Rodney Thompson on Magic Items

[Howndawg]

Check out the following:

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906384

Near the end, Rodney has some very inyeresting things to say about magic items. I, for one, am very pleased.

Howndawg

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Link doesn't work???

 

[Howndawg]

Just fixed it. Forgot a period. Now all the English teachers on the board can give me detention

Howndawg

 

[Treebore]

WOW!! Wizards will now be able to cast 25th level spells!

Does that mean the old 9th level spells are now 25th, or have they gone 16 levels past the old 9th level spells?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Just fixed it. Forgot a period. Now all the English teachers on the board can give me detention

Howndawg

English teachers don't care when it's a URL. It's the network administrators you have to watch out for.

 

[Villanelle]

Thanks for the link. This is one aspect of 4E I've been wondering about. Every trickle of a leak helps!

 

[William Ronald]

Well, we haave to consider the range of possibilities. In 2nd Edition, in the Forgotten Realm Netheril Supplement spells above 9th level could do many things, such as create an effect that would encompass a city, or a geographic region to alter climate. (The highest level spell was 13th level and was cast by the wizard Karsus to steal the power of Mystryl, goddess of magic. This worked briefly, as Karsus was unable to contain the power, and Netheril came to an end.)

I suspect that levels 21-30 will be epic in content, but very different from the Epic Level Handbook. Possibly, the spells at those levels might be reminiscent of either what is in Netheril or in Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved, which has 10th level spells. One of the weaknesses of 3rd Edition play was support for Epic Level characters.

Possibly spell level now specifies the MINIMUM level that a character can cast a spell. So, it may be that whether a 25th level spell is like a current 9th level spell or more on par with something from the Netheril supplement or Arcana Evolved, it will require a spell caster of 25th level or higher to cast it.

 

[Howndawg]

The part that has now officially won me over to 4e was the statement that magic items are not going to be required to be competitive at high levels. If there was one thing I detested about 3e was the encouragement to hand out magic items at a specific rate. I come from the old school which says the amount of magic items at the characters disposal is the prerogative of the DM. If he wants to be stingy with items great! If he wants the Christmas tree x10 that's great too! The game should be able to handle both extremes and everything in between.

Howndawg

 

[Doug McCrae]

It looks like they're doing away with the staple booster items such as gauntlets of ogre power, cloak of resistance and ring of protection. Instead a magic item will let you do something you couldn't do before. The example in the article seems to provide occasional bursts of movement.

I think that's a sound move. The staples were powerful, necessary, but also boring.

 

[The Souljourner]

I think it would be fantastic if the generic +x to y items went away.... for stats and saves it's easy to drop them. I'd like to see the same to be done with the multiply stacking AC bonuses as well. You shouldn't need fullplate +5 and a ring of protection +5 and amulet of natural armor +5 to have a chance. Same goes for weapons. You shouldn't need a +5 holy flaming longsword to be competitive.

My guess about 25 levels of spells is this - there will be one spell level per level 1-20 and then at each even (maybe odd) level 21-30 you get a new spell level, and spells over 20 will be the new "epic" spells.

-Nate