If I "fix" Attack bonuses, how do I balance magic items?

[Irda Ranger]

There are a number of house rules bouncing around about the attack bonus - maximizing it, standardizing it, whatever. I'm working on my own spin of that I'll post later once I'm more organized, but I have a question about magic items.

Magic weapons (and implements) are partially balanced against each other by the level at which they get the attack bonus. The Magic Weapon is +1 at 1st level, the Luck Weapon at 3rd level, and the Flaming Weapon at 5th level. This is balanced because of course the Luck and Flaming weapon have "extras."

So what happens if we remove the attack bonus? Without taking an other action the higher level weapons become "no brainers", since you don't lose much by abandoning the basic Magic Weapon (just a +1 to damage). I don't think that's enough to balance them (which I want to do). But I'm having a real brain-block trying to come up with a way to keep them balanced vis a vis each other without the +1 to attack. Any ideas?

Thanks!


EDIT: Oh great and powerful moderators, I beseech thee to remove this thread to the realm of 4e house-rules, for I am foolish and thread-posted erroneously!

 

[Eldorian]

I had an idea that basically uses the magic item threshold rule for monsters, but for PCs. Then if a PC acquires a +2 weapon when his magic item threshold is +1, he gains the bonus to hit. A simple way to enact this rule is to give the PCs an enhancement bonus to hit at such and such levels, and since enhancement bonuses don't stack, bumping up to +2 instead of +1 flaming gives the advantage it normally gives.

 

[Revinor]

It is bit hard to give you the answer, without knowing your target. Rules modifications are not done for modification sake, they are done to achieve certain behaviour from players.

I have met attack bonus 'fixing' mostly in low magic campaigns, where there are not magic weapons. But it seems that you still want to have magic item grind as usual, with people trying to get highest level weapon which they can, but just move attack bonus out of the weapon equation...

In such case, double damage bonus. Weapon +5 will do +0 to hit, +10 to damage. I think that 2 points of damage should be enough benefit to players to consider skipping from 5th level to 7th level weapon (I don't think that you will get many people picking plain magic weapons even now).

Still, it escapes me, what will it change in game experience.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Ok, this is partly my fault for not revealing enough information (sorry! wasn't trying to be cryptic).

I have met attack bonus 'fixing' mostly in low magic campaigns, where there are not magic weapons. But it seems that you still want to have magic item grind as usual, with people trying to get highest level weapon which they can, but just move attack bonus out of the weapon equation...

Well, yeah. All monsters in the MM are balanced on the assumption that the PCs will have magic weapons of appropriate level. If you read the Fix Stat Polarity thread you'll see that all the sources of attack modifiers are rolled up into a level-based attack progression, which certainly works. But you have to allow the damage output to grow along with the number of HP your opponents have; otherwise grindspace just gets worse with each level.

So my "fix" to adopt a unified method for determining attack, but keep the damage modifiers so that I don't have to re-write all the monsters in Dragon Magazine and all the MMs.

So my concern is that weapons won't be "balanced" any more once I do this. An attack bonus is a big deal in 4E, and a major balancing factor between the plain-jane "Magic Weapons" and the other weapons that have all the extra powers.

Now one possible fix is to allow the Magic Weapon to keep it's +1 to attack, and leave the Flaming Weapon at +0. But what about the weapons in between? Do they a +1 when PCs are levels 3 to 5, but drop down to +0 when PCs are levels 6 and 7? That's sort of awkward kludge.

double damage bonus. Weapon +5 will do +0 to hit, +10 to damage. I think that 2 points of damage should be enough benefit to players to consider skipping from 5th level to 7th level weapon (I don't think that you will get many people picking plain magic weapons even now).

I don't see how the makes the Flaming Weapon equally attractive relative with the Magic Weapon. Doesn't the Flaming Weapon get 2x damage as well?

I suppose you could sort of use a formula where the weapon gets a damage bonus equal to the difference between its level and the next higher level which is a multiple of 5. Magic Weapon would get a +4 to damage and Flaming Weapon gets +0.

Or, maybe half that: +2 damage for level 1 items, +1 damage for level 2 and 3 items, and +0 damage for level 4 and 5 items.

Hitting less often but harder is usually a good trade-off, though I'm not sure where the math makes it "balanced."

Still, it escapes me, what will it change in game experience.

Well, I don't blame you for that because I didn't include additional information because I thought it would be extraneous and confusing, rather than enlightening.

The "full" fix is to take attack and defense progression right off the table entirely. What you have at level 1 is more or less "it" for the rest of the game. The only advances come from feats, powers and +1 magic items (magic items never give more than +1 to any attack or defense). You continue to acquire Skills, HP and Powers (and do damage) normally.

The benefits of this house rule are as follows:

1. You don't need minions (which I hate, hate, hate). A 1st level monster can still hit a 10th level PC (even if not for too much damage) because the 10th level PCs Defenses are pretty much the same as at 1st level (maybe 1~2 points higher, but certainly hittable). So if you need a swarm of something, use 1st level monsters. Or even "weak" monsters (1st level but 1/2 normal HP).

2. PCs of greater degree of level difference can be in the same group without all sorts of headaches. For instance, you could have a 23rd level Wizard, a 10th level elven bow-ranger and human chr-warlord, 6th level human and dwarven fighters and four 1st level haflings all in the same party, and since their Defense scores are more or less the same you can attack them with the same group of orcs.

3. Ever wonder how an army can defend a city from a dragon or some dire-elephant cavalry? Now you know: en masse. City guards have a lower attack bonus than 1st level PCs, but only by a point or two. They can hit high-level marauding monsters (if not easily).

4. You get to keep the same magic item from 2nd level to 30th, if you so choose. You might even want to name it something, like Excalibur or Glamdring.

5. The power curve is flatter, encouraging PCs of even Epic Tier to feel they are still normal is some respects and can have normal problems (like Batman or Spiderman, rather than Superman).

 

[keterys]

To be clear, aren't you comparing something like a +1 Flaming weapon to a +2 Magic weapon?

I suspect that +1 damage on every damage roll you make is actually still a solid win over the Flaming powers (unless you're a Tiefling)... I don't see that it makes it that much worse than comparing a level 3 or 4 item to a level 5, where there's no difference of hit and damage, just in what special bonuses they get (Frost vs. Flaming, for instance).

You could double the damage bonus, if you also wanted to increase damage output, that would make it more appealing.

I'm not sure it's really that necessary to remove the attack bonus from magic weapons, myself, but I'd say there's still sufficient reason to use a higher + over a special if it's just damage.

 

[Irda Ranger]

I suspect that +1 damage on every damage roll you make is actually still a solid win over the Flaming powers (unless you're a Tiefling)...

Yeah? That's sort of what I was asking; if the damage bonus alone (without the attack bonus) was enough to balance the items of different levels.

You could double the damage bonus, if you also wanted to increase damage output, that would make it more appealing.

If at all possible I'd like to avoid changing the damage values, just because I know they're already balanced with the MM's HP totals and I don't want to mess with all those if I don't have to.

I'd say there's still sufficient reason to use a higher + over a special if it's just damage.

Cool. I'll trust your judgment on this one. Thanks.

 

[keterys]

There are people who will stick with what they have - adding Charisma to sneak attack is pretty good stuff, Reckless is pretty hot for a Striker, etc. Things that are good enough that they might have trouble choosing when it still contained the +1 attack.

But it's at least a real option compared to most enhancements.

Of course, you do have another option - get rid of generic magic weapons entirely after +1. I've been trying to figure out how I'd do that best myself, to not leave a level gap at their levels.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Of course, you do have another option - get rid of generic magic weapons entirely after +1. I've been trying to figure out how I'd do that best myself, to not leave a level gap at their levels.

I like keeping them for the same reason I like humans as a race - they aren't specialized, but they're the most widely useful. It's always allowing the tradeoff of Flaming or Luck vs. that dependable +1 damage to everything.