So what's gold gonna be for?

[Nifft]

Here's my current thinking:

- Equipment should have limits on how much better it can make you.

- The best mundane equipment should be as expensive as many magic items.

- You should risk breaking your equipment when you use it.

Thus, being wealthy means you can easily replace your Masterwork sword when it gets Sundered -- you will remain effective. It should not mean you have a twice-as-good More Masterwork sword.

Wealth then becomes more like HP than like an Enhancement bonus. It keeps you in the fight rather than winning it sooner. (But on a strategic level, rather than a tactical one.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[Rechan]

You were complaining about someone getting penalised for not adequately investing in his personal gear, and not being able to defend his stuff. If you replace investing in gear with investing in politics, then someone will get rolled because he spend his money on a collection of well painted minatures rather than political influence. An argument that applies as long as there is *any* purchasable mechanical bonus.

No, because the purchase of an item that only gives a +1 or so to a stat, or raises a DC for spells by 1, does not mean the difference between Dead PC and Living PC.

But a 15th level character with a +1 sword and a bag of holding in his keep is going to get ganked by a 15th level character with +4 weapons, armor, and ability boosters.

There's a grand canyon between "I spent my loot to make my magic sword do 1d6 of flaming" and Naked Fighter vs. Magical Abrams Tank.

It's like you're saying my argument is "Because you don't let PCs have vorpal swords, you won't let them have weapons."

 

[Mallus]

I don't think that's true. In 1e if you compare the page numbers devoted to controlling a stronghold to the pages devoted to going down dungeons, killing the inhabitants and taking their stuff I suspect the ratio would be 1:100 or worse.

Strongholds were supposed to be a very minor part of the game, a source of men-at-arms for your next dungeon trip. Or an excuse for more monster bashing.

I may have overstated things a little with the builder sim remark...

...even so, the holdings that 1e PC's eventually got weren't merely a good source of fodder --at least by my experiences-- they were a way shift the play imperatives away from strict dungeon crawling.

 

[Mallus]

Lets see... Birthright is hardly heralded as a groundbreaking success. The Stronghold Builders Guidebook is ranked very low in sales on Amazon... we havent seen uch supplements in the way of this type of play for 3.5. So yeah, I'd say that style of play isnt terribly popular, and will continue to wane as the old wargaming grognards die off. Newer players who are interested in counting units of lumber will be drawn into computer strategy games.

And most adventures didn't sell well in the 3.0/3.5 era. Does that mean D&D players no longer went on adventures (ie, sales figures don't necessarily prove anything here).

It's my experiences that D&D campaigns, regardless of edition, either moved away from straight dungeoncrawls as the PC's leveled, or they ended and the group started over.

 

[Imp]

Here's my current thinking:

(snip)

- The best mundane equipment should be as expensive as many magic items.

- You should risk breaking your equipment when you use it.

On point 2: Full plate, ships: what else would you add? One thing I would add – another 3e house rule I've never gotten around to implementing – are advanced animals and mounts: a really fantastic horse that survives fights a normal horse wouldn't; a guard dog with phenomenally keen senses; etc. Basically, class levels for animals. I don't see why not.

On point 3: The main obstacle here is not a lack of rules so much as it's a pain to bring that into the adventure. You'd have to simplify it a good deal to bother looking at that stuff. People already complain about bookkeeping encumbrance; Diablo-style item durability points would be 80% ignored. I'd like to see this too, no doubt, but how would you go about it so that it's both fairly easy, and fair? It's a puzzle.

 

[Lanefan]

- You should risk breaking your equipment when you use it.

On point 3: The main obstacle here is not a lack of rules so much as it's a pain to bring that into the adventure. You'd have to simplify it a good deal to bother looking at that stuff. People already complain about bookkeeping encumbrance; Diablo-style item durability points would be 80% ignored. I'd like to see this too, no doubt, but how would you go about it so that it's both fairly easy, and fair? It's a puzzle.

It's easy; I've been doing this for years.

There's two ways (usually) to break items:

1. Fumbles. Introduce the idea of fumbles to the game - we use 1/d20 followed by 1/d6 gives a major fumble, and a roll where penalties bring it to 1/d20 or less followed by 1/d6 gives a minor fumble. Then design a fumble table. On a fumble, get the player to roll d% and you then tell them from the table what's happened. Common results are damage self or friend, break weapon, drop (or throw) weapon, stumble and-or fall, etc. Magic items get a save to avoid breaking, mundane ones do not.

2. Failed saves. Every time a PC fails a save vs. area damage, *every* item that person is carrying should have to make a save based on what it's made of, how magical it is, and what type of damage it received. 3e nerfed this down such that only one item could ever break in any one incident and it needed a natural '1' on the save to do so (probably to save time, because this *can* be time consuming) and that's a shame.

Never mind that when magic items break all that magical energy stored within has to go somewhere...wild surges are always fun!

Lanefan

 

[Kraydak]

No, because the purchase of an item that only gives a +1 or so to a stat, or raises a DC for spells by 1, does not mean the difference between Dead PC and Living PC.

But a 15th level character with a +1 sword and a bag of holding in his keep is going to get ganked by a 15th level character with +4 weapons, armor, and ability boosters.

There's a grand canyon between "I spent my loot to make my magic sword do 1d6 of flaming" and Naked Fighter vs. Magical Abrams Tank.

It's like you're saying my argument is "Because you don't let PCs have vorpal swords, you won't let them have weapons."

The difference in *price* between a +4 and a +5 weapon is large. Not at much as another +4, but still large. You can afford "good enough" (1 + down) and save huge sums to spend elsewhere. The naked fighter vs abrams isn't a real scenario unless you are spending *all* your cash on non-adventuring stuff. In which case, you *aren't* and adventurer and have *no* right to complain about profenssional adventurers out adventuring you

 

[Nifft]

1. Fumbles. Introduce the idea of fumbles to the game - we use 1/d20 followed by 1/d6 gives a major fumble, and a roll where penalties bring it to 1/d20 or less followed by 1/d6 gives a minor fumble. Then design a fumble table. On a fumble, get the player to roll d% and you then tell them from the table what's happened. Common results are damage self or friend, break weapon, drop (or throw) weapon, stumble and-or fall, etc. Magic items get a save to avoid breaking, mundane ones do not.

Right. Determine how often you want weapons to break, and make a secondary mechanic based on that. Make it happen no more often than Critical Confirms, and the game won't slow down appreciably.

2. Failed saves. Every time a PC fails a save vs. area damage, *every* item that person is carrying should have to make a save based on what it's made of, how magical it is, and what type of damage it received. 3e nerfed this down such that only one item could ever break in any one incident and it needed a natural '1' on the save to do so (probably to save time, because this *can* be time consuming) and that's a shame.

I actually like the idea behind the 3.5e rules -- only one of your items is going to bite it each "attack", so you have attrition rather than a sudden, "wait, I'm naked?!"

I also liked that the attacks would target items in a specific order -- so if you want to be sure to protect your robe, you always wear a cloak. I like that it gave some control to the players.

Still, the implementation left a LOT to be desired.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Nifft]

On point 2: Full plate, ships: what else would you add? One thing I would add – another 3e house rule I've never gotten around to implementing – are advanced animals and mounts: a really fantastic horse that survives fights a normal horse wouldn't; a guard dog with phenomenally keen senses; etc. Basically, class levels for animals. I don't see why not.

I love the idea of animals with levels. That's brilliant, and solves a lot of issues.

I wasn't even thinking of ships, though -- fullplate, weapons and a well-trained mount should be really expensive. Particularly in a world where you get a level-based bonus to your Reflex defense, and thus don't strictly need armor to survive.

On point 3: The main obstacle here is not a lack of rules so much as it's a pain to bring that into the adventure.

Four words: damage threshold + condition track.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Imp]

I eschew Pangeas, so ships have always been pretty important in my settings, and the interesting places don't have handy shuttles going back and forth, so procuring a ship and crew is usually a priority for PCs by about 6th level or so.

Re item breaking, the condition track is a good idea I think. I've avoided fumbles in 3e because they screw high-level characters with many attacks – in 4e that may not be a problem. (In a very detailed system it would be interesting to have fumble results as an additional balancing lever for weapons: flails/ early gunpowder/ exotics vs. good ol' spears/ maces/ axes springs to mind...) The failed-save item-nuke was "RAW" in 1e, wasn't it? But I never used it then because it was always a pain to look up that table.