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Old 09-12-2020, 04:33 PM   #11
Skarg
 
Join Date: May 2015
Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

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Originally Posted by Petrovski101 View Post
It seems there's nothing in the rules against combining enchantments with fine quality weapons.

As a new TFT GM, I'd like to know what is typically seen for weapon bonuses in your typical game (if such a thing exists). Is it common to see +1 to hit, +7 damage magic swords or is that merely the stuff of legends?

My primary concern is "breaking" the game by letting weapon bonuses get out of hand.

I haven't crunched the numbers yet so maybe the $ value of fine, enchanted weapons at this level of power make their existence exceedingly rare.
* Fine and enchanted weapon effects do stack.

* Since enchantments are expensive and rare, it tends to makes sense to enchant fine weapons rather than ordinary weapons (assuming fine weapons are available).

* Magic weapons and other magic items can easily overshadow the abilities of characters if they become common in a campaign.

* Magic items can tend to get out of control in a lasting campaign unless they are rare and access to them is limited by much more than the base listed prices. PCs will tend to accumulate them, never let go of them, and if they can buy new ones, cash in the ones they accumulate to get really powerful ones. So even if you think you're "only" making a few limited items available to loot, if the PCs keep surviving and can easily cash them in and buy whatever they want, for the listed prices, their equipment will soon make them able to fairly easily overpower most normal people in the game world. The balance and focus can shift away from tactics, numbers, and hard-earned abilities, to who has the best toys getting more and more powerful.

* +4 and +5 enchanted weapons shouldn't be common at all. They're expensive and require a lot of enchanter time to make. The demand for them from wealthy and powerful people would tend to be high, driving up the price and rarity further.


After a couple of years experiencing playing with magic items pretty available, I adjusted the expense and availability of magic items a lot.

I reinterpreted the costs so that the base cost for W/A Enchantment, taking into account for example that getting more than one or two enchanters at a time to be available to work on an adventurer's project is probably not often available, and since if you don't have enough enchanters available, that multiplies the time to enchant, and there may only be so many labs available, which the enchanters may wish to charge for, then even if you can find some enchanters, the lab costs should probably be added in.

Also because of market forces, enchanters would realize that magic items, especially ones that appeal to many powerful people, such as enchanted weapons and armor, are no doubt sellable for rather more than the listed price, and in terms of both money and favor from powerful people (see the Selling Magic Items section of ITL for a taste of that, but I take it further for something like magic weapons, since princes and governments are in the market for them).

That is, if a enchanters make a rare and desirable magic item, and could either charge the minimal list price for it, or auction it and let the most powerful and wealthy people in the community know it was available, which would they logically do?

Can't the PCs do exactly the same thing with all the looted magic they have? If the GM wants to indulge that fantasy, sure. But I don't think it should tend to work, both for balance and play/fun reasons, and also for logical and cultural reasons. Partly because adventurers aren't merchants, and even if a PC has Business Sense, and they probably don't have the same established business and social connections that the Wizard's Guild does, and in fact the Wizard's Guild and the local government may well use its legal/social/market/actual powers to regulate/dominate magic item sales. And even if the PCs do have an accepted trade position to sell magic items not at a market disadvantage, someone like a prince or guild master is in a position to bid not just money but money and other types of favor that can't be bought but that has great real value to sellers.

For example, if you're a respectable established magic item trader who as something for sale, and you can sell it either to a scruffy adventurer, or to a Guildmaster or local prince or high priest or other local high-status person with the ability to ongoingly make your life either much more or less pleasant/profitable/safe, which are you liable to prefer?

So not only would PCs find themselves at a disadvantage in buying and selling magic items, but when they do sell magic items, they might find that part of the reward is not cash but some sort of in-kind favors from powerful people. Which not only helps avoid a Monty Haul revolving door arms race situation, but also can lead to rather interesting adventure/campaign situations.


And even with all that in play, after a few more years' play, magic items were still dominating play, which we didn't like because the PCs and their allies and worthy foes were so much more powerful than others and none of us liked the results. Magic items were overshadowing the rest of the game and making the game balance more about comparing magic toy collections than people, situations and tactics.

So we came up with elaborate magic item breakdown house rules that had people carefully choosing when to use magic items or not, instead of always using everything.
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Old 09-13-2020, 04:40 AM   #12
Petrovski101
 
Join Date: Sep 2020
Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

I don't want magic items to eclipse other aspects of the game... I plan to keep them on a short leash.

I don't have the play experience to revamp magic item creation costs. Instead, I will rely on GM "hand-wavium" to manage it.

Thanks all for the great feedback.

Pete
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Old 09-13-2020, 09:40 AM   #13
larsdangly
 
Join Date: Dec 2017
Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

If you want to keep alive the idea of a market for items but don't want to deal with revising costs, I suggest you just enforce the rules for finding a seller for a given item. They are pretty restrictive; unless you have someone in the party with a very high IQ it could take months to find what you are looking for, and even then who's to say they will feel compelled to offer it to you at nominal market price with no strings attached?
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Old 09-13-2020, 10:06 AM   #14
Dominator
 
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Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

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Originally Posted by Skarg View Post
...
After a couple of years experiencing playing with magic items pretty available, I adjusted the expense and availability of magic items a lot.
...
Thank you for these considerations, good stuff.
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Old 09-14-2020, 07:31 AM   #15
Shadekeep
 
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Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

A late chime-in to concur with the opinion that these do stack. Fine weaponing is a bonus due to manufacturing, whereas enchantments are extra damage-causing magical effects on top of the weapon's physical attributes. If you really want to go hog-wild, stack the flaming weapon enchantment on top of that, then coat with a phial of weapon poison.

Personally I tend to make massively enchanted weapons expensive and quite uncommon, but that's just a personal preference. For legendary weapons I prefer to create ones which were made by old lost magics (or by Mnoren or demons) and which cannot be recreated using the currently known roster of spells. This makes them truly special items.
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Old 09-20-2020, 02:31 PM   #16
Anomylous
 
Join Date: Jul 2018
Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

Something I haven't seen mentioned, though maybe I missed it while skimming: Magic weapons already have a limited number of uses - they break if you roll an 18 while attacking! (Less of a chance to break if they're also finely made; yet another reason why, if you're going to put all that time into enchanting something, you should start with a fine weapon. See ITL p. 123)

My plan for handling magic items: they're not available at the local magic shop, and Weapon/Armor enchantment over a +2 is rare, because of the expense. NPC's may have useful toys if their job/background justifies it, but probably won't sell. PC's might occasionally obtain magic items by looting them off the enemies that just tried to kill them with said magic items, but if players want to buy a specific item, I'll enforce the "finding a seller" rules, and then ruthlessly exploit the opportunity to drag them off on yet another quest. Conversely, selling items may be difficult - my setting is lawless enough that chances are excellent a prospective customer may decide to use a Five-Finger Discount... or Battleaxe Discount, as their inclination may be.

Also, there are various magic-item-destroying hazards, enemy wizards with Lightning being the first that comes to mind.
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:04 PM   #17
hcobb
 
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Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

The magic items that never break have the Staff V enchantment on them, so steal these first.
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Old 09-20-2020, 03:39 PM   #18
Helborn
 
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Default Re: Do magic bonuses stack with fine weapon bonuses?

Immunity to Break Weapon - even though there is no listed cost - should not be prohibitively expensive. Cheap enough for the 1 in 1296 chance for a +2 Damage weapon.
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