Magic Carpets and Boats of Folding are the new Boring

[cranewings]

I know there is a lot of hate on the magic Christmas tree. One chap was just talking about it in another thread. "I hate +X items."

I agree. I've always thought it was stupid. As someone who has played a lot of Palladium, I got used to magic swords being magical: letting you fly, making you super strong, talking to you, granting you spells, summoning suits of armor and so on and on.

But there was a catch to that: the really magical stuff in Palladium always seemed pretty predictable. Because magic was magical, but there was a system of metaphysics, generally speaking, the same kind of stuff happened an awful lot.

In Pathfinder, we have these really crappy boring (in my opinion) magic items that suck up our gold, the Big 6 +X items. I've played in a couple of games, and run one recently, where the players knew about the big six, paid the coin, and wrote them down with very little thought or fan fair. They just got it out of the way and we got back to playing.

Once it was brushed aside, the game was actually really magical.They traded an artifact book for a nymph's shaw to get a dragonbane sword, had a key to the abyss, visited places of magical power, and in general had to discover what was going on. This was, in part because most of the party wealth was tied up in the Big Six and afterwards, there was a lot of interest in the truly magical. This was helped along by the fact that the Paizo books are really just stuffed full of incredibly interesting magical ideas, spells, and items I could use to make my game unique.

If the game got rid of the Big Six items, or did away with crafting and or magic item stores, what would replace the Big Six as the necessary tools of the trade? If you got rid of every element of player decision making in magic items acquisition the GM could keep it interesting, but if the players have input, they are going to have their favorites. Those favorites will be based on the common elements of the game and I wouldn't doubt that a lot of groups would come to the same conclusions about what's good.

So what would that be? A magic carpet so you can shoot down at your enemies or a boat of folding so you can always get away? A portable hole and an immovable rod? Endless water? Spell storing? You see the problem?

The big six isn't the problem. If there is a problem, its that the players have a say in what they get and they will just pick the same thing all the time: the most useful thing they can think of. The Big Six is a compromise. It tells the players, "if you are going to pick something, pick these. The GM will add flavor later."

[Egoish]

I'm not sure on your point, but...

I don't mind the big six, i tend to limit them to a certain GP value like the rules recommend for most large cities. I think getting better than a +4 weapon or +6, +4/+4 or +2/+2/+2 stat item etc should require either self crafting, doing something for a powerful crafter or finding/questing for it. If my players head to a huge city i tend to roll up a few really powerful items or even make up some unique items they can buy.

I always give my players the big six since they help the game run smoother and since MMO's players like numbers a lot more than flashy effects, but if i throw in a rumour about a cleric who has hermitted himself in a hard to reach location who makes +5 heavy fortification rings of protection then the players might take a detour to chat with him. It helps to make the crafting feats worth while as well, you can magic mart your way up to level 12 but after that you need to find ways to keep your power level up.

[Proley]

Just out of curiosity, what are the big 6?

[Charlie Bell]

Magic weapon, magic armor, cloak of resistance, belt of str/dex/con or headband of int/wis/cha, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor.

[Mighty Squash]

Ah Palladium, fond memories of so very much money wasted on books hardly used....

[SmiloDan]

I just ended a campaign where my gnome needed a magic carpet just to keep up with the other PCs. One was a catfolk with a base speed of 40, the other was a feral kobold with boots of striding and springing. My guy had boots of stomping (MIC item, tripped in a 15 foot cone), but even if he got boots of striding and springing, his speed would only be 30. The carpet of flying brought my speed up to 40, and flight was a nice movement option. Even better, I could drop items as a free action and my carpet caught them.

But I think the base price of magic items is way too high. Especially for little one time use trinkets. Heck, a little old lady who gives you a potion of cure light wounds is giving you 6 or 7 weeks work of effort, assuming 1 rank in Profession and 12 or 14 in Wisdom.

[JohnF]

Mighty Squash wrote:

Ah Palladium, fond memories of so very much money wasted on books hardly used....

That's not unique to Palladium ...

Quite apart from the AD&D 3.0 books I bought before deciding to stick with 2e, I've got all sorts of other stuff (Space 1899, Chivalry & Sorcery, Empire of the Tekel Throne, First Fantasy Campaign, etc., etc.) that has been thumbed through, but not used in play.

That's not counting all the modules, campaign settings, etc. on the shelf that I never got round to running.

But apparently I never learn - I'm now building up a collection of Pathfinder stuff as well.