Excerpt: You and Your Magic Items

[drjones]

some reasonable math stuff

I don't think that will ever be an issue because the DM should be carefully controlling how many items are handed out so you will rarely find yourself with 3-5 items of the same level you want to sell let alone have it happen so often that they could 'farm' it somehow without giving up the items they should be using to fight.

If this was WoW it would have to be PERFECTLY controlled so some dip would not use slight variances to farm cash endlessly but there is a DM in this game who can easily say 'guys, this is boring. lets get back to the adventure ok?'

 

[Sojorn]

Yeah, I was thinking about yoinking this too. Although, I actually have a suggestion that I KNOW won't break game balance.

Give out the extra bonus as if it were treasure. Don't tie it to a specific level, but rather to a particular encounter. If you pre-determine it, you can give the PC that proper interim "boost," and the feeling of incremental improvement, without handing out a new item.

There's no reason that all those encounter-specific "bumps" (usually treasure) have to take the form of physical objects.

Just a thought.

Also seems to make sense to hand them out during the climax of an encounter. Not sure if it should come before or after a critical point though.

These non-item item increases strike me as stemming from the ability of these types of heroes to overcome. It's the reaching deep inside yourself and rising to heights you didn't know you were capable of.

Hmmmm. How about this for an extreme example of a no magic items game. Throw out the treasure tables pretty much. All gold is basically for RP purposes. Magic items cannot be bought or made. They effectively don't exist. Another type of reward from encounters, given only once each level to each character, called an "item marker". Complete meta-game construct, like action points. These would have a level that's two higher than the receiving character. So a level 2 character would get a level 4 item marker. These can be saved as long as you wish. They do not level up with the character. So a level 4 character could have a 3, 4, 5 and a 6 level marker in an extreme case.

You may spend a marker as a free action at any time, once an encounter. Spending a marker has one of the following effects:
1) Immediately ends all save ends effects on you with no aftereffects.
2) Increases your attack rolls by +2 and your damage by 10/20/30 (heroic/paragon/epic) until the end of your next turn
3) Increases your AC and defenses by +4 until the end of your next turn

In addition, the marker gives you the effects of an item of your choice of its level or lower, forever, inherently, as if you always have the item equipped (although you will actually need a weapon or armor equipped to gain the effects of a marker spent for a weapon or armor). These rules would not ignore slots. Using a marker to gain the effect of an item when you already have one spent for that slot changes what is in that slot. Customize what items you allow based on class, general magic level, whatever.

It sacrifices the treasure mattering to the mechanics, as well as the fun of the unpredictability of treasure and places a much greater emphasis on what the characters are capable of, but it seems like it might create some pretty epic moments for the characters to pull out their fancy new tricks, doesn't it?

 

[Knightlord]

I also have an observation: you seem very confrontational when it comes to players. I imagine that you and your campaign have been burned in the past and you're a bit leery of players painting you and your game in a poor light...

Agreed. I've also noticed this "confrontational" stance in the thread regarding the possible power source of the Monk, and your rather brutal denouncement of Psionics. Perhaps you should try being a bit more "flexible"? Or perhaps "compromising"?

Just a suggestion.

Edit: This post is directed towards Aria. Sorry, I probably should have left his name in the quote so that everyone knew who I was addressing. Won't happen again, I SWEAR!

 

[Kaffis]

Which is why the D&D books should be more ambiguous about creating a default "D&D". It creates too many perceptions that this is the way things should be and will always be when players read the book. The economics article could have easily said something like,"If the DM allows it, magic items can be sold for 20% of their base value. Blah blah blah..."

Instead, it starts off with the presumption that every DM is going to allow magic items to be sold for X amount of value and then decides, well unless the DM says otherwise.

...

All of the economics I've seen have specifically stated that this is a *base* market value, and that conditions can be less favorable to the player due to things like proximity to trade centers, etc. etc. 20% is a balancing guideline, above which things begin to unravel. In that regard, 20% is what the game is designed for, but the games rules say you may not get it already (or the implication is that they say that, given that they say that purchasing prices can be 10-40% higher with ease).

In addition, if your players are getting so bent out of shape about a rule of yours, maybe you should consider giving some ground in order to make the game more fun for the people playing. I think that DMs, especially old ones prone to tinkering, can get way too wrapped up in the "masterpiece" that is their setting, and forget that the players are there to have fun. If your players' idea of fun is a setting that promotes the wonder and rarity of magic such that selling magical items to a mere shopkeeper for something as mundane as a handful of gold is out of the question, great! But if that's not their idea of fun, why are you forcing un-fun on them? Keep doing it, and you're going to run out of players.

 

[Mercule]

For those planning to give automatic +s, I'll note that you can quickly hit a thing where people no longer care about finding new magic weapons and such from like level 5-25.

Okay. Works for me.

I've never been in a game where anyone wanted to quest for an uber-cool weapon twice. Things pretty much broke down to two camps: 1) characters who had a signature weapon and 2) characters who frisked every corpse, crack, and coffer looking for their next toy. The former were usually concerned with mechanical obsolescence of a character-defining element while the latter have avoided any sort of "quest for Excalibur" because it'd give them something they could never upgrade in good conscience.

The stories told in my games have generally been about heroes saving the damsel/town/kingdom/world or about people accumulating power that's useful in a outside what you could gain by just being higher level (e.g. bigger BAB). Sure, everybody likes having a trinket that gives them an edge, but it isn't the end in itself. Even though Excalibur was awesome in combat, its real value was in being the mark of the true King.

If your stories have a strong component of personal arms race to them, it would definitely be odd to remove the defined pluses. For my games, what you perceive as a drawback is actually a motivating benefit.

 

[Lanefan]

..

Please. Flaming weapons (and it appears, many others) do something neat and very visible on a crit. My fighter, in his 2 minutes of short rest, walks over to the nearest tree stump, and swings the well balanced sword at the stump 20 times (essentially taking 20). One of those times, it crits and bursts into fire.

Huh. This must be a flaming sword.

Ta-da!

Absolutely. But, two things to say here:

1. You did the right thing and actually had your Fighter *do* the test in character (some here see to think such things are a waste of time), and
2. You still have no idea what the weapon's base "plus" is, if any, nor if it has any other neat and funky abilities, curses, etc.

I have no problem at all with characters figuring out what their items do, provided such figuring is done in character as exampled above. Where I have a problem is with too much information being handed out...in the example above, being told after the same test that it's a +2 Flaming sword that cannot function in an ambient temperature less than -10 C (let's assume the test was done outdoors on a fine spring day) is just too much.

At least preserve *some* mystery!

As for the "problem" of DMs losing track of what various items do, we-ell, I have no sympathy whatsoever as it's incumbent on you as DM to keep track of items anyway...an item numbering system can be a big help here - every time you give out an item (magic or not) in treasury, give it a number. *Insist* your players record the number on their sheets along with the item. Keep your own list of items in numerical order. Then, when someone swings with an unidentified sword you just ask "what number is it?" and can then easily reference your list to remind yourself what it does. This becomes essential when a) items have properties unknown to the characters/players e.g. curses, and-or b) when there are several similar-on-the-surface items e.g. "+2 swords" in a party but they are in fact not the same at all...item #36 that Sharana is using is in fact +1 to hit/+3 damage, item #38 that Astacoe is using is a straight +2, while item #39 in Khurin's hands is +1 base with extra benefits vs. dragons only. But they all radiate about the same level of magic and the party have assumed they're all +2's...it's up to you to keep them straight until such time as the party gets them ID'ed - if ever.

Item numbers for non-magic items can be a big help also - "You find 6 assorted gems, call them item #41; they look pretty nice on first glance." You write down "41 - 6 gems, 350 g.p. total [or list individual values if you like]", then when the party goes to divide treasury later and (one assumes) gets things appraised you have a ready-to-hand value. Never give them the value on the spot when they find the gems, as the gems could get stolen or shattered or lost long before reaching town and a chance for a decent appraisal.

Lanefan

 

[Kaffis]

I don't think that will ever be an issue because the DM should be carefully controlling how many items are handed out so you will rarely find yourself with 3-5 items of the same level you want to sell let alone have it happen so often that they could 'farm' it somehow without giving up the items they should be using to fight.

If this was WoW it would have to be PERFECTLY controlled so some dip would not use slight variances to farm cash endlessly but there is a DM in this game who can easily say 'guys, this is boring. lets get back to the adventure ok?'

The more I think on it, the more I lean towards this, yeah. On the one hand, I don't think 3 items would be ridiculous to amass. On the other, I don't think a 3:1 exchange ratio is ultimately profitable (or at least, not exploitable) to the players, unless you're just intentionally giving them the worst, most useless items you can. As such, it probably doesn't matter that the exchange rate differs slightly based on level of the items involved.

On the other hand, it probably wouldn't hurt to substitute in a smooth curve.

 

[Voss]

For those planning to give automatic +s, I'll note that you can quickly hit a thing where people no longer care about finding new magic weapons and such from like level 5-25.

Woohoo! I'd be really glad of that, personally. If players actually start looking up from the bodies they're looting and start thinking about things like the story, the adventure, the plot, the npcs, their own characters and, buying castles, ships and the like, and treating money as, well, money rather than a power source, I'd be really, really pleased.

 

[Rechan]

The problem with that, Lanefan, is that the DM must keep up with all that stuff. So he must remember what the sword does when the PC uses it in -10 C wihtout telling the player. Keeping track of everyone's equipment when they don't know what it is is increasingly annoying bookkeeping.

Just telling the player '+2 Longsword, here's the stats for a flaming weapon, apply those on your character sheet' is fine. You don't have to tell him 'oh and it can be doused by water elementals', but leave all the mechanical mumbo jumbo to his character sheet and let him figure it up.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

1. You did the right thing and actually had your Fighter *do* the test in character (some here see to think such things are a waste of time)

For my part, it's not that I don't care about roleplaying, but that I do not want to engage in a tedious guessing game with my players. When a player gnashes his teeth and threatens one of my NPCs because he has cheated him out of thousands of gold, that's a potential roleplaying situation. Having my player tell me, in full detail, how he swings his axe 20 different ways so that he might stumble onto its magical properties is not.