OotS vs your game: how does the equipment compare?

[Quartz]

How does the equipment of your PCs compare with the members of the Order of the Stick?

ISTM that the Order are rather under-equipped. They seem to have one +5 or better equivalent signature item each - Roy has his sword, Haley the bow, Elan his rapier, and Belkar his daggers are the ones we know about. But other than that they don't seem to have a lot. Roy has a belt of giant strength and he and Haley have magic armour. V has a headband of intellect. They have a small assortment of minor magic items.

But really, there's no 'Christmas tree' effect, and they seem rather modestly equipped.

How do they compare with the PCs in your campaign?

 

[delericho]

They haven't gained either equipment or levels at anything like the rate my PCs do.

Beyond that, it's hard to tell - I don't think we've ever had any indication of what magic items they have, nor how magical those items are.

 

[Empirate]

I actually like the Giant's approach on magic items, and strive to do similarly in my game. Stuff like some protective gear, the odd Ring of Jumping etc. is more or less assumed, but doesn't stand out at mid levels up. But there's often one signature item the PCs in my game carry, usually a weapon. A matched pair of adamantine longswords named Hunger and Thirst comes to mind (a high-level dual-wielding warrior PC's outfit), as does a simple, random +1 Shock Heavy Flail another group rolled on the treasure tables at level 3 (!) (that weapon remained their most powerful weapon up until level 11, so it kind of grew on them and became the Bard/Barbarian/Dragon Disciple's favored toy).

 

[DMZ2112]

Whenever my PCs get a magic item they try to tackle me and pull off my face to make sure I haven't been replaced by a Reptilian.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

My old Kingmaker group followed the guidelines strictly.

Sorry, but 3rd Edition and Pathfinder don't work if you don't follow the magic item rules.

The OotS PCs aren't just underequipped, they have bad builds and often make tactical errors. (In this way, they're more realistic than most adventuring parties.) For instance, has V ever made a Concentration check? I've never seen a 3.5 wizard who didn't max the skill and didn't have a Con bonus of at least +1, even if an elf.

 

[Jacob Marley]

Yes and no. It matches the current campaign I am playing. It does not match the previous two, however.

Sorry, but 3rd Edition and Pathfinder don't work if you don't follow the magic item rules.

B.S. It changes the nature and difficulty of the game, but does not make the game unplayable. See below.

The OotS PCs aren't just underequipped, they have bad builds and often make tactical errors. (In this way, they're more realistic than most adventuring parties.) For instance, has V ever made a Concentration check? I've never seen a 3.5 wizard who didn't max the skill and didn't have a Con bonus of at least +1, even if an elf.

And a significant portion of their encounters are high EL, with low CR creatures. Under-equipped PCs with bad builds are fine when your encounters are often with Goblin Warrior 1s! Even the high EL, high CR encounters tend to be with humanoids who are also under-equipped with bad builds (like their current encounter). When your primary antagonists are humanoids, it is quite easy for a 3.x DM to match the characters power level without breaking game balance. (Which appears to be what Rich is doing.) Had the OotS party been consistently fighting evil outsiders, for example, they probably would have TPK'd a long time ago - they are not set up for those types of encounters.

 

[Celebrim]

My game matches up with OotS pretty well, and OotS matches my over all experience with D&D as well.

If anything, OotS characters have access to more magical equipment than I'm used to. However, I've always been a fan of providing players the opportunity to get signature items that help define their character.

There is not nor has their ever been a Christmas tree effect in my game.

In my current game, the characters are 6th level. They have an assortment of minor magical items, most of which give minor bonuses to skills or allow minor spell use. Most don't have even +1 armor or +1 bonuses on their main weapon, though there is a sprinkling of +1 daggers and +1 staves. However, one character has an intelligent +2 eager keen rapier of swiftness named 'First Blood' (which is proving to have a rather malevolent disposition), and another character has a silver +1 undead-bane morning star. Probably the most practical item they have is an obsidian mirror about the size of a dinner plate which has proved to reflect not this world, but the spirit world which has an almost infinite number of uses from detecting illusions (which generally don't appear in the spirit world), to identifying when a spirit is nearby, to figuring out whether or not an ancient door has been recently open/closed (because they've discovered that the spirit world tends to reflect the real world with a notable time lag). One character does have a belt of health +2 and another a cloak of protection +1, but in general there isn't a lot of typical Christmas tree magic and no way for the players to turn their tangible wealth into it even if they wanted.

 

[Celebrim]

B.S. It changes the nature and difficulty of the game, but does not make the game unplayable. See below.

And a significant portion of their encounters are high EL, with low CR creatures. Under-equipped PCs with bad builds are fine when your encounters are often with Goblin Warrior 1s! Even the high EL, high CR encounters tend to be with humanoids who are also under-equipped with bad builds (like their current encounter). When your primary antagonists are humanoids, it is quite easy for a 3.x DM to match the characters power level without breaking game balance. (Which appears to be what Rich is doing.) Had the OotS party been consistently fighting evil outsiders, for example, they probably would have TPK'd a long time ago - they are not set up for those types of encounters.

All this.

And it's worth noting that in 3.5 the power level of evil outsiders was significantly ramped up, both in giving them higher CR for a given creature and with increasing the power level represented by a given CR. This was done precisely to counter the power creep resulting from Christmas Tree items and optimized builds. If you don't have that, it really wasn't necessary.

The other thing to consider is that there is no rule that says a 15th level party has to be effective against CR 15 foes. It's perfectly ok to throw CR 11 foes against 15th level PC's knowing that given the PC's equipment, a CR 11 foe is challenging. Nor is there anything that says parties have to level up every 13.33 encounters. So long as everyone has fun, it doesn't really matter that your 15th level party would wipe the floor with someone else's 15th level party, or that a single 12th level character in someone else's campaign is more powerful than your entire 15th level PC party.

 

[Empirate]

Comparing Celebrim's 6th level party to my own 6th level party is interesting, especially since he notes there's not much in the way of magic items around. My three 6th level PCs currently own:

a) a large jewel that can function as the focus for every spell up to 3rd level and replaces all material components with itself as a focus component - not that they have an arcane caster...;
b) ~20 +1 arrows;
c) Viperfang, a dagger that counts as magical for overcoming DR but has no enhancement bonus; it also increases the save DC of poison delivered with it by +1, can be drawn as a free action, and can be used in a grapple without penalties;
d) wand of Scorching Ray (only 4 charges remaining);
e) 2x potion of Enlarge Person;
f) 2x mwk throwing axe;
g) mwk cold iron Greataxe;
h) 3x mwk studded leather.

And that's it. Seeing as how most individual foes' CR hasn't been higher than 4 (exception: several 6th level humans, one CR 7 naga, one CR 6 mutated giant bat), and I like to swamp them with literally dozens of mook enemies at a time, they're not doing too bad.

Since they're approaching what passes for a metropolis in their world, I expect levelled humanoid opponents will become the norm, and likely drop some good loot at various points. In fact, I'm planning on making some wands available, as well as better magical armor (+1 mithral chain shirt equivalent). The PCs have also encountered a band of likely future opponents who sport a couple obvious magic items.


EDIT: I should probably add that this is an E6 game, so magic mart is right out, and everything magical at all will be much rarer.

 

[Kinak]

My homebrew tends strongly towards the OotS approach. Few magical items, but the ones that are around matter.

Lately, I've been running Rise of the Runelords and basically just letting people have what shows up in the encounters there. They've been quite happy with it, although the stuff they like the most are still the few custom items that have snuck in (a sword occupied by an ancient dwarven hero the paladin uses and a ring of feather fall that lets the user change into an eagle temporarily).

As long as I run APs, I'll probably stick with the treasure as recorded, with the occasional custom one thrown in that for flavor. For homebrew campaigns, I'll go back to my old approach and adjust the difficulty as appropriate.

Cheers!
Kinak