+X Items: Sacred Cow or Holy Burger?

[Dausuul]

I've disliked the whole concept of +X items (+1 sword, +2 armor, et cetera) for as long as I can remember. With 4E, I'm finding that all of my problems are coming into very sharp relief. To wit:

• They push players to get rid of their beloved old magic items so they can keep up with the new shiny.
• They complicate character math. It's one more fiddly number to keep track of, and change every time you get new gear.
• They force the DM to hew to the book's treasure guidelines or throw the game math out of whack. If a 5th-level party has +4 gear, or a 25th-level party has +2 gear, the numbers go all screwy. Furthermore, the DM has to make sure the party gets a steady stream of the weapons they use - if there's a guy who wields a triple-headed flail in the party, then every few levels the party needs to encounter a monster with a triple-headed flail.
• They inflate the importance of a character's gear over the character's abilities. This is less of a problem in 4E than it was in 3E, but it's still there to some extent.
• They necessitate a ludicrous economic system. In order to keep the +4 gear out of the 5th-level party's hands, it gets priced in the millions of gold pieces, and treasure guidelines for the 25th-level party are equally inflated.
• They're fundamentally boring. Give me a frost blade, a flame tongue sword, a cape of the mountebank, a staff of the magi. Those are interesting and evocative magic items. A +5 sword? Meh. One more number in a game full of them.

Against all that, what's the benefit? I can't think of one except "D&D has always had them."

What does everyone else think?

 

[S'mon]

I like them; especially +1 and +2 generic gear. It lends itself to being flavoured however I like - Norse blades carved with battle runes; the swords of the dwarven master smiths; the wizard-forged blade; the king-blessed spear. All without any need for extra crunch/rules.

 

[GnomeWorks]

I like them; especially +1 and +2 generic gear. It lends itself to being flavoured however I like - Norse blades carved with battle runes; the swords of the dwarven master smiths; the wizard-forged blade; the king-blessed spear. All without any need for extra crunch/rules.

...all of which get tossed as soon as you find a weapon with a better plus.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I'm not a big fan of +X items. If a weapon or armor is going to be magical, I usually prefer it to give some additional property besides a bonus to hit and damage. In my campaign, I've taken to giving out masterwork items and armor in place of standard magic items and making actually magical weapons and armor rare but powerful. Yes, it messes with the assumed balance of the game. Fortunately, since I'm the DM, I can also tweak the power level of the foes the PCs face.

 

[Rook]

I like them; especially +1 and +2 generic gear. It lends itself to being flavoured however I like - Norse blades carved with battle runes; the swords of the dwarven master smiths; the wizard-forged blade; the king-blessed spear. All without any need for extra crunch/rules.

See, I think you could include all of that without the modifiers being involved.

I overall dislike them. I was hopeful in the earliest days of 4e announcements that they might eliminate the flat bonuses on armor and weapons and just have items have occasional cool magical effects. I suspect that many people like the collection/upgrading portion of the game too much to let it go.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm not a fan of the +X items anymore, I think Dnd has grown past the need.

I would much rather have the innate math scale the character's as needed, with magic weapons providing unique options.

Sting, probably one of the most iconic magic weapons, could easily be modeled with a weapon with a extra crit power and the property of turning blue when orcs are nearby.

 

[Nebulous]

...all of which get tossed as soon as you find a weapon with a better plus.

Turn all magic weapons/armor into covenant weapons/armor. The longer you keep them, they gain more plusses and powers. Magic items are even MORE rare in a campaign like this because no one has an incentive to sell their stuff.
That's what i'm doing in my campaign, giving weapons names and history and the characters feel more attached to it. Destroying a weapon or stealing it in this regard can be a huge blow to them (and THEN they can find a replacement of equivalent level).

It also solves the problem of having to stat up a monster with a +4 triple flail.

 

[S'mon]

...all of which get tossed as soon as you find a weapon with a better plus.

I typically have further enhancements added to weapons (+1 to +2), or the weapon levels up with the wielder. But I have no problem with weapons of minor enchantment being discarded for a more powerful one.

Edit: Certainly if I were running a game where PC X 'had' to have a triple flail of a certain power, I'd just have his flail level up at appropriate times; either because of a link to the wielder or because friendly wizards/dwarves were enhancing it. I'm certainly not going to insert triple-flail wielding ogres into the game just for him to take their flails. :\

 

[DeusExMachina]

The magical weapon or armor that is more damaging or super protecting is a staple of fantasy stories, however the +X bonus just doesn't cut it for me.

I am seriously thinking of throwing them out in my next campaign. Magic weapons will only have special abilities that are either specific (like a flaming weapon), so at times it will be more useful than others or it will have abilities that last for a short while (bonus to AC for only one encounter per day for example). That way the magical abilities provide one with tactical choices, evocative ideas about the weapons rather than bland static bonuses that always apply and you eliminate the math surrounding it.

Also I feel that in 4e the magic item dependance has become greather than in 3.5. The math is so ingrained in the system and the +X bonus is part of that math to keep the balance that it is impossible to do without it. It is one of the thins in 4e that was a bit of a let down...

 

[Runestar]

I am fine with the idea of a +x weapon, but I dislike the way dnd has implemented it.

To me, +x is simply a very elegant way of expressing a weapon that is magically sharper or more keen than the rest. Does it slice through a foe's armour more easily and deal more damage? Simply have it give an attack and damage bonus. No need for complicated formula such as taking the better of 2 attack rolls or something. I only need to improve my stats once and can forget that the weapon was ever there.

What I don't like is that dnd has already factored the effects of a +X weapon into the game. Now, you are expected to have a +X weapon by a certain point in the game, because the game assumes you will have one and has increased the monster's stats accordingly to accomodate this. Kinda defeats the point of having the weapon, IMO. Makes acquiring them more of a chore than an accomplishment to be celebrated.