D&D 4E Points of Light, Dawn War, and Magic Item Economy (4e)

[Garthanos]

The way I see it, if the GM and players are engaging in something along the lines of the @pemerton (ian) story building exercise, these things will 'just work' as I intend. That is they will be a story-building element used by the whole group together. Honestly, you can be a perfectly 'classic' DM and do this, and many an AD&D campaign was run in this sort of fashion where the loot was pretty much determined by where the players decided to go to find it (and they were cognizant of the choices).

I think there is some very big diligence involved in that ... and the story could end up well feeling contrived/artificially or overly loot driven

 

[pemerton]

Generic Residuum is so incredibly meh.

In my campaign it's like gold in a classic D&D game. The PC invoker/wizard keeps track of it on his sheet, with the rest of his reagents, and uses it to power rituals. Occasionally that's been making things - eg he made some water-breathing items when the PCs needed to infiltrate the Shrine of the Kuo-toa. Not a lot of making in my game, though.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Holy Avenger isn't the game-breaker it used to be.
With something like that, I'd go "Artifact route" again--the item levels up with the character as they become more attuned to each other.

As for purchase--any item purchased beyond heroic must be commissioned. Depending, crafting time may be weeks or even months.
By epic, there is a cabal of elderly wizards and priests who have heard of the party and will help them out by crafting for them. Sometimes they'll even know ahead of time what to create, based on divination or divine command. Why the high prices then? Well, so the party doesn't just take the power of the items or the time of the crafters for granted.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Ask the level 12 thief and the level 10 wizard which had more impact... then add an artifact potent item to the 9th level fighter and a stingy list of spells that missed the most powerful ones to the caster... it very much could be fluff but whatever. Level did not really mean relative power between characters and in a monty haul campaign it meant nothing like in another conservative game. No it was very close to meaningless both because of classes not really being balanced and because of capriciousness in magic items (which included what spells the mages knew) and magic items potentially making massive significance in power.
A DM on here commented that giving a Holy Avenger weapon to a paladin at level 6 was entirely within scope since most campaigns only went to name level or so... blink blink.

Point being - You end up needing some separate measure of character power if you want to not correlate gear with level.... then what meaning is level if you need to compute something else to measure power?

I understand your point about AD&D lacking a very 'set' progression. A lot of character power in that game is wrapped up in 'stuff' and in exactly what resources your character has acquired. This is of course why AD&D was so horribly vulnerable to power bloat (creep would be too mild). This kind of failing is not present in 4e, and that is because of what you say. Still, level is far from 'meaningless' in AD&D. Its meaning may be highly contextual, but it certainly is still true that 'name level' PCs are materially different from, and stereotypically engage in a different sort of game than level 1 PCs. Again, the meaning is less contextual in 4e, but the different sort of game part is still true.
Clearly, the reason items are seen as 'so important and cool' in AD&D and 'blah' in 4e (for some people at least) is due to this factor. An AD&D fighter gaining Gauntlets of Ogre Power is suddenly on a different scale of power. All sorts of possibilities suddenly open up for that character which are NOT guaranteed to become available to a fighter of ANY level without an item of this sort. This is, actually, a lot like how magic works in myths and legends. 4e's way is less so.

 

[Garthanos]

This is, actually, a lot like how magic works in myths and legends. 4e's way is less so.

There is rather no such thing as level in myths and legends the statement is nonsensical bud. It is a game tool measuring capability ... if all it measures is part of ability it really does have no value on its own if you still have to measure something else on top of that.

And if you go to the point of analysing the characters able to deal with something big and awesome you will find ahem... regardless of whether one gets the ability one way because of Excalibur or the other does it because he is Bound in Oths and super human grades of Discipline.

They are comparable. Arthur indeed has Excalibur and Lancelot has the Other (and weapons nobody remembers the names of)

Myth and legend support the 4e model just fine.

Does myth and legend feature adventuring side by side with other heros who suddenly make huge bumps in power... or does everyone get a cascade of them (which may not be so sudden more like levelling up)

Do we see big adventures by Arthur before and after Excalibur in a team? Actually not until After Excalibur do we have Arthur and his team doing things (early in legend on we had Arthur and the Irishman - who is potentially an early early (Lugh Lamfada) who later goes from llewc Luanleawk in Welsh to a later Lancelot)

 

[Garthanos]

That level 6 character just got Holy Avenger weapon did he have anything prior or just boom and how well does that work in a game to go from potency 6 to potency 15 - Cause that was handing ye old Holy Avenger out by a broad estimate.

Does having magic items jump someone from the beginning of one tier to the middle of the next actually make a good story?

Or does learning the artifact and acquiring excaliburs potency gradually work better?

 

[Garthanos]

is it cool to have 1 character make that jump massively ahead of others in honor of this sought after "suddenly"?

Note because if he had a +3 and goes up to a +4 with some other cool effect it isn't really suddenly even if in theory putting down the weapon he is that much less.

4e kind of exposed that illusion

That was arguably its worst sin along side balancing the classes it exposed the illusion to the light of day.

 

[Garthanos]

Holy Avenger isn't the game-breaker it used to be.
With something like that, I'd go "Artifact route" again--the item levels up with the character as they become more attuned to each other.

The reference was of course in the context of the 1e Avenger

And I agree an item like Excalibur or the Holy Avenger or Stormbringer probably all should be constructed that way. AND heck any signature weapon ought to or at least could be seen to grow with the wielder.

The idea of the item becoming well more magical because it was the weapon of Hero X and the heroes awesome rubs off on it is actually pretty damn cool too.

 

[Garthanos]

The idea of the item becoming well more magical because it was the weapon of Hero X and the heroes awesome rubs off on it is actually pretty damn cool too.

This right here could be an interpretation of the effect of Inherent Bonuses.

 

[Garthanos]

One of the improvements I made to martial practices was the idea that someone Forging a magic item with Forge Weapon practice could both bind it to a particular wielder or bloodline/team and leave the item open so that it could absorb power to kick off special empowerments (player can choose which in the subsequent adventure) .