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

[Steverooo]

It's because again and again I do hear (on these forums) that the D&D game cannot be played without magical items.

Okay, hair-splitters, it can be played, that way. It is possible, but not EFFECTIVE. PCs without magical weapons cannot affect creatures with DR XX/Magic, nor DR XX/Silver & Magic, nor DR XX/Holy, etc. Certain spells, like Magic Weapon can help, with some, IF the PCs have it, but a LOT of critters have DR XX/Something (and for most of them, it's not Cold Iron, Silver, nor Adamantine)! ALL of these will have to be eliminated, until magic weapon spells are available. Is there a holy weapon spell? An Axiomatic/Anarchic one? (I don't play spellslingers, but I can't think of one). If not, a lot of critters will need to be cut.

Can you still play? Sure. Your PCs will be up to about Level-4 CR, assuming they have the same wealth... It can be done, just not as effectively. Fighters will be less powerful, Druids and Monks more so (as they have all good saves).

Whatever... Just because it's possible doesn't make it a good idea!

 

[Belen]

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.)

Not really. It is very close to D&D. I even ran a one shot Midnight game at my FLGS using one of the adventures from the Wizards web site.

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.

We are agreed here. They did not take feats to the logical conclusion with fighters. That harms the class. I am sure they did it so that people who play other classes do not whine about not being able to attain said feat, but it is still lame.

 

[delericho]

Is there a holy weapon spell? An Axiomatic/Anarchic one? (I don't play spellslingers, but I can't think of one). If not, a lot of critters will need to be cut.

Align weapon and bless/corrupt weapon.

 

[Belen]

Okay, hair-splitters, it can be played, that way. It is possible, but not EFFECTIVE. PCs without magical weapons cannot affect creatures with DR XX/Magic, nor DR XX/Silver & Magic, nor DR XX/Holy, etc. Certain spells, like Magic Weapon can help, with some, IF the PCs have it, but a LOT of critters have DR XX/Something (and for most of them, it's not Cold Iron, Silver, nor Adamantine)! ALL of these will have to be eliminated, until magic weapon spells are available. Is there a holy weapon spell? An Axiomatic/Anarchic one? (I don't play spellslingers, but I can't think of one). If not, a lot of critters will need to be cut.

Can you still play? Sure. Your PCs will be up to about Level-4 CR, assuming they have the same wealth... It can be done, just not as effectively. Fighters will be less powerful, Druids and Monks more so (as they have all good saves).

Whatever... Just because it's possible doesn't make it a good idea!

You make it sound like people must fighter creatures of equal CR. You do not have to fight creatures with magical immunities or DR. A Hill Giant make a tough opponent and you do not worry about DR with them.

There are options to fight creatures of equal power as any party that do not require heavy magic.

 

[Hussar]

*snip*
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.

I find the exact opposite. While the CR's of certain creatures may be a bit wonky, by and large, most of my combats see the expected results. If I toss a "typical" encounter against the party, they use roughly that many resources. Then again, this was true in any edition. It's just that now, you have a CR to helps to judge what the party can face and what it can't.

Then again, if the DM has the tactical sence of a rubber duck, the CR doesn't mean squat. Look at WOTC's latest "Tactical Review" article. The critter was a joke. It spent five or six rounds not dealing damage and never bothered to gate in lots of cannon fodder. The thread on this board shows how badly the combat was run.

CR is only a rough guide. It's not a hard and fast rule. That being said, the farther your party is from the "standard", the less useful CR is going to be. A party without a cleric is going to have a much harder time with undead. That means the CR for undead is wrong. Does that make CR useless? Of course not. It's a guideline, nothing more.

A group with far less than the suggested resources is handicapped against the assumptions made by the RAW. That means you have to adjust for windage when you decide to run a very low item campaign. Can you do this? Of course. Does it have to be done? Again of course.

I'm not seeing where the arguement is.

 

[Steverooo]

You make it sound like people must fighter creatures of equal CR. You do not have to fight creatures with magical immunities or DR. A Hill Giant make a tough opponent and you do not worry about DR with them.

There are options to fight creatures of equal power as any party that do not require heavy magic.

I never said "You must fight creatures of your DR". I said, without magic weapons (or spells to imitate them), that a lot of critters have to be removed from the game. I also said that, yes, you can still play, but that your CR/ECL would be lowered by about four, as a general rule (making critters of CR equal to your level a tough fight, instead of an average one). There's a difference.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

You make it sound like people must fighter creatures of equal CR. You do not have to fight creatures with magical immunities or DR. A Hill Giant make a tough opponent and you do not worry about DR with them.

There are options to fight creatures of equal power as any party that do not require heavy magic.

So now the DM can't use some cool creatures because of the lack of magic items. (It's likehow Polymorph is broken - you can't use Stone Giants for fear someone is going to replicate them.) That's silly. And once again your ACs will really suck.

Chances are good that at least one of his buddies would cast see invis on him.

If I could cast that spell (as a friendly PC) I wouldn't cast it on the fighter. I would cast it on myself. Then I kill the enemy wizard. The PC fighter should be able to pull his own weight.

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.

Which is found in Book of Iron Heroes (which I believed sparked this most recent debate).

 

[delericho]

For context: While talking about defensive feats and high-level feat chains:

Which is found in Book of Iron Heroes (which I believed sparked this most recent debate).

I have Iron Heroes on my shelf awaiting being read. However, PCs in that game are not balanced with PCs in core D&D, if both have standard D&D-level access to magic items. Therefore, I suspect the Iron Heroes feat chains won't be of much (probably any) use to me in my D&D games.

I would like the next edition of D&D to include far longer feat chains, and more defensive feats. However, this is only one element on an increasingly long list of things I'd like to see in the new edition. Perhaps I should copy Mythusmage, and start a thread of the changes I'd like to see? Hmm, maybe not.

 

[ThirdWizard]

The low-magic lovers keep saying, "You can do it!"
Then everyone else says, "Of course you can, but you'll have to change things to make it work."
Then the low-magic lovers say, "Stop saying it doesn't work! It does work! CR isn't important! It's still D&D!"
Then everyone else says, "That's great, but you still have to change some stuff."

Look, you want to do it, fine. Just, whatever you do, don't throw unaltered spellcasters into a group with unaltered warrior types with low magical-item distributions. It isn't fun for the warrior types. I have experienced this. It's a game of, how is the spellcaster going to save us next? It's like playing with a DM who makes you start at level 1 when your character dies, and everyone else is level 6 already. It's frustrating, boring, and completely unfun.

 

[Belen]

So now the DM can't use some cool creatures because of the lack of magic items. (It's likehow Polymorph is broken - you can't use Stone Giants for fear someone is going to replicate them.) That's silly. And once again your ACs will really suck.

Dude, it would be the DM would decided whether or not to give out the items. Thus, if the DM chose not to give out the items, then they are also choosing not to use certain creatures. If the DM complains or uses the monsters anyway, then it is his fault.

If I could cast that spell (as a friendly PC) I wouldn't cast it on the fighter. I would cast it on myself. Then I kill the enemy wizard. The PC fighter should be able to pull his own weight.

Remind me never to get into a game with you. I expect my compatriots to help me out if I need it. If they are that selfish, then why adventure together?