Magician Class

[geeman]

At 12:31 AM 6/29/2004 +0200, destowe wrote:



>I would like to see Magicians at least be able to scribe scrolls and brew

>potions.These are fairly close to those `trinkets` or `amulets` of really

>low power that you can buy/rewarded from a hedge-wizard in fairy

>tales. As they are single-use they should not upset the balance to much.



They are also amongst the things the magicians could create in 2e, so they

should be available in 3e.



Some folks (myself included) don`t think magicians should be able to create

permanent magic items since in 3e we have more relaxed requirements for

creating magic items, and several of the spells upon which a some pretty

powerful magic items are based are amongst the BR low magic, but I don`t

really think that`s as big a problem as all that since it can be house

ruled pretty easily. I think the issue is, however, significant enough to

warrant an insert or optional rule in the BRCS....



Gary

[Athos69]

What of the Create Wondrous Item feat? With the restricted spell list for the Magician, would that not also limit the items that could be made?

[geeman]

At 04:30 AM 6/29/2004 +0200, Athos69 wrote:



> What of the Create Wondrous Item feat? With the restricted spell list

> for the Magician, would that not also limit the items that could be made?



It would. Another thing that might limit the number of magic items is that

BR is a relatively low level setting. Those who might create magic items

may not have the levels to do so, and/or may be loathe to sacrifice the

XP. However, there are still an awful lot of items that could be created

that IMO seriously alter the nature of the setting. Allowing magicians to

create permanent magic items means there would be an inordinate amount of

things like Hats of Disguise running around. Most of the ability score

enhancing spells are 2nd level in 3e/3.5 so there is no reason why

Gauntlets of Ogre Strength and Gloves of Dexterity wouldn`t be all over the

place. Such items would be (in the absence of some other rule regarding

them) as common as they might be in some other campaign setting in which

there is no restriction on the creation of magic items. If, that is, one

is going to have the conditions of the campaign setting match up with the

actual capacities of the character classes that inhabit it. BR tends to

err in this from time to time, but its more often with things like elven

immortality....



There is the potential to just raise the expense for creating magic

items. I kind think one should do that anyway in a non-BR campaign, but in

BR it seems insufficient. It opens the pool of potential magic item

creators by something like x100 and that`s the major issue. Making magic

more expensive will decrease the amount of items in the campaign setting,

but in reality it doesn`t really change things all that much given the

total number of people who are now available to create them, and the way

simple scarcity issues work. On the whole, however, I don`t think the

increased costs for magic items is a particularly elegant solution. It is

not, at least, any more of a 3e method of dealing with the situation than

is restricting access to the item creation feats. In fact, it seems to me

that most campaign settings will do things like tweak feat selection before

they`ll change the item creation rules.



Gary

[Osprey]

Geeman,
I like the concept that magicians can generally only create non-permanent (charged or 1-shot) items. It does make a nice clean distinction between lesser and greater magic.

However, should this include illusion and divination-based items, like crystal balls or cloaks of displacement? As illusion and divination specialists, is it necessary to curb their artificing abilities even in these areas?

As for the commonality of magic items, focusing on magicians as the main culprits of magic item inflation in BR seems insufficient given the commonality of clerics in BR, who are capable of creating all the things you're trying to keep out of magicians' hands, such as rods, permanent wondrous items, and arms and armor. If you want a lower-magic setting, restrictions on magicians will not in any way affect clerics' abilities to be artificers. Hence the reason raising market values is a better across-the-board solution for making magic items rarer.

If you're going for a really, REALLY low magic setting in which permanent magic items are extremely rare, well...at that point we either have to ignore or drastically modify the 3e rules for magic item creation and random treasure generation. And I'm not sure the BRCS conversion project is really up to that task...

[Athos69]

Keep in mind too that increasing the GP cost of items, increases both the inflated time requirements in the BRCS, as well as the XP costs (for scrolls and potions).

If we tweak the rate of creation to 1 month of crafting time per 1,000 GP, the Hat of Disguise, according to DMG 3.5 rules would cost 900 GP and take one Domain action to craft. If we multiply the prices by three, that means that an entire SEASON is consumed to craft such an item.

Extending this to a simple +1 weapon, again we're loking at 1 3-month turn to craft it, during which the mage cannot cast realm magics or respond to external threats to his power base. Crafting a +2 weapon from scratch would take an entire year to complete. Is this the rate of slowdown that people want?

[graham anderson]

I would be fine with that sort of slow down athos it would explain nicely why the elves are the only group to have significant numbers of magical items.

[destowe]

I know someone brought up something similar before, but I still like making an RP cost for permanent magical items.

This would limit the seers and most non-source holders right off top. And the RP cost would limit temples even.

Just add a clause that RP equal to maybe 1/3 of the XP spent is needed to make the item permanent.

[geeman]

At 04:57 PM 6/29/2004 +0200, Athos69 wrote:



>If we multiply the prices by three, that means that an entire SEASON is

>consumed to craft such an item.... Is this the rate of slowdown that

>people want?



It`s all about theme and campaign material. I`m not really a slowdown that

I`m after, per se. It`s a "low magic" environment that is in keeping with

some of the original themes. That is, the BR-specific concepts of magic

separated into lesser and true groups, the generalized attunement to the BR

concept of arcane magic being connected to the land itself, etc. In that

context, I`ve argued that BR isn`t really "low magic" at all. It`s just

"low magic item." The point, however, is that it should stay "low magic

item" for reasons having to do with it being described as "low magic" to

begin with. That`s why I`d prefer a solution to the number of magic items

that has more of a connection to the true magic concept.



In this case I also think it`s easier to change the access to item creation

feats for the setting than to revise the item creation math for D&D in

general for the purpose of the setting.



Gary

[irdeggman]

Originally posted by destowe@Jun 29 2004, 10:50 AM
I know someone brought up something similar before, but I still like making an RP cost for permanent magical items.

This would limit the seers and most non-source holders right off top. And the RP cost would limit temples even.

Just add a clause that RP equal to maybe 1/3 of the XP spent is needed to make the item permanent.

I am very much opposed to using RP for magic item creation. IMO this is like using interest to pay a loan. The creator isn't really risking anything to spend RP. He gains RP just by having holdings. If it was blood line strength points that would be different - these are something very personal and not something he is under obligation to be a steward of. IMO RP (and regency in general) is like being a steward of resources, the regent has an obligation to care for his charges (thus the RP and GB) which are in reality domain assets. So by using RP for item creation the regent is actually spending someone else's assets instead of his own.

Multiplying the item creation costs will reduce how many classes can actually afford to create items. Magicians are not in general regents and don't have access to large amounts of funds so they are forced to survive by working for someone else. Increasing the market value also increases the xp cost and time required to create an item - pretty much self-balancing and simple mechanically.

[ConjurerDragon]

destowe schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

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>

> destowe wrote:

> I know someone brought up something similar before, but I still like making an RP cost for permanent magical items.This would limit the seers and most non-source holders right off top. And the RP cost would limit temples even.Just add a clause that RP equal to maybe 1/3 of the XP spent is needed to make the item permanent.

>

Only if the only RP income is from holdings.

RP can be earned by successful actions as well and in 2E there were even

a kit that allowed to earn even more RP for successful adventuring.

bye

Michael