Fixed Enhancement Bonuses and Magic Item Interaction

[darkbard]

I very much like the fixed enhancement bonus rules for many reasons. Primary among these is probably that they obviate the need to "level up" items every five levels or so, switching out that Frost dagger +2 you picked up at fifth level for the latest +3 iteration at tenth level or so, since the built-in bonus from fixed enhancement overrides the numerical bonus of the item itself. However, there are many items that have additional or alternate properties that key off the actual numerical bonus of the item. Take, for example, the Battle Harness armor: "You gain a power bonus to initiative equal to the item's enhancement bonus."

Now, the fixed enhancement bonuses are, generally, slower to accrue than level-appropriate items. So one could just say that these additional properties also key off the fixed enhancement bonus and not the item's inherent bonus. However, what to do about boons or items that are more complex, bestowing graded additional properties at higher iterations of the boon or item? For example, Sehanine's Mark of the Dark Moon bestows a Daily teleport at level 3; a farther teleport at level 8, with the added bonus of making a Stealth check to hide if in cover or concealment; an even farther teleport at level 13, invisibility and the bonus of making a Stealth check to hide; etc.

How, as a GM, do you handle this? Do you allow items to level up, effectively, with the character? Do you hold the item to the letter of its iteration, powering up only numerical bonuses that are overriden by the fixed enhancement bonus?

[Dimers]

Do you allow items to level up, effectively, with the character?

Yep. /tenchars

[Excession]

Do you allow items to level up, effectively, with the character?

I do, but I also tend to heavily restrict the number of items that PCs have. I was hoping it would reduce option paralysis caused by having too many item powers, and I think it did help a bit.

There is something lost in players not having as many situational options that items can provide, but OTOH some players tend to forget those items anyway.

[darkbard]

Yep. /tenchars


I do, but I also tend to heavily restrict the number of items that PCs have.

And so, taking Sehanine's Mark of the Dark Moon for example, suppose that character receives that L3 Divine Boon at level 1. When hitting level 8, do you automatically upgrade it to the next iteration? Do you "upgrade" it at level 6 (according to the character's 5 level advances, not the item's level)? Do you count this against the (hopefully) reduced (according the Dark Sun CS's version of the fixed enhancement bonus rules) rewards, or do you level up the Boon and reward the PC with another, different level-appropriate item at the same time? Excession, it sounds like you follow through with the former if I read you correctly.

[Yakk]

I will assume you want level X characters to have "baseline" level appropriate gear.

I will now do some math.

Under baseline assumptions a party of 5 characters recieves 4 items plus gold enough for a 5th every level.

If we assume the gold, plus residuum from old items, is used to construct a 5th item, we end up with 1 item per character per level.

That is enough for a level-appropriate armor, necklace, a weapon or implement, a misc item, and either a 2nd misc item or a second weapon or implement to be "up to date".

In addition, they'll have a 1-2 misc items per previous half-tier (5 levels) (the weapons, armor and necklace are assumed to be broken down into component parts) left over, with some percent of those becoming obsolete and melted down (and then used to help fund higher level items).

But as prices go up by a factor of 5 every 5 levels, items 10 levels ago are 25x cheaper, and items 15 levels ago are 125x cheaper. We can presume more than 10 level ago items are basically free, and won't account for them.

So a level X character has:
Level appropriate weapon, armor, necklace
2 other level appropriate magic items.
1-2 "5 levels behind" magic items.
Unknown items below that.

Of the "level appropriate" items, they will 1/5 will have been level+4 (now level +4 3 2 1 0 uniformly), 1/5 will be +3 (3 2 1 0 -1) 1/5 will be +2 (2 1 0 -1 -2) 1/5 will be +1 (1 0 -1 -2 -3) and the rest +0 or worse (0 -1 -2 -3 -4) when you got them (or worse). If you graph this, you get a pyramid, centered on the player level, for magic item "density".

---

A way to approach this is to state each time a character levels up, they may pick 1 item they own to upgrade to the same half-tier they are in.

If you give out at least 1 item per half-tier per player (or 1 item per party per level), this results in level 30 characters having 5 level-appropriate items and 1 that is dragging behind. If you hand out items faster, it doesn't get particularly worse. And if they have a dry spell, their gear is still reasonably level-appropriate.

[darkbard]

I will now do some math.

Under baseline assumptions a party of 5 characters recieves 4 items plus gold enough for a 5th every level.

Thanks for the rather extensive feedback and math, but when implementing fixed enhancement bonuses, the GM is instructed to remove the top and fourth magic item parcel from each level's worth of rewards.

[Dimers]

And so, taking Sehanine's Mark of the Dark Moon for example, suppose that character receives that L3 Divine Boon at level 1. When hitting level 8, do you automatically upgrade it to the next iteration? Do you "upgrade" it at level 6 (according to the character's 5 level advances, not the item's level)?

I can't honestly say it's come up -- I don't really get to run any long campaigns. My style would be to base the upgrade speed on how often it gets exercised, how much effort the character puts into doing whatever their boon does.


Do you count this against the (hopefully) reduced (according the Dark Sun CS's version of the fixed enhancement bonus rules) rewards, or do you level up the Boon and reward the PC with another, different level-appropriate item at the same time?

As for measuring the GP value, well, I 'play it by ear' in the first place rather than following DMG guidelines, since certain items are worth considerably more or less than the list price. Either in general or specific circumstances -- I mean, armor that gives you waterbreathing and swim speed is worth more in a maritime setting than a desert, ya know? And some parties require different treatment too, like a low-op vampire and medium-op wizard in the same party, or a player who wants to approximate the 3rd-ed vow of poverty, or a character with lots of homebrew. Sorry I can't be helpful there.

[darkbard]

I can't honestly say it's come up -- I don't really get to run any long campaigns. My style would be to base the upgrade speed on how often it gets exercised, how much effort the character puts into doing whatever their boon does.



As for measuring the GP value, well, I 'play it by ear' in the first place rather than following DMG guidelines, since certain items are worth considerably more or less than the list price. Either in general or specific circumstances -- I mean, armor that gives you waterbreathing and swim speed is worth more in a maritime setting than a desert, ya know? And some parties require different treatment too, like a low-op vampire and medium-op wizard in the same party, or a player who wants to approximate the 3rd-ed vow of poverty, or a character with lots of homebrew. Sorry I can't be helpful there.

Actually, this is quite helpful. Clearly, I'm overthinking this in terms of adherence to precision when there's no real reason to do so!

As you suggest, let things play out and evaluate as need requires....