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<blockquote data-quote="FireLance" data-source="post: 5919118" data-attributes="member: 3424">I think you're looking at the issue rather simplistically. A PC with a magic item will be better than a PC without. That's pretty much the whole point of having a magic item. Nonetheless, this might be okay if:1. You didn't really care about game balance (a viable option, although not everyone thinks this way); or2. You adjust the challenges so that they are more or less in line with the PCs' new capabilities (this is something that pre-3e DMs did pretty much automatically, to the point where it almost became second nature. I appreciate 3e and 4e challenge guidelines because they help me narrow the field of monster choices, but when I'm planning an encounter I still run it through my internal challenge level checker first).However, there is nothing edition-specific about either of the above. You can run a 3e or a 4e campaign without magic items, or with more magic items than &quot;standard&quot;, and the game will still work fine if either of the above is true.IMO, the game still should give guidelines on how to maintain game balance after you add magic items, for those who care about it. It could be something as simple as giving each item a level adjustment, so that a PC with such an item should be treated as one or more levels higher than his actual level, and should be able to take on correspondingly higher-level challenges as a result.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="FireLance, post: 5919118, member: 3424"] I think you're looking at the issue rather simplistically. A PC with a magic item will be better than a PC without. That's pretty much the whole point of having a magic item. Nonetheless, this might be okay if: 1. You didn't really care about game balance (a viable option, although not everyone thinks this way); or 2. You adjust the challenges so that they are more or less in line with the PCs' new capabilities (this is something that pre-3e DMs did pretty much automatically, to the point where it almost became second nature. I appreciate 3e and 4e challenge guidelines because they help me narrow the field of monster choices, but when I'm planning an encounter I still run it through my internal challenge level checker first). However, there is nothing edition-specific about either of the above. You can run a 3e or a 4e campaign without magic items, or with more magic items than "standard", and the game will still work fine if either of the above is true. IMO, the game still should give guidelines on how to maintain game balance after you add magic items, for those who care about it. It could be something as simple as giving each item a level adjustment, so that a PC with such an item should be treated as one or more levels higher than his actual level, and should be able to take on correspondingly higher-level challenges as a result. [/QUOTE]

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