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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Smeelbo" data-source="post: 4678931" data-attributes="member: 81898">Awarding residium equivalent "base" items as treasureI will begin DMing on a regular basis soon, and here is how I feel. First of all, the market prices for selling magic items is absurd. I know that if 4E were an MMO with a bazaar, the mage hand of the invisible market would price used magic weapons and armor at substantially above 20% of its original price. Second, functionally, magic items the party can use are worth their full value to the party, while unusable magic items are worth their value in residium, i.e., 20%. That strikes me as awkward. I'd like my players to have magic items they'll enjoy, but the current method feels too artificial to me. Believe me, I get the problem that 4E is trying to avoid with residium, and if there were a real market for magic items beyond their residium, that would mess things up. So here is my response. I will be giving some treasure out in the form of items whose value is two-fold. They will have a residium value, and additionally can serve as a base for a specific item. For example, suppose they kill a displacer beast. The treasure might include the displacer beasts hide, which is worth say 1,000 GP worth of residium, and can serve as a basis for a Displacer Cloak, Cloak of Distortion, or similar item. When the characters have accumulated enough gold and/or residium, we would negotiate what item could be made from the base item, I would determine its cost, and they would make up the difference with other items, residium, and gold. If they try to sell these base items, they'd only fetch 20% of their value, as per PHB. This accomplishes a few things. First, I can reward them with progress towards a desired magic item without simply handing out cash. Second, I can have monster parts function as treasure, without breaking the game. The parts are simply part of the treasure parcel. Third, it adds a bit of roleplaying aspect to the magic item creation process. And finally, I can give NPCs magic items that are not immediately useful to the PCs, but act as treasure without simply handing them the item the NPC was using. For example, they defeat a Goblin Hexer, who has a Hex Rod. I might declare that the rod is worth 250 GP of residium, can serve as the base for a similar rod, but cannot be used as is by the player characters. If they decide later not to make a rod, they can use the residium value of the rod to make another magic item they have a base item for. In order to make this manageable for the players, I will handle all the book keeping on their behalf. This strikes me as reasonable balance between the intent of 4E, the desire of the players for specific magic items, and story telling. Smeelbo EDIT: Yes, I know it's residuum, but I have a much easier time pronouncing it residium.</blockquote>

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