Excerpt: You and Your Magic Items

[Majoru Oakheart]

Did i read it wrong? or does the holy avenger actually does +nd10 whenever you strike with a radiant power?

Well, it adds 1d10 damage when you use a radiant power. Not nd10.

 

[Terwox]

Yeah I know, but it seems like nearly all the stuff in 4th edition is by default, in the player's hands and it requires the DM to be a hardass and say, no you can't do this. No you can't do that. Instead of the DM saying, here's what you can do.

You just stated that which is beautiful about 4e.

This is a feature, not a flaw. If you want to add restrictive fluff, by all means, please do! I'm sure I will be adding some of my own. In 3e I spent a lot of time trying to make things less restrictive, Unearthed Arcana, etc... 4e looks to be the opposite, which is fantastic.

 

[Kzach]

That is beyond lame. Fighters who've never had magical training whatsoever shouldn't be able to identify magical poop, let alone the properties and effects of a magical item. Sure, they can feel the balance of a sword is better and that it fits their hand perfectly, but anything beyond that should require a person trained in arcane knowledge.

And it's even lamer that a fighter can swing about a magical sword and not get any benefit from it until someone tells him, "It's a +2, flaming sword."

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Another reason why there is the new way to Identify. They want to make it so you can be all martial characters for example, sooo... You need a way to Identify without a Wizard.

 

[FadedC]

The biggest bugaboo for me about the Identify spell isn't just the 100gp cost, but that it takes 8 hours. Talk about downtime while you find out the haul you got.

It's actually only 1 hour as of 3.5. But yeah I hated that in 3.0

 

[DandD]

Yeah I know, but it seems like nearly all the stuff in 4th edition is by default, in the player's hands and it requires the DM to be a hardass and say, no you can't do this. No you can't do that. Instead of the DM saying, here's what you can do.

By definition, D&D is a game that requires a gamemaster to moderate the game and 1 or more players agreeing with the rules and then playing together.

It really seems that D&D 3.X conditioned many people to believe that players should boss the gamemaster around. Just keep that trained garbage that you learned from D&D 3.X away.

There is nothing hardass about saying that you want to play it with such and such rules. After all, the players might also want some rules to change (heck, some players might even want to change a rule because they think it takes out the fun of it if there characters can do that). In the end, you compromise and play it to have fun together.

Also, the monster creation rules, applying templates and so all prove that 4th edition is all about letting the Gamemaster do as much as he wants (and it tries to constantly remind the gamemaster not to be a simulationist. The rules are for a fun game, not for simulating a work based on a d20-role).

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That is beyond lame. Fighters who've never had magical training whatsoever shouldn't be able to identify magical poop, let alone the properties and effects of a magical item. Sure, they can feel the balance of a sword is better and that it fits their hand perfectly, but anything beyond that should require a person trained in arcane knowledge.

I had that thought the first time I read it as well. But it occurred to me that it's a matter of flavor. Essentially, with identifies and that entire process, you are handing out unusable magic items to the party which they then need to carry around until the next reasonable time in the story for them to stop, buy pearls and casts some identify spells. Which takes some time to go through the list of 10-20 items they've collected since the last time they got to stop and rest. And you as a DM have to go back through your notes to try to figure out what the heck that longsword actually was, cause they found in 2 and a half months ago. Then the players have to spend a good hour or two fighting over who gets what item or which ones they are going to sell.

Either that or they pick up that sword and use it for an entire adventure. You have to remember to add the pluses to hit and damage every time they swing the sword, since you don't want to tell them what enhancement bonus it has. Then, after a battle or two, the player has already figured out its bonus because his allies hit an enemy on a 25 and he hit on a 22 but not on a 21.

When compared to the ability to give out an item which the players can just use right away with no waste of time and no work on my part as a DM...I'm just willing to accept that there is some obvious way to tell how all items work.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I like how a Cleric will also get a lot out of using a holy avenger as well. It might require them to take a proficiency feat, but at least it's useful for a class other than paladin.

 

[frankthedm]

Huh. I'm not certain I follow the logic behind making the magic weapons add ons do more damage on crits, but add squat to routine use of the weapon. It seems to be deliberately adding back the "swingyness" whose removal seemed to be a major design goal of 4e.

the REAL design goal was to have PC damage trackable by level. By making extra energy damage on a weapon only happen on a crit, they reduced the potency of energy enchants. +3.5 damage each hit is a LOT. In 4e that comes out to only +.125 [or +.35] damage each hit [per plus].

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I like how a Cleric will also get a lot out of using a holy avenger as well. It might require them to take a proficiency feat, but at least it's useful for a class other than paladin.

Don't see why, I am sure a Cleric will be proficient with atleast one of these: Axe, Hammer, Heavy Blade. Most likely Hammer.