I think you peeps are not thinking about+n swords properly!

[Tovec]

Sigh... Important parts in bold, summation at the end. Also, didn't need to bold the last one - funny how that works out.

Flaming Burst and every other magical weapon is still a 'sword of math'. You still add numbers.

Wooooosh.

I didn't know that "fire" was a number.

lol, Yep, 1d6/round.

Nope. "All untyped damage dealt by weapon attacks using this weapon changes to fire damage."

You may be referring to a rule about the flaming quality of a weapon. At least that's what I'm guessing.

What I quoted and what you replied to was that "fire" isn't a number - when it is. It is 1d6/round. Flaming is a quality, fire is a number

Dealing fire damage instead of untyped damage isn't a number. It's a non-numerical property.

You may have been talking about flamingburst from 4e. But without the space I assumed he was talking about 3.5's flaming burst. Flaming burst, in so far as it matters, refers to Flaming which deals an additional 1d6 (burst does 1d10 on crit).

Even excluding this fact, FIRE does 1d6/round. And this is what I was referring to.

Also, Flaming (in 4e) DOES talk about additional fire damage - on a crit - of 1d6 (per bonus) but that is besides the point.

Hope this helps.

(Mods feel free to edit if this post if it overly rings of attacking, which is not my intent but I realize does kind of read that way.)

 

[Incenjucar]

Oh, sorry then. I pretty much only talk about 4E, since it has the rules I consider most useful.

4E has a ton of magic items, including weapons, that do more than just add numbers to a thing. True, they all also add numbers, but that's an unfortunate result of being tied to the past.

 

[Grydan]

You may be referring to a rule about the flaming quality of a weapon. At least that's what I'm guessing.

What I quoted and what you replied to was that "fire" isn't a number - when it is. It is 1d6/round. Flaming is a quality, fire is a number.

Also, how does it work if it is flaming and frosting? "All untyped damage dealt by weapon attacks using this weapon change to X damage."? Is it fire, ice or both?

The damage that fire does is a number, as is damage from any other source.

Fire itself is not a number.

Fire is a light source, heat source, and damage source. It's also a damage type.

Fire is no more a number than an orc, a dragon, or a spiked pit is a number.

In 4E a weapon that was magically both fire and ice would inflict "fire and cold damage", which is both types at the same time. Neither fire resistance nor cold resistance would work against it, unless the creature has both, in which case only the lower of the two resistances would apply.

Whether or not any future edition used the same approach would of course be up to what sort of damage-type and resistance-type mechanics were in play.

A +1 sword doesn't give qualitative change, only quantitative.

A sword of fire gives you a qualitative change. You have new options available to you. You do a type of damage you were unable to do before. You have a new light source. You can start campfires. You can prevent trolls from regenerating.

Also, and I feel the need to point this out seperately because it's important: your sword is on fire.

 

[Talaeden_Denthiir]

Well Said!

 

[ExploderWizard]

+X weapons are better than plain weapons. Its simple. The problems come in when the goalposts are constantly shifted and better and better weapons(and items in general) are required just to tread water facing normal challenges.

Thats basically coming out and telling the players that that awesome treasure they found is actually meaningless in the grand scheme of things. No wonder the majority of magic items are considered mundane gear in such a system.

Making magic items special is as simple as stepping off the treadmill. Don't use a system in which everything constantly scales. Make magical treasures a bit rarer and when they are finally won and used have them provide an actual advantage. No is going to care about a +1 sword if everything they face afterwards has a higher AC and even more hitpoints.

 

[FireLance]

+X weapons are better than plain weapons. Its simple. The problems come in when the goalposts are constantly shifted and better and better weapons(and items in general) are required just to tread water facing normal challenges.

Thats basically coming out and telling the players that that awesome treasure they found is actually meaningless in the grand scheme of things. No wonder the majority of magic items are considered mundane gear in such a system.

Making magic items special is as simple as stepping off the treadmill. Don't use a system in which everything constantly scales. Make magical treasures a bit rarer and when they are finally won and used have them provide an actual advantage. No is going to care about a +1 sword if everything they face afterwards has a higher AC and even more hitpoints.

You know what? I'm just going to repeat myself:

I think you are mixing up two or three different objectives. The first is the logical (perhaps simulationist?) objective that magic items make a character more powerful. All other things being equal, he will be able to take on all challenges more easily. If there is a "standard" level of difficulty, "normal" challenges would now be below that standard, while tougher challenges would now be at the standard.

The second is the (perhaps gamist?) objective of ensuring there is an enjoyable level of challenge, making sure the game is neither too easy (and boring) or too hard (and frustrating). This is what generally causes the challenges faced by the PCs to scale with their level of power. The (perhaps narrative?) way to unify these two objectives is to describe the PCs as being able to handle the more powerful challenges because of their more powerful equipment.

What might run counter to the narration is the perhaps third objective of simplicity. By stating the character power, magic item power and monster power relationship as something along the lines of "a 12th-level party with 12th-level gear can take on a 12th-level encounter at standard difficulty", it gives the impression that the gear becomes an integral part of character progression (although it's not, really). Perhaps what was missing is another statement along the lines of "a 12th-level party with no magic items can take on a 9th-level encounter at standard difficulty".

Perhaps it might even be better to re-base the monster numbers, so that the former 9th-level monster becomes a 12th-level monster and the former 12th-level monster becomes a 15th-level monster, and the statements now become, "a 12th-level party with no magic items can take on a 12th-level encounter at standard difficulty. A 12th-level party with +3 magic items can take on a 15th-level encounter at standard difficulty".

 

[Libramarian]

A +1 sword doesn't give qualitative change, only quantitative.

I don't think that's true. I've always assumed that a +1 sword looks and feels different from a normal sword. Its blade never dulls, maybe it has jewels encrusted in the hilt, it's so well-balanced it seems to leap out of your hand, that sort of thing.

If you showed it off to an NPC they would be impressed.

There is a qualitative change.

 

[Grydan]

I don't think that's true. I've always assumed that a +1 sword looks and feels different from a normal sword. Its blade never dulls, maybe it has jewels encrusted in the hilt, it's so well-balanced it seems to leap out of your hand, that sort of thing.

If you showed it off to an NPC they would be impressed.

There is a qualitative change.

I'm entirely willing to grant that.

However, given that dulling of blades is not something covered by rules, the difference between a blade that literally never dulls and a blade that we never bother to mention occasionally needs sharpening is subtle, at best.

Any sword can be described as having a jewel-encrusted hilt, or a elaborately carved one, or any other hilt you can imagine. It's completely independent of whether or not your sword is even enchanted, nevermind what the enchantment itself is. The most powerful blade in the world might look like a common soldier's sword, poorly kept. The most jewel-encrusted and elaborately detailed sword in the world... is probably a ceremonial parade weapon that's completely useless in a fight and that nobody bothered enchanting.

The balance of a weapon isn't something that's likely to ever be mentioned after the very first DM narration of you trying it out.

Still, with all of that, sure, I bet you most NPCs would be quite impressed with your shiny new +1 sword.

Right up until the guy next to you says "Hey, you think that's impressive, wait until you see this..." and whips out a SWORD MADE OF FROZEN LIGHTNING* that hums and crackles menacingly.

The thing about any qualitative change you can come up with for a +1 sword is that just about anything else can pull it off, as well or better, and have additional and more significant qualitative changes

There's also the fact that the qualitative changes you've described aren't necessarily anything that the game itself has suggested. It's certainly not part of the 4E fluff for a +n Magic Weapon, which is the rather bland "A basic enchanted weapon". It presents no in-game support for your assumed qualitative differences. Perhaps earlier editions made more significant attempts to describe +1 swords as being distinguishable from unenchanted weaponry in both look and feel?

* I think I've used fire enough in my examples of late, thought I'd try something else.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think a lot of this issue stems from the "bigger, better, badder" problem.

When 1E came out, it wasn't acquiring a magic sword at set levels. It was acquiring a magic sword randomly.

And this randomness meant that 25% of all magical swords were +1, 25% of all magical swords where +1 with some other ability, 15% of all magical swords were cursed, 17% of all magical swords were +2 with or without abilities, and 19% of swords were super duper special awesome whatevers in the +3 to +5 range.

The randomness meant that a PC might acquire a magical axe, not a magical sword, etc.

Something similar happened for 2E and 3E. The DM did not have to follow the random magic item tables, but he could. He wasn't required to hand out given bonus magic items.

But, 4E suddenly decided that random magic items tables were bad. Instead, what was good was to create super mega weapons all of the way up to the +6 level (whereas the previous limit was, shy of splat books, +5) and to link items to levels of PCs and make them required.

Oops.


Once one introduces the concept that PCs have to be given items that match their levels and once one introduces mega powerful +6 magic weapons, magic items becomes a bit of a joke, the equivalent of the Adventurer's Kit.

Of course a +1 weapon is no longer considered special when the game system is designed to hand it out at level 3 and replace it at level 7 or so with a better weapon.

Players become jaded.


I think the real solution for 5E is to have very few super mega powerful weapons, to put DM caveats on those weapons, to not lock step magic with levels, and to have mostly +1 and +2 weapons in the game system. JMO.

It would be much better if instead of acquiring a major permanent bonus item every level, a given PC acquired such an item every 3 levels and the group acquired a lot of other more miscellaneous items, worthwhile potions, scrolls, etc.

A player of a Fighter should feel good about acquiring a +1 sword, he shouldn't feel entitled.

4E Player: "It's about time I got a +1 sword, I'm halfway to third level dude. Hey, what do you mean it doesn't do anything special. I got ripped off."

 

[Tovec]

I think a lot of this issue stems from the "bigger, better, badder" problem.

Agreed.

When 1E came out, it wasn't acquiring a magic sword at set levels. It was acquiring a magic sword randomly.

And this randomness meant that 25% of all magical swords were +1, 25% of all magical swords where +1 with some other ability, 15% of all magical swords were cursed, 17% of all magical swords were +2 with or without abilities, and 19% of swords were super duper special awesome whatevers in the +3 to +5 range.

101% FTW!

The randomness meant that a PC might acquire a magical axe, not a magical sword, etc.

Something similar happened for 2E and 3E. The DM did not have to follow the random magic item tables, but he could. He wasn't required to hand out given bonus magic items.

The problem with this is what happens to people who have trained with a sword and now they have an axe. Or when they train with axes and keep getting swords.

Players become jaded.

I thinks this is the real issue. Beyond and beside HOW the players get the loot, it is what they do with it that matters. I remember back when I first started playing if we got gear that was better that we'd use it and hand the lesser stuff off amongst the group.

At some point we realized selling it for 50% value wasn't a bad idea as it allowed us to get whatever we wanted instead of being stuck with hand me downs.. that changed everything.

Had we been in a game where you couldn't sell or buy magic items as often that would have changed but I have seen that in such games CREATION becomes a bigger deal and the players end up in the same place.

I don't really want to be in a game where magic is common place. But I don't see ways around it. That is why I was asking about what +1 SHOULD represent instead of what it DOES. I was trying to give examples to see if that elicited any ideas but apparently nothing stuck.

@Grydan I think part of the problem certainly is that a +1 isn't special but a +1 of Lightning and Ice is. It isn't even just feelings of player entitlement. It is a mechanical advantage that 1d6 of X and 1d6 of Y is better than +2 (yet costs the same). (Oh, I'm not that familiar with 4e mechanics to say otherwise here.)
Also, I got that it is fire and ice - from my example - but I question if it should be that way.

This is a new edition and a chance for new ideas but we keep falling back on how things are instead of what they could be. That is what I wanted to see in this thread, that is all I'm going to try and comment about going forward.