Magic Items And Campaign Balance?

[Katerek]

This is a very interesting post. It brings something to mind.

In the campaign I run, which is what I would call a low magic item campaign, alot of the players are starting to complain about the Magic User and the Cleric hogging all the glory. Basically, there are a lot of encounters that those two specifically are able to clean house on. I have tried to balance encounters out so that this isn't always the case, but I have had a really tough time of it. It never occurred to me that lack of magic items may be the cause! Thank you for pointing this out! I plan on doing an audit soon.

 

[Crothian]

Magical items are an intergal part of the system's balance. However, it is possible to have fun without them. I played in one campaign that went to 9th level. We never had a single magical item. The sorcerer never dominated combat any more then the rogue, fighter, or barbarian.

 

[Lord Ben]

I find the best solution is to make them mean something (anything worth a significant amount should be RP'd out to find). The treasure values should remain equal to the DMG, but that doesn't mean that there are shops with "everything" available.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Re: Re: Re: Magic Items And Campaign Balance?

Heh. That's not really an answer. You're not looking at this from a players perspective, you're looking at it from a DMs perspective. As the DM, you can make throwing gods or kobolds at a party workable, if you so desire.

Well, the scope of my perspective as the dm dictates the scope of the player's perspective on the matter.

Balance is not just about what the party can kill. It's about making everyone feel useful. I think that's one of the great things about 3E.... no one class is the out and out best class.

That is why adventures and encounters should be regularly designed to highlight the abilities of different characters. Sometimes they should be designed to highlight the abilities of classes not in the group- so the whole group has to be inventive to get around a weakness they share.

In my opinion, a built in factor of this is the magic item level.

Consider your thoughts on making everyone feel useful outside of combat- how does magic items do that for non casters?

It would seem to me that rogues have little problem with being useful outside of combat. If a players wants his fighter to be useful outside of combat, then the should design him to be.

And I'm simply asking what other peoples view on that issue is.

And I am simply replying on what my view is on the issue.

FD

 

[the Jester]

Well, there was a thread someone started about demographics of magic item shops... I don't know where it went but I copied it into my dnd folder for reference, so lemme repost it:

City Size: Highest Level Wiz/Sor; GP Limit
Thorp: 1; 25 gp
Implication:
Nothing with a value of over 25 gp will be found here. That pretty much rules out all magic items except possibly 0th-level scrolls.

Hamlet: 2; 100 gp
Implication: You may find potions of cure light wounds and a first-level scroll. Maybe. But that's it. Local hedge wizard can't even make a +1 dagger if he wants to. Heck, he can't even find a masterwork dagger to enchant. Economy might - might - be able to support one minor potion shop.

Village: 3; 150 gp
Implication: Just like a hamlet, there really isn't much to buy here. The local wizard could make a +1 dagger, but there are no MW daggers to be found (cost over 300 gp). Economy might have one minor potion shop and/or scrolls shop but no more. No MW stuff, only 1st-level potions and scrolls. Local hedge wizard can enchant a +1 weapon - but only if you import the MW weapon for him. He won't have the resources to buy one, though.

Small Town: 4; 800 gp
Implications: Town has the resources to support a couple of potion shops, including one that makes "high-powered potions." Might see a 1st-level-spell wand shop. Supports masterwork weapons, but not magic armor, shields, or even minor wondrous items (800 gp is too little). The local hedge wizard can't brew the high-level potions though; he's only level 4. So you're looking at 1st-level wands, 1st- and 2nd- level potions and scrolls, and MW items.

Large Town: 7; 3, 000 gp
Implications: Only in a large town do you even start to see much of a market for items other than potions or scrolls. You will see the occasional +1 weapon or armor and the most minor of wondrous items. Wands might have 2nd-level power. The local wizards may be able to enchant a +2 item for you, but certainly can't buy one from you. Scrolls of 4th level and below will likely be available - but from only one source. Minor potions and scrolls are likely to be plentiful - you might see three or four potion shops.

Small City: 10; 12,000 gp
Implications: You start to see 5th-level scrolls, pretty much any potion is easy to come by, and you may find +1 and +2 weapons/armor - possibly +3 armor, though that taxes the magical resources of the town. Minor wondrous items can be had here. Most wands are probably available, too. There is likely a magic trade, but due to the fact that a typical small city has only between 1 and 4 magicians over 4th level, the trade is probably small and tightly controlled.

Large City: 13; 40,000 gp
Implications: Here, folks have the magical power and money to look at +4 weapons/armor, but they're still rare. You can get your hands on scrolls of 6th and possibly 7th level. Only in large cities do you even start seeing staffs (staves?). Potions are commonplace, as are lower level scrolls - anything you can get in a large town will be easy to find here, though more powerful items will be rarer and limited to a more exclusive group of mages (again, probably less than half a dozen). Also, have you noticed that you really can't even begin to contemplate most RINGS until you're in a large city?!?

Metropolis: 18; 90,000 gp
Implications: Scrolls (any level) and potions can be had here fairly easily. Weapons and armor of all enchantments can be made, but you're unlikely to see a weapon with an effective bonus of more than +6. Only in a metropolis are wondrous items of great power even remotely close to "widely available." However, the magical power is still somewhat consolidated - anything that would be "small and tightly controlled" in a small city is easily found here - lots of 8th and 9th level mages (comparatively) but anything beyond that in power will again be controlled by a few mages - 6 to 8 on average. Considering that metropoli tend to be seats of power, you can bet that at least one of those mages is in an advisory role to the crown (or whatever), which diminishes your chance of finding such items even more.


OK... so if your dm doesn't like magic item shops (and I know I don't) have him look at this. Just last night the party I run went into a town adventure and naturally went to try to find some magic for sale. This is what was available in the town (pop. c. 1200):

Potions: Jump (1 on hand; standard; 50 gp)
Detect Magic (3 on hand, all caster level 5; cost 125 gp)
Reduce (1 on hand, caster level 5; 250 gp)
Change Self (2 on hand, caster level 5; 250 gp)
Enlarge (1 on hand, caster level 5; 250 gp)
Blur (1 on hand, standard; 300 gp)-
Detect Thoughts (2 on hand, standard; 300 gp)
Invisibility (4 on hand, standard; 300 gp)
Tongues (1 on hand, 750 gp)
Fly (1 on hand, 750 gp)
Wands: Detect Magic (2 on hand; 375 gp)
Magic Weapon (1 on hand; 750 gp)
Haste (1 on hand; 5th-level caster; 2000 gp; 4 charges)
Identify (1 on hand; asking price 7000 gp but will go down to 5800)
a few divine scrolls; typically they have:
Cure Light Wounds (six on hand; 25 gp each, 20 gp to anyone who is a follower of Crithlec; Harn’s sense motive is +4 (2 ranks, wisdom 16).
Detect Evil (one on hand; 30 gp)
Magic Weapon (two on hand; 25 gp)
Invisibility to Undead (two on hand; 25 gp)
Bless (one on hand; 25 gp)
Burial Blessing (DotF, two on hand; 200 gp)



A few of the items break the pricing rule, but as you can see, the pcs can't exactly get anything they want. (And the wand of haste was sold by the party to the potion shop guy!) They also cleaned out the local jeweler's cash reserves selling off loot (much of which they settled for a low price on).

My point is basically that a few magic shops do not equal buy anything you want anywhere you want. I find that both in the game I run and the games I play in magic items make a _HUGE_ difference in how tough some encounters are. F'rexample, flyers, oozes, golems, etc. Without magic weapons you just can't hurt a lot of stuff. Without magical protections everything can hurt you by the time you're about 6th level, and most of those hits dish out pretty good damage by then. No potions? No healing for most classes. No scrolls? Wizards may become much less powerful (depending on how hard it is to find new spells).

CR's _are_ balanced with average treasure of their level in mind (for pc magic items). Your dm is right; not all encounters are meant to be equal for all classes. (Animals v. druids/rangers or undead v. clerics/paladins are two primary examples.) But I think every character ought to have something to do. Taking away the 3e character's choice of whatever magic items he wants is a good thing (imho); but even if it's all through random generation, characters need their loot to stand up to the monsters and challenges. The main needs a character has to survive- mobility, offense, defense, etc.- are each addressed in many ways in the book. (What if a character falls into a high-DC to escape from pit, survives the fall but can't get out cuz the DC's too high and his climb is too low? Your 20th level paladin dies in a hole! Whereas a simple rope of climbing, potion of fly or countless other "mobility" solutions would have given him a chance to survive what is probably a CR3 trap.) Of course, the dm can always account for this lack, but that can lead to unrealistic adventures (the fighter attacks the trapmaster's lair but there aren't any traps that pose a significant threat).

A low-magic item presence game can work fine as long as the dm is careful to adjust CRs appropriately. F'rinstance, while a dire tiger's CR probably doesn't change, a stone golem's certainly should! How can the party hurt it without powerful magic weapons?

Just some thoughts...

 

[AvarielAvenger]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Magic Items And Campaign Balance?

First, something rather off topic: I search... for the answer... to the question... if a turtle has many rocks upon it's back... and is traveling through molasses... would it be as slow as these boards? Anyone else having trouble with the boards right now? Anyway, back to the topic.

Well, the scope of my perspective as the dm dictates the scope of the player's perspective on the matter.


That is why adventures and encounters should be regularly designed to highlight the abilities of different characters. Sometimes they should be designed to highlight the abilities of classes not in the group- so the whole group has to be inventive to get around a weakness they share.

But that only works to a certain extent. If one member of the groups abilities is simply beyond another members, he will do better in the majority of encounters, and in most campaigns I've seen where this happens the other players start getting annoyed/frustrated that they aren't as effective.

Consider your thoughts on making everyone feel useful outside of combat- how does magic items do that for non casters?

Actually I don't think I mentioned non combat situations, as they mostly involves roleplaying and thus needs far less balancing and rules to effectively deal with the situation.

My comment that balance was not simply about what the party can kill, was pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because the DM can design beatable encounters, the game is balanced.

It would seem to me that rogues have little problem with being useful outside of combat. If a players wants his fighter to be useful outside of combat, then the should design him to be.

That's another topic entirely.

And I am simply replying on what my view is on the issue.

FD

And I appreciate it.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Magic Items And Campaign Balance sitting in a tree..

But that only works to a certain extent. If one member of the groups abilities is simply beyond another members, he will do better in the majority of encounters, and in most campaigns I've seen where this happens the other players start getting annoyed/frustrated that they aren't as effective.

Salutations,

I would agree with that analysis, but I have yet to see the problem arise in my campeigns. Is that ego? No, not this time - my players have little problem talking to me, and I poll them often to understand their feelings and concerns.

I mean, look at the reverse of your concern.

At low levels- a melee character is going to do better in a majority of the encounters due to the restrictive nature of most of the spell casters.

I player a wizard from low to mid-high levels, and I know the frustration first hand. However, I was proactive and took a level of fighter to make myself more useful to the group.

And for encounters of all levels- preperation has a large impact on the usefulness of melee versus casters in a battle. A caster with enough time is going to be able to buff themelves up. A caster surprised by a prepared foe- is going to be a different matter.

My comment that balance was not simply about what the party can kill, was pointing out the fallacy of assuming that because the DM can design beatable encounters, the game is balanced.

I apologize. I misunderstood you.

But let me say this- I think the quest for balance is largely an illusion. D&D has too many factors for it to be balanced to everyone's satisfaction. Especally when you use 3rd party products.

The answer is that it falls on the shoulders of the dm and the players to find what form of balance they are comfortable with.

Did the designers make 3rd edition to require a steady progress in the power of magic items? Yes, of course, a lot of the dmg is dedicated to it, and it would be foolish to argue that magic items are a side-not to d&d.

Does that mean that the magic items are a keystone to the game- without which everything else falls apart?

No, obviously not.

I have run games with low magic with success. Others seem to have run games with low magic with success.

One final note- When I run a low magic campeign- it does take the form of just limiting magic items. The spellcasters themselves find themselves limited as well.

Respectfully submitted
FD

 

[novyet]

Well in the campaign that I run, I'm not using that many magical items, and no one really feels overshadowed by the spellcasters. In point of fact, the spellcasters tend to enhance other members of the party, and do both offensive and defensive/support roles. Maybe my group is a bad example, but most groups I've been in are very team oriented with everyone helping everyone else out.

I don't know, maybe my thoughts are not really valid here, so if they are not, please feel free to ignore them.

Edit ---> Forgot a word and it changed a whole meaning there.

 

[Hammerhead]

I think that the magic item wealth is important for balance on both sides.

For example, let's say that low level fighters and wizards are balanced; because they're low level, they don't have any permanent magic items. Now let's give the fighter a shiny +1 flaming sword and some magic armor. He's now much more difficult to damage, and hits more often and for lots of more damage. In a fight, he does much more damage and so needs less help from the wizard's battle magic.

On the other hand, we could take some higher level characters with and without magic items. First, let's examine boosting magic items, like magic weapons, ability increases etc. A fighter with magic weapons will actually be able to injure enemies when he hits them, otherwise he might as well just stand there. Also, the high points and AC of high level monsters pretty much require that a fighter have magical items to increase his attacks and damage, if he wants to be effective. For a wizard, magic items, even boosters, aren't as important. His fireball will still do around the same average damage, whether or not he has a +4 INT item.

And then there's the second role of magic items: to expand the scope of a character's abilities, rather than just enhancing talents he already has. Spellcasters can already do nearly anything with their spells; so magic toys won't expand their scope a bit. On the other hand, fighters have no talent beyond their attack, HP, and fighting feats. Obviously, any magic item that can expand his scope will prized by the fighter. Flight, skill boosts, see invisibility, etc are all effects that allow the fighter to contribute in non-optimal situations. His main talent is sword swinging; in addition to simply increasing that skill, he should look for magic to A) help him when hacking isn't an option - like a circlet of persuasion for social skills or something, and B) allow him apply sword to enemies that would ordinarily stay out of the way - like flyers or the dreaded invisible mage.

But what about teamwork, you ask. Shouldn't the fighter depend on his magic using friends to help him in those situations? Not every time. It's not only a matter of self sufficiency, it's also about not wasting time. Once upon a time, our group was fighting an enemy that suddenly took to the air. The only fighter with a fly item (celestial armor) was absent. Now our sorceress ends up wasting 2 hasted rounds on people, and the fighters on the ground waste their actions while they wait for the fly spell. It's very good to depend on the spellcasters so that both of you need to waste actions in the middle of a tough battle. Also, some effects aren't so easily conferred on others. See Invis is self only. Invis Purge has a tiny range that flying invis guys will stay out of. True Seeing is expensive to cast and doesn't last very long. There's not really a good way besides items to give a fighter invisible attacking ability. Finally, there's another downside to being dependent on another character. What if bad luck strikes and he dies right away. In a tough battle against an evil wizard, our group was expecting our wizard to show off. We were expecting a Mass Haste as an opening spell. Our wizard could see invisible to deal with another magic user and had a nice Disentegrate ready to take out Mr. low Fort save. It's a damn shame that he died to a Finger of Death before he could do anything, taking 1/2 the group's see invis ability with him. The other half came from an item.

Finally, teamwork doesn't always work so well. If I were a high level wizard and my friend was a high level, but vastly underequiped fighter, I'd probably save most of my spells. Why would I cast fly on him, when he'll bounce of the creature's DR, and then get chewed up because he has poor AC? It'd be a poor use of my fly spell, and a poor use of the cleric's healing. I suppose I could cast additional spells like GMW, bull's str, etc to help him out. However, that's quite a few spells. If the fly spell on the fighter isn't going to help as much as any of my other 3rd level spells, then I'm going to take something else instead.

On a final note, characters with item creation feats can actually help the non magic types ALOT. Many times, the casters in our group would get fed up at always having to cast certain spells, and would just make magic items for the others. We got sick of our fighter rogue constantly failing Will saves, and then dying, so we made him a resistence item. People asked our wizard for haste enough that he made books of speed.

 

[radferth]

balance rigging

I like to run games with low magic and slow level advancement. I do have items like potions or scrolls available for sale, but most items better than that must be traded for or commissioned. If one does want a game with few if any magic items, it does put the CRs out of whack at high levels, but this is hardly a big problem. In any case, I would suggest tinkering with the system a bit for a low-to-none magic item game. Some possibilities include:

Spell casters quite rare.
Fewer magical creatures.
Feats or prestige classes to soup up abilities normally granted by magic items (e.g. better AC, ability to hit creatures with DR)
Items with non-magical enchancement bonuses
Increases use of troops (you may need a bunch of guys to take on that pile of orcs if area of effect spells are rare)

You could even cut down on the evocation spells in some way, but you are getting into a quite different system then.