Magic Item Talk

[Remathilis]

I'd like to see a tiered list also of creatable items.

Common: Scrolls, potions, +1 items. These items could be made via a ritual or something.

Rare: Most everything else. Can be made, but needs specific ritual components which are up to the DM (common magic items? make it gold and magic dust. Really rare? Break out the titan's blood and whisper of a goldfish).

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Easy to fluff: there's various people out there who can and do make them - Dwarves at their forges, Elves harnessing the magic of nature, Gnomes building the wacko stuff, etc - but those people are not player characters!

Why not?

Oh, and to build an item on commission takes a year or more...

So why are there nigh-unlimited swords +1 and potions of whatever floating around, if they're so rare and hard to make?

 

[howandwhy99]

How do I get a specific magic item I want in your game?

Think of it as background. Write up what your character has heard through story or rumor. Tell me without getting into numbers or mechanics what the magic item is. Where it came. Who wielded it. Everything you want me to design into the game, but behind the screen. Everything else I will flesh out when I convert it into game terms. Once it is in the game world, it's up to you to either seek it out or stumble upon it. An example follows:

"When I was only a child, my great aunt Hildegard would tell me stories about our people. One story was about a young woman who fell into a burial crypt full of old bones. There she met fact to face a foul, winged skeleton beast clad in golden armor and wielding a sword blacker than the shadows around it. The blade drank in the darkness like a hole in the night sky. The young woman ran for her life and barely escaped to tell her tale. She said she saw the creatures crackling blue eyes in her dreams for many nights after and would awake just before she was cut down by its blade. And then one morning she didn't awake, but then Auntie always said stuff like that to scare us at the end."

What do you do in your game?

 

[FireLance]

It's a suggestion I've raised before, but I would absolutely love it if there were published adventures centered around the creation of a significant magic item. Even if I never actually use them, I think they would be a great springboard and inspiration for me to create my own.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

The idea of unique items "because it adds flavor" seems very popular.

Why isn't this same kind of thinking equally popular for classes? Some people like LG-only Paladins "because it adds flavor" and other reasons, while others swear such non-broad thinking is silly.

Isn't this really two different aspects of a larger topic? Why is there close to a consensus in one area, while there is a wide split in another area?

 

[hafrogman]

The idea of unique items "because it adds flavor" seems very popular.

Why isn't this same kind of thinking equally popular for classes? Some people like LG-only Paladins "because it adds flavor" and other reasons, while others swear such non-broad thinking is silly.

Isn't this really two different aspects of a larger topic? Why is there close to a consensus in one area, while there is a wide split in another area?

The difference is that the argument FOR non-unique items isn't "it adds flavor", it (in as much as there is an argument) is that it adds convenience.

However, the argument for open class design IS "it adds flavor". One side wants a specific flavor. The other side wants every flavor. So we don't argue about wanting flavor, just what flavor we want.

 

[Kinak]

The idea of unique items "because it adds flavor" seems very popular.

Why isn't this same kind of thinking equally popular for classes? Some people like LG-only Paladins "because it adds flavor" and other reasons, while others swear such non-broad thinking is silly.

Isn't this really two different aspects of a larger topic? Why is there close to a consensus in one area, while there is a wide split in another area?

I won't pretend to speak for half the gaming populous, but I think tying paladins so closely to alignment overshadows the paladins' code, which is the real heart of their flavor. So, there's just a disagreement on how to best serve that flavor.

Coming back to magical items, it's sort of like stating in the rules that all holy weapons are swords. Sure, the holy avenger is the iconic holy weapon, but enshrining in the core rules that dwarves don't have holy axes and angel's bows aren't holy is just weird.

Even if it technically adds more flavor (the really holy dwarven paladins switch over to swords), it certainly isn't worth the trouble.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[fuindordm]

Easy to fluff: there's various people out there who can and do make them - Dwarves at their forges, Elves harnessing the magic of nature, Gnomes building the wacko stuff, etc - but those people are not player characters[\b]

Lanefan

The problem with this argument is that a significant fraction of players like crafting as a sub- game. I'm all for makin the sub-game more interesting, but not taking it out of their hands entirely.

 

[Ratskinner]

The problem with this argument is that a significant fraction of players like crafting as a sub- game. I'm all for makin the sub-game more interesting, but not taking it out of their hands entirely.

hmm....I don't think this fraction really existed before 3e codified it. I could be wrong, though. I suspect they would cheerfully disappear without such a system. I mean, imagine, now instead of a subgame consisting of "Do you have 23kgp?" you have whole adventures to get the Anklebones of a Whatsis, the Tears of a Whosit, and the Backteeth of Wazzat. If they're in it for CharOp reasons, they'll get their jollies somewhere else.

 

[billd91]

hmm....I don't think this fraction really existed before 3e codified it. I could be wrong, though. I suspect they would cheerfully disappear without such a system. I mean, imagine, now instead of a subgame consisting of "Do you have 23kgp?" you have whole adventures to get the Anklebones of a Whatsis, the Tears of a Whosit, and the Backteeth of Wazzat. If they're in it for CharOp reasons, they'll get their jollies somewhere else.

I don't think that's going to work. Nor is that probably a good attitude about it. I don't like 4e and I think it opened up a door to game mechanics and styles I'm not fond of in D&D in a similar way to 3e's crafting rules. But I recognize it's a door that 5e can't simply close and go on to succeed. And so I'm prepared to see compromise.