The Magic Items that WotC cannot publish

[Hjorimir]

I'm fine with WotC not publishing such a book, really. Leave it to DM creativity (or stealing from other sources) to create unique items for their campaign. I find that my four volumes of Encyclopedia Magica are extremely useful in this regard, but I injest such items when I want to.

 

[Celebrim]

So, let me get this straight.

WotC has put itself in the position that they can't publish material that would actual be fun, intriguing, cool, and entertaining for fear it would be unbalancing? Are they now openly admitting that because they made the decision remove the DM from the equation, that they now can't print material they admit is really cool because such the material would have to be the provenance of the DM?

Quote: "Because magic items are carefully balanced based on level, we cannot publish items that...are more interesting and exciting than any others I see in D&D right now."

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAA...ha...ha...ha.................

*cry*

Maniacs! You blew it up!

*cry*

 

[Orius]

I'm find with WotC not publishing such a book, really. Leave it to DM creativity (or stealing from other sources) to create unique items for their campaign. I find that my four volumes of Encyclopedia Magica are extremely useful in this regard, but I injest such items when I want to.

Unfortunately, not everyone has the Encyclopedia Magica, particularly newer players, so yeah sometimes it feels as if the game is missing the magic (so to speak) that it had in the old days.

This started with 3e's reorganization of magic items. As a DM, I generally liked it as it made some things easier for me, but there was a lot of stuff under the old rules that just didn't work in the framework. I suppose 4e's more solid rules on having a +1 every 5 levels and whatever else it does make the old items harder to do.

And there is a lot of really weird, cool and wacky stuff in the old EM. Some examples:

• A semi-intelligent, malevolent vending machine that dispenses soft drinks that can do anything from giving a PC a bad case of acne to outright killing him.
• A huge apparatus that can plane shift from world to world, creating asphalt roads in it wake.
• An expansion on the deck of many things that uses every card in a full tarot deck.
• A chess set, incomplete, and carved from dragon's teeth where every piece has its own unique powers. Pawns have relatively weak effects, while the qeen and king are very powerful.

And that's just in the first volume. There's four books of this stuff, not just the standard magic items from the pre-3e game, but all kinds of strange wonderful, and definitely unbalanced material.

WotC could publish stuff like this if they wanted, but it probably doesn't fit into the design philosophies they're following. A pity. Magic items are more fun when they're not just following standard bonuses but instead have a lot of mystery to them, IMO.

 

[Hjorimir]

So, let me get this straight.

WotC has put itself in the position that they can't publish material that would actual be fun, intriguing, cool, and entertaining for fear it would be unbalancing? Are they now openly admitting that because they made the decision remove the DM from the equation, that they now can't print material they admit is really cool because such the material would have to be the provenance of the DM?

Quote: "Because magic items are carefully balanced based on level, we cannot publish items that...are more interesting and exciting than any others I see in D&D right now."

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAA...ha...ha...ha.................

*cry*

Maniacs! You blew it up!

*cry*

I think that WotC just knows that if you print it players will cry for it. Players tend to moan a lot. They kick and scream and claw for power and when you deny them that power you're a badwrongDM.

Let DMs tempt fate by messing with gamebalance at their own peril; sometimes it will work, but sometimes it will be disasterous. It is probably wise to leave potentially disasterous magic items outside of published material if you can.

 

[FireLance]

Well, that's the thing, really. The statement they cannot publish them is... bogus. In the extreme. They darned well could publish them - put a big honkin' warning label on them saying, "These are dangerous to your game's balance, DMs may introduce these into their games at their own discretion".

This would violate their "all things are core" philosophy. Big whoop. Standing on principle here is not a virtue, if it prevents them from publishing things that inspire DMs.

For what it's worth, it's just one guy saying this on his personal blog. I do recall that towards the end of 3.5e, we did get right-out broken magic items (with "wahoo" warning labels) in Dragon and in the Magic Item Compendium.

I doubt that we will ever see an entire book devoted to this class of items (from WotC, at least - if there appears to be sufficient demand for it, some enterprising 3PP might take a risk on such a product) but we may get one or two showing up in Dragon or in AV3 (suitably caveated, of course).

 

[Hjorimir]

Magic items are more fun when they're not just following standard bonuses but instead have a lot of mystery to them, IMO.

I certainly agree with you in spirit, I just think I see the wisdom in not making such items core to the ruleset and anything printed by WotC is considered core these days.

It could back some DMs (who maybe are not as firm as they should be with certain players) into a corner.

Heck, this could be ripe for a 3PP if done well.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

This here - not the actual post, but the philosophy behind it - is why 4e is a mixed bag, not a brilliant game.

 

[Orius]

I certainly agree with you in spirit, I just think I see the wisdom in not making such items core to the ruleset and anything printed by WotC is considered core these days.

It could back some DMs (who maybe are not as firm as they should be with certain players) into a corner.

Heck, this could be ripe for a 3PP if done well.

Yeah, I know that some of those really off the wall items can play havoc with the rules. I understand both sides of the argument: the need to have consistant rules, but writing the rules to meet those needs sometimes robs the game of the charm it once had.

 

[RodneyThompson]

For the record, I actually disagree with Peter (disagreeing with each other is something like 46% of the developer's job). We totally could publish the wacky stuff. We just haven't done it yet.

 

[fuzzlewump]

I'm actually pleased by this article. 4E magical items are a balanced (for the most part) baseline from which I can deviate where I see fit. I can do the imagination part, they come up with the rules and numbers.