New article Design and Development Article on Magic Item Slots

[Bishmon]

The only problem with this is that a PC might spend all five slots on +AC items, and really screw with the game designs' assumptions. This limiting slots to specific kinds of bonuses is another example of "siloing" that the designers talk about. Choose within silos, but not across them.

That's assuming that there's five different types of items that do X. If they keep it how it apparently is in 4E, with gloves doing X, boots doing Y, helmets doing Z, a guy wouldn't be able to use all five slots on stuff that does X unless his DM feels like letting him wear five pairs of gloves.

 

[Rechan]

Then you were obviously reading different articles than the rest of us. Seriously, if you thought that +X weapons and +X armor were going away, you were fooling yourself.

A designer said "Christmas Shrub" and "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree". That's not what I would call having 9 filled slots + misc items.

I knew that +x swords and armor would still be around. That's not the point.

 

[Rechan]

Were you looking for the deletion of entire item slots? Were you looking for some rule like "you may not wear more than 3 items of magic?"

I was expecting something like 6 items max.

3 max, now that I'd be happy with.

 

[Grog]

A designer said "Christmas Shrub" and "Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree". That's not what I would call having 9 filled slots + misc items.

Well, the Christmas Tree effect involved characters having a ton of items that they needed to have in order to be able to function effectively at high levels. According to this article, there are only three magic items that characters need in 4E - so the Christmas Tree effect has been greatly reduced.

 

[Kraydak]

As to the non-stat-boosting items being "optional, not necessary" --
In 3.5, many posters here have taken the view that a high-level fighter basically needs to have items of See Invisibility, Fly, and Dimension Door/Teleport (to escape Forcecage if nothing else). These are not stat-boosting items, but they are SO useful as to be almost essential. And they seem like the kind of capabilities that miscellaneous items will have in 4E.

I understand that the designers want to see a greater diversity of magic items used... but will there be some miscellaneous items that are so good that everybody will need to have them?

Duh?

Either that, or they will be so weak that people simply don't care, or so situational that people forget about them when they could be used.

 

[Rechan]

Well, the Christmas Tree effect involved characters having a ton of items that they needed to have in order to be able to function effectively at high levels.

That's not the definition of the Christmas Tree effect.

The Christmas Tree effect is just "When you look at a character with Detect Magic, they light up like a christmas tree because they have all those magical items on them."

What you describe is item dependency.

 

[bgaesop]

So we finally know why Tom Bombadil wasn't affected by the One Ring: he was only Heroic tier!

Sorry for that but I really wanted to say it. My favourite part of the article hasn't even been brought up yet:"An item in the neck slot increases your Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses, as well as usually doing something else snappy. " As the proud owner of an Amulet of Protection in real life I must say I'm glad to hear this, making things more interesting than just "+1 to all your saves" is a great idea, and as to me (and I assume no one else) Amulets are the best magic items out there I'm really glad to hear they're still in.

 

[Bishmon]

Well, the Christmas Tree effect involved characters having a ton of items that they needed to have in order to be able to function effectively at high levels. According to this article, there are only three magic items that characters need in 4E - so the Christmas Tree effect has been greatly reduced.

The Christmas Tree, as I have always understood it, dealt with the number of magic items dangling from the character much like ornaments that dangle from a Christmas tree. 4E will apparently change almost nothing about that.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

also your math is wrong. you don´t get 10% less damage if AC goes up by +2...

consider AC 18 vs AB +0 you are hit 15% of the time, with +2 armor your AC is 20, and you are hit only in 5% of all cases, so your hp are effectively trippled...

Err... I'm afraid you're the one with the incorrect math.

 

[Bishmon]

I was seriously hoping they'd simplify the system to something like your implement, your armor, and two or three general accessories that could provide any of a huge number of possible benefits.

Now that I think about it, that seems like a pretty decent house rule. To make up for the power level disparity, I hope that just giving each character an extra feat every 4 levels or so will do it. That'll take some tinkering, but I think it should be workable in theory.

I find it kind of unfortunate that I have to tinker and house rule something that I thought was going to be a strength of 4E, but hey, thems the breaks.