Just say NO to buff items, the crack of D&D.

[MeepoTheMighty]

In lots of games -- certainly the ones I play in -- we think the notion of a "magical supermarket" is ridiculous and magical items ought to be exotic or special. You can't "just buy" them.

"Buying" an item can also include "comissioning" an item or "paying the party mage to make an item." Or do you not allow those either?

 

[scholz]

The point I was trying to make was asking what Stat Buffs do for the game?
What is there point. If they are necessary for the balancing of Challange Ratings then that system seems silly. Why not simply give everyone more stat boosts or higher initial stats, or lower the power of the monsters. The numbers are just numbers.

I like the idea of a cleric or wizard casting a spell to help the party overcome a specific problem.
ex. The fighter must wrestle the ogre chief to gain passage across its land. The Wizard casts Bull Strength on the fighter.
ex. The party is trapped behind a heavy iron Portcullis. The Cleric casts Bull's Strength on the strongest person to lift the gate.
ex. The party must cross an unstable rope bridge across a windy chasm, the Cleric casts Mass Cat's Grace on the party to help them make it across.
ex. The thief is unable to understand the complex code of the bandit's map. The cleric casts a Fox's Cunning on the thief to aid his deciphering.

Those things sound cool to me. But... if we simply are adding points to add points. What is the point? If it is assumed that this must happen every combat, or every day, then it seems just a way of weakening the spell casters, or using up a party's gold. I think this was their point of nerfing the spells, if a spell must be cast every day, then something is wrong with it.

THe occasional buff is interesting and part of the genre. The assumption that everyone will have the essential buffs seems pointless to me.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Just in case you are interested the proper word is moot (which comes from the sorta town councils, called "moots" who would meet to resolve problems in c9-10th century England).

Isn't "moot" an acronym? I thought it meant something akin to "mostly out of topic", which, when I think about it, doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

Ah, there it is. Moot. Of no practical importance, irrelevant. Like this post.

AR

 

[Janx]

I'm leary of people who say you shouldn't be able to buy magic items.

Understand, in 2E, felt the same way, and I certainly don't like huge "MagicMalls"

However, a basic understanding of economics says you can buy magic items.

A. people WANT magic items (Demad)
B. people HAVE magic items or can make them (Supply)
C. anything CAN be made or done (especially with magic)
D. limited resources constrain what IS actually made or done

So assuming the above is true (and most educated people would):
I can buy magic items (A + B)
Buffs exist (C +D)

You can argue against it, but that would be stubborn. It is more logical to make it "harder" to make buff items (rarer components, higher cost) if you don't want to see them. It is certainly logical that in your world, buff items require really rare components to make, so they cost more. By costing more to make, fewer will be made, which reduces supply (which increases price, ceteris paribus). Demand won't really drop, odds a good a paladin would like to have a CHA buff regardless of what world he's in. He might be disinclined to buy one due to the price.

Also, when you reduce supply, you increase the price. You also would be preventing the MagicMall effect. Make no mistake, magic items are for sale (people will sell anything, for the right price). But with rarer items, they will be private sales and with smaller inventories.

Now some people seem to be arguing against this because of munchkinism. That's a different problem to solve. In my game, I got a paladin with 5 DEX. He badly wants to improve his DEX. It'll cost him 60,000 approx. for a Book of Dexterity, to solve the problem reasonably. He's 3rd level, and maybe has 1,000GP. Frankly, we don't have a buff problem.

Janx

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The point I was trying to make was asking what Stat Buffs do for the game?
What is there point. If they are necessary for the balancing of Challange Ratings then that system seems silly. Why not simply give everyone more stat boosts or higher initial stats, or lower the power of the monsters. The numbers are just numbers.

Stat boosting items could be substituted for by granting more stat increases (a la Conan)--though that would decrease the flexibility of the system; ATM it's possible for a character to have no stat boosting items but better armor, better amulets of natural armor, etc. In order to keep the same balance in a game where stats automatically increase, there would have to be less treasure and consequently less flexibility in other items. (Note that this will also have a minor effect on the kinds of items used as well. If a 10 dex will stay 10 unless you buy magic gloves, fullplate is more attractive than it is if your 10 dex becomes a 14 no matter what you do. Auto-increasing stats across the board will make all feat chains more available and will create a minor incentive against the use of heavy armors). Increasing initial stats, however, will not accomplish the same goal. Increasing initial stats runs into several problems. First, stat boosts aren't available from level one so the low level characters of an increased stat campaign are dramatically superior to those of a non-increased stat campaign. Second, since initial stats cap at 18 or 20 and, depending upon the campaign will generally start at at least 15 in the primary stats, you can boost initial stats all you want but the 20th level fighter will have the same strength as he would have had if he had gauntlets of ogre power--and will be significantly weaker than he'd be with a +6 belt of strength. This is doubly true for characters that might have started with a 17 or 18 anyway. Their initial stats can't be increased so essentially buff items on their primary stat are being removed and not replaced. Third, increasing initial stats will make characters more similar. If every fighter has to start with an 18 strength and 18 constitution to be balanced in a world with standard D&D monsters but without standard D&D items, then every fighter WILL start with an 18 strength and an 18 constitution. And they will all look a good deal more similar than they would in a world where starting with less than maximum stats won't mean that they are weak later on.

I like the idea of a cleric or wizard casting a spell to help the party overcome a specific problem.
ex. The fighter must wrestle the ogre chief to gain passage across its land. The Wizard casts Bull Strength on the fighter.
ex. The party is trapped behind a heavy iron Portcullis. The Cleric casts Bull's Strength on the strongest person to lift the gate.
ex. The party must cross an unstable rope bridge across a windy chasm, the Cleric casts Mass Cat's Grace on the party to help them make it across.
ex. The thief is unable to understand the complex code of the bandit's map. The cleric casts a Fox's Cunning on the thief to aid his deciphering.

This seems hopelessly unrealistic to me. The spells are far too weak to be truly useful even in these situations and the situations are too few and too far apart to be worth prepping the spells for.

Fighter wrestling the ogre? Cast Enlarge Person. More effective, lower level, and more generally useful.
Trapped behind the portcullis? Cast Levitate or Enlarge Person again. More effective, and more useful.
Crossing an unstable rope bridge? Cast Airwalk and carry the party across or summon a celestial owl to ferry people across. And it's two levels lower.
Unable to understand the code? Well you might need Fox's Cunning for that but how often do coded messages come up in game? Certainly not often enough that you'd prepare Fox's Cunning on the off chance that you'll need it.

Those things sound cool to me. But... if we simply are adding points to add points. What is the point? If it is assumed that this must happen every combat, or every day, then it seems just a way of weakening the spell casters, or using up a party's gold.

Nonsense. The thing about stat-buffing items is that they are not just adding points to add points. Since the stats of lower CR monsters don't go up when Thorgal the warrior straps on his belt of strength +6, it enables the high level Thorgal to do things that the lower level Thorgal couldn't do--like arm wrestle a troll and win. That it also enables him to hurt the ancient red dragon is a part of the exponential power curve of D&D. Perhaps more to the point, stat buffing items also emphasize the difference between the classes. Maybe you expect the fighter to have a belt of strength +6 by 14th level. But you don't expect the cleric to have one then. Nor do you expect the rogue to have one. Without stat buffs, the difference between a melee cleric's or a melee rogue's unbuffed strength and the melee fighter's is usually 5-8 points. With belts of strength, the difference is more typically 11-14 points. (Which helps keep the fighter a viable melee combatant vis a vis the melee cleric since with Divine Power and Righteous Might, a cleric can easily buff his strength by 14 points. If the cleric needs to spend two buffing rounds to draw even with the fighter and still doesn't have the same number of feats, etc then fighters clearly have their place. If a single round of buffing enables the cleric to pull dramatically ahead of the fighter in capability then the fighter is going to watch the cleric crowd him out of his role in the party).

Similarly, the difference between the rogue and the cleric's dex is likely to be 14-18 points with stat buff items instead of hanging around 5-8 points.

Eliminating statbuffing items in favor of universal increases like Conan's +1 to every stat every x levels or higher starting stats will tend to flatten the differences between the classes. (Higher starting stats would be especially bad in this regard because that would enable melee clerics, etc. to start with strengths more similar to the fighters without sacrificing their wisdom)

I think this was their point of nerfing the spells, if a spell must be cast every day, then something is wrong with it.

There are a lot of spells that are designed to be cast every day. Moment of Prescience, for instance, is most effective if cast every day. Similarly, Mind Blank is designed to be constantly active. Detect Scrying and False Vision are the same. (At least immunity to scrying and divinations isn't very useful if it's not active when someone tries to scry on you it's completely worthless. And since you don't know when people will try to scry on you, it needs to be active all the time).

In a different vein, nobody complains if the cleric casts bless, prayer, or cure light wounds every day or if the wizard casts magic missile, fireball, and disintegrate every day. These are no less regular, commonplace tactics than 3.0 buffing was.

It seems to me like some people just have a problem with buffing being a regular tactic--not with spells being cast every day. If anyone had a problem with that, the first thing they should do is eliminate the sorceror and let wizards put more spells/level in their spellbook.

THe occasional buff is interesting and part of the genre. The assumption that everyone will have the essential buffs seems pointless to me.

Strange. One of the things I liked about 3.0 was that a wizard who used his spells to enhance his companions rather than to directly destroy his enemies was a viable concept. It was never assumed that everyone would have all of the essential buffs all of the time (and it was never the case that those buffs would be the same for every character either. You didn't cast Bull's Strength on the wizard or Cat's Grace on the cleric). What was assumed was that a party would either have buffs active when they knew they would face combat (at low-mid levels; not until high levels could they be active all day) OR that they would have a lot of magical firepower to throw at their foes.

 

[scholz]

You can argue against it, but that would be stubborn. It is more logical to make it "harder" to make buff items (rarer components, higher cost) if you don't want to see them. It is certainly logical that in your world, buff items require really rare components to make, so they cost more. By costing more to make, fewer will be made, which reduces supply (which increases price, ceteris paribus). Demand won't really drop, odds a good a paladin would like to have a CHA buff regardless of what world he's in. He might be disinclined to buy one due to the price.

Also, when you reduce supply, you increase the price. You also would be preventing the MagicMall effect. Make no mistake, magic items are for sale (people will sell anything, for the right price). But with rarer items, they will be private sales and with smaller inventories.
Janx

So nice to see ceteris paribus used in the lists.

I agree with this entirely, DM's have the responsibility to control what items are in their world. I think the main complaints about 'buying magic items' is really against the Magical Mall conception. That is where between adventures players engage in these transactions. eg. I cash in the +1 axe, and hat of disguise, and throw in my 1500 gold to buy a belt of strength. Oh, and can I get someone to enhance my long sword +1 to be keen. I've got the 4000 gold (well it is a spell book worth 4000).

That sort of buying and selling totally snarks a game IMHO. But it is very popular. I had two players in a game eventually quit because I made such transactions dangerous role playing experiences (the D&D equivalent of an illlegal drug or weapons sale). Maybe I am just wierd and cruel.

Of course, I would go a step further than Janx. I would take away the idea of "standard magic items." There are none in my world. You can't go to a dealer and say: "I want a head band of intellect." The dealer wouldn't know what you were talking about. You could ask "I want something that will increase my intellect." But you might end up getting something different. This is something else that cuts down on the Magical Mall idea.

 

[Randolpho]

Isn't "moot" an acronym? I thought it meant something akin to "mostly out of topic", which, when I think about it, doesn't make a whole lotta sense.

Ah, there it is. Moot. Of no practical importance, irrelevant. Like this post.

AR

Obsolete is the best description of moot as it's used today. Although the LotR term Ent-moot should bring original connotations to mind.

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=moot

 

[Spatzimaus]

Not that this hasn't come up before, but I figure I might as well reiterate a House Rule we've used since 3.0 that solved this problem perfectly for us. Basically, the limiting factor for most buff spells (duration) became a non-issue when items were involved, so we wanted to fix that in general.

In short:

Craft Wondrous Item can't make any "always-on" items. If you want that, either make it a Ring, Rod, or Arms/Armor as appropriate.

So, the Belt of Giant Strength might cast Bull's Strength five times per day, at Caster Level 3. When this item was translated to 3.5E, nothing had to change; it could now still cast it five times per day.

Actually, we expanded the basic rules a bit, by giving three options:
1> Standard Activation: The default. The item takes a Standard Action to activate. Cost is 360gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day.
2> Command Activated: The item only takes a Free Action to activate (all you need is a thought or one word). Cost is 500gp * spell level * caster level * uses per day.
3> Interruptible Activation: The item takes a Free Action to activate, AND you can choose to only use part of the duration, so instead of "X charges", it's listed as "X rounds". For example, the Boots of Speed. Cost is 750gp * spell level * (caster level * uses per day). The reason I put that last part in parentheses is that the product is all that matters; if the duration is 1 round/level, and you have caster level 10, then the item has 10 rounds of use.

So anyway, we went back through the DMG and converted all the use-activated or continuous items to one of these three forms. It worked great so far, and when we shifted to 3.5E there wasn't suddenly a bunch of scrambling for new items.

 

[scholz]

This seems hopelessly unrealistic to me. The spells are far too weak to be truly useful even in these situations and the situations are too few and too far apart to be worth prepping the spells for..

I am hopelessly unrealistic, it is why I like FRPGs.
But I would be okay about allowing spells that increase the non-combat effects of abilities far higher than +2. I agree a +2 will not do much. I was thinking about the story idea, not the particular buff spell. I think a better model fo the iconic buff spell should be True Strike or Wield Skill. Big bonuses for single uses. (Obviously details would need to be worked out)

Perhaps more to the point, stat buffing items also emphasize the difference between the classes.

But end up making every fighter identical, and every cleric identical. If you need high stats to be different something is wrong. Of course, with the practical requirement that everyone have a prime stat buff, you simply raise the bar and push everyone to eleven. I think it should be interesting when the big bad fighter has a 20+ strength, she would be the talk of legends, yes? No, she would be just a plain old fighter like any other. Boring.[/QUOTE]

There are a lot of spells that are designed to be cast every day. Moment of Prescience, for instance, is most effective if cast every day. Similarly, Mind Blank is designed to be constantly active. Detect Scrying and False Vision are the same. (At least immunity to scrying and divinations isn't very useful if it's not active when someone tries to scry on you it's completely worthless. And since you don't know when people will try to scry on you, it needs to be active all the time).

In a different vein, nobody complains if the cleric casts bless, prayer, or cure light wounds every day or if the wizard casts magic missile, fireball, and disintegrate every day. These are no less regular, commonplace tactics than 3.0 buffing was..

I was thinking of the 3.0 versions. I am not sure you and I are at odds here. I have no real problem with the 3.5 versions, though I would prefer if they didn't appear in items. That seems to make the high abilities common place.

Strange. One of the things I liked about 3.0 was that a wizard who used his spells to enhance his companions rather than to directly destroy his enemies was a viable concept. It was never assumed that everyone would have all of the essential buffs all of the time (and it was never the case that those buffs would be the same for every character either. You didn't cast Bull's Strength on the wizard or Cat's Grace on the cleric). What was assumed was that a party would either have buffs active when they knew they would face combat (at low-mid levels; not until high levels could they be active all day) OR that they would have a lot of magical firepower to throw at their foes.

I do like the idea of Buffs in principle. But I do not like them in 3.0 or as Items. The all day buffs lack flavor. When they are cast every day, and there is no viable alternative. A caster who did not prepare them would be culpably irresponsible to her fellow party members. Buffs should be actions that take place in adventures, not before them.

 

[Zad]

The point I was trying to make was asking what Stat Buffs do for the game?
What is there point. If they are necessary for the balancing of Challange Ratings then that system seems silly. Why not simply give everyone more stat boosts or higher initial stats, or lower the power of the monsters. The numbers are just numbers.

But that's not what you posted

Why have them? Simple: progression. In many ways, games like D&D are defined by the progression of the characters. The practical effects:

1. The game assumes that higher level characters face bigger monsters. The monsters have bigger stats, and the players need them too. This is one that can be solved by lowering both sides of the equation, but that's not the design choice that D&D made.

2. The game assumes higher level characters do harder things. Stat boosts mean higher skill scores to do these things. You could lower skill check DC's to compensate for the absence of these items.

3. The game assumes that players will beat up monsters and take their stuff. That money income is balanced against their spending, and stat boosters are a part of that spending.

4. The game assumes that higher level PC's will be facing higher level spells. The saving throw DC's of these spells are high and stat boosters help PC's survive them. You can lower saving throw DCs to compensate.


The game is based on certain design decisions. You can argue them if you want. You can alter them, but you must be very careful doing so or things get wierd. As you can see, if you want to remove stat boosters from your game, that's fine, but you have to change four different game elements and that's just what I thought of off the top of my head. And you'd have to make these changes every time, and in all published modules you wanted to use, and so on. At that point you have to wonder if the benefit from removing them is worth all the disruption it will cause you. Maybe the answer is "yes", in which case you just do the work.

But my main point is that you can't just say "it's silly" and remove them without realizing the consequences to the game.