Wonderous Items and your party

[hennebeck]

As a player, I'm putting together my wish list for another character in another game, and there are 2 weapons I want, and 6 sets of armor, and 2 belts, and 4 neck items. And I would want any of them before a Wonderous Item.
Because of how 4e math works, are wonderous items just not desirable?

As a DM I was looking at my player's wish lists and realized that the only 2 Wonderous items on the lists of 7 different players is a bag of holding and climbing claws.
Are other DMs seeing the lack of want of Wonderous Items?

Would you or have you given out free Wonderous items as Party loot that doesn't count against the Predetermined loot a character should have?
Anyone try this? How would this break things? How much and what kind of things would you give?

Thanks.

 

[Tai]

Things like the basket of everlasting provisions are really cool, just not much good in a fight. That's the real problem - the PCs have limited slots, and everyone needs, at a bare minimum, a weapon, an amulet and a set of armour every tier. Since in a four player party you're supposed to get 3-4 items per tier, that's cutting thing's pretty fine. In general, I'd say that you should throw the non-combat wondrous items around like candy, since they're mostly cool and helpful rather than powerful. They also help reduce bookkeeping, in the case of the bag of holding and the basket ^^

 

[Falstyr]

Wondrous Figurines of Summoning have been distributed. They came in handy when we were put in a tight situation. So I'm thinking to give my players some of these as well in later adventures

I think most people have little time to get a full scope of all items available. There is a lot to choose from. So it isn't odd that people will focus more on weapons and armor for their specific character instead of browsing for wondrous items and battle standards.

 

[Jhaelen]

Funny you mention this since it's something I just noticed yesterday:
Assuming you want to have a level-appropriate weapon, armor, and neck slot item at all times, there's only one magic parcel for you left every five levels (assuming a party of five). This means, you won't even be even to fill all your slots until level 30.

So, every wondrous item you pick should better be pretty good!

Note, that this is somewhat alleviated by the fact your slot items typically don't have to be close to your current level to be useful, so you may use some extra gold to buy a couple of lower level items to fill them.

 

[Falstyr]

You can replace monetary loot with wondrous items if need be.

 

[Ryujin]

You can replace monetary loot with wondrous items if need be.

That would need to be done carefully though, since the intent of that monetary treasure parcel is at least partially to buy an item for the fifth party member, who hasn't received an item in the adventure.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmmmm. Not sure I follow some of the math here...

The expected treasure distribution works out to on average each PC will get around a level + 2 or +3 item each level or equivalent treasure. In 30 levels you're going to end up with 30 items and at any given time on average during your career you'll have roughly 3 or so above level items and some number of lower level ones that will depend on what you buy, what you keep from lower levels, what you enchant, etc.

Assuming you have to boost your 3 key items roughly every 5 levels that still means you can afford to maintain 2-3 other items at above level power or probably easily 6-10 items at 5-10 levels levels below.

Thus there is PLENTY of room for Wondrous Items of all sorts. The 6th level party I'm DMing for has 4-5 of them and could easily accommodate more. I think the explanation for why most players don't ask for a lot of such items has more to do with the grab bag nature of the whole category than anything else. Everybody knows to be on the lookout for a magic weapon or implement, magic armor, etc. When you start considering Wondrous Items many of them are highly useful but not often quite so critical. However I think you'll find if you have players that really scour the books for the ideal stuff they'll spot the really hot wondrous stuff like scabbards and solitaires.

 

[Falstyr]

That would need to be done carefully though, since the intent of that monetary treasure parcel is at least partially to buy an item for the fifth party member, who hasn't received an item in the adventure.

True. That is why I personally rather add 1 extra parcel as if there is one extra member in the party. It is a shame not to use cool things because there isn't enough money or that everyone rather has their magical items. And an occasional extra wondrous item won't shift the balance of a battle or such too far.

 

[Diirk]

The expected treasure distribution works out to on average each PC will get around a level + 2 or +3 item each level or equivalent treasure. In 30 levels you're going to end up with 30 items and at any given time on average during your career you'll have roughly 3 or so above level items and some number of lower level ones that will depend on what you buy, what you keep from lower levels, what you enchant, etc.

The treasure distribution is actually kinda funky in that with a party of 5, you'll get 4 magic items for 5 people per level, or each person gets 80% of a magic item per level. With a 4 person party, this drops to 3 magic items for 4 people, so 75% of a magic item.

The smaller your party size, the more levels of your career you'll have with no new magic items.

 

[Ryujin]

True. That is why I personally rather add 1 extra parcel as if there is one extra member in the party. It is a shame not to use cool things because there isn't enough money or that everyone rather has their magical items. And an occasional extra wondrous item won't shift the balance of a battle or such too far.

Just make sure that it's something that they'll want to keep, rather than trade in on that spiffy new axe.