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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 1387297" data-attributes="member: 114">I read the following on the WotC site, the latest in their &quot;nasty surprises&quot; column&nbsp;It reminds me of a perceptive comment made, I believe, by Numion some while ago about the unfortunate degree to which characters are defined by &quot;their stuff&quot; in D&amp;D, and that sometimes a line of continuity is drawn through a PC's stuff rather than his life (especially if there isn't a raising from the dead but instead a new character who gets given the old characters stuff, which may happen in some cases!)It bothers me.One of the things that drove me away from D&amp;D in the 80's was that most PCs' game abilities (not RP personalities etc) were literally defined by their magic items. One of the things that was most appealing about 3e was that the feats and skills allowed genuine differentiation between two characters with the same class in a way which wasn't really possible before. However, as time has gone on and higher levels have been reached in the game it seems clear that standard D&amp;D is predicated upon the PC's getting lots of &quot;stuff&quot;; high level challenges expect the PCs to have a certain amount of wealth in order to meet them.One of the bizarre side effects of this is that the stuff can become more important than the character. Death from 9th level onwards is a mere speedbump in the characters life (and from 17th level it isn't that since true resurrection applies no penalties at all), yet the spell Mordenkainens Disjunction has the ability to strip a party of its effectiveness and with no means of redress or recovery.It seems a little strange to have a situation where it might be common for a player to be more concerned about his PC losing his stuff than losing his life!Thankfully the DMG etc encourages DM's to change things as they wish for their own campaigns, but even so - this baseline to D&amp;D leaves me feeling a little sad. After all these years is D&amp;D still mostly about &quot;the stuff&quot;?Cheers</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 1387297, member: 114"] I read the following on the WotC site, the latest in their "nasty surprises" column It reminds me of a perceptive comment made, I believe, by Numion some while ago about the unfortunate degree to which characters are defined by "their stuff" in D&D, and that sometimes a line of continuity is drawn through a PC's stuff rather than his life (especially if there isn't a raising from the dead but instead a new character who gets given the old characters stuff, which may happen in some cases!) It bothers me. One of the things that drove me away from D&D in the 80's was that most PCs' game abilities (not RP personalities etc) were literally defined by their magic items. One of the things that was most appealing about 3e was that the feats and skills allowed genuine differentiation between two characters with the same class in a way which wasn't really possible before. However, as time has gone on and higher levels have been reached in the game it seems clear that standard D&D is predicated upon the PC's getting lots of "stuff"; high level challenges expect the PCs to have a certain amount of wealth in order to meet them. One of the bizarre side effects of this is that the stuff can become more important than the character. Death from 9th level onwards is a mere speedbump in the characters life (and from 17th level it isn't that since true resurrection applies no penalties at all), yet the spell Mordenkainens Disjunction has the ability to strip a party of its effectiveness and with no means of redress or recovery. It seems a little strange to have a situation where it might be common for a player to be more concerned about his PC losing his stuff than losing his life! Thankfully the DMG etc encourages DM's to change things as they wish for their own campaigns, but even so - this baseline to D&D leaves me feeling a little sad. After all these years is D&D still mostly about "the stuff"? Cheers [/QUOTE]

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