How to enforce low magic item count

[Infinite Monkey@Work]

My players are 5th level at the moment. As such, they are starting to reach the sort of levels where magic item s are common on enemies. In my world, magic items apart from potions and the like are rare and tend to grow with the character. E.g. The undead hating priest is gowing to find out that hiw warhammer+1 is actually an ancient weapon named mercy, which always does subdual damage. Once he defeats his arch nemesis vampire, the warhammer will gain the disruption power and so on.

As such, I don't want the bad guys to end up giving the players and endless supply of generic +1 weapons or whatever, becuase I don't want there to be any 'generic' weapons. I can partially deal with this by giving powerful badguys weapons that the players will refuse to use (evil powers and so on), but I don't want to do this all the time.

So how can I balance my campaign so that I can challange the PCs without handing out endless generic items (not just weapons and armour). For example, how much of a penalty should I give to the CR of a NPC for taking away its assumed level of magic items? i.e. a 5th level fighter with appropriate magic items is equivalent to an Xth level fighter with just potions and stuff.

 

[Tonguez]

Magical Tatoos that give a +1 Attack bonus to the NPC

This means that the NPC gets the same effect BUT when the PCs steal his gear all they get is a rusty sword!

MWHAHAHAHA

 

[shilsen]

All villains out there "coincidentally" have a friendly cleric who casts Greater Magic Weapon on their weapons.

 

[Infinite Monkey@Work]

Luckily, because of the way the campaign world is set out, I will mostly be able to make do with monsters for the PCs to fight, plus occasional powerfl bad guys with 'unusable' weapons, but this is still going to crop up.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Magical ranged weapons (arrows) only work once.

 

[Cedric]

Don't give them an outlet for anything to do with their +1 weapons. No place to sell them...no one to trade them too...what are they going to do?

Well...the church loves donated magical weapons and might barter potions of healing or wands/scrolls for their excess magic items.

Cedric

 

[Garmorn]

If weapons grow with their owners then they might 'die' or loss power until 'Bonded' with a new owner. This might mean that once you have bonded with a weapon/suite of armor you can't bond with another. Use the familiar rules for changing.

I hope this helps you in your campain.

One comment in this type of world the Craft items feats are of less to no value and you will need to let your spell casters know ahead of time or modify their charactes.

 

[Infinite Monkey@Work]

The existing items in the campaign are generally 'activated' by knowledge or deeds. E.g. the duelist uncovers a bit of family history mentioning her (inherited) rapier and 'fiery doom' and bingo, she can use it as a flaming weapon.

Also, my players couldn't care less about making their own items, so I don't need to worry about that part

 

[Garmorn]

The existing items in the campaign are generally 'activated' by knowledge or deeds. E.g. the duelist uncovers a bit of family history mentioning her (inherited) rapier and 'fiery doom' and bingo, she can use it as a flaming weapon.

So unless they know the history of an item they will not benifit from the item right?

The in it self seems to be a nice method of limiting the number of items. It will also limite the value of these items. i.e.

The PC: I have magical sword for sell, but I don't know anything about it. Yes that means I can't tell any thing about it nor can I tell you how to activate it's powers.

The NPC: Mmmm, since I can only test it to prove it is magical and it might take years, if ever to unlock it's power I will offer you 1000gp.

This is a nice method. Fits well with lots of type of worlds.

 

[jgbrowning]

well

make the items semi-conscious.. the consciousness of their history (their interactions with living creatures) provides power to them. your rapier is a good example.


but.. force them to reach a certain powerlevel before they can be "passed on". ie. the items have to be appropriate for a 10th level character before it is really considered independantly magical. if lower it eventtually wears off.

all items that are lower level and have been passed on require some sort of ceremony of giving away... ie.. here's my sword son, it served your grandfather and me well.....

if the party finds an item that is less than 10th, and it came from a person with an allignment pretty different than theirs just have the consciousness die a death from neglect as the PC's wouldnt feed the evil. If the item is above 10th.. have it try to possess them!

joe b.