Rings restricted by tier?

[CapnZapp]

From the D&D Design & Development:

Rings: This slot has changed quite a bit. A starting character isn’t powerful enough to unleash the power of a ring. You can use one ring when you reach paragon tier (11th level) and two when you’re epic (21st level). And before you get started about how Frodo sure as hell wasn’t epic, let's be clear: the One Ring was an artifact, not a magic item any old spellcaster could make. Artifacts follow their own rules. 3.5 Equivalent: Rings.

Design & Development: Magic Item Slots

This made do a double-take. What page in the PHB didn't I read correctly?

(To be clear: I'm aware all rings in the PHB are at least Paragon tier, heavily implying no rings should be Heroic Tier, but I wasn't aware there was a rule saying a level 9 character couldn't use such a ring if he found one. Similarly, I have completely missed the fact that even if he was level 14, he couldn't use both a Ring of Protection and a Ring of Invisibility.)

 

[MrBeens]

From the D&D Design & Development:

Design & Development: Magic Item Slots

This made do a double-take. What page in the PHB didn't I read correctly?

(To be clear: I'm aware all rings in the PHB are at least Paragon tier, heavily implying no rings should be Heroic Tier, but I wasn't aware there was a rule saying a level 9 character couldn't use such a ring if he found one. Similarly, I have completely missed the fact that even if he was level 14, he couldn't use both a Ring of Protection and a Ring of Invisibility.)

The design and development articles are not the rule books - they changed stuff quite a lot from all the early interviews before the rules were printed.
They ended up just simplifying the rules so you can only wear 2 rings. They left the level restriction on rings to the whim of the DM in that if he wants to make a level 2 ring he can and the PC can wear it.

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks!

 

[Plane Sailing]

Originally they had this quite nice idea. Then the intarwebs erupted in a big hissy fit and as a result we have the watered down rings which are just priced at a point to make them Paragon+ items anyway.

I think it was a failure on their part to make something really interesting. The game was kind of crying out for items which had some power for heroic characters, but which would naturally become more powerful in the hands of Paragon and Epic characters. The One Ring is the most obvious example which fits both the item and the theme.

Arguably they've included some elements of that idea in the cool way that artifacts are now handled, but they really missed a trick in what they could have done with rings.

Which seem pretty useless compared to other items BTW, IMO, YMMV etc.

Cheers

 

[CapnZapp]

They do kind of admit that any really cool rings need to be artefacts anyway, right there in the text.

I guess I can live with the current implementation, especially if this means they avoided a rules nightmare where they had items of disproportionate power inside the pricing system, even though getting rid of this was a clear design goal of 4E.

As it is now, anything not playing by the strict limitations on power can't have a standard price, and thus the responsibility needs to fall 100% upon the shoulders of the DM.

In the end, this is good, I think.

Zapp, who remembers how in 3E DM's could be suckered into allowing absurdly overpowered items because they were legitimized by the pricing rules.

 

[Runestar]

It was just as well. The whole thing about rings being paragon+ only made no sense to me at all.

 

[Negflar2099]

Originally they had this quite nice idea. Then the intarwebs erupted in a big hissy fit and as a result we have the watered down rings which are just priced at a point to make them Paragon+ items anyway.

I think it was a failure on their part to make something really interesting. The game was kind of crying out for items which had some power for heroic characters, but which would naturally become more powerful in the hands of Paragon and Epic characters. The One Ring is the most obvious example which fits both the item and the theme.

Arguably they've included some elements of that idea in the cool way that artifacts are now handled, but they really missed a trick in what they could have done with rings.

Which seem pretty useless compared to other items BTW, IMO, YMMV etc.

Cheers

Actually there are rules for just this sort of thing in the AV. It's a bit watered down but it's the basic idea you're saying here. You start with say a +1 Sword and as you level it unleashes its full powers becoming say a +2 Radiant Sword then continues to level up and when you reach epic is now a +6 Holy Avenger.

 

[CapnZapp]

Only problem is while it's fairly easy to level up a Flaming Sword (simply increase the enchantment bonus and/or switch to a thematically-similar higher-levelled property), there really isn't any such "semi-automatic" way of leveling up a ring.