CapnZapp
Legend
Why create a rift between players and DMs.
I'm sure lots of DMs suffer because of the dullness of items too, and want a solution just as much as the players.
The Magic Items that WotC cannot publish
- Thread starter hailstop
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I'm sure lots of DMs suffer because of the dullness of items too, and want a solution just as much as the players.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Yes. I think there is design and "publication" space for it, but one has to keep in mind its "DM" material not player material. Of course, once they do this, people will complain that the PHB or the AV are the "kiddie table" and that players deserve these type of items, and spending 30 $ just for WotC finally getting magic items right and buying 60 $ for an incomplete game... yadayadayada.
FireLance
Legend
Some further thoughts: there might also be ways to retain mechanical balance while allowing for more powerful magic items:
One idea could be magic items that are actually "worth" two, three or more magic items (say, a single magic item that is "worth" a 6th-level item, a 7th-level item and an 8th-level item). Using the standard treasure parcels, a DM would just give out that one item in place of three regular items.
Another possibility would be to have magic items whose full powers are only unlocked by feats. This is something that I have actually done in my home campaign. I gave out crystal shards that had various themes: a brown shard which was related to earth, a blue shard related to water, healing and acid, a green shard related to polymorph and poison, and a clear shard related to air and lightning. With these shards, the players could:
1. Invent a power related to the theme, and use it as a daily magic item power; and
2. If they spent a feat, exchange one of their encounter powers (of an appropriate level) for the shard power.
The players who have claimed a shard have come up with their own powers for them (except for the clear shard, which they just picked up last session), but none of them have taken up the power swap offer yet.
One idea could be magic items that are actually "worth" two, three or more magic items (say, a single magic item that is "worth" a 6th-level item, a 7th-level item and an 8th-level item). Using the standard treasure parcels, a DM would just give out that one item in place of three regular items.
Another possibility would be to have magic items whose full powers are only unlocked by feats. This is something that I have actually done in my home campaign. I gave out crystal shards that had various themes: a brown shard which was related to earth, a blue shard related to water, healing and acid, a green shard related to polymorph and poison, and a clear shard related to air and lightning. With these shards, the players could:
1. Invent a power related to the theme, and use it as a daily magic item power; and
2. If they spent a feat, exchange one of their encounter powers (of an appropriate level) for the shard power.
The players who have claimed a shard have come up with their own powers for them (except for the clear shard, which they just picked up last session), but none of them have taken up the power swap offer yet.
I'll be the voice of dissent.
I don't find magic items in 4E any more boring than magic items in 2E or 3.X. In my experience, most items in previous editions were pretty bland: +1 longsword, +1 chainmail, +1 ring of protection +1 yawn.
An orb that controls dragons? That's not an item, it's an artifact.
A necklace that increases fire damage and allows you recall a fire spell? I'm not aware of anything analogous to this from previous editions. (also, it really doesn't sound like it would break 4E, but I guess that's a different discussion).
A sword that controls the elements? Again, I don't recall seeing anything like this in previous editions. It sounds cool, but it sounds like an artifact.
When I wanted different, flavorful items in 2E or 3.X, I made 'em up. When I want different flavorful items in 4E, I'll make 'em up.
I don't find magic items in 4E any more boring than magic items in 2E or 3.X. In my experience, most items in previous editions were pretty bland: +1 longsword, +1 chainmail, +1 ring of protection +1 yawn.
An orb that controls dragons? That's not an item, it's an artifact.
A necklace that increases fire damage and allows you recall a fire spell? I'm not aware of anything analogous to this from previous editions. (also, it really doesn't sound like it would break 4E, but I guess that's a different discussion).
A sword that controls the elements? Again, I don't recall seeing anything like this in previous editions. It sounds cool, but it sounds like an artifact.
When I wanted different, flavorful items in 2E or 3.X, I made 'em up. When I want different flavorful items in 4E, I'll make 'em up.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
I doubt that such a conceptual big thing is something for Dragon, but... I have a house rule thread that also offers a few suggestions along these lines. Though I wasn't sure about the cost of the items and suggested more that they were a specific type of new item type. "Bound Items" - you could only have a limited number of them (1 per tier was my suggestion) and the item "grows" with your level. Feats gave some more or less generic options that boiled down to "get the expected magical item bonuses to attack or defense by wearing your bound item." and a few more.
I guess the "boringness" of 4E magic items will be a returning topic. So maybe WotC will indeed address it at some point.
Celebrim
Legend
Ok, I'll point it out to you.
Let's keep that in mind. Let's consider what happens when you don't try to please everyone, and what that might mean.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. Emphaticly NO!!!!
There is the problem. The combination of those two ideas is deadly.
The idea that it is 'always easier to ADD something into a rules set than to take it away' is so ludicrous on the face of it that I'm surprised you can say it and keep a straight face. It is always easier to remove something from a rules set than to add it in if it is missing. This is due to the very simple and obvious fact that removal is a much easier than to do than creation. Destruction is easier than creation. Creation is hard. It's always easier to ignore a rule than make a new one or alter an existing rule. It's always easier to ignore a rule than add a rule that doesn't exist. Rules get ignored all the time without people even trying, but adding a rule IS hard. If you don't like a spell, you can remove it. If you don't like a monster, you don't have to use it. If you don't like a magic item, you don't have to make it available. If you don't like a class, you can drop it. If you don't like a feat, it's gone. But conversely, if you want to make a new spell, a new magic item, a new monster, or a new feat - that requires work. That is 'hard'. Now, for someone like me whose been gaming for nearly 30 years, I can imagine new monsters, spells, feats, and even classes but even then actually implementing these ideas is hard. For a new player, and maybe even some old players, it might not only be hard to imagine and create new content - it might well be impossible. Rulesmithing is hard. Setting and flavor creation is hard.
That's why we pay professionals to do it for us.
Look, if it really was easier to add new rules in than it was to ignore existing ones, we wouldn't need anyone to make a rules set for us in the first place. We'd simply do it all ourselves, because making new rules, inventing new content, and imagining new things would be easy. We'd never pay someone to do that for us if it was easy. In fact, some of us do in fact largely do that, buying only a few key books and then imagining all the rest according to my ideas. But WotC's core customer base historically is not like that. Instead, historically speaking, WotC's and TSR's core customer base bought EVERYTHING (or nearly so) and then picked and choose which of it was most appealing to them. It's always been easier for the overwhelming majority of DM's and players (especially the paying kind) to drop or ignore content that they didn't like than it was to invent new content. That's precisely why they were customers in the first place, so that someone would do the hard part of inventing, implmenting, and writing down all these ideas for them. Then they did the easy part, which was ignoring what they didn't like.
Sure, some DM's managed a 'bad' mixture (meaning their players didn't enjoy it), but even so its still easier for a novice DM to evaluate someone else's ideas and pick and choose what he likes than it is to give them a blank peice of paper and say 'Make it up yourself'. Game publishers are in the business of providing tools of the imagination. If suddenly they've boxed themselves in a corner where they can't actually produce ideas that are imaginative (which I've been saying about 4e ever since the early previews), then they are sunk. Some daring company that actually does print fun ideas, imaginative ideas, and creative ideas is going to end up with the fans and 4e is going to be left with a few people going, "But we're balanced! We're oh so balanced!" who have utterly forgotten what 'balance' means. Some daring company that actually trusts the DMs that are ultimately far more important to thier industry than even the local gaming retailers is going to be producing the game that the game referees want to run and which the players go 'Ooooohh...ewwww.. I want to be in that game.'
I think people have utterly forgotten what 'saying, Yes' actually means. It sure as heck never meant that powerful magic items and treasures weren't ought there waiting to be unearthed and claimed. More importantly:
THIS ISN'T SAYING YES, IT IS SAYING, "NO!".
How ridiculously twisted do you have to make a good idea like 'saying, Yes' so that it becomes, "Well, we have to say 'No' to these ideas because otherwise we'd have to say 'Yes'. So you see, we're helpless to do anything but say 'No', because of our rule about saying, 'Yes'"
Some people complain that I'm too verbose, and often rightfully so. But let me tell you one of the reasons I write such lengthy posts. It's because often there is this complex, and nuanced idea. And because the idea is complex, and nuanced, it's hard to talk about in an easy manner, so people invent some sort of short hand way of talking about the idea like, "Say, "Yes"" That shorthand is not the whole idea; it's just a marker for the whole idea. The real idea is naunced and complicated. The phrase we use to refer to the idea, "Say, "Yes"" is not. The phrase "Say, 'Yes'" is never meant to be taken literrally; it's just shorthand for the larger idea. But over time, the larger idea, because it is hard to communicate gets lost. People here about 'Say, "Yes"' and that's all they remember. Pretty soon everyone is going around saying the short hand phrase as if that is the whole idea. And often, by way of taking the short hand phrase literally, it becomes transformed to mean something that it never meant, so that for example, the phrase, "Too big too fail.", ceases to mean, "These corporations are so big they can't fail", and instead gets used to mean, "These corporations are so big that they cannot be allowed to fail."
That's why I always lay out my full thought in a desparate attempt not to be misunderstood as saying something more simplistic than what I'm thinking. It doesn't always work, but I try and at least you can never accuse me of using the phrase, 'Say, Yes', to mean, 'Say, No'.
No happy medium? No happy medium? Isn't that what balance actually is?
*cry*
They blew it up. First Dragon, and now D&D.
I also would quite like such a book, as long as it had guidelines on how such items would affect game balance. In fact, since Adventurer's Vault is the only physical book I still use at the gaming table, I might even buy the book instead of just using the DDI.
Frankly, WotC has a lot more design space than they seem to think they do, even within the existing power scheme. For instance, as some other posters have suggested, they could create "multiclass magic items." You spend a feat to master the item, and that gives you access to a set of special encounter or daily powers. To use one of those powers, however, you have to expend one of your own encounter or daily powers of equal or higher level.
Of course, I also think the magic item model of 4E is deeply and fundamentally flawed. The essence of that flaw - namely, the "+X item" - has existed since the very earliest editions of D&D; but 4E's drive for rigorous mathematical balance required that they either get rid of +X items or build the entire magic item system around them, and unfortunately they went the latter route.
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Ah, right. Thanks for looking that up!I was thinking of the vest of the archmagi (MIC p. 145). I just went back to check it and the book doesn't actually say that it's broken, but ... just read the description.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
You might have a point.
The standard 3E magic items where what? The "Christmas Tree" of Ring of Protections, Amulet of Natural Armor, Magic Armor, Magic Weapon, Gloves of Dexterity, Cloak of Resistance, Headband of Intellect, Belt of Giant Strength? Those weren't particularly interesting, but often treated as mandatory - and also decried as boring.
The "funny" items had prices all over the place.
- "Amulet of the Planes"? 120.000 gp. For a single spell that it needs to make an Int check for.
- "Apparatus of the Crab"? 90.000 gp for an item that allows you to swim or walk underwater...
- "Ring of the Ram"? 8.600 gp for the ability to bullrush someone up to 50 times.
- "Rod of Phyton". 13.000 gp for a Giant Constrictor Snake that also serves as a +1 Quarterstaff.
The items everyone took had straightforward applications. "Holy for +2d6 damage against most enemies I'll ever encounter?" Is a weapon that deals 5 fire ongoing fire damage once per day so much less exciting?
I'm not sure I'd agree with "deeply flawed", but the issue is fundamental. Long ago and far away Gygax created the +X whatever it was. Maybe the +X whatever it was seemed cool and mystical and arcane at the time, but for most of us, its luster is long gone.
Pricing for wondrous items is all over the map, and suffers because the designers are trying to balance something like "an infinite amount of unbreakable rope" with "+5% to hit with a corresponding increase in average damage."
Which leads to the fact that you can buy magic items in 3.0 and beyond, which is itself an angry 20-page flamewar waiting to happen.
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