Magic of Yore

[KevinJ]

Technically, the "Rule of Five" determines how powerful an item a player can make and helps to create a form of balance. But nothing says that an item made by a god or in the ancient past when magic worked differently can't break that rule.

I have a couple of game worlds where a magic has been restricted after a historic event. In each there still exist items from the time when magic was 'more powerful' than it is in the current campaign. While not 'artifacts' in the D&D theme or in the Cidri vein, they are still considered magical artefacts because no one can make them any more.

Has anyone else done this and how did it work out for you?

[ecz]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

Technically, the "Rule of Five" determines how power an item a player can make and helps to create a form of balance. But nothing says that an item made by a god or in the ancient past when magic worked differently can't break that rule.

I have a couple of game worlds where a magic has been restricted after a historic event. In each there still exist items from the time when magic was 'more powerful' than it is in the current campaign. While not 'artifacts' in the D&D theme or in the Cidri vein, they are still considered magical artefacts because no one can make them any more.

Has anyone else done this and how did it work out for you?

In my world a backfired attempt to use an ancient mother-of-all-spells enchantment of a lost civilization changed the magic.

a sort of magic atomic explosion in the inner plane modified the inherent essence of magery and made harder the creation of new magic objects.

Now magic is restricted in the sense that everything needed for magic item creation is doubled. ST/$/time/ingredients. All doubled.

This helped a lot to avoid an annoying inflation of magic items.

Per RAW access to magic was too simple and cheap in my opinion. I had or increase price for magic, or reduce the income of the players.

I acted in both directions ;-)

[JLV]

That would also work well for something like fitting the TFT system into the Banestorm world -- the Banestorm fundamentally changed the magic flow so that only the spells for TFT now work there...

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by JLV

That would also work well for something like fitting the TFT system into the Banestorm world -- the Banestorm fundamentally changed the magic flow so that only the spells for TFT now work there...

Well, inj one world the magic acopalypse is refered two as Skyfall and the Sundering. The historical event was brought about by a group of heroes who overthrew the evil empire by dropping a meteor onto their yearly meeting, thus, Skyfall. This also caught the attention of the gods who were not so attentive and to stop this from happening again, they changed how magic worked, the equivalent of the normal magic system, but restructured to my liking.

In my current game (which is TFT) the magic apocalypse happened hundreds of years ago and magic basically went away. Only two of the PCs have spells and they are the only two people in their entire race who can cast spells. The are other races who have magic, but it has been limited (for the storylines sake) up till the present day. The "grand quest" will involve stopping a madman from opening a portal that will allow The Outsider to once again invade the world.

[zot]

Originally Posted by KevinJ

Technically, the "Rule of Five" determines how power an item a player can make and helps to create a form of balance. But nothing says that an item made by a god or in the ancient past when magic worked differently can't break that rule.

I have a couple of game worlds where a magic has been restricted after a historic event. In each there still exist items from the time when magic was 'more powerful' than it is in the current campaign. While not 'artifacts' in the D&D theme or in the Cidri vein, they are still considered magical artefacts because no one can make them any more.

Has anyone else done this and how did it work out for you?

Yes, we ran a year-long campaign where the characters searched for interlocking bands foretold in prophecy that, when combined together, provided (I think) a plus to DX (or maybe ST?) that went higher than +5, something like this: +1, +2, +4, +8. They were unique items and the subject of a quest. I think after they got the final band, there was a huge boss battle (or there was supposed to be) but I'm hazy on that part. I also can't remember whether we even finished the campaign or what happened (or was supposed to happen) to the bands afterwards.

I'm pretty sure the character at least got the part that raised the attribute by more than 5. Only one of the characters became the "hero" of the story, wore the item, and got the advantage but none of the other players were jealous, we all just had fun with it.

I don't remember how the selection happened or whether it was made by the story or by the characters.