Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Brother MacLaren" data-source="post: 3773177" data-attributes="member: 15999">I'm skeptical.  It will take a MAJOR overhaul in the fundamental game design principles of what magic items are and how they work to prevent an arms race.Occurring to some extent in 1E, but really picking up steam in mid-2E, you had TSR selling products to the players.  Not just to the DMs (modules, campaign settings) but books with options to increase your PC's power in some way.  As long as there is this demand, some "official" book is GOING to have magic items that throw the game balance just a bit out of whack... then new monster books that try to put it back into line... then new splatbooks, and so on. I really don't know how they can combat this.  Can they end the practice of selling books to players?  Not likely, since that market is several times as large as the DMs market.Can they just refrain from offering "power creep" options in the splatbooks?  Maybe for a while, but the fact is that books that increase PCs' power will sell more.Can they just refuse to respond in kind, not increasing monster abilities to compensate?  Perhaps.  DMs with players who have the splatbooks will have to just use more or tougher monsters.  Although that would increase leveling rates for a while, it's not a game-breaking problem.  Published adventures would have to say things like "Suitable for 5 PCs of level 7 with core rules only, or 5 PCs of level 5 if you are using the full suite of options from Digital Initiative and Accessory Books X, Y, and Z."</blockquote>

Verification