Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Obergnom" data-source="post: 3758884" data-attributes="member: 7145">A lot of interesting stuff so far. Never considered Weapons of Legacy, though. I do not own that book, but I have Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, which has 2 legacy items in it. I do not like the way they are handled.Some additional infos about the way I prefere to DM might help: I do not equip my NPCs any further than: He has got a Greatsword, a Full Plate and a couple of javelins. (+1 or +2 if the PCs loot them, but not figured into their stats.)My NPCs do not have or need a complicated treasure list, because I started using basic stat cards to figure out their stats some time ago. I do that to lighten the load upon me. And my players did not even notice so far... I guess that works well.For monsters I do quite the same. While I mine the MMs for interesting ability ideas, I simply use my basic stats plus a bunch of abilities once play begins.Yesterday, for example, the characters faces a Frost Giant Shaman, a Frost Giant Mammuth Rider, 2 Winter Wolves and a Mammuth. The CRs I aimed for were: Shaman CR9, Rider CR7, Winter Wolves CR4, Mammuth CR8.To prep the encounter I took my CR 4,7 and 8 Cards, a +2 CR Spell-Like Ability Template, wrote down the AC, Damage and Movement of all Monsters and added a Trample Ability to the Mammuth, a Cold Breath to the Wolves and an Aura Ability to the Rider.Worked really well. Prep time was roughly 10 Minutes for the whole encounter. But I had no idea which items the Warrior and the Shaman carried. Figuring that out would have taken me longer than writing up the stats for the whole group. (I use the MIC and a Treasure generator, but once I use those, I get a bunch of items, which I have to look up. Which costs more time. It's might take less time once I am really familiar with all those items... but I do not know if I want to wait that long)Well, I had some more Ideas (and based upon some of the great answers in this threat)Maybe I should stick to the "big six" items. While my players love the variety provided by the MIC, it sort of gets into my way, because it forces me to look up items and have my monsters use them.If I would just go with Talismans, Rings, Amulets, Bracers, Boots, Cloaks ... whatever giving  Bonuses to Abilities, Nat Armor, Armor, Saves etc. Treasure Placement would be simpler, and not interfere with my method of generating NPC Stats. (No one cares if the +5 Sword was not really figured into the Black Knights stats, he was an able opponend and the huge amount of damage he was dishing out surly made the players think he used it)And I could (finally) pin a Treasure vs. CR Table into my DM Screen. Maybe even add some basic items into that list, like this: CR8 - 3400gp or +2 Armor, +2 Ability, +2 SavesMy only concern would be, it might kill the exitement of finding treasure for my players. Some of them really love the MIC stuff, but only if they find it. Last session, I let everyone have a item more or less of his choice of level 12 or lower... did not work very well, they had not idea what to choose. If I just hand treasure out, they are more enthusiastic.</blockquote>

Verification