What happened to magic items? Are they useless?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

So, in my game we have a Barbarian, Bard, Cleric and Magus. They have found numerous magic items in play but never really use them. Is this a common thing in Pathfinder?

It seems like the character creation and development are so flexible with the multitudes of options at the players disposal that they can literally craft perfect characters that have no need for most magic items. I've never played in organized play, but from what I've read it CAN be about min/maxing which really just becomes a competitive game of math. That's not the way I like to play, but maybe my players do.

I must say that one main problem I have is that my games are too combat centric and therefore it probably encourages the players to arsenal up as opposed to maybe rounding out their characters more. I can't remember the last time a non combat spell was used in game.

I remember playing when magic items were awesome and rare. Is there some way I can look at this "problem" that will help me out a bit? Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

EJ


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What do you mean by they don't use them??

Are you saying they prefer the stat boosting items, or they use literally 0 magic items?

Also, magic items are very useful, and very much needed for most groups. The problem is that the stat boosters while not as interesting have a greater impact on the power of the character.

I am assuming you played older editions of D&D. The game works very differently now. The unchained book has an optional rule where the bonuses are built into the character as they level up. That way the "cool/more flavorful" items might get some use.

As for being awesome and rare that is a differnt topic.

Awesome is subjective so I can't comment on that, and they are definitely not rare in standard games.

New things(monsters, magic items, spells, class features) are exciting to players, but that spark doesn't last forever, and with everyone having access to all the books there is not much new stuff you can put in front of them, if you are trying to WoW(not the game) them.


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You can change your focus from combat here are a few links with ideas.

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2r098?Noncombat-Encounter-Heavy-Campaign

http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/35336/how-can-i-challenge-my-players -with-something-other-than-combat

To make magic items more impressive I would look at the unchained rules that wraithstrike mentioned.


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What magic items are you giving them?


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Having more social encounters would help deter the need for super-powered combat characters.

But, Automatic Bonus Progression from Unchained will give you more of what you need.


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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Wraith,
Ya, I guess they really only use the stat booster items. They have wands and scrolls that they don't use because their characters natural class abilities are usually way better. I guess I'm looking at the game through old eyes.

As far as awesome goes I mean "Hey, it's a wand of (insert spell)! That changes the way I play my character in combat!!! Until the charges run out..." Is that an old way to look at it? Probably, since I've been playing since the 70s after taking the 90s and 00s off. Haha.

Snow
Other than stat boosters, basically scrolls and such, a few wands. But with the Magus and Barbarian able do deal a bazillion damage per attack, why use them?

Also, I'll check out the unchained item as well as the other links, thanks for all the help so far everyone!

EJ


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Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Wands and Scrolls of attack spells have become much less useful starting in 3.0 since the saving throws were made so low.

Change what you are putting on the wands and scrolls. They will probably take wands and scrolls of See Invisibility, Comprehend Languages, Endure Elements (if it ever comes up), Cure Light Wounds, Lesser Restoration.

Basically, spells that aren't depending on the DC of the saving throw.


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Radyn wrote:

Wraith,

Ya, I guess they really only use the stat booster items. They have wands and scrolls that they don't use because their characters natural class abilities are usually way better. I guess I'm looking at the game through old eyes.

As far as awesome goes I mean "Hey, it's a wand of (insert spell)! That changes the way I play my character in combat!!! Until the charges run out..." Is that an old way to look at it? Probably, since I've been playing since the 70s after taking the 90s and 00s off. Haha.

Snow
Other than stat boosters, basically scrolls and such, a few wands. But with the Magus and Barbarian able do deal a bazillion damage per attack, why use them?

Also, I'll check out the unchained item as well as the other links, thanks for all the help so far everyone!

EJ

The problem seems to be that you've given them nothing but Stat Boosters and Wands. Where's the Ring of Force Shield? Where's the Hat of Disguise? Where's the Boots of the Cat? These are all cheap magic items with great uses and powers that players appreciate or find neat to have. That Barbarian might think it's cool to charge off a ledge, take minimum damage, and cleave a bad guy in his face. The Magus might think it's cool to create a random shield out of Force instead of wasting spell slots (which can be used to cast Shocking Grasp) to do so. The Rogue might think it's awesome to be able to trick fools by disguising himself as an "honest merchant," and trading junk in for jewelry.

But, these people can't do any of that cool stuff, because they don't have any of that cool stuff to do so with.

As a GM, there are two reasons why the PCs aren't gearing up in this fashion:

1. The players can't craft anything, so they rely on buying/finding their loot. This means if you gear NPCs with nothing but stat boosters and typical consumable items, that's all the PCs will get. Another relevant problem is using Core Rulebook item tables, which is fairly limited compared to, for example, Ultimate Equipment's item tables, which has significantly more items that are different than typical stat boosters.

2. The players don't even know such items exist, so they don't seek them out or craft them. This is more of a limitation of the players' system mastery than your own issue, but if they aren't aware of such items, then the likelihood of them seeking out such items is slim to none, especially when they don't think they have any problems they should solve.

But, the solution to these two issues is practically the same: Change the loot to include such different and unique items. Maybe an NPC uses an item as tactics against the party, making them realize that such an item can be useful for later. Maybe they find it randomly in a hoard of treasure, try it on just to see what happens, and realize they can do something incredible because of it.

Fact is, if they aren't being made aware or acquiring these different loots, they probably won't bother with getting them.

The other, more on-hands solution, is to create magic items that are cool and useful for the players. This requires more balance and customization on your part, but can yield more desirable results than simply using by-the-book items. The only thing I can say is be careful not to give in to any potential abuse the PCs may want to do.


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I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.


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Yeah, wands of stuff won't be as good as your best option normally. If I'm a level 7 wizard I'd rather use my own fireballs then the lv5 fireballs from a wand. In my experience fights last 3-4 rounds and are pretty much decided round 1 or 2. so a wand of a lv5 fireball is maybe used during the clean-up rounds, but it isn't needed. And it's not as impactful as my own spells for the deciding fight rounds.

Also, the game kinda assumes that you're getting magical +X weapons and stat boosting gear. So it assumes cloak of resist, not cloak of the mantaray.

so if you want magic items to be really good, they need to be better than the options characters have, or not interfere with the acquisition of the "big 6" gear.

Also with the game assuming a high magic level as the default, getting your magic gear you want is quite easy. Thus if you want a wand of fireball you can buy it, no need to hope to find one. So finding a fireball wand isn't character changing since you could have already had one anyways.

Silver Crusade

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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.

Mouse carriage!


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Radyn wrote:
As far as awesome goes I mean "Hey, it's a wand of (insert spell)! That changes the way I play my character in combat!!! Until the charges run out..." Is that an old way to look at it? Probably, since I've been playing since the 70s after taking the 90s and 00s off. Haha.

If a player has invested in a particular mode of combat, a good magic item might be nearely useless. Imagine the party finding a wizard's wand of Acid Arrow. Acid Arrow is on the bloodrager's spell list and could be learned at 7th level, so the wand would be great for a 4th-level bloodrager, right? The bloodrager has a choice between using the wand, 2d4 acid damage for two turns on a ranged touch attack, versus charging with his greataxe, 1d12+9 slashing damage on a melee attack while bloodraging. Since the bloodrager invested in Strength rather than Dexterity, the both attacks have an equal chance of hitting, but the greataxe does an average of 15.5 damage and the wand does an average of 10 damage. Furthermore, the bloodrager would have to drop or put away the wand to use the greataxe when the enemy closes in, so it is inconvenient.

Instead, the bloodrager carries the wand in his pack just in case. When a wyrmling red dragon attacks from the sky, he has a ranged weapon better than his longbow. That is old school. Lots of magic items are saved for special events, not used every day.

Other than that, follow Darksol the Painbringer's suggestion of convenient and amusing magic items. Let the PCs play with more style rather than better stats.


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Rysky wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.
Mouse carriage!

[sarcasm]

But Pathfinder has plenty of fun items.

If you are looking for a cheap buy...how about this. Roughly cuts in half the chance of getting affected by gaze attacks, and gives a bonus on saves against visual attacks. Really cheap at only 9 000gp, or the cost of 6 suits of fullplate.

What about this wonderful amulet. It lets you sense things around you...if they are on the ground...and that ground is earth or stone...and you stand around picking your nose while you sense stuff. Only 27 000 gp

Check out this baby. Do the Obi-wan thing, and even live to tell the tale. A real bargain at 48 000 gp.
[/sarcasm]
Ok, yeah, PF has problems with items. Almost everything is bland, hilariously overpriced and totally non-competitive with the big 6. There are exceptions, but you really need to dumpster dive to find them.


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Pathfinder does have a problem with magic items generally being over priced. So just use the ABP without the wealth adjustment, you can sprinkle in the quirky items you like and if they sell them at half then you're getting roughly the wbl right anyway.


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There is a throw away item feel in PF. Loads magic items are really over priced for basically doing X once/day

Magic items became so clinical for me in 3 onwards they lost their magic, so I can see where the OP is coming from


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.

I think my favourite item I ever got in 2nd was a Maul of the Titans. I was lucky enough to already have a Giant Strength belt, so I could use it. I only used it for shattering doors or other obstacles. Bend bars/lift gates this!


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DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.

Lots of cool stuff like that in the books but they just get sold so the player can better sword or belt or of the other big 6.


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The most useless magic item I find in the game are magic arrows. They are a consumable that cost as much as magic bow so why any one ever craft magic arrows when you can craft a bow that is permanent.


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for making magic items cool, I have a possibly strange suggestion. Instead of making them rare, and therefore horded, make them common, and interesting.

A ring that allows one to spice food, a coat that warms the wearer with magic, boots that clean and polish themselves.
Minor magic items that are interesting, and make sense in a world were magic abounds.

101 Interesting Items
Useless Magic Items to Give to Players
Minor Magic Items

I know when I read those lists some of the items just seemed so fun and awesome. It made magic items cool and exciting again, rather than just a thing your character uses to fight, they become part of your everyday life. They alter the way your character lives beyond just the way that he fights.
He may become 'dependant' on that self cleaning pipe and get grouchy when it is stolen... You get what I mean?


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Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
voska66 wrote:
The most useless magic item I find in the game are magic arrows. They are a consumable that cost as much as magic bow so why any one ever craft magic arrows when you can craft a bow that is permanent.

At low level, you don't really care for them. You want your +2 Adaptive Composite bow first.

At higher level, bane arrows and ghost touch arrows can make a lot of sense. Depending on circumstances, there are other special purpose arrows that may make sense.


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voska66 wrote:
DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.
Lots of cool stuff like that in the books but they just get sold so the player can better sword or belt or of the other big 6.

Really? I find that most of the stuff in the book is dull and uninteresting garbage, or so hideously overpriced that you basically have to ignore cost when deciding whether or not a party should get an item. This isn't an understatement - You could literally chop zeros off the cost of a large portion of items, and they still wouldn't be particularly OP or even that good. Look at the three items I posted above. The first two are overpriced by a factor of about 10, the third is overpriced by around a factor of 50. And that is terrible.

When you can instead decrease the chance of your character dying or getting others killed by loading up on magikal numbahs, naturally almost everybody is going to hawk off their magical golden hammers so they can hopefully not die and perform slightly better in dire situations.


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Get rid of the big six and convert to automatic bonus progression. At least then interesting items are kept because you can't buy (as many) things to load up on the numbers that players feel the need to increase so often.


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Claxon wrote:
Get rid of the big six and convert to automatic bonus progression. At least then interesting items are kept because you can't buy (as many) things to load up on the numbers that players feel the need to increase so often.

While ABP is great, the idea that it increases flavor or more silly items is a misnomer in my eyes. By and large people just take the other gimmie items like the basic "treat *class feature* as if you were x levels higher" items, lesser displacement cloaks, metamagic rods, and the like. Removing the Big 6 just shunts the must have items to the next line of must haves in my experience.


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It does to an extent, but since converting to ABP I've had plenty of characters who have kept interesting items (found during the course of the AP) rather than selling them off.

You can't really expect players to go searching for the interesting but relatively useless items and buying them on their own.

You can't stop players from optimizing if that's what they want to do.

But you can change the system so they can't optimize as much.


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Claxon wrote:

It does to an extent, but since converting to ABP I've had plenty of characters who have kept interesting items (found during the course of the AP) rather than selling them off.

You can't really expect players to go searching for the interesting but relatively useless items and buying them on their own.

You can't stop players from optimizing if that's what they want to do.

But you can change the system so they can't optimize as much.

Well even with standard treasure rules, I've had players carry around goofy items presuming it was crowbarred out of someone's cold dead hands or a dungeon (I personally stuffed a barrel that makes stuff pleasantly cold into a bag of holding for most of a campaign). Really I find it that people are more likely to carry around silly items that have virtually no real resale value while silly and expensive items tend to get hocked for useful things in short order.

That said, limiting the amount of +1 swords, rings of protection, etc that are looted does indeed help keep things more in check, I concur.


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Yeah, it's about taking step to encourage.

As a GM we can only guide, if we try just outright ban or control too much either players don't want to play or their choices aren't meaningful.


Claxon I have banned the big six and not moved to APB before.

It's not so bad.

Players can adapt. It gets the min-maxers up in arms, but that is about it.


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HWalsh wrote:

Claxon I have banned the big six and not moved to APB before.

It's not so bad.

Players can adapt. It gets the min-maxers up in arms, but that is about it.

Because the caster-martial disparity isn't high enough already?


DungeonmasterCal wrote:
I loved the magic items in 1e and 2e. MANY had no combat buffs or things like that, but were just cool and fun. I miss having those.

A huge number of those are still in Pathfinder. Handy Haversack, Instant Fortress, Apparatus of the Crab, Robe of Useful Items, Marvelous Pigments, Necklace of Adaptation, an the list goes on.


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_Ozy_ wrote:
HWalsh wrote:

Claxon I have banned the big six and not moved to APB before.

It's not so bad.

Players can adapt. It gets the min-maxers up in arms, but that is about it.

Because the caster-martial disparity isn't high enough already?

Not for HWalsh. He does not think it is big enough.


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Oh yeah, I know. I have a 4 volume set of books from the 90s that have every D&D magic items in them up until the year 1998 (or 96, I forget off the top of my head). There are so many neat little trinkets in them. Sometimes I update one that I find useful or just fun to PF and leave it for players to find in treasure piles.


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they may view the items being handed out as useless thats why they arnt useing them in most cases they are i would much rather find a giant pile of gold than a +3 adamantine great axe. also most wands and scroll just get sold off asap so they can use the money on items the players actually want. there are very very few items that are viewed as useful by everyone, amulets and natual armor, ring of protection, belts/headbands of stat increases, cloak of resistance are all the gerneally useful items all others will have varrying degrees of usefulness in the players eyes with most of the others just being sold off so they can either buy or craft more useful gear


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Tarik Blackhands wrote:
Well even with standard treasure rules, I've had players carry around goofy items presuming it was crowbarred out of someone's cold dead hands or a dungeon (I personally stuffed a barrel that makes stuff pleasantly cold into a bag of holding for most of a campaign). Really I find it that people are more likely to carry around silly items that have virtually no real resale value while silly and expensive items tend to get hocked for useful things in short order.

I'd say this hits on one of the bigger issues with silly flavor items. People like keeping them around as long they don't feel like they're giving up something useful to get it. So, the best move is to make sure that there's no trade-off involved.

Also, generally speaking the way to make PCs feel like magic items are cool and unique is to make cool and unique items for them. It's hard to muster much of a sense for wonder for a generic +1 sword.


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HWalsh wrote:

Claxon I have banned the big six and not moved to APB before.

It's not so bad.

Players can adapt. It gets the min-maxers up in arms, but that is about it.

Yeah....I wouldn't have played with you.

The game is built around having those big six items, though not necessarily at the levels some players would like to have (such as funneling all their money into a +5 weapon at the earliest level possible).

If you remove them and don't compensate players for that somehow they will be pretty significantly disadvantaged against CR appropriate creatures, especially at higher and higher levels. This sort of thing can work okay if you only play up to about level 6, but would fall apart afterwards.


I think PF made it worse relative to 3.5. While PF increased magic slots by 2 and increased WBL, it also pushed ability enhancers to belt and headband exclusively, and it doesn't use the price reduction for item abilities that are thematic (it always forces 50% increase in price for multiple abilities). While 3.5 in version of Ultimate Equipment (Magic Item Compendium), suggests that the Big Six (well, four) should never have the price increase.

I mean we are playing Reign of Winter, and while we found I think all but 1 unique item for first 5 books, I think we kept 3 from about 15. Some were fun items but had a very large discrepancy of price vs. usefulness, and many competed with item slots with big 6.

And don't get me started on weapon properties overpricing and crappiness.

ABP, while better than standard, cuts into customization of characters. On first impression it hurts casters more, but on a second look, your fighter has to wait so many more levels to max out his cloak of resistance and his weapon to +5, while getting ability bonuses to unnecessary stats and natural armor.

EDIT: if I were to make things from scratch, WBL would be decreased and prices, unless the item gives spell slots or spells known would increase linearly, not quadratically, and half your wealth would go into big 6 however you want them to. Number of slots would probably go down, too and there wouldn't be an increase for multiple properties on an item.

Dark Archive

Count me in the camp of people that likes the Big 6. The game's previous incarnation (3.5) was designed primarily for combat, with noncombat actions mostly sectioned off in brief rulings in smaller chapters. I do love me some roleplay, and flavor can make an okay game into an amazing game, but the mechanics of everything focus a ton on how to kick open a door and fight everything on the other side.

Big 6 items are good because they make your character better at doing the things they can do. For me, I tend to ask myself if the base class itself can already do interesting tricks (high number of skill points, spells, interesting combat mechanics that either mimic combat feats or bypass their requirements) while using items to enhance the abilities that I already find fun.

That said, a grab bag of miscellaneous items can function as a useful utility belt, and that "I came prepared!" feeling is one of my greatest delights in gameplay.


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To clarify, I don't actually like the big six.

They're just necessary to the system at this point, and unless you completely overhaul the bestiary and a lot of other things then you can't do without the big six (or a system that grants you those bonuses like Automatic Bonus Progression).

For me the biggest problem with the big six was that it basically locked down your headband, belt, 1 ring slot, and your neck slot, with absolutely only 1 choice. Tons of interesting items exist for those slots, and you basically had no choice for them.

Automatic Bonus Progression gives you a choice by allowing you to put something else in that slot. It also makes it so you can't purchase armor/weapon enhancement bonuses, deflection bonus to AC, enhancement bonus to nat. armor, or enhancement bonuses to physical or mental stats. Which meant players who would normally spend all their money on that (or saving until they can get those items) instead of ever spending money on other items.

Now granted, players are still going to try to optimize but by removing those options they might be encouraged to expand into items that are less relevant the generic pluses to AC, to hit, damage, etc which are necessary but uninteresting.


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Claxon wrote:

To clarify, I don't actually like the big six.

They're just necessary to the system at this point, and unless you completely overhaul the bestiary and a lot of other things then you can't do without the big six (or a system that grants you those bonuses like Automatic Bonus Progression).

For me the biggest problem with the big six was that it basically locked down your headband, belt, 1 ring slot, and your neck slot, with absolutely only 1 choice. Tons of interesting items exist for those slots, and you basically had no choice for them.

Yeah, that's why whenever I GMed I let people shift the Big Six items into different slots. I don't mind doing a vest of resistance instead of a cloak if it means they'll take a fun and flavorful item for the shoulder slot.


Chengar Qordath wrote:


Yeah, that's why whenever I GMed I let people shift the Big Six items into different slots. I don't mind doing a vest of resistance instead of a cloak if it means they'll take a fun and flavorful item for the shoulder slot.

9/10 times a vest of resistance just means the cloak slot gets used for a Lesser Displacement Cloak


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One thing our GM did was to have our party know the local magic shop guy, and have him introduce things. Which is now why our party has a barbarian casting Mage Hand and Prestidigitation all over the place now.

Having the party itself craft things can help a little there of course, assuming someone wants to spend the resources -- and that means, of course, FEATS. Fine for a wizard, of course. And our crafty barbarian seems to manage being down two feats to provide us with magic weapons, as long as you don't ask her for an axiomatic one.

The big six are a bit annoying, as mentioned before on forcing certain slots (no way to get a cape of flying if you need that save bonus!). But at least there's ways around it..


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Qaianna wrote:

One thing our GM did was to have our party know the local magic shop guy, and have him introduce things. Which is now why our party has a barbarian casting Mage Hand and Prestidigitation all over the place now.

Having the party itself craft things can help a little there of course, assuming someone wants to spend the resources -- and that means, of course, FEATS. Fine for a wizard, of course. And our crafty barbarian seems to manage being down two feats to provide us with magic weapons, as long as you don't ask her for an axiomatic one.

The big six are a bit annoying, as mentioned before on forcing certain slots (no way to get a cape of flying if you need that save bonus!). But at least there's ways around it..

The funny thing is they can still craft an Axiomatic Weapon, they just gotta increase the Craft DC by 5 to ignore the Lawful requirement.


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I allow scaling magic items in all of my campaigns to give it that unique magic item feel. The Legendary Weapons series from Purple Duck Games is a great place to start.


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Regarding magic items in general I can't say I've really seen that. Yeah, there's a heavy reliance on the big six which are pretty boring, but I think if you give players the opportunity to leverage weird magical items they'll do it.

As for wands and scrolls:

The trouble with wands and scrolls is that they pretty much have absolutely atrocious value outside a few specific spells that happen to work very well in wand or scroll form. They're best used for seldom used utility spells or maintenance abilities. Which means even if you find a wand worth using it's basically doomed to be little more than a spell slot saver.

On top of that if you don't have the spell on your list you need UMD to pull it off and the skill checks for UMD are hilariously high, especially at low levels, so right there any character who isn't heavily invested or a spellcaster already is getting no value from a wand.

Ultimately I think the problem is that these items tend to be balanced around those top end spells, which makes them pretty much terrible when you start dealing with spells that don't play into those specific niches.

I mean, a scroll of magic missile is 25 gold and requires a DC21 check to do 1d4+1 damage once. That's comedically bad.


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How many posts do you see on the forums that have builds that include what items you buy at what level? It's actually worse than that. Characters specialize to the point that an item that would be useful outside their specialty is considered a trap.


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As a player, I personally wouldn't find Wands and Scrolls all that exciting, interesting or fun. I tend to look for unique things.


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Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Qaianna wrote:

One thing our GM did was to have our party know the local magic shop guy, and have him introduce things. Which is now why our party has a barbarian casting Mage Hand and Prestidigitation all over the place now.

Having the party itself craft things can help a little there of course, assuming someone wants to spend the resources -- and that means, of course, FEATS. Fine for a wizard, of course. And our crafty barbarian seems to manage being down two feats to provide us with magic weapons, as long as you don't ask her for an axiomatic one.

The big six are a bit annoying, as mentioned before on forcing certain slots (no way to get a cape of flying if you need that save bonus!). But at least there's ways around it..

The funny thing is they can still craft an Axiomatic Weapon, they just gotta increase the Craft DC by 5 to ignore the Lawful requirement.

Maybe, but you try persuading a CN smith to make a weapon that gives her two negative levels if she does her job right.


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There are a lot of fun items to use, the problem is that most of them cost a lot of gold. Most magic items cost thousands of gold. As a player you do not have the gold to spare until level 12 to 16. Most games do not get to those levels, or at least are not in that range for long before the game is over.

Take the ring gates for example. They can be a very run and useful item. The Problem Is They Cost 40,000 gold. That is half of the wealth of an 11th level character. And 1/6 of a 15th level character. Now the item itself has a 100 lb. limit per a day. With out the limit the item would see use at level 15 maybe level 11 for a large party. The use would be transport of treasure back to base.

It is possible to work around the limits of ring gates with an improved familiar, and a Type 3 bag of holding to transport about 2,000 lb. a day through the rings. This fun item is not likely to see play until around level 15. This is true for a lot of items, they cost so much for what they do, it is not logical to not sell them until you have your basics of attack and defense covered.


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Yeah I feel like not a lot of magic items don't start showing up until you get around level 8.


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Qaianna wrote:
Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
Qaianna wrote:

One thing our GM did was to have our party know the local magic shop guy, and have him introduce things. Which is now why our party has a barbarian casting Mage Hand and Prestidigitation all over the place now.

Having the party itself craft things can help a little there of course, assuming someone wants to spend the resources -- and that means, of course, FEATS. Fine for a wizard, of course. And our crafty barbarian seems to manage being down two feats to provide us with magic weapons, as long as you don't ask her for an axiomatic one.

The big six are a bit annoying, as mentioned before on forcing certain slots (no way to get a cape of flying if you need that save bonus!). But at least there's ways around it..

The funny thing is they can still craft an Axiomatic Weapon, they just gotta increase the Craft DC by 5 to ignore the Lawful requirement.
Maybe, but you try persuading a CN smith to make a weapon that gives her two negative levels if she does her job right.

its only one negative level and you only get it by wielding the weapon not by holding or touching it so their fine

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