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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6250602" data-attributes="member: 42582">I quite like the 4e style too - and I'm not sure it lacks the "D&D feel", at least for me.Gygax in his DMG seems to imply that in AD&D casters will want wands and staves if they are to be effective in combat, because of the risks of casting spells in combat. In practice I didn't really see it work out like that, but there is still the kernel of an approach there that is different from the 4e one but makes wands and staves as important to casters as weapons and armour are to fighters.Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but the first of the three posts I've quoted seems at odds with the second two. And it's not clear to me which approach WotC is taking.If the GM is expected to adjust encounter difficulty based on magic items wielded by the PCs, then in effect items are part of the maths -but incorporated via the encounter building tools, so on the GM rather than the player side. I don't see anything wrong with that, but it seems worth noting it for what it is. In fact I prefer it to the approach suggested by billd91, for this reason: if GMs aren't expected to make encounters mechanically more challenging in response to PCs acquiring items then the practical consequence of acquiring items is that encounters become easier. And easier encounters are, on the whole, less interesting. So the reward for acquiring items becomes one of the game becoming less engaging - which is actually the Monty Haul problem that Gygax warns about in the quote from his DMG.EDIT: Because D&Dnext seems to prioritise "the adventure" over "the encounter" then you could incorporate items on the GM side by changing the "adventure budget" rather than the "encounter budget" - ie the more items you have, the more you have to do between rests if you are going to succeed at an adventure, whatever exactly it is that success consists in. This is still taking items into account in the maths of the game.</blockquote>

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