What makes D&D, D&D?

[Grainger]

Yeah, it's probably just a pet peeve. I invest my points (or high roll) in strength, when I get ASIs sacrifice other options to increase it ... and then Bob comes along with his 8 strength puts on a belt and suddenly he's the strongest one around.

I take your point, but isn't that mainly a DMing issue? DMs shouldn't be giving out items to players that are likely to annoy the other players. With some many variables, the game is always going to throw out unjust situations. It's the DM's job to steer the game so all the players feel the experience is fair.

 

[Oofta]

I take your point, but isn't that mainly a DMing issue? DMs shouldn't be giving out items to players that are likely to annoy the other players. With some many variables, the game is always going to throw out unjust situations. It's the DM's job to steer the game so all the players feel the experience is fair.

It's easy enough to fix in my home campaign, I just tweak the rules so that they add to an ability instead of replace it like 3.x did. I like rewarding people for sacrifices they made, so if someone has put resources into strength I like rewarding that by making it even better. If anyone can get the same strength with no sacrifice it kind of cheapens that sacrifice.

As a DM (and a player for that matter) I don't mind handing out items that increase abilities. It's kind of a nice boost.

But in AL? Let's just say that through stupid luck, at my table there's a PC that got an amulet that replaced their Con so (you can redo things in AL before level 5) changed their con to 8 and boosted other stats.

In any case, I've just always thought it was silly that a 2-year old could put on a belt and lift a cow. YMMV.

 

[Grognerd]

It's easy enough to fix in my home campaign, I just tweak the rules so that they add to an ability instead of replace it like 3.x did. I like rewarding people for sacrifices they made, so if someone has put resources into strength I like rewarding that by making it even better. If anyone can get the same strength with no sacrifice it kind of cheapens that sacrifice.

I understand both sides on this one. On the one hand, a flat +2 (or whatever) from gauntlets of ogre power is, to a fellow with Strength 10, a far cry from ogrish power! On the other hand, a fighter with a nat 20 Str gaining no benefit whatsoever isn’t exactly cool either. I rather prefer to merge them, so, for example,

Gauntlets of Ogre Power These gauntlets channel the strength of an ogre. While wearing them, characters have Strength 19. If they already have a Strength of 18 or higher, they gain +2 Strength instead, to a maximum of 24.

 

[Satyrn]

Yeah, it's probably just a pet peeve. I invest my points (or high roll) in strength, when I get ASIs sacrifice other options to increase it ... and then Bob comes along with his 8 strength puts on a belt and suddenly he's the strongest one around.

I totally get that.

What about how I'm using them now - where the item sets the score to a more average 14?

Where it might be cursed and set your score to 14 even if it was higher?

Or it's only sorta cursed and if your score is lowered you get some other boon? (I just thought of this idea)

 

[Oofta]

I totally get that.

What about how I'm using them now - where the item sets the score to a more average 14?

Where it might be cursed and set your score to 14 even if it was higher?

Or it's only sorta cursed and if your score is lowered you get some other boon? (I just thought of this idea)

The house rule I use is that it adds to your strength up to a maximum. So the gauntlets add +2 up to 20, Hill Giant +4 up to 22, they can be added together. Because that's what my buddy Thor does (in mythology anyway). If you don't raise a stat above 20 it doesn't require attunement.

So in some ways slightly better (I round up and they're cumulative). I also have equivalent items for other ability scores.

There's a lot of ways of handling it of course.

 

[Satyrn]

The house rule I use is that it adds to your strength up to a maximum. So the gauntlets add +2 up to 20, Hill Giant +4 up to 22, they can be added together. Because that's what my buddy Thor does (in mythology anyway). If you don't raise a stat above 20 it doesn't require attunement.

So in some ways slightly better (I round up and they're cumulative). I also have equivalent items for other ability scores.

There's a lot of ways of handling it of course.

I don't know how to say this without coming off rude, but I don't mean to be! Pardon me.

My questions weren't hypothetical. I actually want to to know what you'd think if you were playing in my game and I handed out the items I mentioned.

 

[Oofta]

I don't know how to say this without coming off rude, but I don't mean to be! Pardon me.

My questions weren't hypothetical. I actually want to to know what you'd think if you were playing in my game and I handed out the items I mentioned.

I think most people wouldn't benefit that much from such strength based items. After all if you aren't a strength based character it doesn't normally matter all that much. If you are a strength based character, 14 isn't high enough and I'm not sure I'd risk a curse. Well, unless we have someone in the party that can cast remove curse.

An item that bumped other ability scores to 14 might find more use. A 14 dex gives you a little bump in several areas because it's an uber-stat. Constitution could give you a minor HP bump as well as increasing saving throws like the others do.

 

[Satyrn]

I think most people wouldn't benefit that much from such strength based items. After all if you aren't a strength based character it doesn't normally matter all that much. If you are a strength based character, 14 isn't high enough and I'm not sure I'd risk a curse. Well, unless we have someone in the party that can cast remove curse.

An item that bumped other ability scores to 14 might find more use. A 14 dex gives you a little bump in several areas because it's an uber-stat. Constitution could give you a minor HP bump as well as increasing saving throws like the others do.

Thanks. This is my solution, so feedback is great! I also have items that boost stats by +2 or +4, but they're rarer since they will almost certainly get used by the player whose relevant stat is already high.

And now to go off on an aside to what was already an aside (I believe this is known "derailing" in forumspeak ):

I've made cursed items a rather common occurrence, so you'd always be risking it in my game. I've balanced this out by making nearly all curses easy to detect - identify will tell you, as will a studying an item during a long rest (not a short rest like the standard rule).

I've made identifying the primary use of an item automatic by anyone picking it up, so that I can just tell my players and they can use them right away . . . but because it very well might be cursed, they might choose to wait until after that long rest or use a slot to cast identify.

(and yeah, in practice, identify is now effectively "detect curse")

 

[Satyrn]

I've balanced this out by making nearly all curses easy to detect - . . . studying an item during a long rest (not a short rest like the standard rule).

Wait. I'm wrong about that. I dropped the idea of making it a long rest during my "this is pointlessly fiddly houseruling" cull of my setting document.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Niche-based Classes, Levels, HP, AC and the base idea of getting a group of "un-normal" people together to go into a deadly and dangerous dungeon to kill monsters and take their stuff.

That's "D&D" at is base bedrock level. To me anyway.

You can mess with all of that and it will still be "D&D", but boiled down to "if we remove...", then removing any of those will, imnsho, stop it from being "D&D".

As an aside...and I'm sure this will be a bit controversial to some...I also believe that the idea of "DM as Adversary" is a D&D thing. A DM, IMHO, is someone who provides challenges in his world that the players PC's can/will face. A DM is *not* someone who provides fun in his world as defined as "situations where the PC's can be heroes and win". Somewhere along the line (mid through 2e if I had to guess) the game's idea that a DM was supposed to provide "challenges that the PC's should be able to overcome" became the mantra. This mutated into the abomination that is now "The DM is there to help the players have fun". There is a difference between the two ideas. The first, the more "old skool" idea of the DM providing challenges is that overcoming said challenges is FUN. The second, the more "new skool" idea of the DM providing "fun" is that unless the PC's overcome those challenges, the game is somehow "not fun".

Anyway, the point of that aside is that "DM as Adversary", to me, is one of the bedrocks that makes D&D, well, D&D. Removing that "I'm going to try and kill all of your PC's...but I'm going to do it fairly and honestly" and replacing it with "I should always say Yes and never kill off a PC unless absolutely unavoidable" has done a terrible disservice to the game's history.

Then again, I'm a "killer DM" when looked at from today's standpoint, so there is that...

^_^

Paul L. Ming