Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Dragon 421 is up! Level-by-level Multiclassing for 4e; Dragonlance Items; Draconian!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6101271" data-attributes="member: 27160"><p>Yes, I know all about the changes made with Essentials - they still make no sense as I will explain further.</p><p></p><p>" And second, when wizards introduced the concept of item rarity at the release of essentials it was stated that rare items are story items they define characters or plots and are outside the realm of the player's advancement." Which is exactly what they had previously defined artifacts as. Rare items are redundant; their inclusion makes no useful contribution. Further to this, at the same time they removed the requirement for "Daily Item Uses" - which artifacts never had in any case. Rare items and artifacts fill, according to this definition, exactly the same space, and they do so in exactly the same way, as I'll note next...</p><p></p><p>" They are not quite artifacts because they do not go away and they do not have there own motivations, but they are more than one or two steps better than an uncommon or common item." Artifacts 'go away' at the behest of the DM - but what item doesn't, in the final analysis? Artifacts do not <em>necessarily</em> have motivations. Look at the "Hammer of Thunderbolts" or the "Shield of Prator" in MME. 'Concordance' is clearly not a requisite for artifacts.</p><p></p><p>In the end, I made my answer not because I contend that the rarity mess never happened - clearly it did. I made my answer as I did because I can offer no properly coherent answer with rarity included because the definitions of rarity are redundant, confused, ambiguous and nonsensical. An item's "power" defines its level, not whether it's an artifact or not - compare any 'Heroic' artifact with any level 25+ item to see that. An item that is "more powerful than others of its level" is just wrongly assigned a level. Rare items, as far as I can see, fit either into the category of "wrongly levelled" or into the category of "should be an artifact". The classification itself is totally redundant. Hence my answer was made without reference to something that makes no sense as part of the 4E system; to do otherwise would make my answer as nonsensical as the whole, muddled "rarity" guff already is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6101271, member: 27160"] Yes, I know all about the changes made with Essentials - they still make no sense as I will explain further. " And second, when wizards introduced the concept of item rarity at the release of essentials it was stated that rare items are story items they define characters or plots and are outside the realm of the player's advancement." Which is exactly what they had previously defined artifacts as. Rare items are redundant; their inclusion makes no useful contribution. Further to this, at the same time they removed the requirement for "Daily Item Uses" - which artifacts never had in any case. Rare items and artifacts fill, according to this definition, exactly the same space, and they do so in exactly the same way, as I'll note next... " They are not quite artifacts because they do not go away and they do not have there own motivations, but they are more than one or two steps better than an uncommon or common item." Artifacts 'go away' at the behest of the DM - but what item doesn't, in the final analysis? Artifacts do not [i]necessarily[/i] have motivations. Look at the "Hammer of Thunderbolts" or the "Shield of Prator" in MME. 'Concordance' is clearly not a requisite for artifacts. In the end, I made my answer not because I contend that the rarity mess never happened - clearly it did. I made my answer as I did because I can offer no properly coherent answer with rarity included because the definitions of rarity are redundant, confused, ambiguous and nonsensical. An item's "power" defines its level, not whether it's an artifact or not - compare any 'Heroic' artifact with any level 25+ item to see that. An item that is "more powerful than others of its level" is just wrongly assigned a level. Rare items, as far as I can see, fit either into the category of "wrongly levelled" or into the category of "should be an artifact". The classification itself is totally redundant. Hence my answer was made without reference to something that makes no sense as part of the 4E system; to do otherwise would make my answer as nonsensical as the whole, muddled "rarity" guff already is. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Dragon 421 is up! Level-by-level Multiclassing for 4e; Dragonlance Items; Draconian!
Top