Healing Belt in MIC = broken?

Wow, I'm surprised at the emotional level of this thread!

Here's the issue as I see it, and I think some of you have been trying to say this, but the message has gotten a bit lost.

The DMG and MIC have two different pricing schemes, a lower-magic one and a higher-magic one (neither one is perfectly balanced, either). The problem is that they are kind of meshed together, which leads to inconsistencies. It would have been nice if the MIC tables had repriced the DMG items to the MIC system, so we could have a consistent high-magic pricing (note that some of the SRD psionic items did get repriced in the MIC). It also would have been nice (but WotC would never have gone against whatever their current design philosophy was) if they'd had a listing of MIC items more consistent with the DMG prices.

Hey, don't get me wrong. I like Monty Haul games where magic is cheap and plentiful. Sure it breaks game balance...or "restores" it to a level where magic is more powerful...certain classes lose exclusivity...WotC designed these power books with YOU in mind! Keep lapping it up.

blacktie347 said:

Hey, don't get me wrong. I like Monty Haul games where magic is cheap and plentiful. Sure it breaks game balance...or "restores" it to a level where magic is more powerful...certain classes lose exclusivity...WotC designed these power books with YOU in mind! Keep lapping it up.

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You want to redefine your terms.

Monty Haul= more wealth per level than DMg indicates.
It has nothing to do with plentiful magic (not having it plentiful would be low magic game world; which isn't DMG guidelines either).

So yeah.

3.0 and 3.5 are both very "resource dependant" games. Towards the end of 3.5, there were a large number of things released to lessen the amound of resource dependence. This includes the Healing Belt and other infinite use items (less dependence on casters and inventory), Reserve casting feats (less dependence on low level spells or back-up items), mulit-function items (less dependence on slots), and countless other uber-items.

When all of these new things are added in together, with all parties having access, they do not break the game. The game can still be played by all, with party balance, and lots of fun. Some people will even enjoy the game more without resource management. The problem is that the removal of resource dependence is not balanced with the core 3.5 material. It significantly changes major aspects of the game, from pricing, to party roles, to daily cycles. If you are playing in a game with limited non-core material, or without acounting for these changes, these items will cause major problems.

The MIC does provide more power per level than the DMG indicates. Heck, a 750 gp Belt of Healing provides more renewable HP healing per day on average than a 90,000 gp Ring of Regeneration!

whatever

blacktie347 said:

The MIC does provide more power per level than the DMG indicates. Heck, a 750 gp Belt of Healing provides more renewable HP healing per day on average than a 90,000 gp Ring of Regeneration!

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...and the vast majority of people have been saying that the ring of regeneration sucks and is vastly overpriced since the DMG came out. You know why it's so expensive? Because in prior editions it actually provided regeneration--the equivalent of Regeneration 5 in 3e. The devs changed the effect but left the price the same. Most of the MIC stuff isn't "Yay, we're so much more powerful now! Thank you, MIC!" it's "Yay, some of this stuff is actually worth buying, unlike the DMG stuff! Thank you, MIC!"

It's like the Tome of Battle: Some folks hate it, because they think it's making fighters obsolete and this is a Bad Thing. Most folks like it, because they realize the 3e fighter has pretty much always been obsolete, and now they can play a fighter-type and enjoy it. Restoration of balance, not breaking thereof.

Perhaps you haven't taken Macroeconomics yet. When stuff is cheap, there will be more of it on the market, because more people will buy it. So when a Belt of Healing provides more HP healing than a 90k gp Ring of Regeneration, just about everyone and their mother will buy one if they can and need regular healing. So that's where magic becomes more plentiful.

This is an extra logical step that I guess I should have not expected everyone to realize on their own. Have you taken Macroeconomics yet? I didn't mean to talk down to you there.

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Thank you for the condescension--it's really appreciated. Here's an example the macroeconomics major might understand better.

The Ring of Regeneration is a $5,000,000 Honda. Great car...but no one in their right mind would buy it, since it's ridiculously expensive. It used to be a $5,000,000 Boeing 747--a ridiculously good bargain--but Boeing was bought out and they turned it into a Honda while keeping the same name, to fool people used to the old name.

Potions of Cure Serious Wounds, Wands of Cure Critical Wounds, etc. are $300,000 Fords. Yeah, you can get them, but no one really wants to.

Wands of Cure Light Wounds are $30,000 Saabs. They're well-priced, they're reliable, and generally people like them.

Your generic +X ability enhancers are $50,000 college tuition loans. Given that everyone must have one of these things, what car is actually worth the money? A $5,000,000 Honda, a $300,000 Ford, or a $30,000 Saab? The Saab, of course. Does that mean it's a Monty Haul car, that it's too cheap? No; it's rationally priced, and the others are too expensive.

Does that help?

The DMG rules for generating magic items are IMHO fundamentally flawed due to what they are based off of, which are spells. Just as you have spells that are considered underpowered or must have, magic items which derive their abilities from these spells will have the same issues.

I'm surprised no one has yet brought up that you can get unlimited healing per day by creating a command word activated item imbued with cure minor wounds and create this item for 900 gold.

.5 * 1 * 1800 = 900

If we wanted to get really crazy and make the LG cleric his own special item (he has 5 ranks in heal) we could create an item only usable by a LG cleric with ranks in heal for:

900*.7*.7*.9 = 397

It wouldn't be good at all for in combat healing but it would definately work just fine for out of combat healing.

Love the comparison of the college tuition and the cars.

But yeah, I think it was actually in the foreword of the MIC where the designers discussed the reasoning behind the pricing of the items.

The core items (stat enhancers, resist vest/cloak) were the baseline items. They wanted to price things so that you actually had to make a choice rather than go with the assumed stat items.

Also, healing was made to be much easier to come by in the latter days of 3.5. If you look at the various feats, classes, items and spells, it definitely fit the pattern that out of combat healing was assumed to be available.

whatever