jasper
Rotten DM
the 308,000 vowel or 143k one, or the level draining one Greenfield?Oh, I'm sure that's the case.
But saying, "Judge on a case by case basis", without giving any guidelines at all is kinda useless. Can I at least buy a vowel?
Inconsistent pricing between DMG & MIC
- Thread starter ChimericDream
- Start date
Greenfield
Adventurer
The game is "evolving" by means of power creep. I mean, call it what you will, when the stated goal and the end result are an increase in power for PCs, it's power creep. By evolution or revolution, it is what it is.
Are they boosting the value of "rarely used" items to get them used more often? If not, then why bother? If so, then it's power creep.
Are they boosting the value of "rarely used" items to get them used more often? If not, then why bother? If so, then it's power creep.
I'd say power creep makes existing options more powerful. It seems to be established that stat enhancers, cloaks of resistance, etc. (the "big six") are the most powerful, so making something that outshines these would be clear power creep.
It seems like the designer's target is providing more options at a similar power level, not increasing power but rather variety. To me, implemented successfully, that is not power creep. If we take it as given that the Cloak of Resistance is clearly the most powerful purchase for that item slot at that price, adding four items that use the same slot to deliver the same power, in a different form, results in equal power, but more variety. Challenging to implement, certainly, but beneficial if achieved by allowing for greater variety at the same power level.
Very tough to measure, though.
Of course, an alternative approach would have been to increase the price of the "big six", but they are probably too ingrained to tinker with. As they have become the standard, then that would have been, at least arguably, power reduction.
It seems like the designer's target is providing more options at a similar power level, not increasing power but rather variety. To me, implemented successfully, that is not power creep. If we take it as given that the Cloak of Resistance is clearly the most powerful purchase for that item slot at that price, adding four items that use the same slot to deliver the same power, in a different form, results in equal power, but more variety. Challenging to implement, certainly, but beneficial if achieved by allowing for greater variety at the same power level.
Very tough to measure, though.
Of course, an alternative approach would have been to increase the price of the "big six", but they are probably too ingrained to tinker with. As they have become the standard, then that would have been, at least arguably, power reduction.
Loren Pechtel
Explorer
Exactly my thought.
If there is some item players choose in preference to the big six then they went too far. If players choose a variety of items that includes the big six item then they did their job right.
Greenfield
Adventurer
Okay, let's look at the item that started the discussion: The Ring of Universal Energy Resistance.
Is that sort of thing on the "Big Six"? Generally, yes. One ring slot will go to a Deflection ring, and the other to something like Invisibility or Energy Resistance. Resistance is far more common.
So why cut the price so much? Was this an under utilized option? Hardly. Well, maybe. Energy Resistance was a common option. Multiple energy resistance in the same ring? Pricy, and not as common. Universal resistance? Very pricy, to the point of being prohibitive, and thus very uncommon.
But if the goal was simply to give more magic for the same price, how is that anything but power creep?
One of the common tools of the munchkin gamer is to ignore the "Wealth by Level" guidelines. A 1st level character with a million GP equipment budget is going to kick ass.
Making kick-ass magic items cheaper and more available achieves the same goal.
If they simply wanted to make a richer, more varied range of magic items all they had to do was expand the number of features/powers that could be added to "the big six". Your +2 Animated shield is nice. What about adding Scintilating to it, so that enemies facing you need to make a Save or be dazzled by it's brightness? Call it a +1 enhancement.
Things like that, as additional options to add to arms and armor could have expanded the scope of magic in the game, and done it without being a power-up.
Is that sort of thing on the "Big Six"? Generally, yes. One ring slot will go to a Deflection ring, and the other to something like Invisibility or Energy Resistance. Resistance is far more common.
So why cut the price so much? Was this an under utilized option? Hardly. Well, maybe. Energy Resistance was a common option. Multiple energy resistance in the same ring? Pricy, and not as common. Universal resistance? Very pricy, to the point of being prohibitive, and thus very uncommon.
But if the goal was simply to give more magic for the same price, how is that anything but power creep?
One of the common tools of the munchkin gamer is to ignore the "Wealth by Level" guidelines. A 1st level character with a million GP equipment budget is going to kick ass.
Making kick-ass magic items cheaper and more available achieves the same goal.
If they simply wanted to make a richer, more varied range of magic items all they had to do was expand the number of features/powers that could be added to "the big six". Your +2 Animated shield is nice. What about adding Scintilating to it, so that enemies facing you need to make a Save or be dazzled by it's brightness? Call it a +1 enhancement.
Things like that, as additional options to add to arms and armor could have expanded the scope of magic in the game, and done it without being a power-up.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
It's really the other way around. But if you get the measurements relatively right, then it doesn't matter which direction you go. Consider this a mid-course correction in getting to the destination more accurately.
Ahnehnois
First Post
You mean in the sense that given a fixed budget, the character with the best value for his items is the most powerful? The MIC sure helps you spend your money more effectively.
Either way you look at it, it's strange that D&D characters know enough to charge and pay exorbitant sums based on formulas that are shared the world over.
Loren Pechtel
Explorer
Very uncommon = doesn't provide enough benefit for it's cost.
At the time of the MIC's release, one of the things that the community pretty widely considered to be kind of an issue was that in a game with about a skrillion magic items, most slots had a clear winner, maybe one or two other interesting choices for certain characters, and then a vast sea of items that were apparently designed without the concept of "opportunity cost" in mind. They probably could have nerfed down the obvobvobv choices - almost all of which are included in the DMG - but instead they chose to try to make other choices more interesting. You could make an argument that the execution could have been better, but the intent seems noble to me.
3.5 never really came to a good general solution in terms of how to handle the fact that its core is deeply and profoundly unbalanced. (I don't think there is a good general solution.) Consider the most powerful elements of 3.5's core. If later material tries to present more reasonable substitutes - call this the Warmage Solution - you end up with options that are mostly novelties. For classes, this is a pretty okay solution because people are willing to use a less-powerful class for novelty or because they find the concept interesting. Magic items don't have as much personality as classes, though. If you take the too-powerful stuff in the core at face value, and introduce comparable or near-comparable substitutions later, you do produce interesting alternatives, but you also continue to persist the game's balance issues.
Now consider the less-powerful options in the core. You can take them at face value, and when producing potential substitutes later be careful not to obsolete anything. This is the Samurai solution. It produces stuff that doesn't invalidate even the poorest options, but just produces stuff that is itself a poor option. You can also write off the poorest options when producing potential substitutes for them, and put together something a little more competitive. Call this the Warblade solution. Its drawback is that it looks like power creep.
MIC leans heavily on the Warblade solution, with the "substitutes" for many poor items simply being new versions of the same item. If you consider the old Ring of Universal Energy Resistance to already be a "kick-ass magic item" (very few people do, and it's never ever ever considered one of the "big six"), then making it cheaper is significant power creep. If you don't, then it's simply making it more competitive with the obvobvobv items. In fact, after the big six, most magic item budget is spent on dealing with encumbrance (which is usually pretty cheap), mobility, avoiding action-denial effects and stat-drain, defense against various other nasty things that can happen to you, and class-specific or build-specific boosts. "Energy resistance" isn't in anybody's big six. I doubt it's in most people's big thirty. That said, if somebody actually considers the Ring of Universal Energy Resistance good, then yeah, making it cheaper is big power creep, but it's hard to call that anything like community consensus about the item.
3.5 never really came to a good general solution in terms of how to handle the fact that its core is deeply and profoundly unbalanced. (I don't think there is a good general solution.) Consider the most powerful elements of 3.5's core. If later material tries to present more reasonable substitutes - call this the Warmage Solution - you end up with options that are mostly novelties. For classes, this is a pretty okay solution because people are willing to use a less-powerful class for novelty or because they find the concept interesting. Magic items don't have as much personality as classes, though. If you take the too-powerful stuff in the core at face value, and introduce comparable or near-comparable substitutions later, you do produce interesting alternatives, but you also continue to persist the game's balance issues.
Now consider the less-powerful options in the core. You can take them at face value, and when producing potential substitutes later be careful not to obsolete anything. This is the Samurai solution. It produces stuff that doesn't invalidate even the poorest options, but just produces stuff that is itself a poor option. You can also write off the poorest options when producing potential substitutes for them, and put together something a little more competitive. Call this the Warblade solution. Its drawback is that it looks like power creep.
MIC leans heavily on the Warblade solution, with the "substitutes" for many poor items simply being new versions of the same item. If you consider the old Ring of Universal Energy Resistance to already be a "kick-ass magic item" (very few people do, and it's never ever ever considered one of the "big six"), then making it cheaper is significant power creep. If you don't, then it's simply making it more competitive with the obvobvobv items. In fact, after the big six, most magic item budget is spent on dealing with encumbrance (which is usually pretty cheap), mobility, avoiding action-denial effects and stat-drain, defense against various other nasty things that can happen to you, and class-specific or build-specific boosts. "Energy resistance" isn't in anybody's big six. I doubt it's in most people's big thirty. That said, if somebody actually considers the Ring of Universal Energy Resistance good, then yeah, making it cheaper is big power creep, but it's hard to call that anything like community consensus about the item.
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