Magic Item Compendium: The Diablo II gems have made their way to D&D!

[Victim]

Another issue with pure enhancement bonuses is Greater Magic Weapon. If you have a +1 bonus, +9 in special abilities weapon, you then get a +5/+9 weapon for hours. No spell for adding special abilities is similarly powerful.

Prices for these gems seem too low. They seem to compare favorably even with fairly low end magic weapons - like +1 and the equivalent bonus ability. Since normal magic weapon abilities become increasingly expensive as bonuses increase, that makes the gems an insane bargin at high levels, rather like additional bonus types.

 

[Slife]

They already made a Diablo item generator.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Eye. Hand.

Rod fragments #1 through #7.

Girdle Belt, Gauntlets, Hammer?

-Hyp.

 

[Cactot]

As others have mentioned, the idea of set artifacts has been in dnd since 2e. There were actually quite a few. As far as the socket thing is concerned, i say its about time. The potential for this is outstanding, i much prefer the idea of a pouch of augments to a golfbag of weapons. It also lets you keep a strong thematic idea to your character, you can have named weapons or armor without having to pouch them when a certian mob comes by. I am slightly worried about excessive power creep, but the classes that stand to benefit the most from it are also those who need it the most, it will benfit fighters and rogues far more than wizards or the CoDzilla.

 

[Aaron L]

I think these are a great idea and look forward to buying the book.


These remind me of the pommel stones they have found on Viking swords, which were reputed to be magical trinkets which the warriors believed aided them in.

(Or they could have just been decoration, I've read several theories.)

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Great idea, IMO. Definitely gonna grab this book.

 

[GreatLemur]

Aw, man. I've been wanting something like this for years. I was not interested in the Magic Item Compendium before, and now I can't wait.

 

[NilesB]

Girdle Belt, Gauntlets, Hammer?

Crown, Orb, Scepter.

 

[zoroaster100]

The crystals they gave as examples seem ridiculously undercosted. For 5,000 gp you overcome virtually all special defenses of undead?! That sounds pretty ridiculous. If a DM planned to run an undead themed campaign this item better be disallowed. It's one thing to allow feats and spells or special abilities to overcome the undead special defenses with characters specially built to do so. What is so special about that if someone can do it with just 5,000 gp?

 

[Aeric]

Materia had some differences, though the seed of the idea was definitely there. Put Fire materia into your sword, you'd do fire damage. Put it into your armor, you'd resist fire damage.

Materia also had levels, kind of like this, but it would count for both. Like, if you had a greater Fire materia, it would do MORE fire damage in a sword, and it might reduce the damage form fire even more, or negate it entirely, or even absorb it as healing.

In that respect, they were a bit more flexible.

And they also taught you magic spells. Imagine if a least truedeath crystal, when it became lesser, also taught you disrupt undead, kind of.

I'm not sure if this pre-dated Diablo, but the concepts are close cousins.

....Ah, glad to see D&D is 10 years behind the curve.

Diablo and Final Fantasy VII (the origin of Materia, IIRC) were both released in the U.S. in 1997. Whether or not the devs at Blizzard saw an import version of VII and "borrowed" the concept is anybody's guess, but knowing that one of the primary philosophies in game design is "use existing solutions" (i.e. plagarize), it really wouldn't surprise me if they did.