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rulings: magic item creation & earned resistances


Magic item creation


Here's a first stab at my magic item creation rules. This was inspired by someone else's idea on /r/osr I think, and adapted to Knave. In practice using this idea has been pretty spontaneous in play, and happened thrice now over the course of around ~18 sessions. So not hugely common. Also, it's only been weapons so far, which perhaps speaks to the style of my game, but I'd like to lean into this idea further for armour, lanterns, rope — perhaps even the party's mule, Clem.


The basic setup is magic items can't be crafted, per se, and certainly not purchased reliably. They're created in the heat of the moment, during an adventure.


Weapons


When a PC strikes a powerful blow that slays a creature — think crits on the killing blow, or juuuust manages on the to-hit but still rolls max damage, that type of thing — the weapon may be imbued with magical force. Mechanically, their formerly mundane weapon gains a +1 echantment and counts as magical, but it also gets a +3 enchantment against the specific creature type that birthed it in the first place.


For predatory creatures usually encountered alone, this may be after killing a single one. For creatures that travel in packs, are docile, etc, this may be after having established a pattern of killing them before the critical blow is landed.


Eg: Shyan having beaten several goblins in combat, lays another dead with a critical strike. She finds her blade suddenly imbued with magic, then and there. It's now a +1 blade, with +3 against goblins.


Armour


If a PC would have suffered a killing blow were it not for a piece of armour, it can be imbued with resistance to that particular creature's attacks. Mechanically this would mean suffering no harm from damage rolls in the bottom half of the bracket, ie, 1-3 on a 1d6.


If the PC has a shield and is missed by 1 (the defense value of the shield) then it's the shield that becomes magical, not the body armour. Not sure how to handle helmets, which, in Knave, also provide 1 defense.


Eg: Fassn has a defense of 12, as he's unarmoured save for a shield. He's attacked by a glob of poison from a trashcrab, but it rolls a 12 to hit, so Fassn is protected, thanks to the shield. The trashcrab's damage roll was enough to have killed him, and he feels magic suffuse the shield. It's now +1 defense (bringing its total as shield to +2) with +3 against trashcrab poison.


Admittedly this one would be more fiddly, and I'm not sure PCs want to track a floating defense score varying by creature type. I might instead rule the shield is a +1 and resists poison, leaving the specifics up to the table.


Healing items


This is something I've done in the game as well. PCs were getting paralyzed by ghoul touches and didn't have a clear way to cure this. Thanks to random character generation, one of the PCs had flowers in his inventory. Mundane, as far as we could tell. But he opted to use them as smelling salts for a paralyzed friend, and since he'd already beaten the touch himself thanks to a good save, I ruled that he could allow his paralyzed friend a fresh save himself, with advantage. Sure enough, the flower helped his friend, and we discovered its properties in the fiction.


Magical resistances


Something else we've seen at the table is a growing resistance to certain toxins. As above, the party encountered several ghouls, and many came in contact with a paralyzing touch. I ruled that once you had beaten the paralyzation sucessfully, your antibodies learn about it, and so future saves can be made with advantage. You can effectively develop resistances from exposure.


This has the effect of making the game easier, and more surviveable for low level PCs, but it also keeps the wheels turning in combat and helps not to bog down in, in this case, multiple PCs being paralyzed for several rounds. While that can be exciting, it can also be a drag, so this is a way to slowly guard against that.


A downside is a PC should maybe track the creatures they've grown resistant too, 'cause I as the ref don't want to. Maybe if I have them make a standard save somwhere down the line someone will pipe up and ask for advantage, due to previous exposure I'd forgotten about. If so, great! They're engaged and contributing to the game. If not, well, meet or beat a 16 I guess...



Surely there's more to say on this topic, and I'll continue to expand and refine my thinking as we play. What are your thoughts? How do you handle magic items? What would you love to see tried sometime at the table? Share your ideas in the comments.

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