New Monte Cook article Magic and Mystery

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I think, though I might be wrong, that Tequila Sunrise was more trying to get at the Diablo idea of weapons that are very specific in effect and boosted specific skills that may not exist in your party.

For example, getting a magic dagger that makes your Fireballs hit harder is rather pointless if you don't have a wizard who likes casting Fireballs.

A wizard who "doesn't like casting fireballs" is different than a warlock that can't cast them. Your hypothetical dagger is only useless to the latter. If I give out said hypothetical dagger and the player decides not to make full use of the item that is his decision.

Or is the DM giving the NPCs items appropriate to their own powers that the PCs don't, in turn, want?

Another distinct difference in 4E: most NPCs do not have PC powers. Like it or not opponents are built with different assumptions in this edition which pretty much makes giving them items less necessary. You can certainly model the game around giving rewards that the party can't make use of but you need to remain aware of how that effects your game. If you hand out mostly items that the group can't use and stick to the 50% sale value of Uncommon items, you should realize that you are handing out half the reward the baseline suggests and may want to scale back difficulty if you see the group having too hard a time or find some other factor to keep things in the range of fun challenge (whatever qualifies as such for your group).

 

[billd91]

Another distinct difference in 4E: most NPCs do not have PC powers. Like it or not opponents are built with different assumptions in this edition which pretty much makes giving them items less necessary. You can certainly model the game around giving rewards that the party can't make use of but you need to remain aware of how that effects your game. If you hand out mostly items that the group can't use and stick to the 50% sale value of Uncommon items, you should realize that you are handing out half the reward the baseline suggests and may want to scale back difficulty if you see the group having too hard a time or find some other factor to keep things in the range of fun challenge (whatever qualifies as such for your group).

Frankly, this is another reason why I do not like 4e very much.

I thought 3e handled the issue pretty well. You could sell stuff for half value, sure. But use of magic item creation feats let you create stuff for half value. In the end, the feats allowed you to trade and item you didn't want for one you did straight up, 1 for 1 equivalent market price.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I disagree here though. I find that the weird stuff is where people really start to engage with the game a lot more. Ok, Voodoo Doll of Charm Little Girls is probably not the best example (and WAYYY too creepy), but, something like, say, a Life Drinking Weapon is so much cooler than just a +2 sword. Ignore the actual plus on the weapon, fold that into the character, and then just go with the extra stuff. A weapon that grants temp hp when you kill something? That's cool. There's all sorts of things you can do with that.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear and also used a bad example.

I like Life Drinking weapons and whatnot too, and I'd be overjoyed to play a D&D that truly had no need of +X items. What annoys the bajeesus out of me is loot that the DM knows will just be sold for cash at the next town. For example, a +1 kukri when everyone has +3 weapons and nobody uses kukris anyway. Or potion after 'interesting' trinket after potion after useless trinket, ad nauseum, when what the PCs really want and need are better weapons and armor.

But, wouldn't random generation of treasure be the culprit here? TS talks about wish lists and parcels and equates them to Diablo drops. If you have wish lists and/or parcels, then you should never have treasure that the PC's don't want.

Yeah, random loot tables usually are the culprit. But I also had a 4e DM at one point who gave me, the player of an orb wizard with orb expertise, a magic wand. So while random loot naturally produces the Diablo effect, DMs can fall into that trap too all on their own.

Which is why I hope that bit of 4e advice remains in every future DMG, regardless of what the default loot guidelines are: "If nobody in the party uses a long bow, don't drop magic long bows as loot!"

 

[JamesonCourage]

Which is why I hope that bit of 4e advice remains in every future DMG, regardless of what the default loot guidelines are: "If nobody in the party uses a long bow, don't drop magic long bows as loot!"

I definitely support this, as long as it's qualified and given context. Something along the lines of letting DMs know to do this in more narrative games. The advice you quoted would directly violate the gaming ethos of my group, and I don't think I'm alone.

In a narrative game, it makes since to only give longbows when you have an archer (everything Conan found helped Conan in some way, more or less). However, my group gets drawn out of the game when a demon lord melee warrior they're fighting has a magical longbow but not a magical sword. I mean, he has the resources to acquire magical equipment, so why does he carry a magical longbow on him, but not a magical sword?

I don't think the answer is to make him wield a magical longbow, either. Yes, it won't draw us as much out of the game at first, but when all of the enemies end up using the same weapons you use, it gets pretty obvious after a while. "Good thing nearly all well-equipped villains use magical kukris" becomes a little suspicious after a while.

My preference has always been acquiring magical items through luck (getting good magical equipment based on what makes sense for the setting), or questing for it. You have a magical kukri, but want a better one? Go and find someone who can make it, can trade for it, can sell it, who you can steal it from, or someone/somewhere you can take it from.

My group prefers to see what story unfolds, and giving convenient magical equipment to them is seen as too heavy-handed. It's akin (to us) to the GM being too heavy-handed in the pushing the story a particular direction. It's good if that's what your group likes (which is why I'm for the advice you commented on being included!), but it's not for everyone. I'd rather see a DMG with "if, thens" when it comes to advice, built off of comprehension gaming style bases. "If you want a highly narrative, story-driven game where you have player buy-in on your story, it's great to make sure they don't wind up with magical equipment they'll never use most of the time."

Obviously, it'd more more fleshed out than that, but it gets the point across. In a more sandbox game, convenient magical items pull my group out of immersion, and that hurts our gaming experience. I'd rather the game at large (DMG included) appeal to a broad range of gaming styles, and include good advice on how to approach those different styles. Highlight the ups and downs, mention mixing styles, etc.

But, that's my thoughts on it. I definitely think that advice should be included in the book. As always, play what you like

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

I thought 3e handled the issue pretty well. You could sell stuff for half value, sure. But use of magic item creation feats let you create stuff for half value. In the end, the feats allowed you to trade and item you didn't want for one you did straight up, 1 for 1 equivalent market price.

At the cost of XP, which IME limited the use of item creation feats greatly. The first time someone realized he had fallen a level behind everyone else that reigned in all future use of those feats in my group. So I wouldn't call it exactly 1 for 1 unless you removed the RAW XP requirement. As such, it effectively turned into "lose half the value of items you sell." Luckily everyone and his brother seemed to have a +1 weapon, etc. Selling for half seemed to be factored in to Wealth By Level.

It's really just a matter of working with the system no matter which edition one prefers. I have no doubt that different editions approaches appeal to different people. I still prefer 1E's approach, although I play 4E.

 

[billd91]

At the cost of XP, which IME limited the use of item creation feats greatly. The first time someone realized he had fallen a level behind everyone else that reigned in all future use of those feats in my group. So I wouldn't call it exactly 1 for 1 unless you removed the RAW XP requirement.

I found that nobody interested in crafting in my games batted an eye at the XP cost, something I wouldn't have predicted. The XP cost really turned out to be a pittance, particularly when characters would gain more XPs than their higher level counterparts if they ever fell a level behind. Time and money were always more important factors for them.

 

[the Jester]

Buncha stuff

Clearly I inferred stuff different than you intended from your earlier post, mea culpa.

In 1e I played a 9th level fighter who was a perfectly fine character who had some plate mail +3 (IIRC- coulda been +2 or +4), a longsword +1, +4 vs. fire using creatures that gave him fire resistance, a couple potions at a time and a helm of underwater action, and he mostly did fine. I long for the days when a high level pc with only a few magic items isn't inherently screwed, where you can have a "lose everything" moment (shipwreck, taken captive, slain and gear taken, etc) and still be doing okay with mundane gear. Sigh.

 

[billd91]

In 1e I played a 9th level fighter who was a perfectly fine character who had some plate mail +3 (IIRC- coulda been +2 or +4), a longsword +1, +4 vs. fire using creatures that gave him fire resistance, a couple potions at a time and a helm of underwater action, and he mostly did fine. I long for the days when a high level pc with only a few magic items isn't inherently screwed, where you can have a "lose everything" moment (shipwreck, taken captive, slain and gear taken, etc) and still be doing okay with mundane gear. Sigh.

I think that game's still there in both 3.5 and PF. Pushing the numeric abilities of a character to make the game easier isn't the only way to play. You just have to be more careful what challenges you decide to take on than if you're highly decked out in magical gear.

But let's face it, if you weren't armed with magical weapons, you weren't going to get very far against a lot of demons and devils or even undead back in 1e or 2e either. You had to avoid those kinds of fights as a high level character if you just had mundane gear. That hasn't changed all that much.

 

[Corathon]

But let's face it, if you weren't armed with magical weapons, you weren't going to get very far against a lot of demons and devils or even undead back in 1e or 2e either. You had to avoid those kinds of fights as a high level character if you just had mundane gear. That hasn't changed all that much.

In 1E you coulf hit (almost) anything with non-magical items if they were made of the right stuff. E.g. a cold iron weapon could hit any demon and a silver one could hit any devil. Many undead could be hit by silver also (but not all). Even the toughest demons and devils (excluding lords, princes, archdevils, etc) had an AC of about 25 (in 3E terms). A 9th level fighter with a decent STR (let's say 17) and double weapon specialization would hit that AC on a roll of 13 or higher, and all of his attacks hit on the same odds as the first, so a F9 without a magic weapon wasn't useless against demons, devils, or undead by any means.

 

[Vascant]

In 1e I played a 9th level fighter who was a perfectly fine character who had some plate mail +3 (IIRC- coulda been +2 or +4), a longsword +1, +4 vs. fire using creatures that gave him fire resistance, a couple potions at a time and a helm of underwater action, and he mostly did fine. I long for the days when a high level pc with only a few magic items isn't inherently screwed, where you can have a "lose everything" moment (shipwreck, taken captive, slain and gear taken, etc) and still be doing okay with mundane gear. Sigh.

Sounds more like a DM issue then a rules issue.

All of my players know if they create a situation where the NPC stealing from them makes perfect sense.. Boom! They have lost their stuff. They do recover...If those players are suddenly attacked by demons and devils that can't be hit by normal weapons, blame the DM not the rules or edition.


But that's just me...