(3.5) Magic items - how rare should they be? [Archive]

Shpadoinkle

2011-01-20, 04:34 AM

Magic items ARE rare. It's just that certain people (adventurers, for example) tend to come across them a lot more often than, say, Bob the dirt farmer, for whom magic may as well be nonexistant. 98% of the people in the world are like Bob- regular people just doing their job to scrape out a living for themselves and their families.

Adventurers, on the other hand, are pretty much one-in-a-million (possibly literally, depending on how populated a given world is, but adventurers who actually keep it up and somehow manage to survive long enough to find/make magic equipment are still going to be exceptionally rare people.) One person in a million wielding a magic sword as part of his day job is not that big a stretch.

Reducing the frequency of magic items takes a significant chunk out of the PCs power, but it hits non-casters hardest, since without magic items they have far fewer ways to make up for their weaknesses.

As for how I handle magic items in my game, I thought about it a while ago and came up with a few things. Basically what I came up with allows characters to temporarily enchant nonmagical weapons or armor or boots or whatever as a matter of course- more detailed stuff and my reasoning behind it in the spoilers.

Basically, once you reach level 6 you're already capable of stuff beyond normal mortals, and you have a kind of power that resonates within your body and soul. A bit of this power seeps into the items very close to you, the things you use every day, and sort of bonds them to you, granting them magical properties as long as you're using them.

I wanted to get this idea written out while it was still fresh, so I haven't thought a lot about it, but the basics of it are this:
- At level 6, any one nonmagical item you possess is now treated in all respects as being a +1 item (or something of equal or lesser GP value). This is a property of the character, not the item- for anyone besides you it functions as a nonmagical item unless they attune it to themselves as well.
- Attuning an item to yourself requires a week of use. It takes time for you to really become intimately familiar with the item and for it to feel like a natural extension of yourself.
- I'm kind of at a loss for what to call this effect, but it increases as you level up. It starts at level 6 as a +1 bonus to one item, but every time you go up a level it increases by 1, so at level 7 you have two +1 bonuses to two different items (your weapon and your armor, for instance) or a +2 bonus (or the equivalent) to one item (i.e. a +1 flaming longsword.)
- You can switch this bonus to a different item (you can lose the bonus on the longsword and basically swap it out for a +2 suit of platemail, for instance.) As mentioned above though, it takes a week to attune an item to yourself, so you won't be doing this in the middle of a dungeon crawl or whatever.
- You can't apply this bonus to an item that's already magical. You can't boost that +2 shortbow to +4 because its own magical aura prevents the necessary instinctual connection needed. Alternately, you CAN apply it to already magical items, but the cost doubles- you'd have to spend 2 'levels' worth of this effect to raise the bonus by 1. You have to invest more of yourself in order to merge your aura with that of the item.

One problem is that this benefits casters at least as much as noncasters, who are the ones who really need it, so it could be restricted to anyone who doesn't have any item creation feats or something like that.

JaronK

2011-01-20, 04:41 AM

If you want rare magic items, consider giving the whole party bonuses similar to those of VoP, covering the necessary enhancement bonuses and immunities and such. Make sure to cover the melee issues (so for example, an 8th level melee might find all weapons have a +2 enhancement bonus for him). Then give greatly reduced WBL in the form of utility items.

JaronK

Coidzor

2011-01-20, 05:41 AM

They're rare not only because there's less of them in circulation and less demand for them than mundane items, but because they routinely get taken out of circulation by hoarders and adventuring parties and elite members of society.

tyckspoon

2011-01-20, 10:17 AM

Kaldrin

2011-01-20, 10:25 AM

As for how I handle magic items in my game, I thought about it a while ago and came up with a few things. Basically what I came up with allows characters to temporarily enchant nonmagical weapons or armor or boots or whatever as a matter of course- more detailed stuff and my reasoning behind it in the spoilers.

I also do something similar with my games, no matter what system. The character starts becoming legendary in terms of stories being told about him, but in the same vein as Excalibur and Arthur, their items get some of the greatness imbued into them. A trusty old family sword can start gaining abilities when it's used to defeat all the big bads. A rogue can find his boots developing faster movement. Slowly at first, but increasing with each epic task, the items themselves become items of legend just by being wielded by legendary characters.

As a result I don't give out a lot of magic items to add to that.

Cyrion

2011-01-20, 10:50 AM

Characters are only underpowered if the adversaries you throw at them are overpowered.

No matter how frequently you give out magic items or how powerful they are, you should tailor opponents to the party's abilities. If nobody has a magic weapon, don't throw many "DR 5/magic" monsters at them.

Curmudgeon

2011-01-20, 11:48 AM

No matter how frequently you give out magic items or how powerful they are, you should tailor opponents to the party's abilities. If nobody has a magic weapon, don't throw many "DR 5/magic" monsters at them.
... unless the party has Monks, who bypass DR/magic from level 4 on. This is one of the few situations where the class features actually work out. :smallsmile:

Gnaeus

2011-01-20, 11:55 AM

... unless the party has Monks, who bypass DR/magic from level 4 on. This is one of the few situations where the class features actually work out. :smallsmile:

Only in the unlikely event that the DR 5 actually brings the barbarian's damage down to equal or below the monk. 3d6+17 isn't unusual for an enlarged raging barbarian at about level 4-5, could be higher. even at DR 10/magic, he could still be outdamaging the monk.

The_Jackal

2011-01-20, 12:11 PM

How rare they are in the game and how rare they are in your world are supposed to be different things, but unfortunately, one influences the other. How do you keep the world low-magic when your one of your party members obtains a few item creation feats? Or, if they refused to buy those feats, how do they continue to scale in power as they level? The game makes certain assumptions about character power which require the acquisition of magic gear as they rise in level. If you deprive them of it, at some point they're simply going to be fodder for higher level encounters that they'd otherwise be able to master.

If you're intent on running a world that's low-magic, I'd recommend a different game system than D20, honestly.

Totally Guy

2011-01-20, 12:15 PM

The players can potentially find a magic item when they decide they will go out and look for a magic item.

Cyrion

2011-01-20, 02:02 PM

Only in the unlikely event that the DR 5 actually brings the barbarian's damage down to equal or below the monk. 3d6+17 isn't unusual for an enlarged raging barbarian at about level 4-5, could be higher. even at DR 10/magic, he could still be outdamaging the monk.

Yes, but the point is that challenges the party is uneqipped to handle should not be the routine fare, and the DM directly controls that. The DM should design encounters that push the party based on the level of magical muscle they have.

Kaww

2011-01-20, 03:46 PM

The players can potentially find a magic item when they decide they will go out and look for a magic item.

I like this statement. It says it all. Or maybe it says nothing?

Keinnicht

2011-01-20, 04:09 PM

Depends on how many high-level people there are in your world, and how much you approve of the game's guidelines for treasure.

Based on the way the game works, +1 weapons are fairly common. Not everyone has one, but most people probably know OF someone who has a magic sword. A lot of noble families probably have one or two, the captain of the town guard in a very large city might, etc. Most characters higher than 6th level probably have a magic weapon.

On the other hand, +5 Vorpal Longswords are not common in most settings. Something like that is basically an artifact, and is probably a one of a kind thing.

Kansaschaser

2011-01-20, 05:44 PM

I've been in games where we cannot purchase even the most basic of magic items even while in a Planar Metropolis. The dungeon master told us that the magic item is never available, but you can comission one to be made.

This tends to make our games run a lot longer than necessary. We end up spending 3-4 months in town waiting for magic items to be made before we go exploring that dungeon we found.

The only thing we can purchase that is considered magic is scrolls. I think he did this so we could still play spellcasters.

In a lot of 3.0 games I played in, we didn't encounter magic items until we hit about level 6. One dungeon master didn't give us access to a magic weapon until we were almost 9th level. And boy, did we all covet that Longsword+1.

Personally, once I finished reading the Dungeon Master Guide, I argued with the dungeon master about the rarity of magic items and that he was not giving us appropriate challenge ratings. I still get into this argument with a lot of people running a Dungeons and Dragons game. It's rare for any character I play to have the appropriate "Wealth By Level". I'm normally 20-50% under the appropriate wealth by level.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-20, 06:20 PM

Depends on the campaign.
In a world where magic is rare and well magical, magic items are going to be ancestral treasures at the most common and artefacts of power at the rarest. Look at Lord of the Rings. A glorified crystal ball is an extremely rare item that can't even be made any more, and magic swords are far and few between, the methodology of making of them likely lost to the tides of time.
Heh, I absolutely adore alliteration.
Then we get to worlds where magic is the primary form of technology, where even buildings are supported by spells and incantations and improved golems wait on one hand and foot.
In short "Whatever is appropriate for the world."
What this means, however, is that if having things be magic item heavy in a world where there has been little to know effect of magic on the fabric of society stretches my suspension of disbelief rather harshly.

Callista

2011-01-20, 10:56 PM

They should be as rare as magic-users. And if magic-users are common, then they should be as common as magic-users.

Why? Because magic items are part of what allows the non-caster to keep being useful as the party casters increase in power. Everyone needs to have access to magic of about the same strength.

If you have banned full casters in order to create a low-magic setting, then magic items can be rare. Beware the problem of monsters whose primary weakness is one magic item or another; these may have a different challenge rating than they would in a normal setting.

Dusk Eclipse

2011-01-20, 10:56 PM

This is partly why I love Eberron as a setting; due the whole magi-tech given off by the setting, finding magic items commonly doesn't break the verisimilitude of the game, as it might happen in a LotR-esque setting.

My DM usually gives us magic items as the reward of the adventure, he usually send undead, monsters and the like as enemies so the opportunity to loot are quite rare (and normally quite glorious when we can loot someone); but magic items usually find their ways towards the party as gifts, payment, etc.

As far as how rare they should be; well see above it depends on the setting.

Callista

2011-01-20, 11:02 PM

Cerlis

2011-01-20, 11:12 PM

I think its really a matter as for fairness to the player its customary to give players pure gold(money/equivical) with (if its a big stash) a magic item or two. While i think the way it was intended is that, say at 5th level each player earns x gold. So the DM puts in P(I+G) where P is number of party members, X is the amount of gold they should get that level G is the amount of Gold/art/jewels they physically get and I is X -(minus) the gold they actually get.

So...a ring of protection+1 is 2000 gold?

So if you are only suppose to get 1000 gold that level, you might get hard cash and a masterwork item. if you get 2000 gold each on a certian level, the DM might throw in a Ring of protection, a same cost Wonderous item, a Free weapon enchant from an NPC (for that masterwork item before) and 4000 golds worth of gold and goods.

This not only fleshes out characters getting minor items that boosts their stats, so they arent just glass cannons, gives them all a choice of gold or items, without one person getting an item worth twice as much as others. and makes sure that no one invests ALL their gold into a Vorpal sword leaving them with no magic items or armor and dying horribly.

thats at least i think how it was intended.

*edit: Didnt say main point. Under this system, if done right, magic items are obtained from rare crafter NPCS (or the players themselves) or found rarely. When you find a "stash" even if its a good one, its still only a magic item and one only owned by a rich person. (for instance a king might have been given a Token of luck in the form of a ring from a vassel. it translates to a +2 Ring).

Essentially every item has a potential story behind it (that you dont need to delve into), a reason it exists, If they are there, they are there for a reason. If you are trying to use this system and you say "you found a +2 ring of...) then you are doing it wrong
(you in the general since)

The current system works for the whole "magic is rare" thing, as long as you essentially make each magic item a glorious find.

Dusk Eclipse

2011-01-20, 11:13 PM

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-01-20, 11:17 PM

Yup. LotR is a low-magic setting. The One Ring, for example, can be modeled as a Ring of Invisibility with only a moderate Ego score... something you might actually give to a low-level party in traditional D&D, but a world-shattering artifact for LotR.It might have been just a Ring of Invisibility in The Hobbit, but IIRC in LotR it had a wide range of powers (including powerful compulsion effects), its overall power was based on the power of the ring bearer, it gave you long life, its influence over you grew over time, and it could only be destroyed by riding the plot rails the fires of Mount Doom. That is an artifact by D&D standards.

Sting can be modeled as a low-level magic item, but it's not exactly treated like a world-shattering artifact either. I wouldn't say that low-magic settings like LotR necessarily have weak-sauce magic items that are treated like they're awesome. They just have fewer magic items.

bloodtide

2011-01-20, 11:19 PM

In 2E magic items were quite rare. In a typical dungeon you would find less then ten magic items. The average adventurer of 10th level or so, would only have 2 or 3 items. Typically an adventurer will have one 'standard iconic magic item'(such as a fighter having a magic sword and a wizard having a magic staff) and one or two useful items. In general, only 'one' or 'two' of each item would be in a single game. So the group would only have one ring of protection.

Dragon hoards were a big deal, as they might have something like ten magic items....all in one place.

In 3X magic is not so rare. The base of the game is built around magic items. Magic items are used to balance the whole game. A 'balanced' fighter must have a magic weapon to do damage at higher levels. And all characters need ability booting items. All characters need protection items.

And monsters magically have magic items too. The ogre that lives in a cave by itself 'magically' has a great club +2 to be a balanced encounter.

In 3X by 10th level, the average character must have a dozen items.

Swordguy

2011-01-20, 11:44 PM

Personally, once I finished reading the Dungeon Master Guide, I argued with the dungeon master about the rarity of magic items and that he was not giving us appropriate challenge ratings. I still get into this argument with a lot of people running a Dungeons and Dragons game. It's rare for any character I play to have the appropriate "Wealth By Level". I'm normally 20-50% under the appropriate wealth by level.

See, when I complain about player entitlement issues, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

Magic items are precisely as rare as the DM wants them to be. If he's running a game where magic items are rare and you have to quest for them specifically, then that's the game. Go quest. If they're exactly as common as the DMG recommends (not orders - there's a difference), then that's the game. Good on you. But WBL and recommended daily CRs are just suggestions. Just that and nothing but. You aren't entitled to any magic items, at any level. You aren't entitled to any appropriate CR'd encounters. Those are just recommendations for the DM for a specific style of game. If he wants to change them, that's his prerogative.

That sort of argument is precisely the reason why many DMs are hesitant to let players read the DMG...it gets used as ammunition against them. The only things you're entitled to at a table are to be there with the opportunity to have fun, and to vote with your feet if you aren't. If you were having fun before you read the DMG, why can you not have fun after reading the DMG and realizing that the DM has modified the optional rules there to his tastes? And if you weren't having fun before reading the DMG, why were you still with the group? Why let one, optional interpretation of a system in which the PCs might be rewarded change the manner in which you enjoy the game?

..............

More on topic - magic items should be as rare as the game world allows. That is, if the DM is running a game in a higher-magic setting, say, Forgotten Realms, then the players should probably be finding Rings of Protection left in the tavern toilets from being accidently used as contraceptives, or be able to go down to Footman's Mace Locker and picking up a pair of Boots of Flying - 50' altitude maximum on the clearance rack...that's how common they are in that setting. If they're in a homebrew setting where magic items are, for whatever reason, explicitly rare, then they're as rare as the DM wants them to be.

Mathematically, in 3e, you are required to have some of them. That's poor game design, but there it is. However, the DM also has options to get around that (such as the ancestral weapons and VoP stuff posited upthread). Thusly, magic items become, in the end, as rare or as common as is appropriate to the setting.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-01-21, 12:11 AM

*player entitlement snip*Let me preface this by saying that in principle, you're right. There is a certain type of player complaint (otherwise known as whining) that shouldn't even be brought up. "I want a +3 sword, the book says I get to have a +3 sword" isn't a valid grievance.

That said, many DMs do not realize their wealth endowment decisions are messing with party and encounter balance until it is too late. A player who politely informs the DM of these issues and recommends a change in wealth allocation needs to be viewed in the proper light; if he's dismissed as a whiner and the DM keeps throwing out overpowering encounters, the group either regularly faces a large chance of TPK or the casters regularly pull out the big guns and outshine everyone else just to survive (and the power discrepancy is exacerbated by low-wealth).

So sure, the players aren't technically entitled to anything, but they can still make suggestions, and DMs should still give those suggestions the benefit of the doubt (not that I'm saying you said differently).

bloodtide

2011-01-21, 12:28 AM

3X you really need the magic items.

Take a 15th level group. Any character must have a magic weapon, otherwise they will be next to useless in combat. A 15th level bard with a masterwork sword will do very little or even no damage to a powerful monster, such as a demon.

Or take the 15th spellcaster, they need to have at least one or two items to help their AC. A 15th level a spellcaster needs more then an AC of 20(before spells). Otherwise, that average monster with a +10 or so to hit, will hit the spellcaster almost every time.

So the Dm that gives only the fighter 'The sword of Kings'(just like that cool sword from LotR!) and the rest of the group has masterwork weapons.

Cerlis

2011-01-21, 12:51 AM

Let me preface this by saying that in principle, you're right. There is a certain type of player complaint (otherwise known as whining) that shouldn't even be brought up. "I want a +3 sword, the book says I get to have a +3 sword" isn't a valid grievance.

That said, many DMs do not realize their wealth endowment decisions are messing with party and encounter balance until it is too late. A player who politely informs the DM of these issues and recommends a change in wealth allocation needs to be viewed in the proper light; if he's dismissed as a whiner and the DM keeps throwing out overpowering encounters, the group either regularly faces a large chance of TPK or the casters regularly pull out the big guns and outshine everyone else just to survive (and the power discrepancy is exacerbated by low-wealth).

So sure, the players aren't technically entitled to anything, but they can still make suggestions, and DMs should still give those suggestions the benefit of the doubt (not that I'm saying you said differently).

I agree with you 100% except for the last bit. A player is entitled to the DM attempting to help the player have fun. If the player feels they are being gimped then the DM should address that in one way or another.

One might say if a Player isnt entitled to have the rules let him have fun, then no DM is entitled to have good players.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2011-01-21, 12:57 AM

I agree with you 100% except for the last bit. A player is entitled to the DM attempting to help the player have fun. If the player feels they are being gimped then the DM should address that in one way or another.

One might say if a Player isnt entitled to have the rules let him have fun, then no DM is entitled to have good players.Well, the DM isn't entitled to good players, or players at all. They can always leave his game. This is why I threw on 'technically' before 'entitled,' since the players ought to receive certain benefits, even if it's not absolutely necessary.

NichG

2011-01-21, 01:49 AM

I disagree that all characters need magic items, but I agree that omitting magic items does favor casters who are already more powerful than the non-casters. From the point of view of 'the party cannot deal with some or other CR appropriate encounter without magic items!', I say 'so what? throw an encounter at a lower CR at them instead'. A set of characters will have a certain set of things they can deal with, regardless of their setup. If you know your group, you can run for Lv40 characters with only masterwork gear and make encounters that are appropriate for them as a whole. 'All' characters do not need to have stat boosters - it may help all characters to have them, but they can still handle things so long as you adjust the encounter appropriately. There's no need to go to a different system on this account.

But the fighter ends up having a problem actually contributing anything to that battle unless you've been very careful. When you're building that encounter, you're going to be expecting the casters to end up doing most of work, and the fighter gets to stand there and be useless. Of course you could contrive to give the monster +100 for all its saves, divine rank so it doesn't fail on a 1, mettle, evasion, SR 80, and immunity to all conditions, but an AC of 42 and a mere 120hp. Then the fighter is important (since he can hit it easily with his BAB but the wizard needs a 20) but then the cleric gets into it and...

That said, if you exclude the classes that are way behind already, and the classes that are godly regardless (i.e. restrict to a band around tier 3), removing or reducing magic items should roughly evenly adjust party effective CR.

... obviously if you want to make it stick, you need to ban the item creation feats too or make the cost to make items unreasonably high (permanent reduction of a stat, say).

Samuel Sturm

2011-01-21, 01:56 AM

Cerlis

2011-01-21, 03:15 AM

Well, the DM isn't entitled to good players, or players at all. They can always leave his game. This is why I threw on 'technically' before 'entitled,' since the players ought to receive certain benefits, even if it's not absolutely necessary.

Fair enough:smallwink:

-----------

Incidently , is anyone else inspired to make a Armored or dress wearing long curly haired woman who sings, hums or recites poetry (such as The Gaberwokey poem, or "ENdless Slaughter" by vash the stampede) as she hunts down her foes.?

NichG

2011-01-21, 03:32 AM

What if there were simply no magic items that influenced mental stats? Would that help the situation of casters vs non casters much? I realize it's not that much help, but still... Something is usually better than nothing.

Seems a bit arbitrary compared to the initial intent of the change (i.e. to make magic items rare and therefore more special when they are actually acquired). Players would ask 'there are spells that influence mental stats that are just like the ones that influence physical stats - why the distinction?'

One way to do it I suppose is make magic items rare, but make the ones that do exist significantly better than WBL should allow at that point. And then bias them towards martial characters (e.g. remove all rings, wondrous items, staffs, wands, potions, and scrolls from the item list). Take ring/wondrous item/etc powers that fighters need to be competitive and make them activations of sentient weapons the fighters find (i.e. this sword can cast fly 1/day, that dagger casts invisibility 1/day, ..). Wizards will probably still dominate though. Anyone want to try to do the comparison between a Lv5 fighter whose sole magical possession is a sword worth 200000gp by the book (your choice of enchants) played optimally and a Lv5 Wizard with no magical goods and no scroll access played optimally?

On the drastic homebrew side of things:
A really weird way to do it would be to say that any magic-using class actually cannot use magic items because their innate magic interferes with magic item operation as if all of their item slots were filled (with the energies of spells they have access to). More directly, force casting classes to 'equip' spells on body slots according to some system.

Volthawk

2011-01-21, 05:27 AM

As well as depending on the setting, I think it will depend on where you aree in the setting. I mean, a little town in a nation that thinks magic is heresy or something won't have much, but a city that's the centre of magical research and the like will likely have a lot more.

Doug Lampert

2011-01-21, 09:50 AM

Was just reading the intro to the 2e Encyclopedia Magica and it talks about how a party finding magic items should be a truly rare and wondrous occasion.

Now I've never actually played a game of 2e, so I'm not sure if players actually played the game this way, but I'm guessing they did as 2e seems to cater to that sort of play.

I was thinking that it would be nice to keep them rare in 3.5 as well, but that could potentially leave players underpowered even at early levels.

How are magic items handled in your game?

Look at the random treasure tables and at some modules. Then figure out what you'd have by level 10. You needed bags of holding to keep all your magic items.

In 2E magic items were quite rare. In a typical dungeon you would find less then ten magic items. The average adventurer of 10th level or so, would only have 2 or 3 items. Typically an adventurer will have one 'standard iconic magic item'(such as a fighter having a magic sword and a wizard having a magic staff) and one or two useful items. In general, only 'one' or 'two' of each item would be in a single game. So the group would only have one ring of protection.

Dragon hoards were a big deal, as they might have something like ten magic items....all in one place.

So your level 10 parties of 4 had finished ONE dungeon with ZERO dragons? Is that's what you're telling me?

It's possible you were using a variant with very fast advancement and no extra gear.

Or maybe you had a bit more than you claim. Because your numbers don't add up.

Now it's true that there was no real emphasis on USEFUL items, so you might well have only one +3 weapon, and dozens of +1 weapons you couldn't really sell since there was nothing useful to buy. But there were lots and lots and lots of magic items in previous editions.

Mass equipping henchmen with magic wasn't unheard of. What else could you DO with all the crappy +1 weapons?

The big change with this in 3.x is that you can and do sell crap items, and use the money to buy items that are useful and fill any gaps in what you've found.

Starbuck_II

2011-01-21, 10:06 AM

Was just reading the intro to the 2e Encyclopedia Magica and it talks about how a party finding magic items should be a truly rare and wondrous occasion.

Now I've never actually played a game of 2e, so I'm not sure if players actually played the game this way, but I'm guessing they did as 2e seems to cater to that sort of play.

I was thinking that it would be nice to keep them rare in 3.5 as well, but that could potentially leave players underpowered even at early levels.

How are magic items handled in your game?

How the game said in 2E and if you played any modules are vastly different. They gave oodles of treasure due to needing to give adequate XP and sometimes for plot reason couldn't give too many monsters for XP (Treasure gave XP).

You are likely to find hundreds of +1 longsword but since you had no reason not to make a better weapon, these were rare-ish ((10% chance to lose con meant you should make as strong as possible not a weak +1 sword).
You got free Leadership back than so you gave the +1's to hirelings usually.

The reason that the game probably assumed low magic items was because finding treasure gave XP. Making magic items gave XPSo most DMs made it rarer to keep people from level too fast.
Modules played by the Core rules so had no reason not to give magic items.

It was only later DMs thought there was too many magic items (even if there wasn't) and that quote about rarity came up I believe.

Monty Haul was more about avoiding too fast XP gain than the treasure itself.

DarkEternal

2011-01-21, 10:09 AM

MY current campaigns are set in Forgotten Realms, and honestly, magic items should be rare. Especially if you don't have the cash to get them. However, if you travel to an awesome city like Waterdeep, chances are that you're going to find whatever you want, if you can pay for it.

So yes, you can't really buy stuff at every shop in every city, but at such a centre of commerce, sure, if you can pay it, you get it. Prices are usually jacked up a bit(Gloves of Dexterity +4 are not 16 000, but 20 000, as an example, of course, here people with skill sets come in handy when it comes to haggling and such).

Still, there are obscenely powerful stuff that you can't really get from anyome, like level 9 spells, artifacts or obscenely powerful weapons. You can get them commisioned from a powerful wizard(the level 9 spells, for instance), and if you are a "hero", and he finds you good enough to have posession of those spells, he will inscribe them for you. At a cost, of course.

Ravens_cry

2011-01-21, 11:54 AM

What if there were simply no magic items that influenced mental stats? Would that help the situation of casters vs non casters much? I realize it's not that much help, but still... Something is usually better than nothing.
Not only does this feel arbitrary, a bad thing for verisimilitude in my opinion, but certain none casters or partial casters also benefit from enhanced Mental statistics.
Like say, a Paladin for Charisma.
Or a Rogue for Intelligence
Or Monk for Wisdom.
And that is just in Core.

Person_Man

2011-01-21, 12:24 PM

In fiction it generally does not make sense to have magic items unless they are rare or ubiquitous. If they're rare, then they're interesting and often critical plot devices - think Lord of the Rings. If they're ubiquitous, then it's basically a world building tool which uses magic in place of science, with the added benefit that the author can throw in pretty much any crazy idea they have without having to research it or come up with a plausible explanation for how or why it works - think Harry Potter.

But 3.X D&D occupies a strange middle ground, where certain people make or obtain magic items on a regular basis, but the consequences of them having those items seem to have no impact on the larger world. It's generally quite confusing and internally inconsistent. (If I can make an item that produces food at will, then why are there hunger, or farmers? Why isn't the world ruled entirely by Epic level Archivist/Druid/Artificer kings?)

From a crunch point of view, magic items add another optimization mini-game to the character building process. In general having lots of magic items tends to benefit lower Tier classes more, because they use the attack action more often, which are more directly modified by magic weapons and items compared to spells and powers. But this assumes that the player in question actually knows how to optimize and has the sources available to do so.

The Mentalist

2011-01-21, 03:15 PM

In fiction it generally does not make sense to have magic items unless they are rare or ubiquitous. If they're rare, then they're interesting and often critical plot devices - think Lord of the Rings. If they're ubiquitous, then it's basically a world building tool which uses magic in place of science, with the added benefit that the author can throw in pretty much any crazy idea they have without having to research it or come up with a plausible explanation for how or why it works - think Harry Potter.

I've personally found a nice middle ground in having minor magic items be easily available (some of the most minor can be crafted by mundane means) but the bigger magic items are still world shattering rare. You want a +2 to Int, sure, go down to an Artificer and get one, you want a +6, go find the dragon who took down the Mentat king and we'll talk. This works primarily because I run a hybrid E6+standard world where most people can only reach level 6 but people who've done epic things or just by virtue of birth in some cases can reach 20 and beyond. So there are a bunch of people who can craft the little stuff but not so many who can make the huge magic items.

Jayabalard

2011-01-21, 04:49 PM

Yup. LotR is a low-magic setting. The One Ring, for example, can be modeled as a Ring of Invisibility with only a moderate Ego score... something you might actually give to a low-level party in traditional D&D, but a world-shattering artifact for LotR.I really think that's grossly underestimating the one ring. It's virtually indestructible (and arguably, it's part of why artifacts in D&D tend to be similarly hard/impossible to destroy). It gives absolute control over any who wear the lesser rings (and these are some fairly significant people). That's something like an at-will dominate person. It let Sam understand the black speech of the orcs, and Galadrial hints that it could allow the bearer to read the thoughts of those around it. It confers powers when just being held and not worn (as when Sam appeared to an orc as powerful warrior cloaked in shadow "[holding] some nameless menace of power and doom." when he gripped the ring). It's arguable that Gollum ultimately threw himself into the fires of mount doom because of Frodo's earlier command: "If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom" ... either Frodo was prophesying or effectively laying a curse on him.

Sting can be modeled as a low-level magic item, but it's not exactly treated like a world-shattering artifact either. Well, it did manage to harm Shelob (even though it required her own strength be used against her). She's thousands of years old, the eldest spawn of Ungoliant. That's not an insignificant feat.

The mithril shirt that Bilbo passes to Frodo was worth more than the shire and everything in it (at least according to Gandalf); it's significant even compared to the other mithril armor of the dwarves, so it's possibly a "magic item" in D&D terms.

The blades from the barrow downs would have been magic items as well:
So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of the Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his undead sinews to his will."

It also ignores any magic items that are not story-important... so it's kind of hard to declare with absolute certainty that there weren't other items around. I could certainly believe that many of the things made by the elves were magic: rope, lembas, cloaks, etc. Similar for items made by the dwarves, especially older items.

So, while LoTR is certainly not in the same league as a monty haul campaign is, magic items aren't unknown. So low-magic, sure... but not to the same degree that Callista is suggesting.