Too little general usefulness for implements?

[chitzk0i]

There's a similar problem in the Living Forgotten Realms campaign. At the end of each module, your character has 3-5 magic items to choose from. You get one magic item pick per level. If you're a weapon user, it may be a while before you find a mod with an enchantment you like. For implement users, it may be a while before you even see a magic implement you can use.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

How about this?

Using Disenchant Magic Item and Enchant Magic Item (together), the "plus" portion (+3, +4, whatever) may be transferred to an item of a different type, and the remainder converted to Residuum at a rate dependent on how many Keywords the original item and the desired item share in common (let's say 20% extra per common Keyword).

Thus, when converting a +3 Wand of Witchfire (17,000 gp) to a +3 Wand of Fireburst (also 17,000 gp), you follow these rules:

1. Convert the Wand to a +3 Magic Wand (9000 gp), leaving a difference of 8000 gp.

2. Where normally the 8000 gp would convert to 1600 Residuum (at a 0% conversion rate), in this case we increase the 20% to 40% because both Wands have the Keyword "Fire", and you end up with 3200 Residuum. (I'm ignoring the Keyword "Arcane", though maybe I shouldn't.)

...This is just a starting point. I know that many magic items have no Keywords. I am also aware that this requires some sort of tracking to make sure the Residuum gets used to make the intended item; most likely the item should be made at the same time the powers are "drained" from the original item.

If *that* doesn't help you, I don't know what to suggest.

 

[FireLance]

Could work. Noted. Thanks.

However, I'm curious - are you suggesting this alternative because you feel the BMA option is too powerful on average?

Actually, I was thinking that it might not be powerful enough for a small number of characters: Constitution warlocks and some multiclassed characters, for example.

 

[fuzzlewump]

To me, having BBEGs drop stuff
1) they themselves can't use
2) stuff that just so happens to be precisely right for the character
is, frankly, a nasty piece of MMO thinking that has no place in my game.

I'm starting this thread to see if (hopefully) I'm not alone in this sentiment.

In your world, would it not make sense for the BBEG have things they can't use? After all, that's what the players have. Sure, the warlock in the party can't use the holy symbol that the Drow Priestess used, but the warlock can use the Rod that the Drow Priestess picked up off another hero she killed, or that her cronies picked up and brought to her. If she sold it in between, then the characters can get the gold.

Also, to be fair, the loot droppers of MMO's generally don't change what they drop based on group composition, they have a set loot table to randomly draw from no matter what kills it.

As far making implements have more generally useful, just allow the enchantments they have to be transferable. Your example of the "of Battle" would work fine with any implement. In fact, most implements don't seem to be specific coming out of the PHB1. The only specific ones are Rods, and not even all of them are specific to Warlock. If you want specific enchantments to be transferable, such as an effect that hinges off of Warlock's curse, like others have said some rewriting will have to occur. Anything that requires a warlock's curse to trigger can instead be triggered by a minor action spent to trigger the effect.

Hope this has helped.

 

[CapnZapp]

Actually, I was thinking that it might not be powerful enough for a small number of characters: Constitution warlocks and some multiclassed characters, for example.

In fact, most implements don't seem to be specific coming out of the PHB1. The only specific ones are Rods, and not even all of them are specific to Warlock.

Hmmm.. I do have a Warlock in my group.

You do have a point in that it just might be the Warlock class that is the problem. (At least partially - tomes, for instance, they are still boring to anyone but a Wizard, which is not good design no matter how you look at it. Shouldn't anyone trained in Arcana be able to squeeze out the goodness in them. Yes of course they should)

I must say, the more you learn about this class, the worse its design appears. (But that's for a different thread...)

 

[FadedC]

I kind of like that there are a number of items that are designed to interface directly with specific class abilities. It's kind of fun if there are magic items that give a warlock curse special properties, even if it does make those items pretty useless to others. I would find it kind of boring if every item was overly generic.

On the other hand as someone who likes to have a certain amount of simulationism in his games as well I can understand your concerns. I find there are a few ways to get around the overly narrow item bit.

1) Have enemies who can logically use those items and thus logically drop them. You don't want to go overboard with this and have a constant flood of enemy druids to feed your party druid with class specific items. But for something like a warlock it's quite reasonable to expect to face them as bad guys from time to time and for them to have magic warlock items.

2) Have alternate ways to get items. Not every item needs to be pried from the cold dead hands of the BBEG. Having side quests to assemble the components to make your own class specific items can be fun too, and much easier to justify.

3) Enchanting. You can always just include more loot you know the party can't use but is logical to exist and just let them turn it into residuum to make their own stuff. You can also adjust the enchanting rules to make this easier if you desire.

 

[Hereticus]

Anyone else but be finding implements to be awfully restricted, to be awfully specialized on one particular class?

Isn't that the point of an implement... to be focused on the class using it?

My +3 Wand of Power (with an extra Fire Burst) is perfect for me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Wands are actually kind of a special case, and this is interesting. The wand has always been both a warlock and wizard implement. The magic wands section of the PHB says that ANY character who can use ANY power from the same power source as the wand can use the wand's power. Apparently the character would have to actually be able to use a wand as an implement however in order to gain the enhancement bonus (or take the AIE feat).

My assumption is that this was put in place to allow any arcane class (or multi-classed character) to use any wand. Since wands were the only overlapping implement in the PHB it seems pretty clear they recognized this issue and wanted wands to be usable by as many characters as possible.

My feeling is this whole issue is just really mostly a fact of life. There are plenty of other magic items which are unlikely to be useful except to fairly specific characters. If the party finds such an item they either can't use it at all, or they may be able to get some limited use out of it. If any PC can use ANY item and get basically full use of it, then it seems to me it makes things a bit bland.

I can understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure it bothers me and I'm REALLY not sure how you could house rule it. Any rule that lets you get full value for disenchanting or selling an item basically makes all items interchangable. Found a level 6 item? Well, you can make it into any other level 6 item as long as you know 2 fairly common rituals and spend a relatively small amount of ritual components to do so. It DOES solve the specific problem, but it certainly isn't much of a solution in my book.

I kind of look at it this way. Wizards and other spell casters are probably the source of the vast majority of magic items. They probably generally tend to make items useful to themselves. Thus a preponderance of items are most likely usable by one or another class of casters. Granted that the party will not be able to use ALL of these items, but if 80% of the items are implements and the other 20% are weapons, then assuming the implements are distributed fairly evenly between types the wizard is pretty likely to find one he can use at a rate similar to what the martial characters get. Even at a 50/50 split it may work out fine depending on the party.

Overall I think the answer is just a combination of approaches. Make a goodly percentage of the magic items implements. Maybe make a few homebrew implement type items that can be used by more than one class. Once in a while give a character a chance at swapping an item with an NPC for full face value. Put a few alternative items into treasures on top of what the BBEG is actually using. These can be ones that have narrow use limits and which the BBEG itself simply wasn't able to use and is holding onto in the hope that it will prove useful to them later on.

I think this multi-pronged approach can work out OK. There will be those times that items are useless, but as long as every class can generally find good items to fill out what they need, things work out fine. Personally I have yet to hand an item to a party and find that they had no use for it at all. My players are like vacuum cleaners for magic items, they never sell them, disenchant them, or anything, lol. If a new PC ends up joining the party due to death or whatever they all just pull out these extra items and swap around until everyone is well equipped.