While the system provides for more options besides magically-enhanced items, there is currently no better catch-all term besides "magic items".

In this system, those with the appropriate crafting feats can create enhanced items. This is typically done using special materials and techniques (which may themselves be magical, but not necessarily). Being a spellcaster is not a prerequisite for crafting magic items. Blacksmiths make magic swords, not wizards. See Feats for more details.

Price, Power Level, and Rarity

5e, frankly, made a severe error by abandoning cost equivalency and embracing rarity. The simplified version of this rant is:

• Cost is required in order to purchase or craft items. Without it, items cannot be purchased or crafted, and if that is the case, what purpose does gold (or any other valuables) serve as a reward? If PCs can only obtain magic items by DM fiat, what on earth are they meant to do with their valuables?
• Cost or item level is required to know how powerful an item is, in order to determine if it is appropriate for a PC of a given level. Game systems that use rarity typically also use item level, with rarity as a modifier.
• Rarity was popularized by video games that primarily reward players with loot. "Rare" items are literally more rare than "common" items, based on internal loot tables. 5e has equated rarity with power level, making the terms meaningless. If high-level adventurers are routinely encountering "very rare" or "legendary" items, the words have no meaning. If they instead almost never find them, in favor of "common" items, they are wasting their time, as such items are nigh-useless to them.

We find absolutely no merit in the 5e item system, and aim to entirely replace it. It inherited nothing from previous editions, and appears to be a poorly informed and badly implemented copy of MMORPG video games, not even with the understanding of how those systems work.

We consider the most important attribute an item can have to be its Power Level, from which Price can be derived. Rarity is not a concept being considered at this time.

Power Level

Given the way the system works, the natural approach to power level is thus:

• Each item has a numeric level
• An item of level X is appropriate for adventurers of level X

Some items may be more valuable than others of the same level. For instance, a ring of permanent Resist (fire) is objectively more useful than a single-use potion of Resist (fire). This is reflected in Price; however, the overall appropriateness is comparable. One of the mistakes of a purely price-driven system (i.e. 3rd edition) is the ability to modify high-level items to become very cheap.

For example, an item that casts Disjunction at will would be very expensive for anyone but a very high level character to afford. However, by reducing it to a single use, the price becomes doable for a much lower level character (for example, a rogue of 10-12th level could easily produce and use single-use 9th level spell scrolls in 3e). This spell is not appropriate for characters of that level regardless of their wealth. Now, the determination of whether or not to allow PCs to acquire and use items is still with the DM--level is not a prerequisite for use or acquisition, merely an advisory to the DM.

Cost

TBD.

There will be a table showing the recommended costs of items per level, based on their classification.

Design Basics

Duration

• Consumable
• Multiple uses per day
• Spend your own Mana
• Attunement
• No strings attached (artifact)