Oh yeah, Robert Wiese's my new best friend...

[hong]

To refer back to an earlier post....what do you mean "not so with haste," referring to people not wanting to have it on all the time? Would you really want to sleep like that, heart pounding and breathing frantically? Do you really think that you would come off as normal if you were zipping around town in a blur, speaking far too quickly for people to understand you?

Speaking as someone who appreciates his coffee, I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.

 

[AGGEMAM]

I would most definitely not want to have haste on all the time!

I would, +4 to AC, remember!

 

[AGGEMAM]

Ring of Haste: When activated, the wearer is affected by a haste spell. Caster level: 7th; Prerequisites: Forge Ring, haste; Market Price: 30,000 gp.

The description says: 'the wearer is affect by a haste spell'.

A haste spell has a limited duration.

If it was continous, the description would say: 'the wearer is hasted, as with the haste spell'.

That's what the Ring of Blinking says, and therefore it is continious.

Ring are normally command word activated, that is because if they were use-activated you had to take them off, and put them back on each time you wanted it activated.

 

[med stud]

Not all the time, but for an entire dungeon hack, or an entire overland trip. At least enough for it to be unbalancing in the true sense of the word; everyone would need to have the ring or be screwed, or the guy who manages to find the ring (if the DM is hard on magic items) will just be too good for the rest of the party. Ownership of that ring would work like ECL 3 or something. It is too powerful.

 

[Jeremy]

The same could be said of rings of spell turning, cowls of spell warding, headbands of perfection, and any other high price item. The fact is, if a character has an item like this, he should be at a point where other characters have items of similar usefulness (if in different fields) so that each is good at something.

I'm not quite sure how to put this, but power is not always a bad thing. It can be balanced throughout a party, balanced in a foe, handled without a problem, negated without a problem, or any other number of things. 3e is about what you can do, not what you can't. It's just constantly evolving and thus constantly requiring you to be open minded and expand your imagination over new concepts.

It's very challenging in this aspect, but it's also very rewarding.

Just my opinion...

 

[kreynolds]

I'm not quite sure how to put this, but power is not always a bad thing. It can be balanced throughout a party, balanced in a foe, handled without a problem, negated without a problem, or any other number of things. 3e is about what you can do, not what you can't. It's just constantly evolving and thus constantly requiring you to be open minded and expand your imagination over new concepts.

It's very challenging in this aspect, but it's also very rewarding.

Just my opinion...

Well spoken, Jeremy. Coming up with new and unique magic items is my thing, and I love tossing them into play any chance I can get to spice up a storyline. I've got about 30 pages worth in Word of nothing but magic armor, weapons, wondrous items, you name it. I've even made quite a few spells.

It's actually kinda frustrating because I've discovered that there is apparently a finite amount of ideas for magic items, as a few of my creations ended up showing up in Dragon Magazine in one form or another. For example, metamagic dust. I whipped that one up over 4 months ago, and lo and behold, the damn thing showed up in Dragon, though mine is much cooler and much more expansive, as it's not limited to Maximize Spell.

Hell, even one of my spells showed up in Masters of the Wild. Anyone seen Creeping Cold?

Magic items can add a hellofa lot of flavor to a campaign or plotline, and I use them to do just that, add flavor and depth. Just like in anyone else's campaign, there's the chance that you will find a magic longbow, but it'll be nothing like any other longbow you've ever seen. It'll be truly unique. It may be nice or it may be really frickin' powerful. But you don't need to worry about how powerful it is. I'm the DM. That's my job.

 

[FANGO]

A very good point has been made in these last two posts. This is a problem that I run up against in my nearly-no-magic campaign...the players are constantly complaining about how I never give them magic and how I keep their money to a minimum so they have a hard time buying anything. They say that this will unbalance the game, because they don't have magic when the system was set up for parties with magic. However, as long as I keep the NPCs similarly magic-low, then things will be balanced! It is the same way with high-powered magic items. I agree wholeheartedly with Jeremy about D&D being about what you can do, and I try to be lenient with letting players do interesting and unique things, since it makes the game much more fun that way. As long as you give the NPCs abilities to match the party's, or at least to make them a challenge to the party, then it doesn't matter how 'unbalanced' something is...because you can always give the same thing to the bad guys!

 

[kreynolds]

the players are constantly complaining about how I never give them magic and how I keep their money to a minimum so they have a hard time buying anything.

I'd say that's a hint. Remember, half of the game is for their enjoyment as well.

 

[FANGO]

Well, I suppose I exaggerated a little, really ;-)

They like the rp, etc. etc., it's just different than anything they've played before, so they have to adjust. And besides, if you knew the players in my group, you'd know that complaining is the norm...even the greatest of DMs will still hear about everything he does wrong with my group (not to say that I don't do this myself...that's just sort of our nature...hehe)

And besides, most non-magic-related things I will allow them to do, and I even allow spellcasters in the party if someone wants to play them, I just let them know that they'll have a harder time than usual due to social stigmas, etc. etc. Like I said, I like to let them do what they want to do, I'll just usually come up with a compromise if it's something that I don't want them to do.