| MisterSinister (talk) | |
|---|---|
| Date Created: | 13th October 2010 |
| Status: | Incomplete |
| Editing: | Please feel free to edit constructively! |
Chapter 3: Equipment and Enhancements
Items are a major part of who you are in DnD, and we want to have cool items to define our characters. However, the base DnD system spends so much time being concerned with getting 'even bigger bonuses' that a lot of cool and interesting items (which are overpriced to begin with) end up falling by the wayside in the race for numbers. Additionally, thanks to the body slot system, characters are encouraged, if not outright forced, to cover themselves in as many items as possible, while making wearing more than two rings impossible. Since these aren't things we want, they need fixing, and this chapter does exactly that.
General Rules
These rules apply to a large part of everything in here, and so have been put before specifics regarding items.
Wealth By Level
This is a system that has done more to ruin the size of dragon hoards than ever before. As money directly converts to vertical advancement, dragon hoards of large size now turn into Evian bottles of gold coins. Additionally, thanks to these guidelines, presenting lakes of molten silver, giant gold statues and gem-studded caverns to the party becomes problematic, as this just leads them to attack the setting with crowbars in an attempt to gain asymmetric power. None of this leads to a cool or fun game, and thus, wealth by level has to go. For good.
Wealth by level is gone. Treasure tables available in the DMG are still fine, though, with a little adjustment at the top. (check this later)
New Item Classifications
A +3 sword in the core DnD rules costs your weight in gold. Carting around this much money, and indeed, any sane economy actually being able to absorb it given the rules, is simply asking too much. Additionally, the amount of accountancy magic items require, when combined with wealth by level guidelines, just becomes ridiculous. So let's simplify this the hell away. Since wealth by level is going away, we need a new system of organization and power labelling anyway.
Items are now divided into three broad categories, based on how powerful they are and what they can do, as well as how available they are in general.
Minor items are the most common and weakest magic items. They have a maximum gold piece cost of 4,000, and are freely available to purchase in any place that has sufficient gold in the economy to hold up such a trade (more notes here).
Medium items are less common and more powerful. They have a gold piece cost ranging from 4,001-15,000, and are available only in places of sufficient size (more notes here). While they can be bought with gold or gems, only the truly powerful can afford to have these, and even then, they're nearly always specially-made.
Major items are the most powerful, but also the most rare. They have a cost of 15,001gp or more, and cannot be bought with any sum of money ever. They are nearly always one-of-a-kind or specially-made, and can only be obtained by finding, making, stealing or trading for them, using other items of similar power or favours.
Item Slots
The 'body chakra' system used by DnD encourages all the wrong approaches to magic items. While on the one hand it makes being covered in a zillion items to fill every body slot a good thing, on the other, it means that people who want to wear three rings, or two crowns or something similar are out of luck. Neither of these is very desirable, and so it's time to fix things a bit.
You may use four continuously-active or use-activated items at any one time. You can, of course, carry more, but usage and attunement limits restrict you to four simultaneous items working for you at once. See the (section name here) for more information.
These items can be of any sort you can physically wear or wield. While somebody wearing two shirts or suits of armour is a bit silly, four rings or two crowns or whatever is totally fine.
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