Design & Development: Magic Item Levels

[JVisgaitis]

Man, the more I read about 4e, the more I think its going to be a developer's nightmare...

 

[Traycor]

You are right Mad Mac. I should try not to overreact too much. It's just that I was really hoping for the end to +X items. Hopefully magic weapons will be defined more in combat and in other aspects of play by their other abilities than by their plus.

Surely we knew months ago when we had +5 wands that we would still have +5 swords. I'm happy with this as long as we don't have the items that simply add + to something.

 

[grimslade]

I like the level guidelines for items to determine appropriateness.

I am bothered by the granular trading up of magic items implied in:

More than a few levels after that, either item will have lost a lot of its luster -- maybe because more characters have easy access to levitation, flight, or even short-range teleportation effects, in the case of the rope of climbing, or because they're all toting around +3 or better weapons, making the flaming sword seem underpowered.

I was hoping that an elimination of the Christmas Tree effect would also mean not having to upgrade magic items or be considered underpowered. Andy Collins implies otherwise. My flaming sword is not trendy enough to hang with 12th plus level crowd, I'll just be killing boars in the forest. ;P

Each Des&Dev article in November has seemed to dull my optimism for 4E by pulling back from really dramatic mechanical changes to 3.X tweaks.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

It's hard for me to reconcile "there are +X items with a scaling-by-item-level X" (what they're saying now) with "the math does not require a high-level character to have magic items" (what they've said before).

I guess as long as there aren't too many +X's it can still be sort of true, but it's definitely not the way they seemed to be going.

The +6 wand that was mentioned at Gencon told me that +X items were still in the game. Now that they've revealed that the "new math" is a steady 0.5*level bonus to attack rolls and defenses, that wand worries me a bit. It's equivalent to giving the wielder a 12 level bonus. Is there a rule that if the DM gives the PCs +X items, appropriate monsters are now 2X levels higher?

 

[Ahglock]

Well, it would put those magic item shops out of business, and a lot of people have been complaining about those. But from the thread on the 4E News board...

I hope that quote you quoted and I have no idea how to add to this response is correct. It seems an odd reading of it, but hey I can't expect every blurb to be perfectly clear.

 

[Andor]

So long as PCs can make magic items, the Christmas Tree Effect shall persist because the ability to make and upgrade gear will be in the hands of the people that will want to do it early, often and repeatedly. Expect the final version to be de facto, if not de jure, universal rules expected to be in force in every game for exactly that reason.

Are you suggesting that the PCs will not have access to a plethora of magic items if they cannot make them? Because I know of at least one party in 2ed that carried around a golfbag full of +1 swords to use as currency.

 

[Ahglock]

The +6 wand that was mentioned at Gencon told me that +X items were still in the game. Now that they've revealed that the "new math" is a steady 0.5*level bonus to attack rolls and defenses, that wand worries me a bit. It's equivalent to giving the wielder a 12 level bonus. Is there a rule that if the DM gives the PCs +X items, appropriate monsters are now 2X levels higher?

No it is the equivalent of giving 12 levels of of bonus in something you have no training focus in. Lets say you have boots of sneaking +6. 12 levels of bonus at the .5 per level. Well sure for the non-sneaker you are correct. For a sneaky type over those 12 levels he gets +6, maybe + 5 form skill focus, re-rolls from talents, maybe he can sneak at a jog at no penalty, and 3 times per day hide in plain site. Does it really seem like +12 levels of bonus to the sneaky guy?

 

[Andor]

The +6 wand that was mentioned at Gencon told me that +X items were still in the game. Now that they've revealed that the "new math" is a steady 0.5*level bonus to attack rolls and defenses, that wand worries me a bit. It's equivalent to giving the wielder a 12 level bonus. Is there a rule that if the DM gives the PCs +X items, appropriate monsters are now 2X levels higher?

It seems clear to me that the .5 per level is the base number that everybody gets to everything. Your class, stats, talents, and feats will all add on to this base. So Fighters for example probably get a bonus point of BAB at every odd level. Wizards presumably get a bonus caster level at every even level. So if your 10th level fighter decides to pick up a wand and take a level of Wizard then he already has a base CL of 5 to work off of. And vice versa for his wizard buddy who wants to learn how to poke people with sharp things.

It's possible I'm wrong of course, particularly about the CL thing, but they did state clearly that a first level fighters BAB was not stuck at 0.5

 

[Corinth]

Are you suggesting that the PCs will not have access to a plethora of magic items if they cannot make them? Because I know of at least one party in 2ed that carried around a golfbag full of +1 swords to use as currency.

No, I'm stating that if PCs can make magic items then no amount of GM miserliness will stop the PCs from getting what they want because they can just mark off the costs to make the stuff, write it on their sheets and thumb their noses as the killjoy behind the GM screen.

 

[Ahglock]

It seems clear to me that the .5 per level is the base number that everybody gets to everything. Your class, stats, talents, and feats will all add on to this base. So Fighters for example probably get a bonus point of BAB at every odd level. Wizards presumably get a bonus caster level at every even level. So if your 10th level fighter decides to pick up a wand and take a level of Wizard then he already has a base CL of 5 to work off of. And vice versa for his wizard buddy who wants to learn how to poke people with sharp things.

It's possible I'm wrong of course, particularly about the CL thing, but they did state clearly that a first level fighters BAB was not stuck at 0.5

That is what I am assuming as well.

In fact I kind of expect your true BAB will be the same as in 3e.

Fighters get the .5 per level, and another .5 per level for being a fighter which talents and feats can improve further.

clerics get .5 per level and .5 per level every other level which talents and feats can improve though not as much as the fighter,

wizards get .5 per level which talents and feats can improve though not as much as the cleric.(though multiclassing will alter this)