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Ok, I'm almost certain this has never been mentioned. If it has, PLEASE direct me to that thread so I can read the ideas! :)
I recently started a new campaign for my players. They are level 6. I decided I wanted magic items to be rare so I only gave them 10,000 gold. In return for the reduced magic items and reduced gold, I decided to use the Epic Fantasy (25 points) point buy.
Even more ideas sprung from this "reduced magic" idea. A friend had an idea to use "Achievements" for his campaign in a similar way that Xbox 360 games have achievements. He was going to use experience points as a reward. However, I want this campaign to last so I decided to go another route.
For example, the party fighter went toe to toe with a Huge Fire Elemental. He took tons of fire damage (refusing to attempt to put out the /Burn/ damage, because he's a man like that). I had made it clear I wanted ideas for achievements. He asked if he took enough damage over the course of the campaign to virtually kill him twice (without actually dying) if he could gain Fire Resistance. I loved the idea and agreed.
Another example I came up with was improving magic items using achievements instead of the usual "I have this much gold, I want to go from some master crafting wizard and have him improve my armor". I really hate that, because if you're trying to have a working campaign, there aren't that many wizards/clerics/etc. that just stop adventuring, open up shop, and hope for business. So I thought it would be better if their weapons improved based on how they used them and their armor improved based on what they were successfully being protected from.
The group's cleric has +1 light fortification scale mail for instance. I told him if his light fortification successfully prevented 20 critical hits, it would improve to medium fortification. He agreed and liked the idea.
The reason I'm posting is because I wanted to hear your feedback on the idea and if you have achievements of your own that you'd like to throw out there, I'd love to hear them (as I am but one GM and can't possibly think of everything you bright minded people can come up with)
An interesting idea i really like the idea that items can be upgraded through usage although some care would have to be taken to prevent abuse of such rules (for example the party fighter getting the mage to fireball him every night before resting to get his resistance.
I'm not sure i would use the same rules to directly give characters abilities directly but thats mostly personal taste
As to specific achivements you could hard code them into the items such as your example for the cleric's armor and expand the concept for instance a flaming longsword +1 could after scoring x amount of critical hits become a flaming burst weapon. For items with less obvious upgrades additional item effects could be added for instance a ring of feather fall could slowly gain the abilities of a ring of air elemental command or perhaps act as a ring of jumping due to the reduction of weight.
The requirements to activate these achivements should be secret or at least very difficult to discover and never the same one twice would probably be best if hard to do.
I use a somewhat similar method but i don't call them achievements, nor do i flat out let the players know " if you score and confirm critical hits on 10 giants your weapon gains the bane property". i usually include the "formula" as a reward from one of the many NPC's they save or aid or discover in ancient writings in a lost stronghold etc. in my campaign wizards can use curtain "materials" to drastically reduce magic item creation cost and time. a lot of the "formulas" i have been working on for ages, it's proving quite difficult to balance out the requirements though as it's hard to figure what requirements are to steep or too little. In example, if a player has to kill 100 giants to gain "giant bane" and it takes him until level 10 to do it by then it's not really worth it. One thing that has made it easier is treasure per encounter chart. if the the weapon is +1 for instance- once the character has gotten enough gold per encounter just counting the giants and his cut of the giants wealth per level to have enough money to take the sword from +1 to +2,landed a killing blow on a giant, and collected a giants heart for the wizard to use as an ingredient, a wizard may enchant that weapon without having the required spell and only 1 day of work per +1 he's trying to make the weapon. while this method doesn't reduce magic items and make them rare it DOES makes the players items feel more accomplished an special.
I use a somewhat similar method but i don't call them achievements, nor do i flat out let the players know " if you score and confirm critical hits on 10 giants your weapon gains the bane property". i usually include the "formula" as a reward from one of the many NPC's they save or aid or discover in ancient writings in a lost stronghold etc. in my campaign wizards can use curtain "materials" to drastically reduce magic item creation cost and time. a lot of the "formulas" i have been working on for ages, it's proving quite difficult to balance out the requirements though as it's hard to figure what requirements are to steep or too little. In example, if a player has to kill 100 giants to gain "giant bane" and it takes him until level 10 to do it by then it's not really worth it. One thing that has made it easier is treasure per encounter chart. if the the weapon is +1 for instance- once the character has gotten enough gold per encounter just counting the giants and his cut of the giants wealth per level to have enough money to take the sword from +1 to +2,landed a killing blow on a giant, and collected a giants heart for the wizard to use as an ingredient, a wizard may enchant that weapon without having the required spell and only 1 day of work per +1 he's trying to make the weapon. while this method doesn't reduce magic items and make them rare it DOES makes the players items feel more accomplished an special.
Wouldn't that add a slightly unfair advantage to weapons with higher threat range? How do you get bane weapons against creatures immune to critical hits? Just curious.
Ok, I'm almost certain this has never been mentioned. If it has, PLEASE direct me to that thread so I can read the ideas! :)
I recently started a new campaign for my players. They are level 6. I decided I wanted magic items to be rare so I only gave them 10,000 gold. In return for the reduced magic items and reduced gold, I decided to use the Epic Fantasy (25 points) point buy.
Even more ideas sprung from this "reduced magic" idea. A friend had an idea to use "Achievements" for his campaign in a similar way that Xbox 360 games have achievements. He was going to use experience points as a reward. However, I want this campaign to last so I decided to go another route.
For example, the party fighter went toe to toe with a Huge Fire Elemental. He took tons of fire damage (refusing to attempt to put out the /Burn/ damage, because he's a man like that). I had made it clear I wanted ideas for achievements. He asked if he took enough damage over the course of the campaign to virtually kill him twice (without actually dying) if he could gain Fire Resistance. I loved the idea and agreed.
Another example I came up with was improving magic items using achievements instead of the usual "I have this much gold, I want to go from some master crafting wizard and have him improve my armor". I really hate that, because if you're trying to have a working campaign, there aren't that many wizards/clerics/etc. that just stop adventuring, open up shop, and hope for business. So I thought it would be better if their weapons improved based on how they used them and their armor improved based on what they were successfully being protected from.
The group's cleric has +1 light fortification scale mail for instance. I told him if his light fortification successfully prevented 20 critical hits, it would improve to medium fortification. He agreed and liked the idea.
The reason I'm posting is because I wanted to hear your feedback on the idea and if you have achievements of your own that you'd like to throw out there, I'd love to hear them (as I am but one GM and can't possibly think of everything you bright minded people can come up with)
Sounds fun. You could also consider automatically scaling certain magic items with their level to keep them appropriately empowered at higher levels. For example, have all the major ability enhancing items begin at +1 (worth 1,000 gp) and then increase by +1 at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th (ending at +6 at 20th level). Similarly, the static abilities of a weapon could advance in the same way (+1 at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th for enhancement bonus and then add in special powers gained over the course of the game).
This way, all basic magic items are important, but you unlock their power over the course of the game, and can run a very equipment-lite game without running into mechanical difficulties.
I use a somewhat similar method but i don't call them achievements, nor do i flat out let the players know " if you score and confirm critical hits on 10 giants your weapon gains the bane property". i usually include the "formula" as a reward from one of the many NPC's they save or aid or discover in ancient writings in a lost stronghold etc. in my campaign wizards can use curtain "materials" to drastically reduce magic item creation cost and time. a lot of the "formulas" i have been working on for ages, it's proving quite difficult to balance out the requirements though as it's hard to figure what requirements are to steep or too little. In example, if a player has to kill 100 giants to gain "giant bane" and it takes him until level 10 to do it by then it's not really worth it. One thing that has made it easier is treasure per encounter chart. if the the weapon is +1 for instance- once the character has gotten enough gold per encounter just counting the giants and his cut of the giants wealth per level to have enough money to take the sword from +1 to +2,landed a killing blow on a giant, and collected a giants heart for the wizard to use as an ingredient, a wizard may enchant that weapon without having the required spell and only 1 day of work per +1 he's trying to make the weapon. while this method doesn't reduce magic items and make them rare it DOES makes the players items feel more accomplished an special.Wouldn't that add a slightly unfair advantage to weapons with higher threat range? How do you get bane weapons against creatures immune to critical hits? Just curious.
...Ok, I'm almost certain this has never been mentioned. If it has, PLEASE direct me to that thread so I can read the ideas! :)
I recently started a new campaign for my players. They are level 6. I decided I wanted magic items to be rare so I only gave them 10,000 gold. In return for the reduced magic items and reduced gold, I decided to use the Epic Fantasy (25 points) point buy.
i was using the critical hit just as an example. the other formula is more in line but i don't have my external drive handy atm so it's not exact eather.
i was using the critical hit just as an example. the other formula is more in line but i don't have my external drive handy atm so it's not exact eather.
Cool. That make sense.