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Message: <blockquote data-quote="awesomeocalypse" data-source="post: 5113112" data-attributes="member: 85641">But that is exactly what happens now. Magic items give potent "bonuses" that, since they are accounted for by monster defenses, are in no way bonuses at all. They are mandatory. A level 30 character without magic items is vastly weaker relative to his enemies than is a level 1 character. I'd much rather have items that *do* "break" the math, or at least bend it a little. in that they provide an actual bonus which places a character above the curve in a given way. Fundamentally, I don't think these two approaches are compatible. Either magic items are not allowed to muck with the math, in which case they cannot help but become mandatory and in fact provide no real bonus at all, because monsters must be built to account for them. Or magic items are unnaccounted for by the math, and therefore provide an actual bonus. My solution to this is simply to make magic items so rare that these "breaks" in the math are kept to a minimum. Each character has 1 (or a 1 or 2 more at higher levels) way in which they outperform what is expected by the math. Oddly enough, I don't actually think this would create more imbalances that currently exist. Right now, items are accounted for by the math and expected, but there are so many to choose from and characters get so many, that the seemingly small differences between equal level items can be combined in many more combinations to push characters beyond the curve to a varying degree. In other words, the system right now is fully "breakable", in that it is relatively easy to build a character who outperforms what is expected by the math. Its just that rather than having a single great item giving him a boost, a character will have an entire grabbag of items which add up to a devstating combination.</blockquote>

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