Magic items on loan

[AngelTears]

Greets,

I was wondering about this when I was reading Finnish mythology, and also when I was thinking Lord of the Rings.

One of the cornerstones of all magical objects in the mythology is that they are gifts from supernatural entities for services rendered, or as a show of appreciation. Once their use has been fufilled or the pact broken, they simply disappear.

I also similar parallels in Lord of the Rings. Gandalf talks about magic rings not to be used firvolously and even the mithiril shirt is talked about as a 'kingly gift', the elvish cloaks simlarly in the movie as well. Even the One Ring is talked about as a thing of evil that has but one master.

Now, in all the games I have been in there is this deluge of magical equipment, which is termed to be mine - or the owners. It sometimes get's to the point where even the local butcher seems to have a maetcleaver +1 accuracy.

(Incidentally when I previously picked up the PHB a few years ago, one of the selling points was that the level of magic items was no longer such a problem that it would affect the game world)

So, does anyone else prevent magical items to fall into players hands as things they posess, but not as things they own?

-Angel Tears

 

[Broken Fang]

From someone else's suggestion we have tried having items grow in power the longer they stay in one owner's hand. As different special events occur the item can gain power. The item also begins to take on the personality of the owner...making it more difficult for anyone to pick it up and use it. Kinda like having the Samurai's ability to give up gold and XP's to make their swords better. But we don't have a cost...it is GM call when something might improve. It seems to work pretty well and we don't see the "let's trade in the +1 sword for x". In fact we have had some PC's using the "not most optimal" weapons just because that is what started growing in power first and now it is something like a family heirloom. So we don't really let tehm borrow but we do have few items around.