Design & Development: Magic Item Levels

[Ahglock]

I think this is the first thing I've seen that is a disappointment.

Can you elaborate, what do you find disappointing?

I'm genuinely curious since you've seemed to be agreeing with most of the design decisions up to now. Where did this design decision go different than what you expected?

 

[Rechan]

Can you elaborate, what do you find disappointing?

I'm genuinely curious since you've seemed to be agreeing with most of the design decisions up to now. Where did this design decision go different than what you expected?

I'm simply underwhelmed.

Honestly, I anticipated something like the Weapons of Legacy. As I said earlier, I'd be much happier with say, a magical sword (or other item) that gives no plusses, but offers a sundry ability. Possibly an ability that cannot be mimiced via a spell or class ability (similar to how monsters are given unique abilities made just for that critter rather than just slapping 'Spell-like: See Spell X in PHB').

Less +2 Flaming sword and more Cloak of the Bat. When a villain whips out his magical item, the PCs should crowd around the table and wait anxiously to see what it's going to do. Instead we get "Hey, he's got a flail. Anyone here need a flail? No? Then we'll just toss that into the sell pile."

Granted, I'm not a huge low magic fan; I like my high fantasy, yet I think the fewer magical weapons/items PCs get, the better. PCs only having 2-3 magical items that have several abilities is much better than the tacklebox. Maybe PCs getting only 3 magic swords in their entire career would be cool (One for Heroic, one for Paragon, and one for Epic).

But I also suck at deciding on loot; I'm a terrible bookkeeper and deciding what my PCs need, and what I should give them. This system (level based GP value, level based items) make it much simpler than trying to fidget with the wealth by level and figuring 'I need to give them ten pouches of 200 gold or three items of at least 600gp'.

And the MageMart notion just sort've drags at my sense of immersion. I have a running joke with another gamer that shopkeepers are regularly going on dungeoncrawls so they can have the XP to burn on making magical items.

 

[Ruvion]

Maybe, but I can conceive of a number of ways the Christmas Tree Effect might be avoided:
-Hard upper limit on items active at once (say, 5)
-Greatly decreased WBL expectations
-Ye Olde Magick Wal-Marte may be explicitly absent in 4e
-Crafting an item consumes an existing item
-Magic items could require a feat to use (i.e. Magic Attunement: Rods or Magic Attunement: Boots)
-All magic items could come with a drawback.

Now, I'm not suggesting any of these, except maybe the first one, but they're options, and they wouldn't contradict anything in the preview article. Wizards probably has a system in mind.

emphasis mine.

I think having a built-in upper limit for all 'powers' or effects from class abilities and magic item (both active and passive) would serve to limit the X-Mas effect somewhat. This hard limit can mirror how mages cast magic in Arcana Unearthed/Evolved: you pick the powers/effects you want to have access to that day out of list of existing powers/effects, outsourced by class and magic items. This limit can improve over time as you level (ie: higher level characters has higher total effect limit).

eg: Level 15 Paladin of the Smitten God: has a limit of 6 effects at any given time.
Effects chosen this day (can be changed to per encounter rather than day I guess):
1) Gotta Love That Smite (paladin class ability)
2) Goody Two Shoes Aura (paladin class ability)
3) Knight In Shining Armor (paladin class ability)
4) Flamin' Big Honkin' Sword - clearly an overcompensation (magic item)
5) Standard Super Hero Cape - red, of course (magic item)
6) Utility Belt of the Naked Mole Rat - borrowed (magic item)

Let's say the paladin in this example has a list of 7 paladin powers...normally, he can only pick 6 from a maximum of 7, but he gave up access to 3 powers to have access to 3 magic items that day.

The math may not be broken, but any kind of arbitrary limit sucks in my humble opinion.

 

[Imp]

No, I'm stating that if PCs can make magic items then no amount of GM miserliness will stop the PCs from getting what they want because they can just mark off the costs to make the stuff, write it on their sheets and thumb their noses as the killjoy behind the GM screen.

How would the game do that? Ban DM fiat entirely? Because you can rip that aspect right out of 3E if you cared to, no problem.

On the other hand, as others have implied, if you're set on "thumbing your noses at the killjoy behind the GM screen," what you need to do is find a GM that's willing to implement the kind of fantasy you want to play, or else deal with constant petty power games at the table, which is no fun for anyone.

 

[Stalker0]

Even with +X weapons, I doubt the xmas tree effect will be in full swing, and there are several reasons why:

1) In 3e, a significant portion of a fighter's damage and attack is determined by his magic weapon. In 4e, powers will likely allow a fighter to boost his attack boost and/or damage, reducing the need for magic.

2) In 3e, everyone relied on magic for their AC. This has likely been reduced in 4e.

3) In 3e, fighters required magic just to stay their ground against wizard spells. Fly is a common example. In 4e, it sounds like some of these spells are harder to do, can be used less often, or are of a higher level. Therefore, the fighter no longer needs his boots of flying to compete.

 

[Li Shenron]

Okay, new Design & Development: Magic Item Levels by Andy Collins is up.

Cheers, LT.

Sounds reasonable. Less variety in prices, but it's not the kind of variety that really improves the game... I don't think we will miss old pricing rules very much. And for those that like creating custom magic items, there can be formulas as well, only that they will give you a final level rather than a final price.

Also, 3e magic items already had a "level", it was the caster level. So it's not completely new.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Okay, does this mean that spell scrolls are gone? Or that they are reusable instead of one-shots? (I wouldn't mind if they were reusable!) What about Potions (which make little sense as reusable items)

About the Christmas Tree:
I am uncertain about how they want to avoid this if there still exists +X items. But one possibility comes to my mind:
The plusses replace level or ability based bonuses. So, a Belt of Giant Strength might increase your strength not beyond a certain value, and a +6 Longsword replaces your level based attack bonus. This means "plussed" abilities are most useful for those that usually not rely on the abilities they improve.

 

[Simon Marks]

Well, it's not the most exciting redevelopment - but...

It's a hell of a lot better than Wealth by Level guidelines and Item Pricing.

Explicitly for NPCs, and statting up new characters.

Instead of "165,000gp of items" it becomes

Take 5 permanent items of your level or lower and (guessing here) 10 one-shot items of your level or lower.

Much, much, much faster.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Do you think that there is an expectation that a level x character will have y magic items of that level? or a total of x levels of magic items?

For instance, would a 15th level fighter be expected to have several level 15 items, or would you expect him to have a 10th level item, a 3rd level item and two 1st level items?

Whatever way they aim for, I imagine it will be easier to equip an NPC in this schema than the old "he has 34,000gp worth of equipment, break out the tables and sort it out" model.

As usual though, there is a lot more unsaid than said in the design and development column - it seems a little more like hints about what is planned.

Cheers

 

[nerfherder]

Do you think that there is an expectation that a level x character will have y magic items of that level? or a total of x levels of magic items?

For instance, would a 15th level fighter be expected to have several level 15 items, or would you expect him to have a 10th level item, a 3rd level item and two 1st level items?

If it's like the MIC, then it's more the former than the latter.