The Myth of the Necessity of Magic Items

[molonel]

One other point that I forgot to make, here.

One of the strongest arguments, in my opinion, about the necessity of magical gear to character power in 3rd Edition is the sheer horror I've seen when Mord's Disjunction starts getting handed out.

That spell is a character killer, because if you don't have a good will save, it will NUKE your magical gear and leave a smoking crater behind.

Character death? You have Raise Dead, Resurrection and True Resurrection at upper levels. Pricey, and if you take the XP hit, ouch. But the solutions are possible.

Disjunction? Unless you pop off a Wish right afterward, or counter it in some ways, is one of the most lethal spells in the game.

 

[painandgreed]

I find my self as a Dm making the challenge to be just a bit above par of what the party is capable of. Going in with magic items does a party more harm then good, since the bad guy with have one magic item better..Say like a staff with 5 fireball charages on it.

Wow. You're like my "anti-ideal DM". Nothing says "wasted evening" like being told "all your effort in planning and preparation would have made the encounter too easy so I had to alter the encounter to make it tough again". Why not just tell the players that they and their actions don't matter in your game and that nothing they do is really important to the outcoume you've decided? Eventually, even if you don't tell them, they're going to realise they have no part in the game as thigns go from one mediocre enounter to another and the difficulty never changes no matter if they try or not.

Certainly, in such a campaign, magic items aren't needed to maintain balance, but then again, neither is PC involvement.

 

[Ace]

In order to work, the modified rules must, in my opinion, offer something for what they take away.

Simply taking stuff away does not improve the game.

QFT

 

[Ace]

I have a pretty comprehensive set of low magic house rules designed to make low magic/same CR stuff work

Its not hard to do really ---

just figure out how much bonus permanent bonus a person would get at any given level and make it a natural ability

FREX a standard 20th level fighter would get

+15-20 to AC (Armor, Ring, Amulet, Shield (dancing if 2h) +4 to 5)
+5 to stats from libram/tome/manual/book whatever
+5 to saves from cloak
if these bonuses are inherent than 75% of the recommended amount of magic items can be ignored.


My rules specifically

feats at odd levels
+2 to skills for each class
75% BAB as defense bonus
+1 to all saves at 4,8,12,16,20
+1 to stats at each even
action points

with this set up this leaves only weapon #1, Weapon #2, a magic ring, potions and minor stuff and a belt to give out

the belt is removable if you are willing to give a few more potions

in this system a fighter might have
magic item of some coolness
some potions
a magic weapon or two
maybe a magic piece of armor

he/she will still be compatible with normal D&D

Also if you flavor up the items -- give them cool abilities, names and backgrounds you get the good parts of low magic (magic becomes cool) with less downside at least IMO

The key here is replacing the lost abilities especially AC and saves.

 

[phindar]

All things being equal (and they never are, really), I'd rather the group have a smaller number of more powerful, more interesting magical items than a lot of little or bland stuff.

 

[Remathilis]

My rules specifically

feats at odd levels
+2 to skills for each class
75% BAB as defense bonus
+1 to all saves at 4,8,12,16,20
+1 to stats at each even
action points

I have a feeling I know the answer to this, but yet I feel compelled to ask: doesn't that throw things like Feat Pre-reqs and Prestige Classes out the window? You could have Whirlwind Attack by 4th level or easily qualify for PrCs that normally have harsh cross-class requirements. (Dervish springs to mind...)

Secondly: do your NPCs follow these guidelines as well?

 

[DungeonMaester]

Wow. You're like my "anti-ideal DM". Nothing says "wasted evening" like being told "all your effort in planning and preparation would have made the encounter too easy so I had to alter the encounter to make it tough again". Why not just tell the players that they and their actions don't matter in your game and that nothing they do is really important to the outcoume you've decided? Eventually, even if you don't tell them, they're going to realise they have no part in the game as thigns go from one mediocre enounter to another and the difficulty never changes no matter if they try or not.

Certainly, in such a campaign, magic items aren't needed to maintain balance, but then again, neither is PC involvement.

Yeah..Because Wizards never prepare a head of time..That makes sense....

DM: Not only was the wizard not watching you to prepare ahead of time, it totally slipped his mind mind...and he he didn't prepare spells for the day.

Players: Yay!

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Yeah..Because Wizards never prepare a head of time..That makes sense....

DM: Not only was the wizard not watching you to prepare ahead of time, it totally slipped his mind mind...and he he didn't prepare spells for the day.

Players: Yay!

Since you described the "opponents will scale perfectly to whatever you prepare or purchase" as being a fact of your campaign in general, perhaps you could elaborate on how every single enemy sees their preparations and is able to prepare for them. I would consider an enemy wizard being able to watch my preparations (without the party ever detecting the observations) and having time to prepare perfect counters to be very occasionally realistic - and certainly not a constant expectation that I would say "yay!" for it being avoided.

 

[molonel]

Yeah..Because Wizards never prepare a head of time..That makes sense....

DM: Not only was the wizard not watching you to prepare ahead of time, it totally slipped his mind mind...and he he didn't prepare spells for the day.

Players: Yay!

Sure. If every enemy you fight is a high level wizard or cleric who knows your identities, and can scry on you 24/7, and you can't thwart the scrying, and they have nothing else to do with their day but listen to you plan, or have one of their acolytes listen to your plans so that they can perfectly prepare their flawless counteroffensive, then that makes perfect sense.

That strains credibility further than the presence of too many magic items, though.

PCs should get plowed sometimes. It keeps the game challenging.

But they should also get to do the plowing, sometimes. That's part of being a hero in fantasy.

 

[Darrell]

You know, I've been playing 3rd Edition D&D since it came out, and I don't know what you mean by "uber-equipment." You mentioned - jokingly, I assume - the +25 holy keen vorpal longsword of bloody-ugly monster slaying. But you really can't be serious about that.

In my personal view, any weapon with a bonus greater than, say, +3 and which has more than two 'descriptor words' in it's 'game-mechanic' title qualifies as an uber-item, as do things like staves of the magi and such. Things like +1 to +3 swords or charged wands aren't uber-items, and are fine for PCs or their enemies, but shouldn't be thrown about willy-nilly, either.

In a low-magic game, I would care MUCH more about spellcasters than I would care about magic items. I mean, let's face it. D&D up until about 5th or 6th level is a low magic game, anyway, from the perspective of magic items.

Well, I feel the need to point out that I'm not running a 'low magic' game, but a 'low-magic-item' game. and the items that come into play are fairly powerful (even 'uber-items' by my definition). There just aren't a hundred thousand orcs running around with generic +1 or +2 longswords/falchions/etc.

I've played up to 35th and 40th level, and frankly, I haven't seen a lot of uber equipment. The pricing for epic items is borked, anyway, but I won't go into that, here. Generally, most of the glittery stuff at high levels is stat-enhancing gear: +6 to strength and +6 to wisdom and +6 to constitution. At epic, those start creeping up to +8 and +10. On melee types, a lot of resources go into weapons and armor. On wizards, spellbooks and epic spells.

I really wouldn't know about any of this, as I don't run or play in epic games. The 'level 20 cap' is pretty much standard for me; and we most often wind it down aound 18th-level or so, and start a new 1st-level game. They let me know when they're ready to end the current game and start over, by the way...I never force it on them. I guess none of my guys are all that interested in ultra-high-power games.

Regards,
Darrell