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Recently, there's been some important updates posted to D&D rules covering many rules sources. Some of these updates are slight in terms of character impact, but others are much larger. As a result, Living Forgotten Realms players have been asking questions on how to handle the updates. The January revision to the RPGA Character Creation Guide will create an overarching policy regarding update implementation.

However, I'd like to take a moment to address the implementation of updates in the short term. So here we go.

Until the next version of the RPGA Character Creation Guide, please consider the following as an interim policy, effective immediately.

When a found magic item is affected by an official rules update, the player does not receive any "compensation." They cannot turn the item back in to recover the slot, they cannot sell it at full price, etc. They can either keep it and use the new rules or they can sell it at 20% of market price. If the found magic item has an enhancement bonus (armor, implement, neck slot, or weapon items), the player can choose to convert the item into a +X magic item, where X is the current enhancement bonus of the item, instead of selling it or keeping it.
When a purchased magic item is affected by an official rules update, the player has the option to sell the item back at the price paid for it, including (if relevant) upgrades that the PC paid for, but not including any upgrades that the PC did not pay for.
When any class feature, feat, power, or paragon path is changed by an official update, affected characters receive free retraining in order to make the necessary changes. These free retrains do not count against the normal limit of 1 retrain per level or 1 class feature retrain per the life of a character. However, players are on the honor system not to retrain extraneous elements that are not connected to the rules that were changed. So, for example, if a power changes and you want to retrain it, that doesn't mean you can also retrain all your other powers at the same time to "fix your build" because that one power changed. On the other hand, if the rules for double weapons change and you had invested multiple feats in a chain and chosen a paragon path or multiclass specifically to take advantage of the old rules, then rebuilding all of those items is fair. We cannot establish hard and fast rules for this because every case will be unique but we trust the players not to abuse this opportunity.
When an official rules update changes a class feature, feat, power, or paragon path in a way that would invalidate one or more of your magic items but the items themselves have not changed (for example, when avengers lost the ability to gain the benefit of Armor of Faith while wearing anything heavier than cloth armor), you have the option to use as many free Transfer Enchantment rituals as needed to move the enchantments from the affected items to new items of the appropriate type (such as chainmail armor to cloth armor). All of the rules regarding Transfer Enchantment must still be respected; you may not create illegal items in this fashion (such as cloth armor with an enchantment that is restricted to chainmail only). If there is no legal item with the same enchantment then you may instead choose a new, legal item of the appropriate type whose item level is less than or equal to the item level of your old item. You receive no other compensation (such as a refund of previous Transfer Enchantment costs) when changing items in this fashion. Players are on the honor system to make the minimum necessary changes. If your armor needs to change because of a class feature update, changing your (unaffected) weapon at the same time is not a legitimate use of these rules.

4.1 (8 Ratings)

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D&D, LFR, WPN

[ 3316 views ] [ 12 comments ] Leave a Comment

I think sometimes people forget this is a Role-playing game and not a table top miniatures wargame. Yes, plan your character and make a -wish list- of items to get. But people who plan out to level 30 with each and every item along the way are far to much metagame-minded in my opinion. The new rules are a good step forward and a good balance of play.

Dreamdarwin

March 7, 2010
10:14 PM

For found items, I'd rather see something like this: "When a found magic item is affected by an official rules update, you may remove the item from your character, and it does not count against your found item limitation. You gain gold as if you had selected the 'additional gold' bundle from the adventure where you found the item. If you are unsure how much gold that would have been, use the following rules: " and reprint the rules for gold per mod at each level range.

MindWandererB

January 25, 2010
9:30 AM

I will echo the sentiments of many when I say the decision regarding "updated" equipment and forcing characters to keep it is very unreasonable. Were it not for item slot restrictions perhaps this would be ok, as you could simply replace the now altered (in some cases by an order of magnitude in power) item with something new with little penalty besides a little gold.

As it is you are imposing a some times severe penalty (some items were changed from encounter to daily for example, which goes from unrestricted resources to very precious and planned) on a character due to Wizards lack of play testing and then punishing us for it. We took those items, powers etc under a reasonable expectation they were tested and worked as written, and when it was discovered that wizards, not the player or character, made a mistake and now must fix it, we are asked to suck it up?

This issue is an incredibly simple fix, any updated item becomes "slotless" and does not take a found item slot. I don't understand why you feel the need to punish players for lack of proper play testing.

Drakimor

January 25, 2010
8:40 AM

Good feedback, Zho. We'll take it into consideration when we publish in January.

WotC_Tulach

December 21, 2009
10:11 PM

I really don't find this ruling very consistent. If an update drastically changes a found magic item, I can't do anything about it (other than deal with it or sell it normally). However, if an update changes a class, feat, etc... in such a way that it make the found item "invalid" for me, I can Transfer Enchantment for free or, if that won't work, turn it in for any item of equal or lesser value.

Why can I trade in a found item due to changes in a class but not due to changes in the item itself?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that it's generous to make any concessions at all. However, I would like a little consistency.

I think a better (and much simpler) ruling would be: If any update makes a purchased item undesirable for your character, you can sell it for full value. If any update makes a found item undesirable for your character, you can trade it in for a single item of equal or lower level.

My reasoning is this: If you're gonna change the rules in the middle of the game, a player should have the opportunity to examine the new rules and determine if they allow him to play the character as he originally planned. If not, that player should have full license to make ANY changes he deems necessary to make the character legal while maintaining his original character concept. After all, it's not the player who decided to change the rules in the middle of the game. He shouldn't be fenced into playing a character he no longer likes b/c WotC decided to change things.

Zho

December 18, 2009
10:41 AM