Dealing with equipment dependency in D&D

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It seems to me a lot of people on this thread replace magic items with supernatural abilities. That doesn't really do it for me, however. Most of the heroic fiction I've read has normal heroes without supernatural abilities, with the exception of Greek and Norse stories. I'm a bigger fan of skill, myself.

 

[shilsen]

Ooh, lotsa replies!

Someone has done that and has called it "Vow of Poverty" You may probably want something in-between however, so that equipment is not completely reduced to mundane (unless your real intention here is to get rid of most of the magic equipment).

I've seen a number of posts about the VoP, but you're right, I don't want to go that far for all PCs

What you're describing sounds very similar to the heroic paths used in Midnight, which exist to solve just the issue you bring up. Every character chooses a path and gains a new power every character level, including first level.

That's the kind of approach I'm leaning towards right now.

It's possible to simply not give out as much treasure, but then the characters are less powerful. Their abilities are, however, proportionatly a greater part of their assets. This obviously throws the whole CR/XP equation out of whack, and you'd have to be very careful making encounters that you don't slaughter the PCs.

I agree. That's why I don't think just cutting down on treasure is a good solution. I'm looking for something to lower equipment dependency but still have characters of a particular level be just as powerful (or not) as currently under the core rules as written.

The unfortunate side affect of the heroic paths of Midnight is that they merely replace magical items with built in abilities, while also providing a chartable, predictable advancement, rather than a hodgepodge of mismatched items.

As Li Shenron commented above, I think that's actually a good thing, not an unfortunate side effect. Color me Lawful Neutral

Actually, I felt it would have made for a better game if Midnight had not introduced the heroic paths at all -- that way the characters would have to rely on their innate powers and the rare magical items; this the heroic paths, all you've done is said, "Well, you don't get any items, but you get all the powers of the items, so the whole thing is a wash."

What Li Shenron said.

 

[Mac Callum]

You can't nerf equipment unless you're willing to nerf spellcasting. Gear is what gives a 20th level Fighter a chance against a 20th level Wizard. Without the Gear he's toast at Long Range.

Monster without spellcasting would get a CR boost. Monsters with spellcasting would get a huge CR boost, or get their spellcasting powers drastically trimmed.

I think part of the perception problem really isn't the 'dependancy' on equipment, but the lack of emotional attachment. Sure, that +5 Keen Bastard Sword is cool, but Excalibur is better (regardless of it's 'real' stats) - especially with it's Arthur, reborn, wielding it. Make some rules about how magical items are created that make them more personal. Allow Fighters and Paladins to make Magical Arms & Armor, paying the XP cost themselves. Allow the items to grow and compliment the player.

I think this will create more satisfaction with the items, and make item dependancy less of a problem. Rewriting D&D to the point where it isn't D&D anymore (which rewriting all the CRs and wealth charts would be) hardly seems worth it.

 

[shilsen]

In my current campaign I just let the players pick up "supernatural abiltiies" instead of magic items, accounting their wealth according to the DMG recommendations. But that has a lot to do with campaign flavor, really.
If you want to do something similar, keep in mind that those items are supposed to cost double since they take no item space.

Sounds a lot like what I have in mind. Thanks for the reminder about the doubled price. One big advantage (for the characters) of such an approach is that they won't lose the abilities as they can do when equipment is lost or destroyed, so the doubled price will help offset that.

You could adjusting The characters' ECL (for the purpose of how much XP each challenge yeilds, not how much XP is required to get to the next level) based on how much magical equipment they have. I've been wanting to try this approach for a while.

I considered this, but it doesn't really change equipment dependency, plus it's a little more imprecise for my liking.

You can look at Midnight, which gives player's 'paths' that will give them various enhancements or bonuses.

That's what RedCliff suggested too, and even though I haven't seen it yet, I think it may have a lot of similarities with what I'm thinking of.

Shilsen, I like that idea...

I think the easiest way to get around the customizability factor is to give the PCs a quantity of 'virtual gold' they can spend... use it to buy innate powers that replicate items.

That's a good idea. Something like reducing wealth to 50% and having an equivalent amount of 'virtual gold' available per level for buying innate powers would probably work nicely.

I figure this couldn't cover every eventuality - certain items are inappropriate for this sort of treatment - bag of holding - ewww!

True. Naturally, I don't intend to replace all magic items with innate abilities. Though an innate bag of holding - or portable hole - has interesting ramifications

One the upside, it would be very easy to balance with the wealth by level stuff and the item rules/slots would be very similar. Simply slide the proportion of gold to virtual gold to suit the level of innate powers desired?

One issue I can see with this is that the items are rather permenant. As it stands, they'd be hard for a GM to remove, which may or may not be a problem depending on the style of game.

A bad choice of power would tend to stick around, unless there's some mechanic for changing or removing a power.

Another is that it would give characters a very tailored selection of powers... the random aspect of 'normal' treasure is reduced. I've seen quite a few GMs that dislike the idea of totally free choice with items. Which I can understand.

Thanks for the comments. Some of these are things I was considering. Obviously different DMs will give each of them different weightage, so I just want to make sure that I don't miss something that is obviously skewed in one direction or another.

 

[shilsen]

When the creeping HEROization of D&D is complete, then all classes will have the ability to gain supernatural powerups, not just a few.

Do I dare say the dreaded words - 4e?

In the meantime, there's imbued magic.

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/imbued_magic.htm

Nice. Looks a lot like what I have in mind.

sometimes it is nice not to keep track of items... but other times it helps keep the game in check.

Since the DM gets to allow (or not) these special abilities, as long as he keeps a careful eye out, keeping things in check shouldn't be a problem, should it?

The problem here as I see it, is that you replace a dependence on items with characters who are too powerful. Theres nothing to say that a given character will have a (as an example) +5 cloak of resistence at that level. So the power balance of the character changes.

To quote Inconsequenti-AL, "I don't think it would affect balance as long as the value of abilities + value of items is the same as the usual amount of items the characters would normally have at that point".

Like them or not, the Midnight heroic paths don't give powers equivalent, or even similar, to standard DnD magical equipment.

In our play experience Midnight is radically different from a game in a more traditional DnD setting, both in flavour and in balance.

Then I guess this is where I'm choosing to differ from the Midnight 'paths' approach. I want to provide the benefits of standard D&D magical equipment, by simply replacing many of the items with innate abilities.

The boosts should be of the same type as regular items for this to work. For example, the innate save boost should be a resistance bonus, an innate stat boost is an enhancement. So no stacking the innate power with items or spells.

Definitely. Having the innate powers retain the same type to avoid stacking problems is something I intended as soon as I envisioned this approach.

I'd let them choose their own powers on a GP basis rather than having a fixed path. Think this allows for more flexibility.

True. Knowing my players, I'm sure they'd be much happier with that than if I just handed out some fixed benefits. I would be too, as both player and DM.

Balance is a factor, and I am doing several things to try and keep that in check. I currently think that at the moment they maybe a little on the over powered side, but since I don't plan any new abilites for them for a level or so it should balance out soon.

Balance (no, I don't think it's a bad word) is something which is definitely of importance to me where designing such a system is concerned. Ideally, I want any character of a particular level in this system to be of the same power as one of the same level under the currently written rules.

 

[Janx]

It's all about the arms race. The main magic items weapons and armor are intended to keep up with the monsters as they have higher attack and AC values.

Figure it this way, hand a 1st level fighter a +1 sword, and he now fights as if he were a 2nd level fighter to some extent. Granted, he's missing HP and saving throws, but in a basic fight, he's almost equal to a 2nd level fighter.

In a way, magic items should increase the ECL/CR of a character (PC or NPC or monster). Thus a 5th level PC with no magic magic items has an ECL lower than a 5th level PC with lots of magic items. This kind of system would make it more obvious on the impact of magic items.

In game play, for a low magic campaign, I think the saving throw, hit point and attack value progressions are fine. Its the armor class that doesn't go up past a certain point with out magic. This is what makes it harder for low magic PCs to fight against high CR monsters (that and needing magic to hit, but you could ignore that rule).

I'd consider the following concepts to try to counter all of that:
AC bonus = 1/2 of BAB (or some other ratio)
magic equivalency = level /4 (a 4th level PC is equivalent to a +1 weapon)

CR enhancer = plus of item divided by 2 (thus a +1 Longsword adds .5CR to a monster/character for calculation purposes).

Janx

 

[shilsen]

Do what I do: Play a forsaker.

Well, that (or the VoP, from what I hear) would work if I was just wanting to create a PC that isn't overly dependent on equipment. But I'm trying to think of a way to have that apply to the entire set of PCs. And no, running all-Forsaker parties isn't the option I had in mind

In my low magic d&d game the PCs get +1 to all saves every 4 levels and recieve a bonus to AC equal to half their BAB. The have about 1/10th the magic items they should have for their level, everything runs pretty smoothly.

Interesting. Since you call it a low magic game, does that mean you've lowered the availability of magic in other areas? What about spellcasting, for example? I'm not really shooting for a low magic setup here, of course.

I'm astonished that nobody has jumped in with the Four Color to Fantasy plug. In that system there's provisions for trading wealth for abilities (basically super powers). Instead of receiving X gold, you get a compensatory amout of hero points (or whatever they're called) which can be used to purchase a variety of ablities. Most of the super abilites mold themselves along the lines of spell effects anyway, so it would very easily substitute for magic items.

Of course I've seen FCtF abused mightily in smackdowns and munchkinfests, but you just have to mind the store.

Sounds like the kind of approach I'm thinking of here. Any such approach (esp. one which puts the choices for abilities squarely in the hands of the players) is probably liable for abuse, which is one reason for me starting this thread - hoping to have people cover some of the things to watch out for.

My personal taste would be to sit down with each player and discuss the direction they wanted their character to go in. Then we could agree a path for them together. Probably tweak this as they level up. Supervised choice, as it were.

Mine too. I'd much rather customize things to player intentions and character concept than just have a single inflexible approach/path to follow.

Kalendraf and Aaron2 - It sounds like both of your approaches involve moving away from the balance of wealth by level, magic availability and CR/EL which the standard rules follow, and I'd rather retain those right now. Different strokes.

Hm, so once you settle on a certain ability for a certain location you could never change after that? That would be a serious drawback. For example the Witch I played until recently in a high-level game that was half highly challenging and potentially deadly fights, half power-politics carried two cloaks: Resistance for combat days, Charisma for politicking days.

Maybe you could have things overlap but need to attune yourself to the abilitiy you wanted to use at any one time, to have them 'fade in' over a certain period (like, overnight, over the course of a week or whatever seems appropriate)?

I think I'd prefer to avoid the drawback by not using slots and counting on the use of doubled prices (as for slotless items) for these abilities. Do you think that would cause any problems?

It seems to me a lot of people on this thread replace magic items with supernatural abilities. That doesn't really do it for me, however. Most of the heroic fiction I've read has normal heroes without supernatural abilities, with the exception of Greek and Norse stories. I'm a bigger fan of skill, myself.

I think one reason that I don't take your approach is that I don't really expect D&D to replicate stories from myth or most of the fantasy (Tolkien, for example) that I've read. I accepted a long time ago that D&D fantasy is its own beast and provides an experience that doesn't match the above. Still, replacing items with supernatural abilities at least lessen the difference, IMO.

You can't nerf equipment unless you're willing to nerf spellcasting.

True. Which is why I don't want to nerf equipment. I just want to shift some of the item-granted abilities to the characters themselves.

Rewriting D&D to the point where it isn't D&D anymore (which rewriting all the CRs and wealth charts would be) hardly seems worth it.

Again, I agree. That's why I'm trying to make sure that any system I use is one which'll work with the current CRs and wealth charts (well, somewhat modified wealth charts, though the end result power-wise will be the same).

 

[shilsen]

Here's what I've come up with so far:

Lowering equipment dependency in D&D:

This system is designed to lower the dependency on equipment in D&D, esp. at higher levels. Characters will receive special innate abilities as they gain in level (use ECL) which replace the need for certain types of equipment. For balance purposes, the amount of wealth per level must be lowered (to approximately half, is recommended) from the DMG standard (see table below).

The remaining wealth, which would be available in the standard system, is available in ‘virtual’ form and may be used to purchase innate abilities. These innate abilities replicate that provided by magical items from the DMG (it is recommended that such replicated items be made unavailable in the game). These innate abilities will retain the type of the original item, e.g. enhancement bonuses for abilities replicating Gloves of Dexterity or Amulets of Natural Armor, resistance bonuses for saves (as with the Cloak of Resistance), etc. Not all items from the DMG may be replicated using this system. Armor, weapons, rods, wands and staves may not be replicated using this system. Nor may single-use items be replicated using this system.

Since these abilities are innate and hence ‘slot-less’ (i.e. taking up none of the magic item slots on the body) and have the added advantage of not being destroyed or lost as magic items are, their cost is usually doubled from that of equivalent items in the DMG. For example, one PC may choose to obtain a +2 resistance bonus to saves. This replicates the effect of a Cloak of Resistance +2. Since the cloak would cost 4,000 gp, the innate ability costs twice that, i.e. 8,000 ‘virtual’ gp. These innate abilities may also be upgraded by paying the difference between the current ability and the upgraded form. For example, a PC may purchase a +1 resistance bonus to saves with 2,000 ‘virtual’ gp and then later spend the difference (another 6,000 ‘virtual’ gp) to upgrade it to +2.

Optionally, a DM may also use this system to to allow upgradeable and charged items to be upgraded/recharged. For example, a PC could use 6,000 ‘virtual’ gp to upgrade a +1 battleaxe (market value – 2,310 gp) to a +1 flaming battleaxe (market value – 8,310 gp), or one could use 3,600 ‘virtual’ gp to recharge a wand with 10 charges of invisibility (market value – 900 gp) to 50 charges (market value – 4,500 gp).

Advantage of this system – moving away from the equipment dependency of D&D, which many people dislike, without having to make holistic changes to the game system and without causing the balance issues which would inevitably arise (if simply lowering magical equipment availability) between less-equipped characters and standard monsters (esp. those with DR and many Sp/Su/Ex abilities) and between spellcaster characters and their non-spellcasting compatriots; more character customizability (since PCs can choose innate abilities instead of having to find or have crafted a particular item). Disadvantage of the system – more bookkeeping for the DM (somewhat counterbalanced by there being less items to keep track of), since one must closely track party wealth, both virtual and otherwise; potentially greater character power.

Lvl Std Wealth Modified Wealth Virtual Wealth
2 900 900 0
3 2,700 1,500 1,200
4 5,400 3,000 2,400
5 9,000 5,000 4,000
6 13,000 7,000 6,000
7 19,000 10,000 9,000
8 27,000 14,000 13,000
9 36,000 18,000 18,000
10 49,000 25,000 24,000
11 66,000 33,000 33,000
12 88,000 44,000 44,000
13 110,000 55,000 55,000
14 150,000 75,000 75,000
15 200,000 100,000 100,000
16 260,000 130,000 130,000
17 340,000 170,000 170,000
18 440,000 220,000 220,000
19 580,000 290,000 290,000
20 760,000 380,000 380,000

 

[Raven Crowking]

It would make the characters themselves more powerful. But their overall level of power would be pretty similar to a character with the same powers in item form?

<snip>

I'd let them choose their own powers on a GP basis rather than having a fixed path. Think this allows for more flexibility.

I can see that the built in items are going to be very hard to remove, which could make them much more valuable in certain situations.

In the games I know of which have similar systems, the cost of abilities is always reduced when an item is involved, often significantly. These systems usually differ between obvious, easily-removed items and hard to notice/hard to remove items.

Green Lantern without his ring is pretty much Joe Athletic. Superman, with his innate powers, can only be "disarmed" with kryptonite. Villians remove Batman's utility belt before placing him in the Trap of Imminent Peril for obvious reasons. Most of Spider-man's powers are innate, but those darn web shooters kept running out of fluid because it created dramatic tension.

If you are going "mythic" by allowing characters to build in magical item type powers, you should go full circle and include weaknesses as well. Achille's invulnerability was only so good as long as you didn't target his heel, after all.

RC

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

shilsen
Glad this thread resurfaced.

That's a nice summing up there... feels about right for me. Do particularly like the idea of allowing items to be upgraded as well. Great for creating a signature item. Something a lot of players I know are very keen on.

I reckon the double cost seems good for the can't be stolen/slotless nature of the powers.

Next up, playtest this and see how it works out?

Nice work!

A signiture item feat might fit? Perhaps, provide a ~10% discount to the cost of imbuing 1 particular item.


Raven Crowking
That's a really good thought... I've seen a few systems that used that sort of mechanic, hadn't considered them with this, despite the similarities..

I like shilsens thought of having the innate stuff cost double...

I supose a weakness could be linked to a cost reduction for the power. Would need to be done by ear - could take into account how common the weakness was?

Real Men (tm) would choose water, metal or air as their achillies heal.

So Superman was definitely a powergamer. Fancy space rocks indeed.