Can someone explain to me what 'Christmas Tree effect' means?

[Ahrimon]

I never heard it before 3e. Everything before was called a Monte Haul campaign.

 

[FireLance]

In OD&D to 2nd AD&D high level characters could have the effect and it would just mean they had a lot of magic items. For example, a high level fighter could have one or more magic weapons, a suit of magic armor, a magic shield, a belt of giant strength, a gauntlets of ogre power, a pair of winged boots, a magic helm and a smattering of wondrous items. If you took all of that away the fighter could still fight (though they would have trouble with enemies that needed magic weapons to hit)

On the other hand, to have a viable/effective character in 3.X you pretty much had to wear a specific set of items depending on your class and that most of these would be stat boosters.

It's actually a more subtle point than that. Even in 3.XE and 4E, strictly speaking, you don't need magic items to be "effective" - after all, you could just take on lower CR or lower level challenges.

This is effectively the same situation as it was in 2E and earlier editions. The only difference is that there are now CR/level guidelines which let you know what challenges your character ought to be able to handle if he was equipped with level-appropriate gear, and which he will have a harder time managing if he does happen to be under-equipped.

 

[Jared Rascher]

I blame Perseus.

That guy had a magic helm, a sack, sword, shield, and sandals.

I mean, Theseus had to go all old school when he was forging his myth.

 

[Tallifer]

"Christmas Tree" doesn't refer to high-loot games. "CT" specifically refers to the need for lots of items to be effective.

In 3E, you would have needed all that stuff to be effective. In 4E, if your Warlord lost most of it, he would still be an effective character. That was the design change WotC tried and IMO successfully implemented for 4E.

I always assumed that "Christmas tree" simply referred to the amount of shiny stuff decorating a character. It sounds like you might be saying that 3rd edition was more like a MMORPG, in which every slot must be filled in order to get the maximum bonuses possible in order to survive a player-vs-player fight. (Having only played OD&D, AD&D and 4e, I do not know.)

It is true that most of my warlord's items are to make him more versatile and fun to play. He is content with a +2 sword and armour at level 12, if it means he can have many other interesting toys.

 

[MarkB]

I never heard it before 3e. Everything before was called a Monte Haul campaign.

"Monty Haul", as I understand it, refers more to a campaign with a higher-than-normal level of monetary and item treasure rewards, rather than the need to actually keep and equip a large number of those items in order to be effective. The two terms are related, but distinct.

 

[Ahrimon]

"Monty Haul", as I understand it, refers more to a campaign with a higher-than-normal level of monetary and item treasure rewards, rather than the need to actually keep and equip a large number of those items in order to be effective. The two terms are related, but distinct.

True, but pre 3e I never saw anyone with a need to keep and equip a large number of items. Having a lot was nice, but I've seen numerous characters get by just fine with four or five into the late teens. 3e characters seemed to need arround 10 or so items to be effective at higher levels by my understanding. I never made it past 14th, so my knowledge is all acedotal at this point.

So, while monty haul characters cirtainly glowed like christmas trees under a detect magic, they weren't christmas tree characters because those items weren't required.

That's how I see it anyway.

 

[Klaus]

Yeah, but 1e and 2e had to include limits of the Paladin's magic items to enforce their "monastic" nature. So a Paladin had to make do with only... 10 magic items!

 

[Joshua Randall]

Part of the reason the Christmas Tree effect exists is that it is grossly inefficient to leave an item slot unfilled, if you can fill it.

Filling all your item slots makes your character stronger with no downside.

Not filling all your item slots makes your character weaker with no upside.

Thus, even if you're not an optimizer or min/max'er, you're going to intuit that you want to fill all your slots, and do so when you can.

I personally don't have a problem with the Christmas Tree effect -- it's part of the game to me -- but if you wanted to reduce it, you would need to break the two statements above.

Let there be a downside to filling all your slots.
Let there be an upside to leaving slots open.

Then you will see trees with some bare branches, to mangle the metaphor.

 

[Stoat]

"Monty Haul", as I understand it, refers more to a campaign with a higher-than-normal level of monetary and item treasure rewards, rather than the need to actually keep and equip a large number of those items in order to be effective. The two terms are related, but distinct.

True, but pre 3e I never saw anyone with a need to keep and equip a large number of items. Having a lot was nice, but I've seen numerous characters get by just fine with four or five into the late teens. 3e characters seemed to need arround 10 or so items to be effective at higher levels by my understanding. I never made it past 14th, so my knowledge is all acedotal at this point.

So, while monty haul characters cirtainly glowed like christmas trees under a detect magic, they weren't christmas tree characters because those items weren't required.

That's how I see it anyway.

Part of the challenge when talking about this issue pre-3E is that TSR didn't really provide a guideline for expected wealth-by-level or gear-by-level. There was a general admonition not to be Monty Haul, but no clear explanation of how much magic was too much. It's clear to me that different groups had very different experiences and expectations.

In my campaigns (all 2nd Edition, starting in 1989 and going to 2000), most players wound up with one or more magic weapons, magic armor, possibly a magic shield, a ring of protection/cloak of protection and a handful of miscellaneous stuff. Fewer items than 3E's Big Six, but more than two or three.

 

[Mad Hamish]

I never heard it before 3e. Everything before was called a Monte Haul campaign.

Monte Haul was more lots of loot with very little risk.
So the GM wasn't challenging characters but was giving out lots of loot.