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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imban" data-source="post: 3937183" data-attributes="member: 29206">Exalted is a setting like that. Generally, the tendency of the books to present far more magic items of questionable utility than superweapons does far more to eliminate the arms race than the relative rarity of magic items in the setting - if Dark Lord Bejeezus has a flaming sword, you sure as heck will have it after you're done with him, and players who are interested in collecting loot will want to go and collect the Scale Armor of the Fire Wyrm regardless. If you've had the best sword you can reasonably hope to get in the campaign since you created your character on day one, the arms race is gone.Granted, it frustrates me almost as much, if not more, that the magic item books for Exalted have three writeups for pens that create any-color ink on the fly, pens that create any-color ink on the fly and take dictation, and magical fur coats for six-year-old girls for every magic item presented that's useful in combat, and most of the "high-end" weaponry items are either of very limited usefulness (Black Depths Foretold, a dagger that's solidly worse than most equally-ranked weapons but is fated to be the weapon that will kill a certain relatively important NPC) or high-end along the lines of the Sword of Kas in D&D and thus out of your reach. (Soul Mirror, pretty much the ultimate personal weapon in Exalted right now)Nifft covered the rules problems with those earlier on (easy availability of gloves that set your Dexterity to 18 mean starting with 6 Dexterity is a common choice, etc.), but I personally have a pet peeve with those simply because I once got a cool sword back in 2nd Edition that "raised" my Strength to 22... when I already had a natural Strength of 23 from the tomes and Wishes and stuff I'd already used. Whoops?Well, the thing about heirlooms like that are that they're usually really, really good items in the context of the story - far above the normal value curve, because they have the legendary black blade Stormbringer or the magical sword Excalibur and its magical scabbard or what have you from the start of the story. While Lord of the Rings was never about "flashy" magic with obvious effects, Aragorn's sword Anduril was clearly something special, too.And at least in 3e D&D, because it assumes everyone will have the "proper" amount of wealth at every level, it doesn't really support starting your game off with one player wielding the +3 keen adamantine longsword "Anduril" (at a 35015 gp cost) at level 4, while the best things anyone else in the party have are a +1 mithral chain shirt (2100 gp), some +1 short swords (2310 gp), and a +2 short sword with a minor unique power (slightly over 8310 gp).Which, really, is kinda too bad. A lot of fantasy stories are like that.</blockquote>

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