(Not so)Mini-Crunch: Magic loot by any other name.

I’m fresh back from the Gym, proud in my willpower to have resisted the pull of World of Warcraft and the Blog to take care of me first….

I’m also quite aware of the WotC announcement about the way they plan to handle the next version of the OGL and it’s associated brand license (the next d20). As I made a point of this before, I’m taking the ‘discreetly optimistic and moderate’ stance about 4e on this blog (i.e I won’t talk about it if I can). If you wish to discuss this and see my opinion on this, see it over Dave and Danny’s blog here.

Monte wrote another of his ‘Just one more thing before I go‘ articles recently in which he ponders on variant magic item crafting and acquiring rules. I find his musings on choosing magic item for characters over 1st level quite interesting and it made me think about possible alternatives.

I share Monte’s opinion that the choice of magic items for characters created after 1st level makes for rather dull characters. The items are basically all bonus items to optimize the character’s build and the rest of the money goes into scrolls, potions and masterwork equipment. A lot of the quirkier but less ‘useful all the time’ items are never purchased.

I’ll let you read what Monte thinks, but here’s a pair of crunchy alternatives I thought up.

Merge Inherent Bonus items in class abilities.

Why not do away with all +x weapons and +Y bonus to abilities items and merge them in the classes/race progression themselves? I have a gut feeling this is one of the ways 4e will go…. (yeah I know I’m talking about 4e… so sue me!)

A lot of people on the net have grumbled about the magic item arms-race economy created by modern D&D since the release of 3e. I feel you can do away with it and maintain play balance with a little work (The use of the Magic Item Compendium helps a lot here because they do most of the work):

1) Classify all bonus giving magical items, based on gp value, in “Item Levels” which represent the level a PC can expect to own the item(table 6-3 of the Magic Item Compendium)

I’ll give you a hint, take the average gp value of a given CR and create a range around this value. All items in that range are at a level equivalent to the CR rating. (Except level 1 which is half of a CR1 average treasure value)

2) Create a table that regroups the abilities of each of these items, per level, and make them into bonus class abilities.

For example, gauntlets of Ogre Power become an inherent +2 Str bonus. Since they and are worth 4000 gp, they become either a level 8 (CR 8 treasure = 3400 gp ) or level 9 (4500 gp) item depending on how you break it down.

3) Once a character reaches a new level, give them the choice of one (or two) bonuses as class (or race) abilities from your nifty list of all these “dull items turned into abilites”

4) Do away with 50-75% of monetary treasures to make up for that but leave some for potions, scrolls and cool items weapon/armour abilities. 🙂

So that means that there are no more +1 swords, and +4 cloaks of charisma.

But Phil, you ask me, what about Holy, Keen and all other cool weapon and armour abilities? Simple, they still exist as magical weapon, and can be found (or bought, as you see fit) but only come alive in the hands of those who took the +1 to hit/dmg to (chosen) weapon or to (chosen) armour bonus ability. (If you feel generous, make the +x bonus applicable to any weapon and any armour respectively).

I’m open to any comments or ideas to make this concept more solid. But I feel it’s workable… and makes leveling up a bit cooler!

Starting Magic gear

(Or Fan-created Web enhancement bonus for owners of the MIC)

You want your players to start with more interesting magic items? You can use the Magic Item Compendium’s quick and dirty way of equipping PCs to help you there. It says that a PC should have 2 items of each item level per character level (ex: a 3th level character gets 2 of each level 3, 2 and 1 items). If you are using the inherent bonus variant above, cut it to one at each level.

However, instead of letting players choose the item, have them roll for each on the MIC’s Item level tables. I would make these rolls before a player chooses his class and race to help shape the character’s flavour.

If you want to give a bit more control on player gear, you could allow switching of any one item for any other one of the same level (or less) of the player’s choice. Additionally, or alternatively, you could allow one or 2 rerolls of item the players would rather not have (or trading them at 50-75% value for other stuff). Any expendable magic item (Scrolls, Wands, Potions, etc) should be of the level-equivalent (or lower) spell of the player’s choice.

You then would have players with more varied magic items.

Thoughts and comments always welcome.

I might skip tomorrow’s post as I have a game to prep for and I’m a bit behind. We’ll see out it turns out.