Andy Collins: "Most Magic Items in D&D Are Awful"

[GSHamster]

One interesting solution to the problem might be to rule that all magical items must have one combat function AND one non-combat function.

So no more vanilla longsword +1, maybe it's a longsword +1 of alignment detection. No more Helm of Underwater Breathing, but a helm that grants +2 Wisdom and Underwater Breathing.

This way you still get the combat effectiveness, but you get a lot of the weird effects. And it makes two +1 swords very different from each other.

 

[drothgery]

Err... I'd like to know where these supposed magic item Wal-Marts exist at. If any item below a town's gp limit is available, it doesn't mean they're all in one super-store. It just means that you can get them somewhere. The weaponsmith might have some enchanted blades; the armorer a wide selection of mithral shirts (he does know his customers, after all), the church of the goddess of healing offers cure wands and potions for a donation, and the artificer's guild will make unusual items on commission. But since this is Dungeons & Dragons not Merchants & Magic Items, spending a lot of time in-game on exactly who has what for sale in a given city is usually not all that important.

 

[Agamemnon]

Go you beat by a couple of years, actually. They just deleted the account.

But tenures aside, spew is as spew does. Why should WotC slash and burn a system that's achieved success and popularity amongst gamers? You should've received a thorough ridiculing for that diatribe. Don't know what's gotten into ENWorlders recently. They're slacking off.

Hardly surprising, considering the kind of stock of posters we get here these days. Not like the ones we had back in the AD&D days, when every race, class, alignment and hair color had their own XP tables, class caps and secret hand wriggles and we liked it. Today's gamer's don't even know what weapon speeds, THAC0 or 3/2 attacks per turn means...

I've always thought that if I'm to make an ass out of myself in public, I should gon for the the whole hog. Mind you, I really have no love for the current incarnation of D&D and think it could stand to lose excess baggage such as the notion of clerics as hybrid casters/fighters instead of a purely priestly class, certain problematic spells and so on and so on.

I just chose to elaborate my point rather poorly. You must pardon me, it's really not my fault, I'm just too stupid to get it right all at once.

 

[Celebrim]

To get at your apparent dig at my use of monsters and there abilities, our Level 6 party lost 2 of our 3 members to petrification when a basilisk killed them. My character escaped by fleeing.

Let me explain to you part of my theory of dungeon design. If the party is expected to face something like a Basilisk, that can and will arbitrarily 'kill' players, and can result in a TPK if the dice fall the wrong way, then it is incumbent on me to ensure that players have the resources to deal with it so that an alert and careful party can overcome the challenge with a fairly small ammount of risk. This DOES NOT mean that I have to give them Cloaks of Resistance and access to magical wal-marts, and quite frankly, neither of those things really addresses the real problem.

So, for example, I might present the party with various oppurtunities to gain clues and resources:

• There is a goblin in the dungeon that knows of the 'big lizard with killer eyes', if captured and interogated about the rest of the level the PC's can learn about the creature and with good diplomacy/intimidate rolls and RP, perhaps also a secret back entrance to the 'big lizard lair'.
• There is a scroll case somewhere in the dungeon with 'stone to flesh' or some similarly effacious spell that acts as a 'get out of jail' free card should someone get unlucky with the dice or the party misses other clues.
• A friendly ally is on hand back in the haven that will sell a 'stone to flesh' scroll.
• In the most likely approach to the big lizard lair, there are a large number of 'remarkably lifelike statues', which will clue any experienced party into looking around corners with a mirror - the sort of mundane but useful equipment that any experienced party will keep in thier pack.
• There is a room in the dungeon that contains a number of mirrors. These can be used to improvise defenses (especially if the party was foolish enough to enter a dungeon without a mirror), or the party can attempt to lure the 'big lizard' into this room to trap it.

After doing that, if I TPKed a party with a Basilisk, I wouldn't blame myself. I'd chalk it up to a learning experience, and have the party try the dungeon again hopefully having learned something about dungeoneering from the experience. Likewise, the more resources that a party accumulated, the fewer clues I'd expect myself to provide to them.

In our level 17 game, a Lich killed half the party with horrid wilting. I survived, due to being immune to death effects.

That's pretty typical of a level 17 game no matter how it was run. The first question is 'Why wasn't everyone immune to death effects if you were a 17th level party?'. Death ward is not that hard to come by. The second question is, "Since when do death wards effect horrid wilting, since it doesn't have the [Death] descriptor?"

Our level 17 party also fought a red dragon. We won that one, but we won based on my magical might, not our fighters skill at arms, since he never hit the dragon in the entire fight.

Again, this can be unfortunately fairly typical of level 17 no matter how it is run.

 

[Agamemnon]

Let me explain to you part of my theory of dungeon design. If the party is expected to face something like a Basilisk, that can and will arbitrarily 'kill' players, and can result in a TPK if the dice fall the wrong way, then it is incumbent on me to ensure that players have the resources to deal with it so that an alert and careful party can overcome the challenge with a fairly small ammount of risk. This DOES NOT mean that I have to give them Cloaks of Resistance and access to magical wal-marts, and quite frankly, neither of those things really addresses the real problem.

This all sounds perfectly reasonable. Things like basilisks, dragons, demons, high-level wizards and other monsters don't exist in a vacuum. They create ripples, if you will, in the world around them. The PCs should be able to read these "ripples" to learn something of the creature they're facing, before it comes time to face them.

Not always, mind you. Sometimes you just stumble onto a nest of cockatrice.

 

[Monte At Home]

If you read the 3.x edition DMG, you get the impression that the writer thinks the reader is too stupid to conduct a game with the grace and elegance that the author himself most certainly does, and so instead of writing 'peer to peer', he lays down some really juvenile guidelines for how to run a campaign designed to get say a 12 year old kid up and running as a reasonable DM on his way to maturity.

Maybe he felt that the 12 year old needed the advice more than the 30 year veteran did. It would certainly seem that there are worse things to do with a core book than to get "a 12 year old kid up and running as a reasonable DM on his way to maturity." In fact, I'm not sure I could come up with better wording for a goal for the basic book on DMing.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

This is certainly one of the nastier threads I've seen on ENWorld in a while. If I wanted to enjoy this level of Schadenfreude I would've lurked the World of Warcraft forums.

Hardly surprising, considering the kind of stock of posters we get here these days. Not like the ones we had back in the AD&D days, when every race, class, alignment and hair color had their own XP tables, class caps and secret hand wriggles and we walked up hill both ways in the snow and liked it.

Fixed that for you.

Today's gamer's don't even know what weapon speeds, THAC0 or 3/2 attacks per turn means...

And have no idea how lucky they are.

 

[Agamemnon]

Indeed. The Core Rulebook is supposed to cater to everyone. Not you, not me, not Bob down the street. EVERYONE. In large, friendly letters. I'm surprised they didn't write "DON'T PANIC" on the inside cover of the DMG. It'd be helpful advice for every starter-up in the path to DM-ness.

 

[Celebrim]

Maybe he felt that the 12 year old needed the advice more than the 30 year veteran did. It would certainly seem that there are worse things to do with a core book than to get "a 12 year old kid up and running as a reasonable DM on his way to maturity." In fact, I'm not sure I could come up with better wording for a goal for the basic book on DMing.

I believe that I already agreed with that point back in post #148, but I'm flattered that you are following along.

My point was not so much that this was a bad idea, but that it had an unintended consequence.

 

[Belen]

How does this look in practice? If it's players saying "we spend a lot of time gathering info and finding those involved in secret markets" and you replying "OK, you found a guy who's willing to give you 18,000 for that +1 unholy greatclub" how is it different from just walking into a "magic shop"?

If it involves actually playing out all the conversations even though nothing exciting happens, isn't it just boring?

If it involves actually playing out all the conversations and interesting stuff happens, isn't this interesting just adventuring as usual, with occasional stop to buy and sell magic items (when you finally find these secret markets)? And isn't that how it usually looks in a game where people willing to buy and sell magic aren't secret?

Usually, it involves them actually finding someone. They may have to grease a fews hands with gold etc. I always connect them to an adventure/encounter of some sort. Most of the time, they cannot find a buyer.

I give out plenty of cash though and magic items are just rare in my world. I have not had anyone willing to part with one in a long time.

For most treasures, I give out other items like art, jewels, deeds to land, mundame items that are fairly cool.

My campaigns are not low-magic either. The PCs usually find items that tend to grow more powerful or start our fairly powerful.

It works for me.