One of the more notable aspects of the d20 System (i.e. D&D 3.X and Pathfinder 1E) is how much magic item creation is not only formularized, but put into the hands of the PCs.
Earlier editions still allowed PCs to make magic items, of course, but the process was not only much more arduous in terms of what was required, but the actual ingredients involved were left up to the GM to determine. So if you wanted to create a wand of fire, the GM would come up with whatever list of fire-themed materials they felt was appropriate, at which point it was then up to the PCs to track down, purchase, steal, or otherwise acquire the necessary components, at which point the spellcaster(s) would need to undergo the lengthy process of constructing the item they wanted. And even then, there was no guarantee that it would turn out precisely the way they’d envisioned.
In the d20 System, once you take the relevant item creation feats, it’s simply a matter of expending the necessary time and money (and XP in D&D 3.X), along with an (easily-passed) skill check or two. In fact, in Pathfinder you don’t even need the prerequisite spells to make (most) magic items, simply raising the skill DC for each one missing instead! Doing so allows characters to not only tailor their gear to an unprecedented degree, but also allows for potentially unlimited variations on a theme.
To that end, here are a few variant magic items that take advantage of this flexibility to fill a few gaps among the magic items found in the Core Rules.
BRACERS OF MARKSMANSHIP, GREATER
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 8th
Slot wrists; Price 25,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
These wristbands function as greater bracers of archery, but with crossbows (including wrist launchers, but not ballista or other siege weapons) instead of bows.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, crafter must be proficient with a crossbow; Cost 12,500 gp
BRACERS OF MARKSMANSHIP, LESSER
Aura faint transmutation; CL 4th
Slot wrists; Price 5,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
These wristbands function as lesser bracers of archery, but with crossbows (including wrist launchers, but not ballista or other siege weapons) instead of bows.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, crafter must be proficient with a crossbow; Cost 2,500 gp
BRACERS OF SHARPSHOOTING, GREATER
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 8th
Slot wrists; Price 25,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
These wristbands function as greater bracers of archery, but with firearms (not including cannons or other siege weapons) instead of bows.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, crafter must be proficient with firearms; Cost 12,500 gp
BRACERS OF SHARPSHOOTING, LESSER
Aura faint transmutation; CL 4th
Slot wrists; Price 5,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
These wristbands function as lesser bracers of archery, but with firearms (not including cannons or other siege weapons) instead of bows.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, crafter must be proficient with firearms; Cost 2,500 gp
Given that bows are already the optimal ranged weapons in most games, there’s no reason why a magic item that makes them even more potent can’t be reskinned in service to less-common choices of distance-fighting weaponry.
ELIXIR OF CLIMBING
Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot none; Price 250 gp; Weight ––
DESCRIPTION
Imbibing this liquid grants the drinker an uncanny knack for scaling difficult surfaces (+10 competence bonus on Climb checks for 1 hour).
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, spider climb; Cost 125 gp
Given that there are elixirs that provide an hour-long +10 competence bonus for all of the other physical skills, such as Acrobatics, Perception, Stealth, and Swim, this one rounds out the gap in coverage.
GLOVES OF NIMBLENESS
Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot hands; Price 4,500 gp; Weight ––
DESCRIPTION
These leather gloves grant the wearer a +3 competence bonus on Dexterity-based checks. Both gloves must be worn for the magic to be effective.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, cat’s grace; Cost 2,250 gp
This is essentially a circlet of persuasion, except keyed to a different ability score and set in a different body slot. The choice of Dexterity for this item was because of the number of skills that ability affects, which (under the Pathfinder rules) is seven: Acrobatics, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth. Charisma affects the same number – Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device – so long as you count Perform as only being one skill.
HELPFUL HAVERSACK
Aura moderate conjuration; CL 9th
Slot none; Price 6,000 gp; Weight 20 lbs.
DESCRIPTION
This backpack functions as per a handy haversack, save that its side pouches each have the storage capacity of a minor bag of holding and the central portion can hold as much as a type I bag of holding. Regardless of how much is stored in it, the backpack only ever weighs 20 pounds.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, secret chest; Cost 3,000 gp
The benefit of a handy haversack isn’t that you can retrieve items faster than you could from a bag of holding (which is more spacious in what it can contain), but that it allows you to do so without drawing an attack of opportunity. Given how that’s far more important to most players than staying under their encumbrance limit (when they pay attention to that limit at all), it’s something of a surprise that improved haversacks like the one above aren’t more common.
INCENSE OF REFLECTION
Aura faint enchantment; CL 5th
Slot none; Price 3,200 gp; Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
This small rectangular block of sweet-smelling incense is visually indistinguishable from nonmagical incense until lit. When it is burned, the special fragrance and pearly hued smoke of this special incense are recognizable by anyone making a DC 15 Spellcraft check.
When a divine spellcaster lights a block of incense of reflection and then spends 8 hours praying and meditating nearby, the incense enables him to either prepare all his spells (if a preparatory spellcaster), or use each of his spell slots (if a spontaneous spellcaster), as though affected by the Empower Spell feat. However, all the spells prepared in this way are at their normal level, not at two levels higher (as with the regular metamagic feat).
Divine spellcasters who are able to use other types of spellcasting do not gain any benefit for their non-divine spells from incense of reflection.
Each block of incense burns for 8 hours, and the effects persist for 24 hours.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell, bless; Cost 1,600 gp.
A scaled-back version of incense of meditation, this item has some additional text added to cover gaps and ambiguities that the original item doesn’t address, such as spontaneous divine casters and multiclass characters.
IRONGLAZE
Aura faint transmutation; CL 5th
Slot none; Price 250 gp; Weight ––
DESCRIPTION
This gummy substance is a deep red in color, and can be applied to a weapon as a standard action. It gives the weapon the properties of cold iron for 1 hour, replacing the properties of any other special material it might have. One vial coats a single melee weapon or 20 units of ammunition.
CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item; Cost 125 gp
While various types of weapon blanch have become the go-to for most groups that need a quick way to overcome material-based damage reduction, silversheen remains viable, despite being more expensive, thanks to its longer duration. As such, there’s no real reason why there couldn’t be a cold iron version as well (whereas an adamantine version could potentially bring up issues of bypassing the hardness of other objects).
These are just a few potential variants; even overlooking the possibility of completely original items (or simply combining the properties of various items), there are many more possibilities. A horn of law/chaos really isn’t that different from a horn of goodness/evil. Neither is a cube of heat resistance much of a change from a cube of frost resistance. Or scale up your boots of teleportation to boots of greater teleportation.
When it comes to magic, there’s no reason to stick to the standard stuff.
Tags: magic items, new rules, Pathfinder
Intelligence Check 
October 6, 2021 at 5:13 PM |
I found myself reading your opening and saying, yes, yes, and then again yes. Yes, item creation was harder and more flavorful. Yes, the trend has been to formularize the process, boiling down a roleplay-rich system into pure monetization and optimization. Even 3.X’s nod to high fantasy — that you had to put part of your very soul into your items, and that doing so decreases your own power — was thrown out in Pathfinder and later.
But here’s where we seem to differ — I say this is a BAD thing! I say this pushes play toward power-gaming and optimizing munchkinry. If I were making my own d20 fork of 3.x and PF (and I am at https://www.cayzle.com/LnL), then I would put back into the game the rich romantic elements. I would double the cost of numeric stat boosters and cap them at +4, not +6. I would make the flying carpets and the helms of telepathy and the ioun stones common — and the +5 vicious longswords correspondingly rare. No more cramping multiple magical abilities into a single slotted item. I would reinstate xp costs for permanent items, and allow bonuses for researching, seeking out, and experimenting with rare ingredients.
Don’t get me wrong, you’ve got some clever item ideas here, and good on ya. But your thesis begs the question: Why? Why go with the flow and enable the optimizers, when you can instead use rules to enhance a great experience for everybody?
October 6, 2021 at 6:43 PM |
Cayzle, thanks for taking the time to comment! I appreciate the feedback, and indeed I’m sympathetic to what you’re saying about the virtues of how older editions handled magic item creation. Coming up on BECMI and AD&D 2E myself, I have a lot of fond memories of that process.
While it might sound a bit fickle on my end, I’ve come to appreciate both styles, as they lend themselves to different types of fantasy gaming. On the one hand, there’s a lot of joy to be had in games where almost all of your magic items are found in treasure hoards, with significant effort being required (often from the entire party) if you want to make even a single item, which will then be a unique creation with its own name and powers unlike any other.
But I also see the appeal of a power-fantasy game where you’re putting together multi-functional magic items the way Tony Stark puts together new Iron Man suits. In that way, leaving that to the optimizers allows them to fulfill their niche (which often benefits the rest of the party) while the other PCs undertake their own “downtime” projects. That way, the specialists can focus on their specialty, which is another aspect of the “niche protection” which gives the various classes their roles.
Also, nice work on the LnL project! Looking over your page now, it’s pretty impressive!
October 6, 2021 at 7:05 PM
Yes, there’s a happy medium to be found. I plan to make it easier to make magic items, and if the process “fails” then you just end up with a +1 sword or a +3 ring. That will explain why there’s a market in lesser, numbers-only items, allowing for magic shops and some optimization. I also plan for consumables (potions, scrolls, wands, etc) to remain mostly formulaic and not costing xp. You should only have to part with part of your soul for the big stuff.
Also pondering a LotR steal — if you make your own item and put XP into it, you still retain the XP so long as you personally wear/own/use the item. That lets crafters buff themselves, but not so much outfitting the whole party, and at some risk — since savvy villains know that taking / destroying a crafter’s items is a serious threat. “Hand over the Ruby Princess or your fancy staff gets it!”
Many thanks for your kind words on my (very slow-building) system.