"Weenie List" of Ubiquitous & Popular Magic Items

[Jeremy]

The community is an upstanding one. It's not perfect, but it is well to the extreme of the excellent end of the spectrum.

Have a little tolerance people. And an appreciation for a board where answers come in minutes instead of days, feedback is varied and well supported, debate is encouraged, and interest is high 24/7/365.

Bad things happen, but the number of bad things that happen is far outweighed by the sheer amount of creative energy, support, constructive criticism, and raw input that goes into this place.

 

[Tobold Hornblower]

Shaele, you mean attacks like where Azlan says--"In fact, now there seems to be a core group of trolls, hecklers, and rules-lawyers entrenched here"--attacking this entire community?

He's just here trying to tweak folks with statements like that. He calls anyone a 'weenie' who wants to be like Frodo and wear a mithral shirt, and does so right in the subject of his thread; what else could he be about? But still a lot of people have allowed themselves to be played by him.

I'll go back to lurking now.

 

[Pielorinho]

Azlan, I agree that the signal-to-noise ratio on these boards isn’t as good as it used to be. Wanna know how you don’t fix that? By focusing on it and posting about it all the time. Posts about how little D&D conversations the boards have nowadays aren’t, mirabile dictu, posts about D&D.

Learn the Ignore Function. Use it. Love it.

And, if you want to get this thread back on track, don’t respond any more to real or perceived attacks on you here. If you wanna leave the forums, be careful of the swinging door that might hit you on the butt on the way out – but we don’t need to hear about it. Grand exits from message boards are never grand.

If you want to stay, however, then look through this thread for the sincere, honest responses you’ve gotten, and think about them, and respond politely and thoughtfully to them. My previous response in this thread, in which I talk about why adventurers rationally OUGHT to be looking for these items, and ways to make the items less commodified, would be one good place to start.

And ignore the tweakers.

Daniel

 

[AGGEMAM]

Just as an extension on the comment above by Pielorinho I would like to say, remember not everybody sees things the same way as you, that doesn't mean they are more right than you are. That's just they way they see it. And you opinion is just the you see it as well. If you stick by your opinion, though, people will in the long run accept that.

And secondly, do not use the ignore function, remember people change, have off-days, and generally may have good points on other subject, which you'll miss out on if you use it.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Just as an extension on the comment above by Pielorinho .

And secondly, do not use the ignore function, remember people change, have off-days, and generally may have good points on other subject, which you'll miss out on if you use it.

I never used it, heck I didn't even know about it until recently. But, some people I think can be ignored. Sure some poeple have oof days, but some poeple's off days are the ones where they are constructive.

 

[Azlan]

He calls anyone a 'weenie' who wants to be like Frodo and wear a mithral shirt, and does so right in the subject of his thread

I call it the "weenie list" not the "weenie's list". It's the items themselves that are weenies. (I suppose it could be argued that those who make overuse of the weenie list are themselves weenies. But isn't "munchkin" or "powergamer" the correct term for a player like this?)

I call these items "weenies" because they are relatively cheap magic items, and by themselves they are not very powerful; but when this combination of items are stacked together on a single character (and their bonuses do all stack!), they can make that character powerful indeed (particularly if that character is only mid-level). With the starting wealth of only a 7th level character, you can buy almost the entire list of items! (An 8th level character can buy the entire list, and still have change left over.)

This reminds me to beg the question: Why quadruple the price between a +1 and a +2 item? The way bonuses work in the game, they're pretty much linear in value. So, why this great, exponential jump in price? This, more than anything else, accounts for the "weenie-ness" of these items; e.g. why buy a +4 chain shirt for 16,000 gps, when you can buy a +1 chain shirt, a +1 amulet of "natural armor", a +1 ring of protection, and +2 gloves of dexterity for only 9,000 gps?

Also, there are a few items on the list that are clearly underpriced. These include the Keen and Energy enchantments, the Boots of Striding & Leaping, the Mithril Shirt, and the Eyes of the Eagle. (Oh, and Heward's Haversack -- especially if it allows you to draw an item from it as a free action.)

 

[DM with a vengence]

On why the exponential jump in magic item increase.
All of the small +1 magic items require their own slot, and if you have (or need to have) a bunch of magic items, then you may have trouble finding places to put them all.

What if you need that ring slot for a Ring of Jumping, the amulet slot for a Golembane scarab, and can't wear gloves because you use the Spider Climb spell (okay, I know I reaching here). You only have about 14 slots, and at high levels space to put magic items can be more important than the magic itself.

 

[Magus_Jerel]

1) I seem to recall the Sage saying that SS boots didn't stack with magical or supernatural effects. Alas, I cannot point to this, and even if I could, you would say that the Sage is often wrong.

What that e-mail referred to was the fact that expeditious retreat and the boots of S&S don't stack with each other.

2) What exactly is the point of using the word "normal" in the description for SS boots? This seems like a restriction.

Yes - it is.

If you are climbing a cliff - and do not have a climb speed, or swimming, and lack a swim speed (Most PC's fall into this category) your rate of movement is unmodifed by the boots. Unless you count falling as "flying without a flight speed", it is impossible to get true flight without a fly speed. You don't get the benefits of the boots on something like the movement awarded you by a levitate spell - for example.

ONLY spells or abilities that EXPLICITLY award or alter a SPEED are affected. The monk's Unarmored ground speed, the barbarian's fast movement, and the fly spell all change speeds - not "award movement" - like the levitate spell.

Hope that helps.

 

[Pielorinho]

What DMWaV said, plus: stacking.

We often, as players, go into big battles with a mage armor, a protection from evil, a cat's grace, and a barkskin up. This gives us, at fifth level, a +10 to +12 bonus to our armor class.

Imagine that we've invested in a +2 chain shirt. We still get a +7-9 bonus to our AC: only the mage armor spell becomes useless.

OTOH, if we have a +1 ring o' protection, a +1 chain shirt, a +1 amulet of natural armor, and gloves of dexterity +2, then our spells only get our AC up to +4-6. The ring's bonus is covered up by the protection from evil, the glove's bonus is covered up by the cat's grace, and the amulet's bonus is covered up by the barkskin. The mage armor, of course, is covered up in both cases by the chain shirt.

When you concentrate on getting one really powerful item, then you have an easier time shoring up your weak areas with spells or weaker items. When you spread your wealth around, however, you have a harder time excelling in one area.

Daniel

 

[WizarDru]

I call these items "weenies" because they are relatively cheap magic items, and by themselves they are not very powerful; but when this combination of items are stacked together on a single character (and their bonuses do all stack!), they can make that character powerful indeed (particularly if that character is only mid-level). With the starting wealth of only a 7th level character, you can buy almost the entire list of items! (An 8th level character can buy the entire list, and still have change left over.)

Perhaps you can define 'overuse' as you see it. If you mean that all players purchase them if they can, then I can only tell you that IME, it ain't necessarily so. While the mithral chain shirt is a great buy, many character don't purchase it for a variety of reasons. Ask the druid and the low-ST wizard, for example. You may as well complain that certain spells are overused...and you'd be right. But that's part of the game as designed. It's assumed that the average character will purchase a bag of holding, for example.

The problem with the 'starting wealth of 7th level character' theory, is that you have to do two things: first, generate the character at that level and spend the lump sum of gold, and two, have ready access to said material and items. A character created as a 7th-level character and given the starting wealth can do this...but a character who has clawed his way up from 1st-level likely won't...unless all of his treasure is in cash, and no found items (remembering that the wealth levels so listed are including the value of magic items they should have found or made by that point).

Also, there are a few items on the list that are clearly underpriced. These include the Keen and Energy enchantments, the Boots of Striding & Leaping, the Mithril Shirt, and the Eyes of the Eagle. (Oh, and Heward's Haversack -- especially if it allows you to draw an item from it as a free action.)

The Boots of Striding and Springing were errated. At their new price, they're still worth it...but not really that unbalancing. Considering the keen and energy enchantments need to be layered on top of a +1 enchantment, they're not that amazingly cheap. The haversack was a good item, regardless. Look at the iconics...they ALL get one by 10th level. And so does everyone else, usually. You may argue that this is exactly the problem. In which case we'll just have to disagree.

It sounds like you don't like the prolifieration of magic items within the game in general. This is certainly a valid taste issue, but more within the purview of the DM to control. Furthermore, given that by 7th level, the mage can make a weapon a keen, flaming +2 item every day, the relative cost of those items isn't really that crazy, either. The main difference is the cost in spell slots and prep time, as well as the fact that it can be dispelled as opposed to temporarily suppressed.

All in all, while I understand your dissatisfaction, I think you paint with too broad a brush. There are legitimate reasons to use these items, the same way as a fighter will choose to use a weapon and a cleric or wizard will use spells. A fighter who specializes in archery will eventually get a mighty longbow. That's simply the reality of the game. Choosing specific magic items is little different at the mathematics level than that, it's just a difference in flavor.