Guidelines for destroying magic items in a system that doesn't rely on them

[kieza]

I'm writing a system in which the math of character progression makes magical items into a nice bonus, but not remotely necessary to have a functional character.

Specifically, characters have something like a 5e proficiency bonus that scales with level, and they can choose which of the various aspects of their character benefit from it. A magic item can provide bonuses to the same aspects of a character, stacking with the proficiency bonus, but the bonus from a magic item doesn't scale. More powerful magic items can provide bonuses to more things at once, but each individual bonus is always marginal: equivalent to being a few levels higher and having a slightly better proficiency bonus to apply.

The monsters and other challenges I'm writing into the rulebook are balanced so that they are appropriate challenges for characters that apply their proficiency bonus to the appropriate areas of their characters: tanks apply it to defenses and HP, damage-dealers apply it to damage, everyone applies it to their preferred method of making attack rolls, etc. Thus, having a magic item becomes a nice bonus, but you don't need that bonus to be effective against level-appropriate challenges.

Because of this, I'm considering inserting the following advice into the game-master guide:

Destroying Equipment
Player characters do not need magic items, and the loss of magic items and other equipment should always be on the table as a consequence of failure or a price of success. You can allow enemies to sunder PC equipment or have NPCs demand valuable magic items as the price of their aid, without worrying that it will prevent a character from contributing to the campaign. However, to keep the loss of equipment from becoming unfun, keep the following in mind:
--Losing equipment should be the result of player choices or extremely bad luck, not a single unlucky roll. Players should know when something is trying to destroy or steal their items, and should be able to take precautions.
--Allow characters time to use and enjoy equipment before they lose it. Having new magical items shattered in the very next encounter may leave a player feeling bitter, and players will be less interested in gaining items if they don't expect them to last. Do not put a risk of equipment loss in every encounter, or even every adventure.
--Players should be able to regain or replace lost equipment, especially if it is sentimental. Allow them opportunities to earn back (or steal back) items that they chose to trade away or had stolen from them, and if an item is destroyed, allow them to collect the pieces in the hopes of reforging it later.

Do these guidelines seem like appropriate advice for how to handle equipment loss in a system where magic items are useful but not required? Any other pitfalls I've missed?

[Vahnavoi]

Your guidelines are likely sufficient. It may be possible to simplify them or just make them part of the rules, though.

For example, you could give each item a limited amount of uses, representing their durability, and then have another (limited) resource players can use to get more uses. This kind of system naturally informs players that no item is forever and they have to either do maintenance or find replacements as a game goes on.

Another way to hit most or all your points is to have equipment destruction only threatened by easily identifiable enemies - in a D&D style game, this would be acidic slimes, rust monsters, disenchanter beasts and the like. Players might get caught off-guard by them the first time they are encountered, but that's part of the learning curve; later, they know what's up and can devise counter-stategies.

More generally, though: if you've already decided magic trinkets are not vital to progressing in the game, then you just don't have to nanny your players' emotions. Yeah they may get bitter or angry about losing a magic trinket - this is about the same thing as getting angry or bitter about losing a game piece in Chess and should be treated accordingly. Especially if more important things, like a character's life, are on the line. The entire D&D trope of valuing items above all else comes from the (dubious) idea that some magic items are more vital or harder to replace than characters, something you've already decided is not true for your game, so don't go out of your way to pander to miserly materials attitudes about fictional items.

[Satinavian]

Destroying Equipment
Player characters do not need magic items, and the loss of magic items and other equipment should always be on the table as a consequence of failure or a price of success. You can allow enemies to sunder PC equipment or have NPCs demand valuable magic items as the price of their aid, without worrying that it will prevent a character from contributing to the campaign. However, to keep the loss of equipment from becoming unfun, keep the following in mind:
--Losing equipment should be the result of player choices or extremely bad luck, not a single unlucky roll. Players should know when something is trying to destroy or steal their items, and should be able to take precautions.
--Allow characters time to use and enjoy equipment before they lose it. Having new magical items shattered in the very next encounter may leave a player feeling bitter, and players will be less interested in gaining items if they don't expect them to last. Do not put a risk of equipment loss in every encounter, or even every adventure.
--Players should be able to regain or replace lost equipment, especially if it is sentimental. Allow them opportunities to earn back (or steal back) items that they chose to trade away or had stolen from them, and if an item is destroyed, allow them to collect the pieces in the hopes of reforging it later.

Do these guidelines seem like appropriate advice for how to handle equipment loss in a system where magic items are useful but not required? Any other pitfalls I've missed?
I am sceptical about it.

- Extremely bad luck ? If your system ist not particularly random, that won't happen all that often. What is more, because of the combination of randomness and rareness you can't assume it to just average out. It might hit the same player repeately, it might strike a couple of times in one campaign, but never in another ... randomness is not a balancing tool.

- Player decisions ? Sure, players giving up their items willingly works. But player decisions are player decisions, some will do so, others won't. Some are more careful than others. And it certainly won't happen exactly when the GM wants it to. A GM who tries to get their players to make the decision that will cause the loss of items is bound to be disappointed : Either they will regularly experience that this just doesn't happen or they must use heavy handed railroading. Which the players will obviously recognize and object to. As for people being out to destroy/steal the characters items - if those items really are marginal compared to the PCs power, that is not particularly likely to happen. Why go out of your way to destroy something when it won't really hamper your enemies ? And do you really want to steal from the most dangerous people around and how do you even know about the items ?

- Allow players to enjoy their items before they lose them sounds fine - but you can't use this principle and random bad luck item loss at the same time. If you leave it to the dice, it might happen when you don't like it to happen.

- Players feeling less interested in gaining items when they regularly lose them ? Oh, yes, that happens. But that will happen in every system where regular item loss is a thing. You can't have the one without the other.

- Opportunity to regain and replace items ? Why ? Sure, that feels nice, but if that counters the reason to actually take the item in the first place.





Now i don't have anything better to solve the conundrum. It is hard which is why so many games struggle with this. Shiny loot that lets you get ahead is fun precisely because it lets you get ahead. And it is often what makes a success feel actually rewarding and special. But you can't have that and tight balancing.

[Pauly]

Generally speaking players respond badly to GMs ‘taking their stuff’.

I would rather go down the path that magical items only have a finite number of charges than letting the GM ‘take their stuff’.

If you want to go down this path my suggestions.
1) allow players to choose to sacrifice an item that gives a small permanent bonus for a big one time only bonus. [in sci-fi terms set it to overload the powerpack to blow up the prison door].
2) Always allow the players the opportunity to replace items. For example if an imp steals your magic sword then you always get an opportunity to chase that imp down. [i.e. no rust beasts perma-destroying items]
3) If payment is required, the GM sets the value then the players choose which items they are willing to sacrifice to get that help. The GM should never puck a specific item* as payment for help. (*exception for items clearly pre-labeled as plot relevant items)

[Vahnavoi]

- Player decisions ? Sure, players giving up their items willingly works. But player decisions are player decisions, some will do so, others won't. Some are more careful than others. And it certainly won't happen exactly when the GM wants it to. A GM who tries to get their players to make the decision that will cause the loss of items is bound to be disappointed : Either they will regularly experience that this just doesn't happen or they must use heavy handed railroading.

Or, a game master doesn't have to have opinions on which items get destroyed at what point, and just make it so that item destruction in general is a possibility.

A simple example using acidic slimes as an opponent in D&D like game: players have option to use stone back-up weapons to avoid damage to metallic primary weapons at the cost of a fight taking longer, the option of fighting with ranged weapons to avoid close combat at the cost of losing ammunition, or they can use their primary weapons to end the fight quickly at the cost of damage to those weapons.

Set up scenarios such as this in sequence, and players will naturally have to consider whether sparing their items is worth the trade-offs. We do not need to presume that the decision to spare their items is by default the best pick, nor do we need to presume figuring out the best pick is trivial.

Railroading doesn't enter into any of this.


As for people being out to destroy/steal the characters items - if those items really are marginal compared to the PCs power, that is not particularly likely to happen. Why go out of your way to destroy something when it won't really hamper your enemies ?

You mean, why would an opponent seek to remove a minor advantage from their opponent? Or, alternatively, why would an enemy seek to secure a minor advantage to themselves?

These are the kinds of tactical questions that cannot be answered either way in a vacuum, but the answers tend to be self-evident in an actual game scenario. For a simple example, if player characters spend outsized effort on protecting their items compared to the benefit given by those items, then threatening those items can be a good diversion even if ultimately unsuccesful.


And do you really want to steal from the most dangerous people around and how do you even know about the items ?

We do not need to make any presumptions of who the player characters are or how hard it is to find out what their equipment is. Also, for simple cases such as disarming an opponent, the answers tend to be self-evident.


- Opportunity to regain and replace items ? Why ? Sure, that feels nice, but if that counters the reason to actually take the item in the first place.

You mean, why would a game master give players the option to regain or replace minor advantages? It ought to be fairly obvious it exists to create dynamic gameplay where advantages available to players vary over time. You can conceptualize the whole thing as a card game where players have option to hold their hand or to discard and draw - and implement a game's item system as such if desired.

It doesn't defeat the purpose of taking away an item, it just means the disadvantage caused by losing an item is temporary.


Now i don't have anything better to solve the conundrum. It is hard which is why so many games struggle with this. Shiny loot that lets you get ahead is fun precisely because it lets you get ahead. And it is often what makes a success feel actually rewarding and special. But you can't have that and tight balancing.

There's a host of games, both on tabletop and on computers, where players gain and lose items as part of functional gameplay. I don't find any of this hard because I look at the existing succesful examples rather than focusing on the unsuccesful ones. Tight balancing is not necessary - roguelike Ancient Domains of Mystery is not the most balanced game, but still a fine example of how destructible equipment can be part of gameplay, and everything it does can be incorporated in a tabletop game, which is not a surprise since it took the concept from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

[Satinavian]

There's a host of games, both on tabletop and on computers, where players gain and lose items as part of functional gameplay. I don't find any of this hard because I look at the existing succesful examples rather than focusing on the unsuccesful ones. Tight balancing is not necessary - roguelike Ancient Domains of Mystery is not the most balanced game, but still a fine example of how destructible equipment can be part of gameplay, and everything it does can be incorporated in a tabletop game, which is not a surprise since it took the concept from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.The op is not asking about how to run a particular game in a particular group.

They are asking about a section to be set into a DM guide of their rulesystem.

Which means, that section shold work for very different kind of players and very different kind of DMs and all genres/campaign that the rulesystem supports. And as GM advice it is to be particularly useful in cases some kind of problems occur.

So basically all your answers that boil down to "in some cases/when done well this is not a problem" are worthless here. We are looking for general solution or at least ones that can be applied by novice GMs who don't have the experience to recognice situations where it works and those where it doesn't.

Yes, when writing GM advices for a DMG, one would always write for the most tone-deaf, heavy-handed and inexperienced oaf imaginable who has decided to run your game. This is the person who will take all the advice literally and put it into play. Not the veteran of 20 systems who has long developed their own style and opinions and takes DMGs mostly for random tables and a couple of rules.




As for balancing : As the OP uses half their opening post to talk about balancing before asking about his paragraph about losing/destroying items, it can easily be inferred that balancing is important for that system and item destruction considerations have to be seen through the lense of balancing.

[Vahnavoi]

The op is not asking about how to run a particular game in a particular group.

They are asking about a section to be set into a DM guide of their rulesystem.

Which means, that section shold work for very different kind of players and very different kind of DMs and all genres/campaign that the rulesystem supports. And as GM advice it is to be particularly useful in cases some kind of problems occur.

Any advice given on how to run a particular game is something kieza can put in the DM guide as part of advice on how to run those kind of games, so I do not see what line in the sand you are trying to draw here.


So basically all your answers that boil down to "in some cases/when done well this is not a problem" are worthless here. We are looking for general solution or at least ones that can be applied by novice GMs who don't have the experience to recognice situations where it works and those where it doesn't.

Looking at existing successful example of a thing to see how that thing can be incorporated to a new game or new system does not boil down to that, nor is it worthless. One can literally open AD&D's Dungeon Master's Guide or ADOM's instruction manual and see if there's something worth stealing there.

This, in contrast to stating the thing is hard and that many games struggle with it. Why did you think I gave named examples?


Yes, when writing GM advices for a DMG, one would always write for the most tone-deaf, heavy-handed and inexperienced oaf imaginable who has decided to run your game. This is the person who will take all the advice literally and put it into play. Not the veteran of 20 systems who has long developed their own style and opinions and takes DMGs mostly for random tables and a couple of rules.

Or, kieza can choose a target audience that doesn't consist of stereotypical idiots. Either way, I'm not talking to a stereotypical idiot, I'm talking to you and kieza; as long as kieza gets the point of the mechanics and examples I'm giving, they can then think of how to get that across to somebody else.


As for balancing : As the OP uses half their opening post to talk about balancing before asking about his paragraph about losing/destroying items, it can easily be inferred that balancing is important for that system and item destruction considerations have to be seen through the lense of balancing.

Sure, but it's you who added in the undefined qualifier of "tight". Which is why it's good to remember that a functional game can be made without meeting that requirement - the thing you said is impossible doesn't have to be done.

[icefractal]

I think that depending how the system is set up, gear loss can be mechanically fine. But, don't think that means players will see it as anything but a grievous crime.

Which can be fine - a plot of "imps stole your sword and now you've got to slaughter your way through a bunch of demons to retrieve it" - or "Count Von Evil destroyed your scroll collection and that's one of the reasons you want to defeat him" - those kind of things work.

But "these NPCs are going to extort an item from you, but then you're supposed to work with them and view them as non-enemies"? I wouldn't count on that. I've seen players swear eternal vengeance over losing very small amounts of gold, not enough to be (at their level) a noticeable mechanical difference. It's the principle of the thing.

[Thrawn4]

I am very surprised that the loss of minor equipment should stirr up such a commotion. I mean, the OP states clearly that magic items will not be a major issue. So why should the players be upset when the advices explicitly states that it is not?
I get it, players are used to getting and keeping shiny toys, but if they are not that special and replaceable, I honestly don't see the problem.

Like, if your core skills are equal to your level, a level 10 character has (let's say) lockpicking at 10, a magical +1 item is certainly nice, but not much of an issue.
Especially if you can replace it rather soon.

Long story short: It sounds perfectly fine to me unless your players are people you don't want to have in this game.

(I have to disagree with Satinavian though. Most people who will read OP's guide will be somewhat experienced roleplayers, so a crisp and concise explanation will be more helpful than a lengthy "What is a roleplay?")

[GloatingSwine]

I am very surprised that the loss of minor equipment should stirr up such a commotion. I mean, the OP states clearly that magic items will not be a major issue. So why should the players be upset when the advices explicitly states that it is not?
I get it, players are used to getting and keeping shiny toys, but if they are not that special and replaceable, I honestly don't see the problem.

It's pretty much tenet 1 of player psychology, they are extremely attached to their stuff. It's their stuff, so go after it sparingly when you really want to motivate them (and still be prepared for grumbling).

I think the mechanism to go for is:


All magic items have and expend charges to do their thing (player chooses whether to use a charge, so they can use a magic sword without the magic and not get the bonus).
Any magic item can be overloaded, providing a huge one time bonus but destroying it forever.
Items can otherwise be recharged for a cost scaling with power.
Some effects may drain items faster on use or completely. eg. a monster may drain a charge from any magic weapon used to strike it or armour it strikes in addition to any spent to activate the bonus.

[Vahnavoi]

Yes, players don't like losing their stuff. They don't like losing in general. Unless you're holding a game to literal four-year-olds or other people who can't regulate their emotions yet, it's dubious if that's worth any special consideration.

[King of Nowhere]

I'm writing a system in which the math of character progression makes magical items into a nice bonus, but not remotely necessary to have a functional character.

Specifically, characters have something like a 5e proficiency bonus that scales with level, and they can choose which of the various aspects of their character benefit from it. A magic item can provide bonuses to the same aspects of a character, stacking with the proficiency bonus, but the bonus from a magic item doesn't scale. More powerful magic items can provide bonuses to more things at once, but each individual bonus is always marginal: equivalent to being a few levels higher and having a slightly better proficiency bonus to apply.

the problem with this approach is that magic items in this system are mostly trash. when you find treasure, you want to increase your power. if your treasure does not give you any additional bonus, or if the bonus you get is something so incredibly circumstantial it will mostly never be relevant - and that one time it will actually matter, you are pretty much guaranteed to have forgotten about it at that point - then players will not be excited about getting magic items.
and what's the point of creating this game with magic if the magic is underwhelming, you don't feel much of a difference without it, and you are supposed to not have much of it anyway?
And what am I going to do with all the cash I looted anyway?
That's a common complain I hear about low magic systems where "you are not supposed to rely on magic items". i understand the point of those saying that people got too fixated with their loot, but there are also issues with loot removal.

As for magic items being necessary, that's less a function of how much of a boost they give, and more a function of how challenging are the fights. even in item-intensive d&d 3.5 you could totally play a high level character without gear, and be strong and stuff. you're just not competitive if you're fighting against opponents of similar strenght.
It's a bit like forcing a professional football player to play wearing flip flops. it's not that they can't play: they can, and they'd still kick major asses in a friendly game with normal people. it's just that if they are playing against opponents of their own skill level, in a competitive match, then they need every advantage they can get. And sure, you could force everyone to play in flip flops and call it a balanced game, but it kinda sucks.
in the same way, if you want to have a challenging close fight, then that 10-15% of extra odds given by weakened magic items are still very important, and people are still dependent on items. and if combat is easy, then it doesn't really matter what the party has.

as for how to deal with destroying magic items, I play in high magic scenarios with abuntant magic items. in such a setting, at high level I never had any issue blasting the party with disjunctions. they lose some items, but they have no problems replacing them.
which make me think the problem with players hating to lose magic items is the sense of irreplaceability more than anything else. it's the "no! i spent the whole campaign finding that thing, now i'll never find another one". Or "unacceptable! I am supposed to finding a fixed and determined amount of gold in the whole campaign, losing this puts me behind the curve forever!". if it's more like "ok, by the end of this session I will be able to get a replacement" players are a lot less likely to complain.

[Rynjin]

- Opportunity to regain and replace items ? Why ? Sure, that feels nice, but if that counters the reason to actually take the item in the first place.

I agree with a lot of what you said, or feel they are potentially valid points, but this one doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Destroying/stealing a magic item still serves a purpose even if it's temporary; it acts a short term plot hook and power loss for a character without permanently removing options.

For the OP actually, that's a big thing I'd suggest: stay away from "+numbers" additions to magic items as much as possible in the first place. This makes losing them feel less like they're getting directly nerfed. A character losing the ability to fly with their WInged Boots sucks, but feels less bad than losing a +2 to attack rolls that they've started to factor in as part of their direct power.

As far as the destruction, I would make it a tactical choice. If an enemy tries to sunder the player's item, I would suggest allowing the player to block shots with their body instead...and vice versa, perhaps. Giving a player a choice of "this attack will bring you to zero, you could instead choose to dodge the blow...but your Necklace of Animal Speech will be destroyed" leads to interesting tactical moments more than "the enemy targets your necklace, get ****ed".

[KorvinStarmast]

I think that depending how the system is set up, gear loss can be mechanically fine. But, don't think that means players will see it as anything but a grievous crime. Had a DM years ago who, during a battle, told the monk (Blackmoor) in our party that the Sharper (a level of the thief class, encounter with a bunch of them) had stolen the ring off of his finger with the pick pockets skill (from Greyhawk).

The argument started immediately. (It was a ring of regeneration that we'd found a few sessions previously, random treasure roll).

Eventually, the player's point about 'realism' in terms of taking a ring off of someone while they are punching you in the face prevailed.

But the argument took a while to sort out.

But "these NPCs are going to extort an item from you, but then you're supposed to work with them and view them as non-enemies"? I wouldn't count on that. Indeed. Makes no sense unless those enemies have a powerful charm or other mind control feature.

Destroying/stealing a magic item still serves a purpose even if it's temporary; it acts a short term plot hook and power loss for a character without permanently removing options. It can, yes. The chance to recover or repair the item ought to be left open (generally) since that gives players motivations to do something about it. In some cases, though, it's stolen/destroyed fits the narrative better. Use sparingly (per the Gamer 101 psychology bit).

[gbaji]

I am very surprised that the loss of minor equipment should stirr up such a commotion. I mean, the OP states clearly that magic items will not be a major issue. So why should the players be upset when the advices explicitly states that it is not?

The corollary also exists though. If the magic items are so minor in effect, then why bother with an entire section in the DM Guide about destroying/removing them as a means to maintain game balance?


I get it, players are used to getting and keeping shiny toys, but if they are not that special and replaceable, I honestly don't see the problem.

My personal experience is that players hate hate hate (like as many "hates" as you can stack in there) having magic items lost, destroyed, stolen, etc. Like, this is probably the most fraught-with-peril thing you can do as a GM. Some game systems can handle this well. Some GMs and tables will manage this well. Many will not. So... I'd just say "proceed with caution".

Having said that, many games do somewhat make a distinction between "along the way" or "minor bonus" items (that +1 magic sword you got in an early adventure), and "unique/special" items. Players are far less bothered by loss of the stuff that just hands generic bonuses to things than they are to more unique items. There is an assumption that as you gain levels/experience/skill, you will likely find replacement items over time, which are generally going to be better than what you already have. So, in this scenario, losing your +x weapon isn't a huge problem, if you have reasonable odds of getting a better +x item down the line. But some items are much more rare or unique, and provide some special ability or bonus that isn't a standard thing. Those you need to be a lot more concerned about taking from them.

Fair or not, players often do associate these items as almost part of the identity of their characters. I've found this tends to happen in all game types, but likely tracks its roots back to older versions of D&D (basically any level/class based game). There's not a lot that distinguishes one level 12 fighter from another except for their magic gear. And sometimes, what seems like really silly things are what players will latch on to precisely because they are what makes them "different" than another, otherwise simiilar, character.

You'd think that this would change when you shift away from level/class game (especially older versions with like no feats or skills at all), and to games where characters have a lot more variation just in their skills and abilities. Nope. Again, minor stuff, maybe not so much. But anything that has some special or unique powers, will become "precious" to the PC. And sure, you can run/play games that just don't have those things, and probably limit this somewhat. But that does lead into the issue of having that as a "gap" in the game. Again, fair or not, players do somewhat have an expectation that in addition to gaining skills and abilities on their character sheets, that they will also gain items to go with that. If not, then what do they spend their time/money on? What "loot' are they looking for when they take out some evil bad guy, or defeat a dragon, or whatever? The process of divvying up magic item/loot is as much as part of the fun of the game as defeating the enemies is.

I lean far more towards being careful about what you introduce into the game and considering that as part of character balance before handing those items out, rather than handing them stuff that's useful for them in the short term, but then taking it away later as some kind of retroactive balance effort. I've just found that the former plays far better than the latter at most tables. Even in magic item scarce settings (heck, especially so), the players will tend to treasure what they get, and will be really bummed if they lose those items. So I guess my GM advice would be "never give the players anything you later intend to take away". The only exceptions are specific quest related items that the players know up front will be used/consumed as part of the quest. Anything else? If you don't want them to have it and keep it, just don't give it to them in the first place. You will save yourself a ton of grief.

[kieza]

Okay, so a couple of points of clarification:

The goal here is not to turn item loss into a core mechanic of the system, but to preserve it as an option that the GM can use to set up a story or design an interesting encounter--things that are hard to do in some systems where characters are assumed to have some minimum equipment at all levels.

On the narrative side, the goal is to make it possible, even easy, to do things like the following:
--The party loses a fight decisively (due to bad decisions, or a horrible string of bad rolls). The victors looted their bodies but didn't perform a coup de grace, and the survivors regained consciousness to find their money and valuables gone. The GM doesn't have to nerf the subsequent encounters; they might be harder than they would have been with magic items, but they'll still be winnable.
--The party gets robbed and naturally (yes, I'm aware that players hate losing stuff...) sets out to deliver some vengeance on the robbers. The fights they get into, while harder than they would have been with their magic items, but again...still winnable, not to mention fun.
--The party has screwed up: the enemy got the loot, stole their boat, and left them in a pirate stronghold with only what they had on their backs. They could give up and work their way home on some scow...or they could swallow their pride, trade the pirate king some of their magic items, and get a fast ship to overtake their enemies.

The idea is to preserve options for both the GM and the players. In my experience of 3.5e, 4e, Pathfinder, and even 5e, even if players were onboard for trading away their items, or down with a revenge-on-thieves plot, losing those items meant that the GM had to make a ton of adjustments to ensure that the fight didn't wind up unwinnable. Here, the fights will be harder (assuming the GM has been following the guidelines on encounter difficulty) but still doable.

On the mechanical side, my experience of other systems is that when magic items are required for a character to be viable, fights where those items are endangered just aren't fun. If a character gets their equipment destroyed without understanding that it was a possible risk, they feel cheated. If they understand it's coming and they have no way to defend against it, they tend to treat it as a worse risk than actual death. (I once saw a fighter take more precautions against 3 rust monsters than they had against a lich.) And if they saw it coming, tried to defend against it, and still lost equipment, then they feel railroaded.

The goal here is that:
--Sunder, disarm, and monster abilities that might destroy or remove an item have counterplay: a character should always have something they can do instead of exposing an item to danger. (With disarm and sunder, a character can choose to take damage, as from a basic attack, instead of letting the disarm or sunder attempt succeed.)
--If a character takes risks, or just has bad luck, and loses an item as a result...sure, it feels bad, but they didn't just make their character unplayable.
--Item-removing abilities are not necessarily present in most encounters, but it's a design space that the GM can use without feeling bad about it or putting in a ton of prep.

The reason I plan to put this guidance in the guide is that a GM coming from one of those other systems might--like me--have experience that says taking away magic items just doesn't work well from a mechanical standpoint, and I want to explicitly say that it's not the case here.


I think that depending how the system is set up, gear loss can be mechanically fine. But, don't think that means players will see it as anything but a grievous crime.

Which can be fine - a plot of "imps stole your sword and now you've got to slaughter your way through a bunch of demons to retrieve it" - or "Count Von Evil destroyed your scroll collection and that's one of the reasons you want to defeat him" - those kind of things work.

But "these NPCs are going to extort an item from you, but then you're supposed to work with them and view them as non-enemies"? I wouldn't count on that. I've seen players swear eternal vengeance over losing very small amounts of gold, not enough to be (at their level) a noticeable mechanical difference. It's the principle of the thing.

I absolutely get this being a common reaction to actual extortion, but if a player's knee-jerk reaction to any choice of "trade away magic item for some other benefit" is to call it extortion, they're not the audience I'm aiming at. I intend this system to support narratives like "The villain has an army, and we need an army of our own to fight it. I've got a magical sword that we think is a royal heirloom the king's been looking for; let's see if he wants it badly enough to offer up some knights."


the problem with this approach is that magic items in this system are mostly trash.

No, they're not trash: it's just that the game is balanced around not having a gear treadmill where, at level 10, you need magic items appropriate to a level 10 character or you will struggle against level 10 challenges.

All of the level scaling is baked into characters, using the proficiency analogue I mentioned. A magic item is the equivalent of a cherry on top: if you want to be the absolute best you possibly can at something, then you will want a magical item to stack on top of your proficiency, but to be good-to-great at that thing, all you need is the appropriate proficiency.

A secondary goal--far, far below the priority of the goal already mentioned--is to give the GM tools to shake things up if a character got a single magic item at level 1, built their character around it, and has now reached level 10 without ever once changing their tactics. If they lose that item, they're still pretty good at whatever they focused on, but now they might have more reason to try out something new based on whatever the next item they get encourages.

[gbaji]

On the narrative side, the goal is to make it possible, even easy, to do things like the following:
--The party loses a fight decisively (due to bad decisions, or a horrible string of bad rolls). The victors looted their bodies but didn't perform a coup de grace, and the survivors regained consciousness to find their money and valuables gone. The GM doesn't have to nerf the subsequent encounters; they might be harder than they would have been with magic items, but they'll still be winnable.
--The party gets robbed and naturally (yes, I'm aware that players hate losing stuff...) sets out to deliver some vengeance on the robbers. The fights they get into, while harder than they would have been with their magic items, but again...still winnable, not to mention fun.
--The party has screwed up: the enemy got the loot, stole their boat, and left them in a pirate stronghold with only what they had on their backs. They could give up and work their way home on some scow...or they could swallow their pride, trade the pirate king some of their magic items, and get a fast ship to overtake their enemies.

Well, heck. Those are just fun things to do to players in any game system IMO (though number one is a bit hard to pull off without it feeling super contrived). That's not super game system dependent really. You can do it in any system, and I'd actually argue that systems where magic items (gear in general) are a greater part of character level/power balance actually makes these sorts of scenarios a lot more "interesting". Mid level parties can still be effective, but have to scrabble to get basic gear, and arcane casters may be totally boned (hey. they can still fight with a dagger or quarterstaff, right?).

I've run a few of those types of things. They can be a ton of fun for the players. But you still have to have some sort of "we'll get our stuff back at some point" promise to the scenario IMO.

There's also the shorter, but still fun, variant: The party is captured (or allows themselves to be captured). Or they go undercover somewhere, and can't bring their gear with them (undercover in the gladitorial pens is always a favorite!). It can be a lot of fun for players to noodle out how to accomplish things with their characters when they aren't fully geared up. And this is also where they can lean on those secondary and teriary skills they picked up, maybe on a lark, at some point along the way.

[Vahnavoi]

The goal here is not to turn item loss into a core mechanic of the system, but to preserve it as an option that the GM can use to set up a story or design an interesting encounter--things that are hard to do in some systems where characters are assumed to have some minimum equipment at all levels.

The easiest way to communicate to both the game master and the players that these options are on the table is to bake them into core rules of your game. Though this doesn't have to be more complex than what you're already doing: you have a number of sample scenarios in mind, so put those sample scenarios in your game guidelines.

It's worth noting that these things aren't hard to do in most forms of D&D because of the system assumption that a level 10 monster is balanced around level 10 character having level 10 items. It's because of end users having inflexible extra assumptions about scenario design: namely, that a level 10 character without their items still ought to fight level 10 monsters. The entire issue typically fails to occur if the character who lost their items can go back to fight some level 9 or 8 monsters instead, so what keeps them from doing that?

Another way to put it: in your proposed system, a character without magic items is level X and monsters are balanced around that. The same character with magic items effectively functions at level X+N. In the systems you come from, a character with magic items is level X. The same character without magic items is level X-N. The only thing keeping the old system from doing the same as the new system is the scenario designer not realizing they can use X-N as their baseline, so what causes that?

[Satinavian]

The idea is to preserve options for both the GM and the players. In my experience of 3.5e, 4e, Pathfinder, and even 5e, even if players were onboard for trading away their items, or down with a revenge-on-thieves plot, losing those items meant that the GM had to make a ton of adjustments to ensure that the fight didn't wind up unwinnable. Here, the fights will be harder (assuming the GM has been following the guidelines on encounter difficulty) but still doable.


If you made your system in a way that you can remove items without changing balancing too much, then you have already achieced your goal. The only thing you need to tell your GM is "Items are not ecessary for balanced encounters or shift power all that much in this system. Your group is free to base item availability or even loss on other considerations or preferences."

That is the core of your message, isn't it ? The rest kinda hints around that item loss is a difficult topic and might upset players when done wrong but does not really help with doing it right. It doesn't even touch much on the fact that, while balancing might be a reason not to target items in some systems, that is rarely the reason for why it so often goes poorly.


On the mechanical side, my experience of other systems is that when magic items are required for a character to be viable, fights where those items are endangered just aren't fun. If a character gets their equipment destroyed without understanding that it was a possible risk, they feel cheated. If they understand it's coming and they have no way to defend against it, they tend to treat it as a worse risk than actual death. (I once saw a fighter take more precautions against 3 rust monsters than they had against a lich.) And if they saw it coming, tried to defend against it, and still lost equipment, then they feel railroaded.Let me tell you that the same kind of behavior regularly happens in systems like yours, where items are not part of the progression. Potentially even more often as when items are not part of the expected power of characters there is even less expectation to get them back/get replacements as the game would go on mechanically just fine.

[King of Nowhere]

No, they're not trash: it's just that the game is balanced around not having a gear treadmill where, at level 10, you need magic items appropriate to a level 10 character or you will struggle against level 10 challenges.

All of the level scaling is baked into characters, using the proficiency analogue I mentioned. A magic item is the equivalent of a cherry on top


Sorry, but this is just a nice way to say they're trash.
If magic items are actually powerful, then they give you a major power boost. If they do, then losing them will hurt your effectivenes. Badly.
If magic items do not impact much your effectivenes and capability, then they cannot really be all that useful - because the very definition of being useful is that they make you more capable. And so if they are not all that useful, if they at most give a slight numerical bonus that you'll barely feel... yep, by using the word "trash" i intentionally overstated my point for emphasis. Just don't expect me to go wild with joy at receiving them.
Powerful items have advantages and drawbacks. Depowering the items have other advantages, but introduces other drawbacks. Which ones you use is a stylistical choice, but you can't have all the advantages and none of the drawbacks.


A secondary goal--far, far below the priority of the goal already mentioned--is to give the GM tools to shake things up if a character got a single magic item at level 1, built their character around it, and has now reached level 10 without ever once changing their tactics. If they lose that item, they're still pretty good at whatever they focused on, but now they might have more reason to try out something new based on whatever the next item they get encourages

I have never seen an item enable a tactic by itself - unless we mean "allows you to engage flying creatures in melee". And i have never seen a build depend on a single irreplaceable item.

Furthermore, removing the item to deny an ability is not a good way to shake things up for the character. If a wizard does nothing but cast magic missile, you can point him to other spells. You can craft scenarios where magic missile is inefficient. Deleting magic missile from his spellbook instead is a jerk move. Removing an item to deny a specific strategy is the same.



On the mechanical side, my experience of other systems is that when magic items are required for a character to be viable, fights where those items are endangered just aren't fun. If a character gets their equipment destroyed without understanding that it was a possible risk, they feel cheated. If they understand it's coming and they have no way to defend against it, they tend to treat it as a worse risk than actual death. (I once saw a fighter take more precautions against 3 rust monsters than they had against a lich.)
that's certainly a common experience to have players value their loot more than their lives, but I have a different explanation than just greed or fear of being depowered. it has to do with social contract and implicit assumption on the dm behavior.
the argument is twofold. first thing is, we all play this game and we know fights are balanced to not be deadly. they also know the dm is expected to not kill them. so, they go fight the lich confident that they are supposed to win, and that in any case even if all goes wrong the dm will try to give them a way out. conversely, most players do expect the dm to have no such compunctions on taking away their items. So the fighter made the correct call: the fight with the rust monsters involved a lot more risk - actual risk - than the lich. the lich is more powerful, but the social contract of the table gives the player a safety net on the lich that he doesn't have against the rust monster. as a player, I rarely feel in real danger during fights. even adversarial and railroading masters are more likely to destroy items and depower the party, because a powerful party will more easily go off rails - but they'll still avoid killing characters, because those deaths also are not part of their planned railroad.
Second, even if the lich does kill a pc, there is a resurrection spell for a reason. and we all know that the player will get it soon, because nobody wants to leave out a player. so, getting killed is something that will be fixed within next session. losing your big powerful magic sword? you may have to gain three levels before you find another equally powerful one. So, fixing death is a lot easier than fixing broken gear, and once more the fighter made the right call in what is the most dangerous fight.

Conversely, at my table the party fears npc bosses more than rust monsters. because loot is plentyful, so a broken sword is easily fixed, worst case scenario it will be a slightly worse one, you'll get a -1 to hit and damage, that's all. while on the other hand I prefer fight to be competitive and I don't pull punches in fights, so when they fight a lich they do face a real, significant danger - that while I built the scenario making sure they can win, the lich as a smart opponent would not be fighting if it didn't have a realistic plan to win. and while death can be fixed and is only a temporary setback, it still means abandoning the current mission and fleeing to a safe place.

So, it's all about what is the most likely danger and what can be fixed more easily. my experience is that if players are so attached to their loot, it's less because of the idea that they are necessary to a build or because they can't fight without them, and more because of the assumption that items are a finite resource that they won't be able to replace. An attitude fostered by many adversarial dms who would not dare kill a character, because they need their players to stay, but have no qualms depowering them in any possible way, first and foremost by acting on their gear - but also on their spell selection.
In the face of that, depowering items and saying "you can be strong without them" does not address the real problem. earning trust from your players addresses the problem, because this is essentially a trust problem: "the dm would not dare kill me for real, but he would totally take away my nice stuff because he does not like me being too powerful and roflstomping his encounters", that kind of mentality is the real problem.
Or possibly is a mentality fostered by videogames, where if you miss the secret floor and you miss the secret boss you will lose the ultimate sword forever and will have no other way to unlock it, and this brought the idea that loot can't be replaced.
also, being more generous with items helps, but that's not for every campaign.

at least, that's my assessment, achieved from my tabletop experience, and other tabletop experiences I read in this forum, especially negative ones. I would like to hear if other players can relate on those being the deeper reason they are afraid to lose their gear


Let me tell you that the same kind of behavior regularly happens in systems like yours, where items are not part of the progression. Potentially even more often as when items are not part of the expected power of characters there is even less expectation to get them back/get replacements as the game would go on mechanically just fine.
yes, this pretty much would support my argument.

[KorvinStarmast]

For the OP: I'll suggest that to save yourself a lot of trouble, you use consumables
Simple examples are things like a potion of sharpness, potions of heroism, potions of flying, etc.

Make these your standard/stock magic items.
They get used up. The players have to manage when they need them as a power up, and when they don't.

You are making this too hard for yourself.

Magic rings: have charges, and either expire permanently (ring of three wishes style) or recover a charge over time.
(In Empire of the Petal Throne, the Eyes which had magical powers were like this. They needed to be recharged).

In some games, your rifle or pistol needs ammo. Those are like charges, since they need to be replenished.
Make ammo a quest item, or something costly that you get from a local alchemist/artificer, rather than "head down to frank's gun shop and buy ammo" and treating it like beans and bacon.

[Slipjig]

Have you considered setting it up so thar your characters outgrow their items over time? Something like, "This sets your PB for [task] to +3. If your PB is already +3 or higher, it has no effect"?

You could also set it up so that magical items are mostly only vulnerable when they are in use. This encourages your players to use their native abilities (or second-tier gear) most of the time, only breaking out the really big guns for boss fights or other emergencies.

"I had thought that they had limits. It turned out they'd been holding back."

[NichG]

I'd set things up to allow the players to tell you which things of theirs should be sacrosanct, and which things they're willing to see as more expendable. For example, a heavily homebrewed game I was in let you take a feat 'Soulbound' with respect to a particular item, which would ensure that as long as your character's soul existed that item would reconstitute itself or return to their side within 24 hours of it being lost, misplaced, traded away, etc. If you're worried about this being used to scam people, just make an item's soulbound status visually obvious and make the process of soulbinding items well enough known that shopkeepers, kings, etc will be aware of it.

I'd personally probably make it something like, the feat lets you bind one item plus one additional item per 5 character levels; binding an item involves a ritual in which the physical form of the item must be destroyed after which you recreate it from yoursoul, so items that are beyond the party's ability to destroy (plot artifacts) cannot be bound; a binding can be released to free up a slot, but in doing so the previously bound item is lost forever.

You still have the immediate tactical considerations of 'we're doing a dungeon delve, I attacked the acidic slimes with my metal sword and now I won't have a metal sword for the rest of the delve', but you lose the long-term setback or denial of something a player was building their character's image around.

This does obligate you to take that feat (or whatever form it might take in your system) seriously - don't immediately come up with counters for the feat like dunking the item in quintessence or someone using Trap the Soul to steal-it-really. If it turns out that this shuts down potential fun-seeming plots take it as the player warning you in advance that no, they would not actually find such plots fun, and trust them on that if they say as much. At the same time, if that option exists and someone doesn't take it, then you can say 'there was a way to hard-counter thatbut you didn't take it, so this item being stolen/destroyed/etc was on the table'.

[icefractal]

For the OP: I'll suggest that to save yourself a lot of trouble, you use consumables
Simple examples are things like a potion of sharpness, potions of heroism, potions of flying, etc.

Make these your standard/stock magic items.
They get used up. The players have to manage when they need them as a power up, and when they don't. I've got to say, while I'm not the biggest fan of item-loss, I'd take occasional item loss 100 / 100 times over "everything is consumable".

For me, consumable items aren't much fun. They often go unused because you're waiting for the perfect moment to use them. And when you do use them, it's a feelbad moment more often than a good one. Consider the cases:
A) Used the consumable, but you would have won anyway without it. Feels bad.
B) Used the consumable and it made the difference. Feels good - although slightly tainted by the knowledge that you're now less able to face an identical challenge in the future.
C) Used the consumable, still lost. Feels bad - although if the loss was such that you lost all your items anyway, then it's a wash.

Something with a larger number of charges, like a wand? It's better, but it's still significantly less "wow, awesome!" to find than a permanent item with the same abilities would be.


As far as "plot usage", which applies both to consumable items "use the potion of ultimate healing on this mountain spring to heal the kingdom's plague" and to reasons to lose permanent items "the demons will be marching over the pass soon, and the cloud giants insist on remaining neutral - unless ... someone were to offer them the Scepter of the Summit" - I'm neutral on it.

By which I mean I don't have a problem with using items that way, but I'm not going to be wowed or feel like I got something cool either. It just maps to "plot token / red key for the red door" in my mind once it's clear that's what it is, and so I don't even consider it "an amazing thing we have" so much as just "a key we're carrying around for later".

Now in a more sandbox context like "you could give the Scepter to the giants, or you could give it to the fey of the east forest in exchange for a favor, or use it yourself to become a credible throne-contender in Windvale, or you could simply sell it to a rich collector for loads of gold" then sure, even if the item does nothing mechanically beyond "be important" it can still be cool.

[JNAProductions]

Have you considered setting it up so thar your characters outgrow their items over time? Something like, "This sets your PB for [task] to +3. If your PB is already +3 or higher, it has no effect"?

You could also set it up so that magical items are mostly only vulnerable when they are in use. This encourages your players to use their native abilities (or second-tier gear) most of the time, only breaking out the really big guns for boss fights or other emergencies.

"I had thought that they had limits. It turned out they'd been holding back."

These seems like good ideas worth thinking about.

[gbaji]

Another way to put it: in your proposed system, a character without magic items is level X and monsters are balanced around that. The same character with magic items effectively functions at level X+N. In the systems you come from, a character with magic items is level X. The same character without magic items is level X-N. The only thing keeping the old system from doing the same as the new system is the scenario designer not realizing they can use X-N as their baseline, so what causes that?

It does make a difference if advancement is based on defeating opponents of X level versus X-N versus X+N. This is more of an issue in systems with experience points and levels, obviously. But in those kinds of systems, it's not at all going to be lost on the players that if their characters can shift the difficulty of opponents by (+N) when they have their magic gear, then that means that they advance faster. So regardless of what values we set for X and N, they will always want to have and use those items if possible versus not having them.


If you made your system in a way that you can remove items without changing balancing too much, then you have already achieced your goal. The only thing you need to tell your GM is "Items are not ecessary for balanced encounters or shift power all that much in this system. Your group is free to base item availability or even loss on other considerations or preferences."

That is the core of your message, isn't it ? The rest kinda hints around that item loss is a difficult topic and might upset players when done wrong but does not really help with doing it right. It doesn't even touch much on the fact that, while balancing might be a reason not to target items in some systems, that is rarely the reason for why it so often goes poorly.

I was speaking purely narratively for scenario purposes (and short term ones at that). The idea of having something remove those items temporarily and require the PCs to have to fight against less powerful foes, not with the goal of gaining experience at this point, but to regain their stuff so they can then go on to take out the big bad or something. I've run those kinds of scenarios. They are a lot of fun. But it absolutely requires a fair degree of trust from the players to the GM for it to work.

Because, at some level, we can step outside of level advancement and think in terms of "having fun playing the game". Players can appreciate that. But yeah, they also expect to get their items back *and* experience some character growth/advancement along the way as well.

You are correct that if the game system itself bakes in the idea that items are, at best, minor bonuses and ultimately replaceable or something, then yes, you can get away with such things. I would lean towards the whole "consumable" idea that some folks have suggested though. That more easily represents things that provide bonuses when available and needed, but that don't dramatically increase overall character power. Alternatively, you can build a game system where the items you have are part of the character build itself. So this is "stuff" you normally have, and have paid for with your character points, but may situationally be taken during the course of an adventure, and you may have to deal with that. But the assumption is that you get them back when you start the next adventure/scenario (Champions had this concept with the idea of focus powers, which could potentially be taken temporarily).

There are a few ways to handle this. But yeah, I would still strongly advise against having more traditional "magic items" in a game, and then thinking in terms of taking them away so as to balance character power level or something. I've just never seen that end well. Certainly not if said removal is permanent. Players just hate that. We could talk all day long about why, but sometimes, it's just enough to accept that they do.

[Satinavian]

I was speaking purely narratively for scenario purposes (and short term ones at that). Sorry, i made a mistake with the quotes. I actually intended to respond to Kieza.

[King of Nowhere]

I'd set things up to allow the players to tell you which things of theirs should be sacrosanct, and which things they're willing to see as more expendable. For example, a heavily homebrewed game I was in let you take a feat 'Soulbound' with respect to a particular item, which would ensure that as long as your character's soul existed that item would reconstitute itself or return to their side within 24 hours of it being lost, misplaced, traded away, etc. If you're worried about this being used to scam people, just make an item's soulbound status visually obvious and make the process of soulbinding items well enough known that shopkeepers, kings, etc will be aware of it.

quite a nice idea. though with the amount of gear a high level d&d character has, and the low number of feats they get, i'd either let them apply the benefit to more than one item, or i'd give the feat for free at level 5, 10, 15, 20.

I've got to say, while I'm not the biggest fan of item-loss, I'd take occasional item loss 100 / 100 times over "everything is consumable".

For me, consumable items aren't much fun. They often go unused because you're waiting for the perfect moment to use them. And when you do use them, it's a feelbad moment more often than a good one. Consider the cases:
A) Used the consumable, but you would have won anyway without it. Feels bad.
B) Used the consumable and it made the difference. Feels good - although slightly tainted by the knowledge that you're now less able to face an identical challenge in the future.
C) Used the consumable, still lost. Feels bad - although if the loss was such that you lost all your items anyway, then it's a wash.


very true. and in addition to that, using consumables takes actions. sure, you can drink 20 potions before the boss fight. but only if you know you'll have the boss fight in the next few minutes. most times you rarely know when a big fight is coming, so I'm adding some extra options

D) Would need the consumable, but you got caught by surprise and can't afford to sacrifice the action to use it. Feels bad, the one time you would have actually needed it you can't use it.
E) Would need the consumable, but after going weeks without using it you completely forgot you had it. You only realize you should have used it afterwards. Feels bad.
F) You don't know how hard the next fight will be. Expect hours of discussion on whether it's worth using the consumables. Feels bad, partially mitigated by feeling good if the party guessed right, but worse if the party made the wrong call
G) The party never needs the consumables because the game is balanced around them not being required to. They reach the end of the campaign with a huge stash and wonder what was the point of loot. Feels bad

My only positive experience with consumables are with wands of healing when the party lacks a cleric, and with very situational healing - something like a scroll of remove curse of restoration that you will most likely never need, but that one time you need you will be really glad to have. so, in general, stuff that is used outside of fights.
oh, also single use teleportations, to escape combat when outmatched. but still not a combat buff. You can't rely on consumables for combat buffs, because of the issues mentioned in points A to D. The only good use of consumables is as contingencies for rare occurrencies, stuff that happens too rarely to permanently prepare a spell slot for, but may still be needed badly one day.
My most common experience with consumables is to look at the stash of party loot and be like "huh, we still had those"

[NichG]

quite a nice idea. though with the amount of gear a high level d&d character has, and the low number of feats they get, i'd either let them apply the benefit to more than one item, or i'd give the feat for free at level 5, 10, 15, 20.

In that particular campaign you could buy feats with XP, like E6. But I would say that if people are going around with every single item 'a high level d&d character has' soulbound, somewhere the system design has failed. It shouldn't be a feat tax (okay everyone, remember to soulbond ever piece of gear you receive!) and it should definitely be worth something to say 'I am willing for my gear to be at risk' to the extent that it encourages gear-fluid builds. I would say that even if its to the extent that every PC takes (or has) an instance of 'soulbound' then its too much; maybe at least one in four characters should be making things work without having to take it.

Basically, given what the OP has said about magic items being ribbons in their system, it'd be there for when there is an item that is essential to your build/character concept/legend/whatnot; its not there to encourage people to make builds that rely even more on essential magical gear. You've got a magical prosthetic hand passed down from your father? Soulbind that thing. You've got a +1 crossbow with an infinite ammo enchant? The player should be asking whether the gp cost to replace that is really worth the feat.

[gbaji]

Sorry, i made a mistake with the quotes. I actually intended to respond to Kieza.

Ah. That makes a lot more sense then. Was a bit confuzzled. :smallsmile:


D) Would need the consumable, but you got caught by surprise and can't afford to sacrifice the action to use it. Feels bad, the one time you would have actually needed it you can't use it.
E) Would need the consumable, but after going weeks without using it you completely forgot you had it. You only realize you should have used it afterwards. Feels bad.
F) You don't know how hard the next fight will be. Expect hours of discussion on whether it's worth using the consumables. Feels bad, partially mitigated by feeling good if the party guessed right, but worse if the party made the wrong call
G) The party never needs the consumables because the game is balanced around them not being required to. They reach the end of the campaign with a huge stash and wonder what was the point of loot. Feels bad


I think that a lot of these issues are less significant if the use of such consumables is the "norm" for magic items and not in addition to static stuff (ie: actually baked into the game system from the get go). Imagine a system like this:

All magic items take the form of some kind of talsiman/totem, that holds some amount of magical energy. These are small items you can pick up and carry around, and activate as needed for various useful effects (like increasing damage, to hit, healing, whatever). Let's also assume that based on some character traits (feats, levels, stats, whatever), each character may only have X number of "points" of such items in their possession at any given them (maybe they have to be attuned or something). The point is that this system moves you away from the idea of having a "magic sword", and "magic armor", and a "ring of protection", and a "wand of healing", and into "I've got X points of magic effects I can generate if I want (with whatever level of specificity you want)". Furthermore, finding such items is relatively common, so you are encouraged to use them as needed, with the expectation that they will be replaced at a decent rate, but if you are using them too quickly, or on trivial scenes, you may suffer a bit for not having them during a bigger/tougher fight/scene/whatever. And the rate at which you will find new ones (and the fact that you can only "bank" so many) encourages players to just use them frequently).


In that kind of system, no one would forget that they have these things. And yes, you could have some events occur which remove/destroy them from the PCs, without them screaming about it too much. It's a setback in this case, and one which may put them at a disadvantage for a bit, but is easily and fully recoverable. Again though, you pretty much have to design the game system and the type of magic items used within to support this. You try to do the same thing with the traditional magic items systems (magic swords, armor, helms, rings, wands, horns, whatever), and you will get screaming players in return.

[King of Nowhere]

All magic items take the form of some kind of talsiman/totem, that holds some amount of magical energy. These are small items you can pick up and carry around, and activate as needed for various useful effects (like increasing damage, to hit, healing, whatever). Let's also assume that based on some character traits (feats, levels, stats, whatever), each character may only have X number of "points" of such items in their possession at any given them (maybe they have to be attuned or something). The point is that this system moves you away from the idea of having a "magic sword", and "magic armor", and a "ring of protection", and a "wand of healing", and into "I've got X points of magic effects I can generate if I want (with whatever level of specificity you want)". Furthermore, finding such items is relatively common, so you are encouraged to use them as needed, with the expectation that they will be replaced at a decent rate, but if you are using them too quickly, or on trivial scenes, you may suffer a bit for not having them during a bigger/tougher fight/scene/whatever. And the rate at which you will find new ones (and the fact that you can only "bank" so many) encourages players to just use them frequently).

if those kind of totems could be activated as free actions, it would already remove the whole "this time i really need the buff, but i can't spend the action to activate it" (issue D). I still prefer fixed items, and they would complicate the calculations even morethan regular buff spells, but it would definitely be workable.

[gbaji]

if those kind of totems could be activated as free actions, it would already remove the whole "this time i really need the buff, but i can't spend the action to activate it" (issue D). I still prefer fixed items, and they would complicate the calculations even morethan regular buff spells, but it would definitely be workable.

Yes. I was assuming free action activation/use of these items. So you're basically mirroring the idea of having +X items on your person for that fight/scene/whatever, but consuming the magical energy that generates it each time.

The additional bonus for this sort of thing is that you can actually separate the item that's generating the magical effect from the object/gear you are using at the time. So your fighter burns a +2AC totem, and gets that for the fight/scene he's in, but it works regardless of what armor he's actually wearing at the time, and not just if he happend to be wearing his +2AC helm or whatever. Simlarly, you pick up a +3 tohit/damage totem, you can burn it in any fight you want, and it doesn't matter what weapon you are using at the time. So no more "it's a nice bonus, but I use mace and not sword" kind of problems.

You could get even more generic, and just have points of mana/whatever, and then use them for any effect in a list of possible effects which would normally be generated by wearable magic items in other games. Again, if the objective is to duplicate (to some degree anyway) the effect of characters wearing magic gear around on themselves all the time, but without the dependencs on the actual physical gear, and without over concern about said gear being taken, this kind of solution can absolutely work. You are no longer accumulating a bunch of magic swords, axes, rings, etc. You just travel around in whatever normal mundane gear you have and none of it is magical at all. Someone steals your helmet or your shield? You go buy another one. You don't really care, because the magic isn't in those items at all.

And yeah, since the magic is actually in these disposable small objects you carry around (magic crystals, stones, whatever), they are imminently replaceable. Heck. You could even have class abilities/skills to allow people to make or charge such items themselves. Since we've placed limits on how much you can carry around at any given time anyway, it doesn't matter. It's really about the rate at which you can replace these, and the rate at which you choose to use them, and also the total number/amount you can have maximum (since that affects how much extra "oomph" you could theoretically bring to bear for a single combat). And yeah, you could even get into additional rules limiting which kinds of "item powers" different types of character may use, or points of any given effect they can call upon, or whatever.

There's actually quite a bit of interesting stuff you can do with this concept.

[Satinavian]

There's actually quite a bit of interesting stuff you can do with this concept.
You can do that, but honestly, i am not a fan of making that a core of a system.

First, i don't think it will get rid of the "I forgot we had this"-effect. It is what already happens with obscure potions all the time and obscure talismans with narrow use cases will be no different - especially if only one person in a group has them somewhere in their backpack, when such a situation arises. Only talismans with wide use cases won't risk being forgotten because those come up all the time.

Second, it is a lot extra bookkeeping because every fight is expected to change the number of talismans for every PC. Sure it can be handled, people can keep track of spell slots already, but that does not make extra bookkeeping fun.

Third, it introduces a lot of relatively meaningless decisions. Sure it might make a difference whether you take your +3hit/damage item in a fight when you have only one and compare it to fighting unbuffed. But that is not what will happen. Rather you will keep your +3 item for the boss fight and alternate between your stack of cheaper +1 and +2 items for the regular fights. With permanent items you will replace the outleveled stuff and always keep the biggest but not so with consumables. Here weak consumables are for situation not worth the strong ones.

Fourth and most important : Consumables won't motivate your players all that much. They know those are very fleeting powers. That just doesn't invoke feelings, especially for minor boosts. Partly that was your goal as players should not feel bad about loosing them but that invariably also leads to them not feeling good about getting them. And you can't even rectify this by introducing particularly powerful consumables because those just become too-awesome-to-use and will sit in the backpack for the whole campaign because there is never a situation warranting them. And the experienced players will recognize that as soon as they get them.

Fifth : Relying heavily on consumables obviously increases the nova-potential of everybody. People who already have an issue with D&D casters mostly ignoring the minor fights but winning the end fight single-handedly because they unload all their high level abilities at once might not want a system where everyone could do the same with thheir talismans.



I mean, the whole thing would probably feel good for a group that wants a change of pace and try something different. But as i said, i would not build it as default mode into a system i intend people to play for longer times.


And if you go with "PCs can refill those talismans themself, but there is a limit on how many they can carry/use in single fights and some talismans require certain classes" they basically stop being gear and become build options. They are suddenly basically long interval spellslots with talisman-crafting/refilling in place of preparation.

[Vahnavoi]

It does make a difference if advancement is based on defeating opponents of X level versus X-N versus X+N. This is more of an issue in systems with experience points and levels, obviously. But in those kinds of systems, it's not at all going to be lost on the players that if their characters can shift the difficulty of opponents by (+N) when they have their magic gear, then that means that they advance faster. So regardless of what values we set for X and N, they will always want to have and use those items if possible versus not having them.

In both kinds of systems, having items allows defeating stronger opponents and getting more rewards, if such are on the table, so that cannot be the answer to my question.

[Zombimode]

All magic items take the form of some kind of talsiman/totem, that holds some amount of magical energy. These are small items you can pick up and carry around, and activate as needed for various useful effects (like increasing damage, to hit, healing, whatever). Let's also assume that based on some character traits (feats, levels, stats, whatever), each character may only have X number of "points" of such items in their possession at any given them (maybe they have to be attuned or something). The point is that this system moves you away from the idea of having a "magic sword", and "magic armor", and a "ring of protection", and a "wand of healing", and into "I've got X points of magic effects I can generate if I want (with whatever level of specificity you want)". Furthermore, finding such items is relatively common, so you are encouraged to use them as needed, with the expectation that they will be replaced at a decent rate, but if you are using them too quickly, or on trivial scenes, you may suffer a bit for not having them during a bigger/tougher fight/scene/whatever. And the rate at which you will find new ones (and the fact that you can only "bank" so many) encourages players to just use them frequently).

In addition to the excellent points by Satinavian, I would not like such a system because it does not model the typical fantasy genre.

[gbaji]

Fourth and most important : Consumables won't motivate your players all that much. They know those are very fleeting powers. That just doesn't invoke feelings, especially for minor boosts. Partly that was your goal as players should not feel bad about loosing them but that invariably also leads to them not feeling good about getting them. And you can't even rectify this by introducing particularly powerful consumables because those just become too-awesome-to-use and will sit in the backpack for the whole campaign because there is never a situation warranting them. And the experienced players will recognize that as soon as they get them.

Yes. I'm well aware of this. But the premise of the OP was "make me a system where magic items don't have a huge impact, and the players don't care much and aren't harmed much by losing them". If we are assuming that items will be gained and lost and the players aren't supposed to be bothered much by it, then that also assumes that they won't be terribly excited by them either. You kinda can't have one without the other. If players are supposed to be like "Oh. I got a +2 sword, which I'll be able to use for a couple of fights until it gets lost/broken/stolen, and that's fine", then I'm just cutting out the middleman of "it's a sword" and replacing it with "this is an item that will give you a +2 bonus with your sword for a few fights".



In addition to the excellent points by Satinavian, I would not like such a system because it does not model the typical fantasy genre.

That was exactly the intent.

let me be clear. I would never run a game with this system either. Because I actually like giving my players loot and making their eyes glow like it's christmas morning when getting a big haul. And I don't like to take items away from them because I think that's cruel and capricious.

But. If I'm asked to develop a system with an "items are temporary and will be lost/destroyed/consumed regularly" assumption baked into it, then this is the direction I'd go. By separating the actual physical items from the magical effects, you will dramatically reduce the negative effects players will feel for having them "lost" in some way. Which was exactly what the OP was asking for. And if the solution to that is to make items less powerful, or have consumable effects, I'd rather the plusses wear out on a rock I'm carrying around in my pocket, than on my actual sword or helmet.

I'm just taking that concept to a logical end point. If folks don't like that end point, then maybe the starting concept should be reconsidered.

[King of Nowhere]

In addition to the excellent points by Satinavian, I would not like such a system because it does not model the typical fantasy genre.

i'd consider that a plus. we've been doing the typical fantasy genre for decades, i need to add some twists to it to keep it fresh.
i would not like such a system either, but i like modding the rules

[KorvinStarmast]

I'd take occasional item loss 100 / 100 times over "everything is consumable". The problem, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves ...


They often go unused because you're waiting for the perfect moment to use them. And when you do use them, it's a feelbad moment more often than a good one. Consider the cases:
Insert Face Palm Picture

Also, I mentioned charges for rings.

[icefractal]

The problem, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves ...


Insert Face Palm PictureI mean, you can say it's an effective gameplay mechanical all you want, and I wouldn't even necessarily disagree, but that doesn't mean it's enjoyable. RPG systems are made for humans rather than vice-versa, so if something "works" system-wise but isn't a good experience, it's the system rather than the users that's flawed.

(Acknowledging that "flawed" is obviously subjective.)

[Vahnavoi]

@Icefractal: all three situations you describe do happen, yes. They're also all symptomatic of not being very good at a game. Same goes for all additional ones listed by batcathat. This line of argument hence boils down to "resource management feels bad when you're bad at it". That's not a compelling case against consumables. The same kind lf argument can be made of anything requiring skill on a player's part.

Additionally, the negative feelings can serve to pull people in to a game, since adjusting strategies leaves the possibility of removing those negative feelings, creating a reinforcement loop. The idea that nothing in a game ought to be unenjoyable is wrong. Games subject players to frustrating and unenjoyable things all the time because that is one way to motivate them to do better. Considering how ubiquitous resource management and betting games are, I don't believe for a second that including such as subgames in a roleplaying game (in the form of consumables) is unusually likely to go wrong.

[icefractal]

@Icefractal: all three situations you describe do happen, yes. They're also all symptomatic of not being very good at a game. Same goes for all additional ones listed by batcathat. This line of argument hence boils down to "resource management feels bad when you're bad at it".Rude. But also, incorrect. I can manage resources just fine. Doesn't mean I find it fun. If you have a cat, you get used to cleaning the litter-box, maybe even get "good" at it to the extent that's applicable, but it's not something you ever look forward to.

But TBH, that's not even my position. I like resource management just fine, for some aspects of the game. But getting more temporary resources to manage while they last is just not the same kind of satisfying as gaining a durable upgrade. I'm not against consumable items existing, I'm against "replace all items with consumable items, it's just as good".

[Satinavian]

@Icefractal: all three situations you describe do happen, yes. They're also all symptomatic of not being very good at a game. Same goes for all additional ones listed by batcathat. This line of argument hence boils down to "resource management feels bad when you're bad at it". That's not a compelling case against consumables. The same kind lf argument can be made of anything requiring skill on a player's part.

Additionally, the negative feelings can serve to pull people in to a game, since adjusting strategies leaves the possibility of removing those negative feelings, creating a reinforcement loop. The idea that nothing in a game ought to be unenjoyable is wrong. Games subject players to frustrating and unenjoyable things all the time because that is one way to motivate them to do better. Considering how ubiquitous resource management and betting games are, I don't believe for a second that including such as subgames in a roleplaying game (in the form of consumables) is unusually likely to go wrong.
Making good resource management systems is difficult Strong resources often become plot devices because of course you get enough of them to do your plot but not really more because that would make things too easy. Even more common is resource management systems devolving into meaningless busywork, where no relevant decisions have to be taken as long as you stick to best practices.

Furthermore while a good resource management system can enhance a game, stacking many of them on each other might not actually have the same beneficial effect.


There is a reason so many games nowadays got rid of bean counting in favor of only tracking relevant amounts of wealth. Or how many tables don't really track rations anymore unless the group suddenly and inexpectedly finds itself in a situation cut off from supplies.



None of that has anything to do with player skill and far more with being able to hold players' interest/keep them engaged.

[Kardwill]

The only good use of consumables is as contingencies for rare occurrencies, stuff that happens too rarely to permanently prepare a spell slot for, but may still be needed badly one day.

Yeah, when I was playing a Tecnomancer (Starfinder Sorcerer), I wasn't going to use one of my precious memory slots to learn the "boobytrap a electronic system so that the next person to use it gets a massive amount of electrical damage" spell. But using that gem (scroll) to cast it on the pirate's shipboard computer felt real good ^^

Consumables are at their best when they allow you to do something pretty situational, unusual, unique, or brag-worthy. Something memorable, that you'll probably do once in the entire campaign. :)