Discussion on +x magic items

[jhkim]

The long sword +1 is just too damn iconic to drop. It's not D&D without it.

I don't mind that items exist -- it's that an increasingly huge pile of them are assumed and required for higher-level characters to be fit. The plain +1 weapon is a little boring, but might be OK if it isn't the standard and everyone has to be loaded down with them to be level-appropriate.

It should be annoying but not crippling if a 15th level character loses all their equipment.

 

[RangerWickett]

Of course you won't need it, but some players will still want it. Increasing base class power just won't do it. Look at it from the character's point of view. No matter how much power a PC has, as long as there is a real chance of them losing a fight now and then they will want MORE POWER. And why shouldn't they? This is their life on the line. They'll look for every advantage they can find.

What I'm trying to say is that if you automatically get cool special abilities as you level, you won't need to hand out magic items to make players happy. They'll still get cool powers, only now they're non-transferable.

Want to know one of the stupidest things about 3rd edition? Rings of protection +1. I'm playing in a Red Hand of Doom campaign, and we've so far lost about 7 PCs (three players never lost their characters, three players have lost a few). We now have a lot of spare rings of protection +1. Whenever a new PC comes in, he has his own gear, but he also gets to take the last guy's ring of protection. Then he cherry-picks the other loot: stat-boosting items, tons of wands and potions, and embarrassment of useless +1 weapons. My current character has a +1 returning harpoon. Why? Just because.

You suggested severely limiting the options for increasing power. That's what I want. Just make magic items a limited resource, so that very few enemies have them, and a hero can only have one or two.

I said before, I played in Conan, and I never thought, "Damn, I wish I had magic armor." Because in the character's mind, sure, there's some magic armor in the world, but it's owned by a powerful warlord. Getting that armor would be a quest in itself, and I'm busy trying to bring down a cult of scorpion-god-worshipers. I ain't got time for that.

If Conan doesn't need magic items, why does D&D?

 

[Aloïsius]

+1 weapons imply +1 armor. As soon as +1 armor exist, then people will need +2 weapons.
In the end of the day, the arms race lead every NPC or PC and his mother to stockpiles +x weapons and armors. The result ? You have no choice but to HAVE those weapons, else, you are unable to fight your enemy.
Now, MM monsters are created assuming the PC have those +x weapons and +x armors, which worsen the problem.

On the other hand, flaming sword don't force you to have +1 armor, not even "fire resistance" armor, because not all weapons will be flaming weapons. Then, you can have choice, you can have surprises. But with "+x" items, you have no choice but make sure to stockpile the more "+" you can.

Magic is supposed to be... magic. With d&D3.5 orgy of "+x" stuff, it's just banal, boring and casual. That and...

It should be annoying but not crippling if a 15th level character loses all their equipment.

QFT.

 

[delericho]

I don't mind that items exist -- it's that an increasingly huge pile of them are assumed and required for higher-level characters to be fit.

Sure, that's why I was advocating dropping everything except the weapons and armour. I would also shift to a model where it is assumed that a character might have an item at +1 per six levels (so +1 at level 6, +2 at level 12, +3 at level 18, +4 at 24, and +5 at 30).

In any case, as far as I can tell, balancing for magic armour alone* shouldn't be to bad - it's just a few points of AC, which means the character takes a bit less damage. Weapons would be harder to deal with, but if we adopt the suggestion that the magic of weapons applies only to damage, that should become considerably easier.

* If you allow magic armour and magic shields, and allow them to stack, things would probably be a lot harder to deal with, since a potential +10 bonus is a big deal. So, I would either drop the magic +X shields, or give both +X armour and +Y shields an enhancement bonus to AC so they don't stack. Or something.

But I really don't want to see the long sword +1 removed from the game.

 

[delericho]

On the other hand, flaming sword don't force you to have +1 armor, not even "fire resistance" armor, because not all weapons will be flaming weapons. Then, you can have choice, you can have surprises. But with "+x" items, you have no choice but make sure to stockpile the more "+" you can.

You no more need a +1 weapon to counteract that +1 armour than you need flame resistant armour to counteract the flaming swords (and especially since attack bonuses have always been easier to come by than AC bonuses). If it was the case that a normal weapon simply couldn't harm a person in magic armour, that would be different, but it isn't and never has been.

Conversely, if you remove the plusses, but keep the flaming (etc) weapons in place, then the players absolutely will seek out flame resistant armour, to counteract those. Or, more likely, they'll seek out the flame- cold- shock- sonic- acid-resistant armour of heavy fortification and arcane resistance. You've not gotten rid of the arms race, just moved it to a different field.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Want to know one of the stupidest things about 3rd edition? Rings of protection +1.

This item is terribly problematic. I had players expecting that such rings would be common -- and indeed the DMG seems to suggest they are.
But it requires a 12th-level cleric to create such a ring! I had only six clerics of that level or higher in my entire campaign setting!

 

[RangerWickett]

Conversely, if you remove the plusses, but keep the flaming (etc) weapons in place, then the players absolutely will seek out flame resistant armour, to counteract those. Or, more likely, they'll seek out the flame- cold- shock- sonic- acid-resistant armour of heavy fortification and arcane resistance. You've not gotten rid of the arms race, just moved it to a different field.

I say make it so there's no such thing as an arms race. I want it so 'seeking out' magic items in a game is not too different from 'seeking out' the Mona Lisa, or the ashes of the guitar Jimi Hendrix set on fire, or the first flag of the British Empire.

In such a setting, you don't say, "Damn, there are tons of people who have flaming swords. I need to buy some anti-fire armor." You say, "Damn, dark lord bejeezus has a flaming sword! Well, I could go on a quest to find the legendary rumored scale armor of the fire wyrm, but I don't want to waste the time. Let's go kick his butt."

 

[delericho]

So, essentially no magic items at all, then? Or, at least, almost none in PC hands, and very few in the hands of any but your most powerful BBEGs?

I suppose it would work... but then don't you have problems with Wizards being able to do a whole load of things that the Fighters just can't match or counter (flight, invisibility, and teleportation being big ones)?

 

[danzig138]

If Conan doesn't need magic items, why does D&D?

Why do you want to make D&D into Conan if you've already got Conan? So the people who want what they know from D&D don't have that option anymore? So they can pick Conan or Dungeons & Cimmerians?

Better to have D&D for x-type adventures, Conan for y-type adventures, RIFTS for z-type adventures, etc, et al, blah blah blah.

If there is a problem with D&D right now, to me, it's that it doesn't know what it wants to be. Is it designed for a certain type of adventuring (requiring x magic items at certain levels, dungeon crawling) or is it supposed to be a tool box game as some like to think? Even though I have no plans to switch, I appreciate that what I've read about 4E indicates they are trying to deal with this - by tightening the focus and moving further away from being a tool box (which isn't the direction I would go, but at least it's a direction).

 

[RangerWickett]

This item is terribly problematic. I had players expecting that such rings would be common -- and indeed the DMG seems to suggest they are.
But it requires a 12th-level cleric to create such a ring! I had only six clerics of that level or higher in my entire campaign setting!

Hehe. Only six now. But those rings last forever. Figure one ring gets made every few years (I mean, it takes 2 days of work; you gotta figure a priest will pop one out to help a holy warrior every once in a while), and in a setting with a history stretching back a thousand centuries, that's a lot of +1 rings.