Dealing with equipment dependency in D&D

[Saeviomagy]

had one player in a game i was a player in... say his character would rather die than lose his stuff.

i don't think i've ever heard anyone have such a hissy fit.

heck, if he felt that strongly about his things... he shouldn't be an adventurer. there is risk to adventuring. you are risking more than just your items when you go bumping around in the dark.

That's probably because of the following:
1. Equipment is every bit as important to a character as his stats, classes, experience and the like.

2. DM's tend to feel that they don't need to make anything up to a character when they take away their equipment.

3. DM's typically allow a character to be raised or resurrected or alternately allow another character into the game.

4. Raised characters tend to keep all their stuff. New characters get new stuff.

Conclusion: Lose your gear and you've lost the character for all time. He will NEVER compete, he will NEVER get a chance to catch up again. Die and it can be fixed. You have a method of catching up built into the system.

Not really. Once the fighter reaches the wizard, he beats the magician to paste with comfortable regularity. How does the fighter find / close with the wizard with all of his formidable powers? That's why they call it adventure.

I think mayhaps that you missed the point.

A fighter without any gear is outperformed BY HIS FRIEND the wizard with only his spells. Basically full stop. There will be an awful lot of situations where the fighter simply cannot contribute, while the wizard is unlikely to ever be in that situation.

Lets analyse the problem:

1. There are situations which, under the current rules, can only be circumvented by magic.

2. Spellcasting classes have magic.

3. Non spellcasting classes require magical items to have magic.

So - the possibilities to address this problem:

1. Give non-spellcasting classes some sort of pseudo-magical abilities that make up for their shortcomings.

To me, this could be done ENTIRELY by implementing skills properly so that the stupid epic DC's are reachable by normal characters, and that high skill ranks provide magic-like abilities.

As is - the epic DC's are way too high to be at all useful.

To balance on a tightrope, it apparently takes a DC of 40!

What??

To stand and take a full action, it's a DC 35! To perform jackie chan-style wall climbing, DC 50!

In short, noone who has skills at these levels will have used them in around 20 levels of progression, because magic is just better.

My suggestion would be to go through them all, and reduce every single DC so it fits in the range of 20-50. And I really mean that. I want the results that are currently set at a DC of 120 (such as wiggling through a wall of force) to be attainable with a natural 20 by a 20th level character with max ranks, skill focus, the best natural attribute at that level and no other bonuses.

Now. What do we see? Animals being trained in a minute (original DC? around 110). Comparable with a dominate animal spell I think.

The best performance the world has ever seen turns a hostile crowd into fanatics for a cause (original DC 150). Comparable with mass dominate, which while not a spell in the SRD is certainly possible.

The worlds greatest climber slithers his way across a totally flat, glassy ceiling (original DC 100).

I'd also probably set jump and spot to non-linear scales.

ie - a 40+ on spot should be seeing perfect detail miles away, not 400ft away.

Jump of 40+ should be more than 10 feet in the air. I'm thinking something that makes a real difference in the game here.

I mean really - someone who can hit 40 on a jump check with any regularity has really put some serious thought, time and preparation into jumping. I wanna see him hit 100ft plus, straight up. Magic is still better, but the jumper gets SOMETHING

 

[RangerWickett]

I appreciate your ideas on epic skills. I think we need a new epic handbook. I might consider working on one. Hmm.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Not really. Once the fighter reaches the wizard, he beats the magician to paste with comfortable regularity. How does the fighter find / close with the wizard with all of his formidable powers? That's why they call it adventure.

In other words there is a big imbalance. You just have not thought through the question you are trying to answer.

It is not necessarily a problem if some NPC bad guys become more formidable provided the DM is cognizant of the shift. But making a significant change in power between PCs is an entirely different thing and can suck the fun right out of the game if DM is not ready to make adjustments.

In the extreme case of zero magic, a 10th level Fighter is about -4/-4 when compared to his magic wielding alternative. For a 2hander that is going to cut down his damage output by ~50%. A spellcaster will get 1 or 2 fewer bonus spells and his DCs will be down a notch, but his offense will easily be 90% as good. Without magic items those weak saves will tend to fall further and further behind as you scale up in level.

 

[hong]

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 creeping HEROization of D&D continues apace.

Actually, I've been thinking of a further streamlining of the system, that moves away from items completely to just a set number of powers. Say that you get the first 10 powers at the given cost, and if you want more than that, you pay double for the extras.

 

[Baron Opal]

In other words there is a big imbalance. You just have not thought through the question you are trying to answer.

Not necesarily. If a fighter can just walk up to a wizard and beat the stuffing out of him either A) he's a crappy wizard or B) he's asleep. Now, I can certainly come up with scenarios where a wizard could kill a fighter of the same level fairly easily. I love wizards, they're my favorite class. My point is I don't believe that a fighter without magic items is severely disadvantaged against a wizard with no items. The fighter is going to put forth a little forethought and creativity, however, and I see that as a good thing.

I agree that a character without the book standard items is going to be weaker than what the game designers expect, and the challenges must adjusted accordingly.

I think mayhaps that you missed the point.

A fighter without any gear is outperformed BY HIS FRIEND the wizard with only his spells. Basically full stop. There will be an awful lot of situations where the fighter simply cannot contribute, while the wizard is unlikely to ever be in that situation.

I think you're buying into wizardly propaganda here.

I disagree. Yes, the wizard can outperform the fighter in many circumstances, but there are a lot of "ifs" implicit in that statement. Having the right spell for the right situation is difficult. Especially if the spells are at all limited by the DM the character may not be able to prepare a spell appropriate to the situation. The spells only last for so long. Sure the wizard may have jumped over the first chasm and tied a rope to the other side, but what about the next one? The skills of the fighter and rogue are constant, they have no duration, no limits on their use. The wizard runs out of tricks all too soon. The fighter can put out far more damage that the wizard can hope to, it just takes longer.

Now, I have seen some situations like you have discribed, but the issue was never really about who had the toys and who didn't. In every case the level of the main character was significantly higher that the rest of the team. The rest of the team became irrelevant as the higher level character was able to solve the challeneges by himself. Sure, he had more items, but it was the same scale as the other characters. (This was, by the way, a pick-up game at a convention. Everyone pulled out characters that they had with them.)

Baron Opal

 

[hong]

Not necesarily. If a fighter can just walk up to a wizard and beat the stuffing out of him either A) he's a crappy wizard or B) he's asleep. Now, I can certainly come up with scenarios where a wizard could kill a fighter of the same level fairly easily. I love wizards, they're my favorite class. My point is I don't believe that a fighter without magic items is severely disadvantaged against a wizard with no items.

You're nuts.

The fighter is going to put forth a little forethought and creativity

Consider the possibility that if one guy has to think harder than the other guy, this could be because the one guy is at a disadvantage.

 

[glass]

Do what I do: Play a forsaker.

The last time the party was captured and stripped of our goodies, the paladin, wizard and ranger nearly wept themselves to sleep knowing they lost their fullplate, spellbook, and kewl bow. I was out like 500 gp for a masterwork greatsword and armor. One encounter later and I was back up to full value! Sweet!

Caught me without my weapons, have you? I wield a chair! (And as far as DR is concerned, it's a +4 Chair!)

Doesn't that work for about a day, until you fail to destroy a magic item and loose your abilities?


glass.

 

[shilsen]

A lot of the "equipment dependency" solutions seem to have to do with giving the characters extra powers to make up for having little equipment.

I might be wrong - but doesn't that just reverse the problem? Now you have ability-dependant characters with all the benefits of expensive equipment but none of the drawbacks?

If the goal is to make their equipment exactly as important as their abilities, you have to tone down the equipment slightly, while giving slightly more powers until the two are reasonably equal.

From what I've seen in the discussions about low-magic and the emphasis on equipment in D&D, I think a lot of people would prefer abilities to be more important than equipment, rather than seeking an equal balance between the two. That's a preference I was trying to address through the system I outlined.

Also, when the magicians make an item they can drain the xp from a willing volunteer. So, when they enchant Fred's Sword of Doom, Fred can pay for the enchantment both in coin and in spirit.

That's a rule I like. Plus it makes it a lot easier for the BBEG to equip all his minions with magic stuff without draining his own XP reserves

 

[Saeviomagy]

I appreciate your ideas on epic skills. I think we need a new epic handbook. I might consider working on one. Hmm.

No, my point was that every single one of the 'epic' abilities should be achievable BEFORE epic levels, in order to keep skills viable.

 

[shilsen]

The creeping HEROization of D&D continues apace.

See? I said you just needed be a little patient

Actually, I've been thinking of a further streamlining of the system, that moves away from items completely to just a set number of powers. Say that you get the first 10 powers at the given cost, and if you want more than that, you pay double for the extras.

Interesting idea. So would you let people convert items like a wand of fireballs to a special ability (namely to cast a fireball 50 times before the ability is exhausted)?

What about a bag of holding? Replace it by giving PCs an ability to insert items into some bodily orifice (or portable hole, IYKWIM, AITYD)? Or even better (worse?), a bag of tricks, replicating which a PC would reach into aforementioned orifice and pull out a wild animal? Ooh, the possibilities