Article: Low Level Magic Items as Treasure

[Arcane Springboard]

You can view the page at http://www.loremaster.org/content.ph...ms-as-Treasure

[gaming tonic]

This is another one of those many things that is a guideline for a game but you should feel free to switch it as is appropriate for your game. I love the mechanic that you have suggested as well as it seems to keep the spirit. I typically run a lot of inherent bonus games so that I can sprinkle in the magic I want, when I want, how I want. Lower level items rarely cause me worry or frustration, although you can get caught with an unexpected whammy from time to time. It is funny that we as a group praise Lord of the Rings as the foundation for lots of our fantasy gaming but shy away from emulating it in so many of our D&D games because we fear game balance over game enjoyment. When I was a player (which rarely happens in my group) in a Scales of War campaign, my DM gave my archer ranger a Phasing Greatbow +3 at 6th level. Far ahead of when our party should acquire such an item. It was an artifact to us. It allowed some cool moments in the game but didn't tip the scales. I had no extra hp, surges, defensive capabilities, but what it did allow was great story. Like Lord of the Rings, an inexperience hobbit acquires a magical ring and adventure ensues. I almost loathe the idea of PC's buying magic items in any campaign by the way. It doesn't excite me or my players. I honestly don't think that from a story-telling aspect many like it. Not much fantasy fiction represents it and if it were popular then somebody would write it in a book sometimes. I could be wrong as I often am.If it is an item of lower level that isn't going to just completely muck up my campaign for some reason then have at it. The rules are yours to get you started and give you guidelines. From there you are free to let your imagination and creativity take your game to where you and players decide it should go. Great piece, I think it has a lot of talking points, obviously.

[Darth Jerod]

This was a great article. I am still of the old school of D&D where magic items were given out by the DM and not placed on some wish list. They did not have levels and I did not totally worry about magic items tipping the balance or being to mundane for the players if they thought it to weak for their characters. I am of the group who looks at the parcel system as a way to just hand out the treasure in the game with no reflection of the type of campaign you are running. If you are running a world with low magic, as RAW is written, does not reflect that. I try to reflect the magic items in my game as more of heirlooms passed down in the families, local treasures that ancient wizards or warlords possessed to awe the surrounding populous. My group of adventurers at level 6 right now have an artifact sword of dangerous power that just killed an immortal servant of the Raven Queen. A plot device or like the soon to be had rules in MME, a story item. I also use something I thought of way back when I first started thinking of my campaigns. In all of the D&D games I have ever played in, once you got a magic item it seemed to stick with you for a long time. My 16th level cleric/ranger still has his twin +1 short swords and his masterwork great bow with Strength bonus. I got the swords at 5th level, they work for me still. When I decided on this new campaign back in April I decided that the magic item levels with the players. That it lags behind them be one level unless they seek out a ritualist who can speed up the process, a Quest and twice the cash cost for the item representing reagents and such increase the items enchantment. Obviously the players have not taken me up on this option yet but they were promised an spectacular adventure if they did. I guess at some point I just decided to use the RAW as guides to be as rigid or flexible as I need them to be depending on the situation. I used to let the letter of the law stop me in my tracks as a game master. At one point, heck I still do it, I wanted to incorporate every new rulebook into my games and then worry that it was messing with my established game and it will quickly kill it as I ran it and tried to recon anything that messed with the additional new material. If the rule serves the purpose in my game it is there, even if at some point I chose to ignore it. Your suggestion is very interesting and it getting printed out and handed off to some of the young players in my game who want to be dungeon masters. I think it will be very helpful to them as they will eventually hit this snag for sure. Thanks for this article.

[Arcane Springboard]

I think that giving the players a really powerful magic item is a great idea. One of my irritations with 4e (and one that isn't going to be fixed until a new edition comes out) is that the enhancement bonuses are factored into the math...which means that they really aren't 'bonuses' but are just to keep up.

Thanks for the comment.