This is a site for discussing roleplaying games. Have fun doing so, but there is one major rule: do not discuss political issues that aren't directly and uniquely related to the subject of the thread and about gaming. While this site is dedicated to free speech, the following will not be tolerated: devolving a thread into unrelated political discussion, sockpuppeting (using multiple and/or bogus accounts), disrupting topics without contributing to them, and posting images that could get someone fired in the workplace (an external link is OK, but clearly mark it as Not Safe For Work, or NSFW). If you receive a warning, please take it seriously and either move on to another topic or steer the discussion back to its original RPG-related theme.

Author Topic: Stance on Buying Magic Items  (Read 9036 times)

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #75 on: January 27, 2022, 11:13:53 AM »
What, do you want to give a +5 bonus?
If a weapon is supposed to be legendary enough to be worthy of the tons of money invested, or dangerous enough to warrant being locked away in a massive underground labyrinth, it better do something more then just +5% accuracy and maybe damage some gargoyles (unless your a mage at which point go ahead and damage it anyway).

+25% hit is also not impressive (and mathmatically annoying). Maybe it can cleanly slice through all metal and stone, divine for heretics, or command demons. Having such a artifact would come with the consequences of having things of such power. A consequential item feels consequential within the world, not just through arbitrary fiat.
High level athletes pay obscene amounts of money for gear that can, at best, provide an almost infinitesimal performance improvement.

But I think it's interesting from a player-psychology standpoint. It's true, for many players, a +1 doesn't feel like a lot. That's even true in cases where it can be mathematically proven to be more beneficial over time. For instance, a flat bonus in 3e is almost always better than a +1d6 damage from an element. In that specific example, it plays to the part of human psychology where a notable (or just larger) boost that shows up periodically is seen as more important than a smaller boost that applies all the time. We don't remember all those times where we needed a 16 to hit, and barely made it because of the +1 bonus, or that combat where 5 hits with a +1 damage bonus resulted in the creature dropping a round earlier. We're a lot more likely to remember a natural 20, or that time we did max damage on a crit, even if it's wasted (e.g. a more normal roll would have killed the monster anyway).

One thing I mentioned earlier is to change the +1 to +3 bonus (I'm working from a B/X reference point, where +3 is the max) to reflect the quality of the weapon. It's not magical, at least not in the way we usually use the term, just exceptionally well balanced, made of the best alloys, and tempered in a way to maximize flexibility and hardness. These weapons can be purchased, though at inflated prices. If a normal sword costs 60 gp, a fine sword (+1) might cost 600 gp. Weaponsmiths of this caliber might be uncommon, and become even rarer as more plusses are involved. The PCs might need to seek out and gain the favor or attention of the most talented artisans, who might be finicky and demanding; or under the patronage or in the employ of some NPC, like a wealthy merchant or powerful noble, who has to give their permission. They might require components, perhaps rare materials like meteoric ore, mithral, or adamantine; or even something like's dragon's breath or being quenched in a holy pool. Or the PCs might have to rely on rare finds, because the skill to make +3 weapons might be entirely lost to today's smiths.

The origin of the weapons may also matter, with the best weapons coming from specific heritages. To borrow from Tolkien, there might be weapons crafted by the elves and by an ancient and powerful human race (Numenoreans). To borrow from history, the steel of Damascus. There might also be mighty weapons crafted by the dwarves. These might be made of different metals, and have different properties that aren't magic in the "wizards made it" sense. Elven weapons might burn the undead, or even light up around goblins, for instance. Others might be especially effective against lycanthropes, or so on. Morgul weapons might inflict woulds that are uncannily hard to heal, or even drain life. Carving through stone might be a property of makes that rely on certain materials. These would be features of these particular makes, and additional magical properties could be added on top.

With the basic bonus being part of the make of the weapon, as well as some of the more subtle properties, the magical part could reflected the showier aspects. If a sword can emulate a spell, that's not part of the make, rather it's some magical property imbued into the weapon. This could be things like becoming a flame or a frost brand, returning to one's hand once thrown, acting as a dowsing rod to find treasure, teleporting, and so on.

To further expand on the magical properties added to a basic make, and borrowing from OD&D where all (all) magical swords are intelligent, intelligence might be the common factor shared by all magical weapons. There might be different sources of intelligence. A blade might gain intelligence from a sacrifice -- plunge the newly forged weapon into the breast of a sapient being, and it steals the soul, which becomes the motive force in the blade. Or from the elements, with swords being imbued with spirits of fire or the earth, wind or water. Or from long use, with legendary and hereditary blades becoming sapient over time, as the spirits of their users rub off. Or a goetic origin, with blades containing the spirits of demons or angels. Or loa, or natural spirits like those from a river or a mountain. It's the intelligence that controls the magical powers of the weapon, and which must be mastered by the wielder, in order to master the powers. Further, the nature of the intelligence defines what powers can be manifested by the blade; if you want a flametongue, you need a fire spirit, or perhaps a demon.

That was unnecacarily snippy of me. I should not have made this a personal deal. Sorry.
Appreciated and respected.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 11:16:07 AM by Pat »

Shrieking Banshee

  • Narcissist Undead
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2507
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #76 on: January 27, 2022, 12:23:58 PM »
High level athletes pay obscene amounts of money for gear that can, at best, provide an almost infinitesimal performance improvement.
Possibly, but we don't sing songs about the Nikes of Jord-On, nor do the swimsuits of The Angeles warrant a dungeon to protect. And even with obscene amounts of money, it doesn't reach close to magic item costs (outside of tacky crap like jewel studs). Also those items are not really rare. If you want them, and have the money - you can get them. We don't need crushed pope teeth to craft the kickable balls of chiki-briki. If signed or something by a star athlete, they would be worth allot to collectors, but again rarely dungeon worthy.

And of course its not equalatiraly applied. A +1 sword exists in the same context as a ring of invisibility. Which is why I think beyond cost, there needs to be a degree of rarity.
Like...To some degree I also use +1->Gargoyle type stuff. I just have different degrees of what is commonly available and what is uncommonly available.

A +1 Sword is pretty common (And in SW flat attack bonuses don't go above a +1 on weapons), like a high quality car. But a Brutal weapon is rare because it allows a person to smash things with heavy armor (Big monsters/vehicles) even though in most combats it won't come up.

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #77 on: January 27, 2022, 12:43:59 PM »

And of course its not equalatiraly applied. A +1 sword exists in the same context as a ring of invisibility. Which is why I think beyond cost, there needs to be a degree of rarity.
The random tables effectively determine rarity. For example, in the B/X Expert Rulebook, the most common item is the +1 sword, with an 8% chance (20% chance to get the sword subtable, and 40% of that table is the +1 sword; 0.20 * 0.40 = 0.08). That means 1 in 12.5 of all magic items will be +1 swords. The next most common is the 1 spell scroll (4.5%/1 in 22), then the 2 spell scroll and some protection scrolls (lycanthropes, undead, and elementals; all 3%/1 in 33), followed by the +1 shield (2%/1 in 50).

The least common items have a 0.05% (1 in 2,000) chance of occurring, and include a couple high bonus weapons (mace +3, dagger +2/+3 vs., warven thrower +, spear +3), multiple wish items (2 rings), and other powerful items (staff of wizardry, crystal ball with ESP, drums of panic, efreeti bottle, the 4 elemental summoning devices, a flying carpet, helms of telepathy and teleportation, horn of blasting, and mirror of life trapping). Everything else falls in between. It's not hard to convert those to AD&D frequencies (very rare 4%, rare 11%, uncommon 20%, common 65%).

But that conflates rarity and power. It would probably be better to come up with consistent set of guidelines for classifying items by rarity, and how to distinguish that from more powerful items being inherently less common. Thinking of magic items like monsters and dungeon levels might help -- what items belong on dungeon level 8, and which of those are the rarest even on the most ideal level? Assign magic items a typical level, and then a rarity.

VisionStorm

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2184
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #78 on: January 27, 2022, 01:02:09 PM »
High level athletes pay obscene amounts of money for gear that can, at best, provide an almost infinitesimal performance improvement.
Possibly, but we don't sing songs about the Nikes of Jord-On, nor do the swimsuits of The Angeles warrant a dungeon to protect. And even with obscene amounts of money, it doesn't reach close to magic item costs (outside of tacky crap like jewel studs). Also those items are not really rare. If you want them, and have the money - you can get them. We don't need crushed pope teeth to craft the kickable balls of chiki-briki. If signed or something by a star athlete, they would be worth allot to collectors, but again rarely dungeon worthy.

And of course its not equalatiraly applied. A +1 sword exists in the same context as a ring of invisibility. Which is why I think beyond cost, there needs to be a degree of rarity.
Like...To some degree I also use +1->Gargoyle type stuff. I just have different degrees of what is commonly available and what is uncommonly available.

A +1 Sword is pretty common (And in SW flat attack bonuses don't go above a +1 on weapons), like a high quality car. But a Brutal weapon is rare because it allows a person to smash things with heavy armor (Big monsters/vehicles) even though in most combats it won't come up.

In fairness high-end athletic gear isn't exactly rare in our world because we live in a technologically advanced, globalized and highly industrialized consumeristic society (at least till the supply chain completely collapses), where mass production is a thing. But even then the newest Nikes probably cost around ten times as much as some cheap ass bargain sneakers.

Back in the olden days or some fantasy equivalent you would've had to find a master shoemaker to get shoes like that, and probably have them commissioned or something.

I also agree with Pat that while on the surface a +1 or even a +5 bonus might seem unimpressive, technically—all things considered, including STR/DEX bonuses, Specialization bonuses, plus bonuses stacked from other items, etc—a +1 bonus is not far off from actual fine craftsmanship level and a +5 bonus is actually obscene, and viable to screw up balance. The issue, as already stated is that a +1 bonus on its own doesn't feel as magical as special properties like+1d6 elemental damage or spell-like abilities and stuff like that.

Shrieking Banshee

  • Narcissist Undead
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2507
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #79 on: January 27, 2022, 01:12:03 PM »
The random tables effectively determine rarity.
I mean in a really roundabout way that takes allot of time I suppose. But its annoying to customize because you have to adjust every item %-wise if you want an items to exist or not.

Its fun for quick treasure drops or item shop generation, but as a general rarity rate, I would say no.
Quote
But that conflates rarity and power.
Well not necacarily. I generally make more utility granting items rarer in my games, but numbers boosters not uncommon.

Quote
It would probably be better to come up with consistent set of guidelines for classifying items by rarity
I just rate them manually. I don't play dungeon treasure crawls so somekind of level/dungeon/level rarity isn't important for me. Depending on setting, I just change around what Items exist/don't exist

In fairness high-end athletic gear isn't exactly rare in our world because we live in a technologically advanced, globalized and highly industrialized consumeristic society (at least till the supply chain completely collapses), where mass production is a thing. But even then the newest Nikes probably cost around ten times as much as some cheap ass bargain sneakers.

Well in the past shoes where simply worse. Even a master cobbler would make shoes generally worse then the ones in common day with less advanced materials. But even if in a post apolalypse where nikes didn't decay for some reason, they would not be worth bagillions, and stored in dungeons.

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6165
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #80 on: January 27, 2022, 01:19:28 PM »
Consider what these bonuses represent.

When professionals are willing to WRECK their bodies to get 1% incremental benefit to physical performance... a +1 sword is a 5% increase.


Eric Diaz

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1115
    • http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com.br/
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #81 on: January 27, 2022, 01:25:39 PM »
As an aside, +1 weapons can represent non-magical (or not explicitly magical) things too. In Westeros, for example, Valyrian swords are better against the others (like, for example, silver might be), but also better against other swords. These are usually not for sale; however, "castle forged" swords (a bit better than "usual" swords) might be.

In 4e Dark Sun, IIRC, weapons made or iron were +1 or more when compared to usual weapons (made of bone etc.)!

For all 5e's fault, I like the limitation of about +3 for most weapons. It is relevant but not game-breaking IMO.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 01:27:26 PM by Eric Diaz »
Chaos Factory Books  - Dark fantasy RPGs and more!

Methods & Madness - my  D&D 5e / Old School / Game design blog.

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #82 on: January 27, 2022, 02:21:23 PM »
The random tables effectively determine rarity.
I mean in a really roundabout way that takes allot of time I suppose. But its annoying to customize because you have to adjust every item %-wise if you want an items to exist or not.

Its fun for quick treasure drops or item shop generation, but as a general rarity rate, I would say no.
It's trivial to extract. I have them all in a spreadsheet, and it only took me a couple minutes. But you're correct it's not very user-friendly.

The point I was making was that an explicit rarity system would be useful, and we can derive the start of one from those tables. The four categories (common, uncommon, rare, and very rare) used to represent AD&D's monster frequency are a good baseline, and since they're associated with explicit percentages, we can sort the items by (percentile) rarity and group them in 4%/11%/20%/65% blocks. Using that method on the tables in the B/X Expert Rulebook, here are some typical items in each rarity group:
  • Common: sword +1 (including some with extras, like flames on command), armor +1, shield +1 or +2, potion of gaseous form, scroll of protection from magic, ring of protection +1
  • Uncommon: sword +2 or +3, armor +2 or +3, shield +3, mace +1, potion of control undead, most treasure maps, ring of invisibility, staff of healing, bag of holding, gauntlets of ogre power, elven cloak and boots
  • Rare: sword +1 (wishes or drain life), bow +1, axe +2, ring of djinni summoning, snake staff, wand of fire balls, crystal ball, rope of climbing
  • Very rare: mace +3, ring of regeneration, staff of power, flying carpet, girdle of giant strength
Obviously that could use some tweaks, but it's an interesting start.

Another advantage of having a rarity is it makes it easier to create magic items tables on the fly. AD&D2e had a good approach, with the 2d10 wandering monster tables. Instead of trying to force everything into a single table and throwing frequency to the wind, you can create a small table where the very rare items only show up about 4% of the time, and common items show up about 65% of the time.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2022, 02:52:22 PM by Pat »

Shasarak

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4032
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #83 on: January 27, 2022, 04:00:36 PM »
Consider what these bonuses represent.

When professionals are willing to WRECK their bodies to get 1% incremental benefit to physical performance... a +1 sword is a 5% increase.

DnD Professionals can only get 5% incremental bonuses if they read magical fitness books.

Buying new shoes just aint going to cut it.
Who da Drow?  U da drow! - hedgehobbit

There will be poor always,
pathetically struggling,
look at the good things you've got! -  Jesus

Shrieking Banshee

  • Narcissist Undead
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2507
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #84 on: January 27, 2022, 09:43:21 PM »
When professionals are willing to WRECK their bodies to get 1% incremental benefit to physical performance.
Real world percentages don't corrolate to game mechanics very well. And the context for athletes like this is very different.
It's trivial to extract. I have them all in a spreadsheet, and it only took me a couple minutes. But you're correct it's not very user-friendly.

Everything takes time mon. For consumer goods they have the 'left handed oil test' and for games I have the '3 minutes to game and engaging the PCs at the same time test'.
But your idea of some centralized rarity system with a roll could be neat for randomized games, and does seem to be easier to impliment.

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #85 on: January 27, 2022, 10:57:24 PM »

But your idea of some centralized rarity system with a roll could be neat for randomized games, and does seem to be easier to impliment.
Since I have it in a spreadsheet, it's not hard to randomly generate a couple sample tables. Let's see, the template:

2d10   Frequency
2   Very rare
3   Very rare
4   Very rare/rare
5   Rare
6   Rare
7   Uncommon
8   Uncommon
9   Common
10   Common
11   Common
12   Common
13   Common
14   Uncommon
15   Uncommon
16   Rare
17   Rare
18   Very rare/rare
19   Very rare
20   Very rare

Two random tables:

2d10   Randomly Generated Magic Item Table 1
2   Efreeti Bottle
3   Armor +3, Shield +1
4   Armor +2, Shield +3
5   Spear +2
6   Wand of Negation*
7   Sword +2
8   Potion of Control Human
9   Sword +1, flames on command
10   Scroll of Protection from Undead
11   Scroll of Protection from Lycanthropes
12   Treasure Map: location of 1 magic item
13   Potion of Invulnerability
14   Potion of Diminution
15   Treasure Map: location of 5d6 x 1,000 gp value and 5d6 gems
16   Broom of Flying
17   Spear +2
18   Armor +2, Shield +3
19   Ring of Regeneration
20   Horn of Blasting

2d10   Random Generated Magic Item Table 2
2   Ring of Wishes, 1d3+1
3   Brazier Commanding Fire Elementals
4   Broom of Flying
5   Wand of Metal Detection*
6   Ring of Djinni Summoning
7   Sling +1
8   Treasure Map: location of 1d60 gems and 2d10 pieces of jewelry
9   Potion of Invulnerability
10   Spell scroll: 1 spell*
11   Spell scroll: 1 spell*
12   Potion of Speed
13   Potion of Clairvoyance
14   Ring of Control Plant
15   Ring of Delusion
16   Sword +1, wishes
17   Sword +1, wishes
18   Wand of Cold*
19   Ring of Spell Storing
20   Brazier Commanding Fire Elementals

Couple repeats, though no plain Sword +1s, which is unusual given my earlier tests (8% shows up a lot).

The basic problem is frequency is not sufficient for categorization. Level isn't a factor in the random tables, but it's clearly a factor in the magic item distribution in the modules (no efreeti bottles in the Caves of Chaos, for instance).

Persimmon

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 727
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #86 on: January 30, 2022, 09:38:26 AM »
By the way, I did let them buy their healing potions and 1 bag of holding.  I ended up sticking another bag of holding in the dungeon.  And once they got to the second stage of the adventure, the healing potions really started getting used.  They were sucking them down like college kids drinking beer at a frat party.  I had visions of a healing potion funnel with the other party members shouting "Chug, chug, chug!"  Now they're further on and far from civilization so any help they get along those lines must come from their plunder and their recently hired cleric....

tenbones

  • Poobah of the D.O.N.G.
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 6165
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #87 on: January 31, 2022, 04:04:57 PM »
Consider what these bonuses represent.

When professionals are willing to WRECK their bodies to get 1% incremental benefit to physical performance... a +1 sword is a 5% increase.

DnD Professionals can only get 5% incremental bonuses if they read magical fitness books.

Buying new shoes just aint going to cut it.

Right - but I'm trying to show the commensurate costs vs. reality of what these things mean. Then you need to figure out how your world would express that?

In this case Magical Fitness books - how prevalent do you want them to be? What are the controls on that? How is that expressed in your setting and game? Too much and you may as well make it that it's part of Char Gen where parents get these books for their kids when they're little to help work that farm, do the books for the family business etc so at Char Gen in your magical society everyone gets +1 to a Stat.

HOW are these things made? This also has downstream effects that I think sandbox GM's should consider. if you're just running modules it's probably less of an issue. What's involved and who are included in that production stream? And more importantly - can those things be made into gameable content?

I've had whole side adventurers where players discovered what they thought was literal ancient goldmine they broke into from exploring a cavern only to find out they had broken into the King's secret gold mine they used to produce currency. Hijinks ensues. But it stands towards making mundane realities of your setting matter - and if it happens to be magic items, to the point where they can be bought in stores, then consider how/why that is and flesh it out and make it interesting.

Sanson

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 50
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #88 on: February 01, 2022, 04:28:24 AM »
   It really depends on the setting, if it's a low-magic setting i usually have almost no way to buy or
sell magic items (and given the rarity, the players will generally want to keep them). 

   Currently i'm playing a 1e AD&D Greyhawk campaign, which is fairly heavy on the magic items,
in most large cities spell components are generally available, along with a few potions (generally priced
at 80-150% of the DMG price depending on reaction rolls and the personality of the merchant.)

   Other magic items are almost never sold, and when you do find one for sale it'll usually be almost
double the cost found in the DMG.  (for something like Magic Swords, Feather Tokens, things like that.)

   That's about as far as i like to go with purchasable magic items, never ran a campaign in the forgotten
realms but if i had, i expect i'd have had to put a magic emporium on near every city street. 
WotC makes me play 1st edition AD&D out of spite...

Pat
BANNED

  • BANNED
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • ?
  • Posts: 5252
  • Rats do 0 damage
Re: Stance on Buying Magic Items
« Reply #89 on: February 01, 2022, 12:29:00 PM »
   Other magic items are almost never sold, and when you do find one for sale it'll usually be almost
double the cost found in the DMG.  (for something like Magic Swords, Feather Tokens, things like that.)
Complete tangent, but I always wanted to run a campaign with only the weird magic items. None of those +1 swords or elven cloaks, just feather tokens and figurines of wondrous power from the DMG, eyes from EPT, de-orientized versions of magic items from OA, and so on.