Please explain creating magic items to me

[icedcrow]

Been running FG since August. Never once used the Magic Items section of the 4e ruleset. Can someone please explain to me it's use?

[Xorn]

You need a module with magic items and a weapon/armor list to do this (Tenian's parsers can create these):

Drag a magic item from your library to the Items window and open it up. Now drag the weapon/armor type from your library and drop it on the open magic item. It will adjust the name and fill in the damage/bonuses/properties correctly.

For example, I want to make a +2 Executioner's Axe:
- I drag the +2 Magic Weapon from my PHB module to Items and open it.
- I drag an Executioner's Axe from my AV module
- Now in the items it reads +2 Executioner's Axe and the stats are already filled out.

I can Share this with my players and they can then drag it onto their sheet. I can also just drag it straight to their inventory.

Tenian might be able to add to this.

[Angloson]

What Xorn says is a great way to create items from a module (book), but if you don't have modules, then you can just type in the information straight into a new item sheet.

Just click on the icon for items, then click new, then fill out the information in the sheet. The video tutorial for the 4E ruleset that Xorn made tells a little about this and can get you started.

[icedcrow]

I've created items, just never figured out how to move them to someone's sheet before. So I just let them add the items themselves.

[Griogre]

Player's can't create items the way the DM can - they don't have an item list. The DM can just create an item by clicking on the item button and clicking new and filling out the item. Then all he has to do is drag and drop the item he made into the chracter's inventory.

Players can make notes with the items description and adjust their weapons and add item powers on their powers tab by hand though.

[icedcrow]

That's what I meant. They do it by hand.

[Tenian]

Dropping from a module/item box has the advantage of automatically populating the critical field on the player's combat tab. This gets used when a critical is processed. Also parsed weapons correctly set the High Crit and Brutal properties. The ruleset can automatically process these.

You can punch it all in manually, but it's not always obvious what the ruleset expects and it can be picky about case (Brutal versus BRUTAL/brutal).

[Angloson]

Maybe I'm not understanding, but can't we/DMs just drag and drop the items from our item list to the player character sheets? Using the linked square?

Or are you all saying this only adds it to the inventory and not to a place that is conveniently usable by the players such as the powers tab?

[Tenian]

DM's can. Players do not have access to the same functions when they drag items from modules or build items by hand.

4E uses 2 major types of magic items:

1) Those that are directly usable (potions, wondrous items, alchemical items, item slot items)

2) Those that modify other items (weapons, armor).

For direct items, they can be dragged from the module or item box directly to the character.

For modifier items, the modifier should be dragged to the item box. Then a base item should be dropped onto it's sheet. This will rename the item and correctly populate it. This completed item can then be dropped onto the character.

For example, assume you wanted to make a scimitar of dragon slaying. You can drag the Dragon Slaying weapon directly from the module onto the player's sheet. However it will not contain any of the basic scimitar data (High Crit, Heavy Blade, 1D8 damage, prof bonus, weight, etc). You or a player could punch this all in by hand, however they may not enter the correct string to activate the additional W damage on a critical).

The recommended way to build this item is to drag the Dragon Slaying weapon to the item box. From the item box open the detail sheet for the item. Then drag a scimitar onto this sheet. The ruleset will then merge the Scimitar and Dragon Slaying weapon into a Dragon Slaying Scimitar. You can then drag this onto the player's sheet and everything will be filled out correctly.


As a player you have no access to the item box, and can not build items by dragging weapons/armor onto modifiers.

The item box is also exportable which means you can include it in modules you make.

Note that once you drop an item onto the player, the ruleset creates a copy for that character. It's no longer tied to the item box version. This allows the player to access the item even if the module it was pulled from is closed (similar to the way powers are copied to the player when added to their sheets).

[icedcrow]

Sorry to be obtuse but where do the two items originate from that we are dragging?

Where would the dragon slaying item be to begin wtih?

Where would the scimitar be to begin with?

[Tenian]

Modules which contain magic item and weapon/armor parses.

Magic items are about the most simple thing you can parse, as I do not believe they need any markup or support files.

Weapons and armor require markup but there are very few of them and most of the markup consists of adding semi colons to delimit the columns


In the case of the above, the Player's Handbook contains both Dragon Slaying and scimitar stats.

My sample modules should contain items as well.

[Angloson]

Tenian...

I see. My question was not dragging and dropping from the modules/library, but rather just the item box. I do not have modules of the core books so I type everything in by hand. Not being a programmer, I've not thought to tackle the parsers and such.

But you answered my question, I believe.