Do you like stat-bonus magic items?

[Storm Raven]

The point is that I prefer characters who have one (or maybe two) significant items. My favorite example is the Lord of the Rings, where each of the characters in the Fellowship, with the notable exception of Frodo, has like 3 useful magic items. Sam has 4, but one is of really questionable use until later.

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. I am fine with stat boosting items because they don't bog down the game. The player puts the item on, and it affects him. There isn't a lot of need for recalculating things or making modifications on a regular basis, just the one time pretty much.

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?

 

[Ringan]

I prefer non-stat-bonus magic items. Magic items seem more fantastic and unique to me when they grant more exotic powers such as invisibility, water breathing etc. than when they just act as steroids for your stats. Maybe the prevalance of stat-boosting items contributes to people's perceptions of "Wal-Mart" magic items?

 

[Umbran]

As a 3.5 variant(or 4e thing, whatever), would you prefer a system that removes these items (and percentage of the character's average gold per level) in exchange for a system that allowed them to apply intrinsic bonuses to their character, say, every 2nd or 4th level?

It still retains the "cool" magic items -- holy swords, bowls of water elemental summoning, animating animal figurines -- but reduces or eliminates the number of vanilla stat-boosters that would otherwise be a necessary part of a character's equipment.

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.

 

[Kelleris]

I just let people spend their gold on inherent (not Inherent) Enhancement and Resistance and whatnot bonuses. Can't be taken away and isn't tied to an item - represents some special event occurring to them or a costly training regimen or a magical ceremony or an in-game reward or something. I figure the inability to take the item off or resell it makes up for the fact that it doesn't take up an item slot, and it just makes things so much cleaner IMO. And it's not like the Craft Wondrous Item doesn't still cover all the cool items even if you take the vanilla stuff out, so it doesn't really tread on the toes of crafter types.

 

[Kelleris]

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.

Exactly why I just prefer to make them a non-issue. People spend however much gold on them and then they can forget about them. Perhaps some kind of limit on gp expenditure would be a good idea, though, to encourage picking up the fun items. Like only half of your gold can be vanilla stat boosters or something.

 

[Piratecat]

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.

 

[Matafuego]

I do almost as Kelleris do except I give those away as rewards for adventures, RP and reaching a milestone.

Currently IMC

A barbarian, defender of the elemental plane of fire, with a fire arm that grants him a +6 enhancement bonus to both str and con and a +4 deflection to ca. Plus some uses of magical firey spells per day.

A cleric, saint (BoED), of the god of healing. He can lay on hands, he has a +6 enhancement bonus to both int and wis and can fly at will (summon angelic wings as a free action).

A paladin, dragonslayer. He has some draconic tattoos on him that grant him a +6 enhancement bonus to both str and cha and and can fly at will (summon draconic wings as a free action).

Of course, my campaign is at epic levels now, but i feel this way the players have earned these divine/draconic/elemental boosts to their characters and are not clones walking around wearing the latest fashion in str improving belts...

I do the same way with Skills BTW granting from a +2 to a +10 depending on whys.

 

[lukelightning]

Nope. I don't plan on giving any out in the game I DM; but I do give out special inherent stat bonuses.

 

[whydirt]

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.

Heh. I like this a lot and shows that stat-boosting items don't have to be boring.

However, I do think it takes more work on the DM's part to make stat-boosting items interesting in this way than with items that produce unique or unusual effects.

 

[reanjr]

They're boring and bad for the game, in my opinion. One campaign I ran, I forced all pregened magic items to include other effects on top of their enhancement bonuses. For instance, if someone wanted a Str enhancing item of +4 (32,000 gp I think), they had to add another effect to the item worth at least 32,000 gp (and spend the money, of course).

This really cut down on the +X items and made for some creative equipment.

When I hand out items, I almost never make it a simple +Y weapon of Cool Effect, but give it strange abilities that come out slowly over a campaign.