High level 3e magic item purchasing... when does enough become too much?
- Thread starter Piratecat
- Start date
Cloudgatherer
First Post
Surprised no one has commented on this yet....
If your players are making items of uber power and you are concerned about it, then so should the enemies of the party. Seriously, if it becomes known Master Magus dropped 50K in gold in a big city for magical supplies to create a staff of beatdown then it is in the best interest of Master Magus' archvillain to either 1) disrupt the creation of the item or 2) steal said item when finished.
Admittedly, this is taking a rather "evil DM" approach, but it can be fun!
I'd also limit the party to purchasing magic items on their own plane (prime material). I can just see it now....
NPC on some unheard of material plane: "Where did you say you were from? Greyhawk?!?! You mean you live on a big bird? It's a city? I've never heard of it before. You must be crazy, pal. I'm not dealing with someone who doesn't even have a home!"
Seriously, what high-level NPC is going to sell to outworlders? (Probably evil ones, who are more likely to stick it to them anyway.)
I say make creating magic items relatively easy, while purchasing them can be adventures in and of themselves....
If your players are making items of uber power and you are concerned about it, then so should the enemies of the party. Seriously, if it becomes known Master Magus dropped 50K in gold in a big city for magical supplies to create a staff of beatdown then it is in the best interest of Master Magus' archvillain to either 1) disrupt the creation of the item or 2) steal said item when finished.
Admittedly, this is taking a rather "evil DM" approach, but it can be fun!
I'd also limit the party to purchasing magic items on their own plane (prime material). I can just see it now....
NPC on some unheard of material plane: "Where did you say you were from? Greyhawk?!?! You mean you live on a big bird? It's a city? I've never heard of it before. You must be crazy, pal. I'm not dealing with someone who doesn't even have a home!"
Seriously, what high-level NPC is going to sell to outworlders? (Probably evil ones, who are more likely to stick it to them anyway.)
I say make creating magic items relatively easy, while purchasing them can be adventures in and of themselves....
Kugar
First Post
Ridley's Cohort said:
Again I feel the amount of free market enterprise in a civilization where marketplaces are the height of financial techologly disconcerting. Second I've seen 2 issues with rampant purchasing of magic.
First - balance. Barter - balance assured give a little get a little. Money - should be balcanced. If the money is right than the gear should be ok, as long as the DMG prices are not low (boots of spped, or boots of striding and springing). Also monetary value has a tendency of piling up or being aquired in onorthidox ways. In earlier editions this wasn't really a problem since there wasn't really anything PCs could do with it. Since this Pkitty's campaign is a conversion, I would be surprized if he didn't have money issues. It's not the power level per say, but the constant additions of minor ones that get annoying. Magic for any occasion as it were.
Second - flavor. If you pride youself on having unique magic in your stories, and then the PCs go out and blow a wad of cash on generic magic items it dilutes the effort you put into the world. It's giving up control of a part of your game to what the designers wrote as the DnD vanilla.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Re: Re: High level 3e magic item purchasing... when does enough become too much?
Good lord. What a great collection of ideas and comments. No troll, incidentally; it's really something that I'm thinking about. When is too much? How hard should it be to find stuff? I keep asking myself these questions. Campaign balance is less delicate at 15th level than it is at 5th, but it's still a valid concern.
More the former than the latter. Although I no longer control access to the markets to the extent I once did, I think successful and smart players should reap the benefits of their success. I have no interest in arbitrarily limiting access because I'm scared it might be a problem. I'm a lot more interested in making such access interesting and noteworthy, and I'm not sure I've been doing that to the extent I should be.
Reapersaurus identified part of my worry; it's harder to judge the effect of several mid-power items than it is one uber-item. I can judge whether or not the staff of righteous wuss-smacking is too powerful or not; it's the combination of the wand of mighty pectorals, orb of lung bursting and scarab of cowering on PCs who have bought them to shore up their defenses. That part is still going to require a leap of faith; but with some of these ideas, at least the acquisition might be fun.
Good lord. What a great collection of ideas and comments. No troll, incidentally; it's really something that I'm thinking about. When is too much? How hard should it be to find stuff? I keep asking myself these questions. Campaign balance is less delicate at 15th level than it is at 5th, but it's still a valid concern.
reapersaurus said:
More the former than the latter. Although I no longer control access to the markets to the extent I once did, I think successful and smart players should reap the benefits of their success. I have no interest in arbitrarily limiting access because I'm scared it might be a problem. I'm a lot more interested in making such access interesting and noteworthy, and I'm not sure I've been doing that to the extent I should be.
Reapersaurus identified part of my worry; it's harder to judge the effect of several mid-power items than it is one uber-item. I can judge whether or not the staff of righteous wuss-smacking is too powerful or not; it's the combination of the wand of mighty pectorals, orb of lung bursting and scarab of cowering on PCs who have bought them to shore up their defenses. That part is still going to require a leap of faith; but with some of these ideas, at least the acquisition might be fun.
Gargoyle
Adventurer
My group is much lower level, 6th as you know. And your group is heavy on divination and planar travel, even for their level, and you've got high level psionics to deal with as well. I'm not qualified to give you great advice on this, as the only high level 3E games I've run were various one-shots.
But I've got some ideas:
- First, if you're uncomfortable with the amount of magic items, I'd do an audit. Have them each list every magic item and piece of treasure for you, and check it against the wealth levels for PCs in the DMG. I started doing this when they level up, and it's very helpful. I don't really use it to penalize anyone, but more to make sure that I'm placing enough treasure. If they don't have enough wealth, the CR system gets very skewed, and I also want to make sure that nobody is getting left out. Once you have a good handle on what everyone's got, it's a lot easier to challenge them and not be surprised.
- Remember to have them make saves for items when appropriate. Otherwise, their magic item collection will grow like a cancer.
- Items that have penalties as well as bonuses can balance things out a little. Our rogue has a keen rapier +1, one of the few magic weapons in the group. He loves it, except that it glows brightly and ruins any chance of hiding...
- I like to make magic items with charges like wands and potions plentiful, and permanent magic items rare. And charged items seldom have many charges when found.
- Remember that any economic system has a way of balancing itself. If the adventurers spend a lot of cash, prices will go up, even in Sigil. Bring a chest full of gold into a city, and the value of gold will go down as soon as it's spent.
- If things get out of hand with too much magic, you can always throw something of a higher CR at them if they need a challenge. After all, if your 15th level group is performing like an 18th level group because of their clever gameplay and/or too much magic, they should be ok against a CR18, usually.
But I've got some ideas:
- First, if you're uncomfortable with the amount of magic items, I'd do an audit. Have them each list every magic item and piece of treasure for you, and check it against the wealth levels for PCs in the DMG. I started doing this when they level up, and it's very helpful. I don't really use it to penalize anyone, but more to make sure that I'm placing enough treasure. If they don't have enough wealth, the CR system gets very skewed, and I also want to make sure that nobody is getting left out. Once you have a good handle on what everyone's got, it's a lot easier to challenge them and not be surprised.
- Remember to have them make saves for items when appropriate. Otherwise, their magic item collection will grow like a cancer.
- Items that have penalties as well as bonuses can balance things out a little. Our rogue has a keen rapier +1, one of the few magic weapons in the group. He loves it, except that it glows brightly and ruins any chance of hiding...
- I like to make magic items with charges like wands and potions plentiful, and permanent magic items rare. And charged items seldom have many charges when found.
- Remember that any economic system has a way of balancing itself. If the adventurers spend a lot of cash, prices will go up, even in Sigil. Bring a chest full of gold into a city, and the value of gold will go down as soon as it's spent.
- If things get out of hand with too much magic, you can always throw something of a higher CR at them if they need a challenge. After all, if your 15th level group is performing like an 18th level group because of their clever gameplay and/or too much magic, they should be ok against a CR18, usually.
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Nightfall
Sage of the Scarred Lands
Here's something that might slip by you...
Just because they HAVE these items doesn't mean someone else doesn't want them. I mean some low level wizard might kill for a couple spell books. But he knows he's not packing the right kind of fire power. So what does he do? He hires out help. Demons, undead, what ever might be interested in some coin he can eke out or maybe give them souls. The fact the matter is IF your PCs starting having too much, then maybe consider the fact there might be others that want their stuff too. Throw assasins after them, keep them on their toes. Eventually their wands/staffs and other charged items will run out and they might find themselves WITHOUT a lot of those high powered spells BECAUSE they might be under a curse that doesn't allow them proper sleep and meditation. Point of fact is, like real life, everyone wants to have what you have IF You have the power, the money and the control.
Just because they HAVE these items doesn't mean someone else doesn't want them. I mean some low level wizard might kill for a couple spell books. But he knows he's not packing the right kind of fire power. So what does he do? He hires out help. Demons, undead, what ever might be interested in some coin he can eke out or maybe give them souls. The fact the matter is IF your PCs starting having too much, then maybe consider the fact there might be others that want their stuff too. Throw assasins after them, keep them on their toes. Eventually their wands/staffs and other charged items will run out and they might find themselves WITHOUT a lot of those high powered spells BECAUSE they might be under a curse that doesn't allow them proper sleep and meditation. Point of fact is, like real life, everyone wants to have what you have IF You have the power, the money and the control.
I wouldn't worry about the item buying too much Piratecat.
In a baseline DND world that sort of thing is perfectly acceptable and may even be commonplace.
If the magic items get out of hand I would try an evil DM approach and have the enemies take countermeasure.
A nice barb 5/ Fighter 4/Forsaker10 with a pet disenchanter or three should do nicely.
Follow up with more Forsakers or some Foes of the Wand mages with pet rust monsters.
Season to taste.....
In a baseline DND world that sort of thing is perfectly acceptable and may even be commonplace.
If the magic items get out of hand I would try an evil DM approach and have the enemies take countermeasure.
A nice barb 5/ Fighter 4/Forsaker10 with a pet disenchanter or three should do nicely.
Follow up with more Forsakers or some Foes of the Wand mages with pet rust monsters.
Season to taste.....
Atticus_of_Amber
Explorer
Joke!
P'kitty, I was *joking* about the troll!
I do, however, think that your Defenders of Daybreak campaign is an example of how a realtively magic soaked high level campaign can work just fine. Admittedly, the combats sometimes read like something out of a super hero comic but, when you think about it, that's what high level combats *would* look like - flying mages, cleaving whirlwinds, etc, etc...
My campaign is much lower level (3-4 right now) and (following your advice, incidentally) I use slow advancement, so it's likelyto stay that way for a long time. Nevertheless, this is what I do:
Charged and one use items (potions, scrolls, wands, staves, etc) are pretty much available for cash. So are low level (+1 or +2) weapons and armour. Everything else becomes much more complicated (quests, etc)...
Not much help, I know...
Oh, and a comment: Looking at the Defenders' character stats (from the old rogues gallery boards) I begin to see your concerns. Given how much teh Defenders kick a$$, I was expecting them to have a monty haul load of magic items. But for level 14-18 characters, they are actually reasonably modest...
P'kitty, I was *joking* about the troll!
I do, however, think that your Defenders of Daybreak campaign is an example of how a realtively magic soaked high level campaign can work just fine. Admittedly, the combats sometimes read like something out of a super hero comic but, when you think about it, that's what high level combats *would* look like - flying mages, cleaving whirlwinds, etc, etc...
My campaign is much lower level (3-4 right now) and (following your advice, incidentally) I use slow advancement, so it's likelyto stay that way for a long time. Nevertheless, this is what I do:
Charged and one use items (potions, scrolls, wands, staves, etc) are pretty much available for cash. So are low level (+1 or +2) weapons and armour. Everything else becomes much more complicated (quests, etc)...
Not much help, I know...
Oh, and a comment: Looking at the Defenders' character stats (from the old rogues gallery boards) I begin to see your concerns. Given how much teh Defenders kick a$$, I was expecting them to have a monty haul load of magic items. But for level 14-18 characters, they are actually reasonably modest...
