Magic items in found treasure

[Li Shenron]

Isn't anybody else bored about the random treasure or the found items in published adventures?

After the first 2-3 levels, it's more than 90% of the times completely useless for the party. You find +1 weapons and armors when your characters are already looking for +3, and the same goes with the ubiquitous rings of protection and cloaks of resistance...

The consequence is always the same: load you bags full of that magic stuff (because it's still the largest part of the money you'll get) until you go back to town, sell everything at half price and buy whatever you want.

I believe that adventure publishers are following the rules guidelines when planning this random treasure, but that's plain boring. The net result (expect at very low levels) is that you are getting an equipment worth just a little more than half the total. Is that intentional?

I am going to try in the next adventure I run (it's too late for this one...) to do this: instead of scattering the regular treasure along the encounters, I'll give no treasures at all except at the end, when there will be a single vault worth the total amount, this time with few but valuable items.
I suppose this should be ok, or isn't it? One could say that if the adventure is not very short, this way has the disadvantage of not supplying the party until the end, but still the magic weaponry found is rarely used at all IMXP...

Opinions?

 

[philreed]

Isn't anybody else bored about the random treasure or the found items in published adventures?

After the first 2-3 levels, it's more than 90% of the times completely useless for the party. You find +1 weapons and armors when your characters are already looking for +3, and the same goes with the ubiquitous rings of protection and cloaks of resistance...

I've been bored with +1 swords for years. In my opinion, any magic item should include a history and detailed information so that it's an interesting set piece and not just a collection of numbers.

I've also felt that there are far too many magic items available for a long time now. It was that line of thinking that led me to write hundreds of "mundane treasures" -- non-magical treasures that can still be valuable. They go a long way toward making the players think twice about tossing aside an old helmet.

 

[Thanee]

Even better, instead of putting a vault at the end of each dungeon (or whatnot), which will become rather silly if it is done too much, I guess, just pick "random" treasure according to the level desired and put it into the dungeon, best into the hands of some monsters/NPCs, so it will be used against the PCs at first.

Some below average treasure is still good, since it just makes sense to find such stuff more often, but every now and then finding a nice piece of treasure is cool.

It works like this in our games, sometimes we need to hunt down a specific piece of treasure ourselves, which is possible, if it is not too outrageous, but takes some time, but often we just find something, which is better than what we have already, and can use it right away.

Of course, often such found items are not perfect, like those you buy, which are usually tailored perfectly to your needs, but would you toss away the +2 flaming greatsword, just because you would prefer a +1 holy greatsword, or +1 flaming keen greatsword? Not really. The difference is too minor to bother, and it is still much better than your old +1 greatsword.

Bye
Thanee

 

[diaglo]

i give all magic items a name and a history/back story.
heck, i give some mundane items the same.

 

[philreed]

i give all magic items a name and a history/back story.
heck, i give some mundane items the same.

I think that's the best way to handle it. If you make even the most mundane item interesting your campaign will be richer and more alive for the players.

 

[Thanee]

Gotta love Earthdawn, eh?

Bye
Thanee

 

[Stockdale]

I totally agree. Without something more, a +X magic item is just a boring attribute adjuster. I always try to add something descriptive to the magic item to make it more special to the player as well as entertaining: "A ring engraved with runes, which burns with a cold fire" is a heck of a lot more interesting that a "ring of fire restistance" as is a "an ancient longsword whose blade always is wet but bears no rust" is a cooler than "a +1 longsword/+2 against fire-based creatures."


[edited for spelling]

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Thanee, Earthdawn rocks, and is what inspired me to give histories and names to my magic items originally. Now I just need a method of "leveling" the weapons as is done in Earthdawn that makes me happy and keeps my players from trying to kill me. :\

 

[diaglo]

Thanee, Earthdawn rocks, and is what inspired me to give histories and names to my magic items originally. Now I just need a method of "leveling" the weapons as is done in Earthdawn that makes me happy and keeps my players from trying to kill me. :\

Dragon Magazine is your friend.

almost immediately from the release of the 2000ed. there was an article about levelling items. using components and Xps from the users.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, the vault suggestion was just an example obviously... the point was instead of giving out 10 magic +1 items (most of which would be sold) and a single greater item which will be kept, I plan to sum up the whole VALUE of the treasure and choose different items so that they are less but better, with higher chance that the characters would actually keep them

The history behind object is definitely a cool thing to do, but first you have to reduce the amount of objects to do that in practice...