Low wealth and mysterious magic

[Alisair Longreach]

In the thread about what 4E doesn't do well there were complaints about how unrealistic the 4E economy is and how boring magic items are.

Here is how I would deal with that.

Low wealth:
Use the inherent bonus rule from DMG2 or your own house rule version.
Treasure parcels should include one or two extra magic items, give out less money but more art objects and gems, replace one parcel with rituals of equal value, replace one parcel with intangible rewards like Grandmaster Training, Divine Boons, nobility titles or worthless but impressive looking status objects.

Mysterious magic:
Magic items and rituals have no market price. None. There should be no magic shops. Magic items is bartered for other magic items or to learn new rituals. Don't let your players read the Adventurer's Vaults and the Book of Rituals.

Making magic items without money:
Crafting a magic item requires three parts:
A physical part. This might the sword that is about to be enchanted. The base price should be about 2 to 10 times the market price of the mundane item.
A magical part. This is either body parts of a magical creature, a magical substance like Sparkly Faerie Dust or Residuum from two or more magic items.
A ritual. Either Enchant Magic Item (lv 4) or Enchant [specific magic item] with a ritual level equal to the magic item level. The physical and magical parts are the component cost.

Other considerations:
For rituals you could consider handwawing the component cost by ignoring it for most rituals except the expensive ones and removing one treasure parcel. This might make rituals more interesting for your players.

For magic items you could consider removing the Milestones rules. This removes the cap on how many magic item daily powers a PC can use in any given encounter which does make magic items more useful. The disadvantage is that you are removing one of the carrots on the metagame stick that lures PCs on to the next encounter and you risk the PCs "going nova" in boss fights. Magic rings and a few specific magic items must be redesigned, either by ignoring the Milestone bonus or by making it inherent. Action Points are either available each encounter or once per day, your choice. A few features of some paragon paths and epic destinies would also need to be redesigned.

Another benefit by removing milestones is that you avoid a fiddly bit accounting at the table.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My very strongly held opinion is that making magical items hard to come by doesn't make them any more mysterious, it just makes them harder to come by.

DS

 

[Saeviomagy]

The only way to make magic mysterious is to make the players not know how it works.

A very rare +1 sword is still just a boring +1 sword, even if it's the best magic weapon the PCs will ever see. A flaming +1 sword is the same.

A sword that lights up at apparently random times in different colors is mysterious.

There can never be a written rules system that makes magic mysterious, because NOT KNOWING ABOUT SOMETHING IS THE DEFINITION OF A MYSTERY.

 

[radja]

as a DM, don't give the players a longsword +2. Give them 'Bloodstrike', the sword of the famous warrior Warrax. (which happens to act exactly like a longsword +2)

 

[Somebloke]

4th edition- use the DMG2 rules for an alternate reward. The only magic items in existance are artifacts.

Only allow martial classes, and possibly one or two refluffed other classes (the bard and barbarian are salvagable). If you wish to include magic classes, limit them to one per group and include some sort of backstory, as well as a (almost entirely rp only) negative effect, like a slow physical transformation, mysterious patrons being the source of all arcane magic or odd, disturbing hallucinations (thought- but not confirmed- to be the memories of a long-dead God-thing from beyond the stars) whenever they use a daily. If you can't make the magic effects mysterious, you can at least get them worrying about where it comes from.

3e can follow a similar system- maybe the bard or factorum is the only spellcaster in existance (at least, the only human spellcaster- what if the only full-9-level casters were unspeakably evil liches or unknowably alien others?). This stops the (majority) non-magic users from being made redundant.

 

[Saeviomagy]

as a DM, don't give the players a longsword +2. Give them 'Bloodstrike', the sword of the famous warrior Warrax. (which happens to act exactly like a longsword +2)

That really doesn't work either. It's still just a sharper sword.

 

[Starfox]

4th edition- use the DMG2 rules for an alternate reward. The only magic items in existance are artifacts.

One of the main reasons 4E items are so bland is because there are so very many of them. Use the rules from DMG2, then spice things up with some magic items, but only use the special ability of the item, not the pluses. This way, you only need to hand out a very few items. Maybe one item per level instead of one item per parcel. This alone should help keep the mystery in your games.

Removing money from the game removes what little player entitlement 4E has on magic items. RAW, a player who wants a specific magic weapon will have to do with one level lower on the plus, which is harsh but it is doable. I know from experience that giving the players full control over their magical gear is too much, but removing their control completely is not a good idea either. One idea is to hand out "raw magic" as treasure now and then, a resource that can be enchanted into any item of the player's level or lower. Another is to sacrifice any two items (remember, level of item is much less important in this system) to make one new one.

Only allow martial classes, and possibly one or two refluffed other classes...

This is really quite a different topic.

 

[Somebloke]

One of the main reasons 4E items are so bland is because there are so very many of them. Use the rules from DMG2, then spice things up with some magic items, but only use the special ability of the item, not the pluses. This way, you only need to hand out a very few items. Maybe one item per level instead of one item per parcel. This alone should help keep the mystery in your games.

Removing money from the game removes what little player entitlement 4E has on magic items. RAW, a player who wants a specific magic weapon will have to do with one level lower on the plus, which is harsh but it is doable. I know from experience that giving the players full control over their magical gear is too much, but removing their control completely is not a good idea either. One idea is to hand out "raw magic" as treasure now and then, a resource that can be enchanted into any item of the player's level or lower. Another is to sacrifice any two items (remember, level of item is much less important in this system) to make one new one.



This is really quite a different topic.

Debatable. Players not being able to use magic as a tool will lessen its homeliness. Likewise if only non-PCs are casters then the players will never be sure of what to expect. Both would help to add to the mystery- Think of A Song of Ice and Fire for an example.

As for the rewards system, I've been using the alternate DMG II system, incorporating magic into the rewards- but in a way that the party really do not know what they are getting themselves into. The party fighter is recieving Joan-of-Arc style visions; the ranger has been willingly infected by something called an 'Elf-Tree' which appears to be reducing him to a feral state and so on. No magic items- well, there are artifacts being used, but they provide the same sort of bonus as mundane artifacts that have personal significance, suggesting that the magic is in fact entirely in the party's mind. The players love it- it immerses them in the campaign world and rewards roleplaying. They certainly don't feel neglected or lacking choice.

 

[Tuft]

To me personally the sense of magic, mystery and wonder is neither about scarcity nor about blustering descriptions.

It's about connotations and associations - connections to common dreams (and fears!), personal ones as well as those embedded in the culture through stories, fairy-tales and sagas. Who has not dreamed about lifting off the ground and flying away, or about being an invisible fly on the wall at some interesting time and place?

I've played RPGs for more than 20 years, in campaigns where fly-spells were a dime a dozen. I've played years in the City of Heroes MMO, filled with flying superheroes. I've read yard-high piles of comics with flying superheroes. My 3.5E character has flown almost constantly from level 3 to now level 20 in a campaign that has lasted three years so far, and all characters now fly in that one. And still, after all that, whenever I point at a high point on the the map and say "My character flies up... to... there!" there is a happy little wide-eyed kid somewhere inside me that shouts "Wheeeeee!" and jumps up and down in joy. Flight is just such a classic wish-fulfillment with so strong connotations - even without scarcity.

In contrast, a +5 sword might be the rarest thing in the game-world universe, with a back-story a mile long - and still feel just like a game statistics.

As for trying to make that plus-something sword appear more cool by showy descriptions, I'd like to say "Show me, don't tell me!" Don't tell me that something is supposed to be an "awesome" thing; let me see it have interesting effects in and on the game world - so interesting that I can form the opinion "hey, this is cool!" all by myself. I've been developing software for twenty years - I've seen far too many "miraculous" software development tools, and the difference between how they were advertised and how they performed, to get impressed by mere descriptions.

 

[LostSoul]

Have you thought about making everything an artifact?

This has the benefit of giving the magic item a personality - I think that's one of the ways to play up the "mysterious" nature of the magic item. Sometimes it works the way you want it to, sometimes it doesn't. Figuring out how to best use the potent magic in your arsenal could be an adventure in itself - investigate its history, go talk to the sage in the swamp, etc.

You could also put all the "expected" bonuses in the artifact - a sword could give a bonus to all defenses in addition to anything else it can do.

I'd use skill challenges to create artifacts. It'll give you a chance to get creative, and a good reason to have cursed items in your game.