Paying CP for Magic Items

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

The idea of "Pay for it to keep it, don't and you might lose it" has two flaws, one horrible and the other numerically subtle. 

 

The big flaw is that if Alice has paid points to keep her Bow of Projectiles while Bob hasn't paid points to keep his Axe of Spikiness, something is 'unfair' if Bob never loses that axe.  I put 'unfair' in quotes because it's this vague and generic unfairness where it's not really clear who's getting more or less than they should or even if anyone cares. 

Maybe Alice's player feels screwed if she pays and Bob gets the same benefit of never losing the thing.  Maybe Bob's player feels like he's cheating unless his not paying causes the axe to be lost.  Maybe some third party takes offense for reasons.  Maybe nobody cares!  But that's not the real problem. 

The real problem is that GM Gary is put between a rock and a hard place.  If Gary does take away that axe, Bob's player might be angry at Gary for taking it away.  Worse, Bob's player might be angry at Alice's player for forcing Gary to take it away.  Because nobody likes having their fancy powerful toys taken away.  But if Gary doesn't get rid of that axe, somebody might get upset about the 'unfairness'.  And Gary has no way to know what will or will not ruin a session for somebody. 

If Gary does know that his players will take everything in stride, that's great.  He's got a great group and I hope that was your first counterargument because your group is great too.  But there's a bunch of not-perfect groups where Gary either doesn't know or it isn't the case that everybody will take Bob's de-axing with a smile. 

 

The subtle numerical issue is that buying "loss prevention" for a thing isn't the same as buying the entire thing from scratch. 

Alice doesn't need to buy RKA to have her bow stick around, it's already an RKA for free.  She doesn't need to spend anything to make it Armor Piercing, it's already Armor Piercing for free.  What Alice needs to pay for is the removal of the "can be lost permanently" Limitation. 

The correct pricing for "loss prevention" is the cost of buying off the Independent (-2) Limitation, since that's what she's getting rid of by making the item a permanent fixture. 

[Chris Goodwin]

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

The idea of "Pay for it to keep it, don't and you might lose it" has two flaws, one horrible and the other numerically subtle. 

 

The big flaw is that if Alice has paid points to keep her Bow of Projectiles while Bob hasn't paid points to keep his Axe of Spikiness, something is 'unfair' if Bob never loses that axe.  I put 'unfair' in quotes because it's this vague and generic unfairness where it's not really clear who's getting more or less than they should or even if anyone cares. 

 

This is definitely something the GM will have to consider.  If characters can pay points to start with magic items, but don't have to pay points to keep ones that are found, I would suggest that fairness would dictate that those who paid points to start with them should get those points back.  Alice, a 200 point archer who has spent 20 of her starting points on the Bow of Projectiles, and Bob, a 200 point fighter who has found the 20-point Axe of Spikiness, should both be considered, effectively, 220 point characters.  

 

I would suggest that Alice gets to "withdraw" the points she's paid for the bow, at the same rate as she receives XP.  In other words, if she receives 3 XP for the session, then she should get 3 of her spent points back from the bow, at the same time.  Those wouldn't be considered XP; they would be a cost reduction applied to the bow's cost, which would reduce her total points.  Assuming the point in the campaign at which both have received a total of 20 XP, that would make Bob a 200 point character with a 20 point axe and 20 XP, and Alice a 180 total point character, with a max of 200 points (leaving her 20 points unspent) and 20 XP.  If she later spends her unspent points from the bow, she would then be at the same point level as Bob: a 200 total point character with a 20 point bow and 20 XP.  

 

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Maybe Alice's player feels screwed if she pays and Bob gets the same benefit of never losing the thing.  Maybe Bob's player feels like he's cheating unless his not paying causes the axe to be lost.  Maybe some third party takes offense for reasons.  Maybe nobody cares!  But that's not the real problem. 

 

If both the bow and the axe have the Obvious Accessible Focus Limitation, they should have equal chances of losing their weapons.  In the event Alice loses her bow, she would get the entire 20 points back at once that she spent on it (or whatever she hasn't gotten back through reimbursement as above); if Bob spent no points on his axe, he would have nothing to get back if he loses it.  

 

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The real problem is that GM Gary is put between a rock and a hard place.  If Gary does take away that axe, Bob's player might be angry at Gary for taking it away.  Worse, Bob's player might be angry at Alice's player for forcing Gary to take it away.  Because nobody likes having their fancy powerful toys taken away.  But if Gary doesn't get rid of that axe, somebody might get upset about the 'unfairness'.  And Gary has no way to know what will or will not ruin a session for somebody. 

 

If they both have a -1 OAF Limitation... getting a Focus taken away is part of that.  Neither of them should be angry, and whether one or the other gets taken away shouldn't be based on whether it's fair that Alice has paid points and Bob hasn't.  If Alice's bow gets taken away (assuming it can't be recovered), Alice should get those points back, at least whatever she hasn't already gotten back as mentioned above.

 

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If Gary does know that his players will take everything in stride, that's great.  He's got a great group and I hope that was your first counterargument because your group is great too.  But there's a bunch of not-perfect groups where Gary either doesn't know or it isn't the case that everybody will take Bob's de-axing with a smile. 

 

The subtle numerical issue is that buying "loss prevention" for a thing isn't the same as buying the entire thing from scratch. 

Alice doesn't need to buy RKA to have her bow stick around, it's already an RKA for free.  She doesn't need to spend anything to make it Armor Piercing, it's already Armor Piercing for free.  What Alice needs to pay for is the removal of the "can be lost permanently" Limitation. 

The correct pricing for "loss prevention" is the cost of buying off the Independent (-2) Limitation, since that's what she's getting rid of by making the item a permanent fixture. 

 

That would be "loss prevention" for the points, true.  Assuming you're using Independent in your games (the general "you"), would you allow a character to regain their lost points by buying off the Independent Limitation on a lost item?  I absolutely would.  But I'd require the character to front the difference.  If a 20-point item had a cost of 12 points with the Independent Limitation, meaning the character paid 12 points for it, then at the time at which they were able to spend the 8 points to buy off the Independent Limitation, they'd get the full 20 points back.  But they'd have to have the 8 XP first.  In case it's not obvious, I've been assuming throughout the thread that Independent is not in use.

 

By the way, it's always been a rule that in order to have a magic item (weapon or otherwise), you have to pay for the entire thing, not just the cost difference between the mundane and magical versions, even if you would otherwise not pay points for the mundane version.  GM's option, to be sure, but it's the default RAW.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

14 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

If characters can pay points to start with magic items, but don't have to pay points to keep ones that are found, I would suggest that fairness would dictate that those who paid points to start with them should get those points back. 

I'm not talking about paying for starting gear, I'm talking about paying for keeping gear a character found naturally.  An earlier proposal in the thread was "The items you find are free.  But if you don't pay points to keep them, you might lose them at any point.".  I was pointing out some flaws in that paradigm.  Sorry for the confusion. 

I honestly don't have a good answer to "I want my fighting man to start with a Sword of Pain!" beyond "Only if everyone is starting with some special non-points benefit". 

[Chris Goodwin]

36 minutes ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'm not talking about paying for starting gear, I'm talking about paying for keeping gear a character found naturally.  An earlier proposal in the thread was "The items you find are free.  But if you don't pay points to keep them, you might lose them at any point.".  I was pointing out some flaws in that paradigm.  Sorry for the confusion. 

 

As I said earlier, I see it as being not much different from a superheroic campaign.  The reason Batman doesn't carry a Thompson submachine gun around with him is that he didn't pay the points for one.  If he pays the points, he can carry one; if he doesn't, then while he might pick up a criminal's dropped gun to use until the end of the scene, possibly the end of the session, it's not a regular part of his character.  That's how I tend to see magic items.  

 

And I honestly don't see how it could be a flaw.  If a PC doesn't pay points for a magic item, then the player can't dictate whether or not they keep it -- on this I will not budge.  To be honest, even if they do pay the points for it, if the GM takes away the item, the character should get the points back.  (Or: if a 200 point fighter finds a 100 point magic sword, he's effectively a 300 point character, whether or not he "spends" XP by marking them on his character sheet.  If he then loses the sword, he's back to being effectively a 200 point character.  If he's paid 30 XP so far on the installment plan, then if he loses the sword he gets those 30 XP back.  If a 300 point fighter starts with 100 of his points spent on a magic sword, and he loses the sword, then he is effectively a 200 point fighter with 100 points left to spend.)  

 

36 minutes ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I honestly don't have a good answer to "I want my fighting man to start with a Sword of Pain!" beyond "Only if everyone is starting with some special non-points benefit". 

 

The most fair way I can think of to have a character start with a magic item is for them to pay the points for it.  (This is a game where players should get to play the characters they want to play, right?  If someone has an heirloom magic sword passed down from their parents and grandparents and so on... or if a player character is an enchanter, and they want to start with magic items during play... shouldn't they have them?)  And if no one has to pay points for magic items found after the campaign starts, then fairness would dictate that the character who paid points to start with one should get them back if others receive magic items without having to pay the points.  It has to be both or neither, and on this I will also not budge.  

 

If a 200 point character finds a 100 point magic item, and keeps it, then they're effectively a 300 point character, whether or not the player chooses to allocate the points on the character sheet, or whether or not the GM requires them to.  The most fair way I still see it is, all across the board, the standard HERO System mantra of "you pay for what you get, you get what you pay for", and to have characters who want magic items to pay points for them.  But, per the discussion in the entire thread, I can readily see how that might not always be workable or desirable.  

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

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The items you find are free.  But if you don't pay points to keep them, you might lose them at any point.

 

Except the system is "you may lose them at any point no matter what, but you never lose points."  In other words, you may lose your Wand of Doom through damage, theft or misadventure, but maybe you gain a contact or some land, or something else in its place.  And, if you lose an item you discovered, the GM can also make sure you have something else available to make up for the loss of character points represented by that item.  You discovered armor of arrow deflection, great!  It got melted by a dragon's breath, not so great -- but the dragon has a shield of flash attacks in his horde.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I don't feel the actual points I made are the points being responded to, so I'm leaving this conversation.  I hope everyone finds or has found a system that works for them. 

[Chris Goodwin]

 

56 minutes ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I don't feel the actual points I made are the points being responded to, so I'm leaving this conversation.  I hope everyone finds or has found a system that works for them. 

 

Then either I've been missing your points, or the points I'm making are not the ones you're responding to.  

 

Should characters be allowed to start the game with magic items?  I can easily think of concepts that would allow that.  For that matter, I can easily think of concepts that would allow characters to start with other special abilities.  Half-giant wants to start with 30 STR?  Dragonborn wants to start with a breath weapon?  Fighter wants to start with an heirloom magic sword?  Enchanter wants to start with a flying carpet or a ring of protection from arrows?  I'm not sure I could say yes to some of those and no to the others.  And they should all pay points to start the game with those things, out of fairness if nothing else.  Shouldn't they?

 

If player characters don't pay points for magic items they find in play, then out of fairness, the characters who paid points to start the game should get those points back.  Shouldn't they?  (If you're assuming those are all Independent, you're not exactly making that clear; I'm assuming they're not, for the record, and I have been and am still arguing from that assumption.)

 

If characters find magic items in play, and don't have to "pay for" them in the sense that they don't have to allocate XP to them... I can accept that, but then, either: 

• The characters who started the game with magic items should get their points back, or
• The ones who didn't pay points for them get to keep those items entirely and only at the GM's option.  

Because Bob, a 200 point character who gains a 100 point item is effectively a 300 point character.  And Alice, a 200 point character who starts play with a 100 point item, for which she's spent the points, is effectively, and actually, a 200 point character. 

 

Either Bob should spend 100 points, or Alice should get 100 points back, or Bob's item is not his in the same way that Alice's is hers.  This is the entirety of the point that I'm trying to make, and it seems to me that you're disagreeing with some part of this, but I can't figure out what.  

 

If you don't agree with player characters starting the game with magic items, that's fair.  In which case it doesn't matter much whether or not characters pay points for the items they find in play -- but Bob, a 200 point character who finds a 100 point magic sword, is a 300 point character whether he "spends" the 100 points or not.  And magic items are still Foci, and they can be taken away by the GM..  and Bob doesn't get to complain if he didn't pay points for the magic sword and then loses it.  

 

I'm trying to spell my points out as clearly as I can.  If you disagree with one or more of them then we can agree to disagree... but if you are disagreeing with one or more of them, I can't figure out which ones, nor what your position on them is.  

 

And if I haven't been clear enough with any of my points, I apologize.  I'm not sure how much clearer I can be.  

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Then either I've been missing your points, or the points I'm making are not the ones you're responding to. 

I'm fairly certain it's that we're talking about completely different things.  So far as I can tell, you're only talking about items at chargen.  I wasn't saying anything about items at chargen, only about items after chargen. 

[Hugh Neilson]

Seems to me Chris is comparing items at CharGen and items found during play, and suggesting that they should be treated consistently, such that the character who begins play with a 100 point magic item and the character who has discovered a 100 point magic item in play should both have the same number of points to spend on their other, non-magic item, abilities, while a third character who neither started with nor found a magic item should have 100 points more than the first two to invest in other, non-magic item abilities.

 

Did I summarize that accurately, Chris?

[Chris Goodwin]

16 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Seems to me Chris is comparing items at CharGen and items found during play, and suggesting that they should be treated consistently, such that the character who begins play with a 100 point magic item and the character who has discovered a 100 point magic item in play should both have the same number of points to spend on their other, non-magic item, abilities, while a third character who neither started with nor found a magic item should have 100 points more than the first two to invest in other, non-magic item abilities.

 

Did I summarize that accurately, Chris?

 

Perfectly.

[massey]

I think it’s all a matter of people being on the same page.  Bob and Ricky and Sarah all need to know and understand what the rules are before they make their characters.  As long as they understand, no problem.

[Tywyll]

On 10/16/2019 at 10:41 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

 

Bob would get the points back to spend on something else.  Which could be a different magical sword, but it could as easily be magical armor, a magical rope or a magical 10' pole.  Or he could spend it on his stats, skills, talents, etc.  

 

 

Not as I understand the Independent Limitation (ala 5th). Those points are gone forever. That's a big part of my beef...

[Tywyll]

On 10/17/2019 at 4:02 PM, ScottishFox said:

 

What I've maintained separately for those campaigns is a Combat Effectiveness spreadsheet and you have to stay within the campaign caps regardless of your capabilities come by way of gear, levels, powers/spells or stats.

We bump the cap 5 pts intermittently through the course of a campaign.  If the gear your found while adventuring moved you above the cap then when the cap is raised you have less room to work with and possibly none at all.

 

 

I'd be very interested in seeing this spreadsheet!!!

[Tywyll]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:11 PM, Chris Goodwin said:

People in this thread make good points.  I'm leaning quite a bit more neutrally toward the idea.  I'd probably still count any magic items toward the character's total when I'm working out total capabilities -- in that sense they're part of the character's points.  But I don't necessarily see the need to charge points, as in requiring the character to allocate saved XP to an item.  I'd make it a GM-decided option at the beginning of the campaign, for sure.  

See that was my thought on how to handle the 'power level' element, players keep track of their CP and their CP+Item value.

 

Though even then, that's really still just a rough estimate of power level. A fighter with a 50 point sword is a lot more powerful in most scenarios then a sage with a 50 point item full of KS. You can't compare them and say they are 'equal' in any combative sense and it would only matter if the campaign featured a lot of knowledge based challenges.

[Tywyll]

On 10/17/2019 at 9:11 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

That's definitely an area Hero handles well that other fantasy games, for example, do not.  In D&D you get all those swords and wands and such but there's no overall concept of power level or what its doing to balance in game play.  Its important as a GM to have a good handle on just how powerful your characters are getting beyond a gut feeling, and checking out what people have in terms of loot and items can go a long ways toward quantifying that.

 

That's not really true. D&D has long had GP or XP values for magic items. Granted in pre-3rd edition systems they weren't great, but they did exist. Ever since 3rd, all editions have tracked the value of gear as a measure of power, to the point that you have expected wealth by level as a baked in concept. 

[Chris Goodwin]

7 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Not as I understand the Independent Limitation (ala 5th). Those points are gone forever. That's a big part of my beef...

 

Here's where it helps to know what edition.    Independent is gone in 6th edition (and I supported removing it); the permanent expenditure of points then becomes a GM's campaign option in Fantasy Hero, and one which I tend to shy away from.  

 

If it is in effect: you'll probably see few to no PCs start with points spent on magic items (as opposed to their spell Foci) nor make them in play, and in fact with Independent, characters explicitly don't pay points for items they find in play.  But Independent, or permanent expenditure of Character Points regardless of whether there's a Limitation for it or not, breaks the relationship between character point totals and power level, and changes them from a meta resource to something with some weird, inconsistent, nebulous, in-game, almost-currency sort of thing.  And, aside from the "character loses points permanently" aspect, it's almost presented as being more advantageous than limiting; if it doesn't limit the character it shouldn't be worth points, yet if it does come into play, someone gets really screwed.  (An aside to my good friend @Duke Bushido: I don't see a permanent expenditure of 2 points in a 250 point Champions game as breaking things too much, but 10-20 points in a 150 point Fantasy Hero game can be a lot more painful.)  

 

I just wouldn't use it.  Not that I ever ran a Fantasy Hero game in the 5th edition era, but I had as one of my standard house rules in case I ever did, "Independent is not permitted."  

 

[Duke Bushido]

For what it's worth, I never found Independent to be particularly "limiting," especially with newer players (those who grew up with the internet).  They would push each other toward it, proclaiming "remember: he can't take it away for more than a scene or two...." 

 

Yeah. 

 

Sure I can't. 

 

No: I'm not an adversarial GM-  quite the opposite, in fact, given my emphasis in character and story development.   But if you signed up for a power that Doctor Gunthief can use as easily as you can, and he gets his sticky fingers on it, you're going to have to figure out a way to take it back from him: he's not going to leave it laying on the stand in the foyer for you to grab on your way out. 

 

And if you _dont_ go to any effort to get it back..... 

 

Well, as I said: I have no big issue with "points are gone forever." 

 

(and all I really need is a _token_ effort; that's the worst part!) 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well AD&D had an almost arbitrary gold value for treasure but it was never really used or meant as a measure of relative power, and even if it had been, nobody used it that way.  

 

The truth is that a point-based system is much, much easier to quantify relative power gain than other systems, particularly as D&D is mostly by guess and by god random in assigning power level in a lot of areas.

[Hugh Neilson]

17 hours ago, Tywyll said:

 

Not as I understand the Independent Limitation (ala 5th). Those points are gone forever. That's a big part of my beef...

 

That was the downside of a -2 limitation.  And the reason I, like Chris, never liked the limitation.  It did mean that you kept the loot you found for no point cost - that is someone else's limitation coming into play.  His lost points is your power gain.

[mallet]

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It did mean that you kept the loot you found for no point cost - that is someone else's limitation coming into play.  His lost points is your power gain.

 

That is exactly the way I always used this limitation, pretty much only for items I (as the GM) wanted the players to have for free in the game (almost always Champions campaigns where players had to pay for everything with xp)  and I usually also put unrecoverable Charges on it as well. All of which can/could be hand-waved as a MCGuffin item for the adventure (especially now in 6th Ed.) but was fun to build/stat them out sometimes. 

[ScottishFox]

One thing I always liked about the Independent limitation was that it very nicely explained the scarcity of magic items in the Fantasy HERO settings.

 

Magic items cost character points!!   F that!

 

It immediately made sense to my players and the wizard in the party promptly lost all interest in creating permanent magic items. 

[PhilFleischmann]

I have no problem with characters starting with magic items that they've paid points for.

 

I would never make a player pay points for a magic item he happened to find and wants to use.  However, there's a good chance that that item will eventually be taken away.  Lost, stolen, broken, whatever.  The GM giveth and the GM taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the GM.

 

If a player buys a magic item (or any ability at all) with the Independent limitation, he WILL lose it eventually, and he will NOT get those points back.  Because (say it with me now) A Limitation that isn't Limiting doesn't provide any point savings!  And I make sure my players know this in advance.  And as a result, no player of mine has ever applied the Independent limitation to anything they've bought, at least as far as I can recall.

 

If a player buys a magic item (or any ability at all) with the Focus limitation, he WILL lose it occasionally.  But he can recover it, or build a new one, or otherwise acquire a new one, or he can get the points back to spend on something else.

 

If a player buys a magic item (or any ability at all) without Focus and without Independent, he can use it freely any time he wants (subject to whatever other limitations it might have), and he will never lose it unless he chooses to rebuild his character somehow (usually requiring some in-game justification).

 

If Alice paid 20 points for a magic weapon, and Bob just happens to find a magic weapon worth 20 points, well good for Bob, but he probably won't have it forever, while Alice will.  Meanwhile, Alice is just as likely to find another magic item as Bob, maybe a magic shield or some other useful magic item.   If Bob starts whining about losing his magic sword that he found and never paid for, then Bob needs a time-out.  The 20 points Alice paid are part of her character.  Anything you didn't pay points for is not part of your character.

 

In my games, magic items are very, very rare.  And magic weapons and armor are even rarer.  If you want a magic sword as part of your character that does 2d6 HKA with +2 Skill levels, then that's 34-40 Active points (limit to taste), which must be paid for (after limitations).  But if you want a big non-magical sword that does 2d6, you can buy it for money - no points, and if you want, you can buy two skill levels.  Or you could buy for points a magic Amulet of Swordsmanship that gives you +2 Skill Levels with swords for only 10 Active points (limit to taste) and pay a lot less in real points.  In my games, magic weapons and armor are very very very rare, in part because they are a rather inefficient use of character points.  Why spend points on a magic weapon that's only a little bit better than the mundane weapon you can buy for money?  If you want a magic item, buy a cloak of invisibility, or boots of swift running, or a necklace of animal friendship, or a hat of the pure mind (Mental Defense).  In my games magic is for things you can't do with mundane items.

 

And there may be some magic items in my games that "take themselves away" eventually - limited use items, like potions that have only a few uses before they run out.  And such an item could even be a weapon, like a magic exploding pine cone - when you throw it into the midst of your enemies, it explodes for a nice amount of damage - but of course, you can only use it once.  And it's perfectly OK if you want to pay your own points for the ability to make more potions or exploding pine cones.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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One thing I always liked about the Independent limitation was that it very nicely explained the scarcity of magic items in the Fantasy HERO settings.

 

Yeah requiring points creates a sense of importance and sacrifice, it makes items dear.  Kind of like how if you give someone something valuable, they'll like you, but if they buy something valuable, they'll be very careful with the item.  Well, usually.

 

I think there's value in the concept, which is why in the Jolrhos Field Guide, I require people making magic items to have the points to spend, but if the item is destroyed, lost, disenchanted, etc they get the points back in some manner or another so nothing is ever truly lost.  Its a barrier to creation and a way of making the items dear to a magic item creator, but not a permanent loss of points.  And there are ways of lowering the point cost.

[PhilFleischmann]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think there's value in the concept, which is why in the Jolrhos Field Guide, I require people making magic items to have the points to spend, but if the item is destroyed, lost, disenchanted, etc they get the points back in some manner or another so nothing is ever truly lost.  Its a barrier to creation and a way of making the items dear to a magic item creator, but not a permanent loss of points.  And there are ways of lowering the point cost.

Which brings to my mind another possibility:  Magic items are paid for with points - but not the Independent limitation.  So if a magic item is found/stolen by our heroes, the guy who paid for it gets the points back, and the item's magic power fades - perhaps instantly, but more likely gradually.  What happens when the person who paid the points dies?  Does the item retain its points?  There's no one for the points to go back to, so why not?  Let it be the person's legacy.  We can all leave something behind for the world.

 

And remember, the person who paid the points is the person who has the item as part of his character - not necessarily the person who created the item within the game narrative.  Elmer the Warrior wants a magic helmet that controls the weather and brings down lightning on his foes.  But he's just a warrior, and doesn't know how to make magic helmets.  So he goes to the mighty wizard Renraw, to commission the construction of the helmet.  Renraw does the magic, but Elmer pays the points.  The item is part of Elmer's character, and if the item is lost or destroyed, the points go back to Elmer.

[massey]

Points don't create magic items.  Points are a representation of how powerful your character is.  You don't have to spend points to make items, but no matter what you do your point total can't exceed the campaign limits.  You can make a +5 Vorpal Longsword of Asswhooping according to whatever the ritual is required in the story, but you can't keep it for yourself until you've got points available.  Otherwise it would make you more powerful than the campaign allows.

 

Independent should represent that the item is not a part of the character -- it can be used by them, but there's no "plot immunity" that ensures it will stick around.  One failed Str check, a failed saving throw, a sneaky thief, and it's gone.  Easy come, easy go.

 

I kind of like the idea that magic items can come about from a number of sources.  Suppose Bob the fighter goes out on an adventure with his trusty brand new longsword.  And the first thing he encounters is an orc, guarding a chest.  Bob runs forward and rolls to hit.  Rolls a 3, hits easily.  Location 3, hitting the orc in the unarmored head.  Rolls damage and instant-kills the guy.  Hey that's cool.  Great job Bob.  And now let's suppose that the next time Bob encounters an orc, he does it again.  This time he hits the orc in the vitals, but it's still one hit, one kill.  And then the third time Bob encounters an orc, he instant kills him again.  Bob just really seems to have good luck killing orcs with that sword.  Well once it happens often enough that players start commenting on it, maybe the GM decides that this might be a Sword of Orc Slaying.  The magic of the world has infused itself into the weapon, Bob has awoken the blade's inner spirit, or some other such nonsense.  The important thing is that it makes sense in the story that this is actually a powerful orc killing sword.  Bob's now got the option to upgrade the sword, no wizard required.