The Energizer Bunny: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 4

Image from FreeImages.com / Michal Zacharzewski
Background by Mike
This is the fourth part of a very intermittent series that is examining alternatives and possible implications to the standard spell storage solutions built into D&D, Pathfinder, and, in fact, most fantasy games. Today, We look at Permanent Magic Items.
Permanent magic items are like the energizer bunny, they just keep going. That makes them qualitatively different to every type of magic device that this series has considered so far.
Key Characteristics
There aren’t a lot of defining traits to these items; they tend to be relatively simple. There is a simple reason for this: there are so many closely-related varieties of such item that there are very few characteristics common to all, or even most, of them. That suggests that armors should be treated separately from weapons, and so on, that the category should be subdivided; but, at the same time, the few commonalities that do exist are so compelling that a piecemeal approach would not tell the whole story.
The traits that I have identified as sufficiently common are:
- Persistence
- Immutable State
- Charges (inconsistently), Commands, or Continuous
- Usually Worn or Wielded
- Usually a Buff item
- Mass, Momentum, and Weight?
In addition, there is one characteristic that such items should posses but sometimes – perhaps all too often – don’t.
- Limited Power/Complexity
Persistence
The magic in the item is usually not consumed when the effect it contains is released, or instantly renews itself, and either way, the item itself survives.
As a GM, this can be a little understated. Why not give magic items a sensory impact of some sort when they function? I’ll talk about this idea further a little later. Heck, why not go further, and explicitly show the “instant renewal process” – an item does it’s job, instantly rusts or sublimates or something, and then instantly renews itself? Make it clear that the item has done whatever it does. This works especially well when an NPC is wearing or using such an item and there is no discernible effect that the PCs can spot/identify, providing a fertile ground for paranoia!
Immutable State
It’s very rare for these items to change in any way. One of the most common visual clues given out by GMs, especially early GMs, is that these items don’t rust or decay; they are almost always immaculately clean and polished, and any dust or detritus like spiderwebs fall away with hardly any effort.
Charges (Inconsistently), Commands, or Continuous
Most of these items function continuously, or effectively so if you utilize some of the special effects suggested earlier. A few either only work or have additional powers that have to be commanded into operation in some manner by the user. A very few of the latter type have a limited number of self-renewing charges over a stated period of time, most commonly a day but occasionally a week or more.
So why not require ‘continuous’ effects to be commanded into operation even if they don’t consume some form of “charge”? That magical plate mail functions as ordinary plate-mail until commanded to protect you – which it then does, for a limited amount of time. Of course, as soon as it shuts off, the power can be invoked again – unless you also throw in some kind of “recharging delay”.
Usually Worn or Wielded
While there are a few items of this variety that have to be held, most of them have to be worn, or have to be wielded as a weapon. Even magic items such as Horseshoes can be considered to be “worn” by the mount.
Usually A Buff Item
Most of these items add a bonus to some numeric value, though some provide characters with additional abilities, such as Hats Of Disguise.
Oh, the fun that you can have with this trait and just a little creativity. Why not an unusual ability? A suit of plate mail that starts singing a bardic song every time you enter battle (too bad if you’re trying to sneak, but at least you get the benefit of the Bardic Song). Why not shoes of Dancing that add to your charisma when tripping the light fantastic on the dance floor? Why not a series of miniature Portable Holes in a money belt – just big enough for coins, or sling bullets, or arrows, to be stored and retrieved? Why not a crossbow with an “Unseen Servant” spell that retrieves any bolt that survives after being fired and striking something? Why not magical sling bullets that scream in terror when fired (a literal “terror weapon”)? Any effect that you can think of can be built into such magic items, whether those effects exist as a spell or not.
Mass, Momentum, and Weight?
Another trait that is often common to such items, however unofficial, is that they weigh substantially less than the unenchanted varieties, enabling characters to move more freely, attack more adroitly. In many cases, this is an attempt to explain “how” the magic achieves its game mechanical effects, i.e. define what the game mechanics are simulating. This is largely color, used to enhance narrative within a combat situation, though some GMs then make the ramifications part of their campaign worlds. If magic armor impairs movement significantly less than normal armor, for example, then characters can presumably swim while wearing it – at least as well as they could wearing wet clothing, say.
There’s nothing wrong with this interpretation, or with a GM adding verisimilitude to the game world by being consistent in applying the effects and logical consequences.
Others walk a finer line – only in combat does the magic truly ‘come to life’, the rest of the time, armor and weapons are just like their mundane counterparts. This is also fine.
The most important thing is to be consistent within the campaign in terms of your explanation and interpretations. That requires such decisions to be made pro-actively, before play actually starts, which is why this is worth mentioning.
Limited Power/Complexity
“Cool! A +5 Vorpal Frostbrand Holy Avenger!” Yes, that is a real-world quote from a completely real gamer who really was being handed such a magic item by his GM.
Most of us know better, but still make items far more powerful than is desirable, given that a lot of these effects are permanent and continuous (even if you need a critical hit to activate the goody).
Hey, if swords can have powers that are only activated on a critical, why not armors that have a special power that only activates after the wearer is subjected to a critical hit? Heal, or Invisibility, or Cure Poison?
Here’s the way it’s supposed to work, as I understand it: All magical weapons have a specific “plus” that is their attack and damage bonus and also their capacity for special effects. Each special effect, like Vorpal, or Holy Avenger, has a rating to indicate how much of that capacity gets consumed by incorporating that special effect into the weapon.
Why don’t armors and shields have a list of special powers that work the same way?
Limiting the power: Option 1
One possibility that I have heard suggested in bull discussions amongst GMs is that incorporating a second ability into one item consumes an additional slot. So a +5 weapon could have two powers – one worth +3 and another worth +1, or both worth +2. Or, of course, one power of +4 or +5 value. This has the virtue of making combinations of powers more manageable from the GM’s point of view, i.e. limiting the synergies involved.
Limiting the power: Option 2
Another suggestion that presents far sharper restrictions on the effectiveness of such magic items is for the item to offer it’s pluses only until they are consumed by adding a special effect. So a +5 axe might have a +3 special effect and confer +2 in combat bonuses. Or even a +3 and a +2 ability, but offer no combat bonuses at all. A Holy Avenger adds +0 combat bonuses but in all other respects and for all other purposes, counts as a +5 weapon. And so on.
Variations Of Ability
There are lots of ways you can spice up the variety of items in a campaign without undue risks of imbalance. Some of these have been mentioned in earlier parts of this series but deserve specific consideration within the topic of permanent magic items.
Feats in magic items
The first variation is one that has definitely been mentioned before. Consider a feat to be a +1 magical effect. Armor that confers the feat “Acrobatic”, for example, or a Helm that confers “Blind-Fight”, or Gloves of “Nimble Fingers”.
Everyman An Expert
One of my favorite applications for this idea only works in a very wealthy society with lots of access to magic. Armor and weapons are utterly unlike most magic items in that you require a specific feat in order to use them (no matter how ubiquitous that Feat might be). Why not build that feat directly into the magic item itself? Fantasy legend and lore is full of armor that transformed the wearers into warriors, of country bumpkins becoming expert swordsmen immediately they pull the sword from the stone, etc. But on the larger scale, this enables a society to turn the effort normally expended on martial training to social purposes – a city of poets and artists (because they have converted the default martial feats into perform feats) who look soft and weak – until they put on their ceremonial armor and gain the benefits of guidance from every forebear who ever had to fight to survive.
Using Magic Item Feats for Flavor
Another idea that I find compelling in a number of ways (mostly related to the flavor that is imparted) is to rule an entire publisher’s line of supplements out of bounds for PCs, and then build the feats and spells from that line into magic items. This takes maximum advantage of the explosion in 3rd party supplements that was the 3.x “Boom”, but it works very well.
For example, you might rule that no feats or spells are available to characters from the excellent Mongoose series of publications, and then make those exclusive to magic items – while stripping out from the treasure lists anything which is derivative of a Core Book spell or feat. Suddenly, magic items have their own unique flavor.
You can take this idea further by deliberately integrating campaign background elements from those resources. For example, if all magic items were the legacies left behind by a past civilization which fell long ago and vanished, leaving behind nothing but ruins and the odd enchanted item, you add massively to the color and substance of your campaign by using the Eberron sourcebooks as your magic item “foundation”, or Faerun.
You can even have two different populations with different legacies from the past by basing the magic items of one on one set of sources and the magic items of another on an entirely different source. “Elven and Dwarven magic is based on Faerun; Human magic is based on Ebberron”.
The redundancy/overlap problem
Implementing any of these ideas means confronting one major issue and implementing a policy to deal with it: that of feats that overlap with those in supplementary sources that you do permit players to draw upon. Some ideas are so good that they occurred to different game companies and were implemented in very similar ways, if not completely identical ways.
For example, at least three different feats from different publishers granted +2 Initiative. One did it as a “miscellaneous bonus”, another as a “Dexterity Bonus”, and a third as a “General Bonus” of unspecified nature.
There are lots of ways of resolving such overlaps, where the intent was clearly the same: you can rule that regardless of the mechanism used to translate the effect into game mechanics, they are all the same bonus, and once you have it from one source, you can’t get it from another. Or you could apply stacking rules (the first one has full effect, the second and subsequent ones that are the same only add +1), or you could adopt an open strategy in which they all count unless the named bonus is exactly the same – in this example, gaining the three different feats could confer a bonus of +6 to Initiative. I tend to lean toward the latter, but always consider whether or not the others are more in keeping with the style of campaign I intend to run.
This becomes more important when one is a feat, and another is in a magic item; while at the same time, the act of placing the “feat” into a magic item naturally restricts availability enough that the more open policy becomes more viable. GMs should make up their own minds, but should definitely think about this in advance of starting play.
Skills in magic items
Another idea that’s been mooted before, but one that merits consideration. Leather armor that contains skill ranks in Stealth? Why not? Or that simply confers a bonus to a skill without conferring any ranks in that skill?
My usual pattern is to look at what bonuses a Feat confers – these usually add up to +4, often spread equally amongst two different skills – and so the existing equivalence mooted above (1 feat = a +1 special ability) means that for each +1, an item could confer +4 in one skill or +2 in two related skills.
It’s in combination with the feats idea (discussed above) that this becomes truly significant. Armor that makes you a better rider? Weapons that impart knowledge of tactics? Robes that improve your spellcraft? Gloves that improve your lock-picking skill?
Swings and Roundabouts
Another favorite idea is to take the basic ideas one step further. Instead of armor that confers +2 resistance to fire-based effects, why not one that confers +4 – but also confers a -2 penalty against cold attacks? Whenever you have something with a logical opposition – and D&D / Pathfinder is full of such – why not exaggerate and hyper-dramatize the benefits?
In and Out
Finally, consider the possible differences in variations of energy flow. Why not a magic item that enhances a cleric’s healing spells by +1 per die – but also reduces the benefits of healing directed at that cleric by -1 per die? Or a magic item that adds +2 fire damage to an attack – but also inflicts 2 points of fire damage (or cold) damage upon the wielder?
The Unseen Squire
Let’s talk about another aspect of complicated armors like full plate. These are incredibly difficult to put on, unaided, and beastly uncomfortable to try and sleep in. In real history, each knight had one or two squires, and one of these squire’s duties was to help the Knight put on his armor properly. Why not build an “Unseen Servant” – in this case, an “Unseen Squire” – whose primary tasks are to help the wielder put on or take off the armor, and to polish, clean, and maintain it while the owner sleeps?
The Leaders and the Led
While the notion of leaders who command from the back lines instead of leading from the front might seem a relatively recent innovation in military strategy, that doesn’t mean that you can’t adapt it to function within a fantasy society – and the implication is that the two roles might have very different types of enchanted armor. Leader’s armors might emphasize tactics, and communications, and clairvoyance; mid-level armors might emphasize speed and flexibility in combat; while senior grunts’ armors emphasize combat prowess, attack and defense.
Inverting expectations
One idea that I don’t think has ever been fully explored by magic items despite the plethora of them have been introduced through hundreds of adventures and game settings is the notion of inverted expectations.
Why not a suit of armor that helps you get into position to attack (i.e. confers an attack bonus instead of a defense bonus?) Why not a weapon that enhances your ability to deflect blows (bonus to AC instead of to attack?)
Meta-abilities
I’ve had a thought that might prove too powerful for extensive use: Why not a suit of armor or a weapon that permits you to roll for success or failure before you commit yourself to an action, enabling you to choose what that roll is subsequently used for? “Okay, I’ve rolled a 19, I’m going to go for an all-out attack.” “Hmmm, I’ve rolled a 3, that’s not going to work as an attack, so I’ll do something where the low roll is a benefit, or at least the failure won’t hurt too badly – I’ll drop a tangle-foot bag at my feet and act as though I were trying to keep him from noticing.”
The only rules would be that you had to do something that demanded a die roll, and had to use the roll you had already made – beyond that, you could customize your actions to take maximum advantage of the results.
It’s not a suggestion that everyone will like. I’m only lukewarm on it, myself. But for some GMs, it might be exactly the ticket for simulating some sort of “future sense” of what is about to happen – something that’s fiendishly difficult to do without the GM railroading events.
Matched Sets
One of the better ideas in the 3.x Epic Handbook was the notion of Matched Sets. This weapon with this armor with this helm combines to give a magic item that is more than the sum of its parts.
It’s a concept that can be taken a lot further. Here are 2 swords, 2 suits of mail, and 2 helms – and every combination of three items (armor, weapon, and helm) yields a different “extra ability”.
An entire campaign could be built around the concept of the “collectible card game” equivalent in magic items.
Variations Of Form
Unlike most magic items, there aren’t too many variations in form to consider. Armor is something that you wear; weapons are something you wield; and so on. Instead, and unlike most magic items, the majority of variation in “form” is actually a variation in materials.
One of the ideas that I tried to implement (with only partial success) in one of my campaigns was the notion of Exotic Materials. I talked about this in some detail in Plunging Into Game Physics Pt 2: Strange Mechanics, so I won’t go into it here.
You might also draw inspiration from my series on exotic spell components, Some Arcane Assembly Required.
But some of the variations in function described earlier could also appropriately be considered variations of form. As with many other aspects of these magic items, it’s hard to draw a dividing line!
Wrap-up
Although it seems hard at first to look beyond the basic functionality of most permanent magic items – weapons and armor especially – there are a surprising number of variations possible. Expand your repertoire and never be guilty of “It’s a suit of +1 chain”. Magic items are hand-crafted originals, not products of an assembly line; each should have its individual quirks and color, each should be just a little different than the next. There is no off-the-shelf, so why should such magic items be described as though they came out of a sausage factory?
The final part of this series is tentatively scheduled for mid-to-late September, and will look at the vexed and vexing subject of the ultimate magic items: Relics and Artifacts.
- If I Could Save Magic In A Bottle: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 1
- A Heart Of Shiny Magic: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 2
- Just Another Pointy Stick: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 3a
- Not Just Another Pointy Stick: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 3b
- The Energizer Bunny: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 4
- The Ultimate Weapon: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 5
- Let’s Make A Relic: Spell Storage Solutions Pt 5a – The Crown Of Insight
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