Magic Items - Finding & Creating Them, Real Value

[Jerry Mapes]

On another board a conversation has been going on about what it should take to create magic items. The methods, costs, means of the different versions of the game vary greatly. But in 1e there is a good set rules that make it an adventure in itself to do so.

But what it takes to make simple items (by example in the DMG) looks way over the top when you begin to consider if it takes so much for so little what would it take to create something really big.

This is a quote from the other board

But based on those examples, which you would probably agree require a great deal of dangerous resources be obtained for a simple, weak magic item, what would a major magic item require. I mean, if a winpy scroll of protection that gives a few turns of magic requires facing no less than four magical and deadly foes and can only be harvested a handful of times a year (pumpkin seeds during the lunar eclipse), then what do you do for a Frostbrand or a Cube of Force? If you escalate the ingredients proportional to the power then a Staff of Power would require parts of a hundred different creatures from ten planes. One use magic items usually are not of great enough value that a wizard would expend so much effort to obtain the ingredients, making them the rarest magic items rather than the most common. And if more powerful magic requires even more powerful ingredients, then there would only be a dozen magic swords in the world, not the thousands of +1 swords most DMs introduce after 4th level.

In my NOT SO HUMBLE opinion, I think this quote hits on a very important idea in AD&D that has been lost, misconstrued, or simply ignored.

We are familiar with Monty Haul games where there are thousands of +1 swords after 4th level... hell somtimes before 4th level, with the KMART Magic Shoppe approaches, etc. etc.

So what is the Value of magic in AD&D? Are we really still Monty Hauling when we think we are moderating the magic level to a nice flow?

I dont care for low or no magic games so dont get me wrong. But this got me thinking seriously about the amount of magic in games and how often and how it is gained.

I may be off base here, but it always seemed to me from the reading of my first OD&D boxset thru AD&D that magic items were rare and precious finds/creations. The more powerful the item the rarer and more precious. That there shouldnt be a hundred Staves of the Magi out there, or a score of Staves of Power, etc. A +1 sword might be uncommon and there might be a thousand of them out there, but a Flamtongue or Frostbrand would truely be rare and less than 25 or 30 avaialble across the whole Flaness. A Holy Sword is as coveted as the Holy Grail yet we see nearly every Paladin with one by 5th level. This is crazy!
A single relegion might have made a handful at one time or another but surely not all survived. So really how many could there be availble? 10? 15? 25?

I dont naysay finding items in lost dungeons. But how much magic of any kind should really be made available in an adventure/campaign.

In my campaigns only the most basic of scrolls, potions, rings, swords, and misc magic can be found while the PCs are less than 4th level. By 3rd level they will be LUCKY to find a +2 weapon or Wand of magic Missiles.

Is this too stingy? Where is the real balance of magic in a game? It jsut seems to me that in too many games magic is made available far too easy, and as for AD&D... as the versions progressed the more the Wal-Mart mentality came to the forefront and has rebounded back into AD&D 1e.

[mistere29]

Well since i started with 2e i've always been rather stingy and regerted it since discovering really D&D. So it's hard for me to say what an appropriate.

Just to be clear are we talking about all the magic in the campaing, or just the stuff outside of dungeons.

[Jerry Mapes]

Inside as far as what is found and how much.

Outside as far as what is made for, traded for, purchased.

Yeah its a broad scope. But it seems far too many times in the games ive played and read about here on the various forums across the www, that its just as likely to find multiple high level magic items in low level dungeons as it is finding a kmart magic shoppe in a village.

I mean sure, there is always that chance that a Staff of the Magi is hidden away in that old secret wizards lab under the abandoned castle. But more often than not "hidden" means laying on a table in the middle of a
room on a fancy staff holder, highlighted with accent lights, 3 neon signs flashing "take me", and a HUGE "X" marking the spot that it lays on.

Sure there is a chance that a blacksmith in the village of Hole-in-the-wall, who is the cousin of the brother of the sister-in-law of the former devoted follower of Bob the 15th level Paladin, was entrusted by the family to keep and guard the Holy Avenger since his family had swore service unto death to Bob the now deceased Paladin years and years ago. But why does it seem in every bloody game any LG aligned fighter or low level paladin that happens to be passing thru town means that the blacksmith will pull them aside with a *nudge nudge* *wink wink*... " 'av i gots the sword for you... "

Or the PC Cleric that just happens to come into the same village the next day; there the local chapel that can barely scrape up two coppers to feed the priest and his assitant just happens to have a Staff of striking, 5 different kinds of protection potions, 10 potions of healing and 10 of extra healing, a couple rings of protection, and oh yeah, that +2 Plate maile & +3 mace.
Nope its all yours for a bit o cash, no strings/geas/quests attached.

I mean come on.

Is this really how it was all intended?
If that be the case then we might as well adopt the dumbarse 3.x rules and just let PCs make thier items on the fly.

[mistere29]

well gary was never stingy with the items. there are some +1 items on the first level of castle greyhawk. but all the good stuff was deep in the lower level locked away behind hidden passages and guarded by the toghest monster and traps.

as far as outside the dungeon, i don't think anything was meant to be availble. Looking for magic and gold is the focus of the game so why let them get it for nothing.

[Rob]

Magic in my campaigns isn't what I would call rare, but it has to be EARNED. Nothing comes easy for the players, and under no circumstances do I allow them to buy magical items except in the largest, most prosperous cities. Even in these cases, they may find a +1 or +2 sword, but will generally have to pay so much for it that they'd rather go take on that pack of wights, etc..

I think that items are hard to create for a reason, and that being game balance. If every mage were able to whip up a +2, or even +1 sword in next to no time, it would make adventuring a complete waste of time. I think certain items should be relatively easy to make, such as scrolls and potions, but anything that's going to be a lasting item should cost the PCs dearly. Where's the fun in having the group mage whip up a Vorpal Blade after X number of ingredients are gathered and he spends X number of months enchanting the sword?

I've found that most of my players seem to enjoy the idea of having to earn their gains, and I can say from experience that being able to claim that +1 sword after defeating untold legions of undead is one gratifying feeling!

One of the biggest mistakes I see, is that DMs tend to have magical swords, staves, wands, etc. just lying around on piles of gold coins, while the intelligent monster said items belongs to simply ignore them and attack with claws, bites, and so on. Our group found a Vorpal Blade, but the cost was considerable. The DM rolled it up, and decided that if we could claim it, we'd earned it. Wielded by a 10th level fighter, that weapon did some serious damage (3 members decapitated) before we finally brought the fellow down. Just so you good folks know, in all the years we've been gaming, we've found 2 Vorpal blades, 0 Holy Avengers, 2 +4 Defenders, and a +5 Defender. We've also found numerous other, less potent items, but you get the idea.

One thing I like to keep in mind as a DM, is the saying "Easy come, easy go." If you feel your players have rather too much in the way of magical items, well, Red Dragons, Beholders, evil spell casters, and so on do wonders for keeping those over confident players in check. ;D If that Staff of the Magi was just lying around when they found it, well, perhaps a very high level thief makes good on his attempt to steal it when the group mage goes off to relieve himself?

[AxeMental]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there is only one right way to distribute magic in AD&D, and the answer is unpredicatably. This game is designed to feel as real as possible. If things begin to feel like "rules" not only does it sap the fun and spirit out of the game, it cuts at the very foundation of what it's supposed to be about: that anything can happen because to the player things are distributed about the same way they era in real life, unpredictably.

Sure, I make magic rare in my games usually, but I don't hold fast to this every know and then placing magic in places it might get dropped etc. Also remember magic isn't usually apparent, so that it would be common for magic to be floating around unknown to the owner. Not unlike that rare coin with a flaw worth 100k that passes through several hands a day never being realized for what it is until one day some guy sees it and says, hey this side of the coin is crooked etc.

The point is constantly mix it up, and doing this with a dice is the way to do it. Make magic common (this is a magical place and game after all with lots of MUs makeing stuff and then dieing generation after generation), just put it in places that might be missed. Predictability is the death of this game, and should be avoided at all costs. Hell, look at the original modules, some had a ton of magic, others made it very rare. As DM follow that design concept, and remember those players with alot of magic are usually the first ones to get careless and die. The best scenario would be for my players to not think of magic in any terms except neat stuff. There should always be a chance that powerful magic might be found (rep. in the random treasure tables), but that it should be rare and inconsistant, there should never be "never". Also remember that too much magic on a regular basis tones down the personality of the players developed in there stats and class choices. Also, magic should be part of your PCs personality (thats the character with the ring of invis., thats the guy with the +3 shield etc.) and that making it too common and undistinct (the every one has a dozen +1 swords and daggers by 4th) perhaps it should be sometimes this is the case, ohter times no one has it, its just random...just like in real life.

As for the cost of making things, generally the more powerful the magic the more it should cost in money and things. However, once again this should be somewhat random. Every now and then some things that are weak should take alot to create. This is part of the unpredictability, things don't happen in real life in a predictable manner, sometimes it takes alot of work to do some easy task, and some difficult tasks seem to fly. It generally works one way, but not always. There should always be that small chance that anything is possible in RPGs, and your players should see this. Otherwise they start to feel cheated.

The thing that BUGS me most about those DMs that want magic to be very rare,(ie. no one ends up having it) is that they are taking away from one of the key elements of the game: the personality and ownership of a character is developed through magic ownership. EGG new this, (hell look at the Hobbit, Bilbo finding Sting and the ring of invis.), these things create that something special that all PCs at some point need. Magic can still be kept rare and a challange to get, but for Gods sake don't be stingy, these PCs don't have long to live afterall. ;D

[PapersAndPaychecks]

My personal rules for magic items are as follows:

1. I personally hand-design every magic item found by my players (exceptions: potions and scrolls.)

This avoids the "Oh, it's just another sword +1" mentality. If I do include a sword +1 in my game, it'll have some unique feature (often only a process, such as inflicting an additional "shocking grasp" or "sleep" spell as well as rolled damage if the wielder rolls a natural "20" to hit), a name, a description and a history so I can convince myself that this is a new and unique discovery for the players.

2. I include a LOT of magic items. The Spider Farm, an adventure which ought to take one evening to play through, has five or six magic items iirc.

However, I don't necessarily expect the players to find them all. Some are very easy to obtain - "gimmes", I call them - but some are easter eggs that need exceptional luck to find, and some are between the two.

I'll admit to reusing magic items that don't get found.

3. Each magic item is generally low-powered (three exceptions: lowbie magic-user items are often designed to boost the M-U; high end thief items are often unreasonably powerful in comparison to those of other classes; and my magic shields usually get extra plusses because I feel the AD&D rules undervalue shields in general.)

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Forgot to mention the P&P "square root law" of magic item distribution.

The "square root law" goes like this: A monster or NPC cannot have a magic item with more plusses than the square root of its level.

This sounds technical, but it isn't. What it means in practise is:-

+1 items can be found on 1st level (or 1HD) or greater critters
+2 items can only be found on 4th level (or 4HD) or greater critters
+3 items can only be found on 9th level (or 9HD) or greater critters
+4 items can only be found on 16th level (or 16HD) or greater critters
+5 items can only be found on 25th level (or 25HD) or greater critters - this basically means uniques, custom-written monsters, certain ultrapowerful liches and vampires, etc.
+6 items have never yet been found in my games no matter what Gygax might have written in UA. However if one were to exist it would have to be placed on a nominally 36th+ level (or 36+ HD) critter.

[AxeMental]

P&P, do you not use the random treasure tables found in the back of the DMG then for determining magic? Admittedly I do something similar. For instance, if I role some mega artifact or powerful sword for first level PCs I will either take the next object or rerole on that table.

I also think its an excellent idea to create in minor detail each magical object. Even if this just involves a unique description and posbl. some very minor side "power"(your examples seem a bit powerful so that would be rare in my games). It might be a good idea to keep these powers and names secret until examined by someone who could determine this, or through use.

[PapersAndPaychecks]

P&P, do you not use the random treasure tables found in the back of the DMG then for determining magic?

I really try not to use the standard tables for any kind of monster encounter or treasure. I try to handcraft all the treasure and most of the monsters/NPC's; for cases like random encounters where it's necessary to have some monsters or NPC's determined by a random table, I write a customised table for that adventure or area of the world.

I also always try to link random tables, where I use them at all, to a roster or other list which defines the total maximum of any particular kind of creature or treasure in a given area.

[AxeMental]

It's amazing how little of the magic items we have really used.

You know, some of these magical items are massive and occur on the tables open to random treasure type. If you think about it individual players could become way more powerful then the rest of the group. I think this disregard for game balance (a party not being too powerful for a dungeon or one PC not being more powerful then the others) is refreshing. It should remind all that this game isn't about game balance, it's about chaos adventure and having fun. After all if a 2nd level fighter finds a sword of sharpness once in a blue moon, whats the big deal. As it has already been pointed out you can role treasure type before the battle and arm the monster leaders with the "good stuff" (if appropriate).

[foster1941]

That's the way we used to play back in the early days -- I remember some of my characters had really powerful magic items at low levels -- one character had a Rod of Lordly Might, another had a ring of x-ray vision, another had a suit of +3 or +4 plate-mail (I remember being extremely distressed when this was lost to the Giant Magnet Trap in module A2). In later years, when I took over DMing, I went the other way and made sure all the magic items were 'balanced' and carefully placed with an eye towards their future usefulness (i.e. replacing a scroll of protection from devils with a scroll of protection from lycanthropes if I know there are lycanthropes and not devils later in the adventure), etc. but lately I've been swinging back in the other direction, more towards random/organic/unbalanced placement -- if he's lucky enough to find it and figure out how to use it and is able to keep it why shouldn't a 1st or 2nd level character be able to have some outrageously powerful and unbalancing magic item? Sure it might make some 'level-appropriate' adventures too easy but that should balance out eventually as the character gains XP faster and quickly levels up to the point that he's back in balance. And there are self-balancing issues too -- characters who become too dependent on their magic items to see them through will tend to become lax and careless, and sooner or later they're going to get caught without those items (or in a situation where the items don't help) and we'll see how well they cope then...

[AxeMental]

Every now and then I like to make a low level game where some orc or Kolbold is playing God because they found some great magical item. However, to go up levels the group will usually sell it (as the rest of the randomly roled up treasure sucks).

[foster1941]

AxeMental said:

Every now and then I like to make a low level game where some orc or Kolbold is playing God because they found some great magical item. However, to go up levels the group will usually sell it (as the rest of the randomly roled up treasure sucks).

Yeah, that's a classic fantasy trope and one I've had fun with myself. In my last dungeon one of the encounters the players never got to (on dungeon level two) was a hobgoblin lieutenant/sub-chief who had somehow managed to find a ring of human control and a wand of wonder and used those items to set himself up as 'hobgoblin king' with a devoted (read: charmed) group of 20 or so follower hobgoblins, in a state of war with the 'main' hobgoblin tribe (of 60 or so members) on another part of the level. I'd love to see how the players would've dealt with this situation, and if I ever create a new dungeon I'll probably recycle this idea.