One thing that's always bugged me about 3.x is that there are loads of fun and interesting magical items in the various books, but the way the game is designed a large chunk of your wealth-by-level is all but required to be sunk into boring numerical boosts in order to keep up with the expected power curve.
Of course, you could always weaken the enemies so that these dry numerical buffs aren't necessary to keep up, but this is considerably trickier to pull off in a balanced fashion than it first appears. Plus it's generally just fun for the players and DM alike when the PCs have those heightened capabilities provided by stat-boosting items -- the problem is really the fact that you have to sacrifice more unique and interesting options if you want the raw numerical strength to be able to take on the tough, impressive foes.
The main area where this really grates on me is weapons and armor. Attribute-boosting items are a little dull as well, but at least there the basic concept is interesting -- it's just a matter of keeping the numbers to a level where they won't break the game, which is understandable. With weapons and armor, though, you have all sorts of wonderful and creative bonuses to choose from...but oftentimes you really just need that boring old +1 enhancement bonus.
One potential solution that's crossed my mind is to give an automatic +1 enhancement bonus with each enchantment added to the item as long as the item has a plain enhancement bonus, and waiving the requirement of a +1 bonus before you can start adding other effects. So, for instance, you can get just a flaming longsword, without the usual requirement of a +1 bonus. If you add a +1 enhancement bonus to it, the sword would actually function as a +2 flaming lonsword -- +1 for the regular bonus, and +1 for the flaming enchantment -- even though it would have the cost of a sword with a +2 enchantment.
However, I fear this might be giving the PCs a bit too much power. Thoughts or critiques on this proposal? Any other suggestions of ways to encourage players to get creative with their weapon and armor enchantments without messing with the power curve too much?
Of course, you could always weaken the enemies so that these dry numerical buffs aren't necessary to keep up, but this is considerably trickier to pull off in a balanced fashion than it first appears. Plus it's generally just fun for the players and DM alike when the PCs have those heightened capabilities provided by stat-boosting items -- the problem is really the fact that you have to sacrifice more unique and interesting options if you want the raw numerical strength to be able to take on the tough, impressive foes.
The main area where this really grates on me is weapons and armor. Attribute-boosting items are a little dull as well, but at least there the basic concept is interesting -- it's just a matter of keeping the numbers to a level where they won't break the game, which is understandable. With weapons and armor, though, you have all sorts of wonderful and creative bonuses to choose from...but oftentimes you really just need that boring old +1 enhancement bonus.
One potential solution that's crossed my mind is to give an automatic +1 enhancement bonus with each enchantment added to the item as long as the item has a plain enhancement bonus, and waiving the requirement of a +1 bonus before you can start adding other effects. So, for instance, you can get just a flaming longsword, without the usual requirement of a +1 bonus. If you add a +1 enhancement bonus to it, the sword would actually function as a +2 flaming lonsword -- +1 for the regular bonus, and +1 for the flaming enchantment -- even though it would have the cost of a sword with a +2 enchantment.
However, I fear this might be giving the PCs a bit too much power. Thoughts or critiques on this proposal? Any other suggestions of ways to encourage players to get creative with their weapon and armor enchantments without messing with the power curve too much?
