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Summary: Nominally about magic item levels, what this article really touches upon is DM control.  Here is the salient passage from Collins' article (emphasis in the original):
Fourth Edition D&D ... explicitly link[s] a magic item's level to its price. For example, all 9th-level magic items now cost the same number of gp to craft or to purchase. This makes it even easier to gauge a magic item's appropriateness for your game at a glance.

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Ultimately, assigning levels to magic items sends a message to players and DMs: Here's when this item is most appropriate for your game. Once that information is in your hands, of course, it's up to you to use it as best befits your game! Magic item levels were thus intended to be a tool for DMs to help craft the campaign.

What this article is talking about is the connection between the cost of the magic item, and the worth of it. In 3ed, two magic items could have the same pricetag, but one could be a better buy for the gold. Also, some magic items gave PCs abilities at haphazard intervals (flying and phasing at low-levels, for example).

The point here is that a magic item below level 6 would give a +1 bonus to a combat number, or +2 to a skill number. The control for DMs is that you can tell players to pick magic items of a certain level, and be reasonably sure that it won't create a frightening Rube Goldberg machine that punches way above its weight class.
   

  Evaluation: It did not work.  4e kept three features from 3e that would ensure that magic items remained almost entirely within the player's domain. First, magic items were found in the Players' Handbook.  Anything found in the Players' Handbook is going to be presumed to be within the players' purview. Second, at least three categories of magic items (neck, weapon, armor) were required for players to maintain. Players would want to control the items they are required to possess in order to meet math benchmarks. Finally, and most importantly, the wealth-by-level expectations meant that players had money they expected to spend, and there's nothing to spend it on other than magic items.
Result: Magic items were not in the DM's control in any practical sense. Players expected some control over magic items, either by selecting items themselves, being able to easily covert items to what they want via rituals, or by giving their DMs wish lists. Either way, the promise of DM control over magic items was an illusion.

That's a valid viewpoint, but not what Andy was talking about.

Jan 13, 2013 -- 11:02AM, wrecan wrote:

Jan 13, 2013 -- 9:36AM, Alter_Boy wrote:

Wrec, I think you missed the point about magic items.

No, I just didn't feel like discussing the superficial (or what I called the "nominal") point, but rather the underlying problem that the article was addressing.

I wrote: "Nominally about magic item levels"
You said, "What this article is talking about is the connection between the cost of the magic item, and the worth of it"

And my answer is: Right. Nominally, the article discussed magic item levels, which is how the game establishes the relationship between its cost and its worth.

But to have a meaningfull discussion, you need ot look deeper.

Or in your case, sideways.

These are two related but separate subjects: how to use magic items in your campaign, and how to have a campaign that doesn't need magic items. I would love to see you analyze what Andy actually said, because it seems that, by that account, 4ed succeeded. a level 2 Wondrous Item was very different from a level 7 Wondrous Item, and it was simple to eyeball whether or not a magic item was at its right level.

I thought this was "review what the designers said, and judge their results", not "judge their results based on things they didn't promise".

 

  You need to look at the purpose for assigning magic item levels.  And, according to Collins, the point was to give the DM a tool for controlling the introduction of magic items in the game.  Thus, he wrote, "Here's when this item is most appropriate for your... game."

 

Yes. And then you praised DDNext for making no such promises of appropriateness. Without a guideline for level appropriateness or by wealth, there's absolutely no metric so far. The designers can say that they're not necessary, and the system may work perfectly without them.

What happens, however, when you do include them? What are the metrics to judge which items are okay and when are they okay? It seems like they're deliberately not giving a guide to something that could use a guide, and that is a virtue to you. I disagree, and I'm disappointed that you deliberately misinterpretted his article to hide a virtue of 4ed and obscure a potential failing of 5ed.