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

[Ridley's Cohort]

Instead of doing away with one or the other, or relying slowly on price increases and decreases, I believe the best solution is to combine the static bonuses with unique special abilities. I think it satisfies both perspectives quite well.

That has potential as part of the solution IMO. But I think the fundamental issue is the pricing scheme.

Simple boring items tend to be very attractive when weighed by the gold piece over almost everything that is multifunction or interesting.

What you are talking about already does happen...around about 17th level when you have everything slot filled with a +4 item or better and you are looking for the next cool thing.

The open questions is why would my 1st-10th level PC want anything non-boring in the RAW and comon campaign assumptions?

 

[MerricB]

Because they're so ing expensive! That's exactly my point. It's absurd to say "people get stuff which is useful, regardless of price". People get stuff which is useful, sure. But useful is a function of (among other things) price.

It is.

The *cost* of a ring of wizardry is primarily in the Gold cost. The slot cost is pretty much nothing. There's no activation cost. So the real cost of a ring of wizardry boils down to what the gold cost is... and it's too much.

Meanwhile, the main cost of a ring of the ram or similar items is in the activation cost. Do you want to spend your round using the ring, casting a spell or hitting someone in your sword? It has to line up.

The GP cost really becomes a function of what level the item is most useful at... and the addition of "Item Level" (being the level an item should be found in treasure) is an excellent part of the MIC.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

The open questions is why would my 1st-10th level PC want anything non-boring in the RAW and comon campaign assumptions?

Anything that gives an ability that
(a) is comparable to the other abilities they have, and
(b) doesn't detract from the Big 6
is worthwhile.

At 5th level, a cloak of flight, that allows you to cast the fly spell 1/day on yourself, and costing about 2,000 gp, is an interesting item. Not wearing a +1 cloak of resistance isn't too bad at that level, and having the flight option is really nice. The 2,000 gp cost reflects what is available at that level.

By 12th level, with the mass fly spell available, and the +4 cloak of resistance and better available, that item is no longer that interesting.

Cheers!

 

[Remathilis]

I've heard (and I don't own nor will I for a while yet) that the MIC has rules for integrating the "big six" (or at least parts of them) into other "kewl" items. I think thats a great start.

Think of it like this. The big six aren't "items" they are types of enchantments.

1.) An enhancement bonus to your weapon or natural attack to hit and do more damage.
2.) An enhancement bonus to your armor (or magical armor-like defense) to bump your AC.
3.) A resistance bonus to your saves.
4.) An Enhancement bonus to one of your ability score, typically your primary.
5.) A deflection bonus to your AC.
6.) An Augment of your Natural Armor.

Now, if the MIC allows you to (modestly) add these features to other items, you solve both problems.

A Cloak of the Bat that adds +2 to saves.
An Amulet of Health that adds to Natural Armor
Gloves of missile snaring that augment your dex.
A floaty shield of repulsion that both enhances your shield AC and grants a deflection bonus...
Bracers of Armor with Spell Resistance 21
A TRUE Cloak of Protection (Enhancement AC and Resistance Saves)

 

[I'm A Banana]

The DM's obligation is to be fair, respectful, impartial, considerate, and to entertain. That's it.

And entertaining some people means giving them the glittery +1 sword and letting them take the easy way out (at least once in a while). And entertaining people sometimes means withholding that +1 sword until AFTER they get past something.

Because God knows nobody ever gets out of the dungeon and adventures in a city, or creates a campaign that deals with nobles and politics, or has better things to do with the the treasure they bled for than chunk it down the magic item creation rat-hole. I've had a few characters that accomplished more good, saved more lives, and won more honor over dinner than others accomplished by spending their lives plundering dark pits and ancient ruins and cutting down waves of orcs.

Good for you, use your words!

But are they spending 12,000 gp on solid gold braces, or are they using their natural charisma and charm (and maybe just not looking like a scary wild man in a cloak of charisma)?

But then you get adventures and campaigns like that when you step back and consider a game world as you would a living, breathing setting rather than just a backdrop. I certainly don't want to go back to the days where The City or The Town was just a place to get healed up and buy some extra pitons.

It's not going back to anything. Sometimes, the City or the Town *is* just a place to get healed up and buy some extra potions. There's definitely nothing that says it has to be anything more, if that's not the style.

But either way, spending such ludicrous amounts of gold on a night on the town seems out of the realm of even pseudo-realism, when you'll get up the next day and get in a life-or-death fight and not have all the magical protection and doodads that all that gold could've given you.

 

[MerricB]

From the Wizards thread on the contents of the MIC...
"How about the vanisher cloak, which you can use to turn invisible three times a day? Oh, and did I mention, it's a fraction of the cost of the ring, so that 7th level characters can afford it?"
http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=805754&page=4

Cheers!

 

[hbarsquared]

A Cloak of the Bat that adds +2 to saves.
An Amulet of Health that adds to Natural Armor
Gloves of missile snaring that augment your dex.
A floaty shield of repulsion that both enhances your shield AC and grants a deflection bonus...
Bracers of Armor with Spell Resistance 21
A TRUE Cloak of Protection (Enhancement AC and Resistance Saves)

Exactly!

I know the MIC doesn't have a new item creation pricing scheme, but I heard that it does have pricing for methods of augmenting items (besides just the crystals). I could be wrong...

But I hope that the MIC introduces a balanced way to create just the types of customizable, useful, and fun items above.

 

[Kerrick]

FREX, the DM might like to drop in a +1 Sword of Frost Fire-type Bane because it fits the NPC and might make an interesting/useful backup weapon in the long haul. But the PC is probably thinking: "Sweet! I can cash that out for 9000 gp and I can afford to upgrade my gauntlets from +2 to +4."

Seems like a pretty extreme example to me, but then, I've never seen someone say that.

Because they're so [bleep]ing expensive! That's exactly my point. It's absurd to say "people get stuff which is useful, regardless of price". People get stuff which is useful, sure. But useful is a function of (among other things) price.

Okay, maybe I exaggerated a bit. But value!= price. Value is a function of price and utility. If the rings of wizardry cost half what they do now, they might be more valuable, but the simple fact of the matter is, the CLs for those things are way too high, as Merric pointed out - by the time you can make a ring of wizardry IV, you're casting 9th level spells, and a couple extra 4th level spells just aren't going to be as useful at that level (certainly not worth 100K gp). If the CLs were dropped by, say, 5-7 levels, then they might be more valuable.

As for buying things no matter the price: how many times have you seen people save up money to buy something that's really expensive, but that's either really cool or something they really need/want? If they've got a horde of less- (or not) useful items, they're going to dump those off too, getting the best price they can for them, most times, so they can get more money to buy the one big really cool thing. I'm not saying it happens all the time - it doesn't. But it does happen.

 

[Arnwyn]

and the addition of "Item Level" (being the level an item should be found in treasure) is an excellent part of the MIC.

Really? I think I missed this.

That's pretty darn awesome, and is worth the price of the MIC right there, for me.

 

[Kestrel]

Ditto!