Working Meta on Magic Items

[klofft]

I'm totally new to 4th, so if this has been covered already, please feel free to shuffle me off to the appropriate thread.

I'm trying to set up a "points of light" setting of my own, using as many of the presumptions of the RAW as I can. It's going pretty well. I'm up to magic items. As a way of running things, I'm not going to put duplicate magic items into the game, i.e., if someone had an Amulet of Protection, I wouldn't allow another one (this idea comes from my past experience with 3.5, where our party of 6 pretty much has all the same magic items by the end).

But if people are hiding in their small towns with miles of hostile wilderness in between, why would the PCs ever be able to buy magic items?

I realize one answer is "just don't let them." But the presumptions of the rules are that they can use their discovered wealth to buy items. Thoughts? (I have some corollary questions, but I'll start here).

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ryujin]

Good point. They probably wouldn't be able to buy magic items, of any significant power, unless there was an equally significant "bastion of light" like a huge city.

I also understand your reluctance to have 5 of any one item, in the same party. There are times when this makes sense, as when a particular amulet indicates membership in an adventuring group, secret society, or religion, but it otherwise doesn't make sense. I shudder to think how many groups had three or more Bloodclaw weapons in them, before the errata.

In a restrictive magic campaign, there are a couple of ways that you can handle things. You could use inherent bonuses, making magic items sort of just 'the icing on the cake', so to speak. Then the properties and powers of the item become something special, helping to build the character thematically, but are not mechanically necessary.

You could run the campaign around the concept of researching famous and historic items/artifacts, whose powers are of interest to members of the party. Research it, locate it, go get it. Acquisition of the items is then a means to an end, the goal of which is building personal power and prestige, or the items are necessary in order to achieve another goal. The Battlecrazed Broadsword is the key, that opens the tomb of Jarl Gnutson, The Berserker King, revealing this treasure horde. The Safewing Amulet is a symbol of The Hawk God, letting you commune with him for the answer to The Great Riddle of Life.

Or you just give them the Create Item ritual, early on, but create a limit on what varieties of magic the world will permit to exist, at any given time. Special properties of items are pulled from the aether, only returning once the item is de-magicked or destroyed. Then you just give them Residuum in their treasure parcels, and turn them loose.

 

[the Jester]

I am pretty much universally against buying magic item shops. There are some exceptions (thus the "pretty much" caveat), but in a points of light type of setting, I see no real reason to allow it.

 

[Destil]

(this idea comes from my past experience with 3.5, where our party of 6 pretty much has all the same magic items by the end)

Actually, this would much less of an issue in 4E, where most PCs will want different types of items, anyway. In 3E you pretty much got everyone a Cloak of resistance, ring of deflection, amulet of natural armor et cetera because there were few comparable items. In 4E you can get the basics covered by a much wider variety of item, so I doubt it would be that important. You'd expect something more like a fighter with a cloak of the walking wounded, a wizard with a broach of shielding, a ranger with a cloak of survival et cetera.

Even if you keep it, I'd suggest not restricting commons this way (if you use rarity).

Simple solution is just to have them either make items themselves or commission someone with the Make Magic Item ritual on a per-item basis.

 

[The Little Raven]

One option is to reduce the material wealth and replace it with equivalent cost items, as rewards from towns (family heirlooms, church relics, etc) and dungeons.

Another is to introduce the occasional NPC who would be capable of selling an item, such as the lord of a great house who has fallen on hard times and is willing to sell his ancestor's famous sword.

A third is to use a single recurring NPC merchant from Faraway who intersects the PC's paths on specific occasions (so you can control when they have access to items).

These options also work well when mixed with using wishlists, Inherent Bonuses and Alternate Rewards.

 

[Mengu]

As player I have no problem with a game where I can't "buy" magic items as long as I can "find" what I need. So purchase of magic items can be removed from a game, I don't really care. And my old stuff I'm no longer using, I'll gladly donate to an organization that can use it, or reward it to a deserving person.

In my game, this is pretty much what I do. Initially I was converting the monetary treasure also to magic items party can use, but later, ditched tracking of magic items altogether. At any given level, I have a pretty good picture of what treasure items the PC's should have, and they have been pretty happy with my ad hoc method so far. I might give too much at some levels, and not enough at others. I upgrade weapons, armor and neck slot pretty much like inherent bonuses. So the treasure they gain at level 12 and 14 for instance is way above expected values, but during the in between levels, they may get fewer items to flesh out their feet, hand, head, waist, hand etc. slots, as well as the occasional wondrous item to help them along their adventure.

I like a more dynamic approach to treasure, giving the PC's what they need. I honestly would much prefer a system where treasure was stripped out, and made much rarer, and the current magic item system would be rolled into some sort of talent system.

Also, "no duplicates" is a bad idea in 4e. Nearly every melee character wants either Iron Armbands or Radiant Weapon, nearly every staff implement user wants Staff of Ruin, nearly every bow user wants Bracers of Archery. Not giving duplicates of these items will simply make one character better than the other.

Going into house rule territory, if you want slightly more flavor, the better way to deal with the 4 melee characters in the party wanting Iron Armbands, would be to add an extra power unique to the individual, as part of the items, something small and distinguishing. For instance, maybe the Fighter's Iron Armbands let him once per day mark all adjacent enemies as a free action, the Avenger's Iron Armbands once per day let him deal 1[W] extra damage on a hit, the Rogue's Iron Armbands let him gain combat advantage once per day, the warpriest's Iron Armbands let him maximize the healing word dice once per day.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

In my 4e Eberron game, I've houseruled that dragonshards (magic rocks, basically) can be used to create magic items. So the group finds a lvl 4 magic rock and using a ritual they started the game with, they can create any item of that level (not less, and they cannot add two magic rocks together to make a more powerful item). I do not use rarity.

This lets me use the treasure parcels pretty much as written, and allows the players to get what they want. It's been great so far, although sometimes it leads to group paralysis due to so much choice.

You could call your catalyst residuum or really anything that fits your setting.

 

[DracoSuave]

It depends entirely on the tier of the item.

Also, magic shops are bad, but that doesn't make items hard to get, it just means there isn't a magic item department store.

Consider the amount of cash that goes into a magic item transaction... that stuff isn't happening often enough to justify any sort of store. More often, items are made to order based on an extensive network of contacts.

You know... the sorts of contacts an adventurer needs to get all the various gear and information he requires to do the basics of his chosen job?

You don't walk into a store, you let it be known you're looking for something, someone says 'Rory can do it!' you meet with Rory, exchange consideration, and the job is done. I mean, players can do it for themselves with a ritual, right? Just buy out a incanter's shop of arcane components and you're good to go.

Outside heroic tier tho, you're not restricted to the shops of your home country. Your contacts include places far beyond the reach of most men. You know someone who can deal with the Bazaar in the City of Brass. You got a contact in Sigil. You know people who can actually deal in astral diamonds. You can spend very little components and travel across the world through teleportation circles to find that one artisan you need.

 

[wlmartin]

I'm totally new to 4th, so if this has been covered already, please feel free to shuffle me off to the appropriate thread.

I'm trying to set up a "points of light" setting of my own, using as many of the presumptions of the RAW as I can. It's going pretty well. I'm up to magic items. As a way of running things, I'm not going to put duplicate magic items into the game, i.e., if someone had an Amulet of Protection, I wouldn't allow another one (this idea comes from my past experience with 3.5, where our party of 6 pretty much has all the same magic items by the end).

But if people are hiding in their small towns with miles of hostile wilderness in between, why would the PCs ever be able to buy magic items?

I realize one answer is "just don't let them." But the presumptions of the rules are that they can use their discovered wealth to buy items. Thoughts? (I have some corollary questions, but I'll start here).

Thanks in advance!

This is one of the hardest things DM's deal with when building a Campaign.
Most of the corebooks assume you have a setting similar to FR where the sale of Magic Items isnt uncommon as it should be.

If magic items are rare in your campaign then since D&D 4e is designed to challenge compare your PCs versus the Monsters assuming they have equivilant magic items, you have to compensate with boons and other non-magic rewards. (such is the case in Dark Sun where magical items are reduced so the DM is encourage to give the players enhancements instead of magic items)

If magic items are common in your campaign then it must be assumed that the economy is built to handle this level of rarity and whilst there wouldnt be a Magical Item shop in every flea bitten town (just like there wouldn't be a 10ct. diamond jewelers in every small village in our world) it should be accepted that if they travel to a big enough town, they will find someone to trade in magic items.

That being said, if all of your adventures revolve around a Dungeon near a small village that your Characters have been adventuring in for 5 levels, it is not unfair to assume that they arent the only ones adventuring down there and perhaps an NPC saw the opportunity to setup a shop to deal in magic items.


Summary : If your Campaign has Magic Items in it, chances are there are going to be people who trade in them and all you need to do is determine how many people are coming and going through the trade center (village, town, city etc) with magic items to figure out if someone has cottoned on to making some money and voila, you have a shop.

 

[klofft]

Thanks for the replies; this has been very helpful to me, though I am still working out how I want to handle this. I'm really torn on inherent bonuses. Part of me wants to try them while another part of me wants to try my first 4th game with the default presumptions before monkeying with them.

Mostly I'm trying to get a sense of making magic items special while still playing D&D. An old problem, to be sure.

So here's a new question: for those who don't use any variant of "magic item shop" pr allow PCs to buy magic items, do you modify their gp awards as treasure (perhaps by including less cash and more items)? Otherwise, I guess I'm wondering what the characters do with all that money if they can't spend it on new magic toys.

How do you handle this?