Podcast up

[RangerWickett]

A month ago or so back, I suggested the following:

Originally Posted in this thread
Belt of Giant Strength - When you wear this, you have GIANT STRENGTH. You can lift things and wield weapons as if your size category was one larger (or two sizes, or three, etc.). These items are no longer commonplace, something every fighter has. Instead, if you see someone pick up a tree and use it as a melee weapon, you'll be impressed. No one is impressed when a dude with a girdle sticks you for one extra point of damage.

Of course, I also complained about why I wish they were also getting rid of +x weapons:

In literature if someone pulls out a sword, they might say, "This is the blade of my ancestors. It is unnaturally sharp, and can strike down fell beasts." But they never say, "And I compared it to my friend's ancestral sword, and his seems to be about 5% sharper."

Just have 'magic sword' as an on-off toggle. Season with special abilities to your preferred flavor.

+x to an ability score is just as boring as +x to attack and damage.

 

[Henry]

I'm surprised more people haven't been discussing this. It really shocked me. I wonder if they were daily, or if they were at will but imposed a penalty on attacks (much like Book of Iron Might), or if they became incrementally more difficult to use (much like the truenamer) or if they had a delay in rounds until you could use them again (much like some of the binder's powers).

Actually, I'm getting the impression from the Podcast that both Rich Baker's original design was per-encounter, also, but more like one of the three classes (either crusader, warblade, or swordsage), and the 4E design team's per encounter was more like one of the remaining two, so they combined them in the book, to see which one fans through worked better. Based on his comments, I'm getting the feeling like Rich's was like the Warblade/crusader, and "Team Orcus" was more like the Swordsage, but it's all speculation.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Ranger, that would be a cool way to do the Belt, especially under the current system. However, how would you enforce "These items are no longer commonplace, something every fighter has." That's fluff, not a mechanic or rule. I'd still see this as something most fighters would want. "All my weapon damage treated as X sizes larger? Hook me up!"

I think you should revisit the idea when we know more about 4E, because I still think it'd make a good x per time period item, making it frequently useful, but not all the time.

+x to an ability score is just as boring as +x to attack and damage.

Still, I really wonder if they're requiring some property to go with the plus on items now. We're stuck with plusses to weapons, I think, for the simple fact that it's a game which uses dice. But if one's "unnaturally sharp" sword translates to "+1, High Crit", well, that's at least a little more interesting.

 

[RangerWickett]

Ranger, that would be a cool way to do the Belt, especially under the current system. However, how would you enforce "These items are no longer commonplace, something every fighter has." That's fluff, not a mechanic or rule. I'd still see this as something most fighters would want. "All my weapon damage treated as X sizes larger? Hook me up!"

You make them rarer by

a) raising the price, so that there aren't 4000 gp "gloves of being a little stronger," but rather a 36000 gp "belt of throwing really big stuff," and

b) making it not as useful to some character builds. Your weapons aren't treated as X sizes larger; you are just able to wield larger weapons. So if you have a magic dagger you like, well, the belt won't help you. If you want a huge honkin' Cloud-from-FF7 style sword, you can wield that, but it doesn't deal that much extra damage, and you'd be limited in where you can fight with it. The belt is more often useful for picking up and throwing things; and

c) having other magic item options that encourage different styles of fighting. Sure, Regdar might get that belt of giant strength so he can wield his huge greatsword, but Tordek wants to focus on taking punishment, rather than dealing it out -- the slow and steady approach; or

or d) which is rather unlikely, but my favorite: give PCs a limit to the number of magic items they can use at once. Like, at heroic level, only one magic item will work for you; three at paragon; and seven at epic.

Still, I really wonder if they're requiring some property to go with the plus on items now. We're stuck with plusses to weapons, I think, for the simple fact that it's a game which uses dice. But if one's "unnaturally sharp" sword translates to "+1, High Crit", well, that's at least a little more interesting.

Look, if the game designers want a 10th level warrior to have a +15 attack bonus, just give him a +15 attack bonus! Why do we need +x weapons? The game's rules are based on math, so it's not like you need to have them to make monsters hittable. You just change the monster's AC, or change the attack bonus of a given class, or something.

All +x items are are toys, to please the players. I'd rather the toys be powers of the character himself, rather than treasure, because treasure of this sort really frikkin' screws with the possibility for a believable economy in a fantasy setting.

 

[Traycor]

Originally Posted in this thread
Belt of Giant Strength - When you wear this, you have GIANT STRENGTH. You can lift things and wield weapons as if your size category was one larger (or two sizes, or three, etc.). These items are no longer commonplace, something every fighter has. Instead, if you see someone pick up a tree and use it as a melee weapon, you'll be impressed. No one is impressed when a dude with a girdle sticks you for one extra point of damage.

Now that's the kind of things I hope these new versions of the old standards do.

+x to an ability score is just as boring as +x to attack and damage.

Agreed!

 

[Traycor]

a) raising the price, so that there aren't 4000 gp "gloves of being a little stronger," but rather a 36000 gp "belt of throwing really big stuff,"

I think making everything more expensive is a mistake. Instead make it not so universally wanted.

For instance, a girdle of giant strength could give you the abilty 3/day to make a str check as if you had a 25 str. That would be very cool & thematic without screwing up your combat balance.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'm not sure magic items won't give stat boosts in 4e. After all they're almost as permanent as level up boosts so won't cause the same problems as temporary buffs such as bull's strength.

Alternatively they could provide boosts that are more limited in scope such as +2 to hit/damage. The problem the designer called out in the podcast was the 'cascade effect' of attributes - they affect so many other stats. For instance if your dexterity changes then armor class, ranged to hit, initiative, skill checks and reflex saves all change. So buffs to stats with a more limited scope should still be okay.

On the other hand we've been told the 'Xmas tree' is gone with regards to both spells and magic items. So now I don't know what to think.

 

[Kraydak]

I'm surprised more people haven't been discussing this. It really shocked me. I wonder if they were daily, or if they were at will but imposed a penalty on attacks (much like Book of Iron Might), or if they became incrementally more difficult to use (much like the truenamer) or if they had a delay in rounds until you could use them again (much like some of the binder's powers).

I find the way that they handwaved the issue of per-encounter recharge to be odd. Logistics may be boring *most of the time*, but you don't really needs rules for run-of-the-mill stuff. You need the rules for the times when logistics are a matter of life and death and people are running low and all of a sudden logistics becomes fascinating. Which means you want solid rules set up to be easily handwaved when it doesn't matter and providing all the detail you could ask for when the PCs are down to single-digit hp, low on spells and the wave of foes that they thought was the last was, in fact, the penultimate wave...

(5 minute of rest recharge works.... but like per-day spells, raises novaing and "standard encounter length" problems similar to the current 4 encounters/day issues)

 

[Gort]

I think they're keeping +x swords and +x armour, but if they're not keeping +x shields, I don't see why you couldn't just dump +x swords and +x armour as they both cancel each other out as far as attack rolls are concerned.

Then you just give everyone a flat + to damage to make up for the loss of their magic bonus to damage.

 

[Stogoe]

I'm with the designers - figuring out when exactly an encounter is over and how long it takes to get your powers back is not worth the time spent on it.