Response to recent article by James Wyatt on DMG

[Oompa]

I can't find where that is stated. I see that shields have a shield bonus and armor and armor bonus and normally they stack. Why wouldn't enchanted versions stack?

Tellerve

Because armor and shield enhancements are both the same bonus and that doesnt stack..

 

[MrMyth]

There seems to be some confusion here - in 4th Edition, there does not exist such a thing as a "+4 shield." Shields always provide a +1 or +2 shield bonus to AC (depending on type), but no longer can be enhanced for more AC. Instead, the magical shields in the book have a variety of interesting defensive effects, but not strictly numerical ones - so you no longer stack together lots of different bonuses to get an untouchable AC.

 

[Wormwood]

Now if you read the 1st edition DMG, and dragon articles of the time, controlling magic items was one of the most important jobs any DM had. A slip up in that area would ruin many a campaign.

I also recall that the stated DMG philosophy was blithely ignored in every module TSR produced.

 

[Staffan]

I can't find where that is stated. I see that shields have a shield bonus and armor and armor bonus and normally they stack. Why wouldn't enchanted versions stack?

Because there aren't any +X shields. You have Bashing Shield, Dragondaunt Shield, Guardian Shield, Shield of Defiance, Shield of Deflection, Shield of Protection, and Shield of Warding. None of these give any AC bonus beyond that of a normal shield.

The only "+X" items in 4e are Weapons/Implements, Armor, and Amulets/Cloaks.

 

[Wormwood]

What I think he meant was that a DM should listen to what his players want, and try to shape a bit his campaign around their goals.

Which is excellent advice, regardless of game or edition.

 

[Solodan]

I think that the old system, you are absolutely correct - players who can get any old item that they want (of their level or lower) can really make it hard for a GM to balance.

However, now that you can really only use 1 or so daily power magic items per milestone, having a haversack full of great magic items only gives more options, not a proportional increase in power.

Now, it is really cool as a player to have options in character creation/advancement. THere really isn't any items that are disgusting for the level, or critical to have. In 3e, there really were some items that some classes just had to have.

 

[Cadfan]

James Wyatt makes the point that the ability of player characters to get their hands on any magic item they want is essential to the game. Well if I really felt that way then my D&D career would be over. I've been running very popular campaigns most of my life (I'm 40) and I think allowing players to create any magic item in the game is insanity.

Now if you read the 1st edition DMG, and dragon articles of the time, controlling magic items was one of the most important jobs any DM had. A slip up in that area would ruin many a campaign. Now in 4th its... be ready DM.. any item in the book could be coming your way after the group cashes in after their next adventure.

How is that going to be a problem? The magic items are already controlled by level, by careful restriction on the way that magic items stack, and by limits on how many magic item abilities you can use per encounter. I don't foresee a disaster here.

On top of that, magic item purchase is controlled by the DM. And magic item creation cannot make items above your level. A "good" item for a level 5 pc is a level 8 item, so this means that the best you can create at level 5 is something that's kind of "meh" in terms of overall power.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Because there aren't any +X shields. You have Bashing Shield, Dragondaunt Shield, Guardian Shield, Shield of Defiance, Shield of Deflection, Shield of Protection, and Shield of Warding. None of these give any AC bonus beyond that of a normal shield.

The only "+X" items in 4e are Weapons/Implements, Armor, and Amulets/Cloaks.

This. Since there are no enhancement bonuses for shields, the question of whether or not they stack is sort of moot.

 

[ryryguy]

I'm not sure Wyatt was saying letting them get any item they want is "essential" to the game. I recall his point being that choice of magic items is another way for players to customize their characters to their liking. Therefore, the DM usually shouldn't restrict access to them any more than he should usually restrict access to feats or powers.

If the items (particularly combos of items) aren't well balanced, this is problematic and then perhaps does require DM restriction. The goal of 4e, though, is to keep them balanced - just like feats and powers.

Moving the items to the PHB is another sign of this shift. They are now player customization items. (I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with the move to the PHB... in our 3e games, generally the only times players wanted to access the DMG during play was to look at magic item descriptions. One might even say this was a plot by WotC to sell more 3e DMGs! )

Finally there are always artifacts. These remain in the DMG and the DM is specifically instructed to leave access to them in his hands, not the players. So you can have your cake and eat it too... regular items are now (hopefully) balanced player customization features, but there's still room for fun but potentially game breaking stuff in the hands of the DM.

 

[andarilhor]

The cries against magic mart was not the flavor.. it was the free exchanging of gold for any magic item. James Wyatt seems to have misunderstood this disagreement as an all flavor disagreement.

So whats kind of houserule fix would work for this?

1. Every magic item type has its own recipe. If you do not know the recipe you can not create that item.
2. Recipes are hoarded and kept secret and are incredibly difficult and expensive to research. Any item the DM does not want can just never be "discovered"

take care...

For one side, reducing everything to a gold cost is in consonance with 4e phylosophy of crunchy not fluff. For other, I couldn´t agree more with you more about the magic item "economy" and your ways out of that. I will add something to that:

3. Some magic items requires special ingredients which can be a quest or adventure in itself to obtain (that also corresponds to the high cost of some items.

4. EACH magic item ou magic item quality requires a specific ritual. This way, some rituals could have a longer time our specific requirements to be made.

Just giving my 2 cents!