GM Resource page.
During the course of adventuring, exploring ancient ruins, delving into dungeons, and storming enemy strongholds, there's one thing your players will expect other than a fight: treasure. And while SOD doesn't have any strict rules on treasure outside of the gold values they should be expected to get from fights, it's important to throw them a bone or too every so often to keep things interesting.
| Trade Good Values | |
|---|---|
| Common Goods | 2d6+4 G |
| Uncommon/Quality Goods | 3d8+6 G |
| Rare/Exotic Goods | 4d10+8 G |
The easiest way to do this is probably with sell-able loot - stuff that doesn't have much practical value or use for adventuring, but is still useful to the more ordinary town folk. Exotic spices, paintings, precious gemstones and jewelry, spare mechanical or electronic parts, stuff like that. Give it a sale value, and if they can manage to hold onto it in someone inventory until they reach another settlement, they can trade it in for that much gold. Between 10G on the low or 30G for the high end is a good amount to aim for with these kinds of trading goods, or you could opt to just roll for it instead using the table to the right.
The second easiest way would be to simply give them the odd free item, either battle or goods&tools. You'll likely want to stick to the mundane item lists for these, though, and they'll probably be met more favorable by the party when found in longer dungeons with multiple combats they can't rest between, since they're a good way to keep resources and exploration momentum going.
Rarely, you might instead wish to give a party a bigger, more meaningful reward - and that's where enchanted gear drops come in. Rather than giving them something they could buy from a store though, what you'll what to do is either given them a custom enchantment or a relic. In either case it'll need to be identified before it can be used (especially if it was found during the course of an adventure rather than being a quest reward), and likely assigned a sale value on the off chance no one in the party decides they want to use it. For these, a sale value from between 80~120G is appropriate, depending on how powerful it is.
Custom Enchantments
When creating custom gear enchantments, it's a good idea to keep in mind the sort of things that Premium and Contraband enchantments can do (and there are a lot of examples on the gear pages), and keep things within similar levels of power. For weapons, implements and shields there's typically two approaches that they follow. The first is to have smaller, easy to use enchantments that are nice to have but generally aren't too impressive and a GM can be comfortable with coming into play often and having 3~5 charges. The second is to have stronger, nearly Action grade powers that only get used at key moments, having only 1 or 2 charges at best.
Armor, Charms and Accessories are a little trickier since they're either one/battle based rather than charges, or always on effects. Once again there's a decent amount of examples to pull from on their gear pages, but generally speaking, for Accessories, any custom ones you hand out should be just a little bit more powerful than mundane ones - almost but not quite as strong as the quick ability options that are offered by classes. The passives both both armor and charms are slightly stronger than the mundane charms as well, either by marginally increasing the power, or making them multipurpose. In either case, they should almost never be as strong as a passive ability offered by a class option.
Creating custom items is also an option if you want to give the party a neat effect, but it's not really something you want them to have access too for the rest of the campaign. Again, use the store lists as a guide! These aren't really an important thing to drop, considering the store list for consumables is fairly robust as is and you can get away with handing those out instead, but a custom item can still be a fun bonus to get on occasion.
Relics
Relics are, like custom enchantments, something that it's up to you as the GM to hand out to your party. They're also something you'll largely need to make for yourself, though we'll provide a couple examples for each category. So what is a relic, exactly? A relic is pretty much just an over-tuned enchantment - they have more potent effects, or more charges, or sometimes even both. The only draw back is that each PC can only have a single relic bound to them at a given time. so even if you hand a number of them out you won't have to worry about a single person hogging them all, or character power inflating beyond control.
For charge using gear, the easiest way to make a relic is probably to double the number of charges you'd normally give it, or make the charge effect dual purpose slash increase its power. Meanwhile, an Accessory might have something almost but not quite as powerful as a normal Action stored within it! For passive granting gear, this is where you can make them as powerful as the abilities found on the classes.
Relic items can exist too! There's probably two ways to handle that as well. The first would have them be roughly as powerful as normal items, but rather than be fully consume, you regain full use of them during a Full Rest. Alternatively, you could weaken its effects to be close to the power of a normal Action, and let the item have an unlimited number of uses.
Relic Examples
Weapons
Excalibur A legendary weapon made my the If-Ys, capable of changing its shape to best adapt to the foes it faces.
Greatsword. 5 Charges. When activated, change the type of damage that the weapon deals for the remainder of battle from physical to match a single struck target's elemental weakness.
Gatling Gun The magics bound to the gun make it capable of firing shots at a rate that shouldn't be possible
Pistol. 4 Charges. Activate on a hit or miss. Expend as many additional Ammo as you like to attack an equal number of additional targets.
Phantom Edge The blade is nearly translucent, and almost impossible to dodge.
Dagger. 9 Charges. Activate on a hit or miss. Roll to hit two additional times, and take the best roll of the three. For each additional hit past the first, roll +1 additional damage die.
Rainbow Rod A short staff that shimmers with every color imaginable. It looks different from any angle you look at it.
Staff. 4 Charges. When activated, True Strike a different target for 8 air, earth, fire or water damage. Choose the element each time this effect is activated.
Warlord's Authority A special axe that was commissioned for the warlord that united most of the Hundred tribes under a single banner.
Axe. 8 Charges. Grants a single ally Short K-Power, E-Power, H-Power, Energize, Focus, or Lucky. Choose the status each time this effect is activated.
Implements
Echo Wand A prototype wand designed to allow a single wizards to take on entire platoons on their own.
Wand. 3 Charges. At the start of your next turn, cast the same Spell that the charge effact was activated with, without consuming your action and paying MP costs as normal. The wand cannot be use with any other action you before during that turn.
Focus Crystal A crystallized eye taken from the corpse of a centuries old dragon.
Orb. 4 Charges. Activate when casting a Spell that targets two or more actors. Instead, only target one and gain double potency.
Grimoire of Growth The entirety of this grimoire was etched into petrified wood enhance it's power.
Grimoire. 8 Charges. Grants yourself or a single target of the Spell +3 Armor for the remainder of the encounter.
Shields
Wide Field Repulsion System An Acrotech device designed to be strapped to the arm, capable of generate large force fields.
Buckler. 4 Charges. Grants a Bubble(10) to the wielder and all allies.
Energy Converter When struck, the shield converts energy into drive.
Standard. 8 Charges. Grants +2 Drive to the wielder.
Force Feedback Sends a blast of energy back at attacks that dull their combat senses.
Tower. 6 Charges. Inflicts Long K-Falter or Long E-Falter on the attacker.
Armor
Chromatic Cloak A cloak worn by a famous If-Ys assassin, who's colors change to match its surroundings.
Cloak. Each time you're struck for elemental damage, you reducing future attacks from that same element by -2 for the remainder of the battle. Track each element separated, but the effect stacks without limit.
Cursed Tank Despite repeated attempts to cleanse the armor, bits and pieces of the hex still linger. They're most beneficial to the wielder now, though.
Mana Tank. Anytime you're inflicted with a status, inflict that same status on the attacker immediately.
Rousing Armor Despite its weight, this suit of armor doesn't slow down the wielder's natural drive generation.
Heavy Armor. Gain +1 Drive at the end of every turn.
Accessories
Kill Switch A small silver cylinder with a small red button on one side. The word 'Engage' is engraved into it.
Select a single enemy. Until the start of your next turn, you and your allies all deal +1 additional damage die against the target with your attacks.
Dark Energy Device Sucks ambient energy directly from the void.
Generates a Water+3 momentum and an Air+3 momentum.
Ancient Talisman Passed down from the Head Priests of a remote shrine for generations, and imbued with power holy protection.
Generates a Bubble(5) and Barrier(10) for the wielder.
Charms
Champion Belt "King of the Heavy Weight Division"
Gain Critical 10, and anytime you score a critical hit, add the weight of your weapon to the damage dealt as well.
Perpetual Motion Device It's Free Energy.
Anytime you cast a Spell, select a single ally momentum. It's no longer destroyed at the end of the current round.
Great Fortune A talisman said to predict the future of whomever draws it.
At the start of combat when initiative is determined, you may select a single target and trade places in the init list with them.
Battle Items
Bottomless Flask 50%Whiskey, 50%Potion, and it never runs dry.
Unlimited uses. When used, either True Heal the wielder for +15HP, or True Heal another target for +12HP. M-Recovery.
Counter Gauntlet Easily slips over the hand without making it cumbersome to wield a weapon. It gives a dull red shine when activated.
Unlimited uses. Perform a Basic Attack against a single target, and if they strike you with their next action, gain +1 potency die on your next action. Momentum generated based on weapon used.
Hourglass Once you've turned it over twice, it runs out of time. The sand refills only once the person it's bound to has had a full night's rest.
Two uses, which are recharged during a Full Rest. True Strike a single target for physical damage equal to the total amount of Drive all enemies possessed when used. M-Rush
EMP Device Acrotech used to disrupt certain kinds of machinery and other types of Arcotech. Can suppress drive when aimed at certain kinds of monsters.
Two uses, which are recharged during a Full Rest. True Strike a single target for 10 air damage, then 5 earth damage. Also inflicts Short Chill, or Long Chill if a weakness is struck. M-Air.