Character Enhancements: A Loot Overhaul

[Mortuum]

This is house rule designed to move enhancement bonuses off items and on to characters. It changes the role of magic items in your game, making each one a nifty extra tool rather than a necessity for keeping up with the monsters.

Character enhancements should be helpful for low magic games, but they're intended for every kind of game.

If you're using a published adventure, simply remove all the items and bonuses that this rule replaces and do not replace them. Run NPCs are written in their statblocks, but remove the enhancement bonuses from their weapons once they drop and don't have them drop other big 6 items at all.

You might have seen this kind of rule before. If so, you're probably wondering why I'm reinventing the wheel. Here's a few ways in which character enhancements are different:

Characters don't gain supernatural powers they didn't have before

The system for pricing magic weapon and armor properties has been adjusted to account for the new system

The system accounts for two-weapon fighting and natural attacks without letting characters double up their bonuses for free

Characters won't be significantly more powerful using this system

All the big 6 magic items have been completely replaced, with the exception of special armor and weapon properties

Dedicated spellcasters aren't burdened with enhancement bonuses to attack and damage that they're not going to use

Here's a link to the rules document. It's less than 3 pages, so don't run away.