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View Full Version : Fun handout method for random magic items



Erk
2008-09-28, 01:07 PM
(doing this in 4e but I see no reason for it to not work in 3.x)

I've made a rough list of magic items I think would fit in my game, first off. Now I'm assembling a large stack if item cards for these items.

The cards are set up as follows: on one side is a DC and a skill, typically perception; the level of the item; and the slot the item fills. On the other is the actual description of the item. Cards are spread out with the DC side facing up.

Players roll a d20 while looking for goodies, and get to pick up any card their check could qualify for. For example, a character with +8 to perception and +4 to arcana who rolled a 15 could pick up an itemcard up to perception dc23, or arcana dc19, or other cards depending on other skill bonuses.

Once they pick the card, before they look at it, I take it and we go through the normal "what is this item" routine.

This allows players to have a little more involvement in what items they get, but still randomises the item distribution. It also allows me to specify which items are available and limits duplication.

drengnikrafe
2008-09-28, 01:16 PM
This could be fun, yes, but it presents one problem.

What if someone has chronically bad rolls? Their magic items will be for crap consistantly, and eventually they'll get mad that a couple of bad rolls cripples the character's effectiveness.

I can see it 2 weeks in the future.... "My DM forces me to roll for magic items, and since I figured (and mostly correctly so) that Knowledge is mostly useless, and my luck is bad, I never get anything good. Help?"

Erk
2008-09-28, 01:40 PM
This could be fun, yes, but it presents one problem.

What if someone has chronically bad rolls? Their magic items will be for crap consistantly, and eventually they'll get mad that a couple of bad rolls cripples the character's effectiveness.

I can see it 2 weeks in the future.... "My DM forces me to roll for magic items, and since I figured (and mostly correctly so) that Knowledge is mostly useless, and my luck is bad, I never get anything good. Help?"
It's a bit more of a problem in 3e, where there are so many perception and knowledge skills and so few skill points. You'd have to find your own workaround there, it's one of the reasons I don't bother with 3e anymore.

For 4e, don't make all high quality items have high DC, and target skills based on which characters have them as well. I use Nature skills for things made of wood and leather, Arcana for things nobody but a wizard/warlock would use, Perception for general purpose items and Martial items. Occasionally I throw in an odd skill for whatever reason and will fluff it in ingame: for example, an item that requires an Athletics DC would be in a hard-to-reach location.

I am thinking of adding a "martial" tag to items where knowledge of weapons and armour and such would come in handy, giving characters with the Martial power source a +2 to those DCs. After all, it's already clear enough that an item that occupies the Body or Weapon slot is probably going to be martial.

Hal
2008-09-28, 07:36 PM
My DM goes with the rule of 3: As long as you have one magic item of your level, one +1 your level, and one -1 your level, you're fine. This hasn't been a problem, as it essentially guarantees a new magic item every level. Of course, some of the stuff is nearly worthless, so I've had a lot of dead magic items that I've given away to my NPC cohort or to other players.

Still, as an alternative, you could just roll up a percentile table and offer to let your players roll on that rather than pick out an item. It gives the randomization without punishing someone for having poor rolling skills. Just don't seed one part of the table with low-level stuff that they wouldn't find useful.