Distribution of permanent magic items

[ffujita]

I'm playing the Lost Mines of Phandelvar, and our party has come across a +1 long sword. The problem is that this magic item is not a good fit for any of the player characters, the strong ones would rather use a battleaxe, and the dexterous ones would rather use a rapier. Of course, if we happen to meet a monster that is resistant to normal damage the party will wish that someone had that sword, but nobody wants to give up a Magic Item mark on their character sheet for it.

Is there any RAW alternative to just letting it stay in the Redbrand Hideout?

[damned]

I would feel quite comfortable turning it into something that your party would rather use...

[ffujita]

I asked our GM to let me, for a fee, take the long sword to a smith and refashion it into a rapier. He said that to run an AL legal campaign, he couldn't do that. I'm quite new to AL, so I was wanting to see if there is some mechanism that would allow it.

[Zacchaeus]

Like damned says but I would have gone further and sorted this out well before the play session by getting rid of the Longsword (presumably as DM I know that it's no use for the party) and replace it with something that the party could use. However I don't know anything about Adventurer's league either.

[damned]

Oh man - I totally missed that this was AL! Sorry - disregard my comments - I know nuffink about AL!

[cas206]

I believe the two responses are assuming a home game environment. I believe your DM is correct. The AL players guide says magic items can not be crafted with down time, only nonmagic items. The AL modules come with magic items that are tied to certificates that are given out at FLGS games. You don't need a certificate to be awarded the magic item, but it can't be traded without it. Because of this, I don't think you can change the AL module magic item to something else (but I'm not an AL lawyer). It's my opinion that this is done so that official character log sheets can easily be checked when a player shows up for the first time with an existing character. A DM can verify that a +1 long sword on your log sheet was actually available in the module that you played. If magic items could be changed on the spot, log sheets would be easier to fudge by players. Magic items don't have to be claimed by anyone.

[ffujita]

Yes, I wasn't saying the DM was wrong. But he often likes to give us a puzzle, and we profit only if we can solve the puzzle. So I was checking to see if there was a RAW solution to the puzzle. As it turns out, a paladin took the sword, and I and others in the party agreed that at our table, we would consider her Magic Item total to be one less for the purposes of future magic items. And we know that if she takes that character to some other game, our local agreement wouldn't be binding on other players (or even at our table if a new player joins the party.)