Resonance, Potency, & Potions: A Look At Magic Items in Pathfinder 2

Paizo has been delving into the way magic items work in its latest previews of Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Last week they spoke about Resonance, a resource that characters have for activating magical items; and on Friday they blogged about Potency, which is linked to the power of a magical weapon.

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Resonance is measured in Resonance Points (RP). Activating an item costs 1 RP, and your RP total is your level plus your Charisma modifier. Paizo points out that "We expect Resonance Points to be a contentious topic, and we're really curious to see how it plays at your tables. It's one of the more experimental changes to the game, and the playtest process gives us a chance to see it in the wild before committing to it."

They also preview a few magic items - cloak of elvenkind, floating shield, staff of healing, and some trinkets such as a fear gem, and vanishing coin.

When it comes to weapons, Resonance is not required; weapons have a "potency" value, which is roughly equivalent to its "plus" -- it gives you a bonus to attack, increases damage by a whole damage die per potency point (i.e. a +1 longsword gives +1 to hit and +1d8 damage). Potency and special qualities are limited by a weapon's quality - standard, expert, master, legendary.

Quality	Max Potency	Max Properties
Standard	+0	0
Expert	+2	1
Master	+4	2
Legendary	+5	3

Potency and properties are contained within transferrable magical runes, often found on a runestone. Some examples shown are disrupting, and vorpal.

Amor similarly has potency and properties. Potency affects AC, TAC, and saving throws. Some properties include invisibility and fortification.

This takes us on to potions. Potions can now have high level effects, and they don't have to be tied to the spell lists. Examples including healing potions, invisibility potions, dragon's breath potions, and oil of mending.​

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[AbdulAlhazred]

What do people want magic items to be??

ha! You are asking the unanswerable question. They want them to be (from experience):

1. simple and providing basically static benefits that can be incorporated into basic numbers on your sheet.
2. amazing and unique and not boring math benefits.
3. not something you must have.
4. not too common.
5. interesting items that everyone can get some of.

Beginning to see the problem... ?

There's absolutely no way to satisfy the D&D playing public with magic items. They need to be both snazzy and cool and amazing, and at the same time available to everyone and with little complexity so you don't have to keep remembering you have them.

Really, the best option for someone designing a game is to pick a specific milieu that you want, some specific tone and genre logic you want to follow, and just not worry about anything except creating THAT with your items. You can make them incredibly rare, quirky, and dangerous, or just ubiquitous and unremarkable as a cell phone, or whatever you want.

 

[houser2112]

What do people want magic items to be??

The way they used to be, because it was not a problem that needed fixing (at least with respect to consumables).

 

[Jer]

There's absolutely no way to satisfy the D&D playing public with magic items. They need to be both snazzy and cool and amazing, and at the same time available to everyone and with little complexity so you don't have to keep remembering you have them.

And also from a DM's perspective they need to be something that doesn't break the game if players have them, but also aren't built-into the game on the assumption that players will get them because what if we want to run a low magic campaign? (Or are just bad at remembering to include magic items in our player's treasure hauls?).

Also they should be something that wizards should be able to make because some people like to have crafting as part of their character. But they should be special things that nobody remembers how to make because letting PCs build things makes it all too common and not magical enough.

And there should never be prices on magic items because that encourages players to think that there should be magic shops. Except there should be prices on items for DMs who want to have merchants who buy and sell magic items in their worlds.

And there should be some kind of rule in place that prevents players from hoarding up items and decorating themselves like Christmas trees. But also having magic items strewn around your high level character like a Christmas Tree and being able to pull the right item out at the right time to save your bacon is absolutely an "old school" way of playing that needs to be preserved and the game needs to handle it.

I don't envy designers who work on D&D and its variants that are supposed to have a wide audience. Because everyone has an opinion on how all of these things "should" work and you're never going to make them all happy.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well, I gotta agree that the ROOT cause of the issue seems to be the existing of healing wands AT ALL. AD&D worked perfectly well

... no, much as I loved it, and still appreciate the great times we had... just, no, without continuous DM intervention, it worked not even a teeny bit, let alone well, let alone perfectly....

... 20+ years until 3e had a 'better' idea, which apparently is now so sacrosanct that it has to keep borking up games for another 20 years. People, 3e was BROKEN, it was FILLED with bad ideas, lose them!

So was 1e. 4e & 5e both fixed the low-level spell wand (or scroll) spamming issues of 3e. 4e by making wands implements, and magic items casting spells milestone-limited item dailies (and scrolls rituals). 5e by taking some more pages from 1e, removing systematic make/buy & it's hyperbolic pricing scheme, and dropping all responsibility for magic items squarely on the DM.

I guess, if you squint a bit, resonance is closer to the 4e solution, since it limits item uses, but should still allow make/buy.

I really wish "wands" worked more like you see in Harry Potter or other magical lore: they either enhance your casting (like a +1 weapon), or add special effects (Fire spells can harm ghosts, or something). Because you NEVER see in ANY of the source fantasy materials wands working like they do in D&D.

Except 4e, where wands were implements that worked a bit too much like +1 weapons, of course, another way in which it was 'not D&D.' ...nevermind...

In other words, just like 4e wands!

To add: I think it would also differentiate the Wizard more from the Sorcerer if they were required to use a wand (even a basic wooden stick).

Or staff or rod or something, sure

I disagree that AD&D's solution is 'primitive'.

"Rudimentary"
"Primordial?"
"Less evolved?"

I think AD&D had the right idea, they just should have level gated weaker items to allow them to be fashioned by somewhat lower level PCs, and maybe provided some guidelines to make it clear that these weaker items should have less ridiculously obscure components (especially in 2e where this was not at all made clear).

I actually did that with my AD&D variants. I added weaker versions of Enchant An Item as 1st (Charm Item, created little items with very minor effects) & 4th (Enspell items for ceating potions, scrolls and other 'hold a spell' expendables) level spells.

I also added "Spell Focusing Items," which, in retrospect, were a lot like Implements, but the main point of them was to make casting easier (if you were casting with a wand, for instance, you could use spells of certain schools while moving, riding, crouching behind cover, etc... the casting rules were /really/ restrictive back then)

 

[houser2112]

Well, I gotta agree that the ROOT cause of the issue seems to be the existing of healing wands AT ALL. AD&D worked perfectly well without all this 'put any spell in a magic item' stuff. In fact it was close to impossible to make most items, unless the GM was very kind (especially in 2e). This worked perfectly fine for 20+ years until 3e had a 'better' idea, which apparently is now so sacrosanct that it has to keep borking up games for another 20 years. People, 3e was BROKEN, it was FILLED with bad ideas, lose them!

While the merits of allowing characters to craft their own equipment is debatable, I don't feel the notion of "spells on a stick" is debatable, at least in the context of healing. No, AD&D didn't work "perfectly well" in this regard, because healing was only accessible through potions and two of the least popular classes (in my experience). Playing the cleric was the "hot potato" in my group and I'm struggling to remember anyone ever playing the druid.

I actually did that with my AD&D variants. I added weaker versions of Enchant An Item as 1st (Charm Item, created little items with very minor effects) & 4th (Enspell items for ceating potions, scrolls and other 'hold a spell' expendables) level spells.

Great ideas.

Aside: It always boggled the mind to think of how something like a +1 mace (an item wizards can't use) ever got made when the very hefty investment of a permanent Con loss was part of casting Enchant An Item (or was it Permanency?).

 

[Tony Vargas]

While the merits of allowing characters to craft their own equipment is debatable, I don't feel the notion of "spells on a stick" is debatable, at least in the context of healing. No, AD&D didn't work "perfectly well" in this regard, because healing was only accessible through potions and two of the least popular classes (in my experience). Playing the cleric was the "hot potato" in my group and I'm struggling to remember anyone ever playing the druid.

I did play Druids and quite liked them, but you still needed a Cleric in the party. AD&D adventures assumed one, so if there were any undead, there were way too many undead to tackle without Turn Undead, and you needed Cure Light Wounds /desperately/ at 1st level, but the Druid didn't get it until 2nd.

I think "first one who dies rolls a Cleric" was a pretty common pact back in the day.

Great ideas.
Aside: It always boggled the mind to think of how something like a +1 mace (an item wizards can't use) ever got made when the very hefty investment of a permanent Con loss was part of casting Enchant An Item (or was it Permanency?).

My young mind boggled at it, too. Why were there so many magic weapons floating around when it took a high priest or arch-mage and a point of con to make any of them? Of course, in retrospect, mechanics don't have to dictate worldbuilding like that, but at the time, it was how I thought. What I came up with was the conciet that there had been a major magical arms race in an ancient war, and that lost techiques let them essentially mass-produce magical weapons & armor, some fraction of which survived to be found by adventures millenia later.

But that wasn't quite enough, so I also had some work-arounds with those lower-level item creation spells. Charms, for instance (since it's the one I remember), gave limited-circumstance +1 bonuses or the like, and weren't charged or single-use, but each time they made a difference you rolled a d6 and on a 1 they burned out - so they weren't technically permanent.

 

[Jer]

I did play Druids and quite liked them, but you still needed a Cleric in the party. AD&D adventures assumed one, so if there were any undead, there were way too many undead to tackle without Turn Undead, and you needed Cure Light Wounds /desperately/ at 1st level, but the Druid didn't get it until 2nd.

I think "first one who dies rolls a Cleric" was a pretty common pact back in the day.

I always liked playing the cleric. Still do (when I get to play instead of DM). You get to cast spells and hit things with a blunt instrument - what more can you ask for

(It is funny that I ended up in the DM role given that tho - you'd think there would be people clamoring to be the DM so that they'd have a cleric. But it turns out that, at least when I was younger, the character class that was less popular to play than "cleric" was "Dungeon Master"...)

My young mind boggled at it, too. Why were there so many magic weapons floating around when it took a high priest or arch-mage and a point of con to make any of them? Of course, in retrospect, mechanics don't have to dictate worldbuilding like that, but at the time, it was how I thought. What I came up with was the conciet that there had been a major magical arms race in an ancient war, and that lost techiques let them essentially mass-produce magical weapons & armor, some fraction of which survived to be found by adventures millenia later.

In the old days I would also always have a magical apocalypse in my world's back story too. It just made sense - why else would there be all of these dank holes in the ground full of magical treasure unless at some point in the past there was a whole lot more magic floating around the world?

Heck even now the worlds I run all have that - in fact, it may be something I consider a "core trope" of D&D to have at least one previous age where magic was more plentiful that ended in some kind of cataclysm. I can't even think of a published setting where it isn't true, now that I think about it. (I'm sure they must exist - I just can't think of any.)

 

[The Crimson Binome]

No, AD&D didn't work "perfectly well" in this regard, because healing was only accessible through potions and two of the least popular classes (in my experience).

AD&D worked perfectly well in this regard, from my perspective. We never had a cleric, or magic healing items, but we usually had a week or two between combat encounters. It's all relative.

 

[houser2112]

AD&D worked perfectly well in this regard, from my perspective. We never had a cleric, or magic healing items, but we usually had a week or two between combat encounters. It's all relative.

I feel sorry for the kings' daughters in that world.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I feel sorry for the kings' daughters in that world.

Why? They get to be held captive for weeks at a time, before they are sacrificed at the next full moon. Time constraints, in general, are a bit more relaxed.

Alternatively, the warlock's castle is indeed fortified with seven layers of minions which must be overcome before midnight, but they're the sort of minion which the party can manage to get through seven layers of without needing to heal. In the exact same way that 4E assumes enough combat in a day for the party to run through their healing surges, so too does AD&D assume enough combat in a day to challenge the party's resources. Objective damage sustained is irrelevant, in either case. The only important thing is that you have enough HP to do what you need to do.