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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Making Temporary Magic Items More Fun (PEACH)



johnbragg
2016-02-15, 02:58 PM
1. TRacking charges on an item is boring.
2. Rolling dice is fun.
3. Fun is better than boring.

So no more charged items. Instead, roll your d20. On a 1, the item is drained and stops working.

This means that your wand now has, instead of 50 charges, a random amount of charges with an average value of 20.

Since you're rolling a d20, and 1 is bad, we might as well make a natural 20 have some effect. (Partially balances the lower average number of charges).

On a natural 20 (no modifiers, so there isn't any other kind....) you activate a magic surge. DM decides, for each item, the nature of the surge. Metamagic effects are common choices--maximize, extend, empower, etc.).

ADvantages: Less bookkeeping, more dice rolling.
Disadvantages: Wands have fewer charges, may need to tweak magic item prices if we allow cross-class wands-that-aren't-wands.

Jormengand
2016-02-15, 03:03 PM
Yeah, getting screwed over by RNG even more than normal and having 1/20 wands being a dud sure does sound fun.

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 03:06 PM
Magic Item Pricing

1. Should the revised wand of sleep have the same list price as the old wand of sleep? My inclination is "yes", but I'm open to argument.

2. Does a temporary magic item have to be a wand? IF we stipulate that it has to be a masterwork item, or made of unusual (expensive) materials, why not have temporary boots of speed?

3. If we allow temporary boots of speed, how should they be priced compared to a wand of haste? Is the 2x multiple (scroll vs potion) the right way to go? (Again, I think so, but I could be wrong.) And, for that double cost, do we throw in free action vs standard action?

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 03:31 PM
Yeah, getting screwed over by RNG even more than normal and having 1/20 wands being a dud sure does sound fun.

OK, you'd rather track charges. That's fair.

Jormengand
2016-02-15, 04:12 PM
OK, you'd rather track charges. That's fair.

I mean, you could change it so that it's still random, and you still don't have to track charges, but you don't get duds a sizable portion of the time. I mean, for example, you could have an unreliable wand which started off having a 1 in 20 chance to fail, but then when it did fail, rather than becoming useless, it dropped a die size (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, d3, d2) until it actually became useless (So there's only a one in two and three quarter million chance that your wand is really a dud). Or you could have it that wands never ran out of charges, but always had a chance of mishaps (and more expensive ones use larger dice). Whether you want "Mishap" to mean that it just doesn't work or that it backfires, I don't know.

I mean, those are just suggestions. If you don't like them, I can go away and track my charges. :smalltongue:

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 04:40 PM
I mean, you could change it so that it's still random, and you still don't have to track charges, but you don't get duds a sizable portion of the time. I mean, for example, you could have an unreliable wand which started off having a 1 in 20 chance to fail, but then when it did fail, rather than becoming useless, it dropped a die size (d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, d3, d2) until it actually became useless (So there's only a one in two and three quarter million chance that your wand is really a dud). Or you could have it that wands never ran out of charges, but always had a chance of mishaps (and more expensive ones use larger dice). Whether you want "Mishap" to mean that it just doesn't work or that it backfires, I don't know.

I mean, those are just suggestions. If you don't like them, I can go away and track my charges. :smalltongue:

I think you like complicated mechanics. PArt of the (alleged) benefit of this idea is less bookkeeping--the party finds a wand of entangle, you track who has it, no bothering with the fact that it was down to 37 charges left. It's pointless to replace that with having to track that it failed once, so it now has a 1-in-12 chance of failure.

PArt of this is balancing the one-time effects of a 20 (Trumpet Fanfare!) vs the effects of a 1 "No more wand" (Sad Trombone.)

If you have a point, it's that this idea is terribad, because the DM leaves a wand of fire resistance as planned loot, and then it goes kaput the first time you need it.

Temotei
2016-02-15, 04:42 PM
I have to agree with Jormengand on the one-hit dud deal you'll sometimes get with wands. Nobody wants to spend 4,500 gp on a knock wand to have it literally explode in their face on the first use and never have magic again.

A gradation of uselessness is a decent way to do it.

You could also give wands a small number of charges and just take away one charge every time they roll a 1. If you did 1d6 with 10 charges you'd get a little more than the average number of charges out of wands, or if you did 1d4 you'd get slightly fewer. If you're a real stickler for the right number, 1d10 with two sides being one result would get it right. This way would only really work for wands.

Honestly, though, items with charges are great. Having them means you have more things to do than your base character can do, even if it's just a wand of lesser vigor or a healing belt (both lessen the need for prepared/spontaneous healing, allowing anyone who would normally be doing healing to do other things that may be more fun for them, such as produce flame, summon nature's ally, or entangle for druids, or omen of peril, command, or divine favor for clerics). And at the end of the day charged items aside from wands generally regenerate, so the bookkeeping is really just "count down from 3, reset to 3 at start of new day." For wands, it's just count down from 50. The bookkeeping is basically nonexistent except for erasing and rewriting a number, or just keeping a tally on the back of the sheet. If you're using online sheets, it's even easier.

Jormengand
2016-02-15, 04:46 PM
I think you like complicated mechanics. PArt of the (alleged) benefit of this idea is less bookkeeping--the party finds a wand of entangle, you track who has it, no bothering with the fact that it was down to 37 charges left. It's pointless to replace that with having to track that it failed once, so it now has a 1-in-12 chance of failure.

Well, it means that you only have to track it when you actually fail to use it, which is something you're more likely to remember (let's face it, you're more likely to remember how many times your fireball whiffed last session than how many times you tried to use it).

Another option is to have both kinds of wand exist in the world. The ones which are less reliable and have de facto fewer charges are a lot cheaper, of course (though you could also make it so that the normal number of charges per wand is 10 and adjust price accordingly), or it's possible that the random ones are common for battle spells and the charged ones for utility spells, for example.

johnbragg
2016-02-15, 09:15 PM
I appreciate Jormengand and Temotei trying to help and suggesting gradations of uselessness, but I still say that gradations-of-uselessness is just as must bookkeeping to track as charges, which eliminates the main benefit of this idea. Choosing between gradations of uselessness and leaving it alone, I'd leave it alone.

And I realize I was approaching this from the viewpoint of a murderhobo getting loot rather than a crafter building the weapon in the first place. Which, obviously, is not the viewpoint of the imaginary people who would be doing the crafting.

Would it take any of the sting out to cut the price by 60%, based on an expected lifespan of 20 charges vs 50?
And/or to guarantee success on the first use, and then roll for the second through last+1 castings?

Hmm. Let's consider how the 60% discount plays out.
Knock is SL 2, CL 3 for a multiple of 6

Orthodox wand of knock is 6 * 750 = 4500 gp.
Wild-magic wand of knock is 4500 * 40% = 1800 gp

Orthodox gloves of knock, 3/day is 6 * 2000 gp * 3/5 = 7200 gp
Wild-magic gloves of knock = 1800 * 2 = 3600 gp (double the wand cost, following the Potion:Scroll precedent)

This idea also creates a burden on the DM, figuring out what a magic surge does for a lot of spells without durations or numerical effects. USing a wand or gloves of knock, you roll a 20, great, you...really open that door? Don't have to roll next time? Free luck re-roll?

Temotei
2016-02-15, 09:28 PM
I appreciate Jormengand and Temotei trying to help and suggesting gradations of uselessness, but I still say that gradations-of-uselessness is just as must bookkeeping to track as charges, which eliminates the main benefit of this idea. Choosing between gradations of uselessness and leaving it alone, I'd leave it alone.

And I realize I was approaching this from the viewpoint of a murderhobo getting loot rather than a crafter building the weapon in the first place. Which, obviously, is not the viewpoint of the imaginary people who would be doing the crafting.

Would it take any of the sting out to cut the price by 60%, based on an expected lifespan of 20 charges vs 50?
And/or to guarantee success on the first use, and then roll for the second through last+1 castings?

Hmm. Let's consider how the 60% discount plays out.
Knock is SL 2, CL 3 for a multiple of 6

Orthodox wand of knock is 6 * 750 = 4500 gp.
Wild-magic wand of knock is 4500 * 40% = 1800 gp

Orthodox gloves of knock, 3/day is 6 * 2000 gp * 3/5 = 7200 gp
Wild-magic gloves of knock = 1800 * 2 = 3600 gp (double the wand cost, following the Potion:Scroll precedent)

This idea also creates a burden on the DM, figuring out what a magic surge does for a lot of spells without durations or numerical effects. USing a wand or gloves of knock, you roll a 20, great, you...really open that door? Don't have to roll next time? Free luck re-roll?

Statistically this might work out, but the real question is whether the players would be happy with this system over the normal one. Is it worth the risk to reduce a wand of knock's price by 60%? Maybe. But spells like web--ones you want going off right then and there--I'd say no to the risk every time. Take the higher price with consistency over the lower price with slight inconsistency any day.

I guess the difference is in the guarantee of value vs. the chance of losing a lot of value and having to spend more money in the long run. If they get lucky the wands will last longer than they should but that feeling of goodness will be quickly overwritten by the times you roll a 1 and lose a wand on its second (or third or even fourth) charge.

It could work, and if it will work with your players, it's fine. It doesn't have to work for everyone. Just giving my two coppers, as Cieyrin would say.

Also, if you make items other than wands with these wild-magic charges, don't make them inert on a 1. Just negate the daily charge they tried to use, probably.