While the Dungeon’s Master team enjoys some well-deserved vacation time, we’re breaking out the greatest hits and shining a spotlight on a few of our favourite articles from 2011. We’ve searched for hidden gems that our newer readers might have missed and our long-time readers will enjoy reading again. Enjoy a second look at these greatest hits from Dungeon’s Master.
In our home games the monsters will often use magical items against us (treasure bundles we’ll earn if we defeat the monsters). Where this has become a bit of an issue is when the monster is using a magic weapon and the person who claims it wants to drastically change the weapon type.
For example, in a recent encounter we were fighting Githyanki. They were armed with Silver Swords, a character-defining item for this race. When we defeated them we discovered that one of them was using a +3 silver Greatsword sword against us. The PC who claimed the treasure (because he badly needed a weapon upgrade) was a Rogue who used a dagger. Normally the DM is supposed to just wave his magic DM wand and say “the item is now a dagger because that’s what you, the PC, need it to be,” but in this case the DM decided to do the more sensible thing and said no.
He was willing to change it from one big sword to another, but he felt that going from the biggest blade in the game to the smallest was too much of a stretch. The player was ok with this ruling and we actually though the DM made the right call.
In a another recent game we fought Salamander archers and one was using a Great Bow +3. Again, when the PCs defeated the monsters and claimed the weapon the DM would not allow the bow to become anything other than another kind of bow. And again we were ok with this ruling even though the rules say otherwise.
This is the only real drawback we’ve had when letting the monsters use magic items against the party. You either have to equip the creatures with the exact weapon-type that one of the PCs can use or you have to suspend disbelief and say that the treasure bundle says “+3 weapon” so the PC can make it whatever weapon he needs it to be. In our games we’ve opted to go the former route. In those rare circumstances where we can’t use the form of the item we find we have to expend time and resources to transfer the enchantment or we just sell it. More often than not we sell it because that is easier.
So DMs, before you give the monsters items to use against the party give some thought to how you’re going to handle the inevitable transfer of the item from monster to PCs. Will you let them change the weapon to a more suitable type or will you break the rules and insist that if it was a Great Axe when the monster used it against the party it has to be a Great Axe if anyone claims it as their own?
