Gary himself was too hip for Lord of the Rings. He made his magic swords AWESOME and his magic rings cool, but not overly cool.
But you look at the One Ring... it had some major powers going on.
It functioned as a Ring of Humanoid Control over the bearers of the other rings... which were themselves Rings of Humanoid Control.
It functioned as a Ring of Invisibility, with the drawback of Inescapable Location for Sauron.
And it had that Ego battle thing going on. Who was in charge?
Also, anyone who wasn't a Hobbit was prone to going ape and doing whatever it took to keep it for himself.
That's a lot to unpack, isn't it?
Granted, THAT Ring is an artifact and the rings your dudes are likely to find are less magical. But should they have the capability to be as awesome as magic swords are?
Yes. The answer is yes.
And there is no gameable content in this post. I'm just telling you that your magic rings are lame and they could be cooler and would you go fix that please. That's all.
Very interesting something to think about. Maybe apply intelligence rules from swords to rings also?
ReplyDeleteSure. Not every ring, but some rings should be really really cool instead of giving one ability.
DeleteI think magic items, in general, are rather underwhelming in most D&D editions and variants.
ReplyDeleteThe Book of Nine Swords at the end of 3.5e had a great concept of a weapon which would level up with its owner, if the owner spent time questing to unlock abilities.
DeleteThe 'Book of Weaboo Fightan Magic' is a much-maligned book late in 3E existence which had quite a few interesting ideas but somewhat fell flat on its face as last ditch attempt to undo Monte Cook's eternal wizard-fellatio (which is what I call how spellcasters work in that edition).
DeleteI blame Wuxia as a whole not really being that big in the west even after years upon years of Wuxia-inspired anime and videogames.