In Defense Of: +X items

[MarkChevallier]

It's very popular to be dismissive of +x items, and the magical Christmas tree. I'm speaking of items that give a numerical bonus to an activity or score that a PC otherwise has, and which doesn't give a new ability or interesting feature that otherwise doesn't exist. So, +3 longsword, +2 chainmail, +4 cloak of resistance... that kind of thing.

But these items have been around in all editions of D&D. They form part of a shared lingua franca of the game - a player who boasts of having a +5 greatsword is making a bold boast indeed, one understood by everyone. If the next edition is attempting to recreate the D&D of nostalgia, I don't think it'll drop these items (even if I think it will attempt to make their ownership unnecessary for "math" reasons).

I personally believe they'll make a return. I don't have the same dislike of them, in themselves, as other people do, so I thought I'd muster something of a defence of the concept.

So, I think it's important to understand why they're disliked. There are several good arguments why people seem to dislike +x items.

OBJECTIONS

1. They're boring. This is true, kind of. They are less inherently interesting than an item with a rich history and flavoursome powers. Players can soon overlook them as treasure - if you already have a +3 sword, a +1 sword is essentially a waste.
2. They screw up the "math" and create a Christmas tree effect. This is true, depending on how they're implemented. It's certainly true in 4E and 3E, because both those games have the notion of certain monsters and traps being a challenge at certain levels baked into the rules. So they have to guess the (for example) to-hit bonuses of characters at those levels and make the monsters armour class match. Older editions didn't have the same problem as they relied on the GM eyeballing the challenge of a particular monster as appropriate to a given party or adventure.

There may be other reasons to dislike them - but those are the ones that occur to me.

But why like them? What do they actually give to the game?

BENEFITS

1. Nostalgia factor. A very minor benefit, irrelevant to many if not most players, but a genuine small pleasure to some which should not be overlooked without good cause.
2. Part of the common language of the game. This is related to point 1, but isn't identical. A player can quite easily understand how good a weapon of a certain bonus is, those facts, those numbers, are understood. Finding a sword +5, you understand it to be a major treasure. A sword +1 is great when you're low-level. The same is not true of weapons with unique powers - is a dragonbane sword better than a anti-dragon blade? Is a greater sword of heroes superior to a warlord sword of command? (Those weapons might be great items in their own right, of course - but they lack the "shared language" feature, unless they're famous like Holy Avengers.)
3. They allow GMs to give out useful treasure-based rewards without having to worry or think about them too much. This is a genuine advantage. Players are usually pleased to get them, and many GMs will not want to worry overly about creating history or unique powers for every item. This is relevant only in relatively magic-rich settings, of course, but that is the default for D&D, historically.
4. The "math" challenge (objection 2 above) can be met and overcome by 5E: I doubt 5E will return to eyeballing challenges from monsters, but it is possible to make the presence of magic items included in the assessment, by saying something like - "if a party is equipped with weak magical equipment, increase their challenge level by 1, with medium magical equipment, by 2" and so forth. This would allow for non-equipped parties and magically bountiful ones to both be evaluated by whatever challenge system they come up with.
5. Lastly, items with unique powers tend to be less generically useful than a simple bonus. As such, they put some pressure on a GM to introduce situations where their powers will be useful, so a PC can feel the benefit of their items. Not all GMs want to feel this pressure, and not all campaign philosophies are well suited to it (for example, a pure sandbox style game).

Just to be completely clear, this isn't an aggressive defense; I largely agree with objections 1 and 2 above. I just think that benefits 1-5, on the whole, slightly outweigh them.

What do you think? Have I missed any objections or benefits out? Misweighed them in my assessment? Or are you in agreement?

 

[billd91]

I would add that they're very easy for players, particularly casual ones, to deal with. Their effects can be added into the values listed on the character sheet and thus be used again and again and again without the player having to think about them. They're added to the stat block with little muss or fuss.

Items with conditional or activated powers tend to get forgotten a lot, even when the DM plans situations in which they would be incredibly useful.

 

[Hassassin]

I don't doubt at least some of them will be there. I'm just hoping they won't be in the math, as you mention.

There are also differences. Ability score enhancing item cause more problems, in my opinion, than swords for example.

 

[avin]

This a sacred cow I don't believe will be killed on 5E.

 

[Tallifer]

But why like them? What do they actually give to the game?

BENEFITS


[They are ] part of the common language of the game. This is related to point 1, but isn't identical. A player can quite easily understand how good a weapon of a certain bonus is, those facts, those numbers, are understood. Finding a sword +5, you understand it to be a major treasure. A sword +1 is great when you're low-level. The same is not true of weapons with unique powers - is a dragonbane sword better than a anti-dragon blade? Is a greater sword of heroes superior to a warlord sword of command? (Those weapons might be great items in their own right, of course - but they lack the "shared language" feature, unless they're famous like Holy Avengers.)
ones to both be evaluated by whatever challenge system they come up with.

This is an important point for balancing encounters, monsters and characters. There were many problems in 4th edition because certain items were perceived as overly powerful compared to everything else. The ostensible solution for measuring the relative power of magical items was level, but as you say, how can you measure flame versus cold versus teleportation versus producing tasty snacks?

A dungeon master who feels overwhelmed by the prospects of balancing weird and wonderful powers can just give +X magical swords and armour et cetera. I think this simplicity of approach is useful for newborn dungeon masters. Hopefully the dungeon master will learn the system and world enough to become more comfortable with more interesting items.

(I agree with the ideal of the many, that magical items should come out of the rich history and culture of the world or contribute to the story. But I still see your points about the advantages of +X.)

 

[Tehnai]

My favorite solution (as advocated a few times on these boards) is to do as such :

- For weapons : Remove the bonus to attack, keep the bonus to damage. Changing attack bonuses screws the combat math and makes it hard to not use magic item, while making magic weapons boost damage first (and probably do something cool and new on top of it) doesn't change much in the field of balance;

-For Armor : Bonuses on armor grants damage resistance instead of bonus AC.

-For anything else with +Xs : I don't really care, really, I'd just remove them (an amulet of natural armor doesn't need a +X to be cool, it needs a 1/day entangle, but I digress!)

By using a similar system, it's possible for DMs who want to have a high magic game to put magic items everywhere, and low-magic Sword and Sorcery DMs can give out a few, when they feel it's appropriate, without having to make houserules.

 

[Argyle King]

What I don't like about them (as implemented in 3rd and 4th - since that's what I am most familiar with) is that they cause number inflation which I do not believe is necessary. Having a +5 sword isn't a boast at all when the system assumes you're at a level to have it. It's no longer magical, it's the norm.

I'd rather play in a system where levels are allowed to showcase breadth and a wider variety of options rather than one which keeps stacking on top of itself in such a rigidly linear fashion. In such a system, I imagine having even a +1 or a +2 sword to be a big deal; perhaps legendary in some settings. The numbers wouldn't need to go higher than that to be special. Heroics and legend would be determined by the actions of the character in game more; less because of what level the player has reached in the metagame of the system.

In this vision I have, the Christmas tree effect is gone. It's not necessary for a character of a given level to have specific items. Instead, the character is free to make choices based on style, aesthetics, and how they see the character. The hand which wields the sword or the mind which wields the spell is generally more important than what pluses are on a sword or a wand.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The reason why they were held so high in pre-3E days is because in those games there was so little chance to increase your to-hit that even a +1 from a magic weapon was a godsend. There was no 'flanking bonus', you might get a small bonus from a Bless spell maybe like once a day if you were lucky (because goodness knows clerics were using their 1st level spells for Cures and such), and even base to-hit bonuses only went up every other level or even every three levels for some classes.

And don't even get started on AC. Once you bought the best armor you could afford... that wasn't getting better like EVER.

THAT'S why magic weapons and armor were so important... because they were the only real chance during the course of a level of your adventuring career that you might actually get to see your numbers jump higher (or lower, in the case of AC). You put that up against 4E... where you get modifiers from all the other powers and situations and terrain... now that +1 from the weapon is just one out of three to five other bonuses you are calculating every single fight. It's no longer important. It's just another bonus.

 

[drothgery]

I don't doubt at least some of them will be there. I'm just hoping they won't be in the math, as you mention.

They have to be in the math or gone. There's no middle ground on this; if they're not in the math, they're horribly unbalancing.

 

[billd91]

The reason why they were held so high in pre-3E days is because in those games there was so little chance to increase your to-hit that even a +1 from a magic weapon was a godsend. There was no 'flanking bonus', you might get a small bonus from a Bless spell maybe like once a day if you were lucky (because goodness knows clerics were using their 1st level spells for Cures and such), and even base to-hit bonuses only went up every other level or even every three levels for some classes.

I wouldn't say there was no flanking bonus. You definitely benefited from attacking from a direction other than head-on. Thanks to facing rules, you didn't even need to have an ally directly across from you.