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

[Voss]

I'm not sure how WotC expect to hold back the Christmas Tree effect. Players enjoy magic items, they're cool rewards that players look forward to, for some, it's the sole reason for adventuring. Magic items have always been a part of fantasy gaming. It will only work until a third-party company releases a book of cool magic items, then WotC will do the same to keep ahead in the arms race. Look at how prestige classes evolved in 3rd Edition for a comparable example.

They're cutting down the Christmas tree, but not getting rid of magic items. Think of thematically fun items that you can get but that fall by the wayside in the face of rings of protection, amulets of natural armor, cloaks of resistance and various stat boosters. Thats the expectation thats going away, along with the idea that you need to have gained 130,634 gold pieces worth of treasure by 12th level, and spent it mostly on magical items so can be at the expected power level to face a greater abyssal basilisk or 3 green slaadi (or whatever)

 

[PeterWeller]

Yeah... I wouldn't say 4e is getting rid of the magic items... From the previews it just seems the effect are being pre-built into the classes.

The Fighter won't need a magic flaming sword, because he has an ability that already adds fire damage to his sword...

Oh yeah? What preview was that in?

 

[Reynard]

It seems to me that the 4E mechanics are turning what was a mechanical problem in 3E (Xmas trees) into a flavour problem in 4E. So instead of needing to have X item to kill a particular sort of monster, you can just kill it, which as you say, may blur the low/high fantasy boundary. But the fix, I think, is fairly easy to implement. Using your example, let's say that you need a stake made out of a certain type of rare wood to kill the vampire. Now the weapon you need is no longer a magic item, but a plot device. There will be no vampire killing until the players figure out how to get their hands on such a stake. The vampire is totally scary because they know they can't kill him until they find the stake, and so they are vulnerable. I think that most monsters or NPCs that are supposed to be hard to kill can be quickly tweaked in a similar way, so that no matter how tough you are, they're still a pain in the butt to deal with.

I hadn't really thought of it in relation to +X items versus magic items that do cool stuff. I guess cutting out the +X's should be easy, or at least straight forward. You'd just have to figure out what the typical character of X level was supposed to have Attack, Saves, AC, etc... wise and subtract that from "level appropriate" CR'ed enemies -- which actually would probably help if you were looking for a more "low fantasy" feel. After all, the baddies don't need the bigger numbers or the scarier powers if the PCs' numbers are lower by 5 or 10 or whatever it works out to be.

Also, "low fantasy" might not be exactly the term I should be using, but I am not sure what the term should be. Grounded? Grittier? Less flash and wow and gravity-defying displays of prowess. Saving creatures with scary powers -- stone gazes and death touches and immutnity to crits and DR and all that -- rarer and more impressive. like that.

Of course, to do so, the PCs can't necessarily have acces to that kind of ability, at least easily, anyway. It would be preferable, then, to reduce the flash and power of spell casters, rather than amping up the flash and power of non-casters to meet them.

Needs more thought. Thanks for everyone's input so far, though.

 

[VirgilCaine]

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.

You can still do that. You've always been able to do that.

You'll just have to use a different game, a game made from it's outset, for what you want.

Like you should have been doing all along.

Which is one of my new favorite things about 4e.

 

[Reynard]

You can still do that. You've always been able to do that.

You'll just have to use a different game, a game made from it's outset, for what you want.

Like you should have been doing all along.

Which is one of my new favorite things about 4e.

What, that you can't play D&D anymore with 4E? Or that 4E is driving some people away? i am not sure which of these is one of your "favorite things".

D&D as flexible and inclusive and generic is, I think, a "sacred cow" that shouldn't be slaughtered.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

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.

It seems to me that getting rid of the Christmas tree effect will have the opposite effect of what you're predicting. The distinction that in 3e, many of the magic items had nothing to do with the "low fantasy" vs "high fantasy" feel. Most magic items were just boosts which didn't influence the feel at all, except that they came from magic items. However, because these boosts did come from magic items, and they were necessary for game balance, especially at high levels, it made it very difficult to run a game with no magic items. Characters with no magic items weren't more "low fantasy", they just had ludicrously low ACs and saving throws.

However, in 4e, magic items aren't necessary for game balance. It's perfectly feasible to have high level characters with no magic items, so you can create heroes like Beowulf who didn't have a single magic item but still defeated monsters and dragons. Or you could have Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, with spent all their money on ale and whores, but still were potent warriors.

In 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.

First of all, removing magic items in 3e doesn't simply lower the power level. It affects the power level unevenly: fighters are gimped, but wizards and clerics are barely affected at all; attacks aren't affected much, but AC becomes so extraordinarily low that monsters of the equivalent CR almost never missed. It basically throws game balance out the window, rather than just lowering it.

In 4e, if you want lower powered characters, play characters that are lower levels. If you want games where magic items are extremely uncommon, just don't give any magic items, and be thankful that that doesn't throw the game mechanics off-kilter.

 

[AllisterH]

There's one problem with Reynard's assumption.

He assumes that the level of capability of a character will remain the same. If the recent 4E scoop on the wizard holds true, then magic users have been SERIOUSLY nerfed in power.

The wizard in 4E at mid to high levels (paragon to epic) looks like he will be much weaker than even a 1E wizard at the same levels. From the fact that many effects become Rituals (which I suspect are going to make them much more restrictive than spells) to the neutering of general capability of the wizard (no enchantment) and weakening of spells themselves (necromancy), a high level 4e wizard just isn't going to be the be-all/end-all.

As such, the opponents (monsters) will not have to be matched against a 1E-3E wizard capability and thus, the superheroic nature of PCs will not be needed.

 

[PeterWeller]

Reynard, I think you're also of the incorrect assumption that fighter, ranger, and rogue powers are going to be flashy, magic wuxia style powers. So far, every example we've been given of martial special abilities has been grounded in "realistic" actions. There's been no sign of causing flames to burst from one's sword or some such ability. In fact, some of the abilities we have been shown back up your grittier or low magic or whatever needs. That ability to do your strength bonus as damage even if you miss is a pretty gritty and realistic representation of just being a brutal BA.

 

[Gloombunny]

D&D as flexible and inclusive and generic is, I think, a "sacred cow" that shouldn't be slaughtered.

The idea that D&D has ever been those things is laughable, IMO.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

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.

Very good observation. Now if the DM wants creature X to be very hard to kill or what have you, instead of not giving magic item Y to accomplish this, he merely increases the power of the monster.