Mischief Managed (controlling magic items in your game)

[TippetsTX]

Spinning this off another thread in the main forum in order to focus on house-ruled solutions.

Originally Posted by David Bofinger

As a weaker form of eliminating magic items, what if we replaced the Rule of Five with the Rule of Two, or One?

I've been thinking about implementing a THREE enchantment limit, but that still doesn't address the escalating proliferation of PC-owned magic items that Skarg mentioned although it does decrease the overall power-levels of said items. One element that I have added to my game is a spell that allows magic items or weapons to be 'attuned' to a single user. The enchantment can sometimes be broken, but it isn't a guarantee.

[Steve Plambeck]

I think we may need a Rule of Three (or less!) for limiting the number of threads on the same topic this forum can sustain at one time!

Maybe that we come back to this over and over shouldn't be surprising, as I just counted 21 pages in ITL devoted to magic items -- that's nearly 13% of all the rules! Viewed that way, it must be the largest single topic in all TFT.

That seems horribly skewed to me, but then my background is play in a campaign world where we barely allowed any magic items at all.

And that, in a nutshell, is the simple solution for controlling magic items. Forbid PCs from making or buying their own. Treat the spells for creating such items as "lost knowledge" unavailable to PCs. Those that turn up in your world can only be introduced as ancient, rare artifacts by the GM. And each one works exactly as the GM designs it, and only for as long as the GM allows.

I'd prefer a rule book that reallocated those 21 pages to explicating options and game mechanics in greater detail, but I suppose not even a Greater Wish will get us that.

[Shostak]

I really don't think any new or alternate rules are necessary, other than a rule of thumb: make magic items consumable. Once one has been used n times, the enchantment is gone.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by Steve Plambeck

I'd prefer a rule book that reallocated those 21 pages to explicating options and game mechanics in greater detail, but I suppose not even a Greater Wish will get us that.

In which case I suspect we would have the same amount of forums posts (but probably with different authors) about the lack of magic items rules :)

Personnaly, I prefer having a rule and not using it than the reverse.

If you want to avoid the proliferation of Magic Item in your games, it is easy enough to solve, as you said. The GM decide.

[Skarg]

We added magic item breakdown rules about 1985, which we liked quite a bit and I have used more often than not in GURPS as well over the years. But they are more complicated than many TFT rules, so I don't expect they'd be popular.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Skarg

We added magic item breakdown rules about 1985, which we liked quite a bit and I have used more often than not in GURPS as well over the years. But they are more complicated than many TFT rules, so I don't expect they'd be popular.

I'm torn by this idea. I don't particularly like the complexity it would add, but it does support one of the core themes in my campaign, namely the impermanence and general unstable nature of magic on Cidri. Greater magic items (known as incarna) have been the exception to this rule, but I would probably prefer if even those had a limited shelf-life. Just need to experiment a bit more with the concept to find a less burdensome way to keep track of enchantment decline.

[TippetsTX]

What about magic items with prerequisites?

Not sure how I would implement it, but I like idea of having some items only work if the character has achieved a particular milestone or proven themselves 'worthy' in some way.

Has anyone else experimented with a similar approach?

[Skarg]

The prereqs I've seen and used were:

* Some items need a wizard to use them (mainly when it grants some sort of spell-like effect, which seemed to make sense because they involved that kind of spell-controlling mind set, and/or because they were very powerful effects).

* Artifacts that required some sort of behavior or religious alignment or rules for who they'd work for or something.

* Enchantments that involve the user's abilities to control, such as requiring attribute rolls or talents or willpower or something.

But no, not things like you have to be a 38+ point character.

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by Skarg

But no, not things like you have to be a 38+ point character.

That's not necessarily what I meant by 'milestone' though I could see using an XP requirement for certain very special items (reflective of the character imbuing something of the 'self' into the item's magic).

On the other hand, I do use my 'tiers' (which are based on AP totals) not as a prerequisite, but as GM guidelines to determine what power-level of magic item is appropriate as treasure. For example, single enchantment weapons would be a top-end reward for a NOVICE tier character while a VETERAN might score a weapon with up to three enchantments on it.

(somewhat similar to the categories suggested by Axyl here... http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...2&postcount=18)

[Skarg]

I actually think the opposite with regards to treasure, except when it makes sense as a natural consequence.

That is, I want situations and what might be findable in them to be natural to the game world. Novices might naturally tend to avoid places with powerful magic and/or be killed by rather than to get to loot them, but I wouldn't just have powerful things not exist anywhere near novices.

And if I were caring about balance, a novice finding a powerful magic item doesn't worry me as much as a very capable character with the same item, because the novice will tend to still have flaws and vulnerabilities, while the very capable character will probably be able to pull off stacking it with their other abilities etc to be more problematic. The novice may also tend to be noticed by more powerful people as having more wealth/magic than they can keep from being robbed of.