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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5700680" data-attributes="member: 27160">Well, I am the DM, so I'm not sure whose "entitlement" I'm supposed to be screaming for.  In the imaginary world, 3rd level fighters don't get 26th level equipment (items) - they can't afford it and they don't go to places dangerous enough for them to find it.  If they are working for a patron (e.g., if they are "soldiers") they get what the patron gives them or what they can get for themselves.  I don't see what point you are trying to make, here?Hmm, I think I worded what I said here unclearly; two people have understood it differently that I meant it, so I'll try to clarify.  When I said:"A character's gear is (or should be) a reflection of who the character is, and if that defines them in the mind of others that is not necessarily a reflection of reality."...I meant the "should" to indicate "if the player is roleplaying effectively".  A player always has the option of having their character simply not use an item.  The choice to use an item is always that - a choice - and choices are what define a character just as the character defines the choices they make.  This part of my post was replying to this statement:"Yes! And what happens then is that who a character is and what they do defines them more so than what magical equipment they carry."...so I was pointing out that the character defines what (magical) equipment they carry.  In other words, regardless of play style, a character that is roleplayed will define the abilities they acquire and the gear that they use.  To say that that the player doing the roleplaying selects one subset of these but not the other seems inaccurate, to me.  As such, the differentiation between the two is purely a matter of taste, not of "right and wrong".Once again, I am the DM, not a player - there is no instance of player entitlement, here.  I wrote "I agree" and "I don't see" to indicate that I was expressing a personal opinion.  If you want to treat magic items as some sort of hallowed preserve, I have no desire to stop you - but I do not understand your reasons for wanting to do so and I see several disbenefits in doing so.  I respect your right to hold a different view, and I'm happy to tolerate that view, but I don't understand the view and I certainly don't share it.In the game I run, the items that are found in a goblin's safe or a dragon's horde are decided by me, the DM.  At that point they are part of the world setting - the players have no control over whether they are there or not.Once the characters take posession of those items, however, they are gear.  They can be sold - because there is nothing that cannot be sold - and alternatives can be bought (because if it can be found then, in theory, it can be bought, even though you might have to go to some lengths to find a seller).  Items can also be made or modified (with "Enchant an Item" and "Transfer Enchantment" and similar rituals).This is the fashion and extent to which I am referring to items being in the control of the players.I don't see "lots of magic shops" as a requirement at all.  Much more plausible is a network of brokers, traders, collectors and users of items who may be contacted and dealt with in larger settlements.  Cheaper items will be easier to find than higher level stuff, naturally, but in the City of Brass just about anything should be available, if you know where to look.At the end of the day, though, all of that is just fluff - the basic rule is that magic items are tradable.I will freely and happily acknowledge that, since I never intended to suggest otherwise to begin with.  People play D&D (and other RPGs) for a variety of reasons, and even though I think the system is surpassed by others for some of those reasons, if they want to try to combine a specific system with their own preferred style, I am happy to let them do so.  Maybe they will even find a way to do it that proves my belief that D&D is a poor fit for their play style wrong - good luck to them.  But to suggest that the publishers should change the system to better fit how they want to use the system at the expense of making it poorer at supporting other ways of using the system that people are enjoying seems to be somewhat selfish and vindictive.As I said above, my intent seems to have been obscured by my (lack of) words, here - by "should" I mean "should if the character is being roleplayed".  In other words, the character decides whether or not to use an item based on, well, their character (given the situation and necessity they find themselves in).That was my point - regardless of play style, they are part of the character, in the same way that clothes are part of my character.  A craftsman's tools are, in a sense, part of the craftsman - that's just an aspect of the way things are.Rules are hardcoding; they are a literal analogue.  The alternative is not to have "flexible rules", it is to have a "build a game" toolkit that lets you select a range of subsystems, modify them to suit and use them to play a game.  I find nothing wrong with this in principle, but (1) I personally want a system that just works out of the box and (2) there are loads of "build a game kit" systems out already - previous editions of D&D among them.  If WotC want to create a 5E that is another one, fine - but if they try to warp 4E into one I will be irritated because I will be forced to, at a minimum, pick out the bits that I don't want (and figure out how to communicate that clearly to the players).But, by the time you have all of that, surely you have a different game with different rules?  You have, at a minimum, cut out Arcane and Divine classes (or severely depowered them), discarded or heavily modified the hit points and healing systems and restricted the characters to low levels.  If I had to do all that to run the game, I would just pick a different system.  This notion that we must have one system and warp it to fit whatever game style we wish to play seems very odd to me.  I run D&D, but I also play and run HârnMaster for just this sort of game.  The idea of running a Hârn game using D&D would just seem insane, to me - why would I handicap myself so badly in achieving what I want with the game from the outset?If this is what you want to do, fine, each to their own.  But to say that one of the existing systems should be changed in its published form so that it does better what another system already does far, far better to begin with just seems, well, almost nihilistic, to me.So, what they do and the function they serve is unimportant; it's all down to what they are called???  Holy moly - call them "mastercrafted" or "alchemical" items and call Artifacts "Magic Items".  What does "magical" mean, anyhow?  Either it just means "beyond our understanding" (i.e. it's pure fluff), or it refers to a specific power source in the game world.  If it's the latter, and there are people in the world who use that power source, then it's just gear.  If it's the former, then it isn't any specific or particular thing in game (rules) terms - it's just "whatever stuff is outside the player characters' ken".  Either way, there is a capability for it built into the 4E (and 3.X) rules (just run a game with no Arcane power source characters, no magic items, "masterwork" +1 to +X swords and armour and maybe a few Artifacts).This further sounds like what you are looking for is a different set of rules.  D&D has never used DR instead of AC for all armours - but there are other systems that do (as well as having separate wounds instead of hit points, variable quality crafted weapons and armour, rare and limited magic use/users, non-player-oriented (and working) economic systems, thoroughly world-defined rules systems and "realistic" wound recovery).</blockquote>

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