Does anyone do non-overpowered anymore?

[Bendris Noulg]

What do Skills, Feats, Ability Scores and Magic Items have in common?

They're all just pieces of text on your character sheet.

Nope. Ability Scores, Skills and Feats are representative of the character itself. These abilities are available to the character always because they are a part of them. When I jump a chasm with my Jump Skill, I can say "wow... I made it!" When I hop over a chasm with my Boots of Striding and Springing, I say, "wow... Good thing 3E makes these things easily available."

That's a big difference (see below).

Now you'll think that this somehow takes away from roleplaying, really immersing myself into the character. Believe me, if there are some obstacles to immersing myself into the mind of 126 year old, 110 lbs, pointy eared, Corellon-worshipping ELF, believe me, it ain't the magic bow or cape on his back!!!

It's something else.

Nope, don't think that at all. This isn't about RP, it's about the character's abilities versus the abilities of his items. The first feels like an accomplishment, like I, as a Player, created a character capable of doing something special and cool. The second is... Something else entirely, lacking the sense that my character is a hero but rather projects the image that my character requires the magical trinkets to have any worth as an adventurer.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

welcome back.

how's everything?

Just dandy... But this isn't the place for it.

See the thread at Mortality for updates.

 

[WizarDru]

Luke Skywalker: The Force is potent, truly without limitations. However, there are lines that should not be crossed else one steps into "the Dark Side". Equipment wise, he had one Light Saber, which, while also potent, is not the be-all of armaments.

Well, he also has two Robots who save his bacon constantly, get his own custom X-wing star fighter and attains the rank of General in a very short time. Oh, and he gets to be a powerful Jedi among non-Jedi (of course that guy that plays Han is even more twinked...he took Enemy: Jabba, just so he could get his own starship).

Aragorn: A magic blade that likely can't be translated into D&D terms very well. Beyond that, it was his specialized training as a Ranger (Herbalism, Healing, Woodslore, etc.) that got them through most of their travels.

This would be the same Aragorn who is fully tricked out with all sorts of Elven magic items, hunts and loots orcs, explores ancient dwarven underground cities and has access to ancient arsenals of the kings of old?

Jack Sparrow: Wit, charm and cunning. That's it.

Well, he's also a darned good swordsman...and he has a unique magic item.

Buffy: Alright, I don't follow the series, and only caught the end of the movie, so I'm not all that familiar with it. However, it does seem that she is also the opposite of a D&D "hero" in that she, as "The" Slayer, is a unique individual and thus not likely to produce an "adventurer's economy".

Which is why you could make that statement. Buffy gets lots of magic items during the course of the series, many of which get passed around (such as the magic ring that allows vampires into the daylight) and her mentor opens up a magic shop. The final story arc of buffy had to do with a powerful magic weapon, in fact.

I think you can see what I'm getting at here; D&D no longer even pretends to emulate such characters or adventures, but rather assumes that every character requires an ever-expanding pile of magic items dumped on top of it, a pile that quickly over-shadows any measure of competance that the character may actually have in a growing morass of bonuses from outside sources.

Actually, I'd argue that D&D has always been this way. I don't recall many 15th level fighters running around in 1e without magic equipment. Magic items are an unfortunate necessity to allow the non-magic classes to keep up with the casters. Otherwise a 20th level fighter would just be a target...as opposed to someone like the Warduke's new incarnation from the recent issue of Dungeon. If you take away magic items, then you're giving the magic-using characters a big boost in power, and leaving the have-nots as sitting ducks for CR-appropriate opponents.

I always liked (though have never used) Colonel Hardisson's idea of forcing all magic-users to alternate every level with a non-spellcasting class. A fairly simple and somewhat elegant solution, I thought. (oh, and some folks think Aragorn is a 8th-level ranger with a +2 sword, in a world of 1st-level commoners and warriors....it's all relative).

I want my character to shine for the deeds that got him his treasure, not for the treasures that do the deeds for him.[/QUOTE]

 

[kipling]

The standard campaign world is neither over- nor under-powered.

Agreed, regardless of game system.

What sort of challenges do you envision? How is the challenge different for a group of crappy-classed characters fighting kobolds as opposed to a group of well-classed 5th level characters fighting gnolls?

Let's distinguish between classes and levels here; they don't have to go together, though of course they do in D&D. You're arguing about levels, it seems to me, and the concomitant increases in abilities and resources with increasing levels.

I do realize it takes greater creativity and skill on the part of the DM when you have to deal with characters who aren't all grovelling in the dirt, happy to have a +1 dart as their sole magic item as a 12th level adept, but then after a while, one has to ask what is the point of even having levels, then?

Good question. Is it worth having levels or experience?

It seems to me that Victory Games' James Bond game didn't have experience. Bond was Bond; he didn't get better from book to book, or change significantly. While there are lots of adventures where a character goes from zero to hero over the course of a lifetime, there are possibly even more where the characters never really change significantly. Most episodic stories are like this--television series; movie serials; comic books; pulp adventure series. The characters plateau and then gain no more levels.

So what makes those stories continue to be interesting?

Well, sometimes it's pure novelty: the characters in the Mission: Impossible TV series never grew as people; the fun was watching them do whatever it was, pulling off something outrageous. Holmes never gets better at what he does; the fun is solving the mystery. Batman is Batman; when they actually change him, it's a big deal.

I mean, if you REALLY want to do a low-power campaign, why not eliminate experience entirely - just have everyone be a zero level commoner with no money and no advancement and adventure that way? If low-power == good, then that ought to be the best campaign EVER!

Actually, we've done it. I wouldn't say it was the best campaign ever--but it was kind of interesting. On the other hand, our attentions were on story things that had nothing to do with character level. Will he find his lover again? Will she get revenge on the man who killed her father?

Going up a level and being able to kick more butt is fun, but it's not the only way to game.

As you pointed out.

 

[Desdichado]

This would be the same Aragorn who is fully tricked out with all sorts of Elven magic items, hunts and loots orcs, explores ancient dwarven underground cities and has access to ancient arsenals of the kings of old?

Fully tricked out... Which Lord of the Rings did you read again?

Well, he's also a darned good swordsman...and he has a unique magic item.

More like unique plot hook. It doesn't augment his ability to do anything.

Actually, I'd argue that D&D has always been this way. I don't recall many 15th level fighters running around in 1e without magic equipment. Magic items are an unfortunate necessity to allow the non-magic classes to keep up with the casters. Otherwise a 20th level fighter would just be a target...as opposed to someone like the Warduke's new incarnation from the recent issue of Dungeon. If you take away magic items, then you're giving the magic-using characters a big boost in power, and leaving the have-nots as sitting ducks for CR-appropriate opponents.

Sure. But what does that mean? Folks have always complained about D&D being that way as well.

 

[Psion]

It doesn't augment his ability to do anything.

That you saw.

If you are going to go about the fool's errand of insisting games emulate literature or movies, at least try to think about it consistently. If someome had a compass that gave them +2 to navigation checks, do you think you would see it on the screen?

That said, I think personally that games are different from books, and appeal to their users on a different levels. I think decrying differences that arise because of difference in the media is, in a word, folly.

 

[Numion]

Nope, don't think that at all. This isn't about RP, it's about the character's abilities versus the abilities of his items. The first feels like an accomplishment, like I, as a Player, created a character capable of doing something special and cool. The second is... Something else entirely, lacking the sense that my character is a hero but rather projects the image that my character requires the magical trinkets to have any worth as an adventurer.

Well, I don't agree. How do you see clerics then? Basically it's never them that's doing the really useful things, in the way you seem to mean. It's the clerics god, just channeled through him. Outside power, just like magic items.

It's all the same to me. Feats, skills, ability scores, magical powers
had inherently, magical powers gained from god, magical powers gained from magic items. That all equals one D&D character to me.

EDIT: At least thats how I feel, when I've used just the right spells, feats, magic items and skills and end up the last man standing in a big fight against the dragon and slaying it. I just feel a sense of achievement - not "If I hadn't had my bow, I'd be dead". Because it also works for everything about my character - haven't I had any of those abilities / items / feats I'd be dead. All important.

That's why your example of jumping vs. boots of Big Jump is bad, IMO. When you have those boots, other things about the game are supposed to be challenging than jumping over ditches. At least I wouldn't want my 20th level char to get kicks from such trivial stuff. That enhances the main drive in playing D&D - advancing your character. If ditches are supposed to be challenging at all levels, and feel like accomplishments 1st thru 20th level something is wrong. Magic items are a part of the process, making the characters themselves more heroic, by allowing them to rise from menial problems to the bigger stuff.

If that bigger stuff is not for you, feel free to limit the whole game to 9th or so level. Which has been thoroughly deemed a good thing in this thread

 

[Desdichado]

That you saw.

If you are going to go about the fool's errand of insisting games emulate literature or movies, at least try to think about it consistently. If someome had a compass that gave them +2 to navigation checks, do you think you would see it on the screen?

That said, I think personally that games are different from books, and appeal to their users on a different levels. I think decrying differences that arise because of difference in the media is, in a word, folly.

I disagree. The fool's errand is to try and imply that characters in a book or movie are using "magic items" when there's no evidence to suggest such a thing. It's immaterial whether or not we would see any effects of such an item, as there's not a scrap of evidence whatsoever to suggest that there are any effects at all.

However, I do agree that games and books can only approach each other to a certain extent; they never coincide completely. That is, if they do, likely neither would be very fun. That doesn't mean that I don't want certain elements of my game to approach books or movies, though. Certainly things like items, magic, character abilities, etc. can easily be drawn from books/movies. What cannot be easily drawn from books/movies are certain types of plots and character interactions.

 

[Psion]

I disagree. The fool's errand is to try and imply that characters in a book or movie are using "magic items" when there's no evidence to suggest such a thing.

I think you are missing my point. I'm not saying we should assume that his compass is magic (though it wouldn't bother me.) I am saying that if we were to make films of our RPG settings, after we cropped everything down to the details you would see on a screen, it wouldn't talk about it, and as they say, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

As an example, take the Two Towers vs. the extended edition. In the screen version, hardly a thing is said about the little rope that they have hung around Gollum's neck in the beginning. But it edited version, there is a scene that seems to imply that there is something special about that elvish rope.

Now imagine you are going to cobble together all the details about all the PCs together and put them in a campaign. At best, one or two items on each character would be highlighted as magic.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Actually, I'd argue that D&D has always been this way. I don't recall many 15th level fighters running around in 1e without magic equipment.

Of course, the issue isn't magic items or no magic items, but of a few magic items to boost some abilities and magic items being the focus of action.

Magic items are an unfortunate necessity to allow the non-magic classes to keep up with the casters. Otherwise a 20th level fighter would just be a target...as opposed to someone like the Warduke's new incarnation from the recent issue of Dungeon. If you take away magic items, then you're giving the magic-using characters a big boost in power, and leaving the have-nots as sitting ducks for CR-appropriate opponents.

I would instead argue that magic, particularly the casters, have now become too integral to the game. Previously an option, now a neccessity.

I always liked (though have never used) Colonel Hardisson's idea of forcing all magic-users to alternate every level with a non-spellcasting class. A fairly simple and somewhat elegant solution, I thought.

Indeed. Not my solution, which is fairly complicated but, I would hope, equally elegant.

(oh, and some folks think Aragorn is a 8th-level ranger with a +2 sword, in a world of 1st-level commoners and warriors....it's all relative).

Ah, that's the key here: Relative. What makes a plausible game for some comes across as unplausible to others.

However, taking your example above (Aragorn = Ranger 8, World = Peons), you'll find what I find to be both more plausible and more attractive as a game. Why more attractive? Well, the idea of the game is that the characters (my PC, your PC, all of our PCs) are special, unique, and superior. However, in a game world where adventurers are so common that economics are based on them and that powerful magic items can be purchased (either off-the-rack or by commision) tells me that my character isn't special, unique or superior. Indeed, now our characters are simply adventurers just like all the non-special, non-unique, and non-superior NPCs running around me creating the economy and magic items.

Boy, take the wind out of my sails...