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Overuse of monsters and magic.
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<blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 3777901" data-attributes="member: 198"><p>I disagree, or moe precisely, I disagree with how unilateral your assertions are. As a couple of people have already pointed out, while overuse can make magic and monsters mundane, that's not necessarily so. It's highly dependent on the presentation, as Asmor noted, and since there are many different monsters and various kinds of magic, one has a huge palette to work with, if one chooses to do so. </p><p></p><p>For example, as you noted, having lots of dragon encounters can make them feel mundane. But if there are many different kinds of dragons, and - in my estimation - even more importantly, if the specific dragon encounters the PCs have are with dragons which have a unique personality and/or significantly different abilities from dragons they have met before (which is very easy to do, what with feats, templates and the like), they're a whole lot less likely to consider it just another dragon.</p><p></p><p>Similarly, there is a certain degree of magic that players/PCs will have significant familiarity with. You mention buying magic, but one doesn't have to go that far. Just the fact that the majority of the classes in the game have some spellcasting ability means there's a lot of magic the PCs have at their fingertips. Is a wizard going to be fascinated by how awesomely exciting his fireball is when he's cast it the 20th time? I think not. But the wizard who casts fireball will still have many spells he hasn't got access to or seen in effect, and their appearance in the game (esp. if used creatively by a DM) can be much more interesting. Similarly, I fully expect that the PC who bought a +1 sword yesterday or recovered a dozen +1 swords from monsters in the course of his adventures isn't likely to find it exciting, nor will he turn a hair when he sees continual light spells light up a street if he's seen it many times before. But when he runs into a magical lamp in an insane dragon's tower that not only can illuminate the shadows of creatures that passed through an area within the last 24 hrs but also allow one to gain visions of the future at the risk of permanent insanity, I doubt he views it the same as a magical streetlamp. And the existence of the magical streetlamp doesn't make the dragon's magical lamp seem any the less magical.</p><p></p><p>In short, while your basic principle may have some truth to it, I think your overall assessment is significantly flawed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="shilsen, post: 3777901, member: 198"] I disagree, or moe precisely, I disagree with how unilateral your assertions are. As a couple of people have already pointed out, while overuse can make magic and monsters mundane, that's not necessarily so. It's highly dependent on the presentation, as Asmor noted, and since there are many different monsters and various kinds of magic, one has a huge palette to work with, if one chooses to do so. For example, as you noted, having lots of dragon encounters can make them feel mundane. But if there are many different kinds of dragons, and - in my estimation - even more importantly, if the specific dragon encounters the PCs have are with dragons which have a unique personality and/or significantly different abilities from dragons they have met before (which is very easy to do, what with feats, templates and the like), they're a whole lot less likely to consider it just another dragon. Similarly, there is a certain degree of magic that players/PCs will have significant familiarity with. You mention buying magic, but one doesn't have to go that far. Just the fact that the majority of the classes in the game have some spellcasting ability means there's a lot of magic the PCs have at their fingertips. Is a wizard going to be fascinated by how awesomely exciting his fireball is when he's cast it the 20th time? I think not. But the wizard who casts fireball will still have many spells he hasn't got access to or seen in effect, and their appearance in the game (esp. if used creatively by a DM) can be much more interesting. Similarly, I fully expect that the PC who bought a +1 sword yesterday or recovered a dozen +1 swords from monsters in the course of his adventures isn't likely to find it exciting, nor will he turn a hair when he sees continual light spells light up a street if he's seen it many times before. But when he runs into a magical lamp in an insane dragon's tower that not only can illuminate the shadows of creatures that passed through an area within the last 24 hrs but also allow one to gain visions of the future at the risk of permanent insanity, I doubt he views it the same as a magical streetlamp. And the existence of the magical streetlamp doesn't make the dragon's magical lamp seem any the less magical. In short, while your basic principle may have some truth to it, I think your overall assessment is significantly flawed. [/QUOTE]
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