Confirmed: Magic items and summoned monster stats in PHB

[Raven Crowking]

You missed the point. "Running out of ammo" is NOT a consequence of playing a high fire rate character. Nobody runs out of ammo, ever, unless their DM is being more stingy with magical gear than the rulebook presumes.* And if he's doing that, you just end up with other, worse consequences.

According to one poster, from levels 1 to 5, a ranger plays a lot like the scout did in terms of ammunition conservation. You get a much more realistic feel in that band, where using up ammunition is a meaningful choice. So for these levels, the environment of the game provides a rewarding ammunition-counting experience.

I would add that, at higher levels, if you have to spend an action to retrieve arrows from a bag of holding, that is a material difference to the fight. Of course, I am both stingier and more generous with magic than most. You are not guaranteed to have X bags of holding by level Y (nor, quite honestly, does the game assume that this must be the case).

Nor, honestly, do I think that there is anything wrong with an archer PC having a retainer who hands him extra quivers and/or holds a shield to give that PC cover.


RC

 

[pukunui]

Two: Players can CREATE magic items. This is the more important one, IMO. In a world where the characters can create the silly things, it doesnt make sense to me that they dont get to look at what they're creating, cant see the requirements to create them, and dont even have the the faintest idea of what's even possible to create without having to crack open a new book.

This is an excellent point. The same could be said for traps, since the PCs could (theoretically at least) make traps, but they are in the DMG as well (and AFAIK will still be there in 4e). I wonder if the trap pricing scheme will be any better in 4e. It always struck me as totally bizarre that even a simple pit trap cost like a 1000gp or something. The cost of even the simplest traps in 3e totally put my group off making their own traps ever.

 

[Caliban]

Since the poster who objected to my "attitude" seems to have moved on, I'll pop back in.

LOL

 

[Hella_Tellah]

Indeed. This was one of my biggest gripes about 3E: the move away from language such as "ask your DM to see what may be available." The way the system was written, it took away a good deal of DM discretion. Taking number-crunching away from the DM isn't a bad thing, but reducing the emphasis on DM'ing skills is.

Sure, but not all of us adhere to that style of play. I'm a much less interventionist DM than I think you're used to, so if a player asks if they can buy an item or have a particular pet, my answer is almost always "Yes, You Can!" If a player is having an argument with an NPC in the NPC's living room, and she wants to threaten him with a a fire-poker, she doesn't need to ask if there's a fireplace. She says, "I grab the fire-poker from in front of the fireplace and wave it threateningly." I am the Barack Obama of DMs. Yes, You Can!

I say, put those options in the PHB so my players can see them, get excited, use them, and have fun. Leaving it to the DM to decide means I have to be more responsible for my players' happiness at the table; I prefer to have my players use the rules to amuse themselves and each other with pretty scant intervention on my part. I, for one, am happier when the game moves away from a top-down, monarchical style of DMing toward a group-consensus model. I've never had a player who abused my notion of social contract in games, never had a player who tried to eke out enormous rewards and outlandish power from the rules, and I don't need rulebooks that presume they'll try.

That said, I think it's as easy for me to ignore authoritarian wording in the rulebooks as it is for you to ignore permissive wording, provided your players share the concept of a social contract and play cooperatively and in good faith. Troublesome players may be slightly more dissuaded when the rulebooks are written to constrain them, but it's ultimately up to the DM, not the game designers, to curtail bad behavior at the table.

 

[Celebrim]

So how could potions be rare, yet have a price point orders of magnitude smaller?

I so don't want to get in this debate again. Suffice to they that I don't think that the market for magic items needs to be a free market. Why are Hellfire II missiles for sell, given that I can go down to several car dealerships in town who are selling more expensive products? It was the assumption of earlier editions that the market for magical items was for various reasons (whether of setting or game) quite different than the market for mundane items.

I mean, even in earlier editions, I remember that getting a potion of cure X from the local witchdoctor/shaman/herbologist NEVER cost anywhere near as much as plate mail.

In earlier editions, this was entirely the province of whichever DM you were under. I haven't found anything in the text of the 1st DMG that implies that any magic items are for sell for mere mundane gold. Quite the contrary, I find text that indicates that randomly generated magical items and those created by the PC's themselves are to be the only treasure available as a necessity of game balance. For example it is claimed that M-U's would be too powerful if they could readily equip themselves as they wished.

I'm not suggesting we need to exactly emulate earlier editions, but I am suggesting we shouldn't rule out play styles that emmulate the feel of earlier editions - whatever feel you happen to believe that to be.

 

[kennew142]

When you get down to it, the impression I get of 4e, as presented, is that every time combat breaks out, its time to stop roleplaying and push the minis about. And combat is being presented as 90+% of the game.

If that's what you want to do with the system more power to you. The impression I have of 4e, as presented, is that the combat mechanics will be easier, allowing for smoother game play, and will therefore encourage more role-play. The stated goal is to make combat take longer in rounds (i.e. game time), but less time in real time. No where has there been anything that can properly be construed as the new ediiton being 90% combat.

Many posters choose to take game mechanics they have decided that they will not like, contrue them in the cheesiest manner (the most antithetical to role-playing) possible, and then to argue against their strawman interpretation as if that were the way it was described by the designers. This type of argument is misleading at best, downright deceptive and malicious at worst.

 

[Celebrim]

This is an excellent point. The same could be said for traps, since the PCs could (theoretically at least) make traps, but they are in the DMG as well (and AFAIK will still be there in 4e). I wonder if the trap pricing scheme will be any better in 4e. It always struck me as totally bizarre that even a simple pit trap cost like a 1000gp or something. The cost of even the simplest traps in 3e totally put my group off making their own traps ever.

This is just one of any number of examples of D&D's problimatic history of basing prices on gamist necessity rather than simulation creation.

Knowing some of the players I've played with in the past, they'd use such rules to go into the 'pit construction business' - selling pit traps at 1000 gp each to desirous buyers, and profiting the difference. I think its safe to say that the price of materials and labor elsewhere implies that pit traps can be contructed more cheaply than that, so I can just imagine this pit trap construction business generating lots of income, undercutting the competition, and providing petty BBEG's with a sense of security. Meanwhile, the PC's would be dumping the profits into broken magical items implied by the rules to exist in every small town, and would soon leverage that into some horridly broken money making scheme.

Believe me, I've plenty of cause to hate D&D's economic rules. For instance, you should have seen the 'Endless Decanters of Water to the Desert' trading company they put together.

 

[kennew142]

In earlier editions, this was entirely the province of whichever DM you were under. I haven't found anything in the text of the 1st DMG that implies that any magic items are for sell for mere mundane gold. Quite the contrary, I find text that indicates that randomly generated magical items and those created by the PC's themselves are to be the only treasure available as a necessity of game balance. For example it is claimed that M-U's would be too powerful if they could readily equip themselves as they wished.

I'm not suggesting we need to exactly emulate earlier editions, but I am suggesting we shouldn't rule out play styles that emmulate the feel of earlier editions - whatever feel you happen to believe that to be.

I too have resented the implication in 3e that any and all magic items were for sale in any community of the appropriate size. But the setting always determines what is available. I don't allow the mega-magic-mart in 3e homebrew games, and I won't in 4e. What could possibly rule out that style of play in 4e. No one is suggesting that the WotC ninjas will break into your house and disrupt your game if you don't allow every player to buy whatever items they want.

I would like to reiterate that I agree with you 90% about how magic items should be treated in a fun setting. It's probably 100% if you aren't one of the posters arguing that I (as GM) should have to keep track of all the pesky mechanics of all the magic items. I just don;t understand the argument that putting magic items in the PHB will rule out your playstyle (and mine). To me, the argument is nonsensical.

 

[kennew142]

Believe me, I've plenty of cause to hate D&D's economic rules. For instance, you should have seen the 'Endless Decanters of Water to the Desert' trading company they put together.

My players are more interested in adventuring than in forming trading companies. I would suggest finding a more compatible gaming group. Seriously, no player in one of my games would even consider trying to game the system in such a way.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Sure, but not all of us adhere to that style of play. I'm a much less interventionist DM than I think you're used to,

I'm used to the DM defining what I see as setting-specific things. What creatures exist, what spells exist, what magic items, and so on. Not "interventionist" in terms of plot or mechanics so much, but in defining the setting, yes.