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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5374489" data-attributes="member: 7006">Here's my opinion on why most 4E magic items seem bland to many people (and as a corollary, why many people seemed disenchanted by 4E spellcaster classes as well.):Magic items (and spells) have a discreet and specific rule that applies to 4E combat, and does not involve any "improvised visualization" that requires DM adjudication.Here's what I mean by this... says for example you take the illusion spells.  In 3E and back... you as a player had to describe what exactly you were creating with the illusion you cast, and the DM then had to decide on-the-spot what the results would be from that creation.  There were no "combat stats" connected to the illusions automatically in the spell description.  For example, if you were being chased by some monsters and came to a tunnel exit that featured a deep drop... you could quickly throw up an illusion that made it look like the floor continued... thereby making it possible that the monsters would keep running and then plummet into the drop.  Now there was nothing in those illusion spells that said specifically how this use of the illusion would mechanically be applied to combat... the DM had to make it up and adjudicate on his best guess of what should happen.By the same token, many magic items gave you "descriptive" special powers... the ability to create or use things based entirely on your imagination, none of which had tangible combat-use rules connected to them.  So for instance, you had the Immovable Rod.  A rod that you could secure in mid-air and have it just hang there unmoving, able to support a butt-load of weight.  There was nothing in the rules that applied game mechanics to this rod... it was just up to the DM to decide what kind of combat results would occur if used.  So using the example above, the party is being chased by a monster, and one party member at the back takes a corner and then stops and places the Immovable Rod horizontally in the center of the corridor at neck-height, hoping that the monster turns the corner, doesn't notice it, and then clotheslines himself on it as he takes the turn.  The DM was thus required to adjudicate exactly how much damage something like that might do, because the rule of the Rod itself did not indicate it.What we have in 4E however... is combat that is pretty much entirely spelled out via actual rules, with very little DM adjudication.  And what adjudication does happen is rules via the infamous Pg 42.  Almost every single magic item has rules that are described and ruled within the context of 4E combat, and ask for no "player imagination" to describe how they might be used.  The item tells you how they are used.  It's only items that have no real function in 4E combat that would require DM adjudication should they attempted to be used.  And this is why I think these kind of things seem bland.  Because you can't be "creative" per se with these items in your possession... because their uses are already spelled out for you.In order to have magic items that recapture the flavor of older-addition items... you need to create new ones yourself that do not have (or at least do not entirely have) 4E combat-specific rules attached to them, but rather "conceptual ideas".  So for instance, a Ring of Telekinesis.  What does a ring like this do?  Well, sure you can assign it specific rules for how much damage a "telekinetic punch" would do, or how much Flight speed it would grant you, or this rule or that rule... but you might just be better served just giving it to the player and let him or her decide on the fly how to use it, and then let the DM decide in the moment what kind of damage or movement or whatever else it might do.  By not spelling everything out for the player with an actual "power card" of abilities... the world is more open to the player and the DM both to make use of the item as they see fit.</blockquote>

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