billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
By changing the base assumption of the classes, and increasing the variety of potions.
Fighters will not be "equipment-based" anymore, but they will be able to improve their prowess in combat for short amounts of time through the use of potions, oils, and other temporary magic items.
A quicksilver potion will make a weapon perform as a +1 silver weapon for 1 hour, for example. Essence of Fire, when applied to a blade, makes it a flaming weapon for 1 minute. Using Dwarven Oil to sharpen your blade will briefly make it a keen +1 weapon. Anointing your dagger with holy water = holy weapon for 1 round. So on and so forth.
I'll admit, it's not for everyone. But I think this house-rule will "fix" a lot of the problems I've had with magic items in 3.5E. Time will tell.
I can certainly empathize with wanting to get rid of a succession of oddball ways to cobble synergizing gear together. And I think use of potions/oils to put the odd effects of weapon enhancements temporarily on weapons will probably work well.
I would suggest also restricting wands, making them a lot more expensive relative to potions, or getting rid of a whole lot of offensive spells to reduce the power of wizards. Reducing magic items a bit will keep some things out of their hands like persistent defenses. But unless you're prepared to cut them back more, they'll have a lot of tools at their disposal that fighters and rogues can't compete with. Take flying for example. Wizards get the fly spell pretty easily, but at least winged boots and a few other magic items can be wielded by fighters to equalize things out a little bit. Remove the winged boots and that really cuts down a fighter's potential to fly as regularly.
One other idea is the use of weapons and armor with pluses. Those can easily be reskinned (as masterwork nearly is) as varying manufacturing secrets or materials, giving you ways to still allow martial characters to have special persistent advancements. The fortification property of armor is also another good candidate for this treatment. They're all subtle effects and easy to have in low magic setting, particularly if you don't have too many variations on them. Take, for example, Thieves' World's Walegrin character. In Tales from the Vulgar Unicorn, he's on a quest to recover the secret of Enlibar steel - a secret formula for the metal that makes for better weapons. That could be equivalent to a +2 weapon but not actually magical. Food for thought anyway, and one of the reasons I've always liked + weapons in my D&D and would like to see them continue into 5e (to draw this side topic of conversation back around to the point of the thread).