frankthedm
First Post
Airship fleets.
2e required that you figure out the recipe for making individual items, or at least the expanded rules in Spells & Magic did. I think the core rules did too, but I'm not sure. I don't think they called it a "recipe" though.
I think I'm misunderstanding something. 5e does have magic item formulas, which allow you to craft those items.
If you're referring to recipes for individual items, I don't recall seeing that in any of the earlier editions. Just examples of magic item crafting that involved making deals with dwarves (or something like that, it's been a while).
5th editions system only has 5 very broad general categories of items and they don't seem to be in those categories based on usefulness. The best example of this is the ioun stone of strength (+2 str, max 20, can be targeted in combat) vs some of the belts of giant strength, the ioun stone is very rare same as a 25 strength belt, and the 21 strength belt is only rare.
With guidelines like this and how broad they are to begin with the item crafting in 5e is a mess.
Rules Cyclopedia had a formula you could use to figure out the crafting cost of almost any item in the book on an individual basis.
1st edition had individual experience point costs per item in the DMG used for crafting, and potentially selling.
2nd edition had the encyclopedia magic volumes 1-4 with every item published in the history of D&D up to that point with individual item prices.
3rd edition was the best of all worlds, but flawed. It had individual item prices and formulas for making your own.
4th same, but sadly the magic items were all kinda dull, IMO.
So we went from having some sort of individual system, to more and more balanced systems, I will agree to the flaws in all those systems and there were plenty but at least the guidelines were there and were done on an item by item basis.
5th ehh, it is such a hassle you might as well not even bother crafting or setting up magic item shops in your world, and with some settings that is an issue.
Core 2e didn't have magic item prices, and the DMG had some pretty dire warnings about allowing the sale and purchase of magic items. It did have XP values which were awarded for making that item, and later expansions latched onto those as a numerical expression of the item's power.As an aside, IIRC, the gold prices for magic items in 2e were only meant as a basis for rewarding xp for the crafting of those items (and maybe also for awarding xp if following the xp for gold rule, I'm not certain). I'm pretty sure that somewhere in the DMG it stated that those "prices" were not intended for the buying or selling of magic items.
Sure, though since the Basic rules (and PHB) include lifestyle costs, your players might object.
IIRC, the 1st Ed DMG had a rule that PCs had to pay 1% of their XP total in gold as a lifestyle expense each month. One of those tiny rules tucked away in 1st Ed that I suspect nobody much used.
5th ehh, it is such a hassle you might as well not even bother crafting or setting up magic item shops in your world, and with some settings that is an issue.
It got to the point in my Pathfinder game that a PC interested in fixing up a broken manor home (about 2k in repairs) was chastised by another player for wasting gold on that when he could buy a +1 weapon with it.To be honest, the 3e/4e approach was pretty absurd too: you went adventuring to buy gold in order to get gear to go adventuring? Why not just stay at home where it's safe if all you're getting for the risk are the tools to do the job.
At this point, the thing to do is to remove gold as the default 'reward' from the game. Let each adventurer find his own motivation: some will do it purely to become Big Damn Heroes, some will do it for the fame, some to accumulate noble titles and political favour. And some will choose to do it for gold... but in that case they don't need to ask "what's the gold for?" Presumably, they decided that when they decided their PC wanted gold!