No Random treasure !?!?...

[Asmor]

they'll look directly at me and ask me why, John has one, and Ralph, but what about me eh???

Such audacity... How dare they demand that you treat them equally and not play favorites! Clearly this system would prevent you from playing favorites!

As a DM I use the dice to "help" me decide what magic is available in a dungeon and keeps me from playing favorites.

You're right, it's terrible! Randomness is so much more fair and it takes responsibility away from you. Clearly this system would force you to play favorites!

 

[Blustar]

I'm finally trying my hand as a DM, seeing how easy 4E is on DMs (3.X scared the bejezus) out of me, and so far I haven't had any problems incorporating items that my players would find useful.

I could see how it might be a problem if the villains of a certain campaign were very homogeneous, with little variability in class/tactics or what-not. But if that's the case, the PCs can probably be rewarded in different ways.

Really, random magic items tend to be a let-down as time goes by. Of course, for 3.X, random Wondrous Items are great since most characters can find them useful. 4E has plenty of wondrous items, neck items, waist items, hand items, etc. And pretty much all PCs of any class and race can get a use out of those as well.

If you found DM'ing 4ed easy I think you will find 3.5 to be about the same, especially at low to mid-levels.

With the rules Compendium 3.5 actually became a very easy game to DM for me. I've yet to run 4ed but I can't see how it's going to be any easier as I have to read 1001 words again.

I never found 3.5 too difficult anyways, I guess because I've played so many "harder" RPG's like HEro and Gurps...

 

[Thasmodious]

If you agree with both 1 & 2, then I hope you'll agree with
Corollary A) Great DMs give players magic items they can use, and make it seem completely natural that the PCs would find those items in the places they find them.

While I make no claims to being a great DM, I will certainly agree with this and provide an example from my 4e opener. I used the 4e system and wrote out my list of parcels, then once the players had committed to a course of action that would lead them to a particular site, I populated the dungeon (an ancient temple, desecrated and currently used by a Zehir cult of Yuan-ti disciples) with the treasure. The party has three implement users and are 1st level, so I decided one, of the 3 magic items (4 person party) would be an appropriate implement. I rolled randomly among the three characters and the cleric of Kord won. Now, how is a cleric of Kord going to get a holy symbol of his god in a temple devoted to Zehir?

I hadn't yet fully detailed the history of the temple, so I decided that 1000 years ago when the temple was serving its original purpose, it was a temple to the god of battle in my homebrew world. The world underwent a great upheaval (known as 4e ) and the old gods were destroyed. Eventually, heroes saved the world (an old PC party) by essentially joining it to a different cosmos, under the sway of the 4e pantheon. Long story short (too late), with a dedication ritual, Kord would honor the symbol of the ancient god of battle.

The item would be hidden in a secret, trap and test filled area that the cultists never found, in which the PCs would have to prove their mettle, which would grant them access to the temples ancient armory, where the symbol lies, along with a suit of magical hide armor. The PC "priest" who founded this ancient temple was a barbarian, who wore hide. It fits that a "spare" hide would be kept there, and the groups current barbarian (a 4e fighter with a maul) will enjoy his new suit of hide armor that was once worn by one of the greatest heroes of that time. Last is a cloak of protection. This is a sensible enough item to have in such an armory (there are a variety of ancient weapons in this vault as well, none magical, a couple with some gp value) and it fits well as both of the PCs who won't get a hand picked item will find the cloak useful and will have to decide who gets it.

 

[Blustar]

Such audacity... How dare they demand that you treat them equally and not play favorites! Clearly this system would prevent you from playing favorites!



You're right, it's terrible! Randomness is so much more fair and it takes responsibility away from you. Clearly this system would force you to play favorites!

Well In our games we don't expect anything, especially magic items, players are required to search and try and find one if they want to aquire one. I've had many magic items go to waste because they never found them or didn't bother to search for secret doors or whatever.

I don't give out anything, the players have to earn it, I know this must sound mean to you...we still play this way when we play older editions and it's a lot of fun when you actually find something magical. It's a moment you cherish as a player...as opposed to filling in my wish list.


When we play 3.5 we are a little less strict about low-level treasures and potions but anything special must be hard to obtain and yes I do weaken encounters because I know they're not at the recommended power level.

Actually 3.5 plays a lot better if you tone down the magic items too...

Again, I use randomness because I know I'm not going to give out a great magic item all the time or every such and such amount of encounters, and I honestly don't want to favor one player over another.

Whatever, it's not a big deal and I'll just have to randomize treasures for 4ed. I'll just use the random item generator from the 3.5 books and go from there.

I'll require either ID'ing in town for 100gp like usual or they'll have to try and use the item and see what happens. I think there's an Arcana skill and I guess we use that too.

I'm just trying to find a way to put the mystery into magic items because we all enjoy that aspect of the game so much.

 

[almagest]

Pillowcase of Endless Shrimp

That is *so* on my list of magic items for the next 4e game I PC in.

To the OP: don't like 1/5th the cost for selling magic items? House rule! Don't like giving the PCs items from their wish lists? Plan treasure ahead of time, and give them a variety of things! Add treasure relevant to your setting/encounter/area/whatever! Just keep in mind that it's hard to keep balance if PC's are selling things for lots of money, or aren't getting appropriate magic items for their class/level. Don't forget 3.5e had expected character wealth by level and by EL.

Seriously. It's not that hard.

 

[Orius]

That said, I think giving out random treasure wouldn't be that difficult. Look at your PCs levels, look at the appropriate treasure bundle, flip through the PHB, find any item of the appropriate level, and give it to them. Short of rolling dice, that seems pretty random.

Yeah, cranking out a random table of treaqsure at a given level shouldn't be difficult at all.

So, when a random treasure generator gave you a Pillowcase of Endless Shrimp, that sparked your imagination and inspired a story, but you can't do the same for an item the party could actually use? Help me out here.

What's useless about the pillowcase of endless shrimp? The party doesn't have to worry about getting iron rations any more for one; also makes it easier when the want to throw a party in the dungeon; hors d'oeurves in a jiffy!

I never really made much use of random treasure myself; I'd always rereoll on the tables until something I felt was appropriate came up. I don't like the idea of stocking dungeons with everything the players want, but levels for the different items makes it a lot easier to figure out when to pass out certain items, which was definitely NOT the case in 2e and other early editions.

 

[ravenight]

How do these PC's know all these magic items exist and with special properties and where to find them in the game? I mean how do they know about every single magic item in the PHB in the game if its a points of light setting and civilization is found few and far between?

Wait, who's confusing in-game and OOC knowledge? Because it certainly isn't the rulebooks - they ask you to have the players, not the characters give you a list of items they'd like. If you don't think the Fighter should have any knowledge of vorpal swords, but your player says he'd like one when he gets close enough in level, you can easily incorporate this into your game. Have the players hear a rumor of a magical sword being used for evil, or of the lost sword of so-and-so. Have them search high and low for the sword, eventually stumbling on the tomb of so-and-so, where they also happen to find a cool set of armor the warlord asked for. Later, they meet a powerful lich, who shows up wielding the orb the wizard asked for, and accompanied by acolytes with the bracers the cleric wanted, etc. Between the two fights, they've acquired enough gold to purchase the rogue's new dagger, so they do that to even out itemage. And if they each gave you a list of 4-5 items, they couldn't be sure which one they'd be getting (except the fighter, who knew there were rumors of his sword).

Oh, but that would require you to do design your encounters so that the items you were told to provide make sense as treasure.

 

[Arbitrary]

I'm just trying to find a way to put the mystery into magic items because we all enjoy that aspect of the game so much.

I don't think adding a monetary cost to Identify adds mystery. Having a bunch of mystery items and being unable to make intelligent decisions on how to distribute them is also not a positive.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think adding a monetary cost to Identify adds mystery.

Perhaps, but it does cut down on use of the spell...some minor items aren't "identified" until they're used, not always with the intended result. Example: a potion that people assume to be healing turns out to be invisibility...party pours it into a dying character and he disappears...

Having a bunch of mystery items and being unable to make intelligent decisions on how to distribute them is also not a positive.

Why oh why does every decision have to be "intelligent"? Yes, obviously you give the magic sword to the front-line tank that can use it...but who gets this plain unadorned magic ring that we don't know what it does? Who wants to field test it, and in so doing take the risk it might be cursed? *That* is the mystery.

Magic items in the PHB is a bad move, plain and simple. Easy enough to work around, however, if you as DM don't mind blowing up a weekend sometime and designing your own random item tables...

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, just recently we used a Robe of Useful Things to throw a boat at a bishop. GM didn't see that one coming. Neither did the bishop.

tangent

I for one am dying to know the context of this!

/tangent