Rodney Thompson on Magic Items

[Jer]

I won't miss passive effects. In those campaigns I have DM'd where magic is open and readily available, the first few thousand GP per character are all pointed in the same direction: "Right, so that's an Amulet of Natural Armor, Ring of Protection, Cloak of Resistance blah blah..." The idea that magical items give you options instead of buffs is very appealing indeed.

I guess we're going to be waving goodbye to a lot of old friends though. Can't have it both ways I suppose.

Things I would miss:

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Belts of Giant Strength
Various Ioun Stones
Rings of Protection

Things I won't miss:

Almost any other buff - especially things like Amulets of Natural Armor that only seem to exist to get around restrictions placed on other items or to create specific "stacking" synergies with other objects in the game

I wouldn't mind seeing lots of "buffs" go the way of the dodo, but I still want magic items that give superhuman powers - and superhuman strength is a nice mythic one.

(The DM in my hopes that they get rid of buffs that don't quasi-permanently give bonuses to attributes. So you could have something like Gauntlets of Ogre Power or a Helm of Brilliance that give you something you can permanently note on your character sheet, but eliminate spells like "Bull's Strength" that let you give any character you feel like a bonus that has to be accounted for - and remembered - in the middle of combat.)

 

[GreatLemur]

I can't believe how much I disagree with this. More dice=More Fun.

I'm okay with it, as long as I've actually got enough dice to do it in one roll. I seriously only have four d6s (for the 4d6-drop-the-lowest method, of course). I've got a pile of d10s, though (for World of Darkness stuff).

 

[Pyrex]

God I hope not. I don't want to roll 20d6 EVER AGAIN. (not even 6d6 while we are at it). I'm ok with the following compromise: Fireball (for example) deals 5d6 damage + 1 per level.

More than 5 dice (arbitrary number) = not fun.

Y'know, some of us *like* picking up a double-handful of d6's and scattering them across the battlemat.

 

[Szatany]

Things I would miss:

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
Belts of Giant Strength
Various Ioun Stones
Rings of Protection

Those don't have to be gone, but I don't want them to give bonuses to ability scores and such. I could see GoOP reworked into the following:

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
When you take any action, you can activate this item as a part of that action. If you do, your Str increases by +10 for that action. Gauntlets have 3 charges that don't recover itself. Bathing gloves in giant's blood recovers all charges and can be done not more often than once per day.

What do you think?

 

[TerraDave]

Ok, I found this on monte cooks website

I once proposed, in a wacky train of thought, that there be 20 levels of spells, just like there were 20 character levels. That way, not only does spell level match up with character level, but it would be easier to balance the spells if they were in smaller, more precise groups. The most powerful 1st-level spells would become 2nd-level spells. The low-end 2nd-level spells would be 3rd level, while the better ones would be 4th. And so on. But I digress...(bold added)

So maybe he contributed to 4ed after all.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Y'know, some of us *like* picking up a double-handful of d6's and scattering them across the battlemat.

I cut my teeth on SR2, where we'd be rolling 12d6 to shoot some guard.

I have utterly no problem rolling great gobs of dice. One of our players does, but that's because he likes big dice, and they don't always fit in his hands.

After a certain point, the gobs become unwieldy ("Wait, he FAILED the Fort save on my Empowered Disintegrate? That's...54d6."), and at that point I'm cool with multipliers. Or just taking the average, whichever.

Brad

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Those don't have to be gone, but I don't want them to give bonuses to ability scores and such. I could see GoOP reworked into the following:

Gauntlets of Ogre Power
When you take any action, you can activate this item as a part of that action. If you do, your Str increases by +10 for that action. Gauntlets have 3 charges that don't recover itself. Bathing gloves in giant's blood recovers all charges and can be done not more often than once per day.

What do you think?

I won't miss the items that give generic bonuses to the abilities- I see that as part of the "Christmas Tree problem."

However, I wouldn't be opposed to items that let one perform special actions tied to abilities. From the description of an item granting "quick bursts across the room", that seems to be where they're headed.

So the item doesn't grant a numberical bonus to move so much as it lets you do a particular thing really fast. Likewise, Gauntlets of Ogre Power won't completely increase strength, but could let you hurl rocks or bench press an ogre or whatever.

 

[Mortellan]

25th level spells? They really -are- going for a whole new game arent they!

 

[Wormwood]

25th level spells? They really -are- going for a whole new game arent they!

It really looks like they are.

Thank heavens!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Ok, I found this on monte cooks website



So maybe he contributed to 4ed after all.

Well, he did work on Rolemaster where spells go from 1st-50th level so the idea has been around for a while after all.