Banning the Big Six

[am181d]

For my current 3.5 campaign, I've decided to ban the Big Six magic items: no stat boosting items, no weapons with bonuses to hit or damage, no armor or other items that convey AC bonuses.

They're still at 2nd level, so I haven't decided whether I'll be giving them level-up bonuses to BAB, Damage, AC, abilities, etc. or if I'll just scale monster threats down.

I *will* have magic weapons and armor with special abilities. And I *may* make a few exceptions: with this approach, a single +1 or +2 weapon could have a bigger impact much later in the campaign. ("I can throw my sword and it returns to me AND it's +1???")

I'd love to hear folks' thoughts on this. Anyone else tried anything like this? Potential pitfalls? Does this unfairly penalize non-spellcasters? Or spellcasters?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Does this unfairly penalize non-spellcasters?

Yes.

 

[Dandu]

I'd love to hear folks' thoughts on this. Anyone else tried anything like this? Potential pitfalls? Does this unfairly penalize non-spellcasters? Or spellcasters?

I can send a stark naked sorceress into the maw of hell and have her come out victorious. Can you do so with a monk?

 

[Rampant]

The vast majority of monsters, especially at higher levels, have abyssmal defense vs. touch attacks. So loosing a to hit bonus from the dex items is nothing.

The increase to DCs for the save spells is a little more of a loss, but not enough to really slow the mages down.

On the other hand the weapon users are struggling just to land hits, to say nothing of dealing damage. They loose weapon bonus, and ability boosters, and most high level monsters are chock full of armor or natural armor, to say nothing of damage reduction.

That's one of the major complaints I had with my first DM, he ran low treasure campaigns so unless you picked up a whole bunch of bonded items everyone but the mage started being useless.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I can send a stark naked sorceress into the maw of hell and have her come out victorious.

You really need a better character portrait. More high res or something...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I'd like to ask what appears to me to be the obvious first question:

Why have you chosen to ban these items?

 

[am181d]

On the other hand the weapon users are struggling just to land hits, to say nothing of dealing damage. They loose weapon bonus, and ability boosters, and most high level monsters are chock full of armor or natural armor, to say nothing of damage reduction.

Well, as a reminder: "They're still at 2nd level, so I haven't decided whether I'll be giving them level-up bonuses to BAB, Damage, AC, abilities, etc. or if I'll just scale monster threats down."

So I'm not really worried about this. I'm thinking I may increase weapon damage dice as PCs level to keep some parity with the spellcasters.

I feel like Wizards laid out an approach to this at some point during 3.5, but I can't remember if it was in a book (UA?) or a web feature...

 

[Dandu]

You really need a better character portrait. More high res or something...

Check your PM box.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That sounds dirty.

You should lessen the stigma and send it to his AM box, too.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

So that way he can give it to two boxes simultaneously!

Still sounds dirty...