Magic item rarity revision forthcoming?

[kinjiru]

I'm personally not going to use this rarity system in my campaign. I will take it into account as to what I dispense out, perhaps, but as we can set what's available to buy and the enchant magic item is limited to the ritual user's level or less, I think there's some pretty good safeguards in place (aside from limited gold, no less).

I think these needlessly complicate the game and cage in the players more than I am comfortable with. I don't hand out a lot of gold, so I want them to be able to make the best of it and feel like it's truly valuable.

Forcing them to either buy junk they don't want or hold onto their gold certainly controls the power level of the players better, but it doesn't do any favors for the fun of the game and the excitement level of being rewarded for your efforts.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Like what?

Well, where do I start? Most of the core rules. Loads of other stuff like the rules for familiars, beast companions, rituals, martial practices, skill powers, style specialization, and any number of other things. Anything that isn't crunch pretty much. A good bit of that stuff you can find in the Rules Compendium if you have one, but obviously you need that and/or various splat books to have the full rules. Once you know the various rules you can generally get away with the online Compendium, but it is definitely not possible to find everything in DDI. Your average player with DDI probably doesn't really need all those books, but they are not valueless by far.

Some books are fun to read.
Those books are NOT 4e.
4e books read like a VCR manual.

Tastes vary. I'm not telling anyone what they should read or what they should like. I'm just saying, the printed books have a certain value beyond referencing game elements as you can in various DDI tools.

People not buying the books == less book sales. How can you think it means anything different?

... but that's irrelevant to my point. My point is: their current set-up already means some people don't buy the books, so it's not necessarily a big loss to preview book content in the same way they preview Dragon content.

They may lose some short-term sales, but they'll end up with better content, and that's the recipe for a healthier long-term game.

Cheers, -- N

Maybe. We can only guess. I'm also not particularly stating that I advocate WotC's business decisions as the best way to do things or the way I would do it. I was only commenting on how they may think about it and why they may do certain things the way they do. You may be 100% correct. I'm not really the guy that you would need to convince.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm personally not going to use this rarity system in my campaign. I will take it into account as to what I dispense out, perhaps, but as we can set what's available to buy and the enchant magic item is limited to the ritual user's level or less, I think there's some pretty good safeguards in place (aside from limited gold, no less).

I think these needlessly complicate the game and cage in the players more than I am comfortable with. I don't hand out a lot of gold, so I want them to be able to make the best of it and feel like it's truly valuable.

Forcing them to either buy junk they don't want or hold onto their gold certainly controls the power level of the players better, but it doesn't do any favors for the fun of the game and the excitement level of being rewarded for your efforts.

Well, you don't have to use rarity. The main reason for it existing was to allow a way for them to get rid of the daily item use limitation rule. If your players aren't going to game the system by making multiples of certain lower level items and abuse them, then you really don't need to worry about it. Just let them make the uncommon items without any big hassle and you have the current crafting rules. With a good group of players it will work fine.

 

[Balesir]

Some books are fun to read.
Those books are NOT 4e.
4e books read like a VCR manual.

Compared to scrolling through and reading them in the CB/Compendium, reading the books is like reading Stephenson or Shakespeare, to me. To each their own...

Well, you don't have to use rarity. The main reason for it existing was to allow a way for them to get rid of the daily item use limitation rule. If your players aren't going to game the system by making multiples of certain lower level items and abuse them, then you really don't need to worry about it. Just let them make the uncommon items without any big hassle and you have the current crafting rules. With a good group of players it will work fine.

Sure. I am sticking with the Daily Item Use rule in the game I run, because we don't really find it problematic to use. We use little coloured glass beads for healing surges, action points... and daily item uses. Players just hand 'em in as they use them, I just hand 'em out at milestones and extended rests. Easy.

 

[kinjiru]

Thanks for the clarification on the reasoning, good info to have.

I actually run things looser on the magic item usage, because I've never been a fan of the idea you have magic items you may never end up using, because while they have a nice daily power, some other item(s) trump it in your priorities.

So, I let my players activate one daily item per slot per day. Right now it's ok, may have to adjust that some when they get to be higher level, not sure yet. But, I can also adjust the difficulty of their encounters and so on, too.

 

[Nifft]

Well, where do I start? Most of the core rules. Loads of other stuff like the rules for familiars, beast companions, rituals, martial practices, skill powers, style specialization, and any number of other things.

Of those, I have used Familiars, Beast Companions, Rituals and Skill Powers entirely based on the information in DDI.

If you think the DDI doesn't give enough info to use those things, you are flat-out wrong.

The other things I haven't used, so I can't assert that you are wrong about style specialization or martial practices, but your record doesn't give me confidence.

I'm just saying, the printed books have a certain value beyond referencing game elements as you can in various DDI tools.

They'd better, since they're much worse as a reference, what with growing inaccurate over time and the lack of a search button.

Maybe. We can only guess.

Your arguments started out bold and confident, but then you fall back to this.

Compared to scrolling through and reading them in the CB/Compendium, reading the books is like reading Stephenson or Shakespeare, to me. To each their own...

4e rules text is the sort of thing I like in moderation: in fact, the less I need to read to get my answer, the better.

If you really find 4e powers listings to be comparable to Shakespeare, well, have fun. You're enjoying your books more than I do. (Assuming you like Shakespeare, of course.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, this is interesting Nifft, I guess you can show me where in DDI the action economy rules and other general rules for a beast companion ACTUALLY ARE then? Meh, don't waste your time looking, they aren't there. Neither are many of the key rules for Familiars, etc. You can run them because either you've got the books around or other people have the books around, or at least you've read the books and can recall the more critical bits of the rules. Honestly, it isn't like I have to go running off the MP1 every day to look up how a beast companion works, Compendium really IS fine 95% of the time. I love it and in fact I love it enough that I consider it to be the best thing in DDI. MAYBE not quite worth the cost by itself, but it really is awesome.

And nobody AFAIK is claiming that power write ups are poetry. There is just a lot of OTHER stuff in the books. Honestly, whenever I feel like maybe I'm not sure where to go with something in my game, or something seems like it isn't as cool as it could be, or there is a problem that is nagging me, I whip open DMG or DMG2 or maybe one of the other books and REALLY there is something right there addressing it. As much as I love the Compendium the books are (mostly) gold. Even the WORST of the 4e books has a lot of good stuff in it that is never going to be in any Compendium.

It is all a matter of taste, but what I would say is that at this time the books are still the beating heart of D&D. The game could easily go on without any DDI, it couldn't survive at this point without printed books. WotC, I suspect, knows this and knows which line of business to protect. When push comes to shove, for now, book and accessory line sales are top dog and DDI is product support function that happens to bring in some revenue.

 

[Balesir]

If you really find 4e powers listings to be comparable to Shakespeare, well, have fun. You're enjoying your books more than I do. (Assuming you like Shakespeare, of course.)

I do like Shakespeare, but the key phrase in my comment was "compared to scrolling through and reading them in the CB/Compendium". The Compendium is great for quick lookups and searches, but for reading through to "see what there is" I vastly prefer, well, almost anything else.

 

[Nifft]

And nobody AFAIK is claiming that power write ups are poetry.

Compared to scrolling through and reading them in the CB/Compendium, reading the books is like reading Stephenson or Shakespeare, to me.

- - -

Well, this is interesting Nifft, I guess you can show me where in DDI the action economy rules and other general rules for a beast companion ACTUALLY ARE then? Meh, don't waste your time looking, they aren't there. Neither are many of the key rules for Familiars, etc. You can run them because either you've got the books around or other people have the books around, or at least you've read the books and can recall the more critical bits of the rules. Honestly, it isn't like I have to go running off the MP1 every day to look up how a beast companion works, Compendium really IS fine 95% of the time. I love it and in fact I love it enough that I consider it to be the best thing in DDI. MAYBE not quite worth the cost by itself, but it really is awesome.

Huh, if you say that beast companion and familiar rules not there now I'll take your word for it, but I'm certain Rituals are in there (one of your examples), and I know that there previously was enough info either in CB or in the Compendium to play a beast dude... or maybe someone talked to that player specifically before the session.

I do like Shakespeare, but the key phrase in my comment was "compared to scrolling through and reading them in the CB/Compendium". The Compendium is great for quick lookups and searches, but for reading through to "see what there is" I vastly prefer, well, almost anything else.

I tend to read the CharOp guides and then use the Compendium for details on powers or items that I don't know.

I don't tend to pore through either the 4e books or the online Compendium. I use both as references, and in that role I strongly prefer the online Compendium.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Balesir]

I tend to read the CharOp guides and then use the Compendium for details on powers or items that I don't know.

OK, in that case I can see how the CB, Compendium and CharOp board provide all you need. If the only characters you are interested in playing are those someone else thinks are good, that should work fine.