Awarding Enhanced Items
Enhanced items are prized by adventurers are all sorts, often serving as the main reward for an adventurer. This section helps determine which enhanced items end up in the characters' possession.
Distribution
The Minor and Major Enhanced Items by Rarity tables below show the number of enhanced items a party of four should encounter during a campaign, culminating in 100 enhanced items accumulated by 20th level. The tables show much many of those items are meant to be handed out during the five tiers of play. The second and third tiers (levels 5-8 and 9-12, respectively) are intended to be when characters receive the majority of enhanced items, since these are the tiers where the majority of campaigns occur.
Minor and Major Items
The most common distinction between minor and major enhanced items is attunement. All items that require attunement should be treated as major enhanced items. On the other hand, all consumables and item modifications should be treated as minor enhanced items. Many items, however, do not easily fall into those two categories. Generally, if the item has a significant impact on one of the three pillars of adventure—exploration, social interaction, or combat—but does not require attunement, it should nonetheless be treated as a major item.
For instance, armor +1 does not require attunement, but it has a significant impact in combat, so it should be treated as major. Mag-lock boots, however, don't significantly impact any aspect of gameplay, and thus should be treated as minor.
Choosing Items Level by Level
You decide when to place an item in an adventure that you're creating or modifying usually because you think the story calls for an enhanced item, the characters need one, or the players would be especially pleased to get one.
When you want to select an item as treasure for an encounter, the Minor and Major Enhanced Items by Rarity tables serve as your item budget, as follows:
- 1. Jot down a copy of the table in your notes, so that you can make adjustments to the numbers as you select items to be placed in an adventure.
- 2. Refer to the line in the Character Level column that corresponds to the level of the player characters in your game. The entries in that row of the table indicate the total number of items that would be appropriate for the characters to receive by the end of the tier represented by that row.
- 3. Choose an enhanced item of any rarity for which the entry in this row is not 0.
- 4. When the characters obtain an item, modify your notes to indicate which part of your budget this expenditure came from by subtracting 1 from the appropriate entry in the table.
In the future, if you choose an item of a rarity that's not available in the current tier but is still available in a lower tier, deduct the item from the lower tier. If all lower tiers also have no items available of a given rarity, deduct the item from a higher tier.
Minor Enhanced Items by Rarity
| Character Level | Standard | Premium | Prototype | Advanced | Legendary | Artifact | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-4 | 6 | 3 | — | — | — | — | 9 |
| 5-8 | 8 | 10 | 5 | — | — | — | 23 |
| 9-12 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 7 | — | — | 19 |
| 13-16 | — | 2 | 3 | 5 | 6 | — | 16 |
| 17-20 | — | — | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 13 |
| Total | 16 | 19 | 16 | 15 | 10 | 4 | 80 |
Major Enhanced Items by Rarity
| Character Level | Standard | Premium | Prototype | Advanced | Legendary | Artifact | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-4 | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | — | 3 |
| 5-8 | — | 1 | 4 | — | — | — | 5 |
| 9-12 | — | — | — | 4 | — | — | 4 |
| 13-16 | — | — | — | — | 4 | — | 4 |
| 17-20 | — | — | — | — | — | 4 | 4 |
| Total | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 20 |
Choosing Items Piecemeal
If you prefer a more free-form method of choosing enhanced items, simply select each enhanced item you want to give out; then, when th e characters acquire one, deduct it from the Enhanced Items by Rarity tables in your notes. Whenever you do so, start with the lowest level tier, and deduct the item from the first number you come across in the appropriate rarity column for the item, whether it's minor or major. If that tier doesn't have a number greater than 0 for that rarity, go up a tier until you find one that does, and deduct the enhanced item from that number. Following this process, you will zero out each row of the table in order, going from the lowest levels to the highest.
Generating New Enhanced Items
As a GM, you can easily generate new enhanced items by combining the effects of two like items, provided those items have the same type and subtype (if present). For instance, you could combine the effects of two item modification (augments) to create a new, higher rarity augment, but you couldn't combine the effects of a shield and a suit of armor to create a new item in this way. When you do so, you want to combine the rarities of the items whose effects you are combining by assigning a point value to each item. A standard item has a value of 1, premium has a value of 2, and so on up to an artifact's value of 6. Add the points for the items you are combining to determine the new item's rarity. For instance, if you combine the effects a premium (2 points) augment with a prototype (3 points) augment, you end up with a new legendary augment due to the combined total of 5 points. You can't exceed 6 points when combining objects in this way. If the two items you are combining confer a like bonus, such as a bonus to attack rolls or the save DC of force powers, that bonus should not exceed +3. If the items already include rules governing the maximum value that item could provide, such as a keen weapon modification, you would instead follow the guidelines provided by that item.
Overstocking an Adventure
The enhanced item tables in this chapter are based on the number of items the characters are expected to receive, not the number of items that are available in an adventure. When creating or modifying an adventure, assume that the characters won't find all of the items you place in it, unless most of the loot is in easy-to-find locations.
Are Enhanced Items Necessary?
Ultimately, this is a question that can only be answered at your table. Some players are more loot driven, while others prefer to focus on story. Generally, a normal campaign assumes that enhanced items appear sporadically and are a boon. Consequently, if your player characters obtain an inordinate amount of enhanced items, encounters might become progressively trivial. As a GM, you have to worry about maintaining that balance.
Enhanced Item Values
The value of an enhanced item varies depending on the rarity of the item, as shown below in the Enhanced Item Value by Rarity table.
Using the Enhanced Item Value by Rarity table, you then assign prices to the available items, based on their rarity. Halve the price of any consumable item, such as a medpac or explosive, or item modification when using the table to determine an item's value.
Enhanced Item Value by Rarity
| Rarity | Value |
|---|---|
| Standard | up to 1,000 cr |
| Premium | 1,001 to 5,000 cr |
| Prototype | 5,000 to 25,000 cr |
| Advanced | 25,000 - 100,000 cr |
| Legendary | 100,000 - 500,000 cr |
| Artifact | at least 500,000 cr |
Determine Values Randomly
Alternatively, you can determine the value of enhanced items randomly. To do so, you should first roll percentile dice twice, keeping the higher total. Then, you should multiply the result by the modifier, depending on the item's rarity, as shown below in the Value Modifier by Rarity table.
Value Modifier by Rarity
| Rarity | Value Modifier |
|---|---|
| Standard | 10 cr |
| Premium | 50 cr |
| Prototype | 250 cr |
| Advanced | 1,000 cr |
| Legendary | 5,000 cr |
| Artifact | 25,000 cr |
If item value falls below the base threshold for that rarity, you might instead use the base for that rarity. For instance, if I want to determine the value of a prototype item, I first roll percentile dice twice. I get the results of 63 and 22, so I keep the 63 since it's the higher number. I then multiply that number by the value modifier for prototype (250 cr), ending up with an item value of 15,750 cr (63 x 250 cr). If I instead had rolled 11 and 16 on the percentile dice rolls, however, I would have ended up with an item value of 4,000 cr (16 x 250 cr). Since this falls below the minimum value threshold for prototype items (5,000 cr), you could instead use the minimum.
To reflect the availability of enhanced items in your campaign, you can apply a penalty or bonus, as appropriate to your setting, when resolving the d100 roll determining enhanced item values.
When determining the value for an enhanced item that has an unenhanced version, such as a medpac or a blaster rifle, instead of replacing with the value determined by the rolls above, add the result to the unenhanced item's value.