My little gear experiment

[BobTheNob]

The other day, rather than giving out treasure, I gave the party gold rather than loot so they could buy and upgrade. The whole gaming session ended up with players searching through bloated loot lists, making a few timid picks, and then saying, "You pick for me" (I.e. back to the DM to use his private time to do the searching)

At the same time, players are so "loot loaded" that they barely keep track of their own gear!

So, in response, the campaign changed tack, and the party woke up in Hell with no memories of their former lives (thats the plot, there is alot more to it) and NO EQUIPMENT! I am using this plot point to change tack completely on equipment as follows

1. Using Inherent Bonus's. Gear does NOT carry a +X rating at all! Just Properties and Powers
2. Throwing out WOTC loot lists all together. Gear is specific to campaign and totally design by me (even if mostly just existing loot knock offs)
3. The loot I create is still common/uncommon/rare. Common loot being mainly "skill" loot

Advantages
1. Break the "must have +X at stage of game to be feasible" issue. This is key. It was great in earlier editions to get that next stage of weapon, but in 4e its just requirement. I prefer equipment to be "icing on the cake" of your character, rather than being the cake itself
2. Prevent tralling. Going through loot lists is just a time killer, and most of the time you end up with something thats "kinda" ok, or completely OP
3. I can hand out less. Dont need gear to remain feasible. Prevent the "golf bag" of equipment
4. I can get rid of access to equipment I find fundamentally flawed (like the staff of destruction)
5. I hate (and I mean HATE) character builds based on possession of certain items (e.g. wintertouched/lasting frost/frost weapon). I just find this to be an appalling practice. I remember the old days when finding a piece of equipment was exciting and random, now its "but DM, if you dont give me that XXXX this build wont work!" (grumble....so dont create builds based on equipment in the first place!). My players dont do this (frankly, they are better than that), but its still vomit worthy to me.

When coming up with loot (Uncommon and rare), I have defined some core guidelines
1. Do NOT scale numbers that correlate to d20 (of "to hit"/success) rolls. A bonus of +X is as good at level 1 as it is at level 30. Scaling them up is an error (which I think even WOTC is starting to recognize)
2. Items must scale Damage and Damage reduction, and anything scaled against hit points. Said scaling is AUTOMATIC with character level. Why?...
3. Players are not obligated to "teir up" their gear. That sword they find at level 1 will work just as well at level 30
4. Generally an uncommon item is a property or a power, rare is a "clutch" of things
5. What equipment does is to be "build independent". Not always totally achievable, but a good goal none-the-less
6. (and this one I love) Gear doesn't take characters in new directions. Rather, it is intended to compliment what they already do. For instance, fighters wont be able to throw fireballs because they found an item, but an item that increases mark penalty...

I hope this goes well. We have been playing this party for a long time now and loot got completely out of control. Hopefully this will get things far more manageable and still keep the thrill of equipment.

 

[bbjore]

I think your approach is a great one. Give the characters the inherent bonuses they need to keep up with the math, and then start giving them cool stuff tailored to their characters. I've been doing that for the past two years, and I don't think I'd ever want to go back to random rolling, or treasure parcels. I still let them pick items of such and such a level every once in a while in order to give them the freedom to pick the cool stuff they saw in this or that book, and to save me time, but I'd say about half their gear, and especially the important stuff is all custom made for their character and designed to scale. I think custom designing an item for a PC based on their abilities and some player input is a great way to draw your player's into the campaign and keep them invested in it. I bet your players will love their custom gear.

 

[corwyn77]

I've been doing something similar to this for about a year now and I love it. My experience has been mostly with other systems gurps, hero, savage worlds) where magic items are definitely a bonus and not required to compete. I like the idea of magic being, well, magical.

Originally I just gave everyone an enhancement bonus of level/5 rounded to the nearest (so levels 3, 8, 13, etc. and concentrated on magic items that were interesting or unique.

Then there was a thread on the wizards boards that I lifted pretty much wholesale since it was so brilliant.

I'm sorry I can't remember the original thread or poster but it goes something like this, modified slightly by me:

1) Characters add: their full level to attacks and defences (rather than half their level); half their level (rounded down) to damage rolls. Add 1/5 their level in crit dice, rounded up.

2) Magic Items and the Enchant Magic Item Ritual are heavily restricted. -
Common/Uncommon consumables - unrestricted
Permanent uncommon items can be made, but only if one has the "recipe." Like knowing a spell in earlier editions, these recipes will be valuable commodities and not commonly for sale.
-Making rare items requires both a recipe and quest-specific materials.


3) Heavy armor users and monsters add 2 to AC at Paragon, 4 at epic. This replaces Masterwork armor.


4) All powers with neither the Implement nor Weapon keywords have their additional attack bonuses removed if the power targets Fortitude, Reflex, or Will, or replaced with a +2 if the power targets AC. (Example: Dragonborn breath weapon)

There are no enhancement bonus items to attack, damage, defenses. The above also incorporates such 'required/expected' feats such as weapon focus, expertise, various elemental damage feats as well as 'expected' items such as Iron Armbands, Staff of Wither, etc. Better, IMO, it grants these 'features' to everyone and doesn't hose characters who don't have these options (casters who need multiple elemental feats, casters who can't use a staff, etc.

Obviously parcels have to be adjusted. I generally give out half the monetary parcels in half and give out about 1 magic item per level, aside from consumables. Usually one or two per character will be what Essentials is calling Rare.

As a plus, this system would allow for no magic items at all (the original intent from the thread). Just remove most parcels (or virtually all if you're willing to remove rituals as well).


I haven't decided what to do about Essential expertise/focus feats yet. If my players find them attractive enough on their own to take without the attack bonus I can leave them as is. Otherwise, I may allow them to grant a flat +1 to hit.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Rock on, Bob!