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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mlund" data-source="post: 6065815" data-attributes="member: 50304">I like it. If nothing else the +1 AC from having a shield retains its value as a percentage steadily over all 20 levels, so the compensation of extra damage from a two-handed weapon needs to persist it's percentage value to some extent rather than just drop off a cliff in obscurity.+5 damage is the average result of a hypothetical D9 roll. One-handed military weapons are good for about 1d8, and two-handed weapons are around 1d12 with some overlap at the 1d10 area as outlying data points. Converting directly from each increment of +5 martial damage bonus to a weapon damage die multiplier might be the best of both worlds.At level 7 the Fighter doubles his weapon damage die roll (x2). At level 11 it goes to a x3 multiplier. At 14th level it's x4. At 17 it maxes out at x5. You could have the multiplication option and a "gobs of dice ("5d12 + 6d6 make Thog feel smart like Wizard casting meteor swarm! Yaaaaay!") option side-by-side. Every decision as to what to retain, remove, or modify from the core rules of a game is a choice of one form or another. It's a moot point.Even in AD&D it was relatively simply to identify magic items. That's why there was an Identify spell. It was merely expensive, at lower levels. A loot-tax, if you will, does not cause the process to cease being simple. Identification that is faster and cheaper, however, has become the default core assumption from 3.0, 3.5, [notranslate]Pathfinder[/notranslate], 4E, and the current iterations of DNDNext. Having an optional module for "mysterious loot" is definitely low-hanging fruit that ought to be picked, though. Personally, I find at least a smattering of that sort of thing livens up a game.IF the players don't mind / enjoy [insert method] then that's all well and good. The default Core assumptions shouldn't put the DM or the percentile dice as arbiter of completely arbitrary / random penalties for a player wanting their character to use a sword over an ax or a wand over a staff for aesthetic purposes.And the Core definitely isn't being designed / balanced around the assumption of a high turnover rate of characters with loot inheritance. Hence why I wrote: "If the function is the same, treat the form as being fungible through one means or another." [Italic emphasis added]It's a balance / fun issue if Indy has to find and sell 5 magical +1 Longswords to get a magical +1 whip while Conan gets a +1 Longsword the first time around and gets 4 more items in the same period because he picked the "right" weapon. It's effectively an embedded "style tax" that serves no further purpose. As long as there's a significantly less punitive means for players to convert from what I've given them to what they need to keep their vision of their characters it's not a problem.If their vision for a character is someone who uses anything they come across and makes due that's awesome. However, if they want to be decked out as Indy, Green Arrow, Conan, or Gimli there's no real prerogative to rain on their parade.- Marty Lund</blockquote>

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