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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hambot" data-source="post: 4224315" data-attributes="member: 61484">There's already precedent for magic items with buttons - Rod of Lordly might.  No reason why the flaming swords can't have them because it does make a lot of sense.And yes, you can make more complicated items, but that doesn't mean the vast majority of bombs aren't grenades or RPG's.  I expect that Magic items would be the same.  Most would be very easy to use, while a few made by specialized sources would have all sorts of secret command words to stop them being used by the enemy.  Those would require Arcana checks to identify, as the excerpt suggests.The funny thing is that the example weapons you describe are routinely used by people who are not super bright, but they DO know fighting.  Because that's what they've learned through experience.  shoving a detonator in a lump of explosive, arming it then flipping the switch is just learned behavior, that anybody can do if they have seen or heard about it.  And in a magical world, figuring out how to use a magical item without arcane training is like someone figuring out how to drive a car, when they rode in one once years ago and they've heard a lot about them, so they know whats possible if they just play around with it.I imagine kids growing up in a D&D world would be told fairy tales about magical wonders so even if they never saw pictures in a Mages tome they would have a good idea about what sort of things to expect from a weapon, cloak or armour.  If many of the items in 4E do similar things in particular body slots, this makes more sense.  If you can't handle a fighter figuring out all the properties of a wondrous item, just let him figure out the most obvious one.Complaining that the default rules set in a game of make-believe lets people's characters do fantastical things without realistic limitations defeats the purpose of escapism.  Considering that at every major point they do call out the DM has the option of tightening things up to fit with their campaign world I believe they are doing a good job of giving everybody the options they need.  The majority of posters here so far are in favour of much of the text, so it looks like they hit a default that just manages to please the majority, while allowing you do do otherwise if you wish.  We could all be upset that the default options presented in the book don't match up very well with the fantasy worlds that we have made and believe make the most sense, or with our default play style, but that is pointless because whatever they make the default, there will be lots of people whose style is different.You seem to be mostly upset that the default of the whole book is permissive to the players, rather than moderately restrictive because that is how you prefer it.  In 4e Wizards seems to have tried to make every decision with maximising gameplay fun in mind.  They often sacrifice versimilatude in the interests of a faster paced game.  All you can reasonably ask for is that they offer outs to those who want to restrict gameplay options in order to increase their versimalitude.  Which is what they did in this case.</blockquote>

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