Combining the Abilities of Two Different Magical Items

[Syntallah]

Has anyone had any experience with allowing a PC to combine the abilities of two different magical items? Pitfalls? Issues?

I have a Swordmage who wants to combine a Cloak of the Walking Wounded
and a Medallion of Death Deferred (the medallion would be the clasp of the cloak).

My initial thoughts were abviously the enhancements would not stack, I would take the higher of the two, but the Daily power and the second wind property would both be available, so you would end up with:

+2 enhancement to Fort Refl Will
Property: spend two surges when using second wind while bloodied
Daily Power: gain 6hp when your health reaches 0 hit points


What would be the cost of such an item? Add the two? Highest x2?

 

[Quickleaf]

Well this it totally a DM call as it's breaking the item slots rule, and in so doing setting a precedent for the rest of your players following suit. There are some potential broken combos players could come up with so consider future requests case by case.

Adding the two item costs and using higher enhancement bonus makes sense.

 

[Pour]

I've combined magic items before, and added to magic items, mostly when I'm creating artifacts. They kind of push the boundaries of balanced by their very nature, but none thus far have broken my game. Having players create such items themselves would probably step on my DM toes a little, but that's just me and my comfort zone.

My gut says give it a shot. Just let the players know that if these items become a detriment to the game, you'll retract or edit them accordingly. I don't think any reasonable player will fault a DM for that. Pushing the boundaries of the system is part of the fun. Could be this becomes a successful and memorable part of your game.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Has anyone had any experience with allowing a PC to combine the abilities of two different magical items? Pitfalls? Issues?

I have allowed it however i limit it to 1property or at will power and 1 encounter or daily 99% of the time

+2 enhancement to Fort Refl Will
Property: spend two surges when using second wind while bloodied
Daily Power: gain 6hp when your health reaches 0 hit points

See that looks perfect

 

[Riastlin]

Yeah I generally just view this as a "DM created item". You want to be careful with how much you give them, realizing that the value of the item is obviously increasing along with its effectiveness, but you get the idea.

The example in the OP seems to be a really good compromise, and certainly the daily power is far from overpowered in my book. The cloak's property is pretty darn powerful, but per RAW the player could just make that anyway. [MENTION=67338]GMforPowergamers[/MENTION] has a good point about combining properties. I wouldn't necessarily rule it out, but it would absolutely have to be on a case by case basis. The flip side to this is that if you allow enough items to be combined, you could have a player suddenly coming up with an item that combines all of the assorted typed damage resists into one.

As was mentioned up thread, I think if you make these strictly DM created items, you should be okay as you can just say "No." when a proposal is out of line. I wouldn't allow these types of items to be made with a simple Enchant Magic Item ritual use.

 

[aco175]

I like whe GM ForPowerGamer says with limiting all the powers. I would make it a rare item for that character. Rare items is one of the things I would like to use more of, but have not had the time to make more, or find more that I like. I don't think what you are saying would break anything, at least in my group.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Like a few have said, I would limit it to one property and one encounter/daily use. To me this sounds like an interesting way to make artifact-like objects to make characters stand out more and thanks for bringing it up

 

[Ryujin]

I guess that I'll chime in as the dissenting vote by saying that I wouldn't allow two items, that occupy a slot, to be combined in 4e. It just screams Munchkin. I might, just might permit it if the player was a role playing type, rather than a power gamer, but it sets a bad precedent. The item would have significantly higher level equivalent than either of the two, separately.

The "law of unintended consequences" also gives high odds of there being unintended interactions, either between the powers provided by this item or through interaction with other items.

I would certainly permit an item, that occupies a slot, to be combined with a thematically appropriate Wondrous Item. This doesn't give as much chance of things going sideways.

 

[Unwise]

I have to agree with Ryujin on this. I would not allow it. There are just too many unintended consequences in this game. For instance, a PC who follows a storm god wants to mount his magical spearhead on a magical staff. So he has a Radiant and Thunder weapon. Holy thunder ahoy. Sound OK if not a bit powerful.

Then look at the feats and other abilities, the munchkinning that a radiant/thunder power permits is just madness. A GM cannot be expected to keep abreast of all of these issues. The good people at WotC have done so for the most part, so there are very specific reasons why certain keywords exist, why certain things only go in some slots etc.

If the GM intends for a PC to have a super item, then give them an artifact as a reward. A PC should not be the one deciding when they want an artifact level item.

It is also a tip of the iceberg issue. You had best be prepared for every players to want every slot on every character to be able to have two enchantments. Why can't they wear a magical robe over their leather armor? Why not wear heaps of rings? I think the assumption is that the magic simply interferes with each other. It is not a matter of what the item physically looks like, or Shada'Kai would have 12 ring slots on their character sheet.

In addition, how do you then reward that character in future if they now have an item better than anything else in their level range, or even the next tier up.