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

[Felon]

I don't think that that follows from what I wrote. I assume that all players, bad roleplayers and good ones, want better AC and better weapons and better saves. Naturally, you want things that increase your players survivability. What I'm pointing out as annoying to me is the demand that they recieve these things (and exactly these things), else they just aren't going to play.

For example, I'd have absolutely no problem with a DM that made magic hideously rare, so much so that a 12th level character prized his ring of +2 bonus to stealth and masterwork battleaxe. That's perfectly sane and interesting as far as I'm concerned, so long as the DM also understands that the longer such a campaign goes on, the more that it will lag magic heavy campaigns in the challenges it can cope with. But, there is nothing at all inherently wrong with not getting magic items and having to solve problems with ropes, 10' poles, small sacks, lock picks, spikes, hammers, a trusty battleaxe and your wits.

The big problem with this whole line of thinking as I see it is this: most DM's just aren't that polished. They don't have their heads in the game deep enough to grasp the full consequences of all their little off-the-cuff house rules. They don't come to ENWorld and read threads about the way a good DM should think. Your bar is unrealistically high.

 

[Agamemnon]

The big problem with this whole line of thinking as I see it is this: most DM's just aren't that polished. They don't have their heads in the game deep enough to grasp the full consequences of all their little off-the-cuff house rules. They don't come to ENWorld and read threads about the way a good DM should think. Your bar is unrealistically high.

I think it's beside the point if the DMs aren't up to the task. I'd rather we didn't have a game that had to bend over backwards to cater to the lowest common denominator.

The bar might be high, but no matter where we put it, there always will be bad DMs and bad players. So why not put it high enough to make sense for the rest of us? Although I do admit that's rather Darwinian of me to say.

 

[Mallus]

Maximize the Fun.

Stop making sense.

What I've seen, though, is this: By and large, players like magic items. They like being able to get them, and quite often they have something specific to their character that they would like to obtain.

On the other hand, players also like to use magic items in odd, inventive, and ... who am I kidding... idiotic ways. They love the freedom to use the wrong tools to solve a problem. This happens more often in campaigns where they can't always buy the right ones.

Oh, and by 'solve' I mean 'kill'.

I've nothing against playing D&D in the manner of Tom Clancy-fancying accountants, but that approach has it's own share of drawbacks. The way I see it, it's not denying players the items they want, it's offering them a kind of enjoyment they didn't know they wanted.

Which may be arrogant of me. Oh well...

Even if I myself am not altogether fond of the notion of magic shops...

Try giving them names that are obnoxious puns.

 

[The Human Target]

Interesting to who? To you?

Figurine of owlish power might be interesting to the DM, or maybe a ranger, but my Sorcerer couldnt care less about it. Yet it still counts against my wealth as though it were a useful item, and the Colossal Red Dragon now is apparently a fair fight, since I meet the wealth by level guidelines...with my owl.

I think you just won the thread.

 

[Celebrim]

The big problem with this whole line of thinking as I see it is this: most DM's just aren't that polished. They don't have their heads in the game deep enough to grasp the full consequences of all their little off-the-cuff house rules. They don't come to ENWorld and read threads about the way a good DM should think. Your bar is unrealistically high.

It's not unrealistically high. My bar is realistically high. My bar was set high by playing with and being mentored by good players.

Is it unrealistic to think that a 12 year old can do that without help? Yeah, definately. My adventure designs at age 12 were really immature (to say nothing of what they were at age 9 when I first grabbed up a red box set and played with my 3rd grade friends). My DMing style was nonexistant and defaulted to pretty much hack-and-slash, rince repeat, dicing sessions. My RP ability didn't exist until an older DM coaxed it out of me, and showed me how to run an emmersive story and taught me by example how much better a game could be if ran in that fashion. Not that I wasn't having fun before hand, but the bar did go up...

I would have just liked a little more mention of rule 0 and where the game can head from its default guidelines. That's all. The problem is in a way that 3rd edition suffers from its own good design, in that its such a good design, new players tend to be of the opinion that its holy canon or something rather than just pretty good guidelines.

 

[shmoo2]

I’m talking about the hundreds upon hundreds of never-used magic items littering sourcebooks throughout the last six-plus years of the game.

This is true of every single character resource presented in D&D source books.

How many players choose feats like Animal Affinity, Breath Control, True Believer, Tunnel Rat, or Grenadier instead of Power Attack, Weapon Specialization, Empower Spell, Spell Focus, Quicken Spell or Improved Critical?

This is true of spells also- Clerics are given free access to their class spell list to allow them to take the limited application but sometimes vital spells like Remove Disease or Remove Curse when needed.
Most sorcerer builds probably have a 'big 6' list of spells taken.

Players will always try to choose optimal choices from a set of limited resources- in fact that is part of the fun of the game for most players, I would bet.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My own solution to the Big Six problem is as follows.

1) I try to base encounters more on what I know of my players then what the CR guidelines dictate. Generally, I try not to make the lack of specific types of items a Death Penalty offense.

2) I tend to let my players purchase appropriate magic items within reason. Past a certain point, it will take more then showing up somewhere with a bunch of cash to get certain items.

3) I will usually avoid throwing around +X weapons or Armour, instead throwing around +y Items with secondary abilities (Such as bane or burst weapons). This gives you the same tuning options you have with respect to Clerics vs Undead.

4) While I wont strip magic items, I will not hesitate to bust out with Sunder, or to have a Villain disarm then have a lackey steal a weapon in combat and then run off. Player gear is not entirely sacred.

Still, I will admit that I have not yet had any campaigns get to a point where item saturation starts to become a problem.

Anyway, I consider this problem to be not much of a surprise. 3rd edition did a great job of making the stats tie into the game better. But given that the game is heavily combat driven, it should be of no surprise that items that have the most impact on combat are the most effective?

The only way I can see to break up the big 6 is to introduce items that compete against them slot wise but provide wildly different (but still useful abilities). Items that do the following either dont exist or are hard to find:

- Provide Damage Reduction
- Provide Spell Resistance
- Provide Fast Healing
- Provide a bonus feat or a +X bonus if you have that feat already when equiped
- Provide extra attacks (ie: A sword that gives a free attack vs some Monster subtype)
- Cast spells on opponent on some hits (ie: Daze, Slow, Charm Person, Heat Metal, Reduce Person)

Another way to cure this is to give some of the big 6 tradeoff properties. A cloak that lets someone drop Bab into Saves is a no brainer for Wizards, but for a Front liner? Gain Str at the cost of Dex or Int? That is a harder choice.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Schmoe]

That makes three of us, now, in this thread.

I think we're officially a conspiracy.

If you would please look to your left, the men in black suits would like a word with you.

 

[Technik4]

I do appreciate the dig, though. Also, that level 17 game culminated in me becoming a lich, and I do frequent D&D message boards, so I've also heard that Medusa's turn people to stone, and high level mages cast disintegrate, and even that drow have spell resistance. Call me crazy.

Crazy.

It's silly to try and tell people you don't read books and therefore don't have any knowledge of what capabilities items and monsters have and then in the same post outline how certain items have no applicability against certain monsters' special attacks.

This isn't a thread arguing about your ability (or lack thereof) to roleplay, it's about magical items. Some people want a campaign where they may only have 1 magic item by level 10. It's true. The fact that you were in such a campaign and didn't properly convey to the DM that you were unhappy is your problem, not 3rd edition's. Other people want campaigns where they have the amount of wealth outlined by the DM when they hit each level, and the ability to barter/trade/sell/create an item build to their specifications. When they whine, it is not the books (and the guidelines in the books) that are the problem, its the expectations the player may have after reading said books. There's a good reason the wealth by level chart is in the DMG, not the PHB (along with Prestige Classes).

The system can handle both situations, but the first (low magical item distribution with limited access to 'magical shops') puts the onus of Challenge balancing even more on the DM than usual. A rule can't be created to make everyone happy - it takes everyone present and their willingness to compromise for that to happen. If you and your DM can't find common ground, find a new DM.

I think you can see what Andy Collins is talking about if you take a look at any of the 'notable' NPCs found in campaign sourcebooks (like FRCS, Eberron, etc). Rarely will such characters have narrow items (owl figurines), and almost always will they have magical weapons and armor, and a few potions. This is so that if a DM picks them from the book for a fight, they're ready to go (generally speaking).

Much like Mr Cook outlined on his site with regards to spells (that certain spell effects are balanced many times per day, but others should be picked each day and then used up) the item balancing needs a deep analysis. In one sense a magical item that lets you teleport three times per day is powerful. But, no one is going to feel that way until they are happy with their basic gear for their level (ie- a 10th level barbarian whose sole item is a Cloak of Teleportation will not be too powerful, especially against foes with DR). The whole structure of loot (beyond rule 0 of course, DMs should always have the right to distribute as they see fit) needs to be restructured to better reflect what it means to be a certain level.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

So, since I play in pretty non-convetional settings/games, explain something to me:

Your characters all have to toe some invisible line on wealth? You have this glass cieling, right? And ALL of it goes in for magic items, whether or not they are useful? If you meet a certian wealth, a red dragon is suddenly a viable opponent?

What's he doing, running credit checks on characters before attacking them?

"Is that Gorgo the Destroyer with one O or two?"


I thought the wealth by level for for creating a high level NPC, as a rough guide. It's in the NPC section, isn't it for the NPC's?

Do characters really have to abide by this wealth by level table? What about investing in a stronghold or manor? What about spreading around the juice to bribe officials, to make contacts, to outright OWN a member of the King's Military Procurement Board?

Is all of that taken into acoount? Did the $5K spent on bribing officials to allow the Necromancer to keep tabs on every corpse coming through the Grand Mortuary count toward this total wealth?

Is that ALL the wealth the PC's are supposed to be able to gain by that level?

I'll admit, I ignore the wealth by level for the PC's, and use it when making the basic NPC's, but you mean to tell me that people seem to think that the wealth table applies to PC's?

If so, then were is the NPC wealth by level? You can't tell me that Jongo the 10th level Commoner should even have CLOSE to the wealth of Gorgo the 10th Level fighter.

Jongo hasn't braved crypts, Gorgo hasn't had to give 80% of his income and harvest to Lord Imadoofus.

Trying to put wealth by level restrictions is ridiculous.

You're trying to tell me that a 10th level commoner should have the same wealth as a 10th level aristocrat, and both of them should be equal in wealth to a 10th level fighter who has braved the unknown and looted forgotten tombs.

And when you look at it like that, it's just plain stupid.