Magic Item Daily slots

[DemonLord57]

Given that you're not changing your armor mid-combat, the healing-surge use items aren't as bad as you think.

So what if you have five Blood-Cut armors? You can't swap them in battle, you can only use the powers of an item you're wearing or wielding, so it hardly matters. Sure you can put on another for a different combat but how are you going to carry all these? Or even afford them?

Sure, the ability is pretty much 'just an encounter power' with enough of them, and in a way, you'd be right. But then it's -effect- isn't daily-power level anyways, so it's hardly game breaking.

You misunderstand. The point wasn't that items with it right now are broken, simply that the mechanic itself can lead to abusable items. The designers wouldn't release an item that had a powerful effect with encounter usage, but they might on a healing surge usage. The way it's worded suggests that they would expect you to have to pay a significant cost to use it again, namely, using a healing surge.

If a powerful effect on a healing surge item that is easily replaceable (non-armor, weapon, neck slot) appears, it can be abusable by buying a number of them. For example, I am thinking about buying multiple Helms of Heroes for my Tactical Warlord, and that's a daily usage item. I'll be limited, but I might want to use my daily slots for that. If even a weaker version appears with Healing Surge use, that could be abused. Easily. It'll be harder to know what is abusable with Healing Surge usage than the other kinds.

 

[Boarstorm]

I think the potential for abuse is WHY there is only one healing surge item in the game as yet.

They're going to be quite rare and valuable, imo.

 

[kclark]

Hmm I'm still slightly confused, so let's see if I've got this right:

Case 1

Spot on here.

Case 2

I'm level 12 and I have 5 different magic items each with one daily power.
I can use 2 magic item daily powers per milestone.

I use item #1 during an encounter: I can still use one more item's daily power. (I could also have used a total of two item daily powers during this encounter.)

I experience another encounter; during this encounter, I can use one daily power from any of items, since I have already used one of my 2/milestone item daily powers. I use a power from Item #2.

At the end of this encounter a milestone has been reached; therefore for my next encounter, I may use TWO daily powers from any magic item that I have not already used today (items #3-#5).

Almost, but not quite. A paragon tier character starts with access to 2 daily powers. After a milestone they get access to 1 more daily power for a total of 3 so far. The way you wrote it would be access to 2 more for a total of 4.
Epic tier is the same way. Start with 3 +1 after each milestone.

 

[Zinovia]

Daily items once/day only?

Being able to use a daily power on 1 item per day for heroic tier seems extremely limiting. Adding another use each time you reach a milestone helps of course, and does encourage people to reach milestones, but I still expect some complaints from players. Certainly you can use each power only once per day, but is it really necessary to limit the uses of all your items to 1/day + 1/milestone? Many of the daily item abilities don't seem that powerful to me, but I guess the designers *really* wanted to limit their use even further.

How has this worked in actual play? Do you feel they are getting enough uses out of the daily item abilities? Have players complained about the restriction? Would allowing each item to be used 1x per day without regards to how many other items you trigger that day be overpowered or unbalanced?

 

[renau1g]

I have to agree about this sucking that they can only use their items, which the adventurers count on to be useful (especially because the pick them out now according to the DMG recommendation) and then can't use them because some force, which I can't understand, prevents them? Do the items lose their magic, or do the gods intercede and say to them "This character hasn't earned the right to use too many powers yet, let him fight a few more battles, then he's ready... at least until he finds a third item to use, then he needs to wait again...?

 

[matthewseidl]

It works to prevent the 'blow everything at once' single encounter. You can't blow your 4 item dailies in a single encounter.

As well, without some limit, I could see people stocking up on +1 dwarven forged armor. Between encounters, put on a suit, use the power, swap suits, etc. Free healing.

 

[renau1g]

So there's no real reason... just a deus ex machina?

Isn't an easier one to tell your players not to be jerks? I mean if they're ok with some nonsensical reason that their magic items can't function, then they should be ok with not being powergamers using cheesy tactics like you mentioned.

Maybe I'm just lucky with my group then, besides if the group wants to blow all their dailies in one encounter that's fine with me. There are many ways to deal with that sort of play as well, but items aren't really going to make or break that decision.

 

[kclark]

The real reason is to help balance encounters like matthewseidl said.
You can flavor it and fluff it up to make sense in your campaign world.
My interpretation is that magic items are not like battery powered items, but more like leeching devices. They suck out energy from their users. Personal power, combat, and other stressful encounters build up that energy that the items harness.

 

[renau1g]

Should we place limits on the amount of dailies and encounter powers we can use in a fight? That way we can be sure that players won't go nova (I think that's the term I've seen used) every encounter. It seems to have the same logic to me, I know I can houserule different, just it surprises me that one aspect of the game has a control to prevent characters from using all their powers, but another doesn't.

 

[DracoSuave]

Out of game reason:

Daily limits on Item powers is so that the character's powers are the focus of his ability. Instead of high level play being 'A collection of magical items floating around with a fighter somewhere in there' it's now 'A fighter with an assortment of martial arts techniques with a few magical enhancements to back those techniques up.'

In game explanation:

The power or juju of magic items have to come from -somewhere-. The closest source is the sucker holding on to it. As characters become more powerful they can endure more and more of a hit from their items, but at low levels, they can only take it once before DIRE CONSEQUENCES take over.