D&D 4E Points of Light, Dawn War, and Magic Item Economy (4e)

[AbdulAlhazred]

If they are interesting but not critical I actually suggest enabling the healing surge in place of the item daily for that item or removing the restriction for that item specifically I do not see that I see ham handed design with rares being selected for tradition etc

It is actually a pretty sticky design problem. There are MANY examples of items which are fairly innocuous, until you have a dozen of them. I'd have to go back through some of the old examples, but the problem is fairly thorny in a surprising number of cases. Numerous items that fall into the "it doesn't really matter what level this is" category. Remember the problems with the Healing Potion? Its rather the same sort of thing.

 

[Garthanos]

Remember the problems with the Healing Potion? Its rather the same sort of thing.

additive value of 3e potions and no top end vs exponential wealth gain

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well I ran 4e 2017-18 without Inherent Bonuses, it worked ok.
Generally (leaving aside RC & using PHB/DMG) I'd say item purchase & enchantment is something that happens in Paragon & Epic Tiers, when PCs typically have enough cash to do so. And enchantment is much more common than purchase unless the GM is allowing free purchase at 100% rather than 110-140%, or for some reason no one has the Enchant Item ritual.

I'm not sure where I got the impression make/buy were both at 100%, but the markup on the latter seems unanimous, so I guess it must be somewhere. It does make a certain 4th level ritual a big deal, though. ::

Tier II-III PCs probably have found all the stat boost items they need in a regular campaign, but may occasionally create/buy a stat boost item a few levels below their level.

Stat boost items?

More common IME was purchase/craft of useful items that let you do stuff like see in the dark. A level 20 PC might buy/craft a useful level 10 item.
I think the original 4e system works ok - PCs typically find/are gifted items 1-4 levels above their level, while they purchase or craft items typically 5-10 levels below their level. Occasionally a group may pool resources to craft/buy an item of close to party level, or there may be a GM-determined special event where the PCs find a huge pile of treasure outside the normal reward system. I like how the latter does not break the game - a level 1 party that acquires several thousand gp in a treasure hoard, & has free purchase, is functionally the same as the GM allowing them a wish list of their level 1 (item level 2-5) items. This robustness was one of the things I always enjoyed about 4e. Of course it comes at the price of 4e items not being terribly exciting.

It certainly works as a game. And I guess it's not as bad as I was thinking as far as implying an economy at odds with the PoL theme is concerned.

 

[Garthanos]

Stat boost items?

Agreed huh? Perhaps thinking 3e?
You could make a quasi - stat boost item that created an enhancement bonus (hence it would not combine with a weapon bonus ) + item bonus to appropriate skill and raw stat roll bonus.
I have considered making a true Giant Strength Girdle (STR) OR Ring of the Earth Gods. (CON) since they feature only 1 skill a piece that is an item bonus to attribute check and 1 skill check and an Enhancement bonus to Attack Damage. It might be 2 or 3 items worth. With one of the 3 being a Primary item.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agreed huh? Perhaps thinking 3e?
You could make a quasi - stat boost item that created an enhancement bonus (hence it would not combine with a weapon bonus ) + item bonus to appropriate skill and raw stat roll bonus.
I have considered making a true Giant Strength Girdle (STR) OR Ring of the Earth Gods. (CON) since they feature only 1 skill a piece that is an item bonus to attribute check and 1 skill check and an Enhancement bonus to Attack Damage. It might be 2 or 3 items worth. With one of the 3 being a Primary item.

I think the problem was well-known with this type of item, that it becomes effectively mandatory since it would offer a path to an increased bonus which cannot really happen any other way (although somewhat lesser versions would become obsolete due to ASIs the bad part is that they would be really good on secondary and tertiary stats!).

 

[Garthanos]

I think the problem was well-known with this type of item, that it becomes effectively mandatory since it would offer a path to an increased bonus which cannot really happen any other way

Well I just partially elaborated a way it involves "named bonuses" - enhancement bonuses and item bonuses and similar. Remember if you have a game with inherent bonuses and they pick up a weapon with higher enhancement bonus than they have inherent you get the weapon enhancement bonus or vice versa depending on which is higher.

 

[Voadam]

If I had to justify it to players though, I'd say to look at the post-Soviet economies where there was no functional civilian industry but you could have all the rusty AKs you wanted at fire sale prices: the war is over, the civilization consumed itself trying to win it, and farmers are going to be rooting +1 Flaming Longswords out of fallow fields for the next 10 generations.

This leaves you with a plausible setup for an economy where there's a glut of low-grade magical war items on the market (i.e. "within a few days of travel if you've got the leisure time to do that") even though the economy produces little for trade but clothes and food, which is a decent description of the magical item setup in the PHB.

This works pretty well coneptually with the 4e default last human empire having ended by being overrun by gnolls and the previous dragonborn and tiefling superpower empires having ended in all out high magic war. Wars require putting resources into weapons so it makes sense they would have made as many as they could particularly as things turned worse.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well I just partially elaborated a way it involves "named bonuses" - enhancement bonuses and item bonuses and similar. Remember if you have a game with inherent bonuses and they pick up a weapon with higher enhancement bonus than they have inherent you get the weapon enhancement bonus or vice versa depending on which is higher.

Right. Although I would note that 4e turned out to be fairly poor at managing bonus stacking in the end. Bonus stacking control also paradoxically leads to 'meaningless' items in that you always get the full stack of bonuses 'somehow' (4e detractors often call it the 'treadmill' but it is not at all unique to 4e).

 

[Garthanos]

Right. Although I would note that 4e turned out to be fairly poor at managing bonus stacking in the end.

Compared to what?

Bonus stacking control also paradoxically leads to 'meaningless' items in that you always get the full stack of bonuses 'somehow'

That somehow being different flavor is presentation (4e makes underlying numbers explicit )
Anything perceived as required is also exactly not meaningless so eh...
That said perhaps something-role - like needs to affect item effects too...hence having expected and meaningful variations within a range. Keeping heros within a range of effectiveness for their level is useful for challenging them with generic things like purchased adventures and the like... its also about having level be meaningful rather like how you have people leveling up for "significant" items. ->similar function different presentation.

Roles allow expected variations within an over all contribution by balancing things around different parameters... the striker doing a lot more damage than the defender is distinct.

 

[Garthanos]

The thing is I see item importance or not importance in fiction to be character specific ... that is the inherent to the hero vs external to the hero variation not the actual divergence. Excalibur allowing arthur to blind enemies or bend them to his will is item centered ability Lancelot berserkergang is self derived.

Does this feat occur because of my magic item or does it occur because of my heroic awesome? Characters need to be within a range of ability and so they all have about the same number of feats regardless.

Speaking of economy and presentation. One of the reasons I like my abstraction of Karma points for wealth... it can allow as little or much physical wealth to be granted as feels actualy appropriate to the situation while keeping "treasure" parcels under the hood consistent.

In old terms its no more valuable at a general level to rescue the princess than it is the peasant... in social terms its different at presentation level its different... but in terms of game economy the two are rewarded much the same.