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

[Belen]

By contrast, the wizard has the ability to make whatever magic items he wants. Even if the DM disallows the choice of many of the magic item creation feats, they must exist in some form for the items to exist at all. If they're available, the wizard has control over just what items he makes, which is always preferable to the hit-and-miss approach of getting what you find*. It is true that the wizard could make items for the fighter to use. However, that is at the whim of the wizard's player, which in turn makes his character more powerful.

I have yet to see a Wizard make magic items in 3e. If the Wizard was making all the items he needs, then he would be several levels below the rest of the party.

 

[Belen]

I do not see why everyone keeps complaining about a low magic fighter versus a low magic wizard. Since when is D&D a single player game!? That low magic fighter has anywhere between 2-4 buddies to help him deal with the low magic wizard. Chances are good that at least one of his buddies would cast see invis on him. Chances are even better that one of his buddies may have cast see invis and made it permanent during their career.

If you're playing a wizard or cleric and NEVER help out the rest of your party, then there is something wrong. If you are playing a Wizard and ignoring the item creation XP cost, cost to scribe in the spell book, or materials costs for your spells, then something is wrong.

You do not need a truckload of items to play D&D. If you believe that you do, then I have some swampland that I'll sell you for a good price.

 

[Sammael]

The thing is, there is no set rule in the system that every party must include an arcane spellcaster and a divine spellcaster. I've seen plenty of wizard-less and cleric-less parties.

 

[delericho]

I have yet to see a Wizard make magic items in 3e. If the Wizard was making all the items he needs, then he would be several levels below the rest of the party.

A wizard doesn't need to make many items to gain a huge increase in his effectiveness. A few well-chosen scrolls means that the wizard never needs to memorise a 'utility' spell, greatly increasing his combat effectiveness. A couple of wands of low-level buffing spells, and again, no need to memorise those spells. As long as the character doesn't go wild, he can gain a relatively huge bonus for the cost of a couple of hundred XP. By level 5 or 6, that's a near-trivial reduction. (At worst, the character is a level behind for a session a few times in the campaign.)

I do not see why everyone keeps complaining about a low magic fighter versus a low magic wizard. Since when is D&D a single player game!? That low magic fighter has anywhere between 2-4 buddies to help him deal with the low magic wizard. Chances are good that at least one of his buddies would cast see invis on him. Chances are even better that one of his buddies may have cast see invis and made it permanent during their career.

They can't. See Invisibility is a personal spell - it cannot be cast on the party fighter, nor made permanent. The fighter would need a potion to get that ability.

The comparison between the low-magic fighter and the low-magic wizard is to do with overall capabilities within the PC party. If the fighter is far less powerful than the wizard (beyond a certain level) then the game is likely to become less enjoyable for the player of that character. It doesn't matter that the party can deal with every challenge - if the fighter exists solely to act as the bodyguard for the wizard while said wizard deals with the adventure, then it sucks to be the player of the fighter.

If you're playing a wizard or cleric and NEVER help out the rest of your party, then there is something wrong. If you are playing a Wizard and ignoring the item creation XP cost, cost to scribe in the spell book, or materials costs for your spells, then something is wrong.

All true. But I'm not relying on any of these things to maintain my assertion that in a low-item game, a wizard will outshine a fighter of equal level once each reaches a certain point. Quite what level that occurs at, I'm not sure, but it's around the point where the wizard can make use of defences the fighter can't penetrate, and attacks the fighter cannot effectively defend against. Certainly, that point comes by 10th level, but it may be as low as 6th.

You do not need a truckload of items to play D&D. If you believe that you do, then I have some swampland that I'll sell you for a good price.

No, you don't need them. In my experience, however, the game is more fun for all involved with them. I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to fix that - but I will say that it takes a lot more work than is immediately obvious, and a lot more work than I would be willing to consider.

 

[Belen]

The thing is, there is no set rule in the system that every party must include an arcane spellcaster and a divine spellcaster. I've seen plenty of wizard-less and cleric-less parties.

There is no set rule that you must have a certain amount of gear either. Under your arguments, the "default" CRs were created with a four player party that included a wizard, rogue, fighter, and cleric. If you lack these classes or effective substitutions for these classes, then your CRs will be unusable. The CRs include wizard and clerical abilities when considering EL for a party. Thus, any party that does not have a wizard or cleric is not RAW.

That seems to be your argument with regard to items.

The idea that you are not playing or cannot play D&D without all the flash or "bling" does not hold up.

 

[Belen]

No, you don't need them. In my experience, however, the game is more fun for all involved with them. I'm not suggesting that it's impossible to fix that - but I will say that it takes a lot more work than is immediately obvious, and a lot more work than I would be willing to consider.

Not too much work. You should check out the heroic paths from Midnight. I have found that if you run a low item game, then the heroic paths can be a cool addition. You could also replace the casters the channeler class if that suited you. Midnight does not have a lot of magic (at least for the good guys.)

However, in normal D&D, the Fighter class just sucks all around. I have modified some feats to helps the fighter:

Skill Affinity (Feat): By taking this feat, a character may take any two non-class skills and make them class skills.

Weapon Focus(Feat: Fighter): / Specialization (Feat: Fighter): Instead of applying to one weapon, choose either slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning. You gain the use of the feat with all weapons of the type.

Craft skill: Characters may choose a number of related crafts equal to their wisdom modifier. Skill checks are counted as if they were one skill. The craft skills chosen must be an intimate part of the character class, such as armor/ weaponsmith for a fighter. Should the wisdom modifier increase, the character must train for one year in a craft in order to learn a new craft.

 

[Sammael]

The idea that you are not playing or cannot play D&D without all the flash or "bling" does not hold up.

I certainly didn't make that claim. If you look at the first page, you'll see that I suggested it was possible, but the CR would need to be reduced and the DM would have to do more prep-work. Please don't put words into my mouth.

 

[The Shaman]

The 3.0 D&D game that I ran was short on magic items - I nerfed the creation feats and opted for items that gained power over time (based on character level), rather than making new items available frequently.

I tend to run fantasy games that are "low monster" - more humanoid opponents than anything. In most cases it meant that the party was up against opponents that had the same limitations. The one significant exception was undead, which were greatly feared, as I intended them to be.

I didn't need to make any radical changes to get the encounters to work, nor did it take extraordinary effort on my part.

 

[Belen]

I certainly didn't make that claim. If you look at the first page, you'll see that I suggested it was possible, but the CR would need to be reduced and the DM would have to do more prep-work. Please don't put words into my mouth.

You may have, but others suggested that modifying CRs violated the RAW, which it does not. You have to change CRs it you have a nonstandard class mix just as you would have to change them with a lack of items.

 

[delericho]

Not too much work. You should check out the heroic paths from Midnight. I have found that if you run a low item game, then the heroic paths can be a cool addition. You could also replace the casters the channeler class if that suited you. Midnight does not have a lot of magic (at least for the good guys.)

Well, isn't Midnight quite far from 'standard' D&D? (Not that that's a bad thing - D&D, standard or otherwise, is hardly the one true way of roleplaying.)

However, in normal D&D, the Fighter class just sucks all around.

Again, this hasn't been my experience, although I'll acknowledge that my experience is hardly universal. That said, the fighter would benefit a great deal with longer feat chains that can only be mastered by fighters, and only at high level, and by better defensive feats. (And the reclassification of mithral plate as heavy armour, but let's not rehash that discussion.) There do exist suitable feats in the supplementary materials for the game, but the types of feats that are most needed seem to still be in short supply, and of course there's the issue that everything outside of the core rules has had less playtesting, which may or may not cause problems.