Removing the enhancement bonuses from items

[Sadrik]

No more +1 swords, +1 armor, +1 amulet, +1 implement etc.

Instead you might have simply a magic sword, ghost touch sword, flaming sword, dancing sword, vorpal sword...

The bonuses are removed. How does this play out? If you remove the enhancement bonus how do you equalize the character? What about costs of items? What about magic item slots? How does it affect monsters? How does it affect role-playing? Thoughts on this?

 

[Fobok]

It was mentioned in one of the last couple D&D podcasts that the balance is assumed that you'd have a certain overall modifier by a certain level. To do a low-magic game, getting rid of the magic item modifiers, you can just give that standard modifier as an overall level modifier instead of from magic items.

 

[BarkingDeathSquirrel]

No more +1 swords, +1 armor, +1 amulet, +1 implement etc.

Instead you might have simply a magic sword, ghost touch sword, flaming sword, dancing sword, vorpal sword...

The bonuses are removed. How does this play out? If you remove the enhancement bonus how do you equalize the character? What about costs of items? What about magic item slots? How does it affect monsters? How does it affect role-playing? Thoughts on this?

I believe the math for monster attack/defenses is balanced out by expecting PCs to have +X weapon, armor, etc, at certain level. +1 at 4th, +2 at 8th, etc, I believe.

If you remove the bonuses, you could just give bonuses to Defenses and Attacks of all characters at a rate to +1 per 4 levels to more or less balance out the math.

 

[malraux]

If you want to remove the +X magic items, then just give everyone a +5/6 * level bonus to attack, defenses and AC (and maybe damage) instead of the +1/2 * level.

edit:

I believe the math for monster attack/defenses is balanced out by expecting PCs to have +X weapon, armor, etc, at certain level. +1 at 4th, +2 at 8th, etc, I believe.

If you remove the bonuses, you could just give bonuses to Defenses and Attacks of all characters at a rate to +1 per 4 levels to more or less balance out the math.

I'm pretty sure it's +1 at 3rd, +2 at 6th, to reach +10 at 30th.

 

[Henry]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the thread -- is it mainly speculation about how such would play out? We know from DDXP previews that there will be some things with plusses, still, but not plusses to ability scores. As for balancing for level, it's all in when you think a PC should have access to a certain ability. For instance, you'd want them with a +1 energy bonus a lot sooner than a +1d6 energy bonus. You'd want vorpal, if at all, at the really high end of the chain. Likely, I'm betting vorpal is toast, because it's basically a save or die effect.

 

[Sir Brennen]

If you want to remove the +X magic items, then just give everyone a +5/6 * level bonus to attack, defenses and AC (and maybe damage) instead of the +1/2 * level.

Or, alternately, you could lower the attack and defenses of opponents by a like amount.

 

[keterys]

That only works if you lower the hit points as well... and you'd also have to lower based on the level of the enemy instead of the level of the PC. Seems easier to just give it to the PCs. Probably make for happier players, too.

Given a 20th level character has +5 equipment, and +6 was an epic weapon... I suspect every 4 levels is more accurate, though I suspect offset such that you get +1 at level 2... still, if you just add an extra 1/4, that seems fine. .75 per level is still easy math.

 

[malraux]

Given a 20th level character has +5 equipment, and +6 was an epic weapon...

Got a cite for that? I hadn't seen that. It also means that weapons max at +7ish, which seems a little odd.

Though the underlying point is the same, all weapons, armor, and defense are expected to have a +x bonus where x is proportional to level.

 

[keterys]

One of the recent blogs has a 21st level group creating characters for post apocalyptic Eberron and the caster has +5 armor. I want to say Rodney Thompson's blog.

+6 was an epic weapon I meant in 3rd. Still, the two points combine reasonably.

As much as we geeks like our 5s, weapons don't _have_ to go to +10 once you decide that +5 is the max pre-epic... in fact, it'd even be okay if they just go to +6 and stop there, in theory.

 

[Lurker59]

In Rich Baker's blog he states that his 21st level warlock was burned a few feats and is wearing +5 scale armor. While this could indicate that magic item bonuses are every four levels, it is also possible that he didn't prioritize armor that heavily and decided to focus on different equipment, like an implement or neck slot item.

Considering the Vicious Longbow we have already seen is a 2nd level item, I think that item bonuses are more likely to be (about) every three levels. Also that +5 scale armor could have another ability that makes it the equivalent of a suit of regular +7 scale armor.