Recosting Magic Items in MIC = Blatant Power Creep...er..Power Charge?

[Olaf the Stout]

No, I meant "mount" as in using some sort of sconce or something or magic glue to attach the torch to my shield.



I find having to hold a light source very inconvenient. Either you have your weapon ready or you have a torch or (more likely) a lantern out.

Having to babysit someone whose job is to hold a torch (and since I'm 1st level, I'm probably not hiring anyone who can actually fight) and who probably isn't wearing armor is a recipe for bringing 175 pounds of dead torchbearer back to town.

If you mount a light source by glueing it to a shield, what do you do when you want to hide in the dark? Stow your shield away?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Felon]

IAlso, at lower levels, which would you rather get with 3000gp? +1 Armor and a +1 Weapon, or the Rope of Climbing? Sure, higher levels you'll have the gold for both, but at higher levels, a party will have better Climb and Rope Use skills, or spells to aid in getting around or binding opponents.

Note I stated that the rope of climbing was probably too expensive to buy, but if the party found it, it would be a keeper.

The thing about the big six items is that they're great for NPC's too, so players can expect to pull them off of corpses. I knew to hold off on buying a necklace necklace of natural armor when I made a 5th-level character for Red Hand of Doom. So, there is reason to prefer the skill-killer over the +1 armor.

Now, when characters are higher level, they may have better Climb skill (hopefully they've realized that there are virtually no high-DC uses for Use Rope), but that only means a bigger waste of investment once a rope of climbing is acquired.

I hope the MIC adjusts the price for adding multiple abilities to slotted item, so I can have my Cloak of Protection and Displace it too!

Well, the whole point of body slotting is to force players to choose between items, so is rolling them up a great idea? Unfortunately, the designers kept bonuses spread around amongst different slots where they probably should've considered concentrating them. If a cloak or pair of boots could confer no simple mechanical bonuses--no AC, no save bonuses, no ability score increases, no movement enhancement--then there would be some level of subjectivity as to which cloak or boot best serves a particular character.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yep, I hope DM's who introduces lots of items of character-mooting into his campaign is open to the idea of character respecs.

"Sure, it sucks you made your character a super-climber...but, y'know, just wait until the party winds up in a big AMF. You'll be the star!"

If I'm a DM and have player who creates a super-climber, you bet, I'm not putting any ropes of climbing in the game. Of course, I've NEVER seen such a character, so I don't know why we're defending the honor of a mythical creature.

Again, as has been said on other threads recently, if this happens, it's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the group.

In the absence of Jack the Super-Climber, I don't find the notion that ropes of climbing ruin the amazing climbing challenge to be an issue. Players get a limited supply of money. If a player wants to spend some of it on a highly situational item, they should get a chance to shine periodically.

It's a non-issue, unless you have a DM who has a hostile relationship with his players, in which case, that relationship is the problem, not the magic item in question.

 

[Felon]

If you mount a light source by glueing it to a shield, what do you do when you want to hide in the dark? Stow your shield away?

Well, let's assume the light source can be covered up and that the glue isn't a universal bonding agent.

Suffice to say, sunrods are cheap, last a long time, and are easily mounted on a helmet, staff, shield, or what have you. And they don't render skills or abilities useless. That whole tangent is kind of weak.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If you mount a light source by glueing it to a shield, what do you do when you want to hide in the dark? Stow your shield away?

Cast continual flame on a knob that can be covered by a screw-on cap.

 

[Felon]

If I'm a DM and have player who creates a super-climber, you bet, I'm not putting any ropes of climbing in the game. Of course, I've NEVER seen such a character, so I don't know why we're defending the honor of a mythical creature.

Again, as has been said on other threads recently, if this happens, it's not a problem with the game, it's a problem with the group. In the absence of Jack the Super-Climber, I don't find the notion that ropes of climbing ruin the amazing climbing challenge to be an issue. Players get a limited supply of money. If a player wants to spend some of it on a highly situational item, they should get a chance to shine periodically. It's a non-issue, unless you have a DM who has a hostile relationship with his players, in which case, that relationship is the problem, not the magic item in question.

How many ranks does someone have to invest in Climb before it's rendered a bad investment by a rope of climbing? It's probably far less than "Jack the Super-Climber" has.

It certainly does not require a "hostile" DM for this situation to occur. It just requires a group that isn't a hivemind. A DM may not have considered the ramifications that dropping such an item may have on one player's skill investments (I suspect there might even be some less-than-perfect DM's who don't every character's skill investments commited to memory). And if a player simply buys the item, it's a non-concern to him that some other player invested heavily in that skill. He's smart and did the optimal thing, the other guy was dumb and didn't. Heck, the player who's affected may not get his case of "buyer's remorse" right away.

And as has already been stated, it's far more economical to spend something transitory like gold than something fixed like skill points unless the former's cost is significant.

 

[Sejs]

Yes, Blatant Power Creep is an oxymoron. Power Charge?

I know the book's not out yet, but it sounds like readjusting the cost of magic items could open a floodgate of more powerful players.

I agree: the sky IS falling.

 

[hong]

As to the rope of climbing, it seems some folks are commited to snide responses, but there certainly are many non-combat challenges that a rope of climbing can help a party circumvent with little trouble (White Plume Mountain has a prime example or two). It pretty handily renders both Use Rope and Climb obsolete, and not just for the possessor but for the whole party. For the character who invested in either of those skills, there's legitimate cause for major buyer's remorse once that item's acquired (and having a character experience remorse over a magic item's acquisition is counter-productive). Making the item expensive is the only thing that really puts a control on the issue.

Climb is already obsolete at mid- to high levels, when movement magic becomes widespread. Heck, I once even had a character with always-on air walk, just for style points. Although the skill tricks in CScoundrel mean there's now a new reason to take ranks in it.

As for Use Rope, chances are you're already taking it purely for "roleplaying reasons", so there's no need to stop doing so.

 

[hong]

The article hinting at recosting is a Design and Development piece discussing the MIC, here. First of a series. This definitely makes me more interested in the book, though I'm sure whatever decisions they make will fuel endless msgboard debate.

I agree with everything in this article.

 

[Felon]

Climb is already obsolete at mid- to high levels, when movement magic becomes widespread. Heck, I once even had a character with always-on air walk, just for style points.

I'd say it becomes obsolete once the caster(s) can throw away slots or scrolls on giving other characters flight or climbing abilities with wild abandon. Similar skill-kill spells exist for Open Lock (knock spells), Hide (invisibility), and so forth, but 3rd-level wizards don't want to burn their spells on doing the rogue's job. But a 13th-level wizard? Heck, if his staff can't do it with a charge, he probably has a wand for it stashed away somewhere...

Just another reason to love warmages. They leave the utilities to the utility characters and do what everybody else want to see casters do.

While I certainly acknowledge your point, I also see that cheapening skill-kill items does compound the issue. As we are basically talking about a case of "buyer's remorse", it's less of a matter of practical obsolesence than a player's perception that his investment is a dud. He generally has to have his face rubbed in it on a few occasions where he expected to shine but instead was eclipsed by the spell or item.