So what's gold gonna be for?

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

So I hope they don't narrow the functions of magic items too much. The whole *point* of magic items is to give you an unexpected boost, an unexpected power, to broaden and expand your character.

That might have been a point, but in D&D, most of your gear is not there to get you an unexpected power or broden your character (or his abilities), but just to increase the numbers.
A +5 Sword doesn't broden anything, and it's not really doing something unexpected.

I wouldn't mind if the reliance on such items would shrink a lot. Adding abilities like Flying, adding fire damage (because fire from a sword is unexpected, but just extra damage is not) to a weapon, or allowing you to throw a pearl that explodes on impact in a nice fireball are fine with me - Provided they aren't not so useful that you would never want something else and that you are not expected to have. Ring of Protection, Amulet of Natural Armor, Enhancement Bonus to Armor, Gloves of Dexterity, they all came "expected" for most characters...

 

[JDJblatherings]

a further note on Gold and Fiefs-

A fief/strnghold/castle- gives a PC place to keep his or her loot. At 50gp to the pound a 150,000 gp personal fortune is tricky to run about with (and portable holes aren't the solution when the dispel magics start flying).


A secure base is proactive.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Oh God, no. Keep training as far away from my core rules as possible, thanks.

Yeah, I don't remember Conan, Aragorn, or Elric or what have you having to train with Jake the Trainer to gain experience/power. You would think just fighting a beholder would be training enough, not then having to dance around the ring with some schmuck in order to go up a level.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Yeah, I don't remember Conan, Aragorn, or Elric or what have you having to train with Jake the Trainer to gain experience/power. You would think just fighting a beholder would be training enough, not then having to dance around the ring with some schmuck in order to go up a level.

The "training sequence" is a stand-by of action/combat films. High end proffesional soldiers and rescue workers constantly train also. Even little Harry Potter is training between (and during) his adventures. In martial arts just because one is capable of learnign a specific weapon kata it doesn't mean they've been taught it or practiced it enough to use it in competition or an actual fight. Fencers are taught progressively more difficuly techniques as they gain experience, they don't just magically know all of them. There are plenty of valid arguments supporting training.

That said: Training should be used as a way to promote character and campaign development not as a means to foil or keep the players down.

I use mostly "off screen" training myself as a means to reward a player that sinks resources into that. 1gp spent on training (with a limit of 100xlevel a week) earns a character 1 exp assumign they can find the means to train.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The "training sequence" is a stand-by of action/combat films.

Yes, but usually only for beginner characters. John McLane, McGuyver, James Bond, Jack Bauer and many others never train*. In D&D terms, Training seems to be something only done in the first 1-3 levels (maybe even before that - the thing you do to avoid becoming a Commoner)

*) There might be a corner case with James Bond. But it might have been a test, not a training.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The "training sequence" is a stand-by of action/combat films.

The training sequence happens once over the course of the character's lifetime, involves training with someone who has specialized knowledge or unique expertise in the field, and generally marks the transition from a talented amateur to a trained professional.

In D&D terms, this is really only appropriate to invoke when a character gains a prestige class. For example, Order of the Stick has its only training montage scene when Elan gains his PrC.

We already have optional rules for training to learn a PrC, and some PrCs even mandate this in terms of "contact with a member" prerequisites.

High end proffesional soldiers and rescue workers constantly train also.
Even little Harry Potter is training between (and during) his adventures.

In Harry Potter and in many military movies, the training is actually the story, and so it's appropriate to those genres. You'll notice that as the series wears on, Harry's training goes more and more off-camera, and the more interesting bits become the focus. Eventually, training sessions are only mentioned in order to act as a staging device for a story-relevent event, such as Harry's dueling training

Spoiler

in which it is revealed he speaks Parseltongue

.

I use mostly "off screen" training myself as a means to reward a player that sinks resources into that. 1gp spent on training (with a limit of 100xlevel a week) earns a character 1 exp assumign they can find the means to train.

You could also just as easily assume that the characters are getting slightly more gold than noted, and spending that extra on training. Functionally, all you'd need to do is mandate downtime between levels. Of course, that doesn't work in many campaigns in which time-sensitive story arcs span multiple levels. So it doesn't make sense to integrate training into the standard rules, which is, of course, what's at issue here. Training rules are an option, and they're fine as an option. They're not fine as the core assumption, because they mess up too many styles of play.

 

[JDJblatherings]

I've seen McGyver, Skully, TJ Hooker and the X-men all training long after they were beginners. Training turns up again and again in fiction. It's not a bad device but should never be used to hold PCs back.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOUMIzN9FVU

 

[ptolemy18]

That might have been a point, but in D&D, most of your gear is not there to get you an unexpected power or broden your character (or his abilities), but just to increase the numbers.
A +5 Sword doesn't broden anything, and it's not really doing something unexpected.

I wouldn't mind if the reliance on such items would shrink a lot. Adding abilities like Flying, adding fire damage (because fire from a sword is unexpected, but just extra damage is not) to a weapon, or allowing you to throw a pearl that explodes on impact in a nice fireball are fine with me - Provided they aren't not so useful that you would never want something else and that you are not expected to have. Ring of Protection, Amulet of Natural Armor, Enhancement Bonus to Armor, Gloves of Dexterity, they all came "expected" for most characters...

Actually, I totally agree with you. I prefer magic items that broaden the character or give you unexpected powers (like the weird Wondrous Items and so forth). The ability-enhancers and the +1~+5 weapons and armor are consideralby less interesting.

Here's hoping that it's the flat "bonus-adding" magic items which are made less common or more expensive... but I don't have a great deal of hope that they're doing this. Why? Well, for one thing, they've announced that Wizards are going to be using various implements for their casting, and these implements will have potential magic bonuses, like a +3 wand. Which seems to indicate that the bonus-inducing items will stay in the DMG. (Not that I ever wanted them completely kicked out... but they're the least interesting part of the magic items list.)

So here's me hoping that D&D4E still has lots of weird Wondrous Items and so forth. This is what I read a magic items list for...!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Actually, I totally agree with you. I prefer magic items that broaden the character or give you unexpected powers (like the weird Wondrous Items and so forth). The ability-enhancers and the +1~+5 weapons and armor are consideralby less interesting.

Here's hoping that it's the flat "bonus-adding" magic items which are made less common or more expensive... but I don't have a great deal of hope that they're doing this. Why? Well, for one thing, they've announced that Wizards are going to be using various implements for their casting, and these implements will have potential magic bonuses, like a +3 wand. Which seems to indicate that the bonus-inducing items will stay in the DMG. (Not that I ever wanted them completely kicked out... but they're the least interesting part of the magic items list.)

So here's me hoping that D&D4E still has lots of weird Wondrous Items and so forth. This is what I read a magic items list for...!

I think I can live with +x magic weapons (and wands), but having approximately 12 different +x items that every character needs felt always a bit too much in 3rd edition.