MIC - Broken?

[Hejdun]

Which puts the spotlight on my opinion of the MIC: It's pure power creep (with a side of rules bloat). Everything becomes more powerful. You'll still be balanced as long as everyone uses it. This isn't necessarily bad, but it is something you need to be aware of, plan for, and make sure everyone is happy with it.

I do find it kind of entertaining that WotC released the MIC, and then later released design articles talking about characters being a walking X-mas tree of magic items. Sure, this was a general problem with 3.x in general, but in this analogy the MIC is kind of like those Hallmark ornaments that light up and play music.

I think that's a rather unfair observation. As I understand it, the Christmas Tree analogy, in addition to being a rather poor analogy, was aimed more at the Big Six that you had to have in order to survive rather than a collection of magic items that gave you cool, but not particularly powerful abilities. If you took a look at the standard adventurer pre-MIC, I'd wager that he had spent on average 90% of his wealth on Big Six items. The problem is that the Big Six are obscenely boring; they don't let you do anything new, they just make you slightly better at what you always do.

The purpose of the MIC is to give the players a large collection of fun, cheap alternatives to the Big Six, which are close in power, but require more thought, than Big Six items. WotC realized that sticking to the formulas in the book resulted in 95% of the published magic items never seeing the light of day, so they made a book full of magic items that were intended to be used.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

with the heart seeking amulet, We had to house rule it. Basically My character had power attack and was saving it for the hard combats. I was hitting with a very low roles with max power attack. We housed ruled it 1 use per encounter, 3 times a day.

The item was generated randomly and ended saving the party butts more times then i can count.

 

[Samnell]

I think you are missing the point. If your players feel that some items are no brainers for their characters, then that is the entire point of MIC...to give them some competing choices.

I understand that. It failed. My players still see the same set of items as no-brainers, but they and I have never had a problem with this. So MIC is trying to fix a problem my games don't have, and failed to do so in any event. It's no more than another bag of stuff to my players.

 

[AnonymousOne]

I love it. My DM loves it.

We both like the idea of giving cool and quirky items to the party that might not otherwise get bought. It also opens up a wealth of options.

Skirmisher Boots
Chronocharms
Various other belts and trinkets

We love it and find that it greatly increases the options and the fun we have in the campaign, especially when each item we find could do something really cool and different. It seems to make the players more interested in the gear, rather than "Oh look another +1 dagger."

 

[green slime]

I'm with Mistwell.

I've yet to see a serious problem. Hard to believe someone would ban the book outright.

 

[Perun]

I'd recommend these series of excellent, humourous stories by Roger M Wilcox, that while written for 1E/2E, are just as relevant today: http://pw1.netcom.com/~rogermw/ADnD/IPDC1.html

Those remain my absolutely favourite (A)D&D fiction. None of the novels can ever hope to match that. Besides, Sick Sword could quarter Drizzt anytime

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hard to believe someone would ban the book outright.

No, that's easy.
If you assume that the DMG prices for items are set in stone and fine tuned balanced, a book that gives items that simply look more attractive must be broken.

Only if you understand that the DMG items are not that greatly balanced, you will be willing to consider the book. But it's not that easy to accept that a Core rulebook might be "wrong". I mean, it's core, so it has to be the benchmark for everything else?!

I can understand DMs that outright disallow it. But I do not agree with them.

 

[Bagpuss]

I've yet to see a serious problem. Hard to believe someone would ban the book outright.

For example - Hellcat Gauntlets, give a bonus 1d6 slashing damage/per spell to targeted spell effects. If that isn't power creep I don't know what is.

 

[glass]

For example - Hellcat Gauntlets, give a bonus 1d6 slashing damage/per spell to targeted spell effects. If that isn't power creep I don't know what is.

For how much? If they are 500 gp, then I agree there is power creep, but I suspect they are rather more than that...


glass.

 

[Jhaelen]

I do find it kind of entertaining that WotC released the MIC, and then later released design articles talking about characters being a walking X-mas tree of magic items. Sure, this was a general problem with 3.x in general, but in this analogy the MIC is kind of like those Hallmark ornaments that light up and play music.

I don't really agree about the power-creep but there is some truth in this. E.g. after using the included sheet showing the body slots, some of my players went like "ah, let's see, I really need to get all of those covered...". Let's call it the 'Diablo2 effect'.