I also don't use the magic item industry, erm, creation rules of D&D 3.5E. The Pathfinder RPG magic item creation rules have wisely done away with XP costs, but their replacement with GP costs smacks even more of industrial magic - just pay the gold to create the item. Perhaps this is necessary for the balance of the game given its design, but my groups have had great fun playing the game with less industrial magic, so I doubt the necessity-by-design argument.
Given the above, I would like to see some less industrial magic item creation rules.
For magic item creation in my game, the character must have the appropriate feat and pay the given gold-piece costs, but I also add another part to magic item creation. Each magic item requires at least one hard-to-get exotic component that the PCs must obtain in order to create it. I decide on the component required arbitrarily, so I can ration magic item creation pretty much how I wish.
That said, I would prefer a magic item creation system that is not industrial, but that would rely on less arbitrary judgement on my part. Perhaps this could be achieved by pre-assigning every magic item in the 3.5E DMG/Pathfinder RPG rulebook an exotic component (or several of them), but for me it would be too much work to do this for the hundreds of existing magic items - I have better things to do with my time. If these were already preset in the main book, though, I would welcome it. Those who want industrial magic would be welcome to ignore the exotic components (they could even be an optional rule).
There could even be some flexibility as to what components are needed. For example, rather than 'Boots of Feather Fall' requiring all feathers of a newborn Roc, they the exotic component could be written as:
All feathers of a newborn powerful avian (minimum CR 12 in adult form)
Thoughts?
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
Even if you "up the exotics", the net effect is creating an open market for the more exotic components (making even the most obscure things mere raw materials!), rather than removing the shopping mall feeling of magic items. If that is you point, then I am afraid nothing short of just crossing out the "open market" rules, with their attached spending limits by settlement will help.
If that was not your point, I am afraid I must have missed it. :) What did you want to say?
Even if you "up the exotics", the net effect is creating an open market for the more exotic components (making even the most obscure things mere raw materials!), rather than removing the shopping mall feeling of magic items. If that is you point, then I am afraid nothing short of just crossing out the "open market" rules, with their attached spending limits by settlement will help.
If that was not your point, I am afraid I must have missed it. :) What did you want to say?
My point is about the magic item creation rules rather than magic item marketplaces/shops - they are a separate but related problem. It is very easy to say that magic shops simply do not exist - I do just that in my games. Unfortunately, using the default magic item creation rules that would not help at all, because the PCs could simply spend gold to create the desired magic item themselves.
Basically, I don't want a PC to just decide to create a 'ring of flight' and then just spend X thousand and poof, he has it!
The 'exotic component' market, just like the 'magic item market' would simply not exist in my games unless I wanted it to. For those who wanted it to exist, they could simply assume that the exotic components are part of the gold-piece price of the magic item and they could have their industrial magic, but those of us who don't like industrial magic, would have the option of making the PCs quest for components (and they would be less arbitrary than what I have them do now by DM fiat).
So how is this any different from the way things are now? You say it will be this way regardless of what is standard either way... what you are asking for is justification.
Now if the DM tells me that "X" will not be available I can deal with that becuase he's the DM. But if I then see all sorts of NPC's using this stuff or the DM being puzzled becuase we can't handle "CR equilivent" challenges becuase standard stuff is being denied to the party I'll have an issue, but that's a seperate thing from the campaign being set up in a certain way.
After all Dark Sun was set up very similarly. They just admitted that this made it deadlier and that the PC's would have to be higher level to take on "normal" challenges.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
The point is, you don't melt X GP down into a sword. It represents purchases of just the right components. All your proposal does is make the purchased items explicit, rather than an abstract value. You still are stuck with the "spending limit" problem. Only now you removed the possibilities to create an Item by any amount of equivalent way, and made one of them the one and only true one.
Nothing was replaced. The GP cost has always been there.
I like quest-based creation rules, but I think it doesn't fit into the core rules. The gold-based rules make sense as standard, and you can always use the values as a base for your own quest-based system, so you see how much the quest is worth.
The system isn't really about just putting quarters into the Magic Magic Item Dispenser until you have created the item. It's buying special ingredients and supplies and what not. The game leaves it up to you to determine what those ingredients are. Doesn't gramp your style, and saves a lot of space.