Li Shenron
Legend
I am still planning the low-magic-item setting for next year's campaign, and I still have lots of doubt about it, so I decided to open another thread about the topic.
I think the ideas below should work fine with permanent magic items, but I cannot sort out what to do to limit the creation of consumable magic items.
What follows is a briefing of how magic items will be placed in the setting.
Permanent magic items
- they will be very few in the world and each PC probably is supposed to have about 1/5 levels
- each p.m.i. will concentrate the powers of several standard magic items
- a p.m.i is attuned to its owner and will develop new powers as the PC uses it and progresses in levels
- the new powers will be semi-randomly determined (tied to the PC's deeds)
- the DM keeps track that the total "value" of a PC's p.m.i. abilities is in line with the DMG equipment/level table
- p.m.i are priceless in the setting, you don't normally buy or sell them
- item creation feats will be useful only for choosing the new powers you want the item to develop, or to make a separate item
- there is no gp or xp cost to create p.m.i.
- no magic item will give bonus to the 6 base stats*
- since a p.m.i. is attuned to its owner, in someone else's hands it will display less powers or none at all (UMD will help)
*this is not actually relevant to the current discussion, just know that PCs are still going to get those bonuses, but not through items
Two important things are that experience and treasure will be handled in a free form: IOW, there are no straight XP given but level advancement occurs when it suits the players and matches the adventure difficulty. Whether there is any kind of accounting of the treasure value or otherwise not at all, still depends on what I should do with consumable magic items! However, since p.m.i. are priceless, there will be no treasure->magic->power consequence. A completely free-form wealth would lead the PCs to find non-combat ways to invest the treasure.
Consumable magic items
These include scrolls, potions, and everything which has a single-time use or a limited number of uses. After doing all the job with p.m.i., I end up with the nice consequence that since money doesn't help getting more powerful in a direct way, it doesn't really matter anymore to keep counting how much gp the PCs have.
However, I am left with the question: what can I do to prevent the PCs to make thousands of c.m.i. for free?
1) If I re-introduce the gp cost (the main limit in a standard setting), I lose all the benefits about wealth that I was looking for.
2) If I re-introduce the xp cost, and eventually increase it a little to compensate for lack of gp cost, I have to drop the idea of free-form advancement. This would be easier to live without, but still I hope to find a better way.
3) One chance is to let the PC create c.m.i. freely, add the value to the total equivalent value of the PC's gear, and don't let the PC create more of them once the max is reached.
This has the drawbacks of more careful accounting needed from me (the value should still record even once the c.m.i. is used up), and that in-character it is hard to explain the limit.
4) I could stress the in-character need of crafting time, facilities and ingredients. This will be fun but also difficult to keep everything to the right amount.
5) I could give c.m.i. an expiration date which, once tied together with the crafting time, will indirectly limit the amount of c.m.i. owned at any time. This is an entirely new idea and it would need some work from scratch.
Would you mind commenting these ideas, how do you like them, and pointing out the main problems that I haven't noticed?
That would be a great help!
BTW feel free to move the thread somewhere else if appropriate. It's more about a campaign setting affair but may be treated as HR.
I think the ideas below should work fine with permanent magic items, but I cannot sort out what to do to limit the creation of consumable magic items.
What follows is a briefing of how magic items will be placed in the setting.
Permanent magic items
- they will be very few in the world and each PC probably is supposed to have about 1/5 levels
- each p.m.i. will concentrate the powers of several standard magic items
- a p.m.i is attuned to its owner and will develop new powers as the PC uses it and progresses in levels
- the new powers will be semi-randomly determined (tied to the PC's deeds)
- the DM keeps track that the total "value" of a PC's p.m.i. abilities is in line with the DMG equipment/level table
- p.m.i are priceless in the setting, you don't normally buy or sell them
- item creation feats will be useful only for choosing the new powers you want the item to develop, or to make a separate item
- there is no gp or xp cost to create p.m.i.
- no magic item will give bonus to the 6 base stats*
- since a p.m.i. is attuned to its owner, in someone else's hands it will display less powers or none at all (UMD will help)
*this is not actually relevant to the current discussion, just know that PCs are still going to get those bonuses, but not through items
Two important things are that experience and treasure will be handled in a free form: IOW, there are no straight XP given but level advancement occurs when it suits the players and matches the adventure difficulty. Whether there is any kind of accounting of the treasure value or otherwise not at all, still depends on what I should do with consumable magic items! However, since p.m.i. are priceless, there will be no treasure->magic->power consequence. A completely free-form wealth would lead the PCs to find non-combat ways to invest the treasure.
Consumable magic items
These include scrolls, potions, and everything which has a single-time use or a limited number of uses. After doing all the job with p.m.i., I end up with the nice consequence that since money doesn't help getting more powerful in a direct way, it doesn't really matter anymore to keep counting how much gp the PCs have.
However, I am left with the question: what can I do to prevent the PCs to make thousands of c.m.i. for free?
1) If I re-introduce the gp cost (the main limit in a standard setting), I lose all the benefits about wealth that I was looking for.
2) If I re-introduce the xp cost, and eventually increase it a little to compensate for lack of gp cost, I have to drop the idea of free-form advancement. This would be easier to live without, but still I hope to find a better way.
3) One chance is to let the PC create c.m.i. freely, add the value to the total equivalent value of the PC's gear, and don't let the PC create more of them once the max is reached.
This has the drawbacks of more careful accounting needed from me (the value should still record even once the c.m.i. is used up), and that in-character it is hard to explain the limit.
4) I could stress the in-character need of crafting time, facilities and ingredients. This will be fun but also difficult to keep everything to the right amount.
5) I could give c.m.i. an expiration date which, once tied together with the crafting time, will indirectly limit the amount of c.m.i. owned at any time. This is an entirely new idea and it would need some work from scratch.
Would you mind commenting these ideas, how do you like them, and pointing out the main problems that I haven't noticed?
That would be a great help!BTW feel free to move the thread somewhere else if appropriate. It's more about a campaign setting affair but may be treated as HR.
