cignus_pfaccari
First Post
Apparently, Superior implements were going to be included in AV2, but were cut for space reasons, and may be seen in PH3.
Brad
Adv2 Item sets
- Thread starter Flipguarder
- Start date
Apparently, Superior implements were going to be included in AV2, but were cut for space reasons, and may be seen in PH3.
Brad
Marshall
First Post
Its a start, but its not going to solve the 'implement creep' problem that grows with every new class and power source.
Saeviomagy
Adventurer
No, making an item that is better for it's chosen area of benefit (ie - dealing damage) than any other option is what gave us the iron armbands.
Making everyone use a generic "implement" and then allowing individual flavouring on that would increase, not decrease the available options to characters.
Not to mention stripping off the "this implement/weapon/item only works for class X" tags that they seem to be slapping on everything.
Er, not really IMO. It's much, much harder to design generic items that don't overpower all other items.
What it would do was concentrate people to what was the "best" implement.
Right now, a druid, cleric and a wizard working in the same party will have much more distinct implement powers since they are so limited to what they can do whereas "generic" implement is likely to lead to all 3 using the selfsame feature.
It's why weapon and armour properties are limited to certain types of armour. If for example, Bloodclaw was limited to saw Picks, it definitely wouldn't be as common in LFR and as houseruled as it is.
EDIT: I'm almost positive I remember reading WOTC said that none of the psionic classes (or any going forward) will actually have new implements. They'll use the existing ones carrying forward from now.
FireLance
Legend
So instead of just having a staff of ruin, we should also have a wand of ruin, an orb of ruin, a rod of ruin, a holy symbol of ruin and a totem of ruin?
Assuming: iron armbands of power are popular because everybody wants to deal more damage, and there are no other arms slot items that increase damage to such an extent, wouldn't this mean that nobody would want any other implement property?
DracoSuave
First Post
CapnZapp
Legend
The problem still does not go away.
Even if new classes can use Rods (say), there are distinctly Warlockian rods, and there will be distinctly Whateverian rods.
The fundamental problem is that certain classes (Warlocks and Shamans come to mind, but feel free to substitute your personal beef) work in ways so unique that tools they benefit from are almost always useless to others.
Magic items that modify "curses" will only be useful for Warlocks. One solution would of course be to add more classes that use curses, but an even better solution would be to add magic items that give benefits to all kinds of "striker tags": cursed targets, quarried targets and so on.
To me the tendency is clear: adventures tend to focus on supplying items that are generally useful to a lot of characters.
This means weaponry, holy symbols, wands and staffs.
And again, the AV2 designers in that Design & Development article outright says they avoided group item sets involving the Warlock. Twice! (Both their examples says "avoid the Warlock").
The only conclusion seems to be: if your DM runs ready-made adventures, don't roll up a user of Rods, Orbs or Totems! You will find much fewer cool such items than Longswords and Holy Symbols, unless your DM intervenes specifically on your behalf.
Likewise, don't play "new" classes like Swordmages, Avengers or Assassins. While books like AV2 do attempt to add some items that specifically boost your unique features and powers, official adventures will almost never feature them - they're completely useless to everyone else, and most people play PHB1 classes!
If it's the most optimal for 50% of the characters, or even 25% of the characters, that's still too many. There has to be a better mechanic to balance items, providing more options. Compare Level 6 Iron Armbands to Level 7 Skull Bracers, +2 damage on every single melee damage roll is way better than a maybe 1d10 damage to one attack per day. In what universe is this balanced? Choices should be meaningful, and when 50% of characters are gravitating toward 1 arm slot item out of 73 heroic arm slot options, those choices are not really meaningful.
In a more narrow scope, what Archer Ranger is not going to want Bracers of Archery? How many meaningful choices are there for the Archer Ranger's arm slot?
Items that give excessively good constant benefits such as the armbands, staff of ruin, reckless weapons, etc, are simply poor design which wreck an otherwise interesting design space.
Obryn
Hero
Apart from totems in PHB2, what new implements have been added?
I wouldn't count any weapon that has a property of "This may be used as an implement for X Casters," either... Seriously, that's just a bonus. A perk, if you will.
-O
abyssaldeath
First Post
Tomes in AP
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