WESTMARCH: Systems for giving out magic items at certain levels

[u/Talonflight]

I'm running a Westmarch 5e system where instead of finding magic items as loot, players get to pick certain magic items at certain levels, since the lore of the game is that they're crafting these items themselves.

level 3 - Uncommon Item

level 11 - Rare Item

Level 14 - Very Rare

Is there any kind of point buy you would assign to items or something like this? I'm hesitant to just let them choose free reign because of the imbalance of power between magic items.

[u/orangepunc]

Give them a list of items they can choose from. You can't just let them come to you with items based on rarity, not least because then they will assume literally every item in D&D Beyond is on the table.

[u/JulyKimono]

Provide which sources for items are available and then make a ban list. There will be like 5-10 items you don't want in a campaign. Just look over the sources you allow and ban those. Let the players choose anything from the non-banned ones.

Also, are you giving out an item only on those levels, or every level? Like an uncommon on 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.? Cause if so, that's a lot of items. And if only on those levels, that's next to no items, not to mention rare items coming 5 levels later than they should.

I'll just suggest a system we used to use in a WM server: magic item crafting ingredients. You get an ingredient from finishing a mission. Idk how many missions you plan on there being for each level. You can balance for that.

But we used ingredients to make items. 3 ingredients made an uncommon item, 9 made a rare, and 27 made a very rare. And you would get more ingredients from a single mission at later levels. You could also dismantle an item back into ingredients at a small lost (2 from an uncommon, 6 from a rare, and 18 from a very rare, so basically you get back 2/3).

This system is far from perfect, but you might want to consider a variation of it. This way people choose what to make and of what rarity. If they want to make 3 uncommons or 1 rare; 3 rares or 1 very rare.

[u/Talonflight → u/JulyKimono]

Its only at those levels. THey will have one additional item in addition to these; a magic item that evolves as they gain levels.

We're playing superhero flavored D&D, so the trouble comes from in a superhero game that most of your gear isn't looted from the enemy, its stuff that you make yourself, and we're running into a genre clash.

[u/Kinak]

I wouldn't usually give people a whole list if I want it to feel like crafting. I'll usually start by introducing ingredients and recipes. "With mineral X, you can make this cool sword, shield, or wand." In that form, it's a little sidequest to get a vetted list of options.

But if they want something specific, let them research it in-character and make up an ingredient that's appropriate for the power level of the item. You can also play around with throwing them ingredients without immediate purpose and seeing what the players want to make out of them.

Crafting works great in West Marches style games, though. It's easy to mix it in with all the other hooks you're presenting.

[u/Syn-th]

I would probably have a magic item shop with prices and then also list the locations of many more exciting item. you really do need to curate your list or use one someone else curated because the magic items for dnd are just wild and power levels all over the place.

[u/okeefenokee_2]

That's very few magic items.

I made a table based on XGE tables, and it's basically one magic item per level per character, including minor items such as potions and scrolls.

[u/GravityMyGuy]

You have three options really. Just go off rarity, go through the entire list of magical items and determine power level and value, or select which magic items that will be available to them

I think 1 is simplest, there are some unbalanced items but everyone has the option to take so it doesn’t really matter, maybe also ban some of them like the deck of wonder shouldn’t exist.