Magic Items

Tyson said:
Time for my thoughts. (Too bad, suckers.)

A good point was brought up that nobody complains about potions and scrolls being better than the spellcasters casting those spells. Reason being, that getting the rep out and having to read it/administer it is time consuming and inconvenient. Having to simply say "Activate Blah!" while the item can still be in your pouch or even down your pants is rediculously convenient and fast.

What if all "activate" items (I know there's a proper term for it) required the item to be touched by hand during the incant? If you could wear it as a pin or affixed to your clothing, you'd just have to spare a hand for a moment. If it was something you kept in a pouch, then you've got to dig for it a bit. (Or at least shove a hand in the pouch since you're probably everything in there.)

It's still more convenient than a potion/scroll. Not to mention an x/day item is reusable and not a one-shot consumable. But it makes it more than the zero-concentration effort it is now, where you can be swinging, blocking, doing a cartwheel, etc. and still produce the most powerful battle magics in existance.


Also, I think that you'll never have "fightin' skills" feel as replaced as spells do now, unless you have x/day Skill Store items. If all the "activates" were times ever deals, you would not have people talking about "pocket scholars" because you couldn't replace a 4-column with 9 different 4/day activate items. I'm not advocating either of these as good ideas, just to illustrate the frustration that people feel when every aspect of being able to cast a spell is as good or better performed by an item.
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There called "flaws". One such flaw we had required you to "sing"the activate, another was it must be worn on the outside of your clothes, and yet another required you to hop on one leg before you used it.
 
Yeah, I know some items have them. But most of them don't, and that makes them too convenient. I should have included that in my previous post.
 
I have not seen a flaw in a while....now I am not saying they dont have them anymore but in the last 10 magic items I have found NONE have had flaws....some were necro, but no flaws.
 
Octaine said:
I have not seen a flaw in a while....now I am not saying they dont have them anymore but in the last 10 magic items I have found NONE have had flaws....some were necro, but no flaws.
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Come to Caldaria... plenty of 'em here...
 
Personally, I would like ritual casters to be able to personalize their flaws.

"Must be held to activate"

"Must be worn to gain effect"

"Must recite X when resetting" (arcane armor)

"All speech must rhyme while item is on person"

and a bunch more. :)
 
First, I'm all for limiting the number of items you can carry. Magic items should not need an utility belt for easy access.

Second, bearing the first in mind I'm all for magic items requiring a form of attunement to use- that is, the item has to have time to get used to it's new bearer- a process that takes least a week's time. No more highlevel people handing people an arcane arsenal powerful enough to obliterate a midlevel module...at 2nd level. Unattuned items (owner perms, newly created items, etc.) would immediately link to the first creature with a spirit that touched them (living, undead, whatever) and would have to be reattuned if someone else wanted to use them. Just give people a card listing the item numbers of their "attuned" items, filled in when you're at Logistics and only alterable by a marshal (for when a player gets something new IG).

Magic items are neat, they're fun, it's awesome being able to invoke cool stuff or bash the BBG with your enchanted sword. But sometimes I think too much really is too much.
 
Octaine said:
I have not seen a flaw in a while....now I am not saying they dont have them anymore but in the last 10 magic items I have found NONE have had flaws....some were necro, but no flaws.
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Most of the items I put out (Unless its very weak) have some sort of flaw. Sometimes not much of one, but other times a very annoying one.
 
Kauss said:
Most of the items I put out (Unless its very weak) have some sort of flaw. Sometimes not much of one, but other times a very annoying one.
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Something about Magic Carpets comes to mind...


I've been trying to come up with different ways for quite a while now for casters to be able to Personalize/GuidedFlaw items towards what they wanted.

It never made much sense to me that you can't *intentionally* make Items only work under certain conditions, no matter how many scrolls you've cast, no matter how many levels of Formal Magic you have... you just can't, because there isn't any way in the rules to make it happen that way.
 
Why would you want to add a flaw...unless it was something like (insert name) is the greatest caster, or something to that affect. I, in no way would want to hinder my friends or my self if I made an item.
 
Then that would be the advantage:

If you find or gobby the item it's flawed. If you make one in-game you have a chance for it not to be flawed. It just so happens that all the random casters out there making the items the goblins are carrying aren't very good so their items always flaw.

Making it so that you had to have a free hand or touch the thing or whatever would certainly make items less convenient than they are now. I'd rather find a caster to do a prison for me than have to hold on to an item for say, 10 seconds before I can activate it.
 
Adding flaws makes the item unique and nifty. For instance, create an item 2/day prison with the flaw "Must state 'Gilwing is awesome!' before activating"

Or, a particularly racist caster could make all of his items only useable by his race. A ritualist could make an arcane armor that requires a ribald lymeric in order to reset it (Seattle had an AA shirt that required this). Or, make a pair of items that must both be worn in order to use either of them. Or, whatever. It adds a significant amount of RP flavor to the ritual process.
 
Is below what your talking about for restrictions

=================
Name: Delimit
Target: Item
Duration: 5 Days
School: Celestial or Earth (scroll must be marked as one or the other)
Components:

This formal magic Delimits the use of an item based on race, profession, gender, ability to perform a skill, or general experience. Only those who match the Delimitations upon the item may use the item.

The caster decides what the Delimitation put on the item is at the time of casting, the options are:
Only usable by a male, Only usable by a female, Only usable by a (fighter, rogue, scholar, templar, adept, scout), only usable by someone with the skill <x>, only usable by someone under <y> level, only usable by someone over <z> level, only usable by race <q>.

If there is more than one Delimit on an item they both take effect, for example an item only usable by elves or dwarves, not an “elf-dwarf”. This formal magic may be used to allow use of an item limited in use by formal magic flaw.
 
Somewhat, yes. I was hoping for a more elaborate way of adding creative limitations, but that sums up the basics of what I had in mind. I'm not sure how I feel about making this effect a seperate scroll, though, due to the requirement of more components and it takes another spot on the ritual limit...
 
What Jorundr posted is the start of what would work for what I'd prefer to call Personalization, rather than Penalization... I don't think that intentionally placing limitations on a magic item is a penalty if you're doing it on purpose.

If it was put in as a scroll like there is above, it'd be a good start though I don't think it should take up a slot ritual-wise (Since it creates flaws, in essence).

Though there's more things that'd be good to have the ability to swing it towards... Flaw a Door-mat to have to be stood upon to activate, a shoe to be worn properly (Or improperly) to be used, additional incants for activatables... Plenty more things are out there than there are on a character sheet, really.
 
What I meant by flaws had more to do with the way it's used, not who uses it, though I do think it might be cool for players to be able to create an item only usable by their own race, gender etc.

I just think that items should be harder to use than they are, without taking them away entirely. If we were re-wrote the game I'd do things differently, but making items that people have totally unusable just makes people upset. I have no objection to them being harder to use however. A person should always be more valuable than a trinket.
 
Im a big fan or pre-requisites to use an item.

In my perfect world all +3 swords and higher would be limited like "Only usable by people with a +7 or less proficiency"

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In that same breath I'd LOVE to see cursed items re-added to the game

Negative Damage Aura.
Reduced Strength items
Items cursed so you had to wear them / not put them down
Armor that make you take double damage from XYZ
Take Double Damage from XYZ as a base ritual
Blunt Claws (claw dmg reduced)
Slow (cannot use the dodge skill)
Magic Dead (cannot use activated items)

etc etc
 
do you mean +7 or more?

Because +7 or less, is just about everyone.

Except for Straight class fighters, and even then I think its probably about half that are in the 10+ club.
 
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