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<blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5353060" data-attributes="member: 51942">I agree.&nbsp; Additionally, I think it's a fundamentally poor choice to require the DM to understand in depth his player's characters and which of a thousands of items they might appreciate.&nbsp; In other words, the magic item rarity system simply cannot work well without excessive DM effort for basic combat items.Of course, it works excellently for exceptional items, but these should be slot-free and/or player-flexible.&nbsp; There's nothing more disappointing that a seemingly cool &quot;rare&quot; item which turns out to be useless and sold at the first opportunity because of some charsheet interaction that makes an existing plain, seemingly less powerful item more attractive.The new rules do have one step in the right direction, however: daily item powers are always useful (and actually make sense now too).&nbsp; Previously, handing out an item with a daily power was generally unhandy since PC's can easily collect many more of these than they can use; particularly if the power was a flavorful out-of-combat power.&nbsp; Now a DM can hand out an item (s)he thinks is neat, and as long as it's not a weapon, implement, armor, or obviously character-build specific there's a decent chance someone can use it.&nbsp;If WotC want to give the DM more control over items, they should design&nbsp; fewer character-build specific items and more situation-specific items, not&nbsp; require the DM to wade through thousands of boring (to him) items that&nbsp; have no campaign link and are only useful if he understands the&nbsp; mechanical interaction with the PC just right.I wish I could give you XP for that, but it seems I need to spread it around some more first...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="eamon, post: 5353060, member: 51942"] I agree. Additionally, I think it's a fundamentally poor choice to require the DM to understand in depth his player's characters and which of a thousands of items they might appreciate. In other words, the magic item rarity system simply [I]cannot[/I] work well without excessive DM effort for basic combat items. Of course, it works [I]excellently[/I] for exceptional items, but these should be slot-free and/or player-flexible. There's nothing more disappointing that a seemingly cool "rare" item which turns out to be useless and sold at the first opportunity because of some charsheet interaction that makes an existing plain, seemingly less powerful item more attractive. The new rules do have [I]one[/I] step in the right direction, however: daily item powers are always useful (and actually make sense now too). Previously, handing out an item with a daily power was generally unhandy since PC's can easily collect many more of these than they can use; particularly if the power was a flavorful out-of-combat power. Now a DM can hand out an item (s)he thinks is neat, and as long as it's not a weapon, implement, armor, or obviously character-build specific there's a decent chance [I]someone[/I] can use it. If WotC want to give the DM more control over items, they should design fewer [I]character-build specific[/I] items and more [I]situation-specific[/I] items, not require the DM to wade through thousands of boring (to him) items that have no campaign link and are only useful if he understands the mechanical interaction with the PC just right. I wish I could give you XP for that, but it seems I need to spread it around some more first... [/QUOTE]

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