From the title it should be clear: I HAAAAAAATE the Christmas Tree effect. I recognize it’s part of the game’s heritage and I like a cool magic item as much as the next guy. People love to hold up the One Ring, Sting, Elric’s Sword, and other examples from fiction as justification for their availability. Yet most of the time, magic items don’t work in-game like their fictional counterparts.
The primary issue I have with it isn’t even one of campaign flavor (although that's a close 2nd) –it’s the impact on players’ mindset: I have to have a magic sword or I’m not effective in combat. I have to have AC boosters to be an effective character. I have to have a stat-booster to compensate for a dump stat or to give my fighter the strength of a giant. etc.,etc. Player’s begin to define their characters by their gear --- that’s my turn-off.
In video games like Dragon Age or Warcraft, those items are just as present (or moreso) as they are in your typical Pathfinder game. Yet because they’re scripted stories to a large degree, they’re moved to the background. Even in a high-magic setting like Harry Potter’s, they’re tools – not extensions of the character.
However, in Pathfinder (& earlier D&D incarnations), they’re front-and-center in many of the players’ minds. As the GM Guide states, you’re trading atmosphere for convenience. I want atmosphere over convenience.
So while it’s easy enough to houserule or import OGL variants to minimize the magic item dependence, I find myself with an atypical scenario: My kids are now playing Pathfinder.
As a result, I’m trying to keep to RAW & keep house- and optional-rules to a minimum. They’re really taking to it and having a ball. I want to provide the wonder of magic items yet avoid having them feel that their characters are defined by them. I’m trying to use the guidelines presented in the GM Guide but honestly, it’s been so long since I’ve opened the Pandora’s Box of commonplace magic that I thought I’d look for advice.
So, how do you help your players avoid the “My Character is his Gear” trap?
I'm not sure how to "minimize house rules" and also "get rid of the christmas tree effect".
if your players are truly new, the best way is to just.. not give them all the +x items and give them the other things instead.
Bump up any given CR a notch or two to compensate and they'll never know the difference.
People want all the +s to stay competitive with the CR of things they are fighting.. if you lower that, while keeping the +'s to a minimum, status quo is still kept.
-S
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Largely I make my games much more RP heavy than the average (from what I've got the feeling of in the community) game. This helps alleviate this problem. The fact that a character will be recognized for his actions, accomplishments, atrocities, and heroic moments helps shift things away from the mechanical elements of the game and more towards the RP and *fluff* aspects.
For instance I once awarded a player with a +1 Mighty Cleaving, Undead Bane Earthbreaker for fulfilling what I saw and designed as the noble return of a historical artifact to its rightful owners. If anyone ever played the Curse of the Kobold King you will know about Glintaxe's armor and weapon. The player went out of his way to gather it, play it up, and take it back to the Dwarven capital, hunt down the clan of the deceased hero and added a new chapter to the clan history books. It turned the ballad of Glintaxe from a ghost story to a tragedy. The players were happier getting to play this whole thing out and with the reputation they garnered with the Dwarven Kingdom than they (Even the player responsible) were with the weapon they rewarded him with for such a deed.
I am sure it is no big surprise, but point buy systems that make you pay points for all your lovely devices really discourages this kind of thinking. Not much help to you.
Working within the confines of Pathfinder, I would try simply not giving out magic items. Oh noes! You're gimping the characters! Well, yes, maybe…so gimp the encounters as well. Keep the challenges down and slowly escalate them as you feel comfortable your players can manage.
If your kids are new to Pathfinder, I doubt they will recognize the difference.
Another option I have seen offered before is, instead of allowing a magic item, allow the characters to pick up the abilities they would get from a magic item as an innate ability. A bit of a house rule, but the net effect should be about the same.
I'm not sure how to "minimize house rules" and also "get rid of the christmas tree effect".
-S
First off, thanks for all of the other recommendations. I'll be using them.
Specific to the quoted text above; I'm referring to slower magic/treasure progressions, etc. which are options within the core rules rather than Class Defense Bonuses or other variant mechanics to achieve the same "game math".
Largely I make my games much more RP heavy than the average (from what I've got the feeling of in the community) game. This helps alleviate this problem. The fact that a character will be recognized for his actions, accomplishments, atrocities, and heroic moments helps shift things away from the mechanical elements of the game and more towards the RP and *fluff* aspects.
For instance I once awarded a player with a +1 Mighty Cleaving, Undead Bane Earthbreaker for fulfilling what I saw and designed as the noble return of a historical artifact to its rightful owners. If anyone ever played the Curse of the Kobold King you will know about Glintaxe's armor and weapon. The player went out of his way to gather it, play it up, and take it back to the Dwarven capital, hunt down the clan of the deceased hero and added a new chapter to the clan history books. It turned the ballad of Glintaxe from a ghost story to a tragedy. The players were happier getting to play this whole thing out and with the reputation they garnered with the Dwarven Kingdom than they (Even the player responsible) were with the weapon they rewarded him with for such a deed.
Thanks for the great example! This is the kind of thing I strive for as well. I suspect that in many cases the success of this kind of approach is largely determined by whether the players are more interested in the RP aspects or game-tweaking aspects. In any case, great food for thought!
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Step 1: decide what level of power you want the players to have. Taking away magic weapons and armor strongly encourages spellcaster PC's, for example.
Step 2: determine the new average party level (APL) and design encounters to match.
Step 3: profit.
A couple big things to be aware of:
players LIKE getting treasure. That is, do deed, get rewarded. Take away rewards, and what's the point of risking life & limb?
Game design is time consuming. This is why I went to the AP model in the first place, it saves time and effort.
If you're willing to put the time in, and your players will accept a game where they don't get material rewards, this should work fine.
As you said, it's part of the game.
However, if Paizo ever creates a Pathfinder v2, this is one of the core things I'd love them to fix.
Magic items should be rare, unique, and full of history.
+1
I don't have an issue with their presence within the game. I'd just like for it not to be such a darn dominating presence...
I've stated it elsewhere, but I'd REALLY like official rules/guidelines in Ultimate Magic & Ultimate Combat for dialing magic & magic items to the desired level. The scale shouldn't always run higher.
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There was a guy on these boards a few years ago who ran a system of advancements for his players that gave them some of the magical enhancements of the magic items without the items.
They were story rewards, and each point allowed a player to purchase advancements in attack, damage, saves, etc, or they could make attacks magical, energised etc, as long as they could tie what they spent the point on to the story of how they got the point. (eg, if they defeated a fire elemental in teh final encounter, as it died part of its essence eimbued in the weapons of the fighter, turning her swords into flaming weapons.)
It was a fairly smooth idea, that cut down on all the weapons, armour and rings etc, but still kept things like potions and certain wonderous items in play. It gave the players some choices in what they got and allowed the GM to control the types of things he wanted in game. The very clever thing about this was that it didn't require him to redesign all the monsters or encounters to compensate for the fact that players weren't built the way the designers intended.
Wish I could remember his name, he was living in mexico and posted quite frequently during teh core rules beta if anyone else remembers who I'm talking about.
Cheers
The only official guideline in the Core Rulebook is shoehorned into the low-magic / high-magic section of the Treasure chapter.
Another way to look at magic items is this - and may have been covered before: Magic items are a lot like those video games (and probably inspired those same video games from back in the day) where you have a number of slots. Into those slots you can "exchange" various features to and from those slots. These permit you to do things you cannot do normally - anything from befriending animals to carrying a small horde or transporting yourself vast distances or even across planar boundaries without having to be a spell caster. You can lop off heads on a natural 20, command the respect of hundreds with the utterance of a command word or transform yourself into a manta ray and swim with the fishes.
One alternative to consider does require house rules (until something official comes into being). Have every one playing a gestalt character - one of which must be able to cast spells - with appropriate ability score generation methods, remove the item creation feats and let the PCs adapt accordingly.
I'll bite; what is the Christmas Tree Effect? I've never heard the phrase before now.
The players are all kids, and random magic items are Christmas presents under the tree. With all the chaos that ensues when the kids don't get what they want for Christmas.
And here I always thought the Christmas tree effect was that high level characters were lit up like a Christmas tree with all their magic items.
I’m trying to keep to RAW & keep house- and optional-rules to a minimum.
Well it's easy if you have time to make your own adventure path... You can put all the magic item you want and you can limit the access to enchanter (crafter of magic item) to the minimum... And it's all RAW...
I'm doing it with my players from the beginning, magic item are hard to find, finding someone to craft them for you is very difficult and take months or years to have your command done... To compensate I use non raw option like legendary weapon for free or such... That's how you've got interesting artefact for other campaign ;)
And here I always thought the Christmas tree effect was that high level characters were lit up like a Christmas tree with all their magic items.
THIS = the X-Mas Tree effect
The Alexandrian has a nifty article on keeping magic items cool (instead of just stat numbers) here.
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I've addressed this before using a couple of key ideas:
- There are no +x magical items. Magic does different things to an item.
- Item quality goes up to exquisite quality (poor, used, standard/new, superior, masterwork, exquisite). This provides bonuses up to +3. This can reduce the Christmas tree effect on it's own (if not the player driven need for character enhancement).
- Feats that increase defences are introduced (saves and AC) to compensate (usually with access to an increase in the reguarity of feat acquisition).
- Legendary items may still go up to +5.
- All magical items have a history - crafting an item is rare and takes significantly more time than standard. However, there are magical tools that are less significant and simple to craft. (These tools are highly significant for wizards who are usually the only ones who can use such things.
- Magical items are reduced in cost by a factor of 10! This seeks to make mundane items more relatively expensive. Plate armor costs more than a lot of magical items in terms of crafting. Likewise, treasure handed out is more significant.
- Coppers and silver are the currency of the lower classes, gold is only used by the upper class or aristocracy. Food costs and basic goods are reduced by a factor of 2 to 5.
I've found this provides the perfect environment for those like me that find magical items too pervasive if following core expectations.
Best Regards
Herremann the Wise
Um, anyone know why this got moved from the PFRPG General Discussion to Pathfinder Player Companion forum?
Thanks to all who have responded thus far. Some of the ideas I've tried in the past but many of these are new and I'll definitely give them a shot!
There's always been gear in D&D, important gear necessary to get the adventuring job done. After all, you needed, absolutely needed, magic weapons in previous editions to take on certain types of monsters as a fighter.
But I think 3e changed the feel of magic items by making them so easy to make. Once they did that, rather than players having pipe dreams about the equipment they wanted and hoped would be in a treasure hoard somewhere, they could actually pursue the items they wanted as a rational and achievable strategy. This meant that rather than having a hodge-podge of whatever items you'd managed to loot over the course of your adventuring career (numerous as they might be), your items could reflect a hard-nosed pursuit of numeric advantage or min-maxing. Rather than having a couple items you relied on a lot (perhaps a flying carpet, decent weapon, decent protective item, or maybe a ring/cloak of protection), you had a "standard kit" of the Big 6 items that you used all the time with little real distinctive flavor.
If you agree that 3e made a significant change in the zeitgeist concerning magic items, then reverting back to previous edition practices may help. Use expected wealth only as the grossest of guides, include items for flavor, and don't let PCs take item creation feats or buy magic items. I'm contemplating taking this a stop further and reuniting the ring of protection and cloak of resistance as the same basic type of item, just with different specific forms. I'm alternatively considering having ALL magic cloaks include a resistance bonus like all magic weapons must have an enhancement bonus of at least +1 before oddball properties can be added. At least that may encourage PCs to keep cloaks of <property> rather than sell it at first opportunity in order to buy a general bonus.
The Alexandrian has a nifty article on keeping magic items cool (instead of just stat numbers) here.
Great article, it makes you think a bit. Even Harry Potter's wand is written about in great detail.
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There's several problems with getting rid of the christmas tree effect, paladin's weapon spirit, keeping the fighter fighting at higher levels, and that there isn't anything really wrong with the christmas tree. Higher level characters should get to show off the fact that they are higher level, and the easiest way to do that is to christmas tree, otherwise they have to prove their worth every time it's called into question and there isn't a native around who can vouch for their ability.
An efficient way of dealing with that is to simply not have that much combat. I can't even say to give them xp based on story rewards, because the very nature of leveling up is a form of the christmas tree effect, as you level up you gain new shiny abilities that make you more efficient in combat and you can use to show off your power/worth. Once you get down to it, you might as well not even have an xp system, or stats for that matter, because once you get rid of magic items, the players will be all about any other bonus they can get, which defeats the purpose of getting rid of magic items. That's when it becomes the same behavior only with a different focus.
A player should be able to distinguish their character as being the important part, the items should build off of the character, and make combat easier. Personally, I view becoming a christmas tree as an attempt at ending combat as swiftly as possible so I can back to role-playing my character.
When a player basically states that their items are what make them mighty, you should strip them of their items to show them that the items just make the job easier, their character is already mighty, because magic items don't provide bonuses that are that great, unless they have serious magic-item-fu, which I don't see too many players have.
There's several problems with getting rid of the christmas tree effect, paladin's weapon spirit, keeping the fighter fighting at higher levels, and that there isn't anything really wrong with the christmas tree. Higher level characters should get to show off the fact that they are higher level, and the easiest way to do that is to christmas tree, otherwise they have to prove their worth every time it's called into question and there isn't a native around who can vouch for their ability.
An efficient way of dealing with that is to simply not have that much combat. I can't even say to give them xp based on story rewards, because the very nature of leveling up is a form of the christmas tree effect, as you level up you gain new shiny abilities that make you more efficient in combat and you can use to show off your power/worth. Once you get down to it, you might as well not even have an xp system, or stats for that matter, because once you get rid of magic items, the players will be all about any other bonus they can get, which defeats the purpose of getting rid of magic items. That's when it becomes the same behavior only with a different focus.
No. Sorry, just no. The X-Mas Tree effect is solely limited to magic items. I'm not advocating the removal of levels, being miserly with XP, or even removing magic items. Stat-boosters will still impact skills and non-combat situations. I was seeking advice on how to mimimize the player trap of equating their characters with their gear. Nothing more.
I was seeking advice on how to mimimize the player trap of equating their characters with their gear.
Three words: advanced rust monsters. :D
In the games I run there aren't very magic items to be had. The party is now level 7 and they have two magic swords, two shields (one of which isn't used much), a few suits of armor, and some cloaks of protection. They killed some displacer beasts and have commissioned three cloaks of displacement but won't have them for quite some time.
They are doing just fine. Some things that needed to be done:
1) Don't focus on magic items and make it special when the items are found.
2) Decrease the CR of the opponents but increase the numbers so they still feel threatened and often find the battles to be more fun and rewarding.
3) Don't set up encounters where magic items are required.
My players are having a blast and they aren't even asking for more items. They are very content with masterwork items and having to think about tactics instead. I haven't changed the rules at all. I have changed how I use them.
There's always been gear in D&D, important gear necessary to get the adventuring job done. After all, you needed, absolutely needed, magic weapons in previous editions to take on certain types of monsters as a fighter.
But I think 3e changed the feel of magic items by making them so easy to make. Once they did that, rather than players having pipe dreams about the equipment they wanted and hoped would be in a treasure hoard somewhere, they could actually pursue the items they wanted as a rational and achievable strategy. This meant that rather than having a hodge-podge of whatever items you'd managed to loot over the course of your adventuring career (numerous as they might be), your items could reflect a hard-nosed pursuit of numeric advantage or min-maxing. Rather than having a couple items you relied on a lot (perhaps a flying carpet, decent weapon, decent protective item, or maybe a ring/cloak of protection), you had a "standard kit" of the Big 6 items that you used all the time with little real distinctive flavor.
If you agree that 3e made a significant change in the zeitgeist concerning magic items, then reverting back to previous edition practices may help. Use expected wealth only as the grossest of guides, include items for flavor, and don't let PCs take item creation feats or buy magic items. I'm contemplating taking this a stop further and reuniting the ring of protection and cloak of resistance as the same basic type of item, just with different specific forms. I'm alternatively considering having ALL magic cloaks include a resistance bonus like all magic weapons must have an enhancement bonus of at least +1 before oddball properties can be added. At least that may encourage PCs to keep cloaks of <property> rather than sell it at first opportunity in order to buy a general bonus.
Agreed - "Magic-Mart" is one of the mixed blessings of 3e.
I do like the idea of combining cloaks and rings back into themselves. I would find it interesting to "forbid" the item creation feats altogether. I also remember that the "cool stuff" (in terms of weapons) to find was not the generic +3 weapon - it was the flame tongue, the frost brand, the nine lives stealer and - once - the mighty hammer of thunderbolts with the accompanying belt of giant strength and gauntlets of ogre power. Many paladins died without ever laying hand upon a holy avenger - although there were not that many paladins ... but that's a different discussion.
The "old school" method of creating magical items required large and expensive libraries, individually researched item formulae and gathering the materials in the field - great potential for "stuff to happen" in a campaign. Even the lowliest cure light wounds potion and +1 weapon took at least some effort to unravel the formulae and acquire the special materials.
I do have to agree with removing the majority of the class restrictions on magic items.
What good is the Rogues 15+ ranks in stealth if the fighter has a Ring of Invisibility and Boots of Stealth.
Does the Fighter need the cleric if his armor can cast Cure Critical Wounds 3 times per day?
Does the Fighter need the wizards haste buff once he gets Boots of Speed?
If the fighter has a rogue, why doesn't he choose a ring of counterspells and winged boots?
If the fighter has a cleric, why doesn't he take armor of fortification?
If the fighter has a wizard... well, we've already covered the winged boots. :)
The best solution I have produced is to make sure the magic items 'found' in one adventure are important in the next. A player recently sold off several ointments of fire resistance and the next game he was miffed thathe was getting fried by the Firedrakes (Bargain bin Red Dragons, I replace the poison sting with a Breath weapon). That party is 'short' loot, but even the 8 Wisdom Rogue has figured out that nearly all the loot MEANS something. Currently, they're trying to figure out a deck of oversized cards, each with a unique portrait on them (thx Zelazny).
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No. Sorry, just no. The X-Mas Tree effect is solely limited to magic items. I'm not advocating the removal of levels, being miserly with XP, or even removing magic items. Stat-boosters will still impact skills and non-combat situations. I was seeking advice on how to mimimize the player trap of equating their characters with their gear. Nothing more.
You are missing the important point I was making, getting rid of the christmas tree only redirects their attention elsewhere. They will then probably aim for potions, scrolls, and permanency spells.
Those who show that kind of behavior are not going to change it because you got rid of magic items. This might even break some people's willing suspension of disbelief, a world with magic, that doesn't have any cool toys for the people who decided that swinging a sword was cool.
The primary issue I have with it isn’t even one of campaign flavor (although that's a close 2nd) –it’s the impact on players’ mindset: I have to have a magic sword or I’m not effective in combat. I have to have AC boosters to be an effective character. I have to have a stat-booster to compensate for a dump stat or to give my fighter the strength of a giant. etc.,etc. Player’s begin to define their characters by their gear --- that’s my turn-off.
If you run the game very RAW, the characters do indeed need that magic sword/armor/shield to be effective in combat that's scaled to their level. Once you start tinkering with this, you have to juggle the rest to keep it in balance.
It's fairly easy to keep magic item proliferation in balance; keep the amounts of it low in treasure. If you keep money rewards low as well, they can't just buy magic items either.
However, many characters are built with certain gear in mind. Feats like Weapon Specialization or Exotic Weapon Proficiency tend to define characters by the weapons they use - magic or otherwise.
Also, many fantasy characters were very heavily defined by their gear. But like you said, those pieces of gear are usually more 'special', rather than just generic +2 weapon of etcetera. That said, those generic pieces ARE generic, so they don't really define a character.
If piles of uncool magic items are a problem, make cooler magic items. Get rid of 'pure' plussed items. No +1 swords - though a +1 Flaming Sword can exist. No cloaks of Resistance, though a Cloak of Invisibility can have Resistance on it as well.
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I know you wanted to minimize House Rules, but if you've ever seen an RPG called FantasyCraft, they have a rules subset that might work for you if adapted.
It basically limits heroes as to the maximum number of prizes they can keep and use by tying it to their Renown. In their system, prizes include things like important contacts, holdings and magic items. It's better than I make it sound...
One other suggestion I would make is to occasionally give out a magic item that can "level up" with the player. An example would be a family heirloom sword that was stolen by your uncle after he murdered your father. If the PC tracks down the uncle and retrieves the sword, he receives a magic weapon that is appropriate to his level. As the character gets more experienced, he discovers that the weapon is more than it first seemed. This helps to keep a magic item relevant throughout a campaign. Not only do players in D&D/Pathfinder games light up like Xmas trees at high-level, they're constantly switching out the little bulbs in their trees. This option may work best with heirloom items that tie into a character's back story, or with intelligent items (that reveal more of themselves as they come to trust the PC, or view the PC as worthy).
You can limit the magic item shop to stuff of CL 5th or less. More powerful things just aren't traded. Even for ready money.
I like to reward my players with enhancements to their current gear. I'm a big fan of adding powers to stuff they already have. If you keep control of what they have access to, it isn't overpowering to put 3 or 4 different items into one magic ring, etc. Takes a little more keeping track of, but then you can scale things up as they level.
Maybe only let each character use 1 magic sword, 1 magic armor, and 2 misc items.
The Christmas Tree (and the Big 6 Items that hang all over it) can (almost?) be entirely eliminated by use of a sufficiently robust action point system. This takes the emphasis off the items, gets rid of the magic item shoppes, and puts more flexibility and control into the hands of the players, where it does the most good for the game.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
Instead of lots of magic items I start the players with 25 points for stats and they gain +1 to a stat at 4/8/12/16/20 and +1 to all stats at 6/12/18 (ala Conan). This makes the players themselves a lot more powerfull without needing magic items.
Interesting. I started character in my current campaign with a standard-ish point buy. At 4th and 8th levels, characters get 4 more point to spend on ability scores. More details at this link.
Mark L. Chance | Spes Magna Games
I really understand the problem with gear that "only" gives non-real bonuses.
My solution as GM (dammit I always write DM) is, that nearly all magic weapons have a drawback, are intelligent, or have uses that aren't a plain +bonus. This makes it more interesting.
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The problem with getting rid of the christmas tree effect is player like customizing their characters. It's part of the fun of the game.
If you give them other ways to replace the items then you are pretty much in the same boat. One thing I've done is try and give these items more character. A belt of giant strength doesn't just give you +x to strength, it also gives the wearer the ability to cast enlarge person once per day.
Found items in my game tend to have more interesting powers than the purchased equivalents they can buy and they sell for what their generic counterpart sells for. (This is based on something Monte Cook suggested.
Finally, a friend of mine made a 'heirloom weapon' feat which allowed a character to have a single weapon that they could upgrade for the price of crafting an item. I would suggest instead of doing it as a feat you let every character pick an item that they can upgrade this way, you can even have them name it. Similar in a way to a wizards arcane bonded item.
I play in quite a few games at the moment, one of them is a low magic campaign. We are level 8 and we have a +1 orcbane longsword, a ring of fire resistance 20, and Crystal Ball of detect Thoughts, and a Circlet of blasting Major. These would normally be powerful, but semi-useless items that got pawned off and forgotten about a month later, but instead are coveted relics we hang onto for dear life, even if we never use them.
The trick is to tightly monitor and throttle wealth and magic in such a way things do not lose their importance. The orcbane sword was the centerpiece of an elaborate mechanical system in a long dead paladins' orders' castle, and is currently being used by a ranged ranger as his back-up weapon, because the party barbarian enjoys his spear, which he crafted himself. That same barbarian wears the circlet as a bracelet because it "looks good as a trophy" and never uses it. The crystal ball is extremely treasured by the party warlock, and artificially inflates party wealth without unbalancing the game at all. And we have never encountered a creature that did fire damage, except for the dragon lair we snuck into and claimed those last three items.
In short: eliminate buying magic, introduce spectacular and powerful magic items, so long as they have no real effect on gameplay, and a squad of 10 level 1 orc barbarians and a black bear will seem like a dire threat.
ps: if you want to add a higher CR monster for coolness factor, just grab your players sheets and scribble down their AC, Saves etc and balance the saving throws or attacks of that creature against it. If your parties max AC is 18, and highest fort save is +8 because of lack magical items, adjusting a Morg to have a DC 13 fort save and +8 to attack still makes it a frightening and powerful foe to fight in line with its CR.
I know you wanted to avoid conversion or house rules, but the new Dark Sun book (4E) has a fixed enhancement bonus table to reflect the lack of magic items in the world.
The table basically gives the players a set bonus for to hit and damage, and one for AC and Saves based on level. It reflects the power level they should be at to face the appropriate challenges, using less items.
Also, the (4E) DMG2 has a lot of great suggestions on how to give out alternate rewards, that have a cost/power value that are not gear.
I've always been called the stingy DM cause I don't hand out a lot of gear/treasure. These new alternatives are a good way to let me continue to run how I prefer without offsetting the power level expectation, or having to adjust the encounters down for a lack of gear.
A lot of people hate the systems, but Magic of Incarnum and *Weapons of Legacy provide lots of ways to have powerful magic abilities without the "Christmas Tree Effect". Those 2 books would take some handling and house-ruling to work in your game, but they do loads toward reducing the want and need of characters carrying potentially hundreds of items.
For example, my new character in a game we are playing is a Totemist, and using an item of Legacy(a mask, sort of like a Predator). Aside from maybe armor, and a couple of small items(bag of holding, etc), my character has no needs for magically "bling"; I can Meldshape my own weapons, and the abilities my Hunter's Mask grants me are far superior to anything I w0uld be wearing at this level normally, as well as provide multiple ,magic effects that would take a handful of items to do otherwise(Invisibility at will, Darkvision, Cure Wounds on self, +10 Movement, etc). Between adventures, I find myself not eagerly looking to go shopping quite so much as, just looking forward to new abilites my Meldshapes and Legacy item grant me.
*By the way, the biggest misnomer of this book is the Legacy Feats; you DO NOT have to take extra feats to wield a Weapon of Legacy, you get the feats for free as a bonus once you complete the needed ritual for that level.
As you said, it's part of the game.
However, if Paizo ever creates a Pathfinder v2, this is one of the core things I'd love them to fix.
Magic items should be rare, unique, and full of history.
I think magic items should be common, dime a dozen, and just another item you have.
My opinion is just as valid.|
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To me it is a simple fix. Random magic item generation for communities coupled with the fact that there is no such thing as the"Ye Olde' Magic Item Shoppe" in the games I run. If someone is looking for a better weapon of something cool to charge into battle with they are going to have to scope the area to even get a clue as to where these things are going to be. The eccentric haberdasher might have a dusty old skullcap lying around that is really a hat of disguise or a turban that is a Headband of Alluring Charisma, but it is more likely that he WONT.
If a player wants to invest in an item creation feats I am 100% fine with that, but to use it they will have to take time off that I would otherwise be giving to them to do with as they please and the players always get a real feel of the tradeoff they are making when the other 3 PC's are off working contacts in the neighborhood or cleaning up the sewers as a favor for the local tanners guild.
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You can have my magical bling when you pry it from my cold, dead, buttocks...
Hmm.. ...we're generally tight on magical item acquisition and decent magical items all have a origin./history.
However, there are a few characters running around with a fair few magical goodies...
..still, the players seem to understand that the chances of them attaining/maintaining a 'wish list' of items is tricky/hard/nearly impossible.
There's a lot of item theft - magical and mundane, sundering, things getting stolen/directly targeted by NPC's with half a brain. Stuff gets broken, dissolved, melted, dropped into chasms, eaten etc...
As for the need to have X item. Well, I think that's campaign dependent as well - very few of our lot have this mentality. Probably because, as mentioned, the transitory nature of items within our campaigns.
Hmm.. so I guess... if you want to reduce the 'christmas tree effect', have the presents eaten by the dog. Often?
I don't think that was ever the big hangup. Most people simply don't like the sacrifices the legacy weapons demand.*By the way, the biggest misnomer of this book is the Legacy Feats; you DO NOT have to take extra feats to wield a Weapon of Legacy, you get the feats for free as a bonus once you complete the needed ritual for that level.
Indeed. I thought it was better to require the feats unlock the higher powers of the weapons of legacy and use them without any penalties to abilities. Too much of that source just seemed poorly thought out.