D&D 4E Do we still need plusses for weapons and armour? An idea for 4E?

[green slime]

I strongly think that they are going to do something similar. They talk about reducing character dependance on items.

In order to do so, they must reduce the statistical bonus gained from various items, and instead grant them to characters as class abilities/features/whatever instead.

Magical items would seem to be about granting other abilities and improvements (Keen Cleaving Swords, Wings of flying) other than statistical. Which would require a complete rehash of the magical item rules.

 

[Infiniti2000]

There is no major problem. I'm just considering ways of simplifying.

If the rules are too complex, that is a problem that could be addressed. I wasn't sure that was your goal. To be honest, I do agree with your fundamental problem, that there are too many modifiers at high level. With every little buff, or de-buff, or on-the-fly modifier, it creates a huge hassle to track. Not everyone has a handy laptop or palmtop to keep track of all the processing required either (D&D is still pen & paper, maybe it should be P&P).

That said, I agree with your desire, but I don't think trading one set of pluses for another, identical set helps. The reason why it doesn't help is because for the most part, high-level characters will use the same weapon. Even when they switch, tracking the pluses from the weapon is the easy part. Tracking haste, bless, prayer, strength damage (oh man that's a huge pain if you take 1 point every other hit at 17th level), etc. sucks. But, quite frankly I don't see a good solution for it at the moment.

Anyways, as you work through this issue, I urge you to think about how the magical pluses improve the weapon/armor toughness. As a mage, I would spend a lot of money making my 150,000 gp staff indestructible and requiring him to take 5 Fighter feats would be unacceptable. Perhaps you could provide some enhancements that merely improve hardness / hit points (but cheaper). That would be even better for wizards, sorcerers, and the like.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

It is not really the +n weapons that are the problem, but the array of different bonuses in its diverse splendor. Especially when buff + debuff starts happening.

The Enhancement bonuses to weapons are one single example of a bonus that could potentially be removed. I think we should look at the bigger picture.

Theoretically, we could cut the bonuses available in the game by a factor of 2 and just make the individual bonuses both bigger, with a roughly neutral effect on game balance.

Do we need Enhancement bonuses to stats at all? Maybe we can get by with Inherent bonuses only.

Can we wrap Bless, Prayer, Divine Favor, and random Sacred bonuses into one type?