[D&D] I just got the Magic Item Compendium

[Tait Ransom]

Not bad. Not bad at all, IMHO. Lots of "x uses/day" items, many of which are fairly inexpensive. I like the two new concepts, enhancement crystals and item sets, in particular.

Enhancement crystals can be swapped out of a weapon, armor or shield, depending on the type. They give the item they're attached to a boost, such as bonus damage against undead, the ability to draw it as a free action, or damage reduction. Most of them have a least, lesser and greater variant so they can be handed out at low levels as well as high.

Item sets are individual magic items that are related and give extra abilities if you possess and are using most or all items from the set.

There are also rules for adding abilities to other items, so you could have a cloak of resistance that gives a +2 to CON, or wings of the bat that give a +2 to DEX, or a belt of giant strength that gives a +3 natural armor bonus.

I'm looking forward to adding some of the items to my current campaign.

Anyone else have any input on this book?

[MadCow]

Enhancement crystals can be swapped out of a weapon, armor or shield, depending on the type. They give the item they're attached to a boost, such as bonus damage against undead, the ability to draw it as a free action, or damage reduction. Most of them have a least, lesser and greater variant so they can be handed out at low levels as well as high.

Item sets are individual magic items that are related and give extra abilities if you possess and are using most or all items from the set.

Oh noes... that's so Diablo... :eek:

[Cam Banks]

Oh noes... that's so Diablo... :eek:

No no, it's Final Fantasy VII.

Cheers,
Cam

[Wratts]

FF VII? The crystals maybe, but the "item sets" are certainly Diablo-esque to the max.


Not that either concept sounds too bad.

Better off stealing well than inventing crap. (;

[MadCow]

Yeah, I know FF also has that crystal thingy, but as a whole it's more like Diablo since both crystal and item set are presented together.

I wonder if we'll have an artifact to upgrade a set of those least crystals to lesser crystals and lesser crystals to greater crystals next... :D

[Tait Ransom]

The thing I like about a lot of the items (including many of the enhancement crystals) is that they seem to be scaled nicely for low level parties. They offer some variety in the types of magic treasure low-level PCs have access to.

[Kurotowa]

FF VII? The crystals maybe, but the "item sets" are certainly Diablo-esque to the max.

Yes, Diablo. Not at all like the Rod of Seven Parts, or the Hammer of Thunderbolts, or the Eye and Hand of Vecna, or the Regalias of Good and Evil. Nope, no tradition of item sets in D&D at all. :p

[AusJeb]

We talked about this at our game last night, but I didn't get a chance to look at the book. Two things my group favored were the called armor and weapons and the character sheet.

[Tetnahkshem]

There are also rules for adding abilities to other items, so you could have a cloak of resistance that gives a +2 to CON, or wings of the bat that give a +2 to DEX, or a belt of giant strength that gives a +3 natural armor bonus.

Are those rules an update for these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#addingNewAbilities)?

Do they add any new formula for the item creation guidelines (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm#tableEstimatingMagicItemGoldPieceValu es) table?

I've got a friend that plays a Binder that has lots of "once per 5 round" type abilities. As an artificer, I was thinking of making some stuff for him along those lines, and have been trying to come up with a decent balanced guideline formula.

[CleverName]

This is not meant to be good or bad, but it is not so much "Compendium" as a re-write of ALL the magic item and treasure rules. I was very surprised this morning at breakfast when I finally got a chance to look at it.


I'd almost say that this is possibly the way that "4th Ed." will be released. This strategy seems far more like the pre-3rd Ed. mindset than what we have seen since the big redux. The only bad thing, IMHO, was that I did not see that ANYTHING was added to the OGL from the book...

[vitus979]

This is not meant to be good or bad, but it is not so much "Compendium" as a re-write of ALL the magic item and treasure rules. I was very surprised this morning at breakfast when I finally got a chance to look at it.

That is a surprise. None of the other expansions have taken this view. Hmm I'll have to scoot down and pick it up on Saturday if I can find someplace with it.

[John_C]

I don't much like the Enhancement Crystals as crystals, if you know what I mean. I like the idea, though, and will probably recast it as fetishes, charms, and amulets of various sorts that you can hand on your weapon or armor.

Gives me a sort of Hellboyish vibe, for some reason.

Love the treasure tables, especially the ones that classify things by level. Make the DM's job easier, that.

And the rules for combining enchantments on items, particularly the "Big Six" stuff, I like a lot. Again, gives me the DM and me the Player more flexibility for the fun stuff.

[Cardiac]

I assume that, like the Spell Compendium, this book also collects magical items from a whole bunch of sources? If so, what books does the compendium reference?

[CleverName]

I assume that, like the Spell Compendium, this book also collects magical items from a whole bunch of sources? If so, what books does the compendium reference?

I don't have it with me, but that was a paragraph-long list...and included the DMG.

[Agentrolf]

Not bad. Not bad at all, IMHO. Lots of "x uses/day" items, many of which are fairly inexpensive. I like the two new concepts, enhancement crystals and item sets, in particular.

Enhancement crystals can be swapped out of a weapon, armor or shield, depending on the type. They give the item they're attached to a boost, such as bonus damage against undead, the ability to draw it as a free action, or damage reduction. Most of them have a least, lesser and greater variant so they can be handed out at low levels as well as high.


I'm looking forward to adding some of the items to my current campaign.

Anyone else have any input on this book?

They also added most of the Psionic items as well, which sort of rubbed me the wrong way, because I really liked how distinguished they were from regular magic items. However, I can live with it, I was surprised they added items from Eberron, but they took the best items (Like the spare hand, the Eternal wands, etc.) and not those lousy grafts.

I like the Enhancement crystals, they're good dinky little items at low level, and pretty useful at higher levels still. Exalted should take notice and perhaps create a standard for Hearthstones in this vein.

[Aaron.Brown]

FF VII? The crystals maybe, but the "item sets" are certainly Diablo-esque to the max.


Not that either concept sounds too bad.

Better off stealing well than inventing crap. (;

FFXI Online also has item sets. ;D

aaron

[vitus979]

I wonder if they've finally wised up and made the Lyre of Building a minor artifact like it should be.

[Victim]

I don't have it with me, but that was a paragraph-long list...and included the DMG.

Yeah, but the only change from the DMG that I saw was a minor tweak to the weapon Burst powers and a few other things that use their "have another enhancement as a prereq for this one" idea. No substancial changes were made to DMG items.

[BASHMAN]

Yes. It is abolutely essential to have if you are playing an Artificer. Gives you a whole lot more things to do!

[johnnype]

It should be noted that it is NOT a compilation of ALL the magic items that have appeared before. Far from it actually. About half the items in the book are new. Many existing items have been fine tuned, most of the items have had their price reduced.

I've mentioned this else where but I found their exclusion of weapon and armor materials (like glassteel) rather odd. They have also left out several different weapon special abilities like Displacement from Oriental Adventures. One of the authors has a good series of articles (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20070302a)on the WotC website on how they chose what to include and exclude in the book. It's worth a read before anyone goes flying off the handle about what's in the book and what's not.

I am satisfied with the book but would have liked a little more attention to materials.

[Tzeentch]

If the item wasn't really lame/broken/overpriced it wasn't a priority to get in the book I believe (they did showcase some of the better items from various books though).

I'm pretty happy with the book - I think they should release this supposed design document used for the project for everyone to read though.

[vitus979]

Is there a list somewhere (probably on WotC's forums) of the most radically altered items in terms of abilities or cost?

I've done a little browsing of the copy I got today. They didn't put the Lyre of Building in there (shakes head). Obviously the guy's at WotC don't have any particularly creative players in their campaigns. If it cost 5x as much as it does in the DMG I'd still buy one in a heartbeat (as well as the +10 - +15 Perform item to play it) in any campaign that wasn't a constant dungeon dive.

I tend to look at items that my current or recent characters might've used when I browse for the first time and as my last character was a lancer I looked at a couple of those (thanks to the artwork it was pretty easy). What were they thinking with some of those specific lance weapons? No one with an option for something else would use the 3 or 4 I read about. "3 times a day can cast the Magic Missile spell"? WTF does that have to do with charging your opponent on horseback and impaling him for vast amounts of multiplicative damage? I mean come on, that's what a lance is FOR!*

The generic weapon abilities are potentially very useful for some builds (Stunning Surge weapon w/ melee Cleric for example). My glance found some useful stuff, and that's all good.

Some of the crystal augmentations were possibly overpowered, notably the ones that let you sneak attack and crit undead & constructs. The purpose of those critters is so that they CAN'T be critted or sneak attacked. Other crystals looked kind of neat, but very niche (of course, that's kinda their purpose).

The item sets weren't as interesting/potent as I'd hoped they'd be. I guess they'd be worth the effort if you stacked the appropriate "Big 6" magical item effects into the items. Given how they talk about merging "Big 6" item effects with the idiosyncratic effects I'm a little surprised more items in the books don't reflect this stance. What better place to showcase this than the item sets?

Runestaffs: Otherwise known as the newest best friend of wizards and sorcerers everywhere. Between this and metamagic rods wizards and sorcs now actually have something useful to spend their cash on at higher levels that's better than "somewhat useful".

* Valorous Lance of Collision FTW in this case. I talked with my GM about it and we came to the conclusion that nothing else you can add to a weapon comes close to being as effective.

[Particle_Man]

Listing more options for intelligent magic items would have been nice. Also fixing a few of the powers that seem a bit miscalculated.

[vitus979]

Listing more options for intelligent magic items would have been nice. Also fixing a few of the powers that seem a bit miscalculated.

Very true, I've been dipping my toes in intelligent items recently and a larger list of powers and purposes would've been nice.

[hackmastergeneral]

Inclusion of Legacy items would be nice too. I enjoy the concept of Weapons of Legacy, but I don't know how well they really work out in reality. Its one of the few books my GM hasn't bought.

[Tao Jones]

By the way, how 'bout that illustration of the Hammer of Fisting or whatever it's called?

[Vigorous Ape]

Listing more options for intelligent magic items would have been nice. Also fixing a few of the powers that seem a bit miscalculated.

The complete Book of Eldritch Might had some interesting stuff about intelligent weapons, and items. Basically they level up, and can take special feats that give them more powers or focus their existing ones.

[vitus979]

Inclusion of Legacy items would be nice too. I enjoy the concept of Weapons of Legacy, but I don't know how well they really work out in reality. Its one of the few books my GM hasn't bought.

The general consensus at our table is that the ones in the book aren't worth the effort and penalties they incur, but with a decent amount of work you can make one with the creation rules in the back that's worth your time.

[Tzeentch]

The MIC would have had to been QUITE large to incorporate the Legacy rules.

It is really wierd they didn't include stuff like the Sceptre rules from Lost Empires of Faerun though ...