Healing Belt in MIC = broken?

[concerro]

Wow. I was also about to post in the Monopoly forum that I don't do the "landing on Free Parking = cash money" thing. What have I been thinking?

The belt does take up a slot and 750 is a lot of gold for low level characters. My group whether I played or DM has always pooled money to get wands for the cleric to use because they cost so much. The item is very good for its price. It allows the cleric to do something besides heal all day, making the class more attractive. It takes up a spell slot which means melee types have to make a choice between staying power and killing power meaning it is not an obvious choice which is something to look at before calling something broken.
I consider wands to be overprice but the law of supply and demand says low level clerics don't have a lot of heal spells so the party almost has to have them. I would pay about 1000 max for the belt because giving me 20 points of healing is not worth more than that especially when the item already takes up a slot. Once you get to the mid-levels a character can take 20 points of damage if the enemy breathes(almost any hit) on them. Someone could by 3 or 4 belts but they would need the money. At low levels the money is not there, and at higher levels it becomes inefficient to do so.

 

[blacktie347]

whatever

 

[Runestar]

I like that you attribute positive motives to WotC for releasing supplements that increase the power allowed in the core books. They're "correcting" errors, apparently.

For MIC at least, I have not seen any substantiated evidence to the contrary. Do you honestly believe that the pricing guidelines in the DMG are absolutely correct and error-free, and are to be followed to the letter, regardless of what future supplements say that may contradict those guidelines?

I disagree with you that WotC is correcting errors, but rather would speculate that between releases of editions of D&D, WotC is attempting to generate more profit and avoid TSR's fate. But apparently that is irrelevant to you.

It is not so much that it is irrelevant, but more that it does not seem to be the case for MIC here. I still fail to see how MIC results in blatant power creep, when all it does is introduce affordable (and balanced) magic items for players to use.

I don't deny that the purpose for MIC was more revenue, but that still does not mean that the book is necessarily game-breaking, nor does it make the information in the book any less credible.

It is like the rules compendium. The book seems like something that the designers should have released as free weekly articles on their wotc website, but they opted to bundle them as a book to sell. But that certainly does not make the information contained within any less correct or valuable.

A Potion of Cure Serious Wounds costs 750 gp, which can cure 3d8+5 HP for an average of 18 HPs, once.

Has it then ever occured to you, that perhaps it is the potion of cure serious wounds that is severely overpriced? It is pretty much suicidal to use one during combat (you provoke an AoO for quaffing a potion, so you might possibly end up killing yourself before you even get to drink that healing potion). And outside of combat, its benefits pale in comparison to that of a wand of CLW.

Even before MIC came out, I would never ever contemplate spending that much gold on healing potions. When MIC came out, all it did was assure me that my belief bad always been correct.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Okay, after this post, I'm not going to repeat points again in this thread, at least.

Promise?

A Potion of Cure Serious Wounds costs 750 gp, which can cure 3d8+5 HP for an average of 18 HPs, once. The belt costs the same but can do the same every day. The "slot" is not relevant because the belt does not need to be worn for a period of time before use, except in combat. So the belt is way more powerful than the Potion which cures the same amount. Both the belt and the potion can be used by any class.

A Scroll of Cure Serious Wounds costs 375 gp, which cures approximately the same amount of HP damage, but can normally only be used by a divine spellcaster. The difference in price accounts for "requirement" that a cleric/druid uses the magic.

Having a Belt of Healing is unbalanced compared with these prices. It's nice that your group likes using the Belt of Healing and that you don't think that it's overpowered...enjoy that addition to the game. However, I don't think that it quite balances the same way with comparable healing items in the DMG, which is my point, and has been for some time.

If you believe that the DMG pricing guidelines are infallible and sacrosanct, then yes, the MIC is pretty much as "borkenz!" as it gets. If, on the other hand, you suspect that there's something seriously wrong with the DMG pricing guidelines, then you may want to give the MIC another look.

 

[Deset Gled]

The Ring of Regeneration is a $5,000,000 Honda.

Potions of Cure Serious Wounds, Wands of Cure Critical Wounds, etc. are $300,000 Fords.

Wands of Cure Light Wounds are $30,000 Saabs.

The wand of CLW is a donkey. In the middle ages, it would cost an average person (a peasant) about half of a years worth of wages to buy a donkey at a market*.

The Belt of Healing is a Honda Civic. Today, it would cost an average person (middle class, first world country) about a half of a years worth of wages to buy one new*.

Both the price of the donkey in the middle ages and a new Honda Civic in 2009 are reasonably priced when you consider the monetary cost, the usefulness that an owner gets out of them, and what other options are available at the time. Just about everyone would agree that the Civic is a better option for travel, but there are some people take pleasure in imagining what life was like back in the middle ages and what it would be like to be a hero, adventuring in a fantastical world long before Civics were available.

Very intelligent post, by the way =)

Thanks much. The MIC is a book that took me a very long time to get my head around.

 

[billd91]

Has it then ever occured to you, that perhaps it is the potion of cure serious wounds that is severely overpriced? It is pretty much suicidal to use one during combat (you provoke an AoO for quaffing a potion, so you might possibly end up killing yourself before you even get to drink that healing potion). And outside of combat, its benefits pale in comparison to that of a wand of CLW.

Even before MIC came out, I would never ever contemplate spending that much gold on healing potions. When MIC came out, all it did was assure me that my belief bad always been correct.

That's been an issue in my games too. I have yet to see a PC actually take Brew Potion and consider it a worthwhile investment. The other low-level item creation feats have been quite popular by comparison.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

PirateCat, I was responding to two parts from Eldritch_Lord's statement. Sure, I can see that my original post could be deemed condescending because I speculated that Eldritch_Lord might realize more about Economics in college. Let me restate the main points from post 60 that are more neutral in tone.

Just so you're aware, blacktie, I'm currently a college freshman and am taking an economics course at the moment, which is why I took a bit of offense at your condescending tone. I referred to you as a macroeconomics major because (A) you were making such a big deal about it and (B) you were muddling the macro/micro distinction. I should probably have used a smiley, but I wasn't thinking about that at the time.

No hard feelings on the tone; just be more careful next time.

The wand of CLW is a donkey. In the middle ages, it would cost an average person (a peasant) about half of a years worth of wages to buy a donkey at a market*.

The Belt of Healing is a Honda Civic. Today, it would cost an average person (middle class, first world country) about a half of a years worth of wages to buy one new*.

Both the price of the donkey in the middle ages and a new Honda Civic in 2009 are reasonably priced when you consider the monetary cost, the usefulness that an owner gets out of them, and what other options are available at the time. Just about everyone would agree that the Civic is a better option for travel, but there are some people take pleasure in imagining what life was like back in the middle ages and what it would be like to be a hero, adventuring in a fantastical world long before Civics were available.

It would cost an average person the same relative amounts, yes, but a medieval noble would have many donkeys (or the equivalent in horses, cattle, etc.), giving the equivalent in horsepower (er, donkeypower) to the Civic and the equivalent in prestige as well. Considering that most adventurers would be upper middle- to upper class given all of the wealth they accumulate, it would certainly make more sense to have the Civic, no?

 

[Kask]

So, Runestar, if I follow your comment to the logical conclusion, you're saying that the Healing Belt can't be priced at 750 gp using the DMG magic item rules, because the MIC authors decided to bypass those rules as too limiting?

That's what happened. It also lead designers to ignore spell schools and create spells and designate them as belonging to incorrect schools, etc... Anything outside of core books needs to be checked for adhering to the basic game rules.

 

[AllisterH]

That's what happened. It also lead designers to ignore spell schools and create spells and designate them as belonging to incorrect schools, etc... Anything outside of core books needs to be checked for adhering to the basic game rules.

While this is true, it assumes that the core of the game is better balance than the supplements.

Which, is somewhat laughable.

For all the claims that the supplements increased the power of PCs, the fact is, 80% of the feats, base and prestige classes released pretty much blew monkey chunks when compared to the standard PHB.

There isn't one 3.5 PHB supplement IMO, that was as overpowering compared to core as say the 2e Complete Book of Elves was to the 2e PHB (now THERE, that's blatant power creep).

Sure, we get things like Shivering Touch (what were they thinking there?), Initiate of the Seven Veils and the Archivist but the VAST majority of stuff released fall more along the lines of the Scout (a poor man rogue) and Samurai (why is this class worse than the fighter).

Most spellcasting prestige classes actually had dead levels, none of the melee base classes released could equal a PHB-built barbarian (even the Bo9S melee classes can't match the damage output of an equivalent levelled Barbarian) and frankly, most spells released pretty much were worse than the PHB.

 

[Kask]

While this is true, it assumes that the core of the game is better balance than the supplements.

Balanced? I never mentioned that. I said, basic game rules...