Pathfinder 2E Why are all the magic items so boring?

[stonehead]

I've been DM'ing a game of P2E for a while now, and I'm really struggling to find any interesting items to reward my players with. In most systems, items that give flat bonuses are the boring option, but in P2E, a helmet that gives +1 to intimidate is something you want to find, because at least it does something. The alternatives give you a weak spell that a caster could have cast 2 levels ago.

In other systems, party members often argue about who gets to hold the cool new magic item they found. That's happened exactly once in this game, and it was the first striking weapon they found. A damage boost is the only item that could excite them.

I've heard complaints that most spells and skill feats are useless. There's some truth to that, but you can just take the medicine feats instead. With magic items... I'm struggling to find any. Did I just skip over all the cool ones on Archives of Nethys? Have you or your players been excited to find a specific item? Do I just need to start homebrewing something cool?

 

[Retreater]

IMO, magic items in Pathfinder 2 have to be boring because they can't throw off the tight balance. In fact, I think all the spells, feats, and class abilities tend to be underwhelming compared to other games because of the balance quandary. They're more like incremental upgrades than anything that greatly impacts the game.
This is something gamers have been saying they wanted for years. But like how many wanted to balance martials and casters, it ends up not being what makes players happy (as we saw in 4E D&D).

 

[Distracted DM]

Well first, we have to find out what's "interesting" to you? Do you have examples of interesting items from other games?

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yeah, you have to be more specific as to what you get out of other games that you aren't here. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but it's hard to figure out the shape of the problem here with the vagueness. Like, do you want something that might have cool uses but is largely non-combat? Things with really wild powers? Has one gimmick that transforms how a character plays? I dunno, most of the time I find the best magical stuff in any game are things that are homebrewed rather than whatever is in a book, but it really depends on what you want.

 

[sevenbastard]

In all my fantasy games that I play (B/X and 5e) I homebrew all the items and make them a lot more powerful but a lot more rare. I don't like the idea that magic items are so plentiful and just +1 this or +1 that.

 

[Justice and Rule]

In all my fantasy games that I play (B/X and 5e) I homebrew all the items and make them a lot more powerful but a lot more rare. I don't like the idea that magic items are so plentiful and just +1 this or +1 that.

In PF2 I play Automatic Bonus Progression to avoid that sort of thing, too. Removes the magical treadmill, which they should have done as the base state of the game, tbh.

 

[Kichwas]

As others note, we'd need examples of what you consider interesting.

I have a perspective that the moment you apply a system to magic it's no longer magical. But that's informed from some years in my youth among occult groups - those looney folks who believe magic is real and have the mood rings and Crowley autographs to back it up. People with a belief in a magical world have a radically different perspective on these things that makes the statement 'any sufficiently advanced technology will seem like magic to less advanced people' seem absurd. A complex enough galaxy never becomes a warm mood on Tuesday unless you can write like Douglas Adams. This is why I have a similar problem with the 'deities' of most fantasy tRPGs. No amount of super powers can make you just to the left of 13-o'Clock on the day after Saturday but before Sunday. A modern perspective that polytheistic people just believed their deities were Superman minus the cape completely misses the concept.

Which is a way of saying that no game system will ever feel magical or wonderous. You need a different goal in mind for what a game system should achieve.

What PF2E's magic item can often do very well is the idea of 'leveling up your gear' through story. Taking something like 'the family sword', and slowly turning it into an artifact of legend - attaching property and power up runes to it over the journey of a campaign.

In that sense an interesting magic item becomes interesting from the story that old rusty sword dragged out of the barn during session 0 obtains over the journey of the game, and is eventually used in a glorious battle to stop the Whispering Tyrant.

It is interesting because of what the players get to put into it as they power it up, and the stories that involves, rather than because of some flavor text on it's description from page XYZ of Treasure Book ABC.

- This is also why I strongly dislike those 'automatic loreless bonuses' variant rules and am glad they're just variants.

For me, an interesting magic item is about the story potential in it. If you want a published example, there's a certain book in a very hidden room in Abomination Vaults that comes with a massively long description of all the horrible things that will happen should someone decide it would have been better if they'd never gone into that room to begin with...
- That's in an official Paizo dungeon, it's an official PF2E magic item, and it does a better job at being interesting than what I see out of mose game systems. And I'm not even a fan of the module it appears in, because that module otherwise does a phenomenal job of making it way too easy for players to press the 'skip' button on story and lore.

 

[Velderan]

I would need to go back to see what items they found, but there were a few occasions in Abomination Vaults where the group I ran it for found things that they were happy to find beyond just damage bonus runes for their weapons. In the current AP we are playing now (Stolen Fate), the player who picked up a Charlatan’s Cape was pretty excited to get that.

 

[Velderan]

In PF2 I play Automatic Bonus Progression to avoid that sort of thing, too. Removes the magical treadmill, which they should have done as the base state of the game, tbh.

I have debated using that next go round. I figured for our first 1-20 we would just stick to the core rules and then figure out what we want to add/subtract next time through so things like that and free archetype aren’t being used just yet.

When we finish Stolen Fate, I will probably run Prey for Death next to give free archetype a try since it heavily recommends you use it to give everyone the Red Mantis Assassin archetype.

 

[payn]

I have debated using that next go round. I figured for our first 1-20 we would just stick to the core rules and then figure out what we want to add/subtract next time through so things like that and free archetype aren’t being used just yet.

When we finish Stolen Fate, I will probably run Prey for Death next to give free archetype a try since it heavily recommends you use it to give everyone the Red Mantis Assassin archetype.

I wouldn’t play PF2 again without free archetype.