Non-random aquisition of magical items?

[Dunkelbrink]

I think the magic item rules are ridiculous. Just make magic items you think are appropriate to the game, let the PCs find them as part of their adventures. Don't make them roll dice to see if they find it. It's so arbitrary and useless.

Whoa. For a guy hanging out in a forum dedicated to fans of The One Ring roleplaying game you're being quite hostile. If you hate the magic items rules much so (along with your expressed dislike of the rules for social encounters, and - a wild guess - also the combat and journey rules) you might want to try another game instead? You're contributions are not really constructive.

[Glorelendil]

I think the magic item rules are ridiculous. Just make magic items you think are appropriate to the game, let the PCs find them as part of their adventures. Don't make them roll dice to see if they find it. It's so arbitrary and useless.

Poor manners aside, I completely disagree. I think it's exciting to make that long-shot roll, you really feel like something special happened when you get something (as opposed to "well my LM was planning to give that to me anyway"), and it's also in line with the source texts, especially the troll cave.

Also, if you give the item two to three magical qualities, let the player just spend a point of experience to unlock one other quality as part of an undertaking or let them use the abilities straight away.

Except that breaks the game economy. Badly. Pre-Rivendell, a character could get a maximum of 5 rewards or qualities (one for each Valour point). With the rules in Rivendell that increases by one for each magic item. Well, for each Famous Arms & Armour. Wondrous Artefacts are pure bonus.

If you could unlock qualities for a single XP, then you blow the lid off the cap. And that's a problem because the player who gets lucky with the treasure rolls is suddenly even more ahead of his poor friend who didn't get lucky.

Of course, if you're going to dispense with the dice rolls and just have the LM hand out loot, that probably doesn't matter.

[Deadmanwalking]

Even if just giving everyone magic items, not having people need to raise Valour or trade in existing items to unlock their magic item's powers really devalues Valour and utterly screws people who get, say, a magic sword when they already have a Grievous, Fell, sword as compared to the guy who gets a magic sword when he has a Reinforced shield and Cunning Make armor.

That part is a flat out bad idea.

[Insect King]

Even if just giving everyone magic items, not having people need to raise Valour or trade in existing items to unlock their magic item's powers really devalues Valour and utterly screws people who get, say, a magic sword when they already have a Grievous, Fell, sword as compared to the guy who gets a magic sword when he has a Reinforced shield and Cunning Make armor.

How's that any different from a player who buys three qualities for his longsword and discovers an enchanted elven sword with three magical qualities -- which are a critical element of game? That player then sits for thirty seconds to calculate the experience costs (he'll need to buy four virtues and rewards -- to unlock maybe two of the three the magic qualities of the sword -- not including the time he needs to waste getting the entire party to trek to Rivendell to get the magic sword analysed by a Lore-master -- and the four or five other Fellowship phases needed to unlock the two hidden magic qualities.

That player will look at that magic sword and say feck it, take it to Rivendell and donate it to their museum for some extra standing and ask the party dwarf enchant his sword with a magical quality he wants during the next Fellowship phase.

That part is a flat out bad idea.

If can think its a bad idea to ignore the magic item rules, you can and you can still keep playing your game any boring, frustrating and arse-backwards way you want, but I'm still going to run games where players aren't relentlessly punished or taxed just to play the game's story. I prefer they have fun.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Deadmanwalking]

How's that any different from a player who buys three qualities for his longsword and discovers an enchanted elven sword with three magical qualities -- which are a critical element of game? That player then sits for thirty seconds to calculate the experience costs (he'll need to buy four virtues and rewards -- to unlock maybe two of the three the magic qualities of the sword -- not including the time he needs to waste getting the entire party to trek to Rivendell to get the magic sword analysed by a Lore-master -- and the four or five other Fellowship phases needed to unlock the two hidden magic qualities.

Huh? You can trade in your existing Longsword to unlock the qualities immediately. Without any analysis from a loremaster, even (that just lets you know what you get before you get it). You need buy nothing, you just give up your (3 Quality) sword and get a new (3 magical quality) sword, plus a point of Standing. All that does cost a Fellowship Phase undertaking, but it's a solid call. He's slightly less benefitted than someone who only had a 2 Reward Longsword, but it's still a net win (and a good LM would likely advise against that third Reward being put in the longsword if there's a magic longsword waiting in the wings, which he should know since the LM designs all such weapons in advance).

That player will look at that magic sword and say feck it, take it to Rivendell and donate it to their museum for some extra standing and ask the party dwarf enchant his sword with a magical quality he wants during the next Fellowship phase.

This is very unlikely. As noted, they can have it up and running immediately, and as its Qualities are magical, they're better than baseline ones.

As for the Dwarf, many of the best Qualities are not available to Dwarven-Smithing, and the Dwarf will usually take several Year-End phases to make a single item, and can only ever make one in his entire career...why would he make it for you and not him? Found items are quite a bit better from that perspective. Also, the Dwarf couldn't enchant a 3 Quality item anyway, since nothing about their magic item making lets them add a fourth Quality.

If can think its a bad idea to ignore the magic item rules, you can and you can still keep playing your game any boring, frustrating and arse-backwards way you want, but I'm still going to run games where players aren't relentlessly punished or taxed just to play the game's story. I prefer they have fun.

I was actually specifically referring to ignoring the rules for unlocking Qualities. You wanna ignore the random part, that's a whole different discussion. Also, your tone is rather rude and dismissive, and I'd appreciate you changing it. Many people quite enjoy the game as it is and don't feel that it's punishing or taxing in the way you seem to at all...devaluing their experience is not cool, so please stop.

[Rich H]

... you can still keep playing your game any boring, frustrating and arse-backwards way you want, but I'm still going to run games where players aren't relentlessly punished or taxed just to play the game's story. I prefer they have fun.

You've been asked before to find more courteous ways of stating things; you're using up your welcome here. Rapidly. Tone it down. Please.

[Angelalex242]

What about the idea of letting a player stack natural rewards on his magic items. A magical bow made by the woodland elves...well, why wouldn't it also be a woodland bow? Right now, the only guys that get to stack with magical items are the Dunedain, whose Numenorian Arrows work just fine with any magic bow they find.

[Azrael Macool]

What about the idea of letting a player stack natural rewards on his magic items. A magical bow made by the woodland elves...well, why wouldn't it also be a woodland bow? Right now, the only guys that get to stack with magical items are the Dunedain, whose Numenorian Arrows work just fine with any magic bow they find.

So, I might be wrong because I'm away from book at the moment, but I thought it did say it was perfectly fine for Famous Arms and Armor to be Cultural Rewards. What I've done for my game is figure out which Cultural Rewards would make sense; for instance, the Kings Blade from Hobbits is a Quality that might show up only on Numenorean weapons, Woodland Bows when made by the elves, etc. Generally, when I make Famous Arms and Armor, I design them to have 2-3 Qualities, generally 2 Magical and 1 regular, and that includes Cultural Rewards (though the Player Hero must also come from that culture; no Dwarves finding a Numenorean Kings Blade, for instance). If the Famous Arm or Armor only has 2 Qualities on it, they can go ahead and put on a third Quality as usual.

As for the XP cost, if they don't have the XP right then when seeing if they have magical item, I will generally allow the player to go negative and then award them fewer XP at the end of the Adventure. The only limit I ever use is that they must end up at no fewer than 0 XP at the end of the Adventure, so they can't go more than a few points in the negative, depending on how much is/will probably be awarded, and If I told them, for instance, they'd probably get 4 XP after all is said and done and then decide to only give them 3, well, that's my bad and I would overlook it in that case, though so far that's never happened. It's never really been too much of a problem doing it this way, leastways not that I've noticed.