Naked Adventurers (no, it's not what you think)

[Forrester]

As I was pondering my usually deep thoughts, it occurred to me that it would be nice to know *exactly* how much high-level player character power levels depend on the oodles and oodles of magic items that they're supposed to be carrying around with them. One of the things that's always irked me about 3E (and there are very, very few things that do) is that it seemed to be written by those who prefer CRPGs to RPGs -- it's ALL about the trip to the magic store at high levels.


So, some questions:

1) Could a fully equipped 9th level fighter take down a 15th level fighter that only had 1000gp to spend on armor and weapons?

2) Could a fully equipped 9th level mage take down a 15th level mage that only had 1000gp to spend on . . . whatever? (Here, we must assume that the 15th level mage does not simply teleport away.)

And so on . . . I think that #1 would go to the 9th level fighter, #2 would go to the 15th level mage (??), and I'm not sure what would happen if the 9th level fighter went after the 15th level mage, or the 9th level mage went after the 15th level fighter. Strike that -- in the latter battle, it wouldn't even be close. Fighter go bye-bye.

This isn't a trivial matter; a 15th level character is theoretically EIGHT TIMES AS POWERFUL as a 9th level one.

And if you need Exactly The Recommended Amount Of Magic Items to make yourself powerful enough -- in this case, perhaps eight times more powerful than you would be without them -- well, this just strikes me as a huge flaw in the system. Not a fatal one, if you prefer campaigns that are all about finding new toys (and many, if not most, do), but it seems icky.

What do y'all think?

 

[Nightfall]

I think I'm betting on Slacerian Dragons to finish the lot of them.

 

[Agback]

And if you need Exactly The Recommended Amount Of Magic Items to make yourself powerful enough -- in this case, perhaps eight times more powerful than you would be without them -- well, this just strikes me as a huge flaw in the system.

I was until recently playing in a 3E campaign in which the GM first kept us starved of magical items and then over-compensated, giving us too much treasure and too much freedom to get exactly the stuff that would suit us. We started routinely trashing things that were several CRs higher than our average party level, and that meant that we started gaining experience and levels much too fast (and getting into even more serious treasure). The GM lost control completely, and eventually (the Friday before last) we attacked his CR 22 major villain at least six months ahead of schedule, and destroyed her (though my character, by then a 12th level monk and the highest-levelled and most cunningly-equipped character in the party, was take out by a death effect and a 1,000' fall before he got to act in the first round of combat).

Now of course there might be a way to cope with this. But it seems that the problem is not trivial.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Forrester, I wish to reply to this.

You have a good point.

Most of the high level characters I have ever seen (all of them in one particular campaign) derive nearly all of their power from magical items.

I believe that the situation is exacerated with the fighting classes, but it is true of all the classes.

To give my best answers to your questions:

1: The 9th level fighter wins easily, in my opinion and in my experience also.

2: The battle is 50/50. The much more powerful spells of the 15th level mage are offset by the magic items of the 9th level mage.

3: The 9th level cleric wins easily. So does the druid.

4: The 9th level thief or monk crushes the 15th level thief or monk.

5: The other 9th level classes win over the 15th level opponent.

In 2nd edition, this is how it would be.

In 3rd edition, I am assuming single-classed characters.
If the higher level character multi-classes in 3E, then the lower level character wins more easily.
If the higher level character has levels in a Prestige Class, then the lower level character has a harder time winning.

Tools are useful. Tools are great. People naturally want to pick up and use tools, in the game.
Magical items are tools.

However, tools (including heavy magical armor) usually tend to be quickly destroyed in combat.
A good Fireball roasts most magical items, and Fireballs are quick and easy to come by (whereas magical items, even in 3E, aren't quite so quick and easy to obtain or create as Fireballs.)

Any character worth his or her salt should learn how to adapt to a situation where no tools are available (including mages without spellbooks.)

Any player who can't handle such situations (I've seen many) should rethink his attitude about the game.

Edena

 

[Nightfall]

I think though a druid that was 15 COULD and WOULD wildshape, thus using Elemental form and a few good uses of "Extra Wild Shape" at his/her disposal, so that he/she could be a greater elemental. Like to a 9th level druid handle THAT!

Cleric wise, would depend on the gods involved. It was two war god clercis, it would be tough fight for both, but with more flame strikes at his/her disposal, I'd say the 15 level cleric would win.

Course if it was a servant of Vangal, he allways wins!

 

[RangerWickett]

Super Powers

In Natural 20 Press's upcoming superhero book, you gain superpowers by using Hero Points, which you gain from the Hero class. If you're an adventurer, you can just gain levels of Hero as you gain experience (perhaps you unlock your powers through extreme training or enlightenment), or if your DM lets you, you can start off with levels of Hero (you could be a mutant, or an alien, with natural powers).

What does this have to do with magic items? Well, if you adventure from 1st to 20th level, you'll pick up magic items along the way, but if you start off at 20th level of power, but no adventuring history, you'd have no magic items. A 20th level Hero who got there through adventuring would be much more powerful than a 20th level Hero who just was born with his powers.

I wanted to find a way that would allow you to make balanced characters at high levels without having to just hand them 500,000 gp worth of magic items. My solution was to equate various amounts of gp wealth with Hero Points. Thus, if your DM wants, he can give PCs extra Hero Points instead of giving them magic items. A 20th level character with 760,000 gp of items is just as powerful as a 20th level character with 760,000 gp worth of Hero Points (53 hero points, in fact).

Even non-superheroes can gain Hero Points in this way. Maybe the DM is running a low-magic setting, but he wants the PCs to be tough, so he lets them have Hero Points. The party's fighter could gain a bonus to Strength, AC, and damage reduction, while the party's cleric could gain flight, and the rogue could gain mild super speed. It's all balanced so the various abilities and amounts of gp are interchangable.

I'm wondering if people would be interested in this type of system. Instead of relying on magic items to make you strong, as you level up, your own heroism (or villainy) manifests to make you more powerful than everyday people. You'll still be balanced against the various monsters in the game, but the DM won't have to rationalize why such huge sums of money floating around wouldn't shift world economies, and doesn't have to give out magic items that shouldn't exist in the world. I've personally always felt that magic items should be mysterious and powerful, not flat bonuses like +2 AC or +4 Strength. That type of bonus isn't magical, it's a super power.

So, that's my way for handling unbalances like you've mentioned. The full rules will be present in the d20 supers supplement, coming out in about two weeks, from Natural 20 Press. Are any of you interested?

 

[Creamsteak]

I agree with you, Forrester, of course...

But if you do use the DMG treasure guides... something does come up. In my campaigns, I use the regular treasure rules, and this is what I have found:

Characters can manage to get the expected amount of "value," but they only get about 5% of the items that the group needs. Many times they will have four or five sets of the same +1 or +2 armor accumulated over the course of a Dungeon Crawl if you use regular treasure rules.

If you let players go home and trade those suits in for the +3 full plate they want, thats fine. In my worlds, however, more mages are battle mages than crafters. Most of the crafters are not high enough in level to have access to the upper level craft feats, and those that do charge full price.

Also, party crafters (mages that are PCs with craft feats) are REALLY stingy with spending experience to help the party, in my experience...

Thats what I think anyway, I could be wrong...

 

[hong]

IMO there's nothing wrong with lots of magic items in a campaign. Magic is part of fantasy, and definitely part of D&D. The problem is that allowing the free buying and selling of magic items turns them into commodities: ideally magic items should be seen as extensions of the characters themselves, not simply as things you use to get a job done.

In a modern campaign, there's nothing wrong with an assassin dumping their sniper rifle (after destroying it) after taking out the target. The rifle is just a tool, you can always get another. In a fantasy campaign, however, you don't do stuff like that. A +5 bow should have a significance of its own; it shouldn't be exchangeable for every other +5 bow out there.

The question, therefore, is not how to reduce the importance of magic, but how to give it back its mystique. So, how do you get rid of ye olde magic shoppe, and associated tomb-raiding mentality, while still allowing players to keep the toys they're accustomed to? Well, we can note that wizards, clerics, and any other spellcasting class can create magic items (read: gain super powers) by spending XP. (They also have to spend gp, but let's ignore that for the moment.) There's no reason you couldn't extend this to the mundane classes as well. All you need is 1) a suitable handwave/justification; 2) a scheme to calculate costs.

A start to this was made in Dragon 289, the monk/ninja issue, with the article on levelled items. Then there's the nemuranai in the Magic of Rokugan book, which is basically a way of ensuring players can keep their toys, without going back to the looting mentality that usually characterises D&D.

These should be easily adaptable to just about any setting. A character becomes more powerful, and thus their items become more powerful as well. All this happens without the need to go shopping, or looting the bodies of the slain. It's good all round.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Eh...

It's a problem by the rules, but spending GP for powers is just as good a way to do it, and it's not even that out of line...

So you "spend" GP you've won to get some nifty power not on a ring or in a cloak, but inherent to you.

This could sort of be extrapolated to training....PC's can be trained to get a certain power...say they want the effects of a Cloak of Elvenkind....spend the same (or perhaps as much as double...) and you get the power trained into you, instead of having it attatched to an item.

In fact...that's not a bad idea to offer IMC. Hm...

 

[Vaxalon]

Could Forrester driving a formula-1 race car beat Mario Andretti driving a Yugo?