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Message: <blockquote data-quote="billd91" data-source="post: 5844658" data-attributes="member: 3400">You're right it's not going to be easy, in one sense, because there was always an element of it that was implicit in AD&D. Certain creatures needed magic to be hit, hence, a certain level of treasure was required. 3e made that more explicit and easier to gauge but also padded the structure up, a lot. And the thing is, I don't think doing so was all that necessary. Most of us didn't have a problem with making sure our PCs had magic weapons in our hands as early as we could get them. They were fairly common treasures in published modules and the treasure tables in 1e AD&D made them fairly common as well (intentionally, by the way).I too think the 3e structure was intended to be helpful. But in some ways it didn't do very well. Aside from issues of entitlement (which stem from a misunderstanding of the point of the structure), one major problem was trying to systematize something that wasn't all that systematic or amenable to systematizing in the first place. That, I think, leads to a lot of skewed prices that never got well-reconciled despite the recommendation of the rules. For example, 3e's magic item pricing rules strongly suggest that the DM be the final arbiter of prices based on how functional an item is compared to other items no matter what the base formulas may suggest. That's a good recommendation. But when you compare the market value of a ring of shooting stars to a ring of protection +5. In 3.5, they're both 50,000 gp. The ring of shooting stars has some interesting quirky powers to it, but there's about a snowball's chance in hell a PC will keep a ring of shooting stars rather than sell it for the scratch necessary to craft a ring of protection +5 or even buy a series of other items with constantly functioning + values to their protection or offense. Clearly, they are not the same value at all. This is one area where 1e's less systematic (as far as we can tell) values were much better than 3e's - the lowest level ring of protection in 1e was 10,000 gp (yep, a +1 ring), the ring of shooting stars was 15,000 gp.The fact of the matter with systems like this is that really different effects are hard to compare with each other without a lot of trial and error. Champions does it (somewhat) and managed through a really good leap of brilliance figure out that transformative effects are about as useful as killing effects. And basic calculation can tell you that a 1d6 killing attack has a similar average to a 3d6 standard attack (if a lot more variance). But Champions falls down like crazy when trying to handle powers that should, realistically (for a superhero game), have broad effects. Shapechangers like Chameleon Boy and weather controllers like Storm are really expensive to build, far more expensive than their frequency in comics should suggest. A more abstract systematic approach less fussy about minor costs like Mutants and Masterminds ends up working much better for both types of characters. I think the same applies to comparison of magic items in D&D. A less granular and exacting approach is the way to go when valuing magic items, whether devising an alternative wealth by level chart or just determining how much a character can get selling an item nobody wants to keep.I believe that in some ways the 3e system worked really well. Defensive items are generally cheaper than offensive ones (armor compared to weapons, resistance bonuses compared to items that raise save DCs like stat bumps) and broader defensive items are more expensive than narrower ones (deflection bonus vs natural armor and armor bonuses). But attack and defense values are much easier to directly compare. But how do you compare ability to fly for a number of minutes a day with a +4 breastplate? Are they really equivalent? The armor gets used in every fight, not the winged boots. But the boots will save your bacon falling off a floating citadel, the armor won't.</blockquote>

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