Maybe this is where the magic went...(Forked Thread: Where Has All the Magic Gone?)

[CruelSummerLord]

Forked from: Where Has All the Magic Gone?

4E mechanics shine, 4E fluff is boring, so magical items are boring on fourth edition.

Most players I know couldn't care less about "cool items" they just want them to make a lot of damage.

That said, I have seen some real nice fluff items on that Bazaar of the Bizarre Dragon Article. Love it.

This discussion leaves me wondering-how many magic items do you see anymore that are not related to combat in some way?

I mean, if you look at the old 1E DMG and Unearthed Arcana, you have weird stuff like a Decanter of Endless Water (basically a limitless supply of water), a Zagyg's Flowing Flagon (that allows you to conjure up alcohol of varying levels of strength), a Rod of Splendor (gives a charisma boost, and allows the user to either summon fancy furs and jewelry to make themselves look rich, or even summon up a tent and pavilion full of food), Boots of the North (that protect their wearer from the cold and allow him or her to alter their tracks), a Ring of Sustenance (the wearer doesn't need food or water, and a minimum of sleep), a Wind Fan (the user can summon up gusts of wind), a Lyre of Building (allows you to play music that magically constructs buildings), and so on. One 2E Forgotten Realms module I read gave us the Keychain of Domestic Propriety, basically a handy tool that servants can use to get their cleaning duties done more efficiently.

All of these things would be rather useless to most adventurers in combat, but potentially creative players could find any number of uses for them (like using the Wind Fan to blow away the poisonous gas from a dungeon trap, for instance). How many items of this nature do we see in 3E equipment lists or sourcebooks? Again, even if these items aren't much use for an adventurer when he's fighting for his life against a roper, they add a certain amount of depth to the setting and flesh it out a little more.

Again, is it a lack of these kinds of items that some see as a problem, in essence that most of the magic items we see nowadays are ones that involve combat or dealing damage? Enterprising DMs and players could, I'm sure, find creative uses for items that don't require you to stab someone with them, or spit out great balls of fire.

In short-has the emphasis shifted to magical items that simply focus on doing as much damage as possible?

Just a thought-any feedback is welcome.

 

[brehobit]

I enjoy 4e, but I think a lot of fun has been sacrificed on the altar of balance. 3e was similar. Not just magic items, but spells are now really limited in application. Rituals are somewhat better...

 

[nightwyrm]

As I've mentioned on that other thread, one of the big reason why the number of non-combat magic items have decreased in recent editions is the increase in the player's ability to trade magic items. Once players can sell items and then easily either buy or make their own items, wacky oddball items that have very narrow non-combat usage becomes "stuff we're selling at the nearest market so I can buy my combat gear."

Most weird or non-combat oriented items are only going to be used very rarely unless your specific campaign requires that particular item (ie. cold resistance items in an arctic game or rings of sustenence in survival games). Most of the time, players know they're going to be better off trading that stuff for general combat gear since they know they'll always be fighting stuff. With the ease of making scrolls and wands in 3e, most of those specific situations where those odd items would come in handy could be better and cheaper handled by the party wizard scribing scrolls or buying/making a wand.

This leads to books that contains only combat gear. No one wants to write or buy a book with pages full of oddball non-combat items that are just gonna be sold at the earliest opportunity.

 

[Hussar]

Y'know, I think Nightwyrm pretty much hits it on the head.

Oddball reads really cool, but, at the end of the day, why would you keep a 25k gp ring of fire resistance that can only help one PC, when you can flog it, split the cash 5 ways and everyone gets a +2 stat boost item and some potions? That stat boost item is going to come into play FAR and away more often than that ring.

I can't really blame the players for this either. It's maximizing your investment. Getting the best bang for your buck.

In 1e we flogged all our useless magic items for XP. Why keep that Flagon of Booze when I can get a level? Keep that extra +1 sword and get 400 xp, or sell it and get 2000? Pretty much a no brainer there.

 

[RFisher]

I used to think D&D was too combat oriented. These days, I feel it has become even more combat oriented. Now, when I look through that lens at older editions, they look more exploration oriented. I think spells and magic items have a lot to do with this.

No doubt, however, that Q could do a textual analysis that’d prove me wrong. (^_^)

 

[CruelSummerLord]

Y'know, I think Nightwyrm pretty much hits it on the head.

Oddball reads really cool, but, at the end of the day, why would you keep a 25k gp ring of fire resistance that can only help one PC, when you can flog it, split the cash 5 ways and everyone gets a +2 stat boost item and some potions? That stat boost item is going to come into play FAR and away more often than that ring.

I can't really blame the players for this either. It's maximizing your investment. Getting the best bang for your buck.

In 1e we flogged all our useless magic items for XP. Why keep that Flagon of Booze when I can get a level? Keep that extra +1 sword and get 400 xp, or sell it and get 2000? Pretty much a no brainer there.

What about in a campaign where there are no magic shops? I myself hate the idea of just being able to go in and buy a magic sword or shield right off the shelf, pre-made to order; capitalism is all well and good in the real world, but this is a fantasy setting.

Buying potions is one thing, especially when your party comes across one magic weapon in about eight or nine levels of adventuring, and you have to make do with using Oil of Impact or Oil of Sharpness to temporarily enchant your non-magical, non-masterwork weapons, but it's quite another to expect that you can just stroll into the local wizard's guild and get whatever you want at your convenience. Most wizards, as I imagine it, would laugh in your face if you walked into their guildhall and asked for a flaming sword at "market price".

If that Flagon of Booze is the only magical treasure you come across in three years of campaign time, and the entire party has accumulated maybe four or five magical items between them on their way from 1st to 13th level, chances are they'll try and find a way to make the best of whatever items they can get.

If you houserule (as I would) that you couldn't make permanent items until at least 16th level, or couldn't scribe spell scrolls until 9th level, in effect restoring the old 1E rules on magic item creation, and note the fact that reaching 6th or 7th level by itself marks you as exceptional, each individual magical treasure becomes that much more essential.

And, like I said, creative players can find a way to use any number of items. If you're captured by hill giants, for example, you could perhaps offer to give them some of your delicious ale, which you'll gladly hand over if they let you go. If the suspicious giants demand that you drink it first to prove that it's not poison, you could drink the weakest, least alcoholic part as proof, and then rig the flagon to run with the thickest, most powerful alcohol, to the point where the giants drink themselves into a stupor, or at least become so loaded they're that much easier to defeat in combat.

In a social occasion, when you're dealing with a hostile baron or other noble figure, you could get him juiced up as a means of weakening his judgment and getting him to sign whatever you put in front of him...even if that document is a civic pardon that clears your fellow adventurer of the crime he was framed for!

Want an instant gift to impress a lady of noble standing? Use that rod of splendor to conjure up some beautiful furs and jewels for her, and suddenly the DC for your Diplomacy check becomes that much lower.

If you and your companions suddenly find yourselves having to escort a group of recently freed slaves back to civilization, that decanter of endless water can come in mighty handy for keeping them alive until you return to the outpost. If you're going into the desert, you don't even need to carry a large amount of water-the decanter will provide all the H20 you need, so you don't have to worry about keeping track of your water supplies as you travel, or suffer any combat penalties. Keep it running long enough, and you might even be able to gather enough water to conjure a water elemental...

Again, like I said, clever players can find creative uses for items that otherwise might not seem so useful at first glance.

 

[blargney the second]

4e PCs killed magic items and took their stuff.
-blarg

 

[mxyzplk]

Yeah, the big change has been that magic items have become commodities in 3e+ - easy to buy, sell, and manufacture. In 1e, if you found some weird ass magic item you kept it, because you couldn't cash it in and easily get a whole kit of "+1 basics".

It has generated a whole new generation of "balance problems." In 1e-2e, if a character/party had too much money... So? They could try to hire an army and found a keep, but it wasn't a tactical problem. Now, too much money means too many +5 items. The prevalence of magic makes power escalation necessary, which has led to the hugely increased damage outputs etc.

I have to say, when 3e came out I thought "Finally! People can make magic items!" It was always pretty dumb that there was magic around but no one could ever make them. But they went way too far in the other direction, where now with enough cash you can crap 'em out at high speed at level 3.

And if they're commodities, then most of them have to be lame, as everything calls out for a +1 tool of some sort.

 

[MichaelSomething]

What about in a campaign where there are no magic shops? I myself hate the idea of just being able to go in and buy a magic sword or shield right off the shelf, pre-made to order; capitalism is all well and good in the real world, but this is a fantasy setting.

Again, like I said, clever players can find creative uses for items that otherwise might not seem so useful at first glance.

Well then, your building your campaign world with different ideas then what the game normally assumes. Your are, or course, free to develop your campaign world however you like.

I would be willing to guess that a lot more people are playing it the way Hussar and nightwyrm then they way you are describing it. WOTC is doing it that way because they came to the conclusion that most people wanted it that way. Can you blame WOTC for giving the people what they want?

 

[Rechan]

In all honesty, I always felt that the fun of non-combat magical items (decanter of endless water, folding boat) was finding creative ways to use them in combat. Which sorta defeats the purpose of being strictly non-combat. As soon as it's combat usable, you need to balance out its use in combat. And that takes away the overtly usefulness of it outside of combat.