Paying for Magic Items

[Tywyll]

I know this is an old chestnut...

 

What are people's preferred method of dealing with magic items? do you charge points for them? give them away for free? Give them a reduced Real Cost?

 

If you charge character points for them, how do your players deal with losing the items?

 

When do you charge the points? How do you ever allow really expensive items into a campaign (ie how could a player ever afford a 20+ point item)?

 

If you don't charge them for it... how do you keep it in hand?

 

I'm basically coming back to fantasy hero after an extended break and I'm reexamining elements of my old campaign. Paying or not paying for magic items is something I'm wrestling with.

 

An alternative I'd thought of for weapons and armor (or any item that has a normal 'cash item' equivalent) was that Players only had to pay the RC difference between a normal item and their item. So if a sword's real cost were 13 and the magic sword was 17, they'd only pay 4.

 

But... I don't know if I even want to go there.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I've got a rather casual mixed approach about magic items. It's not particularly codified or anything, but it works well for us.

 

Most magic items are either disposable (charges, etc, with no way to replenish the charges), and these tend to be bought either with money or they are the SFX of a Power Pool of sorts. As soon as the charges are spent, the points return to the Pool.

 

I prefer the Pool set up for player characters who wish to be able to enchant items. For one, it lets them design something specifically to their own tastes, and for another, it's something I don't have to do for them

 

Seriously, though-- It allows them to make enchanted items (following the magic protocols for the campaign, of course) and even items to give to others without too much fear of loosing points "forever." As soon as the Charges in the item are spent, even if it's a thousand miles away, the points return to the Pool and the item is now a normal whatever it was before.

 

Now for "heavy use" type personal items, it's a bit more complicated, and usually I just kind of "go by feel." Someone with a magic sword, for example, may want to use it considerably more than ten times. In these cases, it's usually a matter of uniqueness and breakability. If it's an unbreakable one-of-a-kind-in-the-universe, it _might_ cost you points. It really depends on whether or not it's one of those "defines the character" sort of items that he just absolutely always-always-always is going to have and never sell and it's nigh impossible to lose or have stolen, etc.

 

Oh yes; that' costs points. During character generation, you'll pay for it up front. If it's something you find along the way, and it becomes such an item, well I'm not heartless. I'm not going to tell a player "you can't pick that up because you don't have enough points to find it laying there on the altar." Instead they get dunned a few points every adventure until they have paid for it. Again, not really formal.

 

Now the last fantasy campaign I ran (they're pretty unusual; I don't care much for the genre or the source material), I tried something different that worked rather well:

 

Item Pool. The biggest worry of players is that they will somehow be "out of points" if they sell a magic item that they have actual EPs invested in. The Pool was something of a way to prevent such a worry. Not like the Power Pool construct, but just a pool of EPs that players were allowed to contribute to for magic items. If someone sold an item that cost fifteen points, then fifteen points were returned to the pool to cover the "cost of owning" the next item. Again, if the pool fell short, then players could pitch in more points as they earned them.

 

That worked out reasonably well, but eventually people started fretting that someone was getting "more than his share" of magic items, or that some people weren't paying in as many points---

 

then they were ownership issues of items and points---

 

So mid-stream of the campaign we changed it a bit, starting with evenly dividing the points in the party's pool.

 

Each player had his own equipment pool that he contributed to at his leisure. This pool covered the cost of magic items he might find or purchase as the game progressed. he could add to the pool as needed. He could also draw from the pool as needed. That is, if he found an item that he absolutely knew he wasn't going to part with, he could permanently "buy" it by reducing the pool by that amount, and the item was his forever-and-ever, etc, with all the Thor's hammer rules in place on that item.

 

A player could also, between games, reduce the pool to use XP stored therein elsewhere on his character sheet. This was like normal progression, and could not be undone. If he bought a new skill, or got stronger, or whatever-- he couldn't "undo" it and slide the points back to his pool anymore than he could undo it and re-spend it elsewhere.

 

This worked the best for me as GM, as players knew the points where theirs to keep and spend as they wished; no one was worried about "point balancing" equipment and items, etc, and no one bickered about unfair usage by someone else.

 

It wasn't as great for the players as the first system as there was no large, single pool to cover the cost of the really impressive magic stuff, so they would often find themselves spending 2 XP every session into their pool with no end in sight. The first set-up made that easier and rarer, but they let worry and jealousy get the better of them, so the second one came to be.

 

I can't say I liked either of them as much as general informality, but some folks get really worked up about requiring the expenditure of points for _everything_.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I know this is an old chestnut...

 

What are people's preferred method of dealing with magic items? do you charge points for them? give them away for free? Give them a reduced Real Cost?

 

If you charge character points for them, how do your players deal with losing the items?

 

When do you charge the points? How do you ever allow really expensive items into a campaign (ie how could a player ever afford a 20+ point item)?

 

If you don't charge them for it... how do you keep it in hand?

 

I'm basically coming back to fantasy hero after an extended break and I'm reexamining elements of my old campaign. Paying or not paying for magic items is something I'm wrestling with.

 

An alternative I'd thought of for weapons and armor (or any item that has a normal 'cash item' equivalent) was that Players only had to pay the RC difference between a normal item and their item. So if a sword's real cost were 13 and the magic sword was 17, they'd only pay 4.

 

But... I don't know if I even want to go there.

 

 

For Magic Items acquired in game play, I treat them the same way I did in D&D. They are simply part of the reward for adventuring.

 

Now, if the resident PC spellflinger wants to create a custom item, then there's gonna be a point expenditure.

[Hierax]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

Pretty simple really, I use the Independent Limitation so if a character starts with the item they pay points for it (as would any character for any power) and lose those points when they lose the item and if they find an item in play they get its points along with it but the points go away with the item if/when it does (I guess that's the same thing as free in an 'easy come easy go' kinda way). This makes it a significant investment/drain to create an item but places the point burden on the creator not the finder/keeper.

 

btw, 6e has eliminated the Independent Limitation but I'm keeping it as a house rule.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I've got a rather casual mixed approach about magic items. It's not particularly codified or anything, but it works well for us.

 

Most magic items are either disposable (charges, etc, with no way to replenish the charges), and these tend to be bought either with money or they are the SFX of a Power Pool of sorts. As soon as the charges are spent, the points return to the Pool.

 

I prefer the Pool set up for player characters who wish to be able to enchant items. For one, it lets them design something specifically to their own tastes, and for another, it's something I don't have to do for them

 

Seriously, though-- It allows them to make enchanted items (following the magic protocols for the campaign, of course) and even items to give to others without too much fear of loosing points "forever." As soon as the Charges in the item are spent, even if it's a thousand miles away, the points return to the Pool and the item is now a normal whatever it was before.

 

Now for "heavy use" type personal items, it's a bit more complicated, and usually I just kind of "go by feel." Someone with a magic sword, for example, may want to use it considerably more than ten times. In these cases, it's usually a matter of uniqueness and breakability. If it's an unbreakable one-of-a-kind-in-the-universe, it _might_ cost you points. It really depends on whether or not it's one of those "defines the character" sort of items that he just absolutely always-always-always is going to have and never sell and it's nigh impossible to lose or have stolen, etc.

 

Oh yes; that' costs points. During character generation, you'll pay for it up front. If it's something you find along the way, and it becomes such an item, well I'm not heartless. I'm not going to tell a player "you can't pick that up because you don't have enough points to find it laying there on the altar." Instead they get dunned a few points every adventure until they have paid for it. Again, not really formal.

 

Now the last fantasy campaign I ran (they're pretty unusual; I don't care much for the genre or the source material), I tried something different that worked rather well:

 

Item Pool. The biggest worry of players is that they will somehow be "out of points" if they sell a magic item that they have actual EPs invested in. The Pool was something of a way to prevent such a worry. Not like the Power Pool construct, but just a pool of EPs that players were allowed to contribute to for magic items. If someone sold an item that cost fifteen points, then fifteen points were returned to the pool to cover the "cost of owning" the next item. Again, if the pool fell short, then players could pitch in more points as they earned them.

 

That worked out reasonably well, but eventually people started fretting that someone was getting "more than his share" of magic items, or that some people weren't paying in as many points---

 

then they were ownership issues of items and points---

 

So mid-stream of the campaign we changed it a bit, starting with evenly dividing the points in the party's pool.

 

Each player had his own equipment pool that he contributed to at his leisure. This pool covered the cost of magic items he might find or purchase as the game progressed. he could add to the pool as needed. He could also draw from the pool as needed. That is, if he found an item that he absolutely knew he wasn't going to part with, he could permanently "buy" it by reducing the pool by that amount, and the item was his forever-and-ever, etc, with all the Thor's hammer rules in place on that item.

 

A player could also, between games, reduce the pool to use XP stored therein elsewhere on his character sheet. This was like normal progression, and could not be undone. If he bought a new skill, or got stronger, or whatever-- he couldn't "undo" it and slide the points back to his pool anymore than he could undo it and re-spend it elsewhere.

 

This worked the best for me as GM, as players knew the points where theirs to keep and spend as they wished; no one was worried about "point balancing" equipment and items, etc, and no one bickered about unfair usage by someone else.

 

It wasn't as great for the players as the first system as there was no large, single pool to cover the cost of the really impressive magic stuff, so they would often find themselves spending 2 XP every session into their pool with no end in sight. The first set-up made that easier and rarer, but they let worry and jealousy get the better of them, so the second one came to be.

 

I can't say I liked either of them as much as general informality, but some folks get really worked up about requiring the expenditure of points for _everything_.

 

not bad, I've been seriously considering adapting the DC Equipment Allowance rules for a high magic FH setting, which works out similarly.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I have a very simple system that's worked well so far:

 

If the character starts play with an item or acquires an item during gameplay that is somehow central to their character, that is central to their enjoyment, that to the player it is a part of the "schtick" or "feel" of the character, and they want to ENSURE that they will retain the item... they pay points. It might be lost for an adventure, but that probably means it is central to that adventure and its reacquisition is a plot point. Barring significant stupidity on the part of the PC, they are guaranteed to get the item back.

 

Anything else- they pay no points for, but I take no actions/offer no generosity/leniency in returning it, and will even occasionally seek plausible reasons for it to be stolen/taken/destroyed. It's yours as long as you can keep it.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

Signature Items I usually charge points for - especially if the Character wants to keep it around, or make it permanent.

 

Anything else is just "normal" equipment. Some games I'd enforce a Dark Champions like Equipment Pool for how much you can have. Some games I don't feel like tracking that much, just weight.

[Markdoc]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

We've tried:

"Pay points for everything you keep" just like in Champions. We actually stuck with this system through several campaigns, so fixed were we in Champions mindset, but it never worked well for us, and as soon as I dumped this approach, so did all the other FH GM's in our group. None of us liked it. In most FH games "Treasure" is a major motivator, even if "kill them and take their stuff" is not a focus in the game.

 

"Equipment pools". We started this before DC was even written, but the concept is pretty much identical. However, this worked only marginally better than "pay as you go". The last straw was when the players were bickering over who got to carry the magic sword: none of them wanted to dump stuff out of their pool so they could have the sword - even though most of them wanted the sword too. In the end, the guy who took it, went out to fight the big bad in his skivvies - because he couldn't fit sword and armour both in his pool. That was so dumb, that I said "Forget the pool - just take the sword already". Duke Bushido has clearly seen some of the same issues, and has taken some of the same corrective issues we did.

 

But in the end, I realized that if the pools were causing a problem that I was solving by saying "ignore the pool" then we'd be better off ignoring the pools. So we did. In FH, I now run and have for many years, with the concept that what you can carry is defined by encumbrance.

 

Balance isn't an issue, with these simple rules.

 

1) Somebody, somewhere, paid XP to make a magic item (I, too, use independant to make permanent items, to offset the pain). That means the PCs can pick it up and cart it around, but there is no guarantee that they can keep it (rather, the reverse). That means in turn, if a player wants to make/have magic items they too must pay the XP cost (if it's a signature item) and if they choose to make it independent, odds are good that at some point it's goin' bye-byes.

Mundane items can be acquired for money. Under realistic situations, PCs loading themselves up with stuff they "might want" has never been an issue - PCs spend too much time climbing tall things, running fast, swimming, in combat, etc for heavy encumbrance to have much appeal.

 

2) Mundane and magic do not stack. If you want to make a magic sword, you pay the full cost of the associated HKA. You can't add it to another HKA. Same goes for armour, whatever. This prevents people going gonzo with cheap, enhanced items.

 

3) If the PCs have a magic item it's either because they wanted it enough to pay points for it - or because I, as GM, gave it to them. Balance is not really an issue. And as free treasure is free, if you give away something as GM you later regret, it's easy enough to steal or destroy it again. Personally, I tend to be pretty light on magical treasures anyway: after 4 years realtime play, and well over 100 XP, the current group has one magical helmet that gives enhanced vision, one rod of animal control, and two one-use scrolls.

 

Not everyone is as stingy as me, but collecting items has never been the focus of my games.

 

cheers, Mark

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

If a player wants his PC to either start with a magic item or create one for himself (or have one created), I have him pay the full real cost. Otherwise, as others have stated, it's generally just part of the adventure.

 

g-a's idea of using the Equipment Pool rules from DC is a good one for keeping magic items bought with cash (if that's even available in the setting) from getting out of hand.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

 

"Equipment pools". We started this before DC was even written, but the concept is pretty much identical. However, this worked only marginally better than "pay as you go".

 

Yep. I only did it for one campaign, and won't do it again. I did it then because I had a couple of new players from a group that believed in "point balance" above all else.

 

I see finding a magic wand or completing a quest to gain a magic sword as part of the genre conventions. They are just items; they are merely nicer than most other items.

 

Should I ever get conned into running Fantasy again, I intend to do it the way I always did before: points if it's an identifying item ("part of your schtick," I think someone else said) or something from char-gen that you just can't lose.

 

Anything else is just stuff.

 

Seems more true to the genre.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I've toyed with the idea of Offensive and Defensive Item Pools before, because yes - I have occasionally run into the problem of fitting armor and weapons in the same people. I can see not being able to carry four swords, but not wearing magic armor and carrying a sword because of a meta-game construct was annoying.

 

But I haven't had a chance to try it out.

 

I have used the Pools as "Active Magic" versus "carried stuff" before, the campaign made it not very far so I have no idea just how well it would have worked.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I have used the Pools as "Active Magic" versus "carried stuff" before' date=' the campaign made it not very far so I have no idea just how well it would have worked.[/quote']

 

 

For what it's worth:

 

It worked very well for us, particularly if your magic or enchantment system features requirements that bump the point costs down considerably. Independent on enchanted items is nearly a must, price-wise, and using a system of Charges not only keeps costs low (they can be re-enchanted by the party spellster ), it reassures the enchanting player that he _will_ be getting his points back eventually, etc.

[Alcamtar]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

Magic items are just items, freely given and freely lost. I've never liked charging points for use, and the pool idea never occurred to me.

 

All items have the independent limitation, making them a little bit more affordable for the creator, and also giving the GM additional rules license to take them away for any reason at all. If a character really must have a signature items I'd consider allowing him to buy off the Independent lim, though I'd still insist on a focus so it can be temporarily lost like a real item. I'm inclined to discourage buyoffs though. If you don't want to lose it, be careful.

 

The Independent limitation does not guarantee you will lose it, it only says you may. IMO you can "pay the cost" either through paranoid vigilance, or through loss. Both are fun!

 

Most items are given as treasure. You may be able to buy one occasionally, but pricing is ad-hoc and not used for balance.

 

CREATING ITEMS: Characters have to pay points for any items they create. Independent Lim is required. There are three ways to offset the cost. First, for a comissioned item, the purchasing character can provide some or all of the points. Second, with proper research skill rolls you can "drain" a non-artifact item of power and recycle it into a new item, but with great effort and significant inefficiency. Third, you can find "raw mana" as treasure; a dragon-heart might be worth 2 CP of fire magic for example.

 

I don't generally favor using charges for expendable items because it's too easy, or too much accounting. Instead you create an Independent item with lots of nonrecoverable charges and pay points for it. Again, the usual way is to substitute "eye of newt" for CP (which may involve a quest of some sort and end up earning CP!) This still makes it "free", keeps it under GM supervision, and adds a bit of color to the process.

 

LOSING ITEMS: If a character loses an item (or other ability) for he spent CP, I'll generally refund the points. If points are a loose indicator of ability, then it only makes sense to keep them balanced. Refunds are not necessarily immediate and are subject to approval, to mitigate abuse.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

The Independent limitation does not guarantee you will lose it, it only says you may. IMO you can "pay the cost" either through paranoid vigilance, or through loss. Both are fun!

 

Personally, that doesn't sound like fun to me. Not regarding a major part of my character (say my really powerful, very unique wizard's staff that is central to both my character's history AND his functionality). If I lose it, I'm out the points... except...

 

LOSING ITEMS: If a character loses an item (or other ability) for he spent CP, I'll generally refund the points. If points are a loose indicator of ability, then it only makes sense to keep them balanced. Refunds are not necessarily immediate and are subject to approval, to mitigate abuse.

 

 

....that doesn't sound like Independent to me. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that ISN'T Independent at all. Which is fine. I think it's the better system. If by some freakish occurrence I lose my staff, and I never wanted the "Independent" Lim in the first place... you'll provide me in game opportunities to get it back, make a new one, find a replacement, or push my powers to make do without it (but I'll still get all my points back, which is good, since they are mine).

[Hierax]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

If you don't want to lose the points, don't use the Independent Limitation, you don't get the discount for the risk that you don't take (you takes the risks you saves the points). That's how I handle it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I dislike the Independent limitation because it creates a binary character. If you don't take away his Independent items, or you let him easily replace it with equivalent value in other Independent items, he has more power than his peers. If the points will always come back, this is just a variuant, IMO, on dividing the cost of all spells by 3. Items that can change over time become lower priced than fixed abilities by virtue of an extra -2 limitation.

 

If you do take them away, and enforce the limitation (ie the points are gone forever), the character is now less powerful than his peers. The extent of the power differential depends on how much of your character is based on independent items. So the strategy becomes loading up on independent items, being very powerful until they get taken away, then retiring the now underpowered character to build a new one with a bunch of independent items.

 

And a lot of those Independent items become IIF's, to reduce the likeliness they are lost. 60 AP, OAF, Independent costs 20 points, and 60 IIF, Independent costs 27. Add in more limitations and the extra savings of an OAF is further reduced. Those savings make the Glowing Magical Sword a much bigger target for removal than the Nondescript Magical Loincloth.

[Tywyll]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

I dislike the Independent limitation because it creates a binary character. If you don't take away his Independent items, or you let him easily replace it with equivalent value in other Independent items, he has more power than his peers. If the points will always come back, this is just a variuant, IMO, on dividing the cost of all spells by 3. Items that can change over time become lower priced than fixed abilities by virtue of an extra -2 limitation.

 

If you do take them away, and enforce the limitation (ie the points are gone forever), the character is now less powerful than his peers. The extent of the power differential depends on how much of your character is based on independent items. So the strategy becomes loading up on independent items, being very powerful until they get taken away, then retiring the now underpowered character to build a new one with a bunch of independent items.

 

And a lot of those Independent items become IIF's, to reduce the likeliness they are lost. 60 AP, OAF, Independent costs 20 points, and 60 IIF, Independent costs 27. Add in more limitations and the extra savings of an OAF is further reduced. Those savings make the Glowing Magical Sword a much bigger target for removal than the Nondescript Magical Loincloth.

 

That's a very good arguement against it! And its always sort of been my gut feeling towards the limitation, though I don't think I could have articulated it as well as you have.

 

So how do you prefer to handle gear in a Heroic Fantasy level campaign? Free? Equipment Pools? Something else?

[Tywyll]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

So here is a question for people who DO charge points for gear. How do you handle it?

 

I'm flipping through some of the TA magic items and many are 10-15 points, and these aren't especially powerful. So, say the party kills an evil boss with his magic sword and armor and the party fighter wants said gear. Does he suddenly go down 25 points in the hole till he pays it off? Do you, as gm, encourage the players to set aside some xp for when they do encounter magic items? It just seems a semi-decent haul of items off a signifigant foe would stall the character's advancement for 5-10 sessions.

 

Or am I not giving out enough xp?

[Kharis2000]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

In our Fantasy HERO game, the GM went back and forth on costs and the like, and ultimately decided that he'd resolve the whole issue of PC's making items by instituting a 'guild' system whereby magic was segregated into types of magic by general feel or political maneuvering, and one had to belong to a specific guild to access their types of magic.

 

So, construction of items was based on membership in the Artificer's Guild, who also had subsumed within their ranks the arts of creating constructs and any magically-enhanced construction techniques. You pay Perk points for access to the spells of a guild, with the higher power spells and abilities costing more perk points to learn (and frequently involving political maneuvering and favor trading to justify the perk advancement, much less the technique you're after). No PC has, to date, cared enough about constructing items to join the guild (multiple memberships are possible and likely, but some guilds prohibit membership in specific other guilds), so we've not worried about that.

 

For regular items, we just treat them as 'found' and use them until they break or until they're lost/stolen. For 'signature items' however, we adopted a system whereby the PC pays for a Perk: Signature Item that costs 1/5 of the Real Cost of the item, and guarantees that if it's lost, it finds it's way back to him, if destroyed it can be rebuilt at no character point cost (role-playing costs not barred, however), and so on.

 

It's been interesting watching various characters and players to see what they were going to identify with strongly enough to declare a signature Item.

[Alcamtar]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

Just starting a new FH campaign. Have an idea and am interested in your opinions.

 

This relates to weapons/armor being free. Character concept could (should?) generally govern whether something is free or not. Now of course the GM could just say no, but players are always proposing exceptions. The idea here is to limit the "freeness" of equipment based on concept, while still allowing "exceptional" characters to pay for the privilege. Of course a player could say his concept is an armored wizard to get around this, so the GM would need to exercise his own discretion about what is genre appropriate or not.

 

Anyway, in mechanical terms:

 

- Normal equipment is "free" if it fits your character archetype, otherwise you have to take a Fringe Benefit in order to use it. Probably 1-3 points depending on how much it violates genre. For example a D&D style priest that wants to use a battle axe might pay 1 pts for the perk, in addition to paying money for the axe. A warrior can use a battle axe for free.

 

- Magic equipment is "free" if it fits your character archetype, otherwise you have to pay the points to be able to use it. A warrior that finds a magic sword can use it without penalty, but a wizard would have to pay the real cost of the weapon to use it.

 

- Armor is (so I hear) uncomfortable at first, much like riding a horse: it chafes and leaves you with sore muscles you're not used to using. But once you get used to it it's fine. The ability to wear armor without DEX/DCV/LTE penalties is a Perk ("Armor Familiarity", 1 pt per 2 DEF); you can use any normal or magical armor up to the DEF limit, but you still have to pay money for it.

 

The basic rationale here is that warriors are limited in what skills and abilities are available, but get free equipment to compensate. Magic using characters are nearly unlimited in variety of abilities, but do not get free equipment.

[Vondy]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

General Rule: I don't charge for magic items.

 

Specific Exception: items that are integral to the character concept that can't be lost (for long) cost points.

 

I would allow characters to pay them off over time (a lien on future experience).

 

But for the most part I treat it no differently than mundane equipment.

[Panpiper]

Re: Paying for Magic Items

 

In the 12 odd years that I actively played Hero, mostly Fantasy, not once did any of my characters ever start with or find a magic item. In fact I cannot ever recall any player at all, in any game what so ever, during that entire time that ever had a single magic item. I expect that is primarily due to the troublesome nature of the question posed by the OP. The solution of our entire community was to simply avoid the existence of magic items altogether, period.

 

I am about to start GMing a game again (for the first time in fifteen years and I feel like a newb). I am in the process of designing a world for my game. And what is one of the very first things I write? "Magic Items Are Rare." It would appear that at least subconsciously I intend to continue my habit of ignoring magic items completely.

 

I fear though that that simply compounds the problem. Where if I ever 'did' allow a magic item to somehow wind up in the hands of the players, it would be such an unusual treasure that it's presence on a single player would cause that player to outshine the rest in what could be a big way. Now if that player were to pay character points for that magic item, it would not be an issue, there would be no outshining. But I loath the idea (thinking like a player) of a GM handing me a magic item and then telling me I have to pay points for it. I likely had other plans for those points! No character would voluntarily 'throw away' a decent magic item, just because their 'player' wants to buy something else with their XP.

 

I am very much persuaded that the only right way to handle it is for it to be free. That is the nature of the (now non-existent) independent limitation I suppose. And yes that does mean that it can be lost. The outshining of the player possessing the incredibly rare magic item however now presents an even greater problem. Without that player paying points for it, the only way to resolve the outshining problem is to see to it that somehow, each of the players has the chance to have a similarly cool item. Meaning magic items cannot be 'that' rare.

 

If I allow one, I must allow many.

 

The very first game I ever GMed thirty years ago was an AD&D (1st Ed.) game, I knew not what I was doing, and it turned into a major Monty-Haul. I still don't know what I am doing.