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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 1821788" data-attributes="member: 5143">Magic items USED to be what made PCs special and above everyone else and they USED to be so important as to not be able to be bought or sold anywhere.  But even THEN it didn't make any sense.  I had players in 2nd edition who would continually ask me "So, if we have 8 extra +1 swords, 3 extra +2 swords and an extra +3 sword, plus extra rings of protection and various extra misc gear and we've been adventuring for a year and a half, and you are telling us that we ran into at least 4 other adventuring parties in that year, and that there are apparently quite a few more out there.  *do a couple calculations*  That would mean there's LOTs of magic items out there.  Who has all of them?  Are they gathering dust in a corner somewhere?  If they are SO valuable and so RARE, why is it that every powerful person we come across has one?  Why is it that there are so many scattered across dungeons everywhere?"I eventually gave up and started inventing item prices in 2nd edition because I couldn't stand players arguing that "I should be able to find an ex-adventurer or an adventurer higher level than us that wants to get rid of his obsolete equipment." or "Well, wizards can still make magic items, right?  Well, if they can, I offer him 400,000 gp...will he make me a + 1 sword now?"The main thing you have to remember is that setting and rules work both ways.  You make rules based on the setting and you make settings based on the rules.  It's good to have a prestige class for the elite guard of X nation.  It's also good to have magic shops that sell magic items when they make sense.  In D&D, magic items are not special.  They are all over the place, you can buy them, wizards create them, etc.  If NPCs view magic as rare in your world, at least change the rules so that you can't create them anymore and don't give any to your players, or at least only a couple.Also, magic items in D&D ARE meant to be modifiers to players abilities.  At X level, the average character is expected to have about X AC and X pluses to hit.  The numbers expect that you will have roughly a certain amount of magic included in there or it is impossible to make it to X.  All enemies become harder because you can't hit them and they hit you too easily.Either way, that's sort of off topic.  Yes, treasure should be split evenly.  It feels very bad to be the one who doesn't have any magic items when the rest of the party is buffed up with stuff that helps them.  So much so that I've seen players stop paying attention to the game because they "can't do anything to help".  A character in D&D is about 1/6 character choices, 3/6 level, and 2/6 magic items.  If you have bad character choices, you can still do well in a group.  Take away magic items, and you are having a bit harder time.I've seen it where a player who made up a "role playing" character.  One that refused to metagame by splitting treasure evenly, and giving up his choice of treasure because it didn't suit him, and also happened to choose mostly roleplaying feats and skills.  He also multiclassed into quite a few classes for role playing reasons (his character was a little sneaky - 1 level of rogue, he was a devout worshipper of his god - 1 level of cleric, but good with a sword - 1 level of fighter, etc).  This combined together meant he had about half the power of everyone else in the group.  Low on magic items and no good combat feats and skills and bad character design (i.e. no high level abilities).  He either nearly died every battle or stayed back and did almost nothing of any use.  He wasn't very happy playing his character.Majoru Oakheart</blockquote>

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