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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Points of Light, Dawn War, and Magic Item Economy (4e)
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7825716" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>For what it's worth, I don't agree that level in AD&D is meaningless. But it's clear that it's not a measure of <em>total</em> power. A PC's power comes from three main "pools" in AD&D: the ability scores pool; the class/level pool; and the items/gear pool. They are largely though not completely independent of one another. This is why methods for generating ability scores, and advice and admonitions around how to place treasure, are such big components of the AD&D play experience and GM advice. Whereas in 4e neither is really a big deal at all (the rules make them bigger deals than they need to be simply for legacy reasons, I think - those familiar with D&D <em>expect</em> the game to make a big deal of these matters).</p><p></p><p>3E can be seen as a point of transition, because it gestures towards 4e-style control over ability scores, and uses wealth-by-level as a (in my view) <em>very </em>cumbersome and (for well-known reasons) at best partly successful device for linking item load-out to level. 4e goes all the way. 5e seems to have back-pedalled on the gear side of things.</p><p></p><p>In my 4e game I never had trouble having "cool" or "mysterious" items if I wanted to and had correctly anticipated the players' moods - the Rod of 7 Parts, the Sword of Kas, Whelm reforged as Overwhelm, and more prosaically but still memorably a Safewing Amulet, a Flying Carpet (both signature items for the cleric/ranger unitl the carpet got stolen by a fleeing lich), even a Floating Shield (or whatever the low-level surfboard shield is called).</p><p></p><p>I haven't fully digested [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s HoML but I can see, in abstract terms, how you could drop or at least downplay the items-linked-to-level-as-output aspect of 4e while keeping the items-as-quantifiable-elements-of-PC-build aspect, and then building on that to use them as an input-to-level. Obviously there's a lot of technical (and hack) work required to make this happen, but at the level of principle it's a <em>problem</em> relative to AD&D only if you want the total AD&D disconnect which means that the GM, or the luck of the treasure dice, can make one PC somewhat arbitrarily better than all the rest.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7825716, member: 42582"] For what it's worth, I don't agree that level in AD&D is meaningless. But it's clear that it's not a measure of [I]total[/I] power. A PC's power comes from three main "pools" in AD&D: the ability scores pool; the class/level pool; and the items/gear pool. They are largely though not completely independent of one another. This is why methods for generating ability scores, and advice and admonitions around how to place treasure, are such big components of the AD&D play experience and GM advice. Whereas in 4e neither is really a big deal at all (the rules make them bigger deals than they need to be simply for legacy reasons, I think - those familiar with D&D [I]expect[/I] the game to make a big deal of these matters). 3E can be seen as a point of transition, because it gestures towards 4e-style control over ability scores, and uses wealth-by-level as a (in my view) [I]very [/I]cumbersome and (for well-known reasons) at best partly successful device for linking item load-out to level. 4e goes all the way. 5e seems to have back-pedalled on the gear side of things. In my 4e game I never had trouble having "cool" or "mysterious" items if I wanted to and had correctly anticipated the players' moods - the Rod of 7 Parts, the Sword of Kas, Whelm reforged as Overwhelm, and more prosaically but still memorably a Safewing Amulet, a Flying Carpet (both signature items for the cleric/ranger unitl the carpet got stolen by a fleeing lich), even a Floating Shield (or whatever the low-level surfboard shield is called). I haven't fully digested [USER=82106]@AbdulAlhazred[/USER]'s HoML but I can see, in abstract terms, how you could drop or at least downplay the items-linked-to-level-as-output aspect of 4e while keeping the items-as-quantifiable-elements-of-PC-build aspect, and then building on that to use them as an input-to-level. Obviously there's a lot of technical (and hack) work required to make this happen, but at the level of principle it's a [I]problem[/I] relative to AD&D only if you want the total AD&D disconnect which means that the GM, or the luck of the treasure dice, can make one PC somewhat arbitrarily better than all the rest. [/QUOTE]
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