Yeah sure. It's true. but if you really want to have an enjoyable session, you just don't have to go with every single point of 3e (or any other e).
I think it's a common error that I always did often (and probably repeat in the future, too.)
"That's how it happens to be, we shouldn't change it."
But that is the wrong approach. Figure out why it is this way. If you don't find a satisfying answer, change it to the way you prefer it.
We recently had this question in our office with an external consultant:
(paraphrasing)
"So, this other department does not belong to yours, but you all work in the same area of expertise? Why is it this way?"
"Because that's what it grew into..."
"No, I mean, is there a reason why it has to be this way?"
"Oh. No, not really."
Of course in this case, the ones that gained this insight do not have the power to change this. But for your own game, especially if you _want_ to redesign things, you shouldn't be held back by "that's how it has always been."
3.x might have assumed an easy access to magical items (item shops or item crafting).But does it have to keep this way?
Personally, I think there is primarily one problem with magical items:
They change the baseline power of your players, and if you want to have something like CR / XP Budget system, you need to find a way to account for that.
Both 3E and 4E seemed to go the way to set a certain amount of magical items as a "baseline". 3E did it with wealth by level (which is a very vague baseline, since nobody knows what you actually buy for it), 4E has its 3 standard items whose increasing bonuses are expected in your characters advancement, the rest is treated as minor.
An alternative might be to seriously assign some kind of "level equivalent value" to items. Something that tells you: "A character with this item is +1 level stronger then an equivalent level character."
It wouldn't be easy to implement, but hey, nobody cares if it's easy to design stuff. Important is whether it works when I play the game!
A starting point might be to classify items for certain situations. Boots of Flying don't give you straightforward "+2 levels" to your character or something. But they give you an advantage regarding movement, which is important in certain situations:
- Terrain that makes ordinary movement difficult.
- Monsters that have a unusual movement mode and are hard to counter.
- Monsters that are not very mobile and can be easier to counter.
An Ooze might have the challenge attribute (weak mobility), so Boots of Flying give +3 levels against him.
A Arrowhawk might have the challenge attribute (good mobility), so Boots of Flying give +2 levels against him (since he would be harder without them.)
Your encounter area has the attribute (Difficult Movement), so the boots add +1 levels to him.
(I am not convinced that levels would be the right term. If we assume an encounter budget and fixed XP values for monsters, the modifiers might apply to them.)
