Unintended(?) Consequence of No More X-Mas Tree?

[Reynard]

One of the few design philosophies of 4E that has me interested enough to consider using it for my 3E games is reducing the need for loads of magical items. 4E is hardly the first to try and do so, mind, but the way it wants to do it, but integrating those "typical" item bonuses into the math of PC development, sounds interesting.

However, as i got to thinking about it, I realized that this wasn't actually a good idea. One of the things about the "christmas tree effect" that is positive is that it allows the DM to control the "low-high fantasy" spectrum of the game fairly easily. If the DM wants a high fantasy feel, he can allow lots of items. if he wants a much lower fantasy feel, he can not allow lots of items. 9In either cae, of course, he has to be prepared to make adjustments based on the consequences of that choice.) But if you remove the christmas tree effect and integrate those standard bonuses and abilities into the game math, you have essentially raised the lower end of the spectrum. "Low fantasy" is harder to do because the floor level is higher as characters have been embedded with what was, before, the typical minimum assumed treasure for their level.

I wonder, have any Des&Dev articles approached the question of sub-genre and tone? While I am not interested in 4E, I am interested in how the designers are viewing things in order to determine whether any particular 4E ideais worth porting over. It is important for D&D, I think, to still allow individual groups to choose the sub-genre and tone of their games and I would think that is something the Dev. Team would want to talk about.

 

[zoroaster100]

I don't really understand your argument. Changing the math so that a hero can deal with level-appropriate opponents without relying on magic items does not integrate high fantasy into the game. On the contrary, it means you can now have a low fantasy game with less magic without having to houserule a whole new math into the core rules and without having to recalculate what is a level appropriate challenge for your magic deprived player characters.

In 3e if you deny your players magic items, they will soon fail against level-appropriate challenges unless you recalibrate the CR for the opponents you throw at them and exclude certain opponents that can only be defeated with magic.

If 4th edition delivers on this promise of reducing need for magic items, you can have a low magic campaign without rewriting the rules, and you can have a high magic campaign which merely increases the options available to the players without significantly changing the math. The key would be to make the math work without magic items, and then only include magic items in the game which don't substantially change the math. For example, a magic item which allows you to use a class ability an extra time per encounter, or which allows you to change your appearance or swim faster is o.k., but magic items which improve your AC, saves/defenses, or attack bonuses or significantly increase damage are not o.k.

 

[Njall]

As thing stands, low magic is virtually impossible at high levels in 3.x without heavy house ruling, mainly because some stats ( AC, for example ) just don't scale with level (things may change in 4e, since the maths seems like it's being rebuilt from scratch, with defenses scaling with level and every class having some form of limited healing).
Just look at d20 modern, Star Wars and Conan d20.
All of these adopt class based AC bonuses to make up for this.
If you also limit the access to healing magic, high level low magic games quickly become a mess.

If you really want to tweak 3e so that it's balanced both for high magic and low magic, I'd do so adding specific feats that duplicate the effect of the "big 6"...
So, you may create a feat that scales with level and gives a deflection bonus to AC, another one that adds a natural armor bonus to AC, one that adds an Enhancement bonus to a stat and so on.
Thus, in low magic campaigns the players can be balanced from a purely numeric point of view.
The feats remain useful in a high magic campaign (albeit to a lesser extent) , since they free up some slots for different magic items, and they don't throw game balance out of whack because the bonuses provided don't stack with those of the magic items they're emulating.
I'm not sure if it would work, I'd have to test it in game, but it's the best solution I could think of.

 

[Reynard]

In 3e if you deny your players magic items, they will soon fail against level-appropriate challenges unless you recalibrate the CR for the opponents you throw at them and exclude certain opponents that can only be defeated with magic.

Exactly. If the stuff you need to have in order to fight a vampire is available to characters of 5th levdl in 3E only with magic items, you can hold back on Vampires simply by not giving out the required items. If, however, you make those qualities inherent in the characters then 5th level characters are automatically capable of fighting Vampires regardless of what gear they have. If "can fight vampires" is a benchmark for "high fantasy", then through the reduction of the christmas tree effect have solidified the low-high fantasy line.

Note, "vampires" and "5th level" are just examples intended to illustrate my reasoning and not to be construed as me making an assertion that vampires=high fantasy or that 5th level=no longer low fantasy.

 

[Voss]

I haven't seen much to indicate that the former item bonuses are integrated into the class bonuses, either.

Certainly there hasn't been anything to suggest that the +6 to <primary ability score> from an item and +5 inherent from a tome has been integrated, nor +5 natural armor, +5 deflection and +5 resistance. And those are the 'christmas tree' items that really bother me.

 

[PoeticJustice]

Yet the OP does have a good point in that controlling the amount of Magic Items in the game gave the DM a relative degree of control over how difficult an encounter would be without adding more monsters or increasing their hit die.

 

[Quartz]

There was suggestion early on for getting rid of the buffs: a feat every odd level and stat bump every even one.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Well, the x-mas tree problem was the dependence on "+X"-items. If you're doing it from a low-magic starting point, you can still integrate high-fantasy stuff, that's genuinely more interesting than +X. And then the balancing becomes more of a adjudication of new abilities through the items than the current number-crunching.

That's great deal easier.

E.g. if you're players suddenly have a cloak of flying, you know the benefits they get: More mobility, melee-safety.

Now what happens if your players lose a +3 longsword and +3 armour? What ramifications will this have for the CR?

Cheers, LT.

 

[Aldarc]

Isn't WotC making it so that instead of the DM controlling the characters' items and such, the DM controls the level of the game through the difficulty of the monsters and opponents? So I think 4th Ed. is just switching from Christmas Tree Characters to Scaling Power Monsters & Encounters.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Exactly. If the stuff you need to have in order to fight a vampire is available to characters of 5th levdl in 3E only with magic items, you can hold back on Vampires simply by not giving out the required items. If, however, you make those qualities inherent in the characters then 5th level characters are automatically capable of fighting Vampires regardless of what gear they have. If "can fight vampires" is a benchmark for "high fantasy", then through the reduction of the christmas tree effect have solidified the low-high fantasy line.

Note, "vampires" and "5th level" are just examples intended to illustrate my reasoning and not to be construed as me making an assertion that vampires=high fantasy or that 5th level=no longer low fantasy.

I think this example actually helps prove you wrong. When you read Dracula or pretty much any other vampire fiction - except maybe Buffy - you'll notice that the people doing the vampire-slaying are pretty much level 1 commoners with garlic and wooden stakes.

It sounds like you want to use magic-item requirements as intentional roadblocks for the players - "Sorry guys, you can't take on the vampire lord because you don't have +2 weapons, better leave that for later." IMO this kind of roadblocking is very rarely a good idea, but regardless, it has basically NOTHING to do with low vs. high fantasy. Having a world with lots of powerful monsters you're helpless against isn't "low fantasy" by any definition I've heard. If you think vampires are too "out there" for your campaign, DON'T PUT THEM IN THERE, and it won't matter whether the party would hypothetically be able to kill them.