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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
Too little general usefulness for implements?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4791646" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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. </p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 4791646, member: 82106"] 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. [/QUOTE]
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Too little general usefulness for implements?
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