Community

I have made a few threads on different topics in this vein, and its all about finding out if there are many people out there who share my views on things, as it seems people who agree with me tend to be a quieter sort but come out of the woodwork when prompted.

Today, magic items. Looking through the list, my first reaction is I love how they have split up even basic magic items to give them more depth, utility and more importantly a magical feel, you can know where it comes from, who made it and what look it gets all with plenty of leway for fudging the fluff. As for balance, what you get can go wildly between useful and useless but ... well that is going to be the crux of my question.

A lot of people are complaining about the imbalance between items, and the main items that seem to be attracting attention are giant / ogre strength related. Saying those static numbers should not be given in any circumstance.

First of all, if your like me and roll for magic items effects, why should the results be of equal power? Its not imbalance its just the effect of luck, much like 1 on a d20 is not imbalanced compared to a 10, its just the luck of the roll, you dont try to balance that.

My main issue is, why should there be balance between magical items, and why should the more powerful ones (such as gauntlets / belt of giant strength) be reined in. The DM is the one who is given the options of what to give out and players cant just expect items, rather than time spent on balance, I would rather a more detailed piece of information go out to guide new DMs into what is appropriate and what are the effects of giving out certain items. As they stand, they are big, special game changers, and they do feel good as magical items, I don't want to lose that.

This is not like class imbalance, this is imbalance that can benefit everyone situationally.

So... anyone on my side of the fence at all? 

Oct 10, 2012 -- 7:18AM, OrwellianHaggis wrote:

Oct 10, 2012 -- 6:52AM, JayM wrote:

You don't try to balance individual die rolls because there are a lot of them and over time the average will balance. Magic items don't work that way, a character who gets an overly powerful item or an overly weak one can alter the party balance for much of a campaign.

In the last 3e campaign I played in the DM rolled randomly for which magic items the party found in treasure (expect for a few planted plot related items). My archer ranger was unlucky and never once found a magic ranged weapon in a campaign that ran several years. If the characters didn't have the option of buying magic items in this game, my character would have been rendered totally useless by the random distribution of magic items. This would be as bad as a system where characters are designed for specific magic items.

I think you took a wrong turn, thats not even close to the point I was making. As much as I roll for magic items, I often fudge results on everything, I dont let players miss out too much, likewise I dont let one player be showered in riches constantly. I know a powerful magical item can shift the course of a campaign... but its a powerful magic item surely thats what its meant to do. I just think DMs should know this before they give them out and plan accorgingly.

You examples show how it is important for a DM to know how a magic item will affect their campaign. I think this is where some people have issues. You know how powerful something is from experience, but a new DM should be able to quickly know how powerful and items is, so they know whether or not to put it in the game or not. If you have a wide range of power in a group or subgroup (rare, very rare, etc.) of magic items then a DM with less experience might unknowingly introduce an item that can break their game.

I think that each magic item should be relatively balanced with other items of its rarity and then the section on rarity should have a chart describing how game breaking each rarity is.

On this same note I consider value to be a sign of an items relative power, and I use this to balance what items I give the party and who gets them. I should be the developers job, not the DMs, to assign a value that accurately represents the power of an item.

I'm kind of 50-50 on rolling or choosing magic items. I do place specific items when it's plot-dependent, or when the rolls just haven't turned up something for one character in a long time. I don't want my PCs to feel neglected.

I will also re-roll if I think something that came up randomly just won't work, or if the party already has fourteen Oil of Slipperiness and that's what came up on the dice. The DMG should definitely include guidelines on magic items.