Daily item limits: are they "officially" gone?

[boar]

I'm in a game with some friends and we're having a hard time making sense of the current rules. First of all, I found this link to something called "November 2010 Update," yet it's not posted on the 4e updates page. What is this thing?

http://wizards.com/dnd/files/Nov2010Update.pdf

Is it official?

Second, what's the status on daily magic item limits? I know the plan was to introduce the rarity system in Essentials and as a result eliminate the limit on daily magic item uses. The former is clearly here; is the latter? If yes, where could one find official clarification?

Many thanks for your help. The DM wants to run the game by whatever's the most current version of the rules, and I can't find confirmation anywhere that the magic daily item limit has or hasn't been eliminated.

 

[Aulirophile]

If you look in the RC under the "Milestone" entry the "gain a blah" is gone. Because there is no longer a limit.

RC also has the rarity rules.

 

[Daramus]

The short answer to your questions are (someone correct me if I'm wrong): Yes that is an official WoTC rules update regarding changes in essentials and yes, daily limits have been done away with (the page 226 revision in that document) due to the new item rarity scheme introduced in essentials.

When Essentials was coming out, WoTC decided to release two update documents that highlighted the big changes in the two essentials player books (the one mentioned above and this: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DNDessentials.pdf). These documents have made errata for core books quite a bit more confusing. For example, some elements from the first document mentioned have been silently added to the compiled rules update (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/UpdatePH.pdf) while some elements are missing. The compiled rules are clearly missing some important entries.

In my opinion, errata to the game has been a mess since Essentials. I really hope their next errata update cleans everything up.

 

[boar]

Thank you both -- that was extremely helpful. I don't have access to the RC, so I'll ask my friends to check it out. In the meantime, let's hope the next rules update comes out soon!

 

[lonebrendan]

Finding and Buying Magic Items

I'm all for the removal of Daily item limits. It makes for a simpler system where you can now enjoy the items you have accumulated instead of rationing their use. I know I only get a couple milestones a day.

However giving the items rarity makes many extremely difficult to get. The majority are at least uncommon now. Making them impossible to create yourself with Enchant Magic Item. Requesting items from your DM for every low level uncommon is tedious and can be difficult for them to work into the campaign. Every single player would have a handful of these all the time.


Another issue is with Living Forgotten Realms.
In the past players were able to use their accumulated gold to purchase additional magic items, of a level no greater than their own.

With magic item rarity, it seems nearly impossible to acquire uncommon magic items not found in bundles at the end of each adventure.

Is this the only way to gain these, and only one per gained character level?

 

[boar]

The removal of daily item limits is inextricably tied to the removal of the players' ability to acquire certain magic items at will. The only reason the limit existed in the first place was that paragon characters could otherwise buy 20 resounding throwing hammers and daze the heck out of everything (or what have you -- I'm sure someone could come up with something even more abusive). Thus, it's essential that all acquisition of uncommon items be mediated through the DM.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm all for the removal of Daily item limits. It makes for a simpler system where you can now enjoy the items you have accumulated instead of rationing their use. I know I only get a couple milestones a day.

However giving the items rarity makes many extremely difficult to get. The majority are at least uncommon now. Making them impossible to create yourself with Enchant Magic Item. Requesting items from your DM for every low level uncommon is tedious and can be difficult for them to work into the campaign. Every single player would have a handful of these all the time.


Another issue is with Living Forgotten Realms.
In the past players were able to use their accumulated gold to purchase additional magic items, of a level no greater than their own.

With magic item rarity, it seems nearly impossible to acquire uncommon magic items not found in bundles at the end of each adventure.

Is this the only way to gain these, and only one per gained character level?

Officially, yes. Given that you also acquire common items almost 50% of the time by the random treasure parcel setup in Essentials you will get more like 8 total items in each tier, of which 1 might be rare and 3-4 will be common, leaving 3-4 uncommon items per tier.

How LFR does it I don't know since I don't play LFR or pay attention to it, but there are LFR specific rules for gear. You should look at those. Due to the way LFR works it often doesn't follow RAW strictly for things like this, so you may be able to buy some things you might not be able to buy automatically in a game going exactly by the rules. Note too that the rarity system is pretty simple to tweak and obviously it was written with the idea in mind that DMs would make changes as needed in their games. An uncommon item might come up for sale, or a PC might find a formula to make one, etc. It is just no longer 100% in the hands of the players what they craft or buy.

 

[666Sinner666]

Officially, yes. Given that you also acquire common items almost 50% of the time by the random treasure parcel setup in Essentials you will get more like 8 total items in each tier, of which 1 might be rare and 3-4 will be common, leaving 3-4 uncommon items per tier.

How LFR does it I don't know since I don't play LFR or pay attention to it, but there are LFR specific rules for gear. You should look at those. Due to the way LFR works it often doesn't follow RAW strictly for things like this, so you may be able to buy some things you might not be able to buy automatically in a game going exactly by the rules. Note too that the rarity system is pretty simple to tweak and obviously it was written with the idea in mind that DMs would make changes as needed in their games. An uncommon item might come up for sale, or a PC might find a formula to make one, etc. It is just no longer 100% in the hands of the players what they craft or buy.

To piggyback on this a character can pay the difference in gold to upgrade an existing uncommon or rare item to the next level up, so long as it follows the level rules. What this has done, according to my friends who play LFR regularly, is made certain modules more popular simply because XYZ item is available as a reward. Also, now that LFR allows you to build characters above level 1 using the DMG rules, just with less cards, many are opting to start at a higher level so they can get some of the items they want.

 

[Aulirophile]

How LFR does it I don't know since I don't play LFR or pay attention to it, but there are LFR specific rules for gear. You should look at those. Due to the way LFR works it often doesn't follow RAW strictly for things like this, so you may be able to buy some things you might not be able to buy automatically in a game going exactly by the rules. Note too that the rarity system is pretty simple to tweak and obviously it was written with the idea in mind that DMs would make changes as needed in their games. An uncommon item might come up for sale, or a PC might find a formula to make one, etc. It is just no longer 100% in the hands of the players what they craft or buy.

In LFR the following is true.

1.) You have nothing to spend your money on other then upgrading items. You can use straight gold to upgrade an item. You get level appropriate gold as the base minimum in LFR, and it can go higher depending on the module (never lower).

2.) At every level you get a "Found Item Slot" that you can use to get any Uncommon or Common item of your level. So 30 items total. Note you can save Found Item Slots, so if you're level 9 and have used zero slots, you can just pick up 9 items that are level 9.

3.) You can never use more items then your level. So if you have 12 items and are level 9, you can only use 9 of them. Storing items in the ether is allowed (i.e., just handwave exactly where those items are since you own them but can't have them).

4.) You can still pick up items via modules, with better items coming from double modules.

This results in LFR characters having slightly more wealth then a standard character, but in some cases because they switch builds the old items aren't what they want/need anymore, so it is designed that way for item versatility as you level.

 

[the Jester]

However giving the items rarity makes many extremely difficult to get. The majority are at least uncommon now. Making them impossible to create yourself with Enchant Magic Item. Requesting items from your DM for every low level uncommon is tedious and can be difficult for them to work into the campaign. Every single player would have a handful of these all the time.

The real purpose of the rarity rules is to put magic items back in the dm's hands.

Which is to say, no, not every single pc would- or should, imho- have a handful of them all the time.

In some playstyles, yes, but not all, and certainly not "every single player".