Design and Development: Magic items

Scholar & Brutalman · Oct 1, 2008

Design and Development: The Evolution of Magic Items is up, and is the last article from Dragon 367. (They really seemed to rush at the end of the month here...)

The 2005 rules certainly had a smaller "christmas tree" than we ended up with.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Oct 1, 2008

Very interesting to see how much the implementation still changed from 2006. That original system definitely seems a lot more restrictive.

fuindordm · Oct 1, 2008

I understand their goals, but the end result is that magic items feel kind of bland in this edition. No one really needs the powers they offer, so finding a new item isn't the joyous event it could be.

I really miss powerful items with few charges, the vast array of potions, and items that just let you do something or resist something all the time. Does Adventurer's Vault help matters?

Ben

Samuel Leming · Oct 1, 2008

Vito Corleone said:
Mearls is a pimp. He could never have ruined D&D. But I wasn't sure until this day. No, it was Collins all along.

When they put together this part of the history of D&D ten years from now these kind of links will be invaluable. I hope somebody is saving them.

In the circles I run with, Mearls is getting a bad rap for how 4e turned out. I don't think this is really fair. By the time Mearls was hired in Collins, Noonan etc. had already decided on the basic direction D&D was going to take. Sure, Mearls had already drank the GNS koolaid already, but it wasn't his decision or influence responsible for what we've seen.

Sam

Mustrum_Ridcully · Oct 1, 2008

Samuel Leming said:
When they put together this part of the history of D&D ten years from now these kind of links will be invaluable. I hope somebody is saving them.

In the circles I run with, Mearls is getting a bad rap for how 4e turned out. I don't think this is really fair. By the time Mearls was hired in Collins, Noonan etc. had already decided on the basic direction D&D was going to take. Sure, Mearls had already drank the GNS koolaid already, but it wasn't his decision or influence responsible for what we've seen.

Sam

Well, I think the circles you "run with" might be almost as "wrong" as those GNS "extremists" from the Forge that gave the model its bad reputation.

4E is just as a good system as 3E, but it appeals to a different (but not totally disjunct) set of players.

But all these kinds of design diaries are invaluable. They give fascinating insights in the thought process behind a game system and make us understand why things turned out the way they did turn out (and maybe also give us points where we would have set different goals or just made a different decision). I hope that the process is well documented at WotC, and that the next generation of designers can base their work on this documentation to refine (or revise) goals and decisions made for 5E. And in the mean-time, I hope the current designers use the documentation to avoid forgetting critical aspects and introduce new "broken" material.

Samuel Leming · Oct 1, 2008

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
4E is just as a good system as 3E, but it appeals to a different (but not totally disjunct) set of players.

That's like saying hammers are just as good as screwdrivers.

Unlike some, I can have fun playing 4e. I have to play a completely different way though. It's come as a shock that about half the players were already playing 3.x that way.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
But all these kinds of design diaries are invaluable. They give fascinating insights in the thought process behind a game system and make us understand why things turned out the way they did turn out (and maybe also give us points where we would have set different goals or just made a different decision). I hope that the process is well documented at WotC, and that the next generation of designers can base their work on this documentation to refine (or revise) goals and decisions made for 5E. And in the mean-time, I hope the current designers use the documentation to avoid forgetting critical aspects and introduce new "broken" material.

If they don't introduce broken material, then they're not going to be able to have a 5e :devil:

Adventurers Vault. Right out of the gate.

Well, as I said, when they finally write this period of history on the D&D it'll be very interesting.

Sam

Mustrum_Ridcully · Oct 1, 2008

Samuel Leming said:
That's like saying hammers are just as good as screwdrivers.

Yes, that analogy keeps coming up.

Unlike some, I can have fun playing 4e. I have to play a completely different way though. It's come as a shock that about half the players were already playing 3.x that way.

If they don't introduce broken material,

Okay, addmittedly this will happen either way (and might have already?), but I hope we can avoid the 3.0 Forgotten Realms Spellfire brokenness and stuff like that.

Vyvyan Basterd · Oct 1, 2008

fuindordm said:
I understand their goals, but the end result is that magic items feel kind of bland in this edition. No one really needs the powers they offer, so finding a new item isn't the joyous event it could be.

We don't seem to have this problem. Many of the items my group has found they are quite happy about and even trigger a "cool" response. Most of the items that have triggered that response are weapons and implements, but those are the same type of items my players have always "ooh'd & ahh'd" about in all of the previous editions.

mattdm · Oct 2, 2008

Vyvyan Basterd said:
We don't seem to have this problem. Many of the items my group has found they are quite happy about and even trigger a "cool" response. Most of the items that have triggered that response are weapons and implements, but those are the same type of items my players have always "ooh'd & ahh'd" about in all of the previous editions.

I got that response especially from the old-school players in my group when they were reading the PH. But it hasn't come up in game, because 1) I've gone to a bit of effort to make sure every magic item encountered has at least some unique flavor and 2) the Adventurer's Vault has some really nifty stuff that will be exciting to hand out.

Design and Development: Magic items

Scholar & Brutalman

First Post

Mustrum_Ridcully

Hero

fuindordm

Adventurer

Samuel Leming

First Post

Mustrum_Ridcully

Hero

Samuel Leming

First Post

Mustrum_Ridcully

Hero

Vyvyan Basterd

Adventurer

mattdm

First Post

Similar Threads