How do you determine the rarity of items?

[Da3mon]

Last weekend I was finally able to run my first game of D&D, and it was a success I made my own adventure, and I was a bit frustated at the tresure selection. I mostly just hit the random button on asmor.com until I hit some items that I liked. I recently got the Rules Compendium and I wanted to use the rarity rules, give them more common stuff, and some uncommon stuff on later levels. However it isnt clearly defined what actually would be uncommon, common, or rare, there are a couple of examples, but thats it.

So my question to you, is how do you determine the rarity of items?
-Do you just say this item is rare, this item is common, and thats it?
-I thought about using item powers as a reference. If it has a power its uncommon at least.
-I know that Essentials rules are not in the Char Builder, but its a possiblity that items will include rarity stats.

On a somewhat related question: Are there item creation rules that I am missing? I could only find the Enchant Item ritual. Since it sound pretty basic I am thinking that Enchant Item would only be able to make common magic items from non-magic stuff. But how would you make lets say a magic sword direct in a forge? Useing Enchant Item while its being made would be OK for a two-person job, but how would a single player do it?

 

[BobTheNob]

Welcome

Im pretty sure that your assumption about enchant item only applying to common stuff is correct. That siad, I dont actually have the rules in front of me, so Im not entirely sure...(mind you, it makes sense)

As to how to grade items? One of the best suggestions I have heard is hit the Char-Op boards. Any item that shows up frequently should be rare.

Like (controversially) "Iron armbands". Jeeze I hate this things. A big chunky passive bonus to damage for melee attacks. Boring but potent and show up everywhere "Melee Striker Huh? You need iron armbands!". A whole megaverse full of interesting equipment, yet only one type of armband. But if it was rare...

 

[Jhaelen]

-Do you just say this item is rare, this item is common, and thats it?

Pretty much, yes.

 

[Shin Okada]

Well, it may not be an appropriate answer to your question. But I will just wait till WotC issues complete list of rarities for magic items, and more importantly, more detailed rules for Item Rarity.

This rule change is still not clear how it meant to work. Say, how we should make treasure parcels depend on rarity, how rarities will effect on the selection of PC's gears when starting a game at higher level, how it will effects on various rituals and such.

 

[FireLance]

I think the signals are getting kind of mixed.

One school of thought is that rarity should be based on a magic item's complexity. Items with simple, static properties should be common. More complex items, such as those with a single daily power, should be uncommon. The most complex items which have multiple powers are rare. Under this system, a simple but powerful item, such as bracers that grant a significant but static bonus to weapon damage rolls, would be common.

The other school of thought is that rarity should be based on a magic item's power relative to other items of its level. Items that are relatively low in power would be common. Items of average power would be uncommon, and items which are at the top tier of power for their level would be rare. The above-mentioned bracers would be rare under this framework.

Somewhere along the line, the idea that rare items should also be character-defining magic items was thrown into the mix.

Now, there is some overlap in all of the above. A powerful item could very well have multiple properties and be character-defining. However, there are also items which would be classified under different categories depending on the framework.

For what it's worth, I think that complexity is the primary framework used to classify magic items, since Heroes of the Fallen Lands lists a 2nd-level magic item which adds a static +2 bonus to the damage rolls of melee basic attacks as a common item despite the fact that this will add to the damage of practically every attack made by the knights, slayers and thieves described in the book.