Do you like stat-bonus magic items?

[Gold Roger]

Okay, I'm officially taking the contrarian stance. I love stat boosting items. I love them as a player, and I like them as a DM as well. I think they're a fun, interesting way to make characters more effective. I can also think of a whole lot of ways to make them more quirky, if you think they're boring.

"Andraxus? I wanted to give you this as a gift. It contains the concentrated soul of the archmage Vinxisis: his knowledge, his skill, and his foibles. You may find that he's hard to understand at first, but if you let him guide you, you probably won't regret it. And don't worry; that last owner would probably have gone mad even without this."

Headband of intellect +2, rises to +4 at 8th level, rises to +6 at 14th level; gives additional +5 competence bonus to craft (alchemy), and a -2 penalty to will saves.

That's pretty close to what I do, actually. Give some extra background, scale on their own and tie in some other stuff to spice them up.

My players didn't buy a ring of protection and cloak of resistance, they gained a brooch that gives them the boni from those two items that symbolises their status as adult members of an high elven house.

 

[JohnSnow]

Three that you know of. Most of the items being talked about here would work without anyone knowing they were magical in the context of the story.

Spurious logic at best - "You have no way of knowing whether they might have had magic socks, amulets and underwear that were never mentioned."

To which I say: RUBBISH!

There's plenty of evidence in the story. For example, Frodo most certainly did not, as everything he had was stripped from him when he was captured. Boromir was laid to rest with all of his worldly possessions.

Gandalf also awoke "naked" and was clothed in white by the Elves of Lothlorien. The only items anyone commented on were Glamdring and Narya, and his (now white) staff. No headband of intellect in sight, and nothing recognizable from his old stuff.

Aragorn was clad as a "Ranger of the North." He did have the elfstone, but didn't wear it as a matter of course. So unless you're going to ascribe all kinds of magical effects to his clothes, he too had nothing.

So, I'd say the burden of proof is not on me to prove that they had nothing, but rather on YOU to prove they did. So....evidence?

Plus, I consider it a great weakness of the 1e system that improving ability scores was such a huge deal. Your abilites are not set in stone, why should your character's be?

Hence, why D&D has BAB bonus; Defense Bonus, if you choose to use that variant rule; hit points; saving throw bonuses; ability score bonuses; skill points; feats; et cetera.

Why shouldn't 90 percent of the character's abilities be intrinsic to them personally? Why should half come from their "stuff?" Are experienced adventurers really only 50 percent experience and 50 percent loot? If so, are they really THAT special?

I definitely have less of a problem with items that autoscale with level. They're certainly a vast improvement. I'm still kinda annoyed by an item that makes a PC smarter (or, especially, wiser!) without drawbacks. Getting your fundamental personality adjusted without a penalty just feels kinda wrong somehow...

I dunno. Maybe just me.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Okay, I'm officially taking the contrarian stance. I love stat boosting items. I love them as a player, and I like them as a DM as well. I think they're a fun, interesting way to make characters more effective. I can also think of a whole lot of ways to make them more quirky, if you think they're boring.

"Andraxus? I wanted to give you this as a gift. It contains the concentrated soul of the archmage Vinxisis: his knowledge, his skill, and his foibles. You may find that he's hard to understand at first, but if you let him guide you, you probably won't regret it. And don't worry; that last owner would probably have gone mad even without this."

Headband of intellect +2, rises to +4 at 8th level, rises to +6 at 14th level; gives additional +5 competence bonus to craft (alchemy), and a -2 penalty to will saves.

Nice little item there, PC! However, you've got to admit you could just as easily have as flavorful an item that gave you scaling bonuses to Int-based skill checks and knowledge of a few additional spells per level?

 

[Kunimatyu]

The thing is, as class abilities go, flat boosts to specific stats are as boring as stat boost magic items. You see folks go "Great, I can cast 3rd level spells! Helloooo Fireball!" But almost never do players get excited by their BAB going up by one.

Basically, you're just shuffling the source of the power, without making the power itself more interesting. Trading vanilla magic items for vanilla character abilities -> net gain of player interest = zero.

Pretty much, with a few exceptions. Having all the stat-boosters fade into the background, so to speak, lets the quirky unique items come to the forefront of a player's attention. It also helps a bit with accounting -- since Bull's Strength and belts of Giant Strength don't stack, you get unecessary rules headaches.

It also helps a GM who wants to run a "low-magic-item" game run things much more smoothly, because he doesn't have to worry about the CR system getting screwier than it already is because his PCs don't have their stat, attack, save, and AC boosters equipped.

 

[Kunimatyu]

Maybe the prevalance of stat-boosting items contributes to people's perceptions of "Wal-Mart" magic items?

Given that a character is more likely to have a lot of stat-boosting items than any other type, I think this is probably correct.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Hate, hate, hate them (stat bonus items, that is - pluses to weapons and AC or save boosters, I don't mind). I also don't like skill bonus items - I'd rather an item that allows a small number of spectacular uses of a skill over a constant +5 bonus. It's just so bland and flavorless.

 

[Cadfan]

I hate that they're necessary as a DM, but I love having them as a player.

Sorry, but the game seems balanced around the existance and availability of stat boosts, ac boosts, and save boosts. High level DCs appear based on the assumption that you as a player will have a cloak of resistance. Enemy saves seem based on the assumption that you have access to stat boosting items and that you will use them.

What I don't like about them is that they trade off with other fun items. So, I usually make the other items a character possesses also give stat boosts. Sometimes the stat boosts are the better part of the item, but it will be named after the unique ability.

 

[Odhanan]

I don't have anything against stat-bonus magic items. If I want flavor and uniqueness for a Longsword +1, I write a neat background and description for the sword. Same thing for any variations of an Headband of Intellect or Ioun Stone. There's no reason why Holy Avengers would be the only weapons with kewl descriptions and a story behind them.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I don't like them in that they can be rather boring. I much prefer "cooler" magic items.

On the other hand, I like them because they do tend to help your character to survive so that they have a chance to actually use their "cool" items!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Ibram]

I'm not a big fan of magic items that are just +X abilities, and the idea of items that add +'s to mental stats (without drawbacks) seems very strange to me.

What I dont like is when it seems that most of a characters power comes from his "bling" then from himself.