Item Creation Rituals - several points

[OsirisDawn]

Point the first:
I'm not happy with the item creation ritual as presented in the PH. It seems too easy to just throw some money into generic ritual materials and make whatever the heck you have money (and levels) for. I realize it says you can enchant a normal item, and not just create something out of thin air. The quality or cost of the normal item is not specified however.
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Point the second:
Resizing magic armor - is one use of the ritual enough to change armor from one size category to any other? The book seems to imply that it is. That raises some economic questions about taking small armor of rare materials, enlarging it, and then smelting it down for the metal value. Like most economics in D&D, it's pretty silly, and I guess I can just turn a blind eye to that. I still am tempted to require a component cost for resizing armor, despite the book saying otherwise. Even making Tenser's floating disk costs you 10g in materials, and resizing a suit of armor seems a lot trickier than that.

Point the third:
So if you can use the ritual to drastically resize magic armor, can it be used to reshape a magic weapon? Is there some game-breaking reason to disallow that usage? I would restrict it to weapons in the same weapon group (light blades, heavy blades, mace, axe, etc.). So if that were possible, you could turn the magic longsword you found into a magic scimitar for your 2-blade ranger.
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1) As i read it you can enchant stuff only with residuum, which is quite rare. Maybe i am wrong, but if that is the case, the GM has plenty of control over enchanting.

2) IMO magic items can't be deconstructed, smelted or whatever. You would need to disenchant it to do so, but that would leave only its one fifth worth in residuum, and no item.
Also the size of the item you enchant does not play a role in the enchantment cost. So the problem you seem to have is house made, 'cause you want to make them pay extra for masterwork stuff.

3) It only resizes the weapon, it not alters it in any other form. A giant sized longsword will become a medium longsword. You can't make a medium scimitar out of it.

All this is IMHO of course

 

[Staffan]

1) As i read it you can enchant stuff only with residuum, which is quite rare. Maybe i am wrong, but if that is the case, the GM has plenty of control over enchanting.

Enchant Item is an arcane ritual, so it uses arcane-ritual components. Residuum can substitute for any sort of ritual components, so you can use that too.

 

[Varis]

Just caught up with the basics in this thread. All I can say is that I still think this Ritual is just 'Broken'.

I just can't escape that conclusion.

Any item you want,...that's worth repeating,..ANY item you want up to your level,..just fork out the mats and gold and away you go.

I'm trying to stick to the core rules, and thus not make it extremely difficult to get materials - but I can't stop shaking my head. There are some really useful items even at level 1 that I'd prefer to keep out of their hands, but i feel obligated to honour the rules and be transparent about it.

I guess it's just me? Are there any other people who feel this ritual is a bit,...overly generous?

 

[Fede]

I don't think that the ritual is overly generous. In my campaign (played from level 1 to level 6, so i don't know if it changes in later levels) i followed the parcel system for treasure, and my PCs didn't have so much money to use for enchanting items. They made a +1 suit of scale armor and a bag holding, and that's it. So we never reached the point where they could get "ANY item you want up to your level,..just fork out the mats and gold and away you go".

 

[Varis]

I agree with you about fund limitations also resulting in a limitation on the Ritual usage, but I still think that the scope it provides in allowing the creation of any item is 'generous'. Thinking more about this issue, even though I too am using the parcel system, the party seems greatly overpowered against level appropriate foes.
Of course I can compensate for this (and I do) to keep it challenging and enjoyable, but in doing so, the characters level up quicker, resulting in more wealth and powerful items, which in turn allows them to level up quicker,..you get the idea.
Maybe this ritual is just a symptom of a bigger problem? Maybe I'm just being conservative?
At the moment I'm just trusting in the system and hoping that it has taken my concerns into account, by design.


Of course if I was a player, I'd be saying 'It ROCKS!' and is perfectly legit and balanced

 

[nittanytbone]

Adventurer's Vault includes "transfer enchantment," designed to move enchantments from one item to another.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

See, my problem with the magic item "system" in general is not "what amount of power does it grant to the characters". That's factored into the system and all, so fine. My beef with it is the cheapening of the whole theatrical concept of magic items. Look at the source material of the FRPG genre. Where in myth and fantasy literature are magic items virtually everyday implements (albeit fairly expensive commodities). "Magic item commoditization" rather spoils the sense of wonder. Magic isn't really MAGIC if it is just what you expect.

Now sure, even in fantasy literature one could assume that "the bow of Legolas" or "the Sword of Boromir" were maybe lower level magic items, but then how really does that help? The situation in 4e is way beyond that, EVERY piddly 2nd level would-be hero must have his 2-3 +1 items. It's like a grocery store out there...

At least in OD&D (for all its clunky rules systems) didn't essentially REQUIRE you to supply characters with magic. When the pcs DID find magic items it could be pretty special and dramatic, they were MAGICAL in the theatrical sense. Of course you could play it whichever way you wanted back then.

The other sort of "problem" with the 4e system is narrative. At level 1 or so the fighter gets a +1 weapon. A few levels later she gets a +2 weapon, etc. It seems more thematic and interesting if the character can have a single unique weapon that they use throughout their career and that is identified with them. Maybe that doesn't ALWAYS have to happen, and other 'ancillary' items certainly don't need that kind of treatment (the fighter could easily switch cloaks every now and then to get better ones). Also this piecemeal approach to magic items misses a pretty important factor that can be used to shape the development of the character, the ability/need to structure the pcs build over the levels to most take advantage of the magic items they have at hand.

As I'm sure many of you are thinking, this is all addressed to a certain extent in AV. I think WotC realized this sort of thing was a weakness in the narrative structure of (at least some) campaigns and that some GMs would desire to move their game in that direction.

Thus in my campaign at least I like to lean on the guidelines in the AV appendix 1. Level scaling is good. You can give the dwarven fighter the magic axe weilded by a legendary ancestor at low level, so it gives him a +2 effect at 4th or 5th level. That's great and he's probably pretty sure to build his character around using that battle axe because it can level scale all the way up to being the mighty +6 vorpal axe of legend if he makes it to the top of the epic tier. And you can mix that with with or use the 'empowering events' concept (and/or the 'Item levels as treasure' mechanism) to provide the narrative justification. When the dwarf lops off the head of Akaz-Magom, the Hobgoblin King, with his +2 battle axe it 'powers up' to +3.

I would say that making characters acquire specific types of components falls well within this sort of structure as well. Perhaps any old reagents are acceptable for making a +1 sword, but if you want to make truely legendary items, it can require more work. Or think of it the opposite way, PROVIDE certain special materials (monster parts certainly being the easiest but by far not the only way) and let the players come up with interesting and fun ways to use them. That really lets you tap into the player's 'wish list' without giving away the whole store as well.

The standard smorgasbord sort of magic item/treasure system is fine and well suited for 'pick up' play or gaming groups that just like to focus on a rules driven kind of approach to play where all the drama and interest comes out of each encounter more or less on its own. The tools are there though to go beyond that, you just have to invest a bit of effort as a DM into the narrative. Certainly to me that seems more fun than ye olde magic shoppe.

 

[Breezly]

My whole issue with previous editions was that it took so dang long to enchant anything. If you wanted to kick up your favorite sword, you had to invest a great deal of downtime to make it happen, which we never really had. I have not toyed with the new rules yet, but I am hoping it allows for more creative uses of item...creation so that you can get the cool Sickle of Frosty Death you always wanted but it never seemed that a bad guy had on him. It may take you some time to accumulate the residuum, but at least you have a path to follow.

--Breezly

 

[Mort_Q]

Adventurer's Vault includes "transfer enchantment," designed to move enchantments from one item to another.

I came here to say this.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My whole issue with previous editions was that it took so dang long to enchant anything. If you wanted to kick up your favorite sword, you had to invest a great deal of downtime to make it happen, which we never really had. I have not toyed with the new rules yet, but I am hoping it allows for more creative uses of item...creation so that you can get the cool Sickle of Frosty Death you always wanted but it never seemed that a bad guy had on him. It may take you some time to accumulate the residuum, but at least you have a path to follow.

--Breezly

There was a good reason for that. Magic items were arbitrarily powerful. If PCs could just cook one up whenever they wanted to in a day or two then the GM looses control of what the characters have for stuff. You can always say "no, no, you can't make that" or "you'll need the blood of Orcus to make that item", but it then becomes a matter of denying the players what the rules say that they can have, which is always a tough line for a GM to hold. So the rules made it exorbitantly hard to build magic items, then the GM at least could back off and say "well, OK, I'll be nice and bend the rules a bit and let you make that +3 sword" and not be mister bad guy.

4e takes a different tack. Magic items are just part and parcel of character design and assumed from the start, but all of them are pretty limited. Thus they can provide a fairly easy and quick enchantment process since no matter what the PCs make it isn't overpowered. On top of that items all have a level, which (at least in 1e/2d which is all I've played before) wasn't true with the old rules. So even if an item would be 'too good' for the PCs to make, they just can't make it at all.

In any case, like I said in my last post, it really isn't all that great from a narrative perspective to have the PCs being able to make oodles of items. 4e sort of shoots you in the foot on that score, but there are at least some ways out of it (like just not giving away a lot of treasure). Still I think in the style of play of my group at least I wouldn't just let them use generic components to make powerful items at any level. It means going back to being the big bad GM to a certain extent, but such is life... hehe.