Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 67 - Making Magic Items Feel Special

Episode Date: April 4, 2021

Magic items are supposed to be these powerful relics that can make your PCs harder, better, faster, and stronger (we'll miss you Daft Punk).  So why does it feel like most players react with, "Oh, another +1 scimitar."  How do you make magic items feel special in your high-magic or low-magic campaign?

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for tuning in to episode 67 of the Taking 20 podcast, all about making magic items special. This week's sponsor is A&A Purchasing. Need an OLED RFI'd PDQ? RSVP to A&A. Have a topic idea for me? Send it to me at feedback at taking20podcast.com. Also, don't forget our contest for a $50 Amazon gift card. To enter, send me an email to contest at taking20podcast.com. No spam, no further contact from me, no begging for money.

I just want to say thank you for listening and hopefully subscribing. Magic items or whatever the game equivalent solution is in your world, can be just another piece of loot or game-changing equipment that tips the balance of power in your player's favor. DMs, you have to decide what role magic items will play in your world. Are they pervasive and crucial to your character's advancement in power to deal with the challenges ahead? Or are they rare and mighty, ancient and wondrous, prized and treasured?

Your answer may very well depend on the game system that you use. Historically, in Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, 3.5, and 4th Edition, magic items were freely available to buy, sell, and trade. The assumption is that all characters will have access to magic items as they advance through their levels. You could buy them for the full listed price and sell them for half. It was a great way to make cash, loot the magic stuff and sell it to save up for the new magic item or new mount or that fishing boat your characters always wanted. Pathfinder follows these rules as well. In the base rules, magic items of Pathfinder are more or less available for purchase pretty freely.

rules, magic items of Pathfinder are more or less available for purchase pretty freely. Starfinder also, magic and technology are so intertwined, and magic items are so readily available for all characters to purchase. One difference is that selling magic items in Starfinder is not profitable at all. You only get 10% of the value. You're almost better off storing it away in your starship in case you ever need it. But 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons follows the old advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition model, which was the complete opposite of Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 3rd through 4th editions. Magic items in 5th edition are assumed to be prohibitively expensive and generally not for sale. To quote the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide, Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so

rare that they aren't available for purchase. Common items, like potions of healing, can be procured from alchemists, herbalists, or spellcasters. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf. The seller may ask for a service rather than coin.

In a large city with an academy of magic or a major temple, buying and selling magic items may be possible at your discretion. So running your game according to this quote from the Dungeon Master's Guide has some positives and negatives. On the positive side and giving Wizards of the Coast tremendous credit for their decision, this rule tends to make it easier to treat magic items as these rare and wondrous and powerful things. But if players are looking for a particular magic item, they can't kill lots of things, earn gold by selling those crap magic items they don't want, and buying what they feel

like would make their character much better. But suppose you want to go the other way in 5th edition and you want to choose to allow magic items to be purchased. Well, 5th edition has the rarity system where magic items are rated as common through legendary and the Dungeon Master's Guide has price ranges for each given rarity level. It is a little bit problematic though. For example, the rarity system doesn't adjust prices for consumables. According to the table, a single dose of universal solvent and sovereign glue costs at least 50,000 gold pieces. You know what else costs at least 50,000 gold pieces? Plus three armor, a regeneration ion stone, or a rod of resurrection. Sorry, Bob. We'd resurrect you, but we burned all of our money gluing Mayer's shield to his forehead while he slept.

I mean, you're permanently dead and all, but your ghost can laugh and laugh and laugh as Bayer keeps bumping into walls because he can't see anything. Fifth Edition has a default system of magic item rarity and a feeling of being special baked into the system itself. Magic items in this system are more than just another form of loot. They're special items, and the DM may need to specifically place different items in the adventure to meet character requirements and desirements. Whether you run your campaign with magic items being common or very, very rare, what can you do if you want magic items to feel unique and special? Well, let's start with some tips. Magic items are always a balancing act. If you have too few, you run the risk of players becoming frustrated with their lack of power and lack of advancement.

If you have too many, magic items lose their luster and they're not special anymore. So you need to decide how common magic items are in your campaign world. See episode 63 where I talked about high magic versus low magic campaigns to get a little bit of a feel for that. Magic items could be bought and sold in every town. There's at least something available for sale. The consumables are available willy-nilly, and magic items become just another form of loot. Or you could have it such that only commonly used consumables,

like healing potions and maybe some scrolls, are available. You could have it where magic items are available if you know where to look. This is great when you have areas where selling magic items is illegal or it's very heavily taxed. Shops aren't readily available, but there are back alley and hidden locations that players can go to find magic items for sale. Another way you can look at the commonality of being able to purchase magic items would be they're only available from auctions and estate sales, or they're only available in designated periods of time, or museums, for example, when they get rid of their historical items. Or you could even have it where no magic items are available for sale, like the default fifth edition. Maybe then the only way you can get those magic items is to steal them. But one of the

things you do need to decide, regardless of how commonly magic items are available for sale, But one of the things you do need to decide, regardless of how commonly magic items are available for sale, is how prevalent the really powerful magic items are in your campaign. These are the fairly permanent things, or wands that can cast really powerful spells. If you have too few powerful items, whenever one does appear, whether the PCs or the bad guys have it, that side will have a significant advantage just by having this item. If there are too many powerful items, it can unbalance your game very quickly, so it is another balancing act you have to worry about. I'm purposefully being nebulous about what a powerful magic item is. In your low magic campaign world, a simple charm spell may be immensely powerful, but the same

spell in a world where magic is common, the wealthy and the elite may all have protection against such spells. So the below advice applies to whatever you consider powerful magic in your world. In general, the fewer powerful magic items there are, the more special they should feel to PCs and the more NPCs should react to their existence. If you're in a high magic world and everybody can cast charm person or everybody can cast dancing light, it's big whoopee. That's not really going to garner a lot of attention. But even in a high magic world, if someone brandishes a wand of flame strike that can lay waste to groups of people or even buildings, people will probably sit up and take notice and that will likely garner a response from the local militia. I mean, it's like the United States and

gun ownership. A large percentage of us own handguns or shotguns in some way. But if someone walks out on the street with a rocket launcher or flamethrower, that person probably will generate a ton of concern. Of course, if someone else showed up with a rocket launcher and they want to have a little rocket launcher exchange to try to take out the potential threat, now we have combat that can level entire city blocks. A wand of fireball or flamestrike, armor that gives resistance to magic, a heads-up display

that can use an internal AI to hack electronics. Those understandably will generate fear among NPCs who know the owner possesses these things and know that they're willing to use them. So you need to decide about these powerful items in your campaign world. How often are they brought to bear on the battlefield? Have realistic reactions by observers and set expectations among your PCs about how often these items of power will become available. Now how do you make them feel special, not just powerful? One thing you can do is customize the magic items that are given out in your campaign to some degree. Listen, we DMs love running pre-built adventures. I mean, they're the lazy DM's friend.

You don't have to come up with a theme or a bad guy or a dungeon map. You don't have to stock it with monsters and traps. The loot's already there in the dungeons, so all you have to do is open the book and go. Nothing wrong with doing that at all. If your world allows for easy purchasing of magic items, loot customization isn't nearly as important. The players can just haul their load of magic items into town, dump it on the counter, and ask, what do you give me for all this junk? But in a world where magic items can't be bought, it's important that you customize the

loot that players get for kicking that troll into the pool of acid. If they can't find their desired magic item in monster loot, they may never get it. So look at the loot that's there and replace a few items with things your players have expressed an interest for. Look for loot that's approximately equal in power. Sure, changing a plus one full plate in the adventure for plus one leather armor might be less on the rarity scale, but if your rogue has wanted plus one leather armor and can use it, would they really complain all that much? Probably not. To make these items feel special, give them a name. It's not a wand of fireball, it's Palax's incinerator. It's not a plus one longsword of greed, it's Fortune's bobble. They're not gloves of storing, they're

Sander's gloves of providence. The name could even be just the activation word imprinted on the side of the device. I don't care if you call it Bob's furnace on a stick. The name like that makes this wand unique and different from the hundreds of other fireball wands that are out there. Who knows? The players may grow attached to the device just because of the unique name and want to keep recharging it. There are a ton of random generators online that can help with some of your naming conventions, so Google's your friend here. But not just a name, give very powerful magic items a history. You don't need to know where this item has been during its entire 217 years of existence, But think about one to three major events

that a good skill check may be able to reveal about the item. Who used it last? Who was the most prominent user? What were the biggest narrative events that happened because of this magic item? For bonus points, tie it to events and places that matter in the adventure you're running. Guys, this is the harp that Inara used to make the Emperor of Blackdale fall in love with her.

She drove the Empire into ruin after she murdered the rightful queen. Right, we know she's here somewhere. Let's fan out. The Dancing Bow, according to legend of the Overcast War, it fights beside you, pumping arrows into your enemy while you're fighting them. of the Overcast War, it fights beside you, pumping arrows into your enemy while you're fighting them. With this bow, Korg Trueye was able to hold the pass of Mara Phonet for two days by herself. By giving items a history, you're introducing a sense of wonder to these items that would get lost with a it's a plus two bow. To make magic items feel special, you can consider crafting adventures for your PCs to upgrade their items so they grow in power as their owner does.

If magic items are rare, consider allowing the PCs to either learn how to craft magic items themselves or work with skilled artisans to make the item or items they want. Make it a quest to discover the formula needed to create the item or upgrade it. More quests could be about collecting the ingredients or reagents needed to create these items, and be creative in what you pick. I mentioned in an earlier episode that I ran a character in a low magic campaign a long time ago. Rather than handing out magic items, our characters slowly discovered the ingredients that we needed to make our existing items better. Silk from a sword spider, volcanic sand, the tentacle of a phase squid. And please note, that's tentacle with an N, not an S. Getting a squid to give up a tentacle

is hard enough. I don't think any of us had the diplomacy to convince this squid to give up a testicle. If magic items could be created in ancient times, ancient libraries, scrolls, or areas where this knowledge could be squirreled away may be a convenient method of discovering how to craft these new items. Information could be given from a deity. You could learn it from an ancient race like elves or dragons. Another way a character could discover this is it could be learned by experimentation or accident. There are craft rolls on characters off weekends during downtime, and eventually the character rediscovers an ancient lost method. Another thing you can do

to make magic items feel special is to give magic items unique descriptions. Runes that are carved into the bone blade that seem to always fill up with blood during combat. A hilt wrapped with supple leather that seems to grip the wielder's hand like a soft handshake. A wand made of redwood and darkwood intertwined with one another, with the word Paranaka written on the side of the wand in a silvery metal. Descriptions like that capture the imagination much better than plus one falchion, short sword that gives bonuses against disarm attempts, and a wand of color spray. As you're thinking about the descriptions, consider who made the item.

Did the item come from a high magic and high technology realm from the past? If so, it might look pristine and perfect thanks to well-defined manufacturing processes, and it might have what looks like electronic circuitry embedded into the device. Was it made by relatively primitive undersea tribes? If so, it might be made of fish bones, rare undersea minerals, and shells. If it was crafted in a strong monarchy in the past, there might be an image of whoever was the ruler at the time somewhere on the item. Unique descriptions reinforce the special nature of magic items. So give descriptions to powerful or important items that you definitely want to call your player's attention to.

Another thing you can do is give magic items flavor effects to make them feel special. Flavor effects are things that don't have a numerical effect on the game system, but are just there for a bit of uniqueness and character. Have that wand of ice bolt cause little snow flurries to blow around the wielder whenever it's used. The magical armor when it's first put on adjusts itself to fit the wearer comfortably. The ring sizes itself up or down depending on the size of the wearer. The item glows when it's used or gets hot or cold when it's used, or the item always looks a certain way,

no matter what the PCs do to it. That wand of plant growth always has little green sprouts and flowers growing out of it. If the players pick one of the flowers, it grows back or gets replaced within a few hours. Or one of my favorite flavor effects, have the item say something when used. The item's not intelligent, and it doesn't have a mind of its own, but it's almost like it's replaying a recorded message. A spear that when you pull it out in the presence of orcs, it says loudly, Yeah, orcs can lick my shaft! in orcish. Giving these little flavor effects doesn't affect the game in any way numerically,

but it makes the item feel special and unique. If those boots of striding and springing automatically lace themselves up the first time a character puts them on, that will automatically garner attention from the player, and it may make them feel even more special. The last section I have is about artifacts and intelligent items, and I am out of time to talk about them. There's just way too much here.

So I'm going to make this a separate episode. Artifacts and intelligent items will be episode 70, so look out for that in a few weeks. Magic items can be made to feel special and unique in your campaign. They don't have to be just these numbers on a page or brief descriptions. That's just like every other item that gives the same type of game effect. By making them unique, putting a little bit of effort into them, and maybe even using a random generator online to generate a description for these items, you can make them feel different in your world,

unique, and once again make them feel special, whether you're running a high magic campaign or a low magic campaign. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. Please like, subscribe, and rate us wherever you found this little podcast. I once again want to thank our sponsor, ANA Purchasing. Need a BPA, CAL, IAW, 1122, FISMA, and FOIL? ANA can CYA. This has been episode 67, Making Magic Items Special. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game.