Paying for Items, yes/no?

[Tywyll]

I'm considering starting a second FH campaign, this one based more closely to a "dnd" feel, but lower level than the one I am currently running. Now, I am considering makeing several sweeping changes, and one of the things I have been toying with is the whole "pay for items" chestnut. Does anyone actually do this? How does it effect the game?

 

Considering I am firmly of the opinion that "points do not equal balance" I don't see how putting items into the game "for free" would be that dangerous (so long as I am controlling what is and isn't going out there, and believe me, it would be firmly controlled). Does anyone actually use that rule, and if so, what effect does it have? HOw do you remove items from characters that earn them in game, but don't want to spend xp on them? For that matter, how do you justify forcing them to spend xp to own the "noo-nah of power" and in effect make themselves weaker than the character who is training, increasing stats, ect.?

[Fitz]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

I've never made people pay for doo-dads they've garnered in the course of a campaign, and I seriously doubt that I ever will. I make people pay for abilities they'd have if they were reduced to Ye Olde Undies of Yore, and that's it. Apart from anything else, I like to keep a pretty constant circulation going when it comes to magical fooferaw, and people get less upset about losing something they got for free (or at least, just with blood, sweat and tears) than stuff they spent their precious character points on.

[Vondy]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

No. For purely heroic campaigns I follow Fitz's "Ye Ole Undies of Yore" policy.

[Nevenall]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

I have had people pay points for items their character starts with, but not for magic items they find later on. But then I don't hand out magic items very often.

I can see that it could become an issue though, because there always seems to be one character who ends up with a huge horde of magic items.

If you are a wizard in DnD there is no point in hording a magic long sword because it won't do you any good. Even if you could use it, your spells are still much more efficient.

However, in Hero System a magic long sword is equally good for any character. In fact, it could turn a wizard into a darn good fighter as well as a wizard.

 

It sounds like you have two competing aspects. The low starting points will make magic items very powerful, but this is a DnD flavored game, so you don't want to make people pay for items.

You might want to think about the Resource Points system from Dark Champions. That would allow a character to horde any number of magic items, but only use a limited set of them at one time.

[LordGhee]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

Is it not the point!

 

To find the sword that goew snicker snak.

 

the ring that brings great pain. . . . pain of pursuit, wrath of the wraith, pain of the fate of the world on your hand.

 

 

potions and scrolls and ring and things.

 

cloaks and boots and wands

 

more stuff he cry's

 

 

Hero's Fanasty gamemasters are a miserly lot

 

Lord Ghee

[Jkeown]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

It often seems as if the cost of things is never on the mind of my players. They spend and spend, one flipped a gold imperial at a goblin torchbearer so he'd go away. It costs 1 copper to to have one of the little bastards walk you home, and she gave him a gold peice so he'd not do it. There is an open sewer grate (and several d6 of falling and breaking damage) in her future.

 

This extends to magic items. On my homepage, I have the magic item system. PCs do not pay for them at start up. They get ONE. After that, what you finds is what you keeps. And you don't pay points for those either.

 

It's not about balance... this is, after all... HERO! It's about the story!

[CourtFool]

Paying for Items, yes and no.

 

I think a lot of this comes from the Fighter-Wizard argument that fighters get all their weapons for free where wizards have to buy their fireballs. Personally, I do not agree with the argument. A fireball is not the same as a sword and there is nothing stopping a wizard from picking up a sword (unlike some systems).

 

In the campaigns I have run, I have never charged for mundane armor, equipment or weapons. I do charge for magic items so they tend to be very rare. I doubt not charging for magic items would have plunged my campaign into chaos. I just wanted to discourage Monty Hallism.

[sbarron]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

I'm considering starting a second FH campaign' date=' this one based more closely to a "dnd" feel, but lower level than the one I am currently running. Now, I am considering makeing several sweeping changes, and one of the things I have been toying with is the whole "pay for items" chestnut. Does anyone actually do this? How does it effect the game?[/quote']Using "pay for items" in your game would ruin the D&D feel. The whole point of most D&D games is to accumulate magic items as you grow in experience. If you start making PCs pay for magic items, they will be less inclined to stockpile, which is very...unlike...D&D. Plus, the amount of experience needed to get a new magic item every adventure or two would be more XP than most PCs get over that same time.

 

I think you should just keep doing it the way you have been. You (the GM) decide which items to introduce, how powerful they are, and when to take them away. You can better control things by just being attentive to the power and number of magic items introduced into the game than you can by getting the PCs involved.

 

HOw do you remove items from characters that earn them in game' date=' but don't want to spend xp on them? For that matter, how do you justify forcing them to spend xp to own the "noo-nah of power" and in effect make themselves weaker than the character who is training, increasing stats, ect.?[/quote']This is the heart of the problem in using "pay for items" in a D&D type game. In this style of game, the PCs are expecting to accumulate magic items. It's a big part of the game, which makes your above points big problems in the game.

 

I think the "pay for items" approach would work better for games that are unlike D&D. Games with a feel like Conan novels, Elric, and to a lesser extent the LOTR. Characters aren't running around collecting magic items. They don't switch out their magic sword they've been using for years when a "kewler" one comes along, either. Conan doesn't collect anything. Elric never loses Stormbringer for long. And while many magic items are accumulated during the Hobbit and the LOTR, generally these items stay with that character throughout the story. (Anduril, Glamdring, Orcrist, Sting, Elvin clothing, Phial of Galadriel, mithril armor, all the Rings, etc...). In a game emmulating these settings, PCs paying for what become their signiture magic items makes sense.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

To me the difference in paying for things and not is control.

 

If I as a player as milling to spend points on something then the GM, as long as teh request is reasonable, has an obligation to help me get what I want. If I don't want to spend points then I can make do with what is offered up to me.

 

In the D&D game we've been playing another board member, Shem Whistler, is playing a stupid elf warrior who was designed to be a DEX based fighter. In the first scenario he found a huge sword that he thought would be better than his orcish long knife (he was raised by orcs, its a long story). He found the sword difficult to use until the wizard cast enlarge on him and he drank a potion of bulls strength.

 

Now he wants the sword to be able to enlarge him when he draws it. The GM wasn't willing to change the sword - and quite rightly so, it would be a huge advantage to him and would be done almost entirely by GM fiat.

 

If this was a Fantasy Hero campaign the GM would still be able to refuse until the player said "Well, I have a bunch of XP stored here. What if I bought the sword with the powers inherent in it and the bard recognised some symbols that revealed this hidden power of the sword or it fell into an alchemists pot when he was brewing an enlarge potion??" In this instance I would say that the GM would have a responsibility to make it happen. The player is willing to put up his XP for the advantage, and it isn't unreasonable, so he should get it.

 

 

Doc

[Outsider]

Re: Paying for Items, yes and no.

 

I think a lot of this comes from the Fighter-Wizard argument that fighters get all their weapons for free where wizards have to buy their fireballs. Personally, I do not agree with the argument. A fireball is not the same as a sword and there is nothing stopping a wizard from picking up a sword (unlike some systems).

 

In the campaigns I have run, I have never charged for mundane armor, equipment or weapons. I do charge for magic items so they tend to be very rare. I doubt not charging for magic items would have plunged my campaign into chaos. I just wanted to discourage Monty Hallism.

 

 

I tend to take the other side of the fighter-wizard argument. Sure, the wizard can pick up a sword, but having spent most of his points on spells/spell casting/spell knowledge, he isnt going to be capable enough with it to face anything but low power minions. Unless he is the particularly obnoxious sort of wizard who buys his spells specifically to enhance his abilities with the sword.

 

Despite my position in the wiz/war argument, I haven't provided point-free magical gear to casters in my campaigns and I have provided point-free mundane gear to warriors. Magical gear either costs points (if the character starts with it) or is point-free and gained through play. My players have tended strongly to making only warriors or caster-warriors.

[Fitz]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

On the "free weapons but pricey spells" front....

 

I'm just about to start a FH campaign with old converted AD&D characters, and the problem of how to keep the D&D feel and not price wizards' magicout of the market has been occupying my mind a lot. I've decided that, like AD&D, I'm not going to charge wizards for their spells at all; instead I'm going to have them buy a Mana Pool -- an END Reserve with equal Reserve and REC total, and Slow Recovery (per day, at dawn) which they use to cast all their spells. They can cast anything they have in their spellbooks up to the limits of their END Reserve; I'm dumping the old "pick your spells at the beginning of the day and you're stuck with them" trope though.

 

I haven't play-tested this at all yet, but I feel that it should allow me some control over levels of magic use by keeping an eye on pool size and what spells I let them get their greasy little mitts on, while freeing up wizard players a bit from the rather restricted AD&D forms.

[Lethosos]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

There's another way of dealing with it... Simply put, mundane stuff isn't terribly difficult to obtain, but the good stuff, doesn't always reveal themselves. Like a wizard needs to build his spell pool through research, and the cleric gets granted more responsibilities over time through his own spells, the fighter/thief can learn more about their magic items over time, like training or attunement. (I would use attunement moreso, I plan on using that as the method of control for magic items in Eight Sages.) This has the added benifet of you being able to say 'Okay, the fire that wisps on your sword seems to be larger and brighter, now that you've killed the Ice Ogre Chieftain' and give him a +1d6 Fire effect at your leisure. Similarily, he can gradually spend XP to let it 'upgrade' as well, given opportunities like above.

[Vondy]

Re: Paying for Items, yes and no.

 

I tend to take the other side of the fighter-wizard argument. Sure, the wizard can pick up a sword, but having spent most of his points on spells/spell casting/spell knowledge, he isnt going to be capable enough with it to face anything but low power minions. Unless he is the particularly obnoxious sort of wizard who buys his spells specifically to enhance his abilities with the sword.

 

Despite my position in the wiz/war argument, I haven't provided point-free magical gear to casters in my campaigns and I have provided point-free mundane gear to warriors. Magical gear either costs points (if the character starts with it) or is point-free and gained through play. My players have tended strongly to making only warriors or caster-warriors.

 

How many people purchase their spells as OAF, Independent? Not many, I should think. And not all spells require components. You can't take away the wizard's fireball spell. You can take away the fighters sword.

[Outsider]

Re: Paying for Items, yes and no.

 

How often does the OAF, and especially the Independent on his sword really limit a warrior, though, given the ubiquity of swords in most fantasy settings?

 

OAF is a -1 limitation. That means (all limitations being equal) it should be arranged by the GM that a warrior's sword will be knocked out of his hands, stolen, or otherwise be unavailable 10% to 37.5% of the time (14 jam to 11- activation, dependng on how unavailable it is made) Further, if it is lost from his possession and not immediately recoverable (ie laying on the ground next to him after a successful disarrm) or if it is broken, the ubiquity of swords make replacing it a trivial task. Compare this to the wizard who has taken "OAF - Rune Inlaid Iron Rod" as a (non-expendable) component for his Fireball spell. Unless one is running an extremely magic heavy campaign where every 3rd cannon-fodder monster is a fireball casting wizard, having his rod break or be stolen is going to prevent him from casting Fireball for the rest of the adventure, and possibly longer, if it takes more than 1 session to get back to a town with a sufficiently skilled smith/armorer to make a new one.

 

Independent is, similarly, made largely non-limiting by the ubiquity of swords. Lose your mundane/off the shelf sword? Who cares! Grab another one off the next orc you kill! Again, most fantasy worlds are not so awash in magic wands.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Paying for Items, yes/no?

 

For the Fantasy Genre, unless you are playing a "Champion of the Gods" type campaign, making characters pay points for items just feels....wrong to me.