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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edgar Ironpelt" data-source="post: 9521911" data-attributes="member: 32075">Random Thoughts: Contrary to the usual advice, I'd say to NOT make magic items super-expensive. If they're available at all, they're available cheap (compared to the standard rules) - but mostly they're not available at all. In econo-speak, the supply of magic and magic items needs to be "inelastic" - throwing around more and more gold pieces will get you little or nothing in the way of additional magic stuff.Abandon the idea of anyone - NPC or PC - actually making magic items, beyond the very low-level stuff. One place the rare magic items might come from is time: To get (e.g.) a +2 sword, craft a masterwork sword, and hang it up on a wall for several centuries.The sword becomes +1 and then +2 over the course of those centuries, and the process cannot be rushed.Healing in D&D is very strongly tied to (clerical) magic. Either you'll need to do a major overhaul of the hit-point recovery system, or else you'll need to embrace a game that isn't just low-magic but positively grim and gritty - in a way that LOTR isn't. So if you want a Lord of the Rings vibe, you should look hard at the first option. Speaking of Lord of the Rings, very minor magic items were actually pretty darn common. It was the standard-to-big stuff that was incredibly rare.Another possibility is to find ways to have "magic items that aren't magic," eliding the difference between masterwork & masterwork-plus items on one hand, and items that ping to detect magic on the other. You'll likely also want to limit or flat-out ban higher level spells. If you do, and possibly even if you don't, I'd suggest making protective magic spells lower-level. Standard D&D has a pattern of "protection against magical effect X" spells being higher level than the "magical effect X" spells they're intended to protect against. This causes trouble (IMHO) even in standard-magic games, and more trouble in low-magic games.</blockquote>

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