Magic Item requirements feel bad

[Necrotifice]

So, I'm GMing that non-test AP game. I'm picking out treasure for rewards in this dungeon as per Table 11-1 (page 347 of Rulebook, for the curious). And I notice something about most of the Trinkets - these require skill proficiencies and sometimes even feats.

Adding feat or skill requirements to items functionally narrows the list of magic items a player can use. I could see an argument for this on certain items, but for trinkets and consumables it just feels like too much balancing against the items.

Items already have several balancing factors - use of action economy and scarcity. Many players will already not use consumables because they want to "bank" them for when they need the most. I don't think consumables need to be made worse than those two factors.

[Mathmuse]

In the first chapter of Doomsday Dawn, the PCs can find an owlbear claw trinket. It is an item 1 trinket, but requires expert proficiency with the affix weapon to activate.

The party is 1st level. A fighter is expert at 1st level, a barbarian is expert at 13th level, a cleric could become expert at 14th level via Warrior Priest, a Monastic Weaponry monk is expert at 3rd level, a paladin is expert at 5th level, a ranger is expert at 3rd level, and a rogue is expert at 13th level. No-one is going to hold onto a useless trinket waiting for 3rd level, so only a fighter might want the owlbear claw.

My party lacked a fighter. They sold the owlbear claw trinket.

[Edge93]

Okay, so I legit wonder if requiring expert was a typo. And here's why:

Almost every method of getting Expert with a weapon gives you the crit specialization for that weapon, which renders the claw useless.

The only exceptions are Fighters who don't get crit spec until 3rd level and the level 13 ancestry feats to give expert (However you could use a level 5 ancestry feat to get the crit effects with ancestral weapons without being expert).

So basically the trinket is only useful for level 1 and 2 Fighters, people with weird ancestry feat choices, and cases of Fighters using a weapon outside of their chosen group before they get master in all weapons.

[Nettah]

Overall I like the idea of the trinkets, but a lot of them feels weak or demands too much in terms of skills/feats.

I think/hope trinkets will see some changes in the final version, otherwise it could be a cool mechanic not really seeing a lot of play.

[The DM of]

I completely agree. I don't know how the final version is going to turn out, but I'm ignoring most of these ridiculous requirements in the spirit of Rule 0. Magic items are one of the coolest things about this game. They break you out of your realistic world sim and immerse you into fantasy in reality shattering ways. They should be cool. They should be easy to use. They should get in your hands and make you awesome now not at L13!

[Edge93]

I liked an idea I read about making Trinkets permanent instead of consumable, just requiring resonance to power and not being single-use. It also allows us to have permanent 1st level magic items this way. I like the idea of interchangeable affixable items that give you tricks and you have to decide which one you want affixed at any given point and stuff. Could even open up for a special material or something to have a perk of allowing two affixed trinkets. And maybe Quick Repair could be expanded to allow switching trinkets rapidly, making it more useful for non-shield-users.

But with resonance out of the final game this is unlikely. Can still houserule it for now though.

[Helmic]

I didn't even catch that trinkets had all these stupid restrictions. I just figured they were a thing you could add to a weapon to modify what it does. That's much cooler than this nonsense.

I could see skill restrictions making sense for some items, but certainly not most. They're magic, they're supposed to make people unusually good at stuff. At least make it so only the really powerful stuff has requirements.

[42nfl19]

Necrotifice wrote:

So, I'm GMing that non-test AP game. I'm picking out treasure for rewards in this dungeon as per Table 11-1 (page 347 of Rulebook, for the curious). And I notice something about most of the Trinkets - these require skill proficiencies and sometimes even feats.

Adding feat or skill requirements to items functionally narrows the list of magic items a player can use. I could see an argument for this on certain items, but for trinkets and consumables it just feels like too much balancing against the items.

Items already have several balancing factors - use of action economy and scarcity. Many players will already not use consumables because they want to "bank" them for when they need the most. I don't think consumables need to be made worse than those two factors.

Just as an aside, what non-test AP game are you referring to?

[Loreguard]

Rather than simply making Trinkets permanent, since we don't have resonance, why not have them be something that uses magic energy but has to be recharged.

In a friend of mine's campaign, magic energy was frequently gathered and stored in a sand-like substance, and I think he just called it Mana. It was typed by school, but it was basically a basic building block in much of magical crafting, and was used to fuel some magical items. Why not make a trinket a activation object. It doesn't naturally recharge, but rather than having to buy a new one you buy some fraction of the original cost in mana, which you can spend 10 minutes applying mana of the correct type to the item before your rest, and in the morning the mana will have recharged the device. This way your Trinket has character, but you buy extra mana, which is generic enough you can normally purchase it relatively regularly from local alchemists or other practitioners.

I understand the purpose of trinkets... something that is supposed to be cheaper and not really 'permanent' However, I think being able to recharge them via some re-investiture sounds like a reasonably good option to make them more meaningful. [Avoiding the 'I better save this for whatever moment in the future that someone thought I'd have to have it for' conundrum, that might otherwise make using the trinket not happen.] By making it basically a 1x day object, that you have to put a percentage more of your gp resources, in would make it more valueable, but limited enough it can maintain the status of a 'small/low level type of magic'.

Personally, I find the limitations to requiring certain levels of skills generally fine, especially if it produces a relatively powerful effect. Again, trinkets aren't supposed to be powerful multi-use per days items that are always useful. They are supposed to be comparatively inexpensive items which in certain circumstances can really give someone a helping hand in that circumstance.

If you make it regularly useful, in many circumstances and make it a one type cost, that cost is going to have be much higher, you have just made it nothing more than another wondrous magic item with daily powers. Based on that, I'm for them being more than disposable, but having them having some sort of recurring cost for them.