Magic Items...

[slobster]

The Shadow really covered my feelings on +X items well. They are iconic and so here to stay, so I hope they at least make it apply to damage only. +3 to damage is much less problematic than +3 to hit.

I am definitely in favor of magic items that look more like 4E artifacts than 4E "normal" magic items. There should be the option, for those who love it, to use the simple shopping list style +2 keen longswords. But I hope right next to that section is a good system for making every magic item unique and interesting, practically a character in itself. Most groups would then likely find a happy medium where both styles could coexist.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

I like items that run the gamut from "kinda basic" to "hella cool with weird powers."

I don't see why having one precludes the other.

 

[Mengu]

Definitely on the bandwagon for magic items not giving +x to hit or defense. +x to damage would be fine, if it has to be there.

My idea though in general about magic items, was to instead label them as a shared design space.

For the sake of argument, let's say there are 3 campaigns, in one, players find 1 magic item per person per level, in another, they find 1 magic item per person per 3 levels, and in another, there are no magic items.

There is no need to kill the functionality of the item design space for a campaign that doesn't use items. So I'd propose a shared design space for talents and magic items. You get one per level. If you found a new magic item, you don't get a talent, if you didn't find a magic item, you get a new talent. Talents would occupy a slot, much like items. For instance, at level 9, you might find some boots that give you +1 speed, or at level 9, you might learn a martial feet slot talent, that gives you +1 speed. Same property, same design space, different fluff.

 

[Ghost0]

My concern for magic items is more rooted in the economy of the world. But first, I will say that I am not in favor of +X to items, but if they must exist then I don't believe they should have additional properties. It should be one or the other. Accuracy is its own reward.

The economy is affected by magic items and this is what I am most nervous about with the current design. How do you put a price on magic items? They should be priceless, it is magic after all. The question is, when heroes find at this gold at the end of the adventure, what do they spend it on? In 4e, the answer is magic items. There's nothing else to improve you that is monetarily based. Therefore, the designers will put a price tag on magic items so that there is a reason to covet gold.

This seems pretty flawed, but it's the way it's always been.

 

[slobster]

How do you put a price on magic items? They should be priceless, it is magic after all.

That's campaign-specific, though. In campaign worlds like the Forgotten Realms and Eberron, magic items are widespread enough to simply be extravagantly expensive rather than truly priceless.

It's easy enough to ignore prices and make items rare enough in your game that there is no real economy around them. 4E (and to a lesser extent other editions) makes it more difficult by building magic items and wealth into level guidelines, but it's still possible. Giving the whole suite of magic items in the game prices for your home game, on the other hand, is much more work.

 

[Emerikol]

Yeah I do not like crafting magic items the way 3e/4e had it. I wouldn't mind something that was intense. I also do not like charged items at all. But others like different things. This is easily modularized.

Here is what I think they need to do core...
1. Assign a value to all items. Practically it's a relative value. You can use a multiplier for high or low magic campaigns. Infinity is a valid multiplier if thats your bent.

2. Don't systematize magic items too much.

Here are some optional modules.
1. crafting rules A,B,C for increasing difficulty
2. magic mart rules based on city size etc... again you adjust as DM. It would just be a relative measure.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

+X weapons are mundane, just finely crafted.

Magic weapons have unique powers, like flametongue or frostbrand. And they don't come with labels -- you have to use a lore skill, an identify spell, or find a sage to figure out exactly what they do.

 

[triqui]

How do you put a price on magic items? They should be priceless, it is magic after all.

If there are people who can build and craft magic items as a routine, it's logic that you put a price on them by suply and demand, just like anything else that's crafted.

Even if they aren't crafted, that doesn't mean they can't be bought, just that they become much more expensive. A Picasso or Van Gogh is irrepeatable, and "priceless" on it's own Sure, being unique, it's possible than it's owner does not want to sell it (the spanish goverment won't sell the Guernika, no matter the price), but that does not mean *other* owners couldn't sell theirs, and you can find a few of them being sold in Sothersby from time to time.

 

[triqui]

2. Don't systematize magic items too much.

I agree with this. Other than "mundane magic items" (like potions, scrolls, wands, and maybe "+1 generic swords" if they exist), I feel the magic items should have personality, and being generated by random.

So, if the player makes a magic item, it's abillities should be rolled, in a big table with several options. That make items "unique" (or at, least, widely different), and will take magic items out of the character optimization.

 

[Raith5]

At Gencon Mearls and co said that + items are clearly going to be in DDN (I think he said something along the lines that as game designers that they have to include them). They also indicated that the default is going to be that magic items cannot be created (except scroll, potions etc). So magic items have to be something earnt rather than made. Magic item construction will be a module at some point.

I agree on both fronts - despite liking (and benefiting from) 3rd and 4th ed magic item creation rules.