brehobit
Explorer
This was posted in a different forum in response to complaints about too many items carried around by a PC. Thought I'd post it here and ask for comments.
Here is my take on a solution to the "Lots of magic items" Doesn't drop the "magic items are huge" aspect but...
Step 1: Give only ~1/3 of the expected money/level.
Step 2: Allow the creation of "heirloom" items. The item only works for the person it is created for (or direct desendents or perhaps members of the same PrC etc.). Further, a person can only have one heirloom item (they get bonded to the soul, one per customer.)
Binding an item costs the an amount equal to the DMG EXPs required to create it. Creating a heirloom item costs 1,000 GP+1/4 of the normal cost of the item and 1/4 of the normal EXPs. Upgrading an item can be done pretty much normally (difference between old and new value)/4 +1000, but binding is more expensive (repay half of old binding cost plus the full EXP cost for the upgrade). So an item that per DMG cost 10,000 GP would cost 3,500 GP +100 EXPs to make and 400 EXPs to bond. Upgrading it to a 20,000 DMG cost item would be 3,500 GP+100EXPs, and 200+400 EXPs to bond. Bonding takes 1 day per 10,000 GP DMG value.
One can try to bind an item created for someone else, but it costs normal EXPs and may fail (and on a critical failure could cause serious badness). (Target number is 5+DMG cost/5,000, use better of will save (+5 if you have the right creation feat) or UMD skill. Crit failure if miss by 10 or more. Crit failure can be level drain, stat drain, or having item bond as cursed item of some sort)
PCs tend to upgrade rarely (because of the EXP cost) but generally get what they want. Further, the baddies can have nice items that the PCs can't use (or probably sell) without significant work. You have to figure out who their heir is, find someone interested in buying the thing, or perhaps take a level in the needed PrC (depending on the item). You still see people buying and making non-heirloom "cheap" items (+2 resistance, bag of holding etc.) but mostly money gets saved for upgrades at the local wizard's guild (or temple or using item creation feats).
The DM has to be careful about what combinations of powers are allowed in heirloom items, and I tend to require items to follow a theme of some sort. A +3 holy sword, that provides a +3 deflection bonus and a +3 resistance bonus and casts spells as a 3rd level cleric is pretty reasonable for 13-14th level character if that is the vast majority of their "stuff".
The PCs tend to have a power level slightly lower than that of normal PCs, with normal items even though they may have a similar total value (using normal DMG rules). Only pretty high-level bad guys have non-heirloom items of any significant power. You should find that your PCs will have potions and scrolls, but otherwise will keep their money in their heirloom items.
Here is my take on a solution to the "Lots of magic items" Doesn't drop the "magic items are huge" aspect but...
Step 1: Give only ~1/3 of the expected money/level.
Step 2: Allow the creation of "heirloom" items. The item only works for the person it is created for (or direct desendents or perhaps members of the same PrC etc.). Further, a person can only have one heirloom item (they get bonded to the soul, one per customer.)
Binding an item costs the an amount equal to the DMG EXPs required to create it. Creating a heirloom item costs 1,000 GP+1/4 of the normal cost of the item and 1/4 of the normal EXPs. Upgrading an item can be done pretty much normally (difference between old and new value)/4 +1000, but binding is more expensive (repay half of old binding cost plus the full EXP cost for the upgrade). So an item that per DMG cost 10,000 GP would cost 3,500 GP +100 EXPs to make and 400 EXPs to bond. Upgrading it to a 20,000 DMG cost item would be 3,500 GP+100EXPs, and 200+400 EXPs to bond. Bonding takes 1 day per 10,000 GP DMG value.
One can try to bind an item created for someone else, but it costs normal EXPs and may fail (and on a critical failure could cause serious badness). (Target number is 5+DMG cost/5,000, use better of will save (+5 if you have the right creation feat) or UMD skill. Crit failure if miss by 10 or more. Crit failure can be level drain, stat drain, or having item bond as cursed item of some sort)
PCs tend to upgrade rarely (because of the EXP cost) but generally get what they want. Further, the baddies can have nice items that the PCs can't use (or probably sell) without significant work. You have to figure out who their heir is, find someone interested in buying the thing, or perhaps take a level in the needed PrC (depending on the item). You still see people buying and making non-heirloom "cheap" items (+2 resistance, bag of holding etc.) but mostly money gets saved for upgrades at the local wizard's guild (or temple or using item creation feats).
The DM has to be careful about what combinations of powers are allowed in heirloom items, and I tend to require items to follow a theme of some sort. A +3 holy sword, that provides a +3 deflection bonus and a +3 resistance bonus and casts spells as a 3rd level cleric is pretty reasonable for 13-14th level character if that is the vast majority of their "stuff".
The PCs tend to have a power level slightly lower than that of normal PCs, with normal items even though they may have a similar total value (using normal DMG rules). Only pretty high-level bad guys have non-heirloom items of any significant power. You should find that your PCs will have potions and scrolls, but otherwise will keep their money in their heirloom items.
