Tag: item

October 28, 2008

Real Magic Items: creepy magic weapons

Back in the day, everyone wanted Blackrazor, the nasty Stormbringer knock-off from White Plume Mountain. There were two other powerful magic items in that module of comparable power – the trident Wave and the hammer Whelm. Why the Blackrazor love? Some of it might have had to do with its form factor (a sword) and powers (soul-stealing). On the other...

September 26, 2008

Axe of Lovingkindness

Once upon a time, there was a kingdom at war. The king was a petty man, and the war was his plaything. He persecuted neighboring kingdoms for no other reason than to aggrandize himself. He cared little for the effects the war had upon his own subjects, and gloried in the death of his own soldiers – in the fact...

May 16, 2008

4e: Economic downturn

Earlier this week, Wizards posted a preview about the treasure-economy of 4e. As has been noted elsewhere in the blogosphere, it is rather rigid. I understand the reasoning. In 3.x, magic items make an enormous difference in terms of character power level… and, therefore, game balance. Today, the preview was specifically about magic items. One of the stated goals of...

February 25, 2008

Favored Weapons

One of those things I remember fondly from my early days of playing D&D was that PCs would sometimes end up using strange weapons (often tridents, for some reason) because they’d find some really good magical ones. Making (or commissioning) your own magical weapons to spec was prohibitively expensive, and most GMs I played with (including myself) didn’t make magic...

December 18, 2007

Magic Items with Purpose

I always liked the idea of intelligent magic items in D&D with special purposes. I appreciate that 3rd ed expanded the options to include things other than weapons. I was thinking, though… what if all permanent magic items had purposes? Maybe without a purpose, a magic item couldn’t sustain its magic. This wouldn’t require the magic item to be intelligent...

July 5, 2007

Many decks of things?

I hate the Deck of Many Things. OK. There are occasions when using it can be fun – usually when the GM puts his own interpretation onto the cards. I’ve seen a version of it show up in a Mage game where the the draws resulted in the start of a major campaign arc. Usually, though, the results of a...

June 28, 2007

Real Magic Items, Special WoAdWriMo Edition

Tonight we get a sneak peek from the Goblins of Gourm. The material enclosed in the box below is released via the Open Game License. Malachite Menagerie This item is similar in many ways to the Figurines of Wondrous Power. It consists of a small copper cage with three statuettes of animals inside it, carved from malachite: a badger, a...

March 26, 2007

Real Magic Items: The Magic Item Compendium

So, despite not really being able to afford it, I picked up the Magic Item Compendium this past Friday from Dragon’s Table. (…which apparently has a blog. Who knew?) I haven’t read through the entire thing in detail yet, but what I have read is pretty impressive. Here are some of my initial impressions: New Item Types(…which may have been...

March 15, 2007

Real Magic Items: why settle for banal visuals

I’m a little burnt out on Exalted right now, despite (or perhaps, in part, because of) the fact that I am playing in two occasional campaigns. Mostly it is the system that gets me down about it. I love the visuals. It isn’t the anime stuff. I can do without that. Instead, it is the simple fact that interesting visuals...

March 13, 2007

Real Magic Items: random babblings

I don’t think I got on the ‘real magic items’ kick because of this article on the Wizard’s website, though it might have subconsciously led me down that line of thought. The article (for those who don’t feel like following the link) talks a bit about the “Big Six” magic item types in D&D: magic weapons, magic armor/shields, rings of...