4e / GSL July and beyond AV2 items

[JeffB]

Originally Posted by Silverblade The Ench

JeffB,
*jaw drops!* where you been, man?!
go buy yerself "The Illithiad", and play Neverwinter Nights 2, will fill you in on a lot

that kind of fluff is awesome, to me
look, a DM can have whatever the heck he wants for story for the gith and illithids, but D&D as a WHOLE, needs a coherent link, like it or not, across much of it, to bind it into "D&D", ya know?. If all you have is monsters it is not any damn good, you need a hook, a feel, a story...

this is why I vastly preffer the 2nd ed monstrous compendiums because of their great fluff (so I still keep them!). 4th ed monster mmanual stat layout is the best, ever (followed by 2nd ed). But 4th ed sucks for lack of fluff.

Interesting read e: the Gith. I'd not read that before (most likely cos other than the original FF cover, the Githynaki have never been something to capture my interest/imagination).

While I'll agree that having SOME "story" or "link" is good, one of the things I alluded to before is that despite the fact I'm a huge GH fan (pre wars), and a huge Gygaxian fan, and a huge fan of "old school" in general- I'm so glad WOTC finally re-imagined alot of the fluff for the game in 4E instead of re-hashing it yet again. 30 years of the same ol' same ol' "D&D story" has become boring. This may be why I always preferred the LBBs and B/X over the A's- there is none of the "milieu uniformity" that started with AD&D and became overbearing during 2E. I love "Mad Libs"- give me some blanks to fill in

Originally Posted by avin

I'm trying a "guess" exercise here but people who like more items than fluff are mostly players?

DM here. Ultimately I'd prefer a somewhat large list (60%), with some (minimal, but useful/inspirational) fluff , and a smaller (40%) list of "heavier fluff" items.

That said, I'm not sure it matters- the book is likely finished and off to the printers- so we'll get what we get

[Kamikaze Midget]

More options are never bad, but they suffer from the law of diminishing returns.

How many magic items do you actually give PC's to use over the course of the campaign? If it's RAW, you're getting 10 per level, so 300, over the course of a year or two. You do need a lot of choice for that, more in the middle levels than on the ends.

That's pretty typical of D&D. No edition -- well, possibly 2e -- lacks a cart full o' +1 Swords. It's also typical of D&D to leave generic magic items generic, and to add story behind artifacts and other unique items.

Usually, I'm all about 4e needing more and better fluff to inspire more and better stories, but with magic items...not that it's not useful, it's just not expected. It's a little contrary to the standard D&D model. It also means that there's 100 or so words that could go to waste if, say, the character never faces a swarm, and so sells the item right away to trade out for +2 Generic Sword of Power.

The fluff for the rat catcher's coat is good. The power is a little situational, but the fluff works pretty well. Maybe if it were part of a set, or something, it would work pretty well. I can't help but think "more fluff" in the AV2 is going to be a little wasted.

Now, something that I could use is a magic item that is flavorful and interesting, but not necessarily fluffed up. Take the Rat Catcher's Coat and maybe give me a swarm-casting sewer druid NPC who uses it to move around within them. Give it an interesting quirk (makes you smell like the sewers!).

I dunno, maybe I'm wrong and people have been waiting with baited breath for storied magic items, but I see that fluff as being very, very niche-use. Not that the niche shouldn't have it, of course, just that for most D&D players and DMs, I think they aren't looking for a whole lot of fluff in their basic magic items (special magic items/artifacts/intelligent magic items/cursed or backlash magic items, sure, but typical stuff, not so much). Still, it is good fluff, and it will be useful to some people.

Though I don't think "fluff" is the dramatic re-concepting of magic items that is going on. Perhaps it is something like "sets" or items that grow with you, or themed item sets, or "magic powers" that don't come from items as much as they rise up within the characters themselves, or something. Possibly maybe?

[Nebulous]

I DM and i think the AV desperately needed more fluff. Little plot hooks and description here and there would easily make into an adventure. B all that fluff can be left out of the DDI and players can have all the oodles of crunch they want. Besides, by the time Adventurer's Vault 5 rolls around there will be 10,000 magic items in the game, most of which won't ever get used in a single (or even multiple) campaigns.

[Jhaelen]

Originally Posted by avin

I'm trying a "guess" exercise here but people who like more items than fluff are mostly players?

I'm currently and most often the DM and I don't care about excessive fluff.

What I mainly expect from AV2 is more support for the new classes.
Then I'd like to see items with new mechanics, like item sets.
Finally, I'd like to see a bunch of artifacts or Weapons of Legacy/ Earthdawn style items.

For an item to be 'cool' should involve more than a bit of history. If an item is important enough to warrant a history, it should be reflected by the item's powers.

[Stoat]

Originally Posted by avin

I'm trying a "guess" exercise here but people who like more items than fluff are mostly players?

I DM 90% of the time, and I like items with less fluff.

I'm surrounded by fluff. There's fluff on TV, in movies, in books, in comic books, in webcomics, in other people's story hours. Fluff is everywhere. Crunch is harder to come by, and good crunch even more so.

Also, I find RPG fluff to be a very mixed bag. For every neat little bit of campaign detail that turns my crank, I see an equal amount of boring, confusing or just uninteresting material. This is particularly true for D&D. I don't know what it is, and it isn't edition specific, but D&D fluff falls flat for me at least half the time.

So put me down for more crunch, less fluff.

[Elder-Basilisk]

I'm with stalker0. Fluff, no fluff. I'm not particularly bothered. What I want is more items with interesting and useful properties and less items that suffer a four level penalty for the privilege of having a daily ability that no-one in his right mind would prefer to a power jewel or keoghtom's ointment.

The vanguard weapon should be the model for AV2. It combines a very useful property with a daily that many characters will love. Things like the spacewarp weapon... not so much.

[Nymrohd]

I give a lot less (I use a house rule that gives PCs the advantage of NPC magic item thresholds) and intergrate everything into the campaign setting so I use my own fluff. I don't mind more fluff though as long as they don't introduce more gamebreaking items in AV2. AV1 is the one supplement in 4E from which I only allow players to pick items on a case by case basis.

[Rechan]

Originally Posted by avin

I'm trying a "guess" exercise here but people who like more items than fluff are mostly players?

DM here, less fluff.

Listen, I know that some folks love paragraphs of fluff for +1 swords. But to me, that's a lot of history for a +1 sword that's going to get chucked for a +2 sword down the road. Multiply that times five PCs, for three necessary item slots, plus any non-big three items, and you get A LOT OF FLUFF for stuff the players are trading out every how many levels?

Not to mention that the issue for me is that while the fluff is great, the items are cookie cutter assembly line piss-poor stuff. Again, tons of fluff for a +1 sword still comes down to... a +1 sword. If I'm going to fluff something up, I want it to be interesting in BOTH story AND mechanics. Otherwise, it's like giving a three paragraph backstory to a beer mug.

Yeah, artifacts may be awesome, but we have perhaps 10 artifacts? I also think they're a little more complicated. I'd like something that's the middle ground between "Here's an item with an eh daily" and "Here's a two page spread on the artifact's awesome mechanics".

But then I've never been satisfied with how D&D handles magical items.

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah, fluff is meh to me. A weapon, magic item, race, etc. in the core D&D world is likely to be entirely different fluff wise in my campaign settings so it is for myself personally something that I don't use at all. I dislike it even more with specific crunch type books like this, since it means more stuff would be pushed out for the fluff.

Like, if you had to choose between say... Some new gadgets, the introduction of firearms, new vehicles/mounts, new weapon types, armour, whatever. One, a couple or all of those or fluff for the stuff already in there what would you choose. For me every time be the crunch.

Oh and DM here (a DM that wants to be a PC too *sigh*)