For the upcoming game that I’m planning to run, using a custom world and campaign that I’m working on now, I plan to dramatically alter the way that magic items enter the game, yet retain the same balance and choice for the players which exist in the core rules.
The game is set in a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy world (based largely on a mishmash of ideas from Earthdawn, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the Outlands from WoW), where the planet was nearly destroyed, all of the major civilizations were crushed, and the sapient races were driven back into a very long, totally barbaric dark age, forced into hiding for hundreds of years to avoid the many dangers which threatened to eliminate all life in the world.
As such, the world is not full of adventurers, spellcasters, and such. There are none, really, with the exception of a very few rare and special NPCs and villains, and the vast majority of the world’s people know nothing of their existence. Magic has been forgotten. Even the divine magic of the gods has not been wielded in centuries.
But now, the PCs have been randomly chosen to fulfill a fated destiny which was set in place by the gods before the Fall, and have discovered the ancient secrets of magic, heroism, ritual and battle. A large part of their ongoing quest will involve delving into the hidden, buried places of power that have not been breached in a thousand years, and in these places they will have adventures and find treasure, as per the 4E guidelines.
But there’s no one for them to sell to, or buy from. Not magic items, not ritual supplies. Residuum would be entirely unheard of. No one HAS the kind of wealth needed to deal in magical items, anyway, in this broken world. So here’s what I’m going to do.
First of all, I’m not putting any normal magic items into the game at all. They won’t be in the treasure, and the enemies won’t have them or use them. The players WILL learn, at the beginning of the campaign, how to use ritual magic for many purposes, including creating whatever standard magic items they wish. Simple rituals (non-item creating, lower level, etc.) will only require materials which can be purchased by the players. But in order to begin to enchant their own items of magic, which haven’t been seen since ages forgotten, they’ll need the kind of old components of power which are no longer available in the world.
So what I’m going to do is put out a lot of ritual scrolls and ritual books and especially ritual components as part of the “monetary treasure” allotted in the DMG. They won’t have much need for vast supplies of coin, anyway, as most of the things they’ll want and need won’t be for sale anywhere. Then they can use all of these supplies to make themselves whatever they want. So they all get custom, ideal items, with no messing around trying to sell junky magic items they don’t want, or having to wear that disgusting, ratty old robe that the lich was wearing, just because it’s a powerful item.
In addition, I’ll be sprinkling the various ancient ruins, temples, and caves with a variety of old items of magic, which don’t do anything except perhaps glow, but hold some magical power still. Essentially, art objects and gems, but they can be disenchanted into residuum.
But what about the players getting the items ABOVE their level, that they’re supposed to have, and can’t make with the ritual? Well, here’s my clever idea about that. For each regular magic item that is supposed to be parceled out in an adventure, I’ll be putting in a potent relic of the ancient cultures. These relics will be easily recognizable to the players, will not do anything, but will be able to be used to “power” a special item creation ritual, at NO component cost, AND allowing the making of an item above the caster’s level. Each relic will have its own level, just like a magic item, and can be used to make an item ritually of that same level or lower, regardless of the level of the player doing the ritual.
So, if it tells me to put in one 14th level item, one 13th level item, one 12th level item, and one 11th level item, I’ll just seed that block of encounters with these special relics of the same levels of potency. That way, the players can also make their own “real treasure” items, too. So the upshot is, all of the flavor and lore consistency of the world I want to run is retained, but the PCs end up having the same amount and power of magic items as the core rules. Plus they get to have just what they want, and feel really cool about being the only people in the world who can make these items, and that they’re discovering this lost art themselves. Even a lousy +1 longsword will seem pretty awesome when it's the most powerful weapon in the world, as far as anyone knows.
However, since finding something cool and unknown is important, too, I will be including a very few completely custom, detailed magic items which they can uncover as treasure (and will take the place of an appropriate amount of other treasure). Each of these will be hand-designed by me, with a history, a name, special properties unlike any of the standard items, and a neat picture. The items will be designed to be useful at all levels, and each one will be specifically tailored for one individual PC. These will be the really awesome treasures, the beloved items that they players will always cherish. These items will have personal value to their owners, they won’t want to sell or disenchant them, and they won’t become obsolete. I figure that I’ll spread them out so that each player gets one every few levels, and they all have about 4 or 5 of them each by level 30.
I think that this system will work perfectly for my campaign, and will make the players happy, keep the game balanced as intended, while circumventing many of the normal snags involved in the whole random-magic-items-as-loot metagame of selling and buying gear.
Any thoughts?
The DMG had the first prestige classes, it was perfectly valid to be looking thru.
