Ideas for enchanted items that don't simply recast spells

By default, the sorcerous magic item creation rules given in Gamemaster's Companion and Enlightened Magic just create items that allow the user to recast the spell it contains. I find this rather boring and weaksauce when sorcerers can design their own spells (and I'm not the only one), so an idea I had was to allow magic items to have more unique effects. Instead of recreating a spell, the item itself is enchanted to provide a specific bonus or effect.

There's precedence for this: the magic supplements give permanent enchantments that apply to people and places, not objects. To cite a few permanent enchantments (and costs) from Enlightened Magic:

  • Awakening the Inner Fire (p43): permanently enlighten a mortal (1 POW)
  • Eternal Warding (p53): permanently ward an area against sorcery (2 POW)
  • Call the Land (p53-4): permanently befriend the animals and plants in a place (2 POW)

So if you permanently enchant a gun with Weapon Blessing by spending POW, you don't create a gun that allows you to cast that spell if you already know Casual Magic: you create a gun enchanted with a permanent bonus to attack rolls. If you enchant an earring with True Speaking, then you create a magic earring that tinkles suspiciously in you ear whenever someone intentionally lies to you. If you enchant an Amulet (the GMC's generic jargon for any purely defensive magic item), then it provides permanent protection without needing to recast the spell. Etc. None of this would even require any skill in Casual Magic either!

Various other restrictions can be added as the GM or creator requires, as I noted previously. For example, one adventure in the Serpent Moon supplement requires the use of a Focus containing a Third Circle spell to enter a sealed tomb. This spell isn't valid under the Liber Ka rules, so it makes sense to replace it with a unique magic item only useable by the Nephilim PCs.

I still need to think more on this... 

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