Magic Item Reward Tracks v0.1.0 #

Justification & Reasoning #

Broadly speaking, Players will desire Magic Items, but not every Magic Item discovery can be a “magical feeling” for your players, in-fact many of them will end up falling by the wayside, forever lost to irrelevancy somewhere three quarters down the page.

Many adventures work like this, where Magic Items are written into an area of the campaign brimming with lore, depth, and history only for the item to just, not fit the party. What could have been a grand reveal and a moment of excitement, ends up falling flat and potentially making the players disappointed, since they probably won’t see another Magic Item again soon. Even worse yet, players may fear or be given the impression that Magic Items as a whole; aren’t actually something to get excited about, but are rather something you should approach with hesitancy.

And this Magic Item can be rejected for several reasons. The Players may find that a given Magic Item or Weapon doesn’t really fit their Character’s Aesthetic, Personality, or Morals. And on a mechanical side, it may not fit their Archetype, Stats, or their Build! The Barbarian who has actively gone out of their way to gain and use something like the Unarmed Fighting Style, likely won’t much fancy the idea of having some boring Flaming Sword. What that Pugilist Barbarian wants is “for their fists to ignite in flame as they deliver a explosive punch of furious glory”! No matter the reason, if the Magic Item is rejected because its incompatible with the Player Characters, then the effort the DM has put into creating and manifesting that item in the campaign teeters on the brink of being effectively wasted.

You can also run into the problem where one Player Character simply gets more than their fair share of the loot. Maybe the Pugilist Barbarian doesn’t need the Flaming Sword, but the Ranger “wouldn’t mind it”, because “if no one else wants it there’s no reason to throw it away right?”, but you the DM have already prepared for that Ranger to get a Magic Bow in the not-too-distant future! When they acquire that Bow the “Flaming Sword of Argonokk” may never see the light of day again, doomed to forever sit at the hip of the Bow Wielding Ranger, only to get out-paced and replaced later on in the campaign.

So if we can’t rely on the Player Characters syncing up to all the Magic Items existing latent in our world, than how about we flip the problem on its head? Let’s not try and fit the Characters to the Items, lets fit the Items to the Characters.

Implementation #

So how exactly do we fit the Magic Items to the Player Characters you may ask, well rest assured that neither you nor I have the interest in rewriting every single Magic Item to date such that it can be used by any Character at any time.

What we’ll do instead, is allow Player Characters to effectively work towards gaining Magic Items that their Player is interested in! Allow your Players to choose a Magic Item of reasonable power given their Level, Means, or general ability to acquire information about it, and allow them to work towards the item of their choosing. Set a target value, and set what actions or conditions fulfill that value, maybe victories in battle against the “Cult of the Ivory Horn” gives 1 point out of 5 that upon reaching 5 points allows the Pugilist Barbarian to discover clues or direction to the location of the “Knuckle Wraps of the Ivory Lord”. If it feels like the character has still yet to earn this item, then maybe there is a small dungeon full of goons or even a simple mini-boss that must be cleared first in order to retrieve the item.

By amassing victories you’d get like, a reward track type deal that when you complete you get some form of clue to the location of a magic item, i.e. theoretically letting the player decide what reward they want [within reason] while also giving the DM a tool to facilitate that with a mini-dungeon [or some other in-world justification if need be])

You also get two other subtle things from this system, the First is an intrinsic link between pillars of the game, as defined by the DM. Whether the target value is met by emerging victorious in Combat, Exploring old ruins, or suavely out-maneuvering Social/Political opponents, you gain a versatile way to reward and direct Players and their Characters, while also allowing them to set their own goals! Due to the semi-hands free nature of this system, the only thing you as a DM need to be on hook for is: However the clues to the Magic Item themselves manifest, the Conditions for progress and the Method to acquire the Magic Item, and how frequently you wish to be giving out Magic Items in this way. In a future version of this concept, suggested frequencies of running this system will be provided.

The Second thing you gain from this system is that as it becomes more refined you will have a steady and sturdy tool that will allow you to gauge and manage Player rewards and power through Magic Items without relying SOLELY on DM Fiat.

The Second point alone is my own personal desire that lead me to create this concept at all, and as I tweak and update it more, I hope that it can serve a wide variety of DMs and Campaigns. Thank you for reading, have a beautiful day!

Todo:
	Working Name: 'The Fated Relic System'
	Provide a suggested rate at which Magic Items should be rewarded using this system
		Maybe run this system once per tier (I.e. 1-4, 5-10, 11-16, 17-20)?
			Maybe more or less times depending on Campaign Magic Level (Low, Medium, High)?
			And also maybe more or less depending on if you wish to simply hand out Magic Items?