Pathfinder 2E Why are all the magic items so boring?

[Thomas Shey]

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That mostly tracks with my experience. Boring but practical items can be more interesting depending on how they're implemented though. Compare an item that boosts weapon damage with one that boosts sneak attack or smite damage like the Bracelet of Silver Smite above. At the end of the day, they both just increase your damage dealt, but boosting sneak attack damage feels more exciting, both because its a class feature you invested in, and because it gives you something to play around in combat.

To me, that just seems more narrow, rather than more interesting; as you say, it does the same sort of thing, just only for some people and in some circumstances.

And Cute but mostly irrelevant items vary widely from "totally useless" to "helpful in unlikely scenarios." The Rope of Entanglement above is a good example. In most scenarios is it better to spend your standard action to entangle an enemy? No, probably not. But, in an event where an enemy is trying to escape, it's excellent. Unlike grappling, there's no save, and it has a reach of 20 feat. So while it's mostly irrelevant, when it is useful, it's very useful. It's easy to imagine a version of this item that allows an initial save against a low, unscaling DC, that takes two actions to activate, but only one to escape from. Then the item would be better described as "cute, but entirely irrelevant."

I concur, but the question you have to ask is whether the situation that makes it useful ever actually comes up, and whether by that time you remember you have it.

Every item has an opportunity cost, because the gold you make by selling it could be spent on something else. With 2e items, the additional opportunity cost of the actions spent drawing and activating an item not worth it. I know I'm just cherry picking now (which is why I didn't use specific examples originally) but Spell Catalysts embody exactly what I'm talking about. The description sounds really cool. Use a consumable to add an effect to one of your spells, I love it. In practice though, they're narrowly useful, take up a hand, and often add an action to the spell being cast.

Soothing Scents lower the frightened value of someone you heal. Very few enemies can frighten, so they're at best narrowly useful. They also add an action to the spell, so casting Soothe would take up your entire turn. Even worst than that though, is that it has to be held to be activated, and it takes an action to draw. So unless if you start your turn holding one, it takes more than a full turn to cast Soothe boosted by the scents. By the time you pull it off, odds are the frightened will have gone away on its own.

Depending on what kind of things you fight Fear inducing enemies can be more common than you think, but I don't disagree that the action cost can be prohibitive (this makes the always marginal value of consumables in general even worse, far as it goes; there's a whole discussion that can be had about how often people even remember they have, let alone use, consumeables outside of healing potions, and this isn't unique to PF2e, but extra time and similar consumptions certainly don't help).

 

[Incenjucar]

You can get an ambulatory cauldron that toddles around behind you at level 1. You can get a tattoo that basically turns you into a werecreature at level 6.

There can always be more fun items, but the main issue I see is that so many items have no DC or bonus scaling so they become vendor trash instead of something you make a lasting part of your character story.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

You can get an ambulatory cauldron that toddles around behind you at level 1. You can get a tattoo that basically turns you into a werecreature at level 6.

There can always be more fun items, but the main issue I see is that so many items have no DC or bonus scaling so they become vendor trash instead of something you make a lasting part of your character story.

My players loved that cauldron when they got it, come to think of it I don't remember if it was still floating around on someone's sheet.

 

[Bohandas]

A modern perspective that polytheistic people just believed their deities were Superman minus the cape completely misses the concept.

Pathfinder's and D&D's vibe for how it handles gods is off, but Superman isn't the vibe I get for how D&D and Pathfinder do gods. The way PF/D&D handles them it's more like they're a Lantern Corps central power battery, just sitting there, far off, recharging somebody else's superpowers

 

[Retreater]

I think this argument only applies to items whose purpose is to give a bonus to a d20 roll. Don't get me wrong, a lot of items have this purpose. In 1e, you had to upgrade three different items to keep your ac strong (amulet of natural armor, ring of deflection, and enhanced armor). Those are all items I would call "boring", but it's a tiny bit more interesting just because there's more of them.

I'm a player in a PF2 game. My character is 5th level and has a few magic items (beyond the "core" stuff I must have to stay relevant). I have an item that can cast Grease once per day and an Onyx watchdog once per week. I've used the Grease once and the watchdog twice.
I also have a magical property on my sword that I can turn it into a wave of water to knock someone prone - I've never used the feature.
In most cases it goes back to the argument we were having online a couple years ago about "illusion of choice:" between an interesting action and the effective thing you do most turns, you choose the effective thing.
If magic items were interesting, we wouldn't use them often. They have to enhance what we're good at, so they don't seem interesting.

 

[payn]

I'm a player in a PF2 game. My character is 5th level and has a few magic items (beyond the "core" stuff I must have to stay relevant). I have an item that can cast Grease once per day and an Onyx watchdog once per week. I've used the Grease once and the watchdog twice.
I also have a magical property on my sword that I can turn it into a wave of water to knock someone prone - I've never used the feature.
In most cases it goes back to the argument we were having online a couple years ago about "illusion of choice:" between an interesting action and the effective thing you do most turns, you choose the effective thing.
If magic items were interesting, we wouldn't use them often. They have to enhance what we're good at, so they don't seem interesting.

I think those sound awesome! Much better than +x which often just means keeping up with system math via magic items. Now, if water wave prone attack sucks, and has very little chance of being effective, thats a bummer and a system fault in my eyes.

 

[Retreater]

I think those sound awesome! Much better than +x which often just means keeping up with system math via magic items. Now, if water wave prone attack sucks, and has very little chance of being effective, thats a bummer and a system fault in my eyes.

They're interesting and fun additions to exploration and social encounters. For example, I implemented the Grease spell last session during a Chase scene. It's difficult to see the effectiveness in a combat scenario, however. Like, in a very special circumstance where my character is defending a narrow corridor and I want to spend two Actions for a chance to knock some people prone with Grease (with a pretty lousy Save DC), but I have more effective and reliable ways to do that - even with a Trip maneuver.

 

[payn]

They're interesting and fun additions to exploration and social encounters. For example, I implemented the Grease spell last session during a Chase scene. It's difficult to see the effectiveness in a combat scenario, however. Like, in a very special circumstance where my character is defending a narrow corridor and I want to spend two Actions for a chance to knock some people prone with Grease (with a pretty lousy Save DC), but I have more effective and reliable ways to do that - even with a Trip maneuver.

My experience with PF2 was a never ending series of these discoveries.

 

[nevin]

I've been DM'ing a game of P2E for a while now, and I'm really struggling to find any interesting items to reward my players with. In most systems, items that give flat bonuses are the boring option, but in P2E, a helmet that gives +1 to intimidate is something you want to find, because at least it does something. The alternatives give you a weak spell that a caster could have cast 2 levels ago.

In other systems, party members often argue about who gets to hold the cool new magic item they found. That's happened exactly once in this game, and it was the first striking weapon they found. A damage boost is the only item that could excite them.

I've heard complaints that most spells and skill feats are useless. There's some truth to that, but you can just take the medicine feats instead. With magic items... I'm struggling to find any. Did I just skip over all the cool ones on Archives of Nethys? Have you or your players been excited to find a specific item? Do I just need to start homebrewing something cool?

It's the tight balance and the focus on all no melee classes being expected to be support. PF2E is almost a board game. That was intentional, a core part of the player base loved it. The absolute boring play of most spell casting classes and magic items is an unfortunate side effect of that design choice.

To be fair DND 5th ed with that same groupthink hate of the christmas tree effect kind of did the same thing if you play 5th ed only with magic items from the books. Some magic items like +1 swords will always be boring but magic item design due to the idea that everything should be balanced has been in the doldrums for a long time. Magic items to be fun should solve problems, or give players something they can't get by base rules. That was the original idea in 1st edition for magic items. A magic user was scary but a paladin with a holy sword was even scarier. But as magic items turned into known things we look up in books and players ask for they became boring and known.(spells suffer from this as well) My solution to that is history, and things like unexpected powers like say flight for a sword. But listen to your players when they are talking that will give you an idea of what might excite them. One of my biggest hits was low level magic weapons that were charged like wands. I came up with them as a leftover from a great war in the past and some kingdoms made them because they could make them faster. I thought it was a little boring my 1st level players got more excited than I'd seen anyone in a long time. They were useful, unexpected at 1st level and something they'd never heard of. That's really what players want is to be surprised and have something nifty that thier friends at other tables don't. And it depends on the player. I had a player who's favorite magic item was a magical tent that set itself up and made him dinner. Didn't really change the game in any big way and he loved his tent.

 

[Thomas Shey]

They're interesting and fun additions to exploration and social encounters. For example, I implemented the Grease spell last session during a Chase scene. It's difficult to see the effectiveness in a combat scenario, however. Like, in a very special circumstance where my character is defending a narrow corridor and I want to spend two Actions for a chance to knock some people prone with Grease (with a pretty lousy Save DC), but I have more effective and reliable ways to do that - even with a Trip maneuver.

That's often the problem with powers like that; they either don't start out with a good enough DC or don't keep up with what you're running in long enough to stay relevant. This may be partly a side effect of the fact most modern non OSR D&D-oids have a fairly fast level progression.