Magic items are finally rare !

[neceros]

Disagree. PCs shouldn't be in the business of *making* items. They get their stuff by going out and finding/recovering/stealing items that other people made.

I believe a player should be able to if he or she wishes. I agree that taking or retrieving a magic item is usually much more entertaining then sitting around and creating one, but none-the-less those items have to come from somewhere. Barring extreme items like Artifacts or rare magic items, I think PCs should have the opportunity, if they wish, to leave their mark on the world with magic items.

Of course, that would never be fun with the magic item creating rules as they are in 3e. If they make that aspect more fun, less time consuming, and more smooth then we're getting somewhere.

 

[JohnSnow]

I have no problem with a PC being able to make a magic item, but to me, it should be the labor of a lifetime, not something the PC knocks out in the afternoon every Saturday.

Like Bruenor's construction of Aegis Fang in The Crystal Shard. It should MEAN something when a PC makes a magic item. And, as was the case with Bruenor, I'd rather see a high-level dwarven fighter making magic swords than a frail human wizard.

Let's open up the realm of crafting, but make it much harder. Maybe wizards can make items that enhance their spellcasting, but there should be a limit to how often they can do it. Make enchanting items almost as expensive as buying them, but have them cost the crafter something in hit points, or energy or something. For instance, assuming 4e uses a Condition track, I'd suggest the following:

"Crafting a magic item costs 90% of the purchase price. Furthermore, the strain leaves the caster X step(s) down on the condition track. The condition persists for one month."

That'll eliminate the "magic item factory" as a default concept, but still allow it for an Eberron campaign. The player CAN make anything they need, but only at the cost of adventuring - which explains why most adventuring wizards don't make stuff. Moreover, because the strain of it leaves you frail, it would be something people would probably want to avoid.

But that's just how I'd do it.

 

[BryonD]

I predict that the growth of frequency of magic items will start within a few months of 4E's release. It won't start in WotC publications, but over time they will inch by inch join the bandwagon.

I am not saying this because I want more magic items. I'm am happy with the new approach. But I think it will play out this way.

Players (and yeah, I know, except for *your* group) want their new shiny. The reality that the cumulative impact of new shinys can be a challenge does not reduce this desire for the next new shiny. And class abilities will not significantly offset this. Class abilities are way cool, but they also get taken for granted. Any fighter can learn "serpent strike" with the right build, but MY fighter now has the WHATSIT OF DEVASATATION!!!!!

But, IMO, as long as it isn't ever fighter has a +2 sword and gloves of STR+4 as standard gear, then it will be a nice improvement.

 

[BryonD]

I have no problem with a PC being able to make a magic item, but to me, it should be the labor of a lifetime, not something the PC knocks out in the afternoon every Saturday.

I think you can have your cake and eat it too on this one.

With the level of power that gets tossed around in D&D, it seems downright backwards that minor items should be difficult to make. But cool epic creations can also exist.

 

[DM_Blake]

As is mentioned a few times here-

[*]Items should not be necessary, but something special. That is to say anything of real adventure value should be worth adventuring for. If someone makes a magical spoon that automatically feeds you that doesn't much break the game, but is still pretty darn cool.

But not worth adventuring for. Really, do you see Conan running off to battle monsters in far off lands to get a magical spoon?

[*]Major magic items should be crafted by the players or found at the end of a major quest or adventure.

Kind of like the way Bilbo didn't find Sting until the end of the Hobbit? Or the way Frodo didn't find Sting, nor Aragorn find Anduril nor any of them find Elven Cloaks, etc., until the end of Return of the King?

Book after fantasy book has its heroes finding useful treasures at the beginning of the story, then using those treasures to complete the story.

In fact, many of those stories don't have a reward at the end (other than getting rid of the bad guy) - what little rewards exist in many such stories are discovered along the way rather than at the end.

[*]Magic Items that provide constant Stat boosts (even AC) should be limited to a few or no slots per character (I'm looking at you, Belt of Magnificence) so a stat increase is either unheard of or extremely special or limited.

Agreed here. Those items should be rare, and really cool. Not commonplace. But this rarity, for me, applies mainly to rarifying certain types of items, such as constant Stat boosts, without rarifying everything.

Magic swords and rings are staples of fantasy fiction. While it isn't necessary to have some in every treasure trove, they still should be cropping up in the game fairly frequently. It's kinda what D&D has always been about.

Anyhow, that's how I feel. I believe my power should come from my character, not my items. Items should be tools and opertunities, not necessities.

Somewhat agreed.

I like having power come from within. I like having magic items being tools.

However, a magical feeding spoon is not a tool that any adventurer would care about. Adventurers should find frequent enough rewards to justify their adventuring.

Players at the table should see some improvement of their characters on a fairly frequent basis. If I'm going to get together every Friday to play a game, and 5 or 6 weeks from now he's exactly the same level, with the same abilities, and doesn't even have a new magical trick up his sleeve, then all I'm really doing is participating in a group story-telling session.

Which, I guess, is fine for some players.

But I think most players want to see some progress, some measurable, quantifiable factor that says "hey, I have improved, I can do something I couldn't do before" at least every session or two.

Never forget the fact that a character in a novel is stuck there. The author writes what he wants, even if it makes that character miserable. Even if that character wishes he'd never been born. Some fiction really dumps the wait of the world on its heroes with great misery and no reward other than survival.

But your players, at the D&D table, have choices that those fictional characters don't. Players can walk away. Players can decide not to come back. Players might find a weekend camping trip, or going to the movies, or just staying home and painting their toenails, is more fun that showing up to another gaming session where their character gets screwed over and gains no reward.

Give them rewards. Let them identify with their heroes and enjoy their growth on a frequent basis. The DM can always provide bigger challenges next week, no matter what new toys the players got today.

 

[Kintara]

But not worth adventuring for. Really, do you see Conan running off to battle monsters in far off lands to get a magical spoon?

Soon I suppose you'll be saying that spending all your adventuring gold on wenches and wine is a bad thing? Pshaw!

Edit: They may be too ashamed to specifically adventure for a magical spoon, but I definitely see adventurers wanting to BUY things like that. Which is basically just a step removed.

 

[Gloombunny]

But not worth adventuring for. Really, do you see Conan running off to battle monsters in far off lands to get a magical spoon?

I don't think Conan did much battling to get magical swords, either...

 

[JohnSnow]

I think you can have your cake and eat it too on this one.

With the level of power that gets tossed around in D&D, it seems downright backwards that minor items should be difficult to make. But cool epic creations can also exist.

There's a quote in Sword & Sorcery's Relics & Rituals: Excalibur which sums up the problem I have with the way they handled magic items in 3e. Since I can't paraphrase it and do it justice, I'll just quote it instead:

Excalibur. The Round Table. The Holy Grail. The Sword in the Stone. The Siege Perilous. These five items encompass large portions of the Arthurian Mythos, and they influence every stroy. Without these five objects, the legends would not exist. Thus, clearly, magic items have a place of honor in the Arthurian setting.

At the same time, this world is not one where every knight wears +1 plate and wields a +2 keen longsword. In situations like that, magic items become commonplace - they lose their meaning, and their value, because they are so easily acquired. For an item to have true significance it must be both rare and unique, and the quest to obtain it must be arduous and dangerous.

...

Always remember that creating a magic item is a long and difficult process, and not one that any spellcaster would undertake lightly. These items were not made for fun little toys, or to be sold for a quick profit. Each one had a specific task, and an intended owner, and therein lies a fascinating story.

...

Many fantasy games treat magic as a form of science, something that is enmeshed in reality of day-to-day life. No matter how strange it might seem to the ignorant, magic in a normal fantasy game is a thing of this world.

Not so in the world of Excalibur! Magic is alien, foreign, different, and anyone who touches it has an encounter with otherness. The power of magic is accepted as real, but is isn't something actively sought out by most.

There are absolutely no commercial vendors of magic items; even a simple healing potion brewed by a woodland witch requires some quest, deed, or service to attain. This may be as simple as "chop one hundred and one logs in the space of one hundred and one minutes," or as complex as "find me a stone that is a song, and a song that is a stone," but it never comes down to "Potion of cure light wounds? Fifty gold pieces. Do you want it cherry or lemon flavored?"

And while the quotes given are referring specifically to the way you handle a setting with an Arthurian flavor, I think it's a good default for fantasy in general. Magic is more interesting if it isn't quite "every day." Even in Eberron, the most fascinating magic isn't the things that are ordinary, but the ones that are special, like Dragonmarks, Creation Forges, and Dragonshard items.

So even where magic is industry, it's the unusual magic that people like. I don't see anyone getting a kick out of the fact that every character has a magic sword. It's the big mysterious stuff that gets people's attention, like airships and warforged components found in Xen'drik.

That says to me that 4e could do worse than to try and reintroduce some of the "otherness" quality of magic and magic items.

 

[frankthedm]

There are plenty of things to spend money on. Spending is kind of what money is built for. You can buy anything from land and keeps and titles and merchant fleets, to sex and drugs and...Bardic Music? The point is that money is easy to spend.

Adventurers should be ENJOYING thier coins! Whoring, not hoarding. Whatever they desire; Land, luxury, booze, women ...men?. They have so many coins they should not be able to count them all in a day, let alone an hour, what is a handful of gold to make a tavern chant their names. Slip that ruby to the bard so your version of your tales will be sung across the land. The party should be getting into arguments and bidding wars, not on who gets first pick of the magic items, but who the bards will make the main hero of thier tale.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

There are plenty of things to spend money on. Spending is kind of what money is built for. You can buy anything from land and keeps and titles and merchant fleets, to sex and drugs and...Bardic Music? The point is that money is easy to spend.

And once again, the power gamer is left in the cold. But hey, lets turn our backs on a significant chunk of the D&D player base. After all, if you arent happy adventuring to buy your next 25,000 gp frilly shirt, you arent welcome anymore.