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

[Belen]

No, they never do, and why should they? That makes the game less fun for the mage. The purpose of the game is for all the players to have fun, not suck the joy out of being a mage for the benefit of the other players.

The purpose of point buy stats and intraparty game balance is to remove this problem from game play. Removing magic items causes intraparty game balance problems (more than were there to begin with). Monte Cook has this wonderful article about how game balance is supposed to promote fun, and I'm sure you've read it.

Yug ugh. I play a mage right now and I love hitting the party fighter with enlarge person. I never load up on buffs, but I do reserve slots to buff/help the party. That is one of my roles. If I wanted to only do damage, then I would have played a sorcerer.

I do not think that Turanil meant no items. What he meant was that the party did not have to have the "default" loadout to be successful. My games usually feature a small number of cool items for each player. They certainly do not have their "wealth by level" in items.

The only real class the suffers without items is the fighter. That is a direct fault of the figher class not with the entire system. They just did not design feat chains with fighters in mind. There should be feats chains that no one but a fighter could achieve. Sadly, they failed the fighter. That does not mean everyone else needs a raft of items.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Yug ugh. I play a mage right now and I love hitting the party fighter with enlarge person. I never load up on buffs, but I do reserve slots to buff/help the party. That is one of my roles. If I wanted to only do damage, then I would have played a sorcerer.

Silly. I play a mage, and I don't just do damage. I use utility, summoning and save-or-suffer spells as well. I have my own ways of helping the party. (Plus I hate Enlarge Person.)

The only real class the suffers without items is the fighter. That is a direct fault of the figher class not with the entire system. They just did not design feat chains with fighters in mind. There should be feats chains that no one but a fighter could achieve. Sadly, they failed the fighter. That does not mean everyone else needs a raft of items.

Along with the rogue, barbarian, ranger, paladin and (to a lesser extent) the cleric. All of the non-spellcasting or low-spellcasting classes suffer from it. (Have you seen the AC on a magic-poor paladin? It's very lame.)

 

[Belen]

Along with the rogue, barbarian, ranger, paladin and (to a lesser extent) the cleric. All of the non-spellcasting or low-spellcasting classes suffer from it. (Have you seen the AC on a magic-poor paladin? It's very lame.)

Those other classes have abilities such as sneak/skills, rage/skills/DR, Divine grace/smite/spells/courage etc that more than make up for a lack in items.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Those other classes have abilities such as sneak/skills, rage/skills/DR, Divine grace/smite/spells/courage etc that more than make up for a lack in items.

I disagree. I once ran a 15th-level one-shot where a battle broke out between a fighter and a barbarian. Neither had any equipment on them. The barbarian raged, and he still lost. (This was 3.5, with the barbarian's very good 15th-level rage.)

Besides, their AC scores still sucked. It boiled down to Power Attack.

Fighting-type characters put a lot of their character concept into, well, fighting. Fighting is seriously weakened by lack of magic items. They don't fight, they just suck. That's boring.

And I still think it's silly a mage in a low-item setting is expected to give up 85% of their spells. That's also boring.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Those other classes have abilities such as sneak/skills, rage/skills/DR, Divine grace/smite/spells/courage etc that more than make up for a lack in items.

If they're fighting things 25% CRs under them maybe. But still probably not. Casters will have a huge huge advantage over them.

They all need the bonuses to hit, to ability scores, and to saving throws at the very least. Then, there's damage. With no magical items, a 15th level barbarian is doing what? 1d12+9 damage? The ranger is less. The poor rogue only has a +18 to hit with his primary, and unless its a sneak attack he's doing 1d6+2 damage (if he put his Str at 14).

And, they can't do things like fly unless the wizard casts the spells on them. And, their saving throws... ugh... forget it, don't even bother rolling. With +6 poor saves, they're failing everything. And AC? That's a laugh. Everything will power attack them for full and hit every time.

To contrast, the barbarian with magical items is probably going to be doing around 1d12+16+2d6. The ranger and rogue will do more damage as well. They'll have poor saves in the +10 range or higher, and their AC will be at least a deterrant for power attck at worst if they try raising it. Plus they'll be able to fly, or be invisible, or heal without the aid of a caster using their precious slots on them. In other words, they'll be viable characters when facing a CR equal to their level.

Not to say that low magic items isn't viable, but the game has to change a lot more than the DM giving out less magic to be truely viable. I've played in a game where the DM just gave out less magical items. The druid's summons were far far more impressive than I was. I wondered why he even kept me around. And, that was 3.0 with an arguabliy weaker druid (before Natural Spell existed even).

 

[TheGM]

If they're fighting things 25% CRs under them maybe. But still probably not. Casters will have a huge huge advantage over them.

I don't see this as that big a hurdle... I simply removed the concentration check for most situations (ie: auto-loss), and balance returns nicely. Even without that step it wasn't so horrendous that the Fighters sat around bored or anything.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I don't see this as that big a hurdle... I simply removed the concentration check for most situations (ie: auto-loss), and balance returns nicely. Even without that step it wasn't so horrendous that the Fighters sat around bored or anything.

What? Concentration checks?

I played a 9th level barbarian/fighter in a game who only had a +1 sword and a +1 ring of protection. If you're saying a 9th level fighter under those circumstances is anywhere near equal to a a 9th level druid with no magical items, then you're wrong. That's just how it is.

 

[boredgremlin]

No, he won't. IMC, when confronted with a beholder and a group of grimlocks (most were grimlock fighter 6 or so), the entire party came very close to dying before they managed to negate beholder's antimagic eye. The party was level 14 on the average, which means that grimlocks should have been a cakewalk for them. As a side note, the beholder did nothing except aim its eye so that the entire party was subject to antimagic.

Without equipment, a standard-issue D&D character should be treated as several levels lower than usual. Sure, he can get lucky and still beat a creature of higher CR, but he is woefully underpowered.

BTW, your tone is extremely confrontational. You cannot presume to claim your campaign standards can be applied to every game out there.

Okay i have to say something here. The beholder didnt do anything and your 14th level party barely beat a bunch of grimlocks equivelent to 8th level characters? The fault here didnt lie with the magic items. It was with the players. Thats just rediculous. The players should have had boatloads more HP, BAB's at least 5 higher, almost certainly better base armor then them without magic and thus higher AC's. That battle should have been a cakewalk for them.
I very rarely give out powerful magic items and none of my players ever have the amount of magic items the game says they should have unless they make em themselves. And yet they allways seem to do fine when they use intelligent tactics.
As a side note the CR system is goofy and unreliable. Its all about a bunch of crappy battles weakening the party, which really doesnt work if you have smart players. The weak battles are just so laughably easy they are boring and even the BBEG rarely is able to put up much of a fight.
Course i am part of the school of D&D that thinks that it should be a harder game. Battles shouldnt be a forgone conclusion of "how many of my resources will it take to kill these guys"? It should be "oh crap, someone is trying to kill me" and actually be a dangerous situation.

 

[boredgremlin]

Also if you realy think casters are unbalanced with low magic then eliminate casting in melee with a concentration check. Make it an auto fail if you get hit, just like in earlier editions. And if you really want to then get rid of the 5ft step too. Watch the casters fall like bowling pins and all beg to be low magic campaign fighters.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Also if you realy think casters are unbalanced with low magic then eliminate casting in melee with a concentration check. Make it an auto fail if you get hit, just like in earlier editions. And if you really want to then get rid of the 5ft step too. Watch the casters fall like bowling pins and all beg to be low magic campaign fighters.

I haven't found that to work. Mages get really good at staying out of melee anyway. The best way to break a mage's concentration, IME, is to use a direct-damage spell on them (readied action).

And what is the point of taking away Concentration when the mage can just use greater invisibility or fly? He's not going to drawing many AoOs after that.