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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 4791009" data-attributes="member: 58197">I've disliked the whole concept of +X items (+1 sword, +2 armor, et cetera) for as long as I can remember. With 4E, I'm finding that all of my problems are coming into very sharp relief. To wit:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They push players to get rid of their beloved old magic items so they can keep up with the new shiny.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They complicate character math. It's one more fiddly number to keep track of, and change every time you get new gear.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They force the DM to hew to the book's treasure guidelines or throw the game math out of whack. If a 5th-level party has +4 gear, or a 25th-level party has +2 gear, the numbers go all screwy. Furthermore, the DM has to make sure the party gets a steady stream of the weapons they use - if there's a guy who wields a triple-headed flail in the party, then every few levels the party needs to encounter a monster with a triple-headed flail.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They inflate the importance of a character's gear over the character's abilities. This is less of a problem in 4E than it was in 3E, but it's still there to some extent.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They necessitate a ludicrous economic system. In order to keep the +4 gear out of the 5th-level party's hands, it gets priced in the millions of gold pieces, and treasure guidelines for the 25th-level party are equally inflated.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They're fundamentally boring. Give me a frost blade, a flame tongue sword, a cape of the mountebank, a staff of the magi. Those are interesting and evocative magic items. A +5 sword? Meh. One more number in a game full of them.</li> </ul>Against all that, what's the benefit?  I can't think of one except "D&D has always had them."What does everyone else think?</blockquote>

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