FrankTrollman wrote:I don't even see why you call them magic items, since they don't do anything that magic items do. People do not find, trade, purchase, or seek magic items at all, they just put their own runes on their own stuff. Essentially what you've done is turned everyone into preparation casters in exchange for removing magic items from the game.
If you fixed the pricing on such items (which there is no evidence that you have), you could be on to something that was balanced. Wizards make their wands cast color spray, warriors make their swords cast color spray, and everyone gets level appropriate save bonuses. But again, turning everyone into a wizard doesn't set the balance point anywhere other than the balance point of the wizard and can't really be expected to. So I don't see how this could possibly be a step towards the balance point you claimed you were looking for. As far as I can tell, the 7th level Fighter prepares "runes" on his "clothes" that let him fly and cast charm monster - which is pretty much exactly the balance point you said that you did not want.
How is that really any different from the Wizard busting out his book of runes and preparing fly and charm monster?
I think by presenting the WBL rules as I have (as part of the failed overall system changes), I have obscured the intention of the change. Allow me to clarify please.
The WBL rules above can stand on their own, without changing the rest of 3.5 RAW. At least, I hope they can. The goal here was to do a few things: keep the overall 3.5 RAW crafting system more or less intact as it relates to crafting magic items, decouple the need for any character to have a friendly wizard make stuff for them at half price (or prevent the non-caster/crafters from paying a tax by paying retail for items the crafter wizard makes for half price), decouple wealth from power, and get rid of the concept of the magic item trade and magic item shops. I was not seeking to rebalance the classes through this change, nor make all fighters into prep casters via items. I can see why it appears that way, but that is not the intent.
Given the 3.5 RAW, fighters can buy (or rely upon a friendly wizard to make) a sword that shoots color spray or one that casts charm monster and provides magical flight. These rules do not change this at all, the cost to craft such an item would be exactly the same using these rules (MCP rules for short) and RAW rules. The difference is that the fighter could craft such a thing on his own rather than being dependent upon the wizard (or paying double what the wizard would). In the MCP system, a fighter could take Craft Magic Arms and Armor and Craft Woundrous Item and be able to make every item in the DMG he can use. He could add Craft Rod and Craft Ring to make these items as well. He does not need a friendly wizard around for any of this, he can just do it by starting with a masterwork whatever and runing it as he sees fit. I could even see a case being made for Brew Potion (though probably not for Craft Wand, Craft Staff or Scribe scroll since fighters cannot use these items as they are spell completion or spell trigger items). Of course, wizards could craft these other items types using the same system and under the same limitations. To craft an item, a crafter (regardless of class), would only need to be of the level needed to etch the runes he needs (read as "cast the spells needed") and have sufficient unused MCP equal to the list price of the item to be crafted. This, plus a bit of time and a base masterwork item upon which to build, will result in the magic item. In essence, everyone is a wizard
from a crafting standpoint. As these crafting feats would now be a basic nessessity of every class, they should be eliminated in practice and just added as class benefits for all classes. This prevents a feat tax just to play the game.
The second planned advantage of MCP is that a character's MCP are fixed by level, sort of a representation of the character's mastery of arcane craftsmanship. Each character is by definition always on the WBL chart for his level. Magic items are powered by these character's personal chakra's or whatever, and work with the runes on the item to provide it its magic capabilities. As the magic only works for the crafter of the item, the items themselves only have an inherent worth as items of art; they are masterwork but nothing more in the hands of anyone else. This change absolutely decouples wealth from power. Furthermore, since a character can never permanently lose their "innate mastery of arcane craftsmanship", a sundered, lost, or stolen item can be replaced with a bit of time and at very little cost to the former owner. Also, foes can really use powerful and unique weapons against the party without concern that the weapons, once claimed from the foe's moldering corpse, are going to wreck WBL. A dragon can have a horde or an undead king a throne of gold and this will not unbalance the game from a power standpoint.
There are a number of side issues realted to this system that I will not addresss here because this post is already long enough. A few of them include making magic armor and defensive items cheaper (per Roy's points), the impact on the turnip, gold and wish economies, the time needed to craft the items (has to be long enough and have other requirements that ensure characters are not treating the item like a spellbook) and game enjoyment issues (finding ancient magic items
is cool after all and this system removes that). If this overall idea has merit, perhaps we can discuss these other issues.
Again, none of these changes have anything to do with the rest of my proposed changes. They do not give any character an ability they do not already have or can obtain using the 3.5 RAW. The items are still magic items, only the means of acquiring them has changed. It is this system, in a standalone format, for which I am seeking feedback.
