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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7808663" data-attributes="member: 996">It did.  And it reigned in some of the most OP/character-re-defining and cursed items, too.  But, items were still a very important component of PC effectiveness, were not readily dispensable, and were counted on to give mundane classes the magic they needed to remain at all relevant as the game progressed.3e, like 4e, also made magic items a more payer-facing resource.  Both 3e & 4e did that sort of thing a lot, more decisions, more agency, was on the player side of the screen - heck, there wasn't even much of a point to the screen in 4e - the DM's role was less all-encompassing.  If you wanted to point up the DM as the defining essence of D&D, you might have to count out both 3e & 4e as not /really/ D&D.Magic items became more common, available & player-controlled in both 3e and 4e, yes.  But, it was in 4e that their impact declined precipitously.  That's part of why I chose "Primacy" of magic, rather than 'power' or 'superiority' or 'prevalence.'   As the Essence of D&D, Magic is the most significant thing, not the only thing, it can be rare or relatively common, it can be easy to use or strictly limited, as long as it matters sufficiently more than the mundane alternatives.  Magic was very limited in 1e, items were rare and claiming them risked picking up a nasty cursed version, spells were few and hard to cast safely in combat.  3e & 4e made items readily available.  Every edition made casting easier than the one before.But, only 4e made magic dispensable, and that made it not D&D anymore. My experience back in the day did, especially when it came to higher levels.  New players would either naturally play the fighter, or be dragooned into playing the cleric.  More experienced ones would play the MU, more often... but... at low level you'd see a mix of single-class fighters & the obligatory cleric and MC fighter/magic-users, magic-user/thief, etc... MCs being pretty dominant, really, even among experienced players.  If you ran higher level off the cuff, you'd get a lot of single-class MUs.  Where'd they come from?  IDK?  In some cases things as out there as an MC'd something/something/MU, unable to circumvent racial level limits any other way, contriving to become human via Wish, Reincarnate, or some other shenanigans.  It's not exactly a weak basis.  It's also not the whole story, IMHO, since the fighter most resembles, in concept, the familiar heroes of legend & genre.</blockquote>

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