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Message: <blockquote data-quote="phloog" data-source="post: 4647118" data-attributes="member: 59219">I worry that pulling a single 'lever' will subject you to the Rule of Unintended Consequences...whether or not it works well (or well for your particular game), it is a rules SYSTEM, which implies a great deal of internal dependencies. So I think it's great that you allow multiple choices in the poll, but even so, now you're potentially throwing MANY levers without a full understanding of that underlying equation of balance. Other thoughts: The idea of a magic shop is really theme/campaign dependent - most games I run are imcompatible with this, but if you had more of a Harry Potter-style campaign world then a magic shop makes sense...but to me it would still be in the category of charms, potions, etc. It is EXTREMELY hard to believe that any items of sufficient power would be A ) available and B ) affordable. Imagine a shop with three items worth 10,000 gp each. Suddenly it's a HUGE target for a robbery/theft. The thieves might include wizards of some power. Now imagine the 'security system' you'd need for multiple 10,000gp items - - the price for items suddenly seems too low for me. The Elements of Magic system that I use in one campaign has a limit of twelve ITEMS, no body slots...you want eight rings you can have them all at once. This would seemingly destroy balance, even with the limit on named bonuses stacking, but in my campaign it's never been a problem. But I think that's primarily due to DMing, and not the way the game is designed.  If I HAD to blow it up and start over, I'd design a system with a cap on total ACTIVE items similar to the EoM 12-Item rule, but I would then make a point of designing more INTERESTING items. Quirky odd stuff that would immediately appeal to the player, and be a good fit for their character concept. Which I guess AGAIN comes down to the DM. Most of my players don't come to me with this character concept "I want to run a half-orc barbarian who eventually has maxed out his Natural Armor, has used his enhancement bonus items on Dex, and will eventually gain Armor of Etherealness (too dated?)"....my characters always choose an item that is wild, interesting, or seemingly perfect for the character over any of these traditional 'Big 6'.  That to me is where 3.x succeeded and failed. They had this system that could assign various properties to armor (as an example), but then only gave a few unique types, so people will default to +X armor of Y. The only uniqueness comes from the Z*Q*P combinations of bonuses and options for an item, and for me (a lover of 3.5) it becomes a bit stale.  It's almost like the game would be more interesting with LESS rules about creation. Generally speaking by the higher levels my characters have 'non-book' items...armor that only adds +1 magical bonus, but allows you to turn into a hawk once per day...an amulet that adds nothing to your stats, but when someone is in disguise near you begins to sing an eerie song. These are poor examples, but the idea is that the Rule of Cool trumps min/maxing. Where this does lead to issues is that encounters in pre-made adventures are seemingly setup with the assumption of this heap of bonuses, but we manage.</blockquote>

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