Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Magic Item Reset (VII): Neck items


We get to the neck slot: cloaks, amulets, brooches, and other shiny things.

Magic Cloak- Level 1+ Common Neck
Lvl 1 (+1); Lvl 6 (+2); Lvl 11 (+3); Lvl 16 (+4); Lvl 21 (+5); Lvl 26 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will

Elven Cloak - Level 2+ Common Neck
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: You can use a +4 bonus instead of your dexterity modifier when making Stealth checks. 
   Level 12: +7 bonus.
   Level 22: +10 bonus.

Feather Cloak - Level 2+ Common Neck
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Power (Encounter). Free action. Trigger: You fall. Effect: You take no damage from the fall, regardless of its distance, and do not fall prone at the end of the fall.

Cloak of Resistance - Level 3+ Common Neck
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Special: When this item is created, choose one of the following damage types: force, poison, necrotic, radiant, psychic.
Property: You gain resist 5 against the chosen damage type.
   Level 13: Resist 10.
   Level 23: Resist 15.

Amulet of Life - Level 3+ Common Neck
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: You gain a +2 item bonus to death saving throws.

Periapt of Wound Closure - Level 4+ Common Neck
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: You gain a +2 item bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage.

Resilience Amulet - Level 5+ Common Neck
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: The first time you make a saving throw during each encounter, you can roll twice and use either result.

Ironskin Amulet - Level 2+ Uncommon Neck
Lvl 2 (+1); Lvl 7 (+2); Lvl 12 (+3); Lvl 17 (+4); Lvl 22 (+5); Lvl 27 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Power (Daily) Minor action. You gain resist to all damage equal to twice the amulet's enhancement bonus until the end of the encounter.

Amulet of Shared Suffering - Level 3+ Uncommon Neck
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Power (Encounter). Free action. Trigger: An attack gives you ongoing damage. Effect: The attacker gains an equal amount of untyped ongoing damage (save ends), and has a -5 penalty to saves made against the ongoing damage this turn.

Cloak of Distortion - Level 4+ Uncommon Neck
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: You gain partial concealment against all ranged attacks from 5 or more squares away.

Amulet of Rapid Recovery - Level 5+ Uncommon Neck
Lvl 5 (+1); Lvl 10 (+2); Lvl 15 (+3); Lvl 20 (+4); Lvl 25 (+5); Lvl 30 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Power (Daily) Minor action. Until the end of the encounter, the first time you make a saving throw each turn, you can roll twice and use either result.

Necklace of Fireballs - Level 3+ Rare Neck
Lvl 3 (+1); Lvl 8 (+2); Lvl 13 (+3); Lvl 18 (+4); Lvl 23 (+5); Lvl 28 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: You gain resist 5 fire.
   Level 13: resist 10.
   Level 23: resist 15.
Power (Daily). Standard action. As the wizard's Fireball power. You can use this item as an implement for the power, applying its enhancement bonus to attack and damage rolls. You can use your primary ability modifier instead of your intelligence modifier for the attack rolls, and gain a +1 item bonus to attack rolls and damage rolls for the attack. 
   Level 13: +2 item bonus.
   Level 23: +3 item bonus.


Cloak of Invisibility - Level 4+ Rare Neck
Lvl 4 (+1); Lvl 9 (+2); Lvl 14 (+3); Lvl 19 (+4); Lvl 24 (+5); Lvl 29 (+6)
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex and Will
Property: When making stealth checks, you can roll twice and use either result.
Power (Encounter): Minor action. You become invisible until you attack or until the end of your next turn. 
   Sustain minor: The power persists until you attack or until the end of your next turn.

As usual, any feedback will be greatly appreciated.


 

8 comments:

  1. Very nice! I like that they overall have a saving-throw and resistance theme going.

    Why no draconic breath resists on the cloak of resistance? Thought that'd make it too much of an auto-pick?

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  2. Oh, I'm gonna answer my own question here. Those are on the *armor* of resistance. Clever!

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  3. I'd recommend curbing the resistance on Ironskin Amulet. Just because it's a 1/day doesn't mean that Resistance to All Damage 6 isn't significant. After all, Stoneskin is a daily utility (meaning it uses up a high value slot), and gives Resistance 10.

    Unless there's some way to prevent characters from swapping out neck slot items between encounters. If there is, then yeah, the cost is the cost of the neck slot, rather than just "one of your uncommons."

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  4. I quite like these choices. There are multiple compelling options here. A key check for me is to assume I'm playing with intrinsic bonuses and to see if I'd sacrifice one of my three uncommon magic items for a neck slot. In most cases the answer is a resounding expletive-laden *no.* But... these are competitive.

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  5. On Ironskin, and item swapping. The rarity system is under DM veto, and it is assumed that a character won't have access to multiple instances of the same item without a very good reason, such as dual wielding. So abusing the system to turn dailies into encounters, and encounters into at-wills, which was one of the greatest risks under the original framework, is out of the question.

    Still, there's a different kind of exploit which I hadn't given much consideration. It's still possible for a character to have, say, two different uncommon neck items (or more likely, and uncommon and a common). If one of them has a daily power, the PC could spend it early on during the day, and resort to a possibly weaker item with a continuous property or an encounter power for the remaining encounters.

    While slightly cheesy, this doesn't worry me as much as the other kind of exploited mentioned above. Sure, you're squeezing the system to gain a few extra uses of an item power for free, but I don't see this as a way to achieve anything really degenerate. Item math is tight enough that you won't get all that many items with daily powers, to begin with. And with primary slots, it's hard to pull off the trick without resorting to items with lower level enhancement bonuses.

    It's probably more troubling for secondary items, such as belt or feet, where any daily-based uncommon might as well read "and for the rest of the day, you count as having the benefit of some cheap common item". It would be interesting to make some strain tests on the system, to see how bad it can get. I'll be making some of these on my own, but if someone can provide examples of game-breaking abuse, I'm all ears :)

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  6. Oops, I forgot to actually talk about Ironskin Amulet in the previous comment! The power level of this item has been pushed a bit, because by now I've seen how easily daily powers get disregarded in favour of continuous bonuses, and wanted to prevent it. When in doubt, I've been errings towards strong dailies in my items. That said, I've checked the math so that the resistance isn't extremely good at any given level (which is the most common risk when dealing with this kind of abilities), and resist values consistently remain between 20-30% of expected monster damage, which seems decent enough for a daily effect. It is assumed that rarity rules prevent this effect from getting used more than once per day.

    I didn't give much thought for the comparison against Stoneskin, which isn't that bad until epic anyway. For what it's worth, if I played a wizard I'd probably want to have both the utility and the item, so it's not like you are obsoleting anything.

    An alternate implementation would have the item scaling by tier, with resist 3 at heroic, 6 at paragon, and 9 at epic. This is about the minimum power level at which I'd consider taking the item for one of my characters, though I'm still not convinced that it's enough. I'll think about it...

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  7. Honestly, I hate dailies as they're currently presented. People think "It's only a daily" but in practice, you only fight so many encounters per day-if every daily power is game-changing, the party has like, 30 game changing powers per day or something.

    Smaller daily powers-but with said daily powers being more reasonably accessible-seems like the way to go. I think my ideal magical item is probably Corellon's Boon of Arcane Might.

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  8. Well, in an extreme case, a 30 level character could have something like 22 daily powers (12 rare + uncommon items, 6 utilities, and 4 daily attacks). However, given how good encounter/at-will powers tend to be next to those, a more realistic maximum would be 9: 3 from items, 2 from utilities, and 4 daily attacks. Which is still a lot, and leaves players with a couple daily powers for each encounter in a day.

    Unfortunately, we don't have much margin for determining the power level of a daily - if we want it to get played, that is. Because daily item powers have to compete with encounter powers and continuous properties, you need to make them really good, or the item becomes junk (which is what happens with 99% of daily items in the game, by the way). So I'm walking a fine line, here.

    I think that, given your tastes, a workable solution for your games could be to skip/ban items with dailies. In my item list, you'd be missing out on a few options, but I think there would still be (barely) enough variety to go on. And in the official list... well, you'd be filtering an astounding amount of useless stuff.

    Given the time, for a more radical game redesign, weaker dailies could work if they came in fixed slots - that is, if they didn't have to compete with other types of powers. As an example, we could make all level 2 utilities in the game dailies, or we could have all hands items to provide daily powers.

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