Leveled Treasure

[Mapleaxe]

Has anyone used the leveled treasure concept as presented the the Dragon 289 article? If so , how did it work out for you?

I recently ran across ran across the article and thought it was a cool idea, so I'm thinking of introducing a leveled magic item to my campaign and retroactively turning another magic item into a leveled one. For those of you who haven't read the article, the basic idea is that you have magic items that start our low powered, but gain enhancement bonuses as the character progresses in their career and invests XP into it.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

We're using it --- it's a good mechanic, particularly where you don't give out a lot of magical treasure. Characters can stick with the same equipment and not have it feel obsolete. Most of the PCs have heirloom items that they are choosing to add enchantments to.

Of course, they're just now figuring out that this method costs more in gold and XP than investing in item creation feats (VBEG).

 

[Damon Griffin]

An alternative to leveled items

We haven't used leveled items, but we've just started experimenting with "personal growth items" from Spells & Spellcraft (Fantasy Flight Games). It's a simpler system than what's laid out in Dragon #289, but doesn't accomplish exactly the same thing.

While the "leveled item" system would allow a character to find (win, steal, whatever) a weapon or set of armor and invest XP to boost the enhancement bonus or add armor/weapon qualities, the "personal growth item" system requires that the item in question be created with the character in mind -- it's strictly a custom-tailor process whereby the item's creator establishes a mystical channel between item and owner. The owner (who need not be a spellcaster of any sort) can then spend gold, or XP, or a combination of the two, to invest the item with added functionality, and the spellcaster/item creator doesn't have to be involved any further.

There's pro and con to this system as compared to using leveled items: personal growth items can be anything, not just armor or weapons, but they'll only work for their original owner -- the person for whom the mystical channel was established when the item was created. So in *my* hands, Excalibur might be a +5 vorpal holy sword of mighty cleaving, but in *your* hands it's just going to be a +1 sword. (This of course gives DMs a great opportunity to mess with players...yeah, the PCs can kill the bad guys and take their stuff, but the stuff isn't worth what you thought it was going to be.)

Using the personal growth system, my character is about to begin putting together a longbow that, when finished, will be a Mighty (+4) Longbow of True Arrows, +3 merciful. It's the equivalent of a +5 weapon overall, so in addition to the cost of crafting the masterwork mighty longbow, this will require 25,000gp -or- 2000 XP -or- an appropriate mix of the two, such as 12,500gp + 1000XP.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Of course, they're just now figuring out that this method costs more in gold and XP than investing in item creation feats (VBEG).

This is exactly why I've never liked the rules in that issue of Dragon magazine. It's like forcing a PC to pay a fine for a roleplaying conceit (having a "trademark weapon").

Personally, I've used the Dragon rules, except that I don't require that the xp actually be infused in the item. Instead, the PC counts any xp he earns while wielding the item towards the item's growth, without any penalty to his own advancement.