Magic Item Hate

[Merlin the Tuna]

I voted for several here, but if I was only allowed to vote for one it would be "Manufacture".

If the PCs can make items then by default everyone else with some levels can make items; and soon the world is swamped in magic, pretty much directly leading to all the other problems in the poll above.

This assumes that there are a significant number of people that not only are at or above the PCs levels, but that they're both capable of and interested in magic item creation. I don't necessarily see any of those three being true.

 

[Wormwood]

Great poll!

Very interesting results, as well. Looks like I'm not as out of step with the rest of the site as I may have thought.

 

[freyar]

Hmmm, I wonder if this is a result of the fact that I haven't gotten into high-level play, but I voted:

Weak -- meaning they seem expensive for what you get
and
Other -- a tongue-in-cheek way of how I think it's gotten fashionable to complain about magic items.

 

[Cadfan]

I selected glut, and "Other."

I selected "other" because I don't mind +1 swords (magic weapons are kind of iconic), but I do mind other mandatory, boring items. A cloak of resistance, for example, is basically mandatory- you can go without one, but at high levels there's about a 1 in 4 chance per encounter that you'll die because you didn't wear one. The fact that these pseudo-mandatory items take up slots you could use for something else makes them even more miserable.

Your typical high level character has the following:

Magic armor
Magic weapon
Str boosting belt
Dex boosting gloves
Con, Wis, or Natural AC boosting amulet
Save boosting cloak
AC boosting ring.

That's most of your good item slots, used up on things that really just give you a flat statistical bonus. It stops you from using things that might be flashy or more interesting.

 

[TerraDave]

Need drives entitlement which drives glut leading to common and then boring. With trade and make sprouting off of there as well.

Take out need, and other problems start to go away. Though the addition of a little more flavour wouldn't hurt either.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The item books they made for 2nd Ed were several volumes long, and had tons of FLAVOR items-- like boots of the cat-- that give you a CHA bonus when dealing with felines, lets you talk to them, and gives you better jumping & climbing abilities. There is very little of these things in 3e. Magic items are the places that we actually WANT fluff, designers!

I like those sorts of items. But to really make use of them, they need to move from being the province of the DM to being the province of the players also. Back when I played 2e I often used to make up personalised items for PCs that started at high level.

High level D&D characters are basically superheroes. Signature weapons and other magic items are very much part of such a character's personal style. Captain America with his shield is so much cooler and more appropriate than cap with +2 chainmail, a +3 shield, boots of striding and springing, gloves of dexterity and a belt of giant strength.

But to create these types of character, magic items *cannot* be left to the DM alone. How can the DM possibly know what's right for a character better than the player?

 

[Gargoyle]

Need drives entitlement which drives glut leading to common and then boring. With trade and make sprouting off of there as well.

Take out need, and other problems start to go away. Though the addition of a little more flavour wouldn't hurt either.

Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to....nvm

I agree.

And I agree that this is a very good poll.

More flavorful descriptions are fine as long as they don't take up too much space....I would prefer more items in the DMG. More specific guidelines on how to create balanced and fun "miscellaneous" aka wondrous items would be good too.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Boring, weak, common, glut and need.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I voted Boring, Common, Need and Other.

I don't mind the Glut category so much (that you have a variety of items) but I hate that once the party all ahs a +1 Cloak of Resisance then you have nothing left to do when every NPC has that +1 cloak - and every NPC has that cloak because it is (relatively) cheap and a fast-and-easy way to fill out the NPC gear value. What exactly do you do with you 100th +1 Cloak of Resistance since you've already sold some and have advanced to stitching a new sleeping bag out of them and created your own tents out of the material...

"Other" for me is EPIC! items. I mean... really... Is a +6 Dagger worth that much more than a +5 Keen Flaming Shock Undead Bane Throwing Great Sword?

 

[drothgery]

I voted for boring, glut, and need. Though if Nifft's complicated option had been there, I'd add that to the list, too.

Definitely not on the list, though, are trade and manufacture. Unless you want to make magic items more rare than they've been in any edition of D&D, ever, then PCs are going to acquire things they can't use or otherwise don't want; it's absurd to think this wouldn't happen to NPCs as well. And if there are a non-trivial amount of +1 swords in the world, then it seems like someone should be able to make them; while it's possible to create a universe in which making a +1 sword is something no PC would do, it probably requires a lot of assumptions that don't apply to standard D&D worlds.