The Gaming Den

FrankTrollman wrote:Problematic Magic Item Powers
[*] Bag of Holding and other Storage Items
[*] Expendable anything.
[*] Figurines of Wondrous Power
[*] Instant Fortresses and other "logistics" items.
[*] Golems and other "creature" items.
[*] Anything that is usable less often than 1/day.

-Username17

I'm currently going through and hammering out a few kinks in the magic item system we've been using (based heavily on the list earlier in this thread and Kaelik's item rules), and I wondered if I could get some more explanation of why these items in particular are likely to cause problems.

The golems and figurines I'm guessing are like a cohort that doesn't scale to your level, so could be either too good or asstacular depending on when you get them? What issues do storage items and Instant fortresses throw up?

They are items that give you a magic effect in your downtime, and therefore don't need to be attuned.

Therefore, everyone gets them effectively for free, and it sort of sucks some of the fun out of the game when everyone has whatever the best storage and best instant fortress items are.

It undermines class features that do that.

quicker to ask than go search: other than "can cast secret chest, secure shelter, etc, etc." what class features do storage and shelter items undermine?

Prak_Anima wrote:quicker to ask than go search: other than "can cast secret chest, secure shelter, etc, etc." what class features do storage and shelter items undermine?

Landlord Feat.
Any "You are friends with organization X and can use them as bonus hotel rooms" ability.
Any ability to have mundane equipment of any kind.

In short: the Elothar Warrior of Bladereach gets "I Got That!", "Demesne of Tralathon", "Your Money is No Good Here", "Dwarf Friend", and "Happily Ever After", all of which are partially or wholly undermined by people getting Instant Fortresses, Bags of Holding, and suchlike for free.

-Username17

Also Wizards can cast spells that do those things, and for example, the Warmage gets that kind of stuff.

The point is that even if the number of classes that have such things is small, you can add it to classes.

It's way less fun when the Warmage who was setting up camp and the Warper who was responsible for storing loot both leave the party and then Garargargar the Barbarian just becomes the guy with the infinite dimensional storage space and the instant fortress.

It makes abilities less special if everyone has them.

Is there any type of item other than "one that undermines someone's class features", "one that makes an existing class feature stronger", or "one that does both"? I guess there could be, but not in a game with an unlimited breadth of homebrewed classes. I seriously doubt that taking out the Rings of Water Walking, Wands of CLW, and Bags of Holding in favor of only having Metamagic Rods and Magic Swords would really make the game more fun.

Sorry for exaggerating.

Kaelik wrote:They are items that give you a magic effect in your downtime, and therefore don't need to be attuned.

Therefore, everyone gets them effectively for free, and it sort of sucks some of the fun out of the game when everyone has whatever the best storage and best instant fortress items are.

It undermines class features that do that.

They are only free if they don't cost anything you care about. Sure, they don't cost a slot, but if they cost Wish Economy goods then they become something you have to give up other things you want for until pretty much forever. So the answer would be to make them Medium items? Or at least the best versions.

I'm pretty unimpressed with the argument that they invalidate "avoid food and lodgings" powers and personal fortresses. For one thing, Rope Trick, for another those are some pretty low-level abilities anyway. Seriously, even if a bag of holding was a Lesser item it would still eat into your personal power fund until around level 8 or 9, and at that point mundane things that would fit into a sack should be available to anyone that wants them. I agree you don't want to hand them out at level 1, but they don't seem problematic in the same way as, say, consumables.