D&D 4E Uninteresting 4E Magic Items (help!)

[Mercurius]

One of my big beefs with 4E is the seeming lack of flavor of magic items. I know this has been frequently commented on, but I'm putting it forth to explain my request. The situation is that I'm DMing a group through the first chapter of Tomb of Horrors and they should finish up tomorrow night. I haven't given out any magic items in quite some time--a few levels--mainly because whenever I start looking up magic items I become, ah, disenchanted. 4E items just don't inspire me - I don't know if it is the way they're laid out, but I've been having a hard time picking out items for the party and I feel like they're really due for some lovin'.

What I'd like to do is throw in some magic items once they defeat the Ivy Heart creature. There are no magic items in the encounter but what I thought I'd do is place the remains of adventurers slain by the Ivy Heart in the lair, intermixed with the foliage and ivy and complete with adventuring gear and some magic items. I imagine quite a haul, an assortment from low to level to one or two mid-paragon level items. They might not even need some of the items but I'd like for everyone to get at least one useful item.

Everyone is in the 9-10th level range and, obviously, on the verge of paragon tier. Basically I want to give them some items to prepare them for paragon tier - nicely powered items, but not necessarily their "forever magic items." Here is the party, with a primary weapon or relevant detail, if any:

• Human rogue (female) - dagger wielder; preparing for daggermaster paragon path; lone survivor of original group
• Eladrin swordmage - long sword wielder
• Human invoker - worships a fire elemental deity
• Blue orc artificer - a new character and race, a kind of "nerdy magical" sub-race of orc
• Dwarf fighter - axe and hammer wielder

Any ideas? I'm open to anything at this point.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

It sounds like you could really use some input from your own players - I think that a wish list (even if you just use it for inspiraton) would be of great benefit. Given your difficulty in choosing between seemingly equally mediocre choices, a better idea of which ones your players don't find mediocre is a very good start to inspiring you.

The reason I'm not just listing off choices (asides from me being lazy, that is ), is that one player's "good" choice may not be another - play styles and goals differ from player to player. For example, some players LOVE flashy daily powers, while others like more generic, but versitile, bonuses. Given your dissatisfaction with 4e items, you may be one of the former - items in 4e are a lot less flashy (and thus feel much more generic) than those in previous editions.

If you don't want to resort to something so blatant as wishlisting (or feel that asking them directly will spoil the surprise), think of something that each player likes to do with their character. For example, maybe Al loves charging across the board, Betty likes pushing monsters around, Chris likes buffing or healing his friends, and David likes being a skill guru. Look for items that help your players do what they like to do with their characters - Al could get something that boosts his charge range or damage, Betty could get something that adds an effect to a push, Chris gets something that gives his friends saves or other bonuses, and David gets something that boosts his skills or makes them more versitile.

 

[Tuft]

Either ask for a wishlist, or give them enough raw material and magical components to let them make their own stuff. The latter could be a fun non-combat activity, especially if you ham up some interesting mishaps and incidents during the making, or if you can get them to discuss look and style ("You want your boots to be lime green?!")

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks for the advice. Actually, I'm trying to avoid "wishlisting" as it exemplifies the other aspect of 4E magic items that I don't like, a kind of "build your own" magic item arsenal approach. For the first half or so of heroic tier, the PCs would return to town after an adventure, sell what magic items they didn't want and use the money to buy what magic items they did want. It seemed to take the specialness out of magic items; they were just bonused equipment rather than arcane remnants of an ancient civilization. I ended up putting limits on what could be purchased: low-level bonus-only items. In my world a "+1 sword" is simply a very well crafted weapon, one that has a mild enchantment due to the skill of the crafter.

For some items I'd like to take the approach that they get more powerful the higher level the character gets--similar to Weapons of Legacy. So they would be akin to minor artifacts that become almost symbiotic with the wielder.

One of the things that irks me about 4E magic items is that they seem relatively under-powered. You might have a 14th-level item that lets you do Feather Fall once a day. Useful, yes, but 14th level? I'm just pulling that out of a hat but that's the feel of it for me. I haven't looked at magic items from older editions lately, but I'm wondering why the difference seems so striking. Any thoughts?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Here's my opinion on why most 4E magic items seem bland to many people (and as a corollary, why many people seemed disenchanted by 4E spellcaster classes as well.):

Magic items (and spells) have a discreet and specific rule that applies to 4E combat, and does not involve any "improvised visualization" that requires DM adjudication.

Here's what I mean by this... says for example you take the illusion spells. In 3E and back... you as a player had to describe what exactly you were creating with the illusion you cast, and the DM then had to decide on-the-spot what the results would be from that creation. There were no "combat stats" connected to the illusions automatically in the spell description. For example, if you were being chased by some monsters and came to a tunnel exit that featured a deep drop... you could quickly throw up an illusion that made it look like the floor continued... thereby making it possible that the monsters would keep running and then plummet into the drop. Now there was nothing in those illusion spells that said specifically how this use of the illusion would mechanically be applied to combat... the DM had to make it up and adjudicate on his best guess of what should happen.

By the same token, many magic items gave you "descriptive" special powers... the ability to create or use things based entirely on your imagination, none of which had tangible combat-use rules connected to them. So for instance, you had the Immovable Rod. A rod that you could secure in mid-air and have it just hang there unmoving, able to support a butt-load of weight. There was nothing in the rules that applied game mechanics to this rod... it was just up to the DM to decide what kind of combat results would occur if used. So using the example above, the party is being chased by a monster, and one party member at the back takes a corner and then stops and places the Immovable Rod horizontally in the center of the corridor at neck-height, hoping that the monster turns the corner, doesn't notice it, and then clotheslines himself on it as he takes the turn. The DM was thus required to adjudicate exactly how much damage something like that might do, because the rule of the Rod itself did not indicate it.

What we have in 4E however... is combat that is pretty much entirely spelled out via actual rules, with very little DM adjudication. And what adjudication does happen is rules via the infamous Pg 42. Almost every single magic item has rules that are described and ruled within the context of 4E combat, and ask for no "player imagination" to describe how they might be used. The item tells you how they are used. It's only items that have no real function in 4E combat that would require DM adjudication should they attempted to be used. And this is why I think these kind of things seem bland. Because you can't be "creative" per se with these items in your possession... because their uses are already spelled out for you.

In order to have magic items that recapture the flavor of older-addition items... you need to create new ones yourself that do not have (or at least do not entirely have) 4E combat-specific rules attached to them, but rather "conceptual ideas". So for instance, a Ring of Telekinesis. What does a ring like this do? Well, sure you can assign it specific rules for how much damage a "telekinetic punch" would do, or how much Flight speed it would grant you, or this rule or that rule... but you might just be better served just giving it to the player and let him or her decide on the fly how to use it, and then let the DM decide in the moment what kind of damage or movement or whatever else it might do. By not spelling everything out for the player with an actual "power card" of abilities... the world is more open to the player and the DM both to make use of the item as they see fit.

 

[Riastlin]

A big part of the problem is that with 4e, the devs made a concerted effort to make a character defined more by his or her abilities, than by the magic items carried. In older editions, it was often the case (though not always obviously), that the items bore a much bigger impact on what a character could do than the character's actual powers did.

So with 4e, magic items were intentionally made less powerful -- and in many respects, less interesting as a result. The flip side of this was that the devs decided that since magic gear was less powerful, it should also be more plentiful. Unfortunately, this only adds to the "boring" factor of magic items in 4th Ed. Pre Essentials, a party "knew" that they would find 5 magic items each level (or roughly one every other encounter). There was also the built in need to have a variety of +x items in the weapliment/armor/neck slots in order to keep up with the monsters, so even those items don't seem all that interesting since they are more a necessity than a bonus.

I think one solution (though it would be difficult to implement mid-campaign), is to use the inherent bonus system and then provide fewer magic items (I would also limit the Create Magic Item ritual). With an inherent bonus system, magic items are no longer as big a necessity for things like defenses and to-hit. This then provides you room to give out more "flavorful" items that might not have as obvious a use in combat. Additionally, you can create magic items that "grow" with the character. Perhaps the sword doesn't offer any to-hit or damage bonuses, but it gains properties as the character levels, or gains encounter/daily powers. Finally, with inherent bonuses, you can even toss in an occasional +1 item and suddenly it becomes special again.

As for your current problem though, I agree with the above poster that you have to take a look at what your PCs like to do and try to find something that helps them along those lines. A horned helm is great for the character that likes to charge for instance. Likewise a skull mask is great for a character that likes to intimidate her enemies in combat or people on the street in a SC.

 

[Mengu]

Do you want to give them interesting items? Or good items? For the most part they are mutually exclusive. The invoker probably would be very happy with a staff of ruin. But it's probably not interesting by your definition. It's almost like an entitlement item.

If you want good *and* interesting, your best bet is taking a good item, and adding interest to it yourself.

For instance, for the rogue who will go Daggermaster, Bloodiron dagger is a good item. You could make it interesting (and rare) by adding:

Power (Encounter): When you are bloodied by an attack, as an immediate reaction, you may deal 1d10+cha damage to an adjacent enemy.
Power (Daily): When you hit a target, you may spend a healing surge to deal 1d6 extra damage per enhancement bonus, and weaken the target.

For the Invoker, you could start with Staff of Ruin as the base, and add:

Power (Encounter): Minor Action. You may knock an adjacent undead, construct, or elemental prone.
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Targets hit by the next power you use this turn are engulfed in a fiery outline, and cannot benefit from concealment or invisibility and grant combat advantage until the end of your next turn.

I'm not sure what to suggest for the other characters, but just take a good item they might like, boring as it might be, then rarify it.

 

[Brys]

While much more work, you may want to start looking into their "gonna have them forever" items. Give them some sort of artifact that grows with them. I was never a fan of continually trading in magic items for something newer. As a player, I would have much preferred to have my trusty dagger that I started with at level 1 become an artifact. Ideally, it would gain cool powers/properties as they leveled up (something that fit with what their character does or "always-wanted-to-do-but-couldn't-because-the-item-doesn't-exist" thematically). When their character dies/retires/ascends, tell them stories of adventurer's following in their footsteps, hoping to find their weapon. Or when they get back to town, have commoners asking to see the Famed Dagger of [insert your name here].

To more directly answer your question, when playing a dwarven fighter, I always liked getting a dwarven thrower weapon (+3 is lvl 12, I think). It takes any axe or hammer and turns it into a heavy thrown weapon. It's useful and adds a dimension to the character that is often overlooked (ranged basic attack).

 

[interwyrm]

I think one solution (though it would be difficult to implement mid-campaign), is to use the inherent bonus system and then provide fewer magic items (I would also limit the Create Magic Item ritual). ... Finally, with inherent bonuses, you can even toss in an occasional +1 item and suddenly it becomes special again.

Seconded.

I'd also combine this with some flavor enhancers! Let's say you have a player who wants the mechanical effect of frost cheese. Instead of "you find a +2 frost weapon", have them fight a difficult encounter against a white dragon or frost drake. Describe the killing blow as the sword plunging deep into the dragon's heart, and that the sword remains cold after the character pulls it out... or have one of the dragon's teeth or claws lopped off during combat and let the player use it as a weapon afterwards.

Stock items are pretty boring, but that just leaves you the ability to create the fluff yourself.

 

[Ryujin]

While much more work, you may want to start looking into their "gonna have them forever" items. Give them some sort of artifact that grows with them. I was never a fan of continually trading in magic items for something newer. As a player, I would have much preferred to have my trusty dagger that I started with at level 1 become an artifact. Ideally, it would gain cool powers/properties as they leveled up (something that fit with what their character does or "always-wanted-to-do-but-couldn't-because-the-item-doesn't-exist" thematically). When their character dies/retires/ascends, tell them stories of adventurer's following in their footsteps, hoping to find their weapon. Or when they get back to town, have commoners asking to see the Famed Dagger of [insert your name here].

To more directly answer your question, when playing a dwarven fighter, I always liked getting a dwarven thrower weapon (+3 is lvl 12, I think). It takes any axe or hammer and turns it into a heavy thrown weapon. It's useful and adds a dimension to the character that is often overlooked (ranged basic attack).

That's the way that I go, calling them "campaign items."