Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7272097" data-attributes="member: 4937">There are things you can do, but since treasure is ultimately the DM's prerogative, ultimately it depends on the DM being the one to solve the problem and not the PC.1) Hand out fewer but more broadly powerful items.  Rather than placing three minor items that each offer some benefit, design more potent items that offer the three benefits in one package.2) Create items that grow in power along with your PCs.  This is an extremely practical solution that I try to adopt and which actually has reference to the most iconic magic items of all time - Tolkien's Rings of Power.  According to the lore, the rings of power were more powerful the more power their wielder had.  They not only required greater power to unlock their secrets, but they amplified the power of whomever wore them.  In D&D terms, you have weapons that 'level up' with the players so that the sword which is +1 when first found is +2 in the hands of a sixth level character, and +3 in the hands of a 12th level character and so forth.   Unlockable bonus abilities are also cool.   For example, I like to drop items like Rings of Elemental Command relatively early in the game as otherwise innocuous 'rings of useful minor ability', knowing that at some future point the rings major powers will be unlocked when the characters defeat a force giant or kill a blue dragon or some other feat required to power up the ring.  And it doesn't have to be an actual Ring of Elemental Command, you can do the same thing with other sorts of items if you are creative.3) Enforce those item slot limitations while giving players no reason to violate them.  Try to limit reasons for the player want to wear hat, helm, and headband, most critically because the hat, handband, and helm don't work together.  Pick one.  And this goes back to point 1 as well, because if the only reason the player is wearing a magic hat and a helm is that the magic hat doesn't work as a mundane hard hat, make that magic hat work as a mundane hard hat when you design it.  It's a very minor point, but it does make the item more 'awesome' worthy.4) Try to avoid running a game where the golf bag full of weapons is really necessary.  This is the hardest one because it involves tweaking the rules and for most systems that involves very comprehensive changes with a deep understanding of what the consequences will be.  But it is possible to run D&D in any edition where the magic item 'stack' that each player has isn't excessive.   It involves balancing the PC classes better, investing more in skills and feats and non-spellcasting class abilities, nerfing spells that trivially solve problems that would otherwise require non-spellcasting PCs, tweaking monsters with the expectation of less gear given the PC's level, and so forth.   This is probably the hardest to implement, but it's ok.  You can ignore this point and forcus on the other ones and I think the result would still be good enough.5) Make the items you give out aesthetically interesting and if possible pleasing to the player.  This is both hard and easy at the same time.  It's easy in the sense that it doesn't take a lot of effort to give a magic item some unique look to it.   It's hard, because ultimately the PC's look is going to involve a combination of several of those items, and the more garish they are the more they will likely clash with each other.   For example, I've a PC wearing a bear skin cloak, and wielding a painted monkey's skull in one hand and a living wooden wand (complete with leaves) in the other.   Another PC wears a long black cape, ring armor, and wields two handed a rapier with a glowing pink blade.   Yet another wears a suit of turquoise sea dragon scale armor, a white tabard with a black raven on it, a broad leather belt with a gold buckle, a black traveler's clock, and wields a shining silver morning star and steel shield.  Plus he has a glaive (usually strapped to his stead), a bow, and a cutlass.  So yeah, getting into the bag of weapons problem in that case.  I have no idea how my players feel about the fashion choices that are forced on them if they want to use their gear, but at least they know what their gear looks like and we aren't yet at the point where it has gotten too garish.</blockquote>

Verification