I also added the bare bones of a value system. I was thinking of making the items worth a base value of 500 gp (or sp if on a silver economy) and each - or + is a d20 roll. The results of those rolls are multiplied by 100 to give you gp values to add or subtract. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible. So, that should give a potential value of 8500 if you get lucky. I would probably put a lower limit of 10 or 20gp even if the item is crude and broken. They are supposed to be of some value after all.
What do you think? Are the values too low? Too swingy?
I wouldn't use this to handle all my magic item needs. I like making unique ones too much. But this could be a handy way to quickly get a central treasure to place in a small dungeon.
Update 2/28/14:
I went back and made some revisions, including replacing fur cloak with leather saddle. I was thinking spurs might be a good possibility as well, but went with saddle to use leather as a material. I think leather is stiff enough to function as symbolic swords and coffers and such. I also replaced hair with iron as a material.
I tried to make a couple more magical properties more abstract so as to work better with the other item possibilities. The coffer holding more than it should is still a little too specific, but I thought it could also be understood as "expands to necessary size" for some of the items like ring, sword, helm, etc.
I want to make a separate clothing item table now with cloaks and hats made of fur and feathers and such. I don't think I can stretch it to 20 entries maybe 6 would be enough.
Maybe arrange the base values in order of material, kind of exponentially. Then what the item is (size), condition, and magical properties can give multipliers or dividers (by 2 or 5). So, Gold is a base 1000, Silver 100, and if you get a gold ring (small, 1/5) that is ornate (x2) and has the "know who speaks the truth" power (x10) it is 1000/5 = 200 * 2 = 400 * 10 = 4000 gp value.
ReplyDeleteOr on second thought the magical powers should be add-on, not multiply, so they don't vary with the apparent worth of the object.
DeleteI'd probably change "Heal those that drink from it" to something more generic like "Heal the injured" or "Heal worthy souls" so that it fits with more of the items. Invocation modes like "drink from it" could be ad hoc fitted to the item.
ReplyDeleteYou find a miniature sword made of hair, rumored to grant the ability to heal those who drink from it!
ReplyDelete...Made by a strange culture, I'll wager. 8^D
Funning aside, it's a great chart... but vulnerable to funning nonetheless.
That.
DeleteIs.
One Helluva Awesome Magic Item!
Confanity, I am placing a hair sword of healing in my next treasure hoard. (Since hair is not a liquid and therefore can not be drunk, I will rule that when wielded by a good aligned character, the sword's hilt produces a honeylike healing substance but when wielded by an evil aligned character, people can be healed and granted momentary immunity to poison/toxins by licking the blood left over on it after it kills a creature with blood/ichor/sap.)
Awesome idea for a sword, Confanity!
Thanks for the great comments, it helped me revise this puppy.
ReplyDelete@Roger: That makes sense but it goes a bit above the threshold of complexity that I'm aiming for. I had more explicit size and condition columns in my earlier object quality chart, for example, but realized that I probably only needed a few evocative adjectives from each. So I smooshed them, with some other things, into the details column. So what I'm wondering about gp values is, would the numbers resulting from the system I suggest be so weird or out of scale in comparison to the system you suggest as to be noticeable? If not, I'm happy to stay simple.
@Ed: Good catch, thanks. I tried to do that but some inconsistency snuck in. I also went back and changed a few others.
@Confanity: I think that you point out the weakness of this type of table, In trying to squeeze out more possible outcomes from the same page space you are more and more likely to get some ridiculous outcomes. But, cloak and fur was bugging me since I put them in, and you've convinced me to try and make a separate clothing items table with caps and boots and such. Thanks.
I like it. Will be printing one out for one the fly loot making.
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by this treasure table to make an Abulafia page for this treasure table - I hope that's okay - which creates a plausible combination of 'description' and 'material' for a single item. I think it came out pretty good!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Treasure_By_Value