th level.

Magical items should be so rare that they are items NO PC would EVER give away. I feel they should fulfil specific story and plot goals rather than simply being another way of taking a stat/power increase.

This is why I love the design premise of 4E; if it is true that the mechanical role of magic items is now so explicitly stated in the DMG that you can remove them, then I will srip em all out and jus find story driven reasons for the PCs to get the increases.

I think 4E will really turn magic items back into something that makes sense. It might actually also turn the feel of D&D back into Fantasy as opposed to something that looks more like magical SF to me.

As a DM I like campaigns where magic items are kind of rare. As a player though I really enjoy finding new magic items from time to time, especially if it's something interesting. If I'm only ever going to get one magic item in my whole career, it will be really exciting when I get it.....but not so much to look forward to after that.

Plus it's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around a world in which half the players can wield powerful magic and shape the unniverse, but yet nobody can create a magically sharp piece of metal.

 

[Stoat]

Magic items that are cheaper than a suit of platemail should be purchasable where you can get platemail (also not in any border town), and they should also be cretable by low level characters. (no more potions at LVL 9)

This is effectively how 3E does it. Cheap items are available in small towns, but expensive items are not. Any item cheaper than a suit of plate mail can be purchased anywhere plate mail is for sale. The DM, by setting the demographics of the campaign world, decides how many places actually sell expensive items.


Cheap items can be created by low-level characters with the appropriate feats. Low-level characters do not have the exp. or gold to create more expensive items.

 

[Syrsuro]

My experience with 1E was that if you followed the rules as written for handing out treasure, you got appropriately restrained quantities of magic - definately no christmas trees in our groups, (at least up to the mid-levels - and the game was broken imho past 12th or so anyway). But if you bought published modules, you found them laden down with tons of magic (probably because magic sellls).


Although it is possible my memory has been colored by the shared opinion of our DMs at the time that magic should be scare at the lower levels.

Carl

 

[Revinor]

Magical items should be so rare that they are items NO PC would EVER give away. I feel they should fulfil specific story and plot goals rather than simply being another way of taking a stat/power increase.

Game is balanced for players having around 5-10 magic items each at 10th level. Maybe not super items, but still items.

You can take it away and give them only 2 items per entire party - sure. If it fits you and your players, great. Just don't be surprised if they will die often then they should - but after all, it doesn't matter as long as magic items feel 'magical', does it ?

You can give few more items and never replace them. Will work nicely on low levels, your party will get owned later. There is a good chance they will never reach the levels to start worrying about it.

If you will follow the proposed balance, players WILL get useless items after some time, because of replacing existing ones with new and better things. In 2nd ed, system tried to solve it by hand waving and saying "Magic items as so rare, that even if you want to sell your sword+1, you can give it to your follower/cohort, so it 'stays in the family'". It is simply not true - when players go through few official modules and get a heap of useless magic items, they will try to sell them somehow - exchange for spells, other magic items, gold, rare components, whatever. Regardless of how 'magic' you want sword +1 to be, it WON'T be magic when everybody around is running with Holy Avengers.

Only difference is that when players were on low level, nobody was selling such swords +1, because entire world thought they are 'so magical'. Only at the point it is useless to the players, world suddenly starts to accept that low level magic items are normal (if expensive) commodity.

I agree that creating magic items in 3e was too mechanical and too easy. But you cannot pretend that magic items as so rare and supermagical if you have 50 of them equipped in the party and another 200 stacked in bag of holding. So either

a) accept that magic items are a commodity and adapt world to the fact that there is some limited trade/barter with them
b) limit number of magic items per person to max 1 (maybe 2nd one on epic level) and throw all original adventures and monster/player balance out of the window

 

[glass]

By 14th level, the Paladin had:
A Holy Avenger
2 Frostbrands
4 Flametongue swords
at least one of each 'Slayer sword
And enough +1/+2 swords to equip an entire company of soldiers (no joke!)

Shouldn't that be the Fighter (ex-paladin)?


glass.