Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why average wealth by level is a good thing.
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 5557238" data-attributes="member: 58197"><p>On the 4E front, I spent a while last night banging around with test characters (thank you, Essentials, for making it sooooo much easier to create test characters and calculate their damage output) and a big ol' spreadsheet, and worked out what I think is a tolerable system to estimate "magic item power" as distinct from "character power." Here are a few of the things I came up with:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Weapon that deals 1d6 bonus damage on a hit, once per round (2d6 at epic): +0.5 level</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Arcane implement that adds 2 bonus damage to all damage rolls (3 at paragon, 4 at epic): +0.5 level</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Increase the user's max hit points by 8 (14 at paragon, 20 at epic): +0.5 level</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Grant resist 4 all damage (6 at paragon, 8 at epic): +1 level</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">1/round when you hit a bloodied foe, deal 1d8 bonus damage and heal yourself the same amount (2d6 at paragon, 3d6 at epic): +1 level</li> </ul><p>So, for instance, if you're an 8th-level fighter wielding a <em>flame tongue sword</em> which deals 1d6 bonus fire damage, and wearing a <em>periapt of endurance</em> which gives you 8 extra hit points, you're effectively a 9th-level fighter for purposes of encounter difficulty. Obviously, I haven't had a chance to playtest any of this, but it looks in the right ballpark, at least*.</p><p></p><p>The approach I used was to create a set of "baseline characters"--a knight, a thief, a mage, and a warpriest, which are the Essentials versions of fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric respectively. I then worked out estimates of how their hit points, defenses, damage output**, and attack bonuses would scale over the course of 30 levels. That enabled me to compare "level X character with item" to "level X+1 character without" and see how they stacked up... or, rather, to make the spreadsheet do it for me, since I don't feel like crunching those numbers for 30 levels across 4 classes.</p><p></p><p>That takes care of simple bonuses like damage add-ons or boosts to your hit points. For more interesting stuff, I had to get more creative. With the armor that grants damage resistance, I used standard monster damage to estimate how many hit points it would save the wearer over the course of getting beaten down to zero, and treated it as granting that many extra hit points. With the life-draining weapon, I treated it as a combination of increased hit points and bonus damage, then chopped the numbers in half since it only works on bloodied targets.</p><p></p><p>In principle, this same approach could be used in 3.5. The hardest part would be hammering out what the "baseline characters" ought to look like. After that, it would work the same way... could probably even use the same spreadsheet, with modifications.</p><p></p><p>[size=-2]*Well, as long as you don't pile on too many "magic item levels." I wouldn't go past 2 levels' worth of items, tops.</p><p></p><p>**This got tricky with the warpriest. Knight and thief are straightforward, and I built the mage as a pyromancer to keep her simple, but a large part of a warpriest's value to the party comes in the form of healing, which doesn't slot in neatly. I ended up folding healing magic into the warpriest's damage output, at 5/8 value since PCs have about 5/8 the hit points of monsters, and allowing for the fact that healing spells always "hit." I suspect I'm going to have to go back and do those numbers over, though... they scale very unevenly, due to certain spells adding a monster boost when they come online.[/size]</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dausuul, post: 5557238, member: 58197"] On the 4E front, I spent a while last night banging around with test characters (thank you, Essentials, for making it sooooo much easier to create test characters and calculate their damage output) and a big ol' spreadsheet, and worked out what I think is a tolerable system to estimate "magic item power" as distinct from "character power." Here are a few of the things I came up with: [list][*]Weapon that deals 1d6 bonus damage on a hit, once per round (2d6 at epic): +0.5 level [*]Arcane implement that adds 2 bonus damage to all damage rolls (3 at paragon, 4 at epic): +0.5 level [*]Increase the user's max hit points by 8 (14 at paragon, 20 at epic): +0.5 level [*]Grant resist 4 all damage (6 at paragon, 8 at epic): +1 level [*]1/round when you hit a bloodied foe, deal 1d8 bonus damage and heal yourself the same amount (2d6 at paragon, 3d6 at epic): +1 level[/list] So, for instance, if you're an 8th-level fighter wielding a [i]flame tongue sword[/i] which deals 1d6 bonus fire damage, and wearing a [i]periapt of endurance[/i] which gives you 8 extra hit points, you're effectively a 9th-level fighter for purposes of encounter difficulty. Obviously, I haven't had a chance to playtest any of this, but it looks in the right ballpark, at least*. The approach I used was to create a set of "baseline characters"--a knight, a thief, a mage, and a warpriest, which are the Essentials versions of fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric respectively. I then worked out estimates of how their hit points, defenses, damage output**, and attack bonuses would scale over the course of 30 levels. That enabled me to compare "level X character with item" to "level X+1 character without" and see how they stacked up... or, rather, to make the spreadsheet do it for me, since I don't feel like crunching those numbers for 30 levels across 4 classes. That takes care of simple bonuses like damage add-ons or boosts to your hit points. For more interesting stuff, I had to get more creative. With the armor that grants damage resistance, I used standard monster damage to estimate how many hit points it would save the wearer over the course of getting beaten down to zero, and treated it as granting that many extra hit points. With the life-draining weapon, I treated it as a combination of increased hit points and bonus damage, then chopped the numbers in half since it only works on bloodied targets. In principle, this same approach could be used in 3.5. The hardest part would be hammering out what the "baseline characters" ought to look like. After that, it would work the same way... could probably even use the same spreadsheet, with modifications. [size=-2]*Well, as long as you don't pile on too many "magic item levels." I wouldn't go past 2 levels' worth of items, tops. **This got tricky with the warpriest. Knight and thief are straightforward, and I built the mage as a pyromancer to keep her simple, but a large part of a warpriest's value to the party comes in the form of healing, which doesn't slot in neatly. I ended up folding healing magic into the warpriest's damage output, at 5/8 value since PCs have about 5/8 the hit points of monsters, and allowing for the fact that healing spells always "hit." I suspect I'm going to have to go back and do those numbers over, though... they scale very unevenly, due to certain spells adding a monster boost when they come online.[/size] [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Why average wealth by level is a good thing.
Top