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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brassbaboon" data-source="post: 4970108" data-attributes="member: 66114">Look, I didn't invent the Iron Armbands of Power. Wizards did. If Wizards thinks they are a legitimate item, and they list them as comparable in value and cost to other items, then those items should be balanced.They are not. This is manifestly obvious.So the only FACT here is that the IAoP are obviously HUGELY superior to the other options Wizards has provided.You seem to be arguing that Wizards should never have offered the IAoP. I am arguing that their other choices are ridiculously lame. The introduction of the IAoP did not "break" anything, it simply revealed how crappy the other options were.To me this is a game balance issue that Wizards screwed up. I would rather all of their items were reasonably competitive with the IAoP, not that the IAoP were never created.There is no way that I am the only person who has perused the magic items available in the Character Builder shop and has laughed out loud at how lame a HUGE NUMBER of these magic items are.I suppose the original idea was that the designers didn't want to have magic items overpower encounter powers or feats. They also obviously wanted magic items to be common and easily created, modified or transferred.But after awhile even they looked at what they had created and said "geez, these magic items suck. Let's at least make some magic items that people will actually be excited about using."My personal opinion is that their main mistake was in deciding to make magic items so easily available in the first place. That more or less led them to create magic items that were lame BY DESIGN to avoid unbalancing the game. But even they eventually conceded that magic items should be rare and valuable things that provide a significant boost to a character's abilties. Magic items that are laughably lame don't do anything for the game but make people shake their heads and say "geez, OK, I guess an item that lets me add a 1d6 on every 20th attack roll is better than NOTHING, but geez..."So the end result is what we have now. A few really nice magic items that people are excited about and a whole lot of "legacy" magic items that nobody in their right mind would take.If it were me I'd completely revise magic items, make them rarer and more powerful.My ninth level ranger has about ten magic items. He just went to the store and bought them. It's like a Super Walmart. My 14th level ranger in 3.5e had fewer magic items, but they were all VALUABLE and POWERFUL items. Most of them were EARNED because you couldn't just walk into a store in 3.5e and buy what you wanted, nor could your party wizard take a few minutes and some gold and create a +2 sword for you.It is my opinion that 4e has truly screwed up magic items royally, and is now in a no-win situation.</blockquote>

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