The Myth of the Necessity of Magic Items

[green slime]

You're right, though. That stuff is much more fun. The trouble is my players sell all the interesting, quirky stuff to buy a better ring of protection/cloak of resistance/belt of giant strength etc.

Cheers


Richard

Mine Sold a crystal of clairvoyance for the same.

Their loss.

 

[JustKim]

As for how to handle this situation, it will typically come down to common sense balancing it out.

DM: "Roll a Fort save, DC 36."
Tordek: *roll* "25."
Mialee: *roll* "18."
Krusk: *roll* "29."
DM: "The wail kills all of you."
Tordek: "Common sense says a scream should not be able to kill us."
DM: "My goodness, you're right. Kyuss drops dead. You win!"
Krusk: "High five!"

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

You're right, though. That stuff is much more fun. The trouble is my players sell all the interesting, quirky stuff to buy a better ring of protection/cloak of resistance/belt of giant strength etc.

Cheers
Richard

The problem is the Open Market, then. Anyway, can anyone give me Chapter and Verse on where it says that magic items can be bought and sold, no problem? I only have Core 3.0, so I am probably out-of-date, but I would never allow the players to just pony-up money and get whatever they wanted. If they want a specific magic item, they have to either find it or (more likely) make it themselves.

Also, even if you can buy magic items, there's no guarantee you have any for sale of the exact type you want in the area you are. In fact, if the players' habits are any indication, the only readily-available items would be the "quirky" kind they're likely to sell rather than buy. Remember, the other guys are adventurers, too! Tracking down the rare magic item can be a quest in itself... the same as if they wanted to buy a castle or, say, a katana in Waterdeep.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I ran a campaign with very low magic levels. The few magic items that the PCs found were almost always unique and had a specific purpose. Scrolls, potions were uncommon, wands were rare. My explanation for this was spellcasters asking themselves "Why would I expend so much effort just to create a +1 sword?"
Effort = Time + XP.

You're going to have to explain the connection between

Scrolls, potions were uncommon, wands were rare.

and

My explanation for this was spellcasters asking themselves "Why would I expend so much effort just to create a +1 sword?"

Because any spellcaster who can do it should have scrolls and (eventually) wand(s), as insurance.

 

[green slime]

The problem is the Open Market, then. Anyway, can anyone give me Chapter and Verse on where it says that magic items can be bought and sold, no problem? I only have Core 3.0, so I am probably out-of-date, but I would never allow the players to just pony-up money and get whatever they wanted. If they want a specific magic item, they have to either find it or (more likely) make it themselves.

Also, even if you can buy magic items, there's no guarantee you have any for sale of the exact type you want in the area you are. In fact, if the players' habits are any indication, the only readily-available items would be the "quirky" kind they're likely to sell rather than buy. Remember, the other guys are adventurers, too! Tracking down the rare magic item can be a quest in itself... the same as if they wanted to buy a castle or, say, a katana in Waterdeep.

But how often can you send the entire party off after a +2 weapon of blah, just because there isn't one available on the open market? Doesn't the game then devolve into some kind of Diablo II hunt for better equipment purely for the sake of the better equipment, rather than the story itself?

 

[Azgulor]

I don't think it's a myth at all, its an effect from the design of 3.5. The game emphasizes magic items, so much that the rules even state that you should be able to BUY THEM instead of the old-school methodology where you had to find them as treasure. Fighters NEED magic items, or they're even more pathetic than usual (I won't go into that diatribe here, but I'm sure we've all heard it before).

Low-magic D&D does not work unless you make copious rules adjustments. This is by design. Magic items are practically necessary unless you play near-TPK games all the time, because in a low/no magic area the PCs are not going to be able to cope with monsters face-to-face.

The biggest problem I have with this belief/assumption is there's no way you can claim any kind of balance unless you're cherry-picking the magic items you're going to distribute. With so many types of magic items available, the variations in "balance" grow by multiples at least and exponentially at worst. If WotC or other designers are making assumptions on what magic items will be distributed/found/bought then DMs/adventure designers would need to know those assumptions in order to structure balanced encounters. And I think the lack of documented assumptions or the absence of a combined class + magic item balance is a prime contributor to the "CR is broken" debate.

Azgulor

 

[Azgulor]

Age of Worms ends at 21st with every party member wielding several artifacts against a deity who can cast both 10th level sorcerer spells and cleric spells spontaneously , can drop DC 36 Wail of the banshee at will, and who's stat block takes up 3 pages.

Without being up to your eyeballs in magic, you are so screwed.

If you're fighting a DEITY you should be screwed!

At least that's my take. I always found the idea of fighting gods an absurd one, but to each their own.

Azgulor

 

[green slime]

If you're fighting a DEITY you should be screwed!

At least that's my take. I always found the idea of fighting gods an absurd one, but to each their own.

Azgulor

That depends on what tradition you are from.

 

[monboesen]

I have a hard time seeing how you magic item deprived characters survive regular combats at level 15. Unless they almost exclusively encounter npc's with the same restrictions.

Looking at monsters (just SRD) with CR of 13-17 I see dragons, giants, demons, devils and nightshades.

A giant/dragon (or similar melee competent monster) should be able to kill your tank fighter in about 2 rounds and squishy spellcasters in one round.

The spellcasting/magic ability monsters (outsiders, dragons, nightshades) enforce DC's in the 19+ range, and the effects will often outright kill you, do damage in the 60+ HP range or leave you out of the combat. You PC's should have strong saves at about +11-12 and weak saves at about +4-5. That means they will fail close to 50 % of their good saves and about 75 % of their weak saves.


As far as I can tell you:
a) go easy on the players
b) tailor encounters very specific to the PC's
c) let your monsters use crap tactics
d) have house rules you havent yet disclosed
e) let the PC's have insanely good stats

 

[Quasqueton]

If you set up and run your campaign in line with the magic-level assumption of the core rules, you get:

3rd-level characters being able to handle EL 3 encounters
5th-level characters being able to handle EL 5 encounters
7th-level = EL 7
9th-level = EL 9
15th-level = EL 15
20th-level = EL 20

If you set up and run a "low-magic-item" campaign, then you might get:

3rd-level = EL 3
5th-level = EL 4
7th-level = EL 5
9th-level = EL 6
15th-level = EL 12
20th-level = EL 16

Just like if you set up and run a "high-magic-item" campaign, then you might get:

3rd-level = EL 4
5th-level = EL 6
7th-level = EL 9
9th-level = EL 12
15th-level = EL 18
20th-level = EL 24

So long as the DM realizes this, there is no problem with "deviating" from the standard D&D power-level baseline. There is no rule that says a level 15 party *has* to regularly encounter EL 15 opponents.

D&D is not a computer game that automatically ups the opposition to match the party levels.

Quasqueton