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<blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5918708" data-attributes="member: 54710">I like specific cool magic items, but good DM guidance on custom magic items is also important.&nbsp; The key is providing ad hoc guidance that allows DMs to creating a wider range of special magic items, rather than providing a table that is robust enough for PCs to be able to use it as a shopping list.&nbsp; Once you allow PCs to create their own arbitrary items, you need to restrict that list to a known set of well playtested powers.&nbsp; Instead, the guidelines should spur DMs to create cool new items.&nbsp; The purpose of providing estimated values is to give GMs a sense (an imperfect sense!) of how powerful those items are.&nbsp; The best magic items are the ones that are unique to the campaign, either because they are common (and, thus, part of the campaign's flavor -- think Eberron here) or because they are special and connected to specific aspects of the setting (e.g. the sword of a PC's evil ancestor).&nbsp; The purpose of a custom magic items table should be to help DMs create these special items.&nbsp; It has to help DMs come up with unique properties and combinations.&nbsp; The 3e and 4e systems are too focused on balance, and insufficiently focused on helping DMs make their campaigns special.If WotC wants to later publish a book of magic item creation with robust balanced tables that's fine -- it's even useful.&nbsp; (Letting PCs make custom magic items for their characters would be a helpful feature of many campaigns.&nbsp; It just shouldn't be a default assumption.)&nbsp; But they shouldn't be publishing that until the system is mature enough that the balanced tables are correct.&nbsp; And regardless, such a book should be an optional module, not a part of the core rules.-KS</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KidSnide, post: 5918708, member: 54710"] I like specific cool magic items, but good DM guidance on custom magic items is also important. The key is providing ad hoc guidance that allows DMs to creating a wider range of special magic items, rather than providing a table that is robust enough for PCs to be able to use it as a shopping list. Once you allow PCs to create their own arbitrary items, you need to restrict that list to a known set of well playtested powers. Instead, the guidelines should spur DMs to create cool new items. The purpose of providing estimated values is to give GMs a sense (an imperfect sense!) of how powerful those items are. The best magic items are the ones that are unique to the campaign, either because they are common (and, thus, part of the campaign's flavor -- think Eberron here) or because they are special and connected to specific aspects of the setting (e.g. the sword of a PC's evil ancestor). The purpose of a custom magic items table should be to help DMs create these special items. It has to help DMs come up with unique properties and combinations. The 3e and 4e systems are too focused on balance, and insufficiently focused on helping DMs make their campaigns special. If WotC wants to [I]later [/I]publish a book of magic item creation with robust balanced tables that's fine -- it's even useful. (Letting PCs make custom magic items for their characters would be a helpful feature of many campaigns. It just shouldn't be a default assumption.) But they shouldn't be publishing that until the system is mature enough that the balanced tables are correct. And regardless, such a book should be an optional module, not a part of the core rules. -KS [/QUOTE]

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