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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hammerhead" data-source="post: 265472" data-attributes="member: 73">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.</blockquote>

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