Spatzimaus said:
Okay, you do that. I'll pick up your dropped weapon off the ground. Nyah nyah nyah. The only weapons I've ever seen people just throw aside like that are the non-enchanted bows/crossbows that practically every melee or caster type seems to have. In other words, things you don't care about losing.
Not quite. The archer in my last campaign often dropped her heavily enchanted bow and drew her only lightly enchanted rapier when entering melee (if forced to it.)
I suppose this may be different in a campaign where the PCs run away a lot, or where most of the enemies are classed humanoids who would rather quickly steal a bow and run away, than kill the party and steal everything. But in my experience, most combats are to the death, and end with the PCs victorious. At which time the archer would walk over to her bow and pick it up from wherever she'd dropped it. Until she picked up a
glove of storing anyway, at which point she didn't have to do that any more. Hardly worth 10,000gp. Heck, for that price, she could have just gotten another enchanted bow.
Without Quickdraw, you're effectively limited to whatever weapon you were carrying when the fight started, unless you wanted to lose a turn or risk losing the weapon.
Now that I think more on the matter, this probably isn't true. It's never been a free action to sheathe a weapon with Quickdraw. Quickdraw only allows you to sheathe as a MEA, then draw as a free action. The
glove of storing allows you to sheathe as a free action (into the glove) and draw as part of a move action, or take a 5' step back and draw as a MEA. One
glove and Quickdraw would allow you to sheathe and draw as a free action, but only the one way (i.e. bow to sword, but not sword to bow). Only two
gloves of storing, at a 20,000gp hit, would allow you to move freely between two weapons without penalty. Now, moving freely between two weapons is nice, but has it really be such a large part of people's games that they believe it's worth a 16,000gp price hike to prevent "abuse"?
The Gloves of Storing have another use besides just being a Quickdraw replacement. If I'm a 2-handed weapon user (greatsword, glaive, whatever), those weapons can get HEAVY. Having a weightless scabbard is a big benefit.
I find this observation to be untrue. A weightless scabbard is worthless, since the moment that strategic movement becomes important (when you enter into combat) you lose it's benefit, and the moment strategic movement becomes unimportant (after combat) it kicks in. With the exception of the very rare forced march, and falling into the ocean, (neither of which I've seen in a campaign since I started playing 3e,) carrying a heavy load outside of combat is meaningless. In combat is where this comes into play, and the
glove of storing loses its effectiveness to nullify weight once you're swinging that greatsword at your foes.
It's not just about weight; where exactly are you carrying that strung longbow?
The same place the fighter is carrying his greatsword:
in my hands. Or over my shoulder. Seriously, you can have your longbow strung all day, just not day-and-night. So if you're an archer, you get yourself a lesser, but dependable, bow for night watch (just like the fighter and his chain pajamas.)
So, the Glove of Storing is a replacement for both the Quickdraw feat AND the Bag of Holding/HHH/Quiver of Ehlonna, but only for one weapon at a time. To make things even worse, the item's just reduced, not in some extradimensional space, so you never have to worry about what happens when you put your gloves inside a Bag of Holding or anything.
Okay, this is reaching. Really. I mean, when was the last time in a game you played in or DMed that a player went, "whoa! Good thing that these
gloves of storing only reduce objects! Now I can put my pair in this
bag of holding!"
:shrug: You say that every character had them, and I suppose if I'd had that experience I'd agree. But I've seen much more variety. For the archer,
gloves of storing were a great item. But the rogue went with
gloves of dexterity, and the fighter/mage was saving up for a
gauntlet of rust. The barbarian had
gauntlets of ogre power. Same as with the other items you've mentioned, actually. Sure, some PCs liked them a lot, but there are so many good items out there that it was hardly a no-brainer.
