Handling Magical Items and Treasure

[Coops]

Hey everyone,

I been trying to convince my friends to try out a game of OVA. Its been frustrating (they're diehard Pathfinder types) , but when I mentioned that I would try my hand at running a Sword Art Online/Record of Lodoss War clone, they all jumped at the chance.

Here's my dilemma... How would you emulate "loot" from quests, Boss drops, random fights, etc... I would like to having something similar to pathfinder's random tables to emulate the randomness of an MMO, but I also don't want my players to become too powerful too quickly with mixing loot and innate abilities gained through experience. Any ideas?

It may be as simple as using the gear attribute and perks/flaws, but I feel like I can't see the forest for the trees... Any suggestions would be most appreciated! thanks.

[CursedEmbrace]

If I were running a game where collecting magic items ect was one of the main focuses I'd totally be using the Gear ability to represent it, however I wouldn't just have items give +1 Strong and stuff all the time.

In one campaign I'm preparing for now my GMPC will have a sword that gives her attacks (that involve the sword) something called Endurance Vampire, which is essentially the Vampire perk, but for Endurance (a surprise, I know). I have that perk cost 1 point in terms of the budget for the weapon (as the perk would probably only be +5, like its sibling Vampire perk). I think you could do a lot with items if you think a little outside the box and mix in weird unique abilities and even perks for making attacks in with more regular abilities and weaknesses.