What kind of game should D&D be?--Forked Thread: When did I stop being...

[Mallus]

It may have been common practice, but it wasn't in the rules.

It was an implicit part of the design that should have been made explicit in the rules, IMHO.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

1. Free access in buying magic items in 3E was suggested in the DMG, and so can be considered core.

It's certainly possible that's true and I'm just not remembering where this is suggested, do you have any specific pages to reference?

2. Magic items were a critical part of character customization and optimization in 4E, while they have a much smaller impact in 4E.

Was that first 4E supposed to be 3E? Assuming that's what you meant, I disagree. There are a lot less buff effects in 4E than 3E, and the carefully crafted values for NPC defenses assumes you have a +x weapon/implement at the appropriate level to help hit it, so arguably items are more important in 4E, at least in rules design. No doubt you could obtain more power with extra money in 3E, though. So I call it a wash.

[sblock]Once was in a 10th level group with 4-5x the normal gp for their level that successfully fought off a group of level 20 enemies the DM had sent specifically to kill the party off and end the game, which had spiraled out of control (from poor DMing). Also helped that the DM let us buy anything with the money.[/sblock]

3. In 4E, what you can buy/afford/create is always less than what you find in treasure hoards, emphasizing found items over bought items. 3E's Wealth by level allowed you to purchase optimal gear.

Wealth by level was for starting at higher level and is similar to $E's system that dictates how much of and what level of gear you can pick up. It generalizes that if you had leveled from 1 till now, this would be the gear you'd have arrived at, and if you look at the treasure gains expected from encounters, the amount you gain puts you above the wealth by level numbers. This is because the game assumes you're paying for consumable items and occasionally selling back gear for a 50% loss for something nicer. As far as treasure hoards go, the items are sold back at half market price in 3E, so if you wanted an item from it for yourself, you only have to put in that amount of gp to the group "pot," rather than paying double that amount at the magic walmart. So I don't understand where you're going with this.

 

[Obryn]

It may have been common practice, but it wasn't in the rules. The core rules had set price limits for how much the highest priced item in a community could be worth and the maximum amount of movable assets they could muster if some PCs came in with cartloads of loot to sell.

As an aside, I think magic item creation feats more or less neutralized this point. While objects may not be available for sale, a Wizard could likely make most anything the party needed.

-O

 

[Psion]

As an aside, I think magic item creation feats more or less neutralized this point. While objects may not be available for sale, a Wizard could likely make most anything the party needed.

I don't think so. Feat choice was a limited commodity (if you could get magic items from Waterdeep General Store, you have less reason to invest your feats), and some players were really loathe to depart with XP. I think it's practically true for cheap single shot items at lower levels, but at high levels, the DMs decision on how to treat this has a major impact on the way the game plays out.

I should know. I've spent many long threads debating with 3e DMs who made a different assumption here than I did, and resulted in entirely different experiences in the way our games played.

And yet I, too, was abiding by the core here.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I don't think so. Feat choice was a limited commodity (if you could get magic items from Waterdeep General Store, you have less reason to invest your feats), and some players were really loathe to depart with XP. I think it's practically true for cheap single shot items at lower levels, but at high levels, the DMs decision on how to treat this has a major impact on the way the game plays out.

I should know. I've spent many long threads debating with 3e DMs who made a different assumption here than I did, and resulted in entirely different experiences in the way our games played.

And yet I, too, was abiding by the core here.

QFT here. It really depended on the game. A full service Wal-Mart of magic items made these feats useless. On the other hand, if your DM was stingy with magic item availability, the ability to customize your(and the party's) gear was probably the most powerful thing you could do with feats.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I chose point-buy/classless, but that's really because I think if you're going to have a system with customizable aspects that those aspects should be completely open to player building and not picked out of a suit of pre-built parts.

Pre-built parts sound nice, but from my experience with D&D (and from reading the True20 "choose your class features as feats" system) those parts do not seem worth their being so many different ones. The common "there don't need to be more than one +2/+2 to skills feats" is just one example. Taking a quick look at what other core feats do they mostly seem to be either "eliminate a penalty to an action" or "add +X to something". Sometimes both. Eliminate all the ones that could be summed up in less space and you're left with a rather meager list. I can now see why some people like going back to featless.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I voted class and level, because thats what D&D is. And regarding to the 3e-hybrid-thing: Haha.