Characters defined by "their stuff"

[Deadguy]

Another thought which crosses my mind is that we are very hung up on the word magic. Calling something magical seems to make people instantly say 'rare', 'secret', 'ancient' and 'unique'. Indeed, it often seems that some people want each and every non-consumable item to be essentially equivalent to an Artifact, if not in power then in its nature. Now that's all fine and dandy, and echoes the mythological feel that some people want from a fantasy game. Unfortunately, that game isn't standard D&D (of any

Now there's still a niche for the truly potent items to fall into that category. However for the many other items a PC normally acquires, like cloaks of resistance and rings of protection, it might be better to think of these things as finely (and yes magically) crafted tools that support a character in what he does. For a high level PC, I find it helps to make the comparison with a wealthy dilettante. He has his Ferrari, his ocean-going yacht or his priceless art collection, which are things that help define him and his personality. But he also owns an exceptional watch, a good mobile phone, and lives in a house with all the modern conveniences like home theatre and food processors. These latter things aren't part of his identity, they're just things that go with his status and make his life more comfortable (and safe). So with the high level PC (who is really the person we are complaining about since low level PCs have relatively few items). The HLPC owns 'stuff' that makes adventuring at that level possible. And he also owns a handful of things that are the noteworthy items that tales of his exploits latch on to... Archmage Avogerrin and his Silver Staff, Sir Hewin with his Coruscating Greathammer, Nightfall, and the Armour of the Black Drake, etc.

See what I mean? Perhaps we shouldn't try and attach the same importance to every magic item... that way we have legendary figures who are able to adventure successfully in the D&D milieu! edition really).

 

[hong]

Very good point Wally, and one I was about ready to state, but you beat me to the punch. Yes, while some mythological characters were identified by a powerful artifact, they were not walking piles of magical gadgets like D&D characters.

Start at 6th level. Go on grand, epic adventure, find legendary magic item.

Reach 7th level. Go on slightly more grand, epic adventure, find slightly more legendary magic item.

Reach 8th level. Go on yet more grand, epic adventure, find yet more legendary magic item.

Etcetera. It has always been thus in D&D, regardless of edition. From the point of view of the "character is identified with a powerful artifact" trope, 3E's setup simply takes it to its logical conclusion when applied to extended play. In fact, rules allowing for item upgrading mean that 3E actually supports this trope to a much greater extent than previous editions.

And I think that is what most folks who don't like the characters=items problem object to. Magic items should be something special and valuable, not something that is ASSUMED to be possessed by characters.

A 10th level character is special. Depending on class, they can raise people from the dead, or teleport across the planet, or climb a vertical wall, or wade through a battalion of orcs. It's entirely reasonable to assume that such a character is, indeed, going to have special and valuable items, unless the ability to raise people from the dead is commonplace in your world.

D&D doesn't have any mythological or legendary flavor to it now (although its based on them), but instead has carved out its own genre of magic-happy looters and pillagers.

I blame Robert E. Heinlein's Conan.

In that sense, the rules encourage PCs to gather as many magic items as quickly as they can, while neglecting the personality of the character himself. Its become much more about the cool powerups a character can get and much less about how the character fits into and interacts with the world.

Designing a world that a character can fit into and interact with, is entirely orthogonal to the issue of items.

And because this topic was also old two years ago, here is another random picture of a dinosaur.

 

[Plane Sailing]

lots of stuff in a colour I can't read...

Deadguy,

Any chance of posting in standard text rather than a fancy colour? I find your comments very hard to read.

Ta.

 

[hong]

Hm, yeah, that cyan colour doesn't really work with Stealth.

 

[Deadguy]

Deadguy,

Any chance of posting in standard text rather than a fancy colour? I find your comments very hard to read.

Ta.

Sorry. It was because I couldn't get Stealth to work on my machine before that I ended up using cyan - my steup defaults to black on black in EN World standard! Anyway what I said in my two posts were:

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Another thought which crosses my mind is that we are very hung up on the word magic. Calling something magical seems to make people instantly say 'rare', 'secret', 'ancient' and 'unique'. Indeed, it often seems that some people want each and every non-consumable item to be essentially equivalent to an Artifact, if not in power then in its nature. Now that's all fine and dandy, and echoes the mythological feel that some people want from a fantasy game. Unfortunately, that game isn't standard D&D (of any edition really).

Now there's still a niche for the truly potent items to fall into that category. However for the many other items a PC normally acquires, like cloaks of resistance and rings of protection, it might be better to think of these things as finely (and yes magically) crafted tools that support a character in what he does. For a high level PC, I find it helps to make the comparison with a wealthy dilettante. He has his Ferrari, his ocean-going yacht or his priceless art collection, which are things that help define him and his personality. But he also owns an exceptional watch, a good mobile phone, and lives in a house with all the modern conveniences like home theatre and food processors. These latter things aren't part of his identity, they're just things that go with his status and make his life more comfortable (and safe). So with the high level PC (who is really the person we are complaining about since low level PCs have relatively few items). The HLPC owns 'stuff' that makes adventuring at that level possible. And he also owns a handful of things that are the noteworthy items that tales of his exploits latch on to... Archmage Avogerrin and his Silver Staff, Sir Hewin with his Coruscating Greathammer, Nightfall, and the Armour of the Black Drake, etc.

See what I mean? Perhaps we shouldn't try and attach the same importance to every magic item... that way we have legendary figures who are able to adventure successfully in the D&D milieu!

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Re-reading my reply, Gothmog, does make me sound more angry than I actually meant it to be. It's just that I've heard the complaint too many times not to feel slightly annoyed, since it isn't my experience. But I can see how it might become so. And certainly I am more of a Gamist when I play D&D than, say, Earthdawn or Mage: the Sorcerers Crusade. I can't easily explain why, other than perhaps detailed rules encourage me to use that detail. It's not even that I really disagree with you that PCs need too many items to stay ahead of the curve.

More generally, D&D labours under the sacred cow of the power of high level Spellcasters, particularly Wizards. Their growth in power is exponential (getting both more slots and more powerful spells), and their top level abilities are very strong indeed. To compete with them we either need to accept magic items or we need to come to terms with a more fantastical feel for high level PCs all round, where combats run more like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The only other alternative (and actually the one I favour) is to rework the high level casters, so their power doesn't grow so sharply. In return they need to get more mileage from the spells they do have available to them. But that would really take a reworking of the rules on a par with the 2E -> 3E transition!

In the meantime, I can live with the standard approach (at least I have a baseline to compare with), whilst tweaking things somewhat.

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Hoping that that helps!

 

[Snoweel]

How about this:

Try running a combat between a 10th level character with 1st level standard equipment and a 1st level character with equipment appropriate to a 10th level character.

Make them both Fighters.

See what happens...

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Next D&D game I run, I'm going to be using levelled items and possibly some extension of natural "superpowers", to cut down on the whole item madness. (Probably also going to be using Gestalt rules-- I might simply allow the Hero class from 4C2F to be available for Gestalts.)

I hate the stuff dependency as much as anyone else-- my games have always been very low on magic items.

 

[Altalazar]

Sometimes I gotta wonder...

We have people complaining about "stuff dependence" and wanting to get rid of all items, magical or otherwise.

Then we have people complaining about "high" level magic (really anything over 2nd level spells) and how they ought to be eliminated and how characters are too powerful and need to be retired after 4th level.

So if you take away the personal power and the "power" of items, what do you have left?

Why not just dump the game and the dice altogether?
Play LARP with the amber system?

Is James Bond a wimp because he has Q-branch?

Some DMs just need to admit that they only have fun when the characters are half-naked, wearing rags, groveling in the dirt for the chance to kill a kobold and find a copper piece and then can make a bone-knife out of the kobold's leg bone that is -6 to hit and does 1d2 damage, half strength bonus, with a 50% chance to shatter on impact. Because that is "challenging" - while for some reason, a magical sparing match at 15th level with a squad of sorcere/ogre mages is too "easy".

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Some DMs just need to admit that they only have fun when the characters are half-naked, wearing rags, groveling in the dirt for the chance to kill a kobold and find a copper piece and then can make a bone-knife out of the kobold's leg bone that is -6 to hit and does 1d2 damage, half strength bonus, with a 50% chance to shatter on impact. Because that is "challenging" - while for some reason, a magical sparing match at 15th level with a squad of sorcere/ogre mages is too "easy".

In my case, it's not that at all-- indeed, I like the characters having a lot of magic at their disposal, as long as they're casting spells. As long as they're making the magic, not wearing it.

My post mentioned that I'm looking for ways of upgunning the characters so that they don't require all the magic items-- giving them special abilities that are a part of them, instead of a part of their gear. That's a far cry from kobold leg bones and begging for copper.

 

[HeavyG]

Achilles was a walking pile of magic himself. Not only was he dipped in the River Styx, his armor, shield, helmet, etc all had their own histories and special tales of their forging.

Achilles was completely invulnerable except for his heel, right ?

Does the legend explain why he needed super-duper armor, shield and helmet then ?