Mearls: The core of D&D

[Raven Crowking]

If you are a PC without magic weapons encountering something only hit by magic weapons, your best chance of survival is running.

Or, as noted, casting spells.


RC

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Perhaps it's just me, but even in 2e, a +1 weapon was boring. Now, my current character's bane bow that's only +1 to living creatures...and that I can choose to drain 3 of my own HP to give it another +1 towards everything, that's interesting.

Sure, your "bane bow" is interesting to you right now, but that is mostly from the fact that it is unusual. If every weapon did that or something similar you would consider it boring as well.

The problem of +1 magic weapons being boring comes from +1 magic weapons being the norm. If non-magical/non-special weapons are the norm seeing a +1 weapon becomes exciting.

The best way I've seen this illustrated is from a letter in Dragon talking about what happened in a 2e Darksun game. In the letter, the writer talks about what happened when his party found a steel dagger for sale in a bazaar. A long story short, the party hatched a crazy scheme to steal the dagger, almost succeeded but ultimately failed after some poor dice rolls.

I feel as if you are too fixated on the bonuses and not the "Wow!" factor.

I've actually spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the "Wow!" factor of items come from, and let me give you a hint: the "Wow!" factor always comes from making the item stand out.

Yes, two 4e characters of the same level, one using inherent bonuses and one using 'normal' magic items, are equally effective. However, by using inherent bonuses and divorcing the math from the items, you open up the "Wow!" options. The non-inherent bonuses has a +2 sword and +2 armor that he stole or bought or found, and in a few levels he's going to throw both of those away to replace it with new items. The inherent bonuses has the sword of his grandfather, and the armor his father smelt for him before he left on his adventures.

I think the second guy wins out in the "cool item" contest.

Inherent bonuses did not open "Wow!" options like a character wielding family heirlooms up. They already existed, and there were a dozens of different ways to do them already. The first character could have just as easily started with 'the sword of his grandfather, and the armor his father smelt for him before he left on his adventures' and had them enchanted progressively better as he gained more and more money.

 

[GreyLord]

You know, in AD&D (as opposed to D20 D&D types like 3e and 4e), regardless of whether I had a magic weapon or not, if I saw a Vampire, I'd probably run (the chance of losing two levels from a hit is just too RISKY)!!!!

 

[Hussar]

I had an Aunt Ithesis. We didn't get along very well.

I had her too. Yeah, I can agree. She was too disagreeable.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

They're also, IMO, better game design than the hard limits of healing surges. I'm not a big fan of the 15-minute adventuring day, and it completely baffles me that the designers of 4E included a mechanic which, for the first time ever, mandates a short adventuring day.

But here we begin to go a bit further afield than the original topic.

Umm what? You do realize that there are NUMEROUS mechanics even in the PHB 1 which grant healing without using healing surges. Clerics, for and example off the top of my head, can grant healing with dailies without buringing surges. Numerous classes have regeneration powers as well.

I'm not a huge mechanic head when it comes to 4e, but, even a casual perusal of the rules shows that your point is groundless.

 

[Hussar]

Perhaps it's just me, but even in 2e, a +1 weapon was boring. Now, my current character's bane bow that's only +1 to living creatures...and that I can choose to drain 3 of my own HP to give it another +1 towards everything, that's interesting./snip

I can't be the only one to recall more than a few Dragon Magazine articles over the years, going all the way back to the early 80's lamenting how boring +1 weapons are.

It's not like this is something new.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Or, as noted, casting spells.


RC

Fighters can make their fingers wiggle and make funny sounds, but they still won't be able to cast a lightning bolt like the mage does!

 

[Beginning of the End]

Umm what? You do realize that there are NUMEROUS mechanics even in the PHB 1 which grant healing without using healing surges. Clerics, for and example off the top of my head, can grant healing with dailies without buringing surges. Numerous classes have regeneration powers as well.

I'm not a huge mechanic head when it comes to 4e, but, even a casual perusal of the rules shows that your point is groundless.

Oh, Hussar. Your willingness to reduce complex mechanical issues down to over-simplified absurdities in order to find something that you think contradicts them never ceases to amuse me.

 

[Ultimatecalibur]

Fighters can make their fingers wiggle and make funny sounds, but they still won't be able to cast a lightning bolt like the mage does!

You make it sound like there is only one person, a fighter, in this adventuring party. I thought the standard was to expect a fighter, thief, cleric and magic-user? If we go with that, the fighter goes into meat shield mode and protects the cleric and magic user who proceed to turn the weapon immune creature into a corpse.

 

[Bluenose]

You make it sound like there is only one person, a fighter, in this adventuring party. I thought the standard was to expect a fighter, thief, cleric and magic-user? If we go with that, the fighter goes into meat shield mode and protects the cleric and magic user who proceed to turn the weapon immune creature into a corpse.

If the fighter can't harm the creature, how does he stop it wandering past him to get at the people who can? (And probably coming back to finish him off later).