Equiment vs. Skill in D&D

[Thanee]

Yes, equipment factors in way too much in D&D.

You can only either accept it and live with it, or look for another system or sub-system to change that.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Andor]

So body slots would be tattoo slots? That'd be neat.

*snicker* "Hey! See my new finger tattoo?" "How dare you! *smack*"

Come to think of it I have a LARP character with (what amounts to) a one shot magic missle tattoo on his middle finger. Just to give it that extra 'zing'.

 

[diaglo]

Yes, equipment factors in way too much in D&D.

You can only either accept it and live with it, or look for another system or sub-system to change that.

Bye
Thanee

it has since the introduction of Supplement I Greyhawk(1975).

when the game started emphasizing stats as important.

the first PrC, paladin, had a restriction on the number of items he could possess b/c of this.

good stats plus items = increased power beyond level.

 

[beepeearr]

Yeah, Thats one of my major complaints, Items mean alot in D&D. I was already tinkering with an idea to trade in wealth for training to gain skills, feats, or other abilities. The problem is item's are not permanent abilities, and are by their nature magical with all the penalties therein.

When I allowed Vow of Poverty in my game, I allowed the player to take any feat (well not vile feats), but since they were gained from the Vow they counted as exalted feats and all benefits from these feats were considered supernatural abilities. Meaning if he broke his vow he loses the ability to use them or any feats that used them as prerequisites, also they wouldn't function in Magic dead areas.

And this book from WoTC might help as well

"This supplement introduces a magical substance called incarnum into the D&D game. With this book, the players characters can meld incarnum—the power of souls living, dead, and unborn—into magical items and even their own bodies, granting them special attacks, defenses, and other abilities (much as magic items and spells do). Incarnum can be shaped and reshaped into new forms, giving characters tremendous versatility in the dungeon and on any battlefield.

This book also features new classes, prestige classes, feats, and other options for characters wishing to explore the secrets of incarnum, as well as rules and advice for including incarnum in a D&D campaign."

I might use this as the basics for my training idea, but will problably double the cost and without the reshaping. Plus it doesn't come out till September

 

[TerraDave]

An old Enworld favorite.

Magic items are a "point buy" system layered on top of the class/race/level D&D system--the value in gp being the points. Of course, what you can "buy", and how many "points" you have depends very much on the DM. 3rd edition made the logic of this a little more explicit, but as Diaglo pointed out it has long been part of the game.

One function of it is actually to help balance out the classes as they advance: fighter types tend to relie more on their items then casters at higher levels. (and this has also always been part of the game, probably even more so in the past). Something to keep in mind when you start tweaking.

There are a few enworld threads on Iron Lore, including this one:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=124666

Midnight, which is low magic, also has an alternate to magic items in the forms of special "paths" the PCs take that give them different boosts at different levels.

And, as the midget has pointed out, you can wing it with other rewards. Your ideas regarding AC look like a good start.

 

[jmucchiello]

Material magical items, such as a magical axe or so on, are also a problem to properly represent with this model. I generally allow both, as it's just cool for the wizard to have his staff or so on.

Or the axe is not magical, the character just channels cold energy (And a +3 bonus) through axes. Likewise, the wizard has a staff through which he can cast certain spells. It's not the staff that does it though.

 

[notjer]

Well... of curse weapon is very powerful and it could be better... Hmm imo the DM should try to balance it by give away and take away... like if they get to powerful the DM make up a plan to take the item away from the players... and the other way round. Works very well the the group where I'm one of the players.

 

[the Jester]

Another interesting approach might be to simply give the pcs two or three really good items rather than dozens of lesser items.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Well, you're basic problem that at high levels most of your bonuses come from equipment isn't something there's much of a solution for yet.

Iron Lore seems to be doing it, but it's months away and we don't know what sort of conversion features it will have.

Four Color to Fantasy had a pretty neat system for it, but it's not too widely supported anymore. The author recommended a later work, Elements of Magic, for me, but I found it less satisfying. You might not, however, and its worth checking out if you don't mind .pdfs.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My solution for years has been "powers instead of items," so I'll go into a bit of detail on how I fix some of the minor roadbumps that occur with that problem.

Temporary magic items (scrolls, wands...) are a problem, since it becomes unclear what the character's "wealth" (for magical equipment equivalent powers) is.

Not as much as you might think. First of all, scrolls, wands (bundles of 50 scrolls) and the like aren't often the most grevieous offenders of this category, and so can usually be allowed as they are, without any need to turn them into powers. Disposable magic items aren't really a part of your equipment, per se, because they'll be discareded eventually. A bundle of scrolls, a wand, a potion, a staff...IMC, I let them in virtually unchanged because the are temporary, so the aren't meant to be a permenant part of your character's power.

You can also still make them non-items if you wish, Things like "wearing spells" so that they're already cast, and just have their effects latent can be used. Or you can secret them into things -- when the party sorcerer expends his last fireball, inform him that he still thinks he can cast it a few more times; keep track of the charges on these items youself. The ExPsiHB even uses tatoos as an analouge to potions, so the idea is out there...

It also stretches disbelief to have powerful or blunt magical effects. I found the best method to deal with it is to have the characters be divine scions awakening into their powers - as this also solves the "what IS XP anyways, and how come I can increase in power so rapidly?" problem. The option of bonding/tattooing rituals and so on would also be cool. But for me just letting the character fly 1/day without some supernatural explanation doesn't work.

I've always tied it into the charater's own history and motives, thinking of them more like highly specialized class abilities. It's the warrior who always fancied himself an astronomer who gets to fly to take him closer to the stars, or the barbarian whose jumps almost defy gravity, or the sorcerer who has specialized in air magic...it's not just any character, it reflects the character's powers. That belt of giant's strength is probably going to the party's warrior anyway, saying that the party's warrior has developed a supernatural strength from having bull's strength cast on him so many times seems to make perfect sense.

Material magical items, such as a magical axe or so on, are also a problem to properly represent with this model. I generally allow both, as it's just cool for the wizard to have his staff or so on.

I'm not sure what you mean by "material" magic items...but yeah, it is cool to allow those disposable or iconic magic items, and there's no reason those have to be taken out.

You need to decide whether to demand double price (as the items don't take up slots) or not.

My rules say no, because even though it doesn't take up a slot, they also can't sell it, can't exchange it, can't give it to someone who might benefit more, can't bribe the enemy with it, can't dip it in acid to test it, and generally have a few more limitations (ESPECIALLY includign the "you can't sell it" part, which puts a damper on their treasure and means that upgrading that +2 Str to a +4 is much more difficult) that an actual item that didn't take up slots would.

Finally, in such a campaign expensive nonmagical gear can augment the characters further; such equipment must be somehow balanced wtih the characters as well (this is more of a problem at low levels).

Not so much. That +2 to Strength works just like a belt in that it's an enhacement bonus, and it is magical. It can be dispelled, and it doesn't stack with most magic. You can't go out and buy a belt to augment your magically discovered strength further.