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1 year ago ::
Jan 19, 2012 - 10:04PM
#21
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Look around. The world is full of stuff designed for the lazy
And those things are great, but they're not entertaining. They are functional. I don't play D&D to get functional items for my character.
But the vast majority of players do. They want the item that will make their character a stud.
Now what does that actually mean? It may sound nice, but it seems to have no real meaning.
+X items aren't fantastic. Or exciting. They are mundane items that you are guaranteed to get because the mathematics of the game ensures your DM will hand them out to you.
So you are saying the game should give the PC additional magic, something functional plus something cool? That is simply wasted effort.
Give them broken stuff that should be reserved for epic games?
Now your idea of "cool things" seems to be largely undefined, expect where it can be defined as causing a broken game.
Items are are cool and serve the purpose of the story:
Now how is that supposed to work? The story is largely the role of the DM, not the player. The DM can give a PC a special item that will be needed by the story, but that is shoving it into his hands, not supplying the player's desires or needs
Bag of Tricks
- Folding Boat
- Boots of Levitation
- Decanter of Endless Water
- Deck of Illusions
- Dust of Appearance
- Figurines of Wondrous Power
- Eversmoking Bottle
- Necklace of Adaptation
- Portable Hole
- Robe of Useful Items
- Golembane Scarab
The list goes on.
And each of these items is useless or encounter breaking, depending on circumstances. No golem in the battle? the item is trash. There is a golem, it has been nerfed. Either way, the item has not helped the game.
Strange, I and most players I play with are obsessed with finding ways to add a +1.
Why? The mathematics that fuel combat ensures that by the time you get it, the monster's defences will have gone up by the bonus to compensate. The DMG's treasure parcel system also ensures that you'll get them at the appropriate level and not a moment before.
Right. We are rats on an exercise wheel, rushing to get nowhere. But notice the rat does stay on the wheel. and that is what we want the player to do too, working like that rat to get somewhere he can't reach.
No effort is required on your part. Your DM will ensure you get the treasure you need to survive.
What requires no effort is not valued.
JohnLynch means, is rather than have magic weapons give a bonus to hit/damage(That's the +x), He's saying that they should just be flavored, like flaming, or holy, or hit's harder against an opponent who has caused the wielder injury, that sort of thing.
Yes! In the very first module of one of our campaigns, my character received a weapon from the ghost of a dead lord who had been given this sword direct from the King of Nerath. D&D Mathematics means that this weapon had to be a +1
When everyone around me started getting +2 items, I had to pull my DM aside and say "look. I don't care how many other weapons you throw my character's way, his current weapon has so much significance to him, he'll simply sell them and keep using his +1 Sword. I don't care that he'll slowly but steadily become fall behind the power curve, he'll keep using this sword."
The DM was okay with it, because he understood my character's motivations. But he then had to houserule ways for my sword to grow in power. I want to play an edition of D&D where this house rule isn't necessary.
You would do much better to try to make this houserule standard.
When I play Pathfinder, there are so many cool cloak items. Do you know how many times I've seen a PC wear them? 0 times. Because the mathematics requires they wear those Cloak of Resistances +X.
Which means the players prefer the functional over the fun stuff and we should follow their desires and forget the cool stuff.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 19, 2012 - 10:36PM
#22
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The issue with +x items is that players don't prefer the functional over the fun (and fun items are themselves fuctional, but more specialized and inventive). They pick the +x items for the same reason they pay their feat tax to get those precious +1s to attack; the game's encounter challenge rating system is built with the assumption that they would. Basically, having fun makes you lose the game.
What the game needs is a challenge rating modifier for magic items. For example, lets say Knight McFighter, Naught Gondolf, and Sneeky von Picksalock are a party whose party level, or some equivalent challenge rating score, is 3. Then they drop a bridge on a dragon and get some really cool magic items as a reward for their skill and cunning both as characters and as players. These items would modify their score, allowing for the DM to know the appropriate challenge regardless of how many or how few magic items they have.
Furthermore, since each item would be a modifier to that score, he can take into account which magic items are simply not applicable; Gauntlets of Earthquake while on a ship, Rod of Fire when facing efreet, Rings of Feather Fall in a place where there isn't any falling to be done or any other sort of situation where a magic item is not going to be used. In such cases the DM would just subtract those magic items from the party total, and plan accordingly.
In short, the game should be built to accomodate the vagaries of having different magic items as a core feature of the challenge rating system.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 5:09AM
#23
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Look around. The world is full of stuff designed for the lazy
And those things are great, but they're not entertaining. They are functional. I don't play D&D to get functional items for my character.
But the vast majority of players do. They want the item that will make their character a stud.
[snip]
Which means the players prefer the functional over the fun stuff and we should follow their desires and forget the cool stuff.
No.
What it means is they want the MOST POWERFUL items.
Many players would be REALLY HAPPY if the most powerful item was also the coolest; but due to the design philosophy/techniques of both 3.x and 4e, the most powerful items are generally not particularly cool; with a few exceptions.
Hence why I proposed, in the OP, a rule of "if it's not preferable, in at least some scenarios, to a flat +1/+2 (without having a flat +1/+2) then it needs to be buffed up"
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 5:59AM
#24
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Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2010
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Get rid of +x items. It's pretty sad when the group's fighter has to give up his +1 sword of flaming coolness just because the plain +2 sword he just found is better due to the game's math scaling.
Or you can keep +x weapons, but only apply the +x bonus to damage rolls. That way, a +2 sword is still better than a +1 sword, but using a +1 sword doesn't totally gimp your character's ability to contribute.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:16AM
#25
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Date Joined:
Jan 10, 2008
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Get rid of +x items. It's pretty sad when the group's fighter has to give up his +1 sword of flaming coolness just because the plain +2 sword he just found is better due to the game's math scaling.
Or you can keep +x weapons, but only apply the +x bonus to damage rolls. That way, a +2 sword is still better than a +1 sword, but using a +1 sword doesn't totally gimp your character's ability to contribute.
+1.
A character's ability to hit something should not be dependent on the weapon/implement. I strongly prefer a system where the weapon scales with the character (or fix the math so they don't need to scale at all). By the end of my career, I want adventurer's out looking for Brys' Bloodletter because I made the weapon awesome, not the other way around.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:31AM
#26
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Date Joined:
Apr 21, 2011
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Get rid of +x items. It's pretty sad when the group's fighter has to give up his +1 sword of flaming coolness just because the plain +2 sword he just found is better due to the game's math scaling.
Or you can keep +x weapons, but only apply the +x bonus to damage rolls. That way, a +2 sword is still better than a +1 sword, but using a +1 sword doesn't totally gimp your character's ability to contribute.
+1.
You shouldn't give a +1 to this post...
You should give a Flaming or a Lifesteal, but not a Flat +1 !
I'm playing:
Abin Gadon, Halfling Bard
Winston "Slurphnose", Gnome Sorcerer
Pasiphaé, Minotaur Shaman
Eglerion, Elf Ellyrian Reaver (Ranger)
DMing:
Le Trésor du Fluide (Treasure from the Fluid)
Un Royaume d'une Grande Valeur (A Kingdom of Great Value)
La Légende de Persitaa (Persitaa's Legend)
Une Série de Petites Quêtes... (A serie of short quests)
Playtesting:
Caves of Chaos
We're building the greatest adventure ever known to DnD players!
Also playing Legend of the Five Rings and Warhammer Fantasy.
Sébastien, Beloeil, Qc.
I am Neutral Good and 32 years old.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:40AM
#27
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isn't there a button in the character builder that auto-adds that + to characters so they don't need the level specific items anymore?
I think also the idea was that as you leveled, your +1 sword of flaming coolness would auto level to its next teir when you hit a certain level. From a dm standpoint, rather than hand out a new item, you could always have them dip their blade into a font of power, or bathe it in the blood of a monster they killed to juice it up.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:46AM
#28
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Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2010
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isn't there a button in the character builder that auto-adds that + to characters so they don't need the level specific items anymore?
I think also the idea was that as you leveled, your +1 sword of flaming coolness would auto level to its next teir when you hit a certain level. From a dm standpoint, rather than hand out a new item, you could always have them dip their blade into a font of power, or bathe it in the blood of a monster they killed to juice it up.
Yup, inherent bonuses. I use them.
That's a cool idea, reminds me of third edition's weapons of legacy. Which were a totally awesome concept.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:50AM
#29
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Date Joined:
Feb 10, 2007
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isn't there a button in the character builder that auto-adds that + to characters so they don't need the level specific items anymore?
I think also the idea was that as you leveled, your +1 sword of flaming coolness would auto level to its next teir when you hit a certain level. From a dm standpoint, rather than hand out a new item, you could always have them dip their blade into a font of power, or bathe it in the blood of a monster they killed to juice it up.
Is this really true?
That is truly amusing. I play a video game that does that.
To be honest, I think that it's pretty cheesy.
I hope you all don't mind if I say I hope this isn't remotely necessary in the new rules.
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1 year ago ::
Jan 20, 2012 - 6:52AM
#30
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From a dm standpoint, rather than hand out a new item, you could always have them dip their blade into a font of power, or bathe it in the blood of a monster they killed to juice it up.
We actually do use those rules in my game.
The problem for me is, due to the structure of magic items in 4e, there are no magic items which have a property WotC considered better than, or even as good as, a simple +1, as an item with a property is at most level 5+, whereas level 6+ is an additional +1
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