About the myth or fact (?) of needing magical items

[Kahuna Burger]

Not in such direct terms. But I often hear people suggesting it strongly, including all those who are glad that Iron Heroes is here because they want campaigns where characters don't need magical items. So for me it clearly sounds as if you "can't play" normal D&D characters if they don't have magical items. I just wanted to say that D&D games with few or no magical items are possible, even if it obviously require some adjustment and use less powerful foes than usual.

So, you are saying that the people you disagree with are in fact right?

Your argument (which I'm not sure who you're having it with) seems to break down like this:

ENworlder A: the default assumptions of the standard D&D game integrate a standard wealth level and a certain amount and type of magic items PCs will have aquired by certain levels. Eliminating or drasticly reducing this wealth/magic item level significantly handicaps the power levels of the PCs, making them unsuited for standard level appropriate challanges.

You: No, you can cut back on magic items and they will be fine, as long as you look not at CRs but what that particular group can handle.

ENworlder B: wait, isn't that the same as saying that the un-itemed group can't handle the default games level appropriate challanges?

You: No, the game is perfectly possible and fun, if you use less powerful foes than usual.

You aren't disagreeing with anyone's assertion that magic items play a significant role in the effectiveness of higher level characters, you're just stating that you are a good enough DM to accompany your lower magic item game with an appropriate reduction of the challange level. Well... good? This will lead to less frustrated players, but supports the argument that standard challange levels are bound up in standard gear, it doesn't negate the point.

Now if anyone had said that a 14th level party would somehow fail to exist without magic items and would be defeated by a CR 7 foe, that would be one thing, but I honestly haven't heard anyone making the only argument you would be disputing. :\

 

[Kahuna Burger]

(Emphasis mine.) Why wouldn't it be?

well, I guess because the dungeons and dragons game doesn't have defensive bonuses linked to character level. So it wasn't a RAW D&D game, certainly.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

With a little further thought, that high level/low item (now to be called HL/LI) fighter can be a lot more interesting if their party has spellcasters in it and some teamwork is used.

Buff them up magically and they'll still 'work properly'... That was what was missing from the HL/LI game I got involved in.

I guess you can simply replace a lot of the items with a lot of caster slots... Will lower the casters effectiveness and it's still all about magic, but spells instead of items?


On another point, I think even a default magic higher level game the GM can't simply throw things of 'about the right CR' at the party and expect everything to work out. IME, I'd say how dangerous monsters are is strongly dependant on party vs monster abilities.

 

[the Jester]

I'm running a low-magic campaign right now. Before I started I thought long and hard about the best way to make sure casters don't outshine fighters at high levels, and what I decided was to limit the spell lists available to each class. Also, I increased the rate of ability increase and feat acquisition, tweaked the classes, etc, etc.

So far it's worked fine.

 

[lordcloaker]

Vow of Poverty all around


I like low-magic campaigns, makes the character more important than his magic items.

I recently read Iron Heroes and liked it very very much, and am currently trying to get a group together. Iron Heroes = rare magic and no need for clerics. Maybe its a bit too focused on hack and slash (at least from first impression).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I have read it so many times. That D&D 3.5 is made in such a way that PCs actually do need magical items or, well, or the game is unplayable?

I understand that it has to do with the Challenge Rating stuff, but after having tried to use it, eventually came to the conclusion that CR are nearly useless.

SO: I maintain that if I want to, I can run a D&D game with very few magical items. I just need to choose the opponents and obstacles accordingly, which isn't difficult as it's like I always do anyway (i.e.: only vaguely looking at the CR but using my own judgement). Since many of my adventues are improvised (including the XP award), and the players not the wiser (in fact I adjust my gaming style to what I perceive they wish to have out of the game), I don't see the need to abide by all this regulation of said amount of CR, monsters, XP, magical items, given treasure per level, etc. Most of the time my players are happy, and if I want to have adventures with few or very few magical items, it will work as well as if making them "magical items christmas trees".

I disagree with you, and it's not just about CR.

It's about PC capabilities. It sucks playing a PC with a crappy AC score or a lame saving throw. The former is worse, as it affects RP and not just metagaming. PCs don't learn to dodge or parry, even with magical items - they let the magical items do the work for them. Without magic items, they're just meatshields, without the shield - they have to stand there and take hits. I don't know why a trained warrior would allow that, but that's how DnD works. You can't have a cool combat scene like Bronn vs the older guy in George R R Martin's work. You'll never see a character that even remotely resembles the warriors in a Forgotten Realms novel (who, incidentally, never have the kind of gear a DnD 3e campaign expects, and did I forget to mention this was the magic soaked Forgetten Realms?).

It means you can't build a competent swashbuckler or martial artist without either being wimpy or using a poorly balanced class (like the monk, or every WotC DnD swashbuckling class I've ever seen).

Now there's Combat Expertise, but it doesn't go up to +10 (not in the core rules) and many warriors don't have an Int of 13. (That feat should use BAB rather than Int as a requirement.) It's pretty rare to find an NPC fighter who does have it and use it that way, even if your campaign has Improved Combat Expertise in it. Besides, it drains your attack bonus too much. (The emphasis on magic items ensures that NPC non-spellcasters are going to suck. They're not worth their CR.)

That's one reason why I prefer D20 Modern and Iron Heroes - heroes are allowed to fight in a realistic way that can suit their character concept. (If you add up the attack and Defense values, they max out at +15 for 10th-level Strong and Fast characters. A DnD 10th-level fighter gets +10, whether he uses Combat Expertise or not.)

I'll give you an example. In one campaign, I'm a 7th-level Iron Kingdoms ranger (more flexible than the 3.5 ranger and has no magical abilities) with an AC of 27. Yes, that is ridiculously high - the DM handed out way too many magical items. When he gets into a fight, he's not bold at all. He uses total defense and other such maneuvers all the time because he's not confident in his AC. Despite a 27 value, his total contribution to his own AC is a mere +3. +7 if you count his armor proficiency (which was free) as a character ability. The rest comes from magic items. (More than half of his AC was magic.) In a campaign where magic item/wealth values are followed more strictly, the problem would simply be delayed a few levels.

I also played a D20 Modern martial artist with a Defense of 21 (22 vs melee). To put this in perspective, he would get hit 40% of the time instead of 10% of the time like the above ranger, and a crit could drop him at any time (because of massive damage rules). He had no qualms about taking on multiple foes wielding big weapons though, seeing how he was able to take care of his own Defense score. As a martial artist, his Defense was good, and because he spent character abilities to boosting it, he made sure to actually use it.

I just wanted to say that D&D games with few or no magical items are possible, even if it obviously require some adjustment and use less powerful foes than usual.

Who needs that kind of work? That's time you could be working on your campaign. Even if I wanted to do it, I'm still not interested in misbalanced PCs with high attack bonuses and crappy AC values. "Blood for blood" is a stupid combat style and I've had my fill of DMing such poorly designed monsters already. Why plague the PCs with the same king od nonsense?

What I want to say with it is, that non-spellcasters suffer more, much more from lack of magic items.

No kidding.

You can play with out them and I have up until very high level. To compensate I gave characters an AC bonus equal to 1/2 their level and a bonus to saves of +1 for every 4 levels. The magic items I did give out I always made sure would help non-spell casters slightly more. It was a great campaign, was it technically D&D? I don't know.

This works, for the same reason that Iron Heroes and D20 Modern does.

 

[Particle_Man]

I recently read Iron Heroes and liked it very very much, and am currently trying to get a group together. Iron Heroes = rare magic and no need for clerics. Maybe its a bit too focused on hack and slash (at least from first impression).

Look at the Thief and the Lore mastery feats. Actually, a party of thieves would be very interesting...

 

[Particle_Man]

Extremely weak in relation to what? To magical-items-christmas-trees? A 17th level fighter with just Frost-brand greatsword, a plate-mail +2, and a couple of simple potions will do very well. Just my campaign won't need uber-dragons and demons with 10 levels of sorcerers at every gaming session.

So you have lower magic, not no magic items. Because a fighter with NO magic items is simply going to die when he sees his first Shadow or Wraith. Even if that fighter is 20th level.

Seriously, try Iron Heroes (the characters even get defense bonuses by class level!).

 

[Khairn]

D&D was designed and balanced from the ground up with "christmas tree magic items" as part of its structure. If you as a GM want to take out the magic items, ignore CR's and make house rule adjustments to certain character classes in order to balance them out at high level, then go for it! Its your game, have fun.

Can D&D be played with little or no items? Of course it can. Does it require adjusting or ignoring certain rules because of that lack of items? Yep.

Is IH, by being designed from the ground up as a game with limited or no magic items, a good alternative, and possibly a better fit for that type of game play? I think so.

 

[ARandomGod]

Extremely weak in relation to what?

Extremely weak in comparison to what the game system the way it is written suggests they be fighting. They will still be strong compared to non-magical humans.

Really I say it depends on what you're talking about. You're asking if D&D can be played well low magic. The answer is a resounding YES. But that's because you're asking if Dungeons and Dragons, the genre, can be played with low magic. And many systems have been designed to do this.

3.X is not one of those systems. 3.X is a specific system, and while it is in the genre of D&D, it's not all of D&D. But 3.X is designed to be played with magic items, and you really cannot play 3.x without magic items. You can hack and chop at the 3.X system with house-rules, but then you're back to playing D&D, based losely on the system 3.X. You are certainly NOT, however, playing the 3.X game. And, speaking of houserules, 3.X is a system that does not respond well to house-rules (in comparison to others that are practically designed to be heavily house-ruled, and in fact have sets of suggestions about how to properly make up house-rules).