Magical items

[small pumpkin man]

This is wrong.

It's also not the case in 4e. We know you can make magic items with rituals.

 

[Syrsuro]

This is wrong.

This is wrong.


Ok, not totally.

Players should not be routinely making (permanent) magic items.

Despite my objections to the 3E magic item rules, even I have no objection to players creating scrolls and potions (although I would personally tweak the rules a bit).

Of course - the reason they should not be making items has as much to do with the difficulty as it does with the time requirement.

So I would say: Players should not be routinely making magic items, for two reasons.

1) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be so uncommon an event that the players simply don't have access to the knowledge of how items are made. So if they should want to make an item, finding out how it is made should be the result of an exhaustive search for that knowledge. It is just not commonly available information.

2) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be a time and labor intensive process. Thus time spent making items is time spent away from adventuring. So while retired adventurers may make items, few active one will want to. Not that they can't, they just have better things to do.

As I see it.

The problem with the 3.x RAW is that it eliminated both of these obstacles, making the 'how' a matter of common knowledge and trivializing the time requirement by reducing it to days.

But it strikes me as a moot point to belabor what we did or didn't like about 3Es magic item creation rules. Some of us see the 4E changes as an improvement and welcome what we think we are hearing about how it will change, and some think that players ought not to be denied the ability to custom craft their own items and worry about what will happen in 4E.

And unfortunately none of us really know enough about 4E (aside from the reported lack of magic shops) to really be sure what it will be like.

Carl

 

[small pumpkin man]

*snip*

1) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be so uncommon an event that the players simply don't have access to the knowledge of how items are made. So if they should want to make an item, finding out how it is made should be the result of an exhaustive search for that knowledge. It is just not commonly available information.

It is in my campaign, thank you very much, magic item creation is an important part of the setting. It also is in Eberron, a WotC offical setting, however I see your style fitting better into a purer PoL style setting ala Dying Earth or Hyboria. We can only hope the rules easily support both styles of play.

*snip*

 

[Syrsuro]

however I see your style fitting better into a purer PoL style setting

Indeed. I have always preferred settings that are far more PoL than not, no question. I think that they lend themselves far more to heroic stories.

But one does not need to assume a PoL setting to find it desirable to have magic be rare and wondrous.

Carl

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

This is wrong.


Ok, not totally.

Exactly. A flat-out statement that the creation of magical items should be completely beyond the purview of the PCs is just about as wrong as you can get. Surely, someone is out there making magic items (if not with any great frequency), and if they learned how to do it, the PC's can too.

Need it be trivially easy? Of course not.

My personal preference leans far more towards 3E than 2E, however, especially where lower-level items are concerned. If I never see another, "For a sword +1, you must get iron mined on Moradin's Day by the dwarves of Deepcavern, have it blessed by a naiad, and quench the freshly-smithed blade in the tears of an honest man ... or, ya know, pull it from the cold, dead hands of every third Orc Leader," it will be too soon.

2) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be a time and labor intensive process. Thus time spent making items is time spent away from adventuring. So while retired adventurers may make items, few active one will want to. Not that they can't, they just have better things to do.

On the other hand, working on your pet project during the winter months is a great way to account for some downtime, and we all know that having substantial periods of peaceful downtime is a good way to prevent the 1st-to-30th-in-a-year campaign issue.

The problem with the 3.x RAW is that it eliminated both of these obstacles, making the 'how' a matter of common knowledge and trivializing the time requirement by reducing it to days.

I disagree that 3.X made it common knowledge. Apart from wizards, with their free Scribe Scroll feat, everyone had to spend valuable limited resources (feats) to even have the basics down of a particular class of item, followed by further investments of time and treasure to get any use out of their feat. Moreover, unless your crafter was a high-level caster, he just wasn't ever going to be able to make a +5 sword (the creation of which would still take nearly two months, at a minimum).

Also, good to see you on the D&D / ENWorld side of the house; you might remember me (but probably don't!) from Bioware's NWN boards. Unless, of course, you're a different Carl / Syrsuro, but I'm wagering that the number of imitators is small.

 

[Lizard]

So I would say: Players should not be routinely making magic items, for two reasons.

1) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be so uncommon an event that the players simply don't have access to the knowledge of how items are made. So if they should want to make an item, finding out how it is made should be the result of an exhaustive search for that knowledge. It is just not commonly available information.

2) Magic item creation - by anyone - should be a time and labor intensive process. Thus time spent making items is time spent away from adventuring. So while retired adventurers may make items, few active one will want to. Not that they can't, they just have better things to do.

Then who the hell is making all the items which litter a D&D world, and why? The world is filled with magic, including many trivial items of low power. Who spends a year of their life making, say Murlynd's Spoon or Feather Token -- anchor? And if it doesn't take a year -- if it takes a week -- then why can't the PCs learn it? SOMEONE is making all this crap, a LOT of someones to account for it all, and it's hard to image that PCs who can figure out who the leader of the assassin's guild is with two Gather Information checks can't figure out where the +1 swords are coming from.

"PCs can't make magic items" is sort of the anti-precious-snowflake argument; instead of PCs being able to do things no one else can do, it becomes that every petty hedge wizard and twopenny sorceror can do things no PC can.

(If you argue "They come from the long long ago, from the before time", you still have to explain how knowledge so common became lost, especially when other magical knowledge -- such as, say, spells -- is still around. And of course, if there's "lost knowledge" to be found, PCs will find it.)

From what I can tell, 4e solves the problem of PCs making magic items by mostly wussifying magic items, so that they grant once-per-encounter or 1 encounter/day bonuses instead of constant, ongoing, effects. I don't disapprove of this at all.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The 3E rules forced that bit of 'balance' on the game (unless you houseruled it away somehow). And the consequences of that decision had long-reaching effects throughout the game, ending up in magic losing its mystique and appeal and becoming mundane.

How can magic ever be anything other than mundane when most classes are casters, many from 1st level? When wizards get scribe scroll from level one.

The rare and the wondrous does exist in D&D - artefacts and other unique magic effects - but +1 swords and potions of healing aren't. Nor should they be, given their fairly minor powers.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Surely, someone is out there making magic items (if not with any great frequency), and if they learned how to do it, the PC's can too.

The ancients, the campaign world's equivalent of the Atlanteans, Numenoreans, Sueloise or whatever. Privy to knowledge now long forgotten.

I see these guys, the ones who built the dungeons and stocked them with gear, as being essential to a D&Dverse though I admit most classic dungeons such as Against The Giants, Keep on the Borderlands and Tomb of Horrors don't follow this model, being much more recent, and nor do the item creation rules of any edition.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Then who the hell is making all the items which litter a D&D world, and why? The world is filled with magic, including many trivial items of low power. Who spends a year of their life making, say Murlynd's Spoon or Feather Token -- anchor? And if it doesn't take a year -- if it takes a week -- then why can't the PCs learn it? SOMEONE is making all this crap, a LOT of someones to account for it all, and it's hard to image that PCs who can figure out who the leader of the assassin's guild is with two Gather Information checks can't figure out where the +1 swords are coming from.

"PCs can't make magic items" is sort of the anti-precious-snowflake argument; instead of PCs being able to do things no one else can do, it becomes that every petty hedge wizard and twopenny sorceror can do things no PC can.

(If you argue "They come from the long long ago, from the before time", you still have to explain how knowledge so common became lost, especially when other magical knowledge -- such as, say, spells -- is still around. And of course, if there's "lost knowledge" to be found, PCs will find it.)

From what I can tell, 4e solves the problem of PCs making magic items by mostly wussifying magic items, so that they grant once-per-encounter or 1 encounter/day bonuses instead of constant, ongoing, effects. I don't disapprove of this at all.

In FR it is clearly the spellplague which made creating items more difficult. In core PoL it was known in Bael Turath, but this kingdom is lost...

so, why is 3rd edition so bad regarding crafting rules? Its because you spend a precious feat on it and if you can´t take advantage of it easily, then noone would pick it. With Rituals presumably costing only moneay and time and nothing "permanently crippling your character" then noone would complain if creating a magic sword takes a month to create... and needs a rare component...

Potions are a different matter. These are non permanent spell storage items. These should be brewable in some hours to a couple of days depending on their effect and only need certain common/uncommen material components...

 

[AllisterH]

The thing I always to know about 1E was "If I can sell you this magic item, why can't I buy it from you?"