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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5348589" data-attributes="member: 51942">I think meaningful interaction with the world really adds to gameplay.  It's great when the rules help you do that.Of course, you can (try to) wing it; and describe everthing as freeform skillchecks; but that's not easy, so I take whatever help the "system" can give me.That doesn't have to be magic.  Skill checks have guidelines too; and there's always non-magical equipment, alchemy, hirelings, etc.The fact that an eladrin can teleport through a glass pane is screaming plot hook.  A tiny gelantinous cube familiar is too (whaddaya know, the gates are made of dragonbone).Items could work well for this; and some do.  A dagger of escape is great fun - but a +3 sword is not.The point is, when all you have is a hammer, everthing looks like a nail.  The toolbox of a 4e character is very combat-by-damage-dealing oriented, and that means that's the obvious way to solve problems.Sure, out-of-combat, you could free-form it, but it's not clear what's possible or how hard it'll be if you try it.  In combat, you don't really have flexibility to work around specific issues.  You can't come back tomorrow with a more appropriate weapon/implement - generally, all PC's are hyper-specialized (cant easily switch weapon/implement and they don't much matter anyhow), and buying/crafting items is very expensive so that temporary workarounds don't really work.  You've got loads of flexibility, but that flexibility is firmly in the realm of the character sheet, not in adaptability once built.So, I'm going to mostly ignore the restriction on uncommon items.  Barring specific, case-by case exemptions, all items may be crafted, bought or rented, and selling items won't destroy 80% of value.  This isn't intended to encourage pile-on play (that's where the case-by-case exemptions come in), but are intended to keep fun things like the Dagger of Escape firmly in player hands.  For almost all items, the risk of letting parties have multiple copies and letting them use the daily-powers without further restriction is completely harmless.</blockquote>

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