Just wanted to sound something out to you all. I am thinking of getting my players to choose an uncommon/rare magic item to try and find during their down time.
I was thinking though, that they could role a D100 to see the percentage success of them finding that item. I was going to have a percentage in mind they need to beat (DC if you will - which adjusts slightly based on their investigation and History modifiers).
Do you think this would work and what base percentage would you set it at?
Xanathar's has suggestions for how to do buying magic items during downtime. Your idea sounds okay, but note that a DC would be more for a d20 roll than a d100.
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Xanathar's has suggestions for how to do buying magic items during downtime. Your idea sounds okay, but note that a DC would be more for a d20 roll than a d100.
While DCs usually apply to ability rolls (and therefore D20s) there is nothing wrong with deciding the chance of finding the magic item is (say) 20+investigation%. The impact of this is tha tthe impact of the modifier is far less impactful (and luck far more impactful) on success which I think is what the OP wanted.
Players need magic items. I would recommend just giving them access to magic items they want. Not random ones, not rolled on a chart. Offer magic items for sale. Prices are available in supplements like Xanathar’s guide and elsewhere. Let them shop and buy the magic items they want during downtime.
Xanathar's has suggestions for how to do buying magic items during downtime. Your idea sounds okay, but note that a DC would be more for a d20 roll than a d100.
While DCs usually apply to ability rolls (and therefore D20s) there is nothing wrong with deciding the chance of finding the magic item is (say) 20+investigation%. The impact of this is tha tthe impact of the modifier is far less impactful (and luck far more impactful) on success which I think is what the OP wanted.
Yes this is exactly what I was thinking. So what would you put the pass rate at?
Xanathar's has suggestions for how to do buying magic items during downtime. Your idea sounds okay, but note that a DC would be more for a d20 roll than a d100.
While DCs usually apply to ability rolls (and therefore D20s) there is nothing wrong with deciding the chance of finding the magic item is (say) 20+investigation%. The impact of this is tha tthe impact of the modifier is far less impactful (and luck far more impactful) on success which I think is what the OP wanted.
Yes this is exactly what I was thinking. So what would you put the pass rate at?
I advise just giving them access to buy whatever items they actually want as they can afford them. Players need magic items. They should be able to access the ones that are relevant to them and their builds. I find restricting magic items makes games much more unpleasant all around. It’s obviously bad for the players, and bad for the DM as well as they might focus too much on acquiring the items the DM is being stingy about instead of focusing on quests, story, the world, interacting with NPCs, and so on.
Just give them access to buy the items they want once they are at a relative character level to afford them.
I advise just giving them access to buy whatever items they actually want as they can afford them. Players need magic items. They should be able to access the ones that are relevant to them and their builds. I find restricting magic items makes games much more unpleasant all around. It’s obviously bad for the players, and bad for the DM as well as they might focus too much on acquiring the items the DM is being stingy about instead of focusing on quests, story, the world, interacting with NPCs, and so on.
Just give them access to buy the items they want once they are at a relative character level to afford them.
I would look to make this involve time & resource. seeking out a magic item is going to involve bribing people or paying for information, and a good deal of time reading history books which will need to be bought, and all that sort of thing, which you don't need to delve deeply into; you just need to narrate it.
I would say that the more time you spend, the more likely you are to locate a magical item. As a ballpark guess, from someone who's not done any downtime in their games, I would say that an uncommon item would take 4 weeks to locate, and then double or triple that for each rarity (IE 4 weeks for uncommon, 12 weeks for rare, 36 weeks for very rare, 108 weeks for legendary, as a ballpark to start with), as a focussed pursuit of this goal. Then say each week costs, say, 100gp in expenses. so to locate an uncommon magic item, you need to spend 4 weeks and 400gp, just to locate it. The location can be decided by the DM depending on what the world needs - if they need to go to a specific city, then the item is in a shop or in the museum or in a private collection in that city. If they need to level up a bit before the next bit of your campaign, they locate a dungeon which supposedly houses one but need help from the rest of the party to get in.
If they spend less time or less money, then there needs to be a chance of failure in their endeavour. As money and time are tied together in this (you can spend 100gp to spend 1 week searching), then you can simply set your required difficulty for the item (You want a broom of flying? I'll say 600gp), then they say "I will spend 4 weeks searching!", so you know that 400 out of 600 is 4/6 or 2/3, so the percentile dice need to roll 33.3+ (IE 34 or more) to let them find the item. If they roll lower, then their studies led to a dead end.
I would let repeated attempts over several downtimes add up, but failed attempts count as half. So the above failed attempt would count as 200gp worth of research for the next one, so if they invest another 400gp, they will have spent 800gp, but will now know where the magic item they were seeking is. If they instead invest 300 (for total 500), and then fail (roll a 16 or less on the percentile die), that would be worth 250 for the next time.
I would look to make this involve time & resource. seeking out a magic item is going to involve bribing people or paying for information, and a good deal of time reading history books which will need to be bought, and all that sort of thing, which you don't need to delve deeply into; you just need to narrate it.
I would say that the more time you spend, the more likely you are to locate a magical item. As a ballpark guess, from someone who's not done any downtime in their games, I would say that an uncommon item would take 4 weeks to locate, and then double or triple that for each rarity (IE 4 weeks for uncommon, 12 weeks for rare, 36 weeks for very rare, 108 weeks for legendary, as a ballpark to start with), as a focussed pursuit of this goal. Then say each week costs, say, 100gp in expenses. so to locate an uncommon magic item, you need to spend 4 weeks and 400gp, just to locate it. The location can be decided by the DM depending on what the world needs - if they need to go to a specific city, then the item is in a shop or in the museum or in a private collection in that city. If they need to level up a bit before the next bit of your campaign, they locate a dungeon which supposedly houses one but need help from the rest of the party to get in.
If they spend less time or less money, then there needs to be a chance of failure in their endeavour. As money and time are tied together in this (you can spend 100gp to spend 1 week searching), then you can simply set your required difficulty for the item (You want a broom of flying? I'll say 600gp), then they say "I will spend 4 weeks searching!", so you know that 400 out of 600 is 4/6 or 2/3, so the percentile dice need to roll 33.3+ (IE 34 or more) to let them find the item. If they roll lower, then their studies led to a dead end.
I would let repeated attempts over several downtimes add up, but failed attempts count as half. So the above failed attempt would count as 200gp worth of research for the next one, so if they invest another 400gp, they will have spent 800gp, but will now know where the magic item they were seeking is. If they instead invest 300 (for total 500), and then fail (roll a 16 or less on the percentile die), that would be worth 250 for the next time.
Great idea - Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate it
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Hi all,
Just wanted to sound something out to you all.
I am thinking of getting my players to choose an uncommon/rare magic item to try and find during their down time.
I was thinking though, that they could role a D100 to see the percentage success of them finding that item. I was going to have a percentage in mind they need to beat (DC if you will - which adjusts slightly based on their investigation and History modifiers).
Do you think this would work and what base percentage would you set it at?
Cheers Jim 👍
Xanathar's has suggestions for how to do buying magic items during downtime. Your idea sounds okay, but note that a DC would be more for a d20 roll than a d100.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
While DCs usually apply to ability rolls (and therefore D20s) there is nothing wrong with deciding the chance of finding the magic item is (say) 20+investigation%. The impact of this is tha tthe impact of the modifier is far less impactful (and luck far more impactful) on success which I think is what the OP wanted.
Players need magic items. I would recommend just giving them access to magic items they want. Not random ones, not rolled on a chart. Offer magic items for sale. Prices are available in supplements like Xanathar’s guide and elsewhere. Let them shop and buy the magic items they want during downtime.
Yes this is exactly what I was thinking. So what would you put the pass rate at?
I was thinking 30% for rare and 40% for uncommon.
I advise just giving them access to buy whatever items they actually want as they can afford them. Players need magic items. They should be able to access the ones that are relevant to them and their builds. I find restricting magic items makes games much more unpleasant all around. It’s obviously bad for the players, and bad for the DM as well as they might focus too much on acquiring the items the DM is being stingy about instead of focusing on quests, story, the world, interacting with NPCs, and so on.
Just give them access to buy the items they want once they are at a relative character level to afford them.
Thank you. It does make sense.
I would look to make this involve time & resource. seeking out a magic item is going to involve bribing people or paying for information, and a good deal of time reading history books which will need to be bought, and all that sort of thing, which you don't need to delve deeply into; you just need to narrate it.
I would say that the more time you spend, the more likely you are to locate a magical item. As a ballpark guess, from someone who's not done any downtime in their games, I would say that an uncommon item would take 4 weeks to locate, and then double or triple that for each rarity (IE 4 weeks for uncommon, 12 weeks for rare, 36 weeks for very rare, 108 weeks for legendary, as a ballpark to start with), as a focussed pursuit of this goal. Then say each week costs, say, 100gp in expenses. so to locate an uncommon magic item, you need to spend 4 weeks and 400gp, just to locate it. The location can be decided by the DM depending on what the world needs - if they need to go to a specific city, then the item is in a shop or in the museum or in a private collection in that city. If they need to level up a bit before the next bit of your campaign, they locate a dungeon which supposedly houses one but need help from the rest of the party to get in.
If they spend less time or less money, then there needs to be a chance of failure in their endeavour. As money and time are tied together in this (you can spend 100gp to spend 1 week searching), then you can simply set your required difficulty for the item (You want a broom of flying? I'll say 600gp), then they say "I will spend 4 weeks searching!", so you know that 400 out of 600 is 4/6 or 2/3, so the percentile dice need to roll 33.3+ (IE 34 or more) to let them find the item. If they roll lower, then their studies led to a dead end.
I would let repeated attempts over several downtimes add up, but failed attempts count as half. So the above failed attempt would count as 200gp worth of research for the next one, so if they invest another 400gp, they will have spent 800gp, but will now know where the magic item they were seeking is. If they instead invest 300 (for total 500), and then fail (roll a 16 or less on the percentile die), that would be worth 250 for the next time.
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Great idea - Thank you all for your input. I really appreciate it