Magic Item Questions

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Zombizzle

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So, are MIs like weapons with regard to the tag being more important than the physrep? As a rogue, could a character steal the MI tag and therefore "steal" the MI. Can a non-rogue find an MI tag and then find the MI?
And finally, if someone drops the tag to a "Spirit Locked" MI, did they just drop the MI and is it up for grabs?
Last question, can an MI be sold with a Merchant skill?
 
If there is a physrep with a magic item number on it, the physrep is the item. You are not supposed to use the rituals on the item without also having the tag as proof of knowledge of the rituals.

If there is no physrep with the appropriate magic item number on it (as might be the case with a suit of magical armor), you will want to discuss how to handle finding the tag with your local rules and plot committee.

Magic items may be sold for their production value, provided they have a standard production card (so, say, a long sword with 20 rituals on it can be Merchanted for 3 silver).
 
And just to answer the specific question... if someone drops a tag for a spirit linked or spirit locked magic item, you should turn the tag over to a marshal. The item *can't* be dropped.
 
Zombizzle said:
So, are MIs like weapons with regard to the tag being more important than the physrep? As a rogue, could a character steal the MI tag and therefore "steal" the MI. Can a non-rogue find an MI tag and then find the MI?
And finally, if someone drops the tag to a "Spirit Locked" MI, did they just drop the MI and is it up for grabs?
Last question, can an MI be sold with a Merchant skill?
Click to expand...

We use the word tag interchangeable. The weapon tag is a purple tag. If you wanted to take the weapon you must take both the rep and the tag. Weapons don't have a number that tracks them (unless they are magical) like MIs do, that is why most of the time if you have the Tag (purple, some times other colors as well) you have the weapon (but can't use it unless you have a rep). With MIs, the yellow (again most of the time, I have seen white and green) laminated tag represents the knowledge of what the item does and "how to use it". Owning the yellow MI tag is meaning less w/o the rep. The rep is the item.

Hope this helped.
 
Colors should probably be left out of explanations, IMO. Plenty of chapters do it different and I can tell you that purple isn't any color we use, nor would yellow be an MI. Chapter colors are specific and including them can confuse the issue.

The physical representation of a magic item will have a number on it, usually a letter and some other numbers. This number corresponds to the tag. The item is the item. The tag just tells you what it does.
 
Inaryn said:
Colors should probably be left out of explanations, IMO. Plenty of chapters do it different and I can tell you that purple isn't any color we use, nor would yellow be an MI. Chapter colors are specific and including them can confuse the issue.
Click to expand...

You know how we could not confuse the issue? If all chapters used the same colors. I know it's not required but it sure would help when conversations like this come up.
 
Fearless Leader said:
Inaryn said:
Colors should probably be left out of explanations, IMO. Plenty of chapters do it different and I can tell you that purple isn't any color we use, nor would yellow be an MI. Chapter colors are specific and including them can confuse the issue.
Click to expand...

You know how we could not confuse the issue? If all chapters used the same colors. I know it's not required but it sure would help when conversations like this come up.
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Sure, and I'm sure plenty of players would love the goblin stamp opportunity from the paper donation and tag cutting time it would take to reprint tags for various chapters who don't match whatever list of colors the owners came up with for us to use.
 
For a more unified system, I'd do it for no gobbies.

Of course I'd also support a unified nobility system within the rulebook so that I don't have to worry about upsetting the wrong person because instead of wearing a white belt with four points on his circlet, he's wearing a blue sash with an Onyx earring.
 
markusdark said:
For a more unified system, I'd do it for no gobbies.

Of course I'd also support a unified nobility system within the rulebook so that I don't have to worry about upsetting the wrong person because instead of wearing a white belt with four points on his circlet, he's wearing a blue sash with an Onyx earring.
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If it will truly help, I'd help for no Gobbies as well.

As for the nobility issue, I'm going to have to emphatically disagree. Each chapter can be home to several different nations, each with their own customs and manner of dress. These are things that you FOIG at the local level when RPing with nobles from other lands within your own chapter and you should FOIG (most likely by using the dream realm) before you visit elsewhere, if you're concerned about that sort of thing. It's the same in the real world when you go visit another country: it would behoove you to find out a little about their customs and courtesies before you even buy a plane ticket.

-Luke
 
Fearless Leader said:
You know how we could not confuse the issue? If all chapters used the same colors.
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You know what wastes a lot of money? Colored paper. And card stock. I've got no idea why so many chapters swear by card stock tags; it rains at 80% of our events, and we don't have an issue with tags disintegrating. (Though I noticed at national that some people wore them on something attached to them, rather than keeping them in a pouch or something, which would never work in the NW, so maybe the card stock is nice for those people?) Anyways, the card stock tag thing is pretty irrelevant now with the battle board system, but colored tags has always seemed like a complete waste of resources. I've never heard of a really good reason justifying the added expense.
 
clear tape makes tags waterproof on weapons and magic items
 
A purple card stock costs maybe 5 cents at the most and can print about 8 weapon tags, making each tag less than a penny.

An orange one costs about the same and can print about 40 elixir tags.

Most of the time, players are more than willing to donate these things for goblin stamps (as has been pointed out above).

Seriously, I can't believe a chapter is worrying about these kinds of costs.
 
Mike,

Perhaps this is something to be discussed for codifying? It sounds like a neat idea, but at the moment there *is* no given standard for tag colors. In SF we use green, blue, yellow, and/or white tags, depending on the application. It sounds like some chapters may use purple and/or orange in addition, and may or may not use some of the others. At the moment both are acceptable, yet without a standard neither could be deemed officially "correct".

Should such a standard be put into place I'm sure we would have no shortage of help in implementing it; that's not really a concern. However, we did just put a lot of time and effort into restocking our current lot, and I suspect it would take more than a "hey this might be a good idea" to get people to go through it all again.
 
Fearless Leader said:
A purple card stock costs maybe 5 cents at the most and can print about 8 weapon tags, making each tag less than a penny.
An orange one costs about the same and can print about 40 elixir tags.
Most of the time, players are more than willing to donate these things for goblin stamps (as has been pointed out above).
Seriously, I can't believe a chapter is worrying about these kinds of costs.
Click to expand...
It's still wasted money. Whether it's an extra $5 or $50, it's money that could go to better places than "Woo, my sword tag is purple." Plus, card stock is harder to cut, harder to hole punch, and takes up a lot more space. I don't know about your volunteers, but mine appreciate it when I make their jobs easier, not harder.

I don't want to ask my players to donate colored paper. I don't want to have to deal with worrying about whether a particular color of donated paper is blue or green when someone brings a ream of teal paper to an event. If someone wants to bring us paper, that's great. It's hard to screw up 'white printer paper,' and it's cheaper, and it's multipurpose. I'd rather have the money that my players are willing to donate go to things that improve the game, and having periwinkle gas globe tags doesn't do that.

There's a big difference between "each tag costs less than a penny" and "ten tags cost less than a penny." Even then, it's not the tag cost that's the root problem, especially when the paper is being donated, it's the attitude that you're willing to waste someone else's money for no good reason that I take issue with. It's disrespectful to the people who are supporting your game. Eliminating waste goes a long way to increasing the amount of money the chapter ends up with at the end of the day, which is more money the chapter can dump into things that do matter.
 
Zombizzle said:
So, are MIs like weapons with regard to the tag being more important than the physrep? As a rogue, could a character steal the MI tag and therefore "steal" the MI. Can a non-rogue find an MI tag and then find the MI?
And finally, if someone drops the tag to a "Spirit Locked" MI, did they just drop the MI and is it up for grabs?
Last question, can an MI be sold with a Merchant skill?
Click to expand...

Ahem, back on topic as this has already been answered, (hopefully we can move our card stock discussion elsewhere folks?)

To Steal an MI you need to steal the rep, bring that to monster camp to get the tag, depending on the rep the owning player has the right to request the rep back and you would then have to provide a new similar rep. (Doing so means that player gives up the right to recognize that particular item by it's unique look by policy however) Dropping the tag means nothing and you should turn any lose tags into monster camp.

Finally yes, an MI can be sold to logistics by a PC with the merchant skill, however you only get the base value from the item, which ranges from 1 copper to infinity million depending on what plot sets it's value to. (Indeed we've dropped some once ever weak curatives on items worth oh so much more in the past) The point is the enchantments add no value to the base market value you get when using merchant, so generally this isn't worth as much.
 
What one considers a waste of money another may consider improvements to the game. It is a perspective thing. For myself, I'd much prefer thicker paper so that the tags aren't always tearing off of the ring or folding and tearing just by being in my pocket or bag. Not to mention, sure paper costs less but now add in the cost of 'laminating' it with tape and the price goes back up.

Doing a quick search online, a sheet of 20lb white paper costs 1.2 cents each and a sheet of purple paper 1.7 cents each (in other words, White ream=$5.79, Purple=$8.49). Neither of which are card stock thickness. That's 65lb and that goes for 2.8 cents a sheet ($13.99) [[numbers taken from OfficeMax]]

Now could that $2.70 be better used somewhere else? Maybe. But personally I would enjoy being able to tell my tags apart simply by color. This would also make treasure sorting and identification of potions/scrolls/alchemy much easier too. Not to mention looking into a treasure hoard, you can tell by color what this guy has been hoarding. In addition, a marshal could see from afar when a person is pulling out of a pouch and handing someone a half dozen swords. :)

Meanwhile I have seen donations and purchases that games have made that, again a perspective thing, would have been better spent on making and cutting tags.
 
The OP question has been asked and answered, I would like to remind our posters to please stay on topic, and to remind our posters that you can always create another thread.

Thread closed.
 
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