Okay, what I want to achieve is a world where items aren't just "a +1 longsword of frost", or "banded mail +3 of moderate fortification", but rather "Liandiel, the sword of the winter chill, forged by the elves in secret to escape their subjugation by the red dragon Mantakalasa", or "the Iron Hide of Jonah Agardssen, hero of the third war against the Drow".
I see two ways to achieve this:
Firstly, limit the power of an item based on the power of the legend behind it. So, a character with Craft Magic Weapons and Armour can't just churn out a hundred suits of chainmail +1 - he needs to add meaningfully to the legend of an item before he can increase its potency. Oh, and items need to be named, of course, or else they don't have any power.
Secondly, give characters a break on the crafting costs associated with creating items if they can associate the item with great deeds. So, a character who wishes to create a longsword +2 of shock might travel to the home of the god of lightning, and ask him to personally bless the weapon. In return, in addition to whatever XP he gets for the quest, he gets to add 10% of this to the invested XP in the item. (So, if his quest to see Zeus grants 2,000 XP, that's 200 less he has to spend on the item.)
This would, of course, be coupled with a restriction on the Identify spell, and a corresponding empowerment of the knowledge skills and the bardic lore ability. Rather than having Identify give out the power list of the item, it would instead reveal the name of the item, and some of the legend behind it. Judicious use of Knowledge skills, Bardic Lore and, failing that, sages would reveal the rest of the legend. Naturally, the legend should also include mention of the activation methods of the items, or else the whole thing falls apart.
I would suggest not implementing anything like this for items of limited charges - it would really suck having to individually name potions - but would consider expanding it to include any item with non-standard powers, or any item of especial significance, not just weapons and armour.
What do you think?
This sounds very much like Earthdawn. Maybe you can have a look there how they handled it. My memory is rather hazy about the whole affair. I think you have to research the legend of that particular weapon and the more you know about it, the more and stronger magic threads you can weave to the weapon creating a stronger connection to the characters soul granting him more powers of the weapon and so on and so forth. have a look at it if thats sounds like waht you imagined. but I really like the idea. that is one thing that annoys me as well. I always prefer a +1 weapon with a very cool story around it than a plain +3 one.
ReplyDeleteArchived comment by Andrew:
ReplyDeleteI've always had this problem with D&D magic items in that powerful one's rarely (if ever) had a name or legend behind them. If the DM has time to come up with convincing legends for the setting then I'm all for it. Maybe this should be limited to the more powerful items in the game?
Archived comment by me:
ReplyDeletePart of the problem, and the reason that magic items tend not to have legends associated with them, and so forth, is that magic is simply too ubiquitous in D&D campaigns. Consider this: by the time they reach high level, the PCs are becoming the most powerful beings in the campaign world. Unless your campaign has an Elminster figure, they may well be the most powerful characters in the campaign world, and even if there are others of comparable level, the others are usually involved in ruling nations, heading religions, and pesky things like that.
What this all means is that the burden of creating powerful magic items almost necessarily falls to the PCs. Now, spin forward a few hundred years. The PC group is long dead, and the next group of heroes are finding the items that they left behind. Clearly, the only items that they can find are the ones created by the group who went before, since they were the only heroes with time to create their own powerful items.
Now, the problem: how many magical items does the typical group create? In fact, how many PCs take even magic item creation feats? By which, I don't mean Brew Potion, Scribe Scroll or Craft Wand, but things like Craft Magic Arms and Armour, Forge Ring, and so on.
From what I've seen, the answer is "very few". Craft Wondrous Item is taken, because it's so incredibly useful, but even then the number of items crafted remains paltry.
So, who created all these powerful items that PCs keep finding?
I should point out that I have absolutely no problem with the existence of powerful magical items, nor with PCs having and using these items. Where I have a problem is that they become commonplace. "Oh look, another five +2 swords. Throw them on the pile."