"Weenie List" of Ubiquitous & Popular Magic Items

[Mortaneus]

Why not...I'll join in....

Adamantine is the cheesiest material in the game, not mithral. Why? Because take a look at the enchantment rules. To add a special + to weapons or armor requires that it already have at least a +1 enhancement bonus. Nowhere does it say that it can't be an INNATE enhancement bonus instead of a magical one.

In addition, because the + is innate rather than magical, it doesn't count for the purposes of enchanting costs.

From the SRD: "A magic weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have any of the abilities listed on Table: Weapon Special Abilities."

Example:

Adamantine Shocking Rapier
Base Cost: 20 gp
Adamantine (+1): 3000 gp
+1 enchantment (shocking): 2000 gp

Total Cost: 5020 gp

As opposed to the 8320 gp cost for a normal +1 shocking rapier. And this enhancement bonus can't be cancelled by antimagic! Of course, on the high end, it's not as useful because you want big enhancement bonuses, but you can't really get that from adamantine. However, it has one other neat benefit at the high end:

Adamantine Vorpal Keen Scimitar of Speed:
Vorpal: +5
Speed: +4
Keen: +1
Total enchanted bonus: +10 (within the rules)
Has +1 innate bonus from adamantine, allowing the special weapon abilities to be enchanted onto the weapon.

 

[AGGEMAM]

mortaneus, adamantine isn't magic at all so it can't be enchanted with a special ability before it is.

 

[Mortaneus]

mortaneus, adamantine isn't magic at all so it can't be enchanted with a special ability before it is.

Umm...nowhere does it say that.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Umm...nowhere does it say that.

Umm ... yes it does ... in your quote ...

From the SRD: "A magic weapon must have at least a +1 enhancement bonus to have any of the abilities listed on Table: Weapon Special Abilities."

Note there is a difference between natural enhancement bonuses and enhancement bonuses, just as there are a difference between natural armor bonuses and armor bonuses.

 

[Mortaneus]

Note there is a difference between natural enhancement bonuses and enhancement bonuses, just as there are a difference between natural armor bonuses and armor bonuses.

Hmm.....you're right about that....

Oh, well. I'm not going to tell my GM that.

 

[WizarDru]

My two cents: Azlan, I think you may have meant well, and I certainly agree that some items are the kind the players will always seek out. However, the tone of your posts has been somewhat condescending, and when you being denigrating the system as 'weenie' and then illustrate your points with incorrect rules examples, people are going to bristle. Especially when said topics have been discussed ad nauseum. People don't enjoy being lectured, moreso when they detect a major flaw in one of your examples, because it leads to the belief that the rest of your argument is not fully thought out.

From my reading so far, it seems as if the whole cost issue is irrelevant to you. The concept that you seem to think that the game stops being worth playing at 10th level or thereabouts further undercuts your position. Characters at higher levels carry a small country's GNP in magic items and equipment. D&D has always been this way, and 3E expects it (is, in fact, designed with this in mind). If you haven't run a game with high-level characters, then you can't appreciate that. You admittedly point out that you've been playing for a year...that's good. But understand that many of us had already been playing for a year before you started, and were arguing over these self-same topics THEN.

A +40 on jump checks is all well and good...but the warrior with the +2 flaming greatsword will think his money much better spent. If you really are running low level games, one tends to wonder where they're getting all the money for these items. Cost is supposed to be a limiting factor for your players, and if they're all walking around with this laundry list of equipment, soemthing sounds off.

Many of these items aren't terribly impressive, especially as the spellcasters come into their own. When the mage can cast fly or polymorph self that lasts for 8+ hours...it's functionally on all the time, game-wise. Greater Magic Weapon slows the need for magic weapons, as do many other enchantments. A +1 to resistance isn't that big of a deal, especially as the characters start encountering DCs in the high 20s and 30s. Many of these items are just considered standard adventurer equipment, in the same way as one might purchase a horse, a torch or a healing potion. The system expects it, and it was designed with it in mind. Add a few house rules, or give the characters too much loot, and the system can start to break down.

Are there min/max combos available? Of course there are. But in a game this complex, there will be. They cannot be eliminated, short of DM dilligence. If, however, your problem is that you don't like the commonality of said items....that's fine. Just understand that you need to run a low-magic, non-standard D&D game and go to it.

But also understand that not everyone wants that.


BTW, if you think you need thick skin here, you really need to avoid some other messageboards one might name, where they'd skin you alive. Eric's grandmother makes sure that we behave here. She's a nice old lady. She bakes pies.

 

[Henry]

Azlan, something you said makes your opinion suspect to me, and it has nothing to do with your magic item critiques.

To be sure, they had a target audience in mind when they first rolled out 3E D&D, with the "PowerPlay" column in Dragon Magazine to showcase how "cool" and how "sweet" 3E D&D was designed to be.

With WotC, I believe it's more about money-making than it is about what they personally enjoy in an RPG. (That is, if they even play RPGs for fun, e.g. ttp://www.montecook.com/anrant.html)

Always bear in mind: This is the same company who puts out Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, and now Harry Potter the CCG.

Feh.

Had you read Monte's later posts on his own message boards, you would know that this has no grounding in truth. He admits that the design staff of WotC is not what he had in mind, but instead freelance and small-publishing designers he has known who write for games that they don't even play. To imply that all of WotC only writes for money-making is to slight a whole bunch of dedicated people.

According to Anthony Valterra, Business Mgr. for WotC, in a post in the General Forums, EVERYBODY in R&D, and almost everybody but the freakin' accountants, play a weekly or monthly game. You won't score points here by slamming the makers of the game.

----------------

Now, in regards to the magic item costs, I will say - mistakes in power balance abound. What is and isn't a mistake sometimes only come out in extensive play. I won't say that a +40 to jump is a mistake, but if someone wants to spend 4000 gold on that instead of a decent magical sword and armor, that's fine with me as a DM. A jump bonus can't save you from a flying creature (they are quite common, as you know), nor will it save you from a dragon's breath, or an arrow's sting, or a Sphinx's riddle. If the PC's enjoy their jump bonus in preference to bonuses to diplomacy, or attack, or defense, then more power to them.

I submit that people who are worried about items like these aren't thinking dangerously enough. The REAL dangerous items are items that defy basic physical laws. You don't see too many characters dying to have portable holes, decanters of endless water, and immovable rods, but THERE is where the real power lies. Anyone who have seen those articles on "101 uses for a portable hole" etc. know what I refer to.

A decanter of endless water can change landscapes, can make an adventurer filthy rich without lifting his sword, can destroy a dungeon's worth of monsters, and many things invloving an ENDLESS supply of water.

A portable hole can start a transportation industry overnight. Need a caravan to move that 7 tons of gold bullion? HA! one lightly armored and fast man can move it for you overnight. Does anyone need to transport hazardous metrials from point A to point B without worrying about spillage? Portable hole to the rescue!

Give me a portable hole and a major land war, and I'LL show you unbalanced. With a fair DM, I could own half a continent the size of Africa in five years. And I'll never raise a sword to do it.

 

[Mortaneus]

You want some real fun? Take a look at the Bracelet of Friends.

Need to rescue the princess? *poof*

Need to help a friend escape a grapple? *poof*

Need to find a notorious bandit chieftan? *poof*

Need to break a friend out of jail? *poof*

Need to get the party into somewhere that only a rogue has a chance of entering without being noticed? *poof* *poof* *poof*

It's inexpensive, effective, and even one of the charms can break a GM's carefully crafted plot across it's proverbial knee.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

Note - since this gives you a fly speed ... the damm thing is enhanced by those blasted boots.

Um...I thought SS boots only enhanced natural movement. Hence why they don't stack with a high level monk's movement (which is a supernatural ability).

I don't think it's that far of a stretch that magical wings grant magical flying ability and wouldn't stack with SS boots.

 

[AGGEMAM]

I don't think it's that far of a stretch that magical wings grant magical flying ability and wouldn't stack with SS boots.

According to the Fly spell description, flying is considered normal movement for those who it is cast upon.