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So data points now that we have the www.wizards.com/dnd/files/DNDessentials.... document.

One of my characters has only one common item (out of 12), his old vicious +2 item as a backup weapon (remember when early access to Vicious +2 was the complaint, whoops they're common now). All his other items (no rings yet) are at least uncommon. That includes an item with no properties, no encounter powers, and no daily powers. It's a fricken Delver's Light, a renewable Sun Rod. Oh no! He has 3 Daily magic item powers (omg power!) and only ever uses 1.

Another character also has only one common item (out of 18), Parry Guantlets. He also has 2 rings, a divine boon, and a dragon mount. He has 7 daily powers, but one of those I'd never use and another is a power jewel, which I'll probably sell soon as I replace my last heroic encounters.

Another character has a Defensive Staff and plain Githweave Armor (out of 18). 4 dailies, one which I'd never use, spell swap with spell in a tome.

My final paragon has plain Stormscale Armor (out of 16). 4 dailies, one which I'll never use (daily off an old sunblade I'll probably scrap too soon).

These were only my Paragon tier characters. I don't think the campaign will work if we try and put the genie back in the bottle.

I think LFR should ignore the new rule about item daily limits. We've been playing well enough this far with the rule, it can continue until the campaign is done. 

I see no problem in giving back/selling back uncommon items and buying common ones. Well maintained character sheets should show in what game items were taken and what they can be exchanged for.

However, if this proves too difficult for people to handle, at least alter the future treasure bundles, and retroactively remove old treasure bundles. A new system would be fairly simple to employ.

Sep 10, 2010 -- 7:24PM, efutch wrote:

I see no problem in giving back/selling back uncommon items and buying common ones. Well maintained character sheets should show in what game items were taken and what they can be exchanged for.

However, if this proves too difficult for people to handle, at least alter the future treasure bundles, and retroactively remove old treasure bundles. A new system would be fairly simple to employ.

If it was a meaningful differentiation between rare, uncommon or common, then sure. Go thru the trouble of rebuilding every character in the campaign.

Since its the same crap with arbitrary tags added on, just ignore it.

I wish LFR could ignore the new rarity rules.  But it can't and it won't.  So expect some pain on this.  I would expect some sort of cap on uncommon items -- like say 3 per tier. 

According to the Rules Compendium, the ratio should be 4 Common:  3 Uncommon:  1 Rare.  So that is where I get the 3 per tier number from.

Daren

Now that the Rules Compendium has been released, and we can actually see the rules, let's stop talking about the item rarity system as though it contains hard and fast rules.

Here's the system that, so far as I can tell, completely replaces the regimented bundle system:
* Over the course of a level, the rules assume the DM will award 10 treasure bundles.
* Each time the DM awards a treasure bundle, he rolls a series of d20s.  The relevant one for our purposes is that if he rolls a 13 on a particular d20 roll (11 if there's 6 PCs), the bundle contains a magic item.
* If the roll was odd, the item is Common.  If even, it's Uncommon, unless the roll was a natural 20, in which case the item is Rare.
* The DM then rolls 1d4 + (party level) to determine the level of the item.
* Wishlists of Uncommon items are encouraged.

That's it.  That's the new rewards system, minus the (up to eight) different dice the DM is rolling for each bundle to determine how much gold is in that treasure bundle.

On average, that system is going to yield four magic items for a five-person group each level (five for a six-person group), and out of the roughly forty magic items a five-person group finds in ten levels, odds are that you'll find around twenty Common items, fifteen Uncommon items and five Rares.  On average.

Or, maybe not.  Rare items are "completely within the DM's purview, and they should advance the story of the campaign and provide unexpected delights to players", so maybe the DM just hands them out when he thinks they fit the story, dice be damned.

Maybe the DM sticks precisely to the dice, and the PCs find nothing but Common items (but ones of their level +4) or all Uncommon items (all of their level +1).  Maybe everyone has a Rare item by 3rd level, or no one ever finds one.  Maybe you go a level without any magic items, and then everyone gets two next level.

As far as the rules are concerned, it's all good.  There's nothing about the DM needing to be careful to keep precise control over numbers or ratios.

Perhaps the assumption is that the DM will use common sense, and stop rolling if a level is giving out too many or too high level or too rare (or too few or too low level or not rare enough) magic items, but that's just conjecture.  As far as the rules go, just trust in the dice and you'll be fine.

So, the only limit on the number of the Uncommon items a group receives during a tier is how many times your DM rolls 14, 16 or 18 out of 100 d20s.  As far as the rules go, that's the only way to get Uncommon items.  Well, unless your DM happens to be one of the guys who drafts these rules, who thinks it's just peachy if your DM lets you buy a couple, too.

So, could we stop talking about this as though the new treasure system is a precision machine to which we need to hew exactly and precisely?

Sep 10, 2010 -- 9:51PM, bgibbons wrote:

So, could we stop talking about this as though the new treasure system is a precision machine to which we need to hew exactly and precisely?

Good post. I think someone did the math and it is surprising how uncommon a common distribution is. 

Sep 10, 2010 -- 9:09PM, Drezden wrote:

I wish LFR could ignore the new rarity rules.  But it can't and it won't.

This leads to the question: Why?

LFR can use and ignore these rules at the same time, aka recognize that there are the three categories but simply write into the CCG that "Players can buy/create common and uncommon items of level up to their character level".

I don't see how this would be any different from allowing retraining of as many elements per level (including usually un-retrainable elements like PPs and EDs) as you want instead of only 1.

Just change the relevant sentences in the CCG into

Page 2 into "All except rare items"

Page 4 into "You get one  free common or uncommon  magic item of"

Page 9 into "You can purchase any common or uncommon magic item"

That's assuming that rare items may be hold back for further examination, otherwise just allow all items. LFR wouldn't be ignoring the existence of the rarities, it would even follow their rules for DM controll of their accessibility

Sep 10, 2010 -- 11:31PM, fugacityD wrote:

Sep 10, 2010 -- 9:51PM, bgibbons wrote:

So, could we stop talking about this as though the new treasure system is a precision machine to which we need to hew exactly and precisely?

Good post. I think someone did the math and it is surprising how uncommon a common distribution is. 

Perhaps, however, I think we all know the new LFR magic rules will not be to have the DM roll for items on random tables.  And since the magic item daily power limits have been removed, we will see some restriction on uncommon/rare items.  The only question is what form it will take.

Daren 

Sep 11, 2010 -- 4:52AM, Mirtek wrote:

Sep 10, 2010 -- 9:09PM, Drezden wrote:

I wish LFR could ignore the new rarity rules.  But it can't and it won't.

This leads to the question: Why?

LFR can use and ignore these rules at the same time, aka recognize that there are the three categories but simply write into the CCG that "Players can buy/create common and uncommon items of level up to their character level".

I don't see how this would be any different from allowing retraining of as many elements per level (including usually un-retrainable elements like PPs and EDs) as you want instead of only 1.

Just change the relevant sentences in the CCG into

Page 2 into "All except rare items"

Page 4 into "You get one  free common or uncommon  magic item of"

Page 9 into "You can purchase any common or uncommon magic item"

That's assuming that rare items may be hold back for further examination, otherwise just allow all items. LFR wouldn't be ignoring the existence of the rarities, it would even follow their rules for DM controll of their accessibility

Hopefully with the greater admin control for LFR starting in 2011,
they will be able to use whatever rules they decide work the best.

I am feeling a bit like a broken record, but the greater admin control is in regards to story and how we organize the campaign. WotC still has the same amount of control when it comes to other things, not to mention that 'greater' does not mean 'full'. I sincerely doubt we can move away from the core rules.

We are looking at these rules as we speak, although to be honest, the rules as presented in the Rules Compendium leave to be desired since we do not know what exactly is common, uncommon, let alone rare. I am assuming the DMs kit goes into more details. We are likely to hash out a couple of arguments and proposals and then discuss them here with you all. Regardless, the whole treasure thing is and always has been a pain for a world wide campaign...

Or you know we could just keep using the DMG1 rules for treasure...

The DMG1 rules were not removed from existence by the new item rarity rules...

(Yes I realise there are problems relating to Daily Item use then.)

Sep 13, 2010 -- 2:15AM, Madfox11 wrote:

We are looking at these rules as we speak, although to be honest, the rules as presented in the Rules Compendium leave to be desired since we do not know what exactly is common, uncommon, let alone rare.

The update PDF has a list of around 30 items that are common.  Everything else is Uncommon, as per that document.

The DMs kit includes another ~10 items that are rare.  All the rings are rare (and the rules mention that "almost all" rings are rare, so expect all existing rings to become rare), anything that allows "real" flight(without "land at the end of your turn" clauses) seems to be rare, and some classic items (Holy Avenger, Gauntlets of Ogre Power) are also rare.  Some of the rare items have been modified slightly (Gauntlets of Ogre Power, Mantle of the 7th Wind) to better justify their rare rating.

For LFR purposes, Generic Magic and Vicious seem the most frequently found common items.  Almost everything else awarded is uncommon, except for Rings, which are currently "Uncommon", but will likely shortly become "rare"

Spoiler: Show

Sep 13, 2010 -- 7:01AM, kilpatds wrote:

snip

Good post, agree with description, disagree a little with prescription. I'd say instead that "any character can buy any item available as a campaign legal source as of {suitable pre-essentials date here - 9/1/10?} and sell such items for only 20% value regardless of later classification as common, uncommon, rare. If you have purchased an item that is now rare and the properties or powers of that item have changed as of Essentials materials or later (e.g. Gauntlets of Ogre Power), you must sell the item back for 100% value. If the altered item was instead awarded via an open access bundle (any ring of X level, any weapon of X level, etc.) you must trade that item for an equal level item that also isn't an altered rare."

That way past characters are fine unless they happened to have one of the "improved rares" in which case they give it back (unless specifically awarded by name - maybe even then too, but then bundles get all confused/need errata). Dealing with future item releases via Dragon or the new item book may be difficult as we'd need a system for those (maybe just no new rares allowed in the campaign unless they are a bundle reward).

As for multiple daily items uses and the common/uncommon system, we should either keep the pre-essentials core about that (1 per tier and per milestone) which has worked fine so far or institute our own limit (one per slot or maybe no duplicate item uses per day). Multiple weapons or implements with dailies might be a pain still.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 7:01AM, kilpatds wrote:

• Update the buy/sell rules: Can only buy common items, get more back for uncommon/rare items.
• Add a "grandfather" clause that limits everyone to no more than two copies of any given item on the "changeover" date (optional)

Given the change to daily magic item powers, I think we're going to need a rule to ban duplicates (with an exception for dual-wielders) or perhaps a rule that you cannot use the same daily or encounter magic item power more than one in that timeframe, even if you have more than one of an item.

The purchase restrictions are going to be more difficult.  Essentials changes uncommon magic item purchases from "Yes" to "Ask your DM first".  Having LFR rules be "And your DM always says 'No'" seems a bit more restrictive than I'm comfortable with.

I'd be plenty happy with a limit of each character only getting one copy of an item, max, unless it's a consumable.

Grandfathering establishes two tiers of characters at that point - from a community standpoint that is a terrible idea.  There could be a two year old level 15 charcter who has 13 uncommon items playing at the same table as a four month old level 15 character with 5 uncommon items. 

My current recommendation would be 1 uncommon per tier, plus 1 per 3 levels (so the level 15 character gets to keep 7 of their uncommons - enough to cover all of their 'core' items and still keep whatever niche elements they need as well).  A level 21 character at that point has 10 uncommons, as many commons as he chooses to have, and (presumably) 2 rare items as well.

Keep the treasure bundles more or less as they are, just require that characters must stay within their cap at any given level. 

Character variance will actually increase as different characters will evaluation their wealth needs based on the common/uncommon distribution that happens to fit their needs best.  Those who can fit common items into their build (such as bracers of might striking instead of iron armbonds) will be rewarded for doing so by having greater flexibility with their niche uncommmons. 

As far as I can tell, the sky is not actually falling, and within a few months a system for retrofitting current characters and applying treasure to new characters can be in place that works well for everyone.

Also, adding a limit that only one copy of a given uncommon item (Dice of Auspicious Fortune) is definitely recommended.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 10:48AM, MorganDaemos wrote:

Grandfathering establishes two tiers of characters at that point - from a community standpoint that is a terrible idea.  There could be a two year old level 15 charcter who has 13 uncommon items playing at the same table as a four month old level 15 character with 5 uncommon items.

That's actually not that likely, because

• Mods that give out uncommon items would still exist
• It's hard to buy that many items unless they are seriously below your level... at which point you're likely doing it to exploit "sack of item", which is the whole reason for the new uncommon tag to start with.

My assumption is that a whole-scale redoing of treasure bundles isn't gonna happen and shouldn't really happen, so my suggestions are working from the assumption that it won't.  If it doesn't, then the only issues are the few mods that give out wide-open options, and people who bought a ton of a specific item to spam it's power.  And then I don't think it's worth the hassle of tracking to bother with finder grained rules.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 2:15AM, Madfox11 wrote:

I sincerely doubt we can move away from the core rules.

But would my example actually be moving away from the core rules? IIRC the core rules on rarity simply says anything uncommon and rare has it's access being set by the DM. And if you as the LFR DMs are setting this access to "freely buy-able" you're doing nothing but following the rules

The issue is, you can not have one rule set that applies to future characters, and then exempt current characters from the effects of those rules.  Whatever the uncommon restriction becomes, it also needs to be able to be retrofitted to currently characters - in particular the level 15 characters with 13 uncommon items.  If new characters are not going to be allowed to acquire 13 uncommon's over 15 levels, then the current characters should not have them either - that is all that I'm advocating.

I don't think delegating uncommon items to "can only be found" is a good idea. With hundreds of items to chose from (and that's not even counting their different levels as different items) it's basically impossible to ever stumble over the item you wanted (they might even write 100 new mods with none of them offering an item already offered by it's peers and yet you're item might not have been offered at all because the pool from which to choose the offerings for the mods from is too large).

If what circulates about rares is true, I don't even thing most rares deserve to be restricted (unless it's supposed to be a stealth errata saying "the ring slot is abolished")

If uncommon items are to be restricted to "can only be found", each mod should offer "one uncommon item of your level or less" as a treasure option

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:08AM, MorganDaemos wrote:

If new characters are not going to be allowed to acquire 13 uncommon's over 15 levels, then the current characters should not have them either - that is all that I'm advocating.

Understood.  It's just that there are only two ways a current player gets an uncommon item

• Found it.  Applies to new players as well.  My suggestion does not  affect this.  new players can still find 13 uncommons over 15 levels (or 15 over 15 levels... but really, Uncommons are not actually that much better)
• Bought it.  But items are so expensive, that it will only be 1-2 non-common items acquired this way, unless you're dealing with someone who used a rust-monster farm, or someone who's stocking up on cheap items.

So, the real world issue you're worried about, IMHO, doesn't really exist here, because the economics didn't allow it to.  And the remaining issue is the point of the rules change.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:13AM, Mirtek wrote:

If uncommon items are to be restricted to "can only be found", each mod should offer "one uncommon item of your level or less" as a treasure option

I believe restricting uncommon items to "only be found" best represents the spirit of the rules change, and the intended results of it.

However, I'm a big fan of more "any uncomming item of level X or lower" bundles, and wish to see more of them in modules.  And I wouldn't complain it it were a base bundle added to all modules.

Regarding Rares...

The only rare items I recall seeing in LFR are the Gauntlets of Ogre Power and some various rings.  And I really don't think they are anything special, even after the boost.  Let them stay in the mods they are in, and if anyone still has them (or takes them now), congratz.  You're the proud owner of a rare item with a almost-useful daily power.  Have at it.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:14AM, kilpatds wrote:

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:08AM, MorganDaemos wrote:

If new characters are not going to be allowed to acquire 13 uncommon's over 15 levels, then the current characters should not have them either - that is all that I'm advocating.

Understood.  It's just that there are only two ways a current player gets an uncommon item

• Found it.  Applies to new players as well.  My suggestion does not  affect this.  new players can still find 13 uncommons over 15 levels (or 15 over 15 levels... but really, Uncommons are not actually that much better)
• Bought it.  But items are so expensive, that it will only be 1-2 non-common items acquired this way, unless you're dealing with someone who used a rust-monster farm, or someone who's stocking up on cheap items.

So, the real world issue you're worried about, IMHO, doesn't really exist here, because the economics didn't allow it to.  And the remaining issue is the point of the rules change.

A Ha! We are using two different baseline assumptions, so that is the issue.  Given your criteria, I agree with you - if a level new character can 'find' 13 uncommons over 15 levels, then retrofitting current characters is irrelevent.  All told though, at that point the common/uncommon distribution is mostly irrelvent - the only thing that changes is purchasing and upgrading uncommons.

My baseline is the default assumptions as outlined in the WotC article - over 10 levels, 1 rare, 3-4 uncommons, 4-5 commons.  Under that default, I would expect a Level 15 to have 1-2 rares, 5-6 uncommons, and 7-10 commons (LFR tends to be pretty treasure rich, so I would expect that to continue).

If the goal is to somewhat match those numbers, then some type of retrofitting is needed. 

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:33AM, MorganDaemos wrote:

My baseline is the default assumptions as outlined in the WotC article - over 10 levels, 1 rare, 3-4 uncommons, 4-5 commons.  Under that default, I would expect a Level 15 to have 1-2 rares, 5-6 uncommons, and 7-10 commons (LFR tends to be pretty treasure rich, so I would expect that to continue).

If the goal is to somewhat match those numbers, then some type of retrofitting is needed.

Agreed.  And since I believe that retrofitting would be a serious pain, but give only limited benefit, I'm suggesting skipping any significant retrofitting, and just making the small changes I mentioned above.  (don't allow rares in the "any item" bundles.  Only allow purchase of commons, add a "any common" default bundle.  Limit duplicate items to 2 or less (optional), move on with life.)

What about rings? The campaign was fine with people buying their own rings just a month ago. Now they are rare?

It's an entirely messed up situation. I think LFR needs some sort of break with Essentials or it's going to drag the campaign into the mire. Probably half or more of my FLGS would quit the campaign under any sort of item restriction rules I'd estimate (that is restricts to what has been legal so far). Oh and that would probably be all of the DMs as they are the most committed to the campaign.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 12:00PM, fugacityD wrote:

What about rings? The campaign was fine with people buying their own rings just a month ago. Now they are rare?

Are old rings actually rare now?  I don't have any of the books so I don't know for sure, but from the rumors I've heard it sounds like all existing items are considered uncommon except a small handful of specifically named common items and a small handful of specifically named rare items.

MY UPDATED TREASURE GUIDELINES:

• You can purchase/enchant common items with no restriction.

• You must find uncommon/rare items.
(New mods will have more "any uncommon [slot?] up to level x" type bundles.)

• You can only have duplicates of common items. Period. (No multiple copies of uncommon or rare items.)

• Set the found-uncommon-item-slots to every-odd-level = 15 total. Existing PCs can either:
(a) trade for a same-slot common item of equal or lesser value; or 
(b) sell any of their uncommon items for 20% to get to their legal number of uncommon items; or
(c) keep all of their items, but must wait until they have gained enough slots before taking a new found uncommon item.

• You get 3 bonus slots: one heroic, one paragon, and one epic "rare item slot." Do with as you please.

Simple.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 12:11PM, lorika wrote:

Sep 13, 2010 -- 12:00PM, fugacityD wrote:

What about rings? The campaign was fine with people buying their own rings just a month ago. Now they are rare?

Are old rings actually rare now?  I don't have any of the books so I don't know for sure, but from the rumors I've heard it sounds like all existing items are considered uncommon except a small handful of specifically named common items and a small handful of specifically named rare items.

Based off the errata we have, yes, existing rings are common. However, one of the essentials books (DM Kit I think, saw it myself in print anyways) says that "almost all rings are rare". So either they'd be lying since there are so many rings right now that haven't been classified rare, or there is more errata coming down the pipe. By the latest update document, not even the items we know for a fact are rare now like the Holy Avenger and Gauntlets of Ogre power have been errataed to be rare... I have no idea why they weren't in the last update document.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 12:13PM, Uthrac wrote:

MY UPDATED TREASURE GUIDELINES:

• You can purchase/enchant common items with no restriction.

• You must find uncommon/rare items.
(New mods will have more "any uncommon [slot?] up to level x" type bundles.)

• You can only have duplicates of common items. Period. (No multiple copies of uncommon or rare items.)

• Set the found-uncommon-item-slots to every-odd-level = 15 total. Existing PCs can either:
(a) trade for a same-slot common item of equal or lesser value; or 
(b) sell any of their uncommon items for 20% to get to their legal number of uncommon items; or
(c) keep all of their items, but must wait until they have gained enough slots before taking a new found uncommon item.

• You get 3 bonus slots: one heroic, one paragon, and one epic "rare item slot." Do with as you please.

Simple.

Yeah, no thanks.


vvvv Amen vvvv 

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:20AM, kilpatds wrote:

Regarding Rares...

The only rare item I recall seeing in LFR are the Gauntlets of Ogre Power.  And I really don't think they are anything special, even after the boost.  Let them stay in the mods they are in, and if anyone still has them (or takes them now), congratz.  You're the proud owner of a rare item with a almost-useful daily power.  Have at it.

You mean "other than rings" right?

Since most, err, ALL rings dont fit WotCs definition of Rare(heck, they dont fit WotCs definition of Rings), I'd let them slide also.

The problem has always been that most items suck, since the new rarities are being on patched onto the same crap theres no reason to restrict them. The only relevant change is the DI restriction. You said it yourself, fix the spamming problem with a once a day/named item restriction and the issue is solved.

Yeah, I forgot rings.  There's only one ring out there that I'd rather not see twice on the same PC (War Ring), and I can't really bring myself to care so much there either.

I'm still trying to recover from Gauntlets of Ogre Power being declared Rare and Black Iron Common. But, really, until I've got a treasure book of common/uncommon/rares to actually look at, I can't fully get behind anything, though I think some people are overreacting (but, it's the internets, that's how it goes)

The concept behind the half uncommon, half common, one rare per tier sounds fine.

Even if that does include rings. Whatever, really.

Which book will this be?

As far as I know, you've go the items in the DMs kit (~10 rares, I can link a thread that lists them), the commons in the update document, the fact that rings are described as "always rare" which suggests that all rings will be made rare, and a rule that everything else is uncommon.

My understanding is the new treasure book will just be rares, it won't tag everything else.  So I'm not sure what you CAN wait for...

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but I was looking at the random treasure distribution rules in the Rules Compendium last night.  The book recommends that the DM roll a d20 and make a check (just like everything else in D&D! :-) )  If you pass the check,  an odd # on the die to be common, even #s (except nat 20) to be uncommon and nat 20s to be rare.  The Odd-Common/Even-Uncommon might be the other way around, but I don't have my book right now.

Seems like the default rules of D&D expect players to come into quite a few uncommon items over their lifetime.  Far more than what people seem to be bracing themselves for.  Frankly,  I wouldn't be surprised if in LFR we could buy level appropriate Uncommon items (perhaps for a premium), since it always has been high magic world.  I mean, the frickin' Red Wizards are still kicking around, right?  Right...?

Sep 13, 2010 -- 2:24PM, kilpatds wrote:

Which book will this be?

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium will be all rares? That seems of dubious usefulness and at odds with the mundane and magical treasure for every adventurer tagline. Could be though. Guess we'll find out in the spring.

Basically the whole common/uncommon/rare split currently only really exists for Essentials, until it gets a little more due diligence. I imagine that's coming, but maybe not.

Welcome to Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium™, a wondrous collection of magic items—each one with a story to tell. This tome provides Dungeon Masters with a ready assortment of treasures to tempt greedy players, along with historical nuggets and alluring adventure hooks that set these items apart from your run-of-the-mill flaming sword or bag of holding. This book adds rich flavor to the treasures and trinkets presented within, and a dash of inspiration for Dungeon Masters looking to liven up a monster’s trove. Hold on to your magic hats—everything must go!

That kinda sounds like mostly rares to me...

Sep 13, 2010 -- 3:44PM, Keithric wrote:

Sep 13, 2010 -- 2:24PM, kilpatds wrote:

Which book will this be?

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium will be all rares? That seems of dubious usefulness and at odds with the mundane and magical treasure for every adventurer tagline. Could be though. Guess we'll find out in the spring.

Basically the whole common/uncommon/rare split currently only really exists for Essentials, until it gets a little more due diligence. I imagine that's coming, but maybe not.

I suspect there will be some additions with the Oct 5 update as well as another one whenever the 2nd essentials book is released.  Rings being rare doesn't bother me for the powerful ones (Dragonborn Emperor immediately comes to mind) but like the other items, a lot of rings are less then impressive.  If they are updated as part of the rare errata to be more impactful, then that would work fine in my book.

Sep 13, 2010 -- 4:52PM, kilpatds wrote:

That kinda sounds like mostly rares to me...

Sounded a lot like the items featured in these two columns, none of which are particularly powerful. Just storyful.

But, yeah, you may be right. We both just made different assumptions about the book. Eh, we'll see. To be honest, I also assumed there'd be a lot more magic items coming out with Essentials than apparently there is...

Sep 13, 2010 -- 11:08AM, MorganDaemos wrote:

The issue is, you can not have one rule set that applies to future characters, and then exempt current characters from the effects of those rules.  Whatever the uncommon restriction becomes, it also needs to be able to be retrofitted to currently characters - in particular the level 15 characters with 13 uncommon items.  If new characters are not going to be allowed to acquire 13 uncommon's over 15 levels, then the current characters should not have them either - that is all that I'm advocating.

I am of the firm opinion that retrofitting is a very, very, very bad idea. This is not some rules change that effects only a small number of characters played by a smal portion of the player base like leather armor wearing Avengers. This is something that will effect every single character across the entire player base and some in major ways. It will annoy almost all current players and PO a large percentage. I don't see some arbitrary sense of fairness to new players worth the cost, especially if a rule is adopted, such a limiting new item gains until the correct number of items is met, would eventually result in the everyone having the same thing.

Given what is actually -on- the list of common items, until something changes I would expect that a character bothering to keep 5 common items in heroic, much less 15 by the end of epic, would be a rather rare fringe occurance. They seem to me to have the flavor of the ubiquitous +X magic gear you get in 3.x that ultimately serves as currency. LFR already has a mechanic that emulates the selling of the magic items you don't care for: it's assumed into the more gold option and such.

A bunch of slots that can only be filled with common items would be a waste. In fact, allowing common items to be taken without costing a slot (like taking a ritual book or consumable) would probably be only pushing it a bit, rather than gamebreaking.

Vicious.  That's common, and popular.  Generic Magic have been good picks in some mods.

Other than that?  Yeah... pretty ... minimal value.  Thus my preference for a always-choosable bundle of "any common of your level +1" (or +2.  I mean really...)

Eh, people don't keep lots of their found items. If there are less uncommon items available, there'd probably be a lot more Vicious and Magic items. My fighter might be wearing Black Iron armor if the new scheme had been in place back then. Etc.

There really does need to be some kind of rule about not abusing items with (formerly) Daily powers that are much lower level than you.

Example off the top of my head:

1. get a way to stow/retrieve items as a free action
2. buy lots of Circlets of Second Chances (level 3, Daily: reroll a save you failed)
3. swap out a Circlet after every time you use one
4. profit!

If you think there's a problem with putting on items in combat, then substitute a slotless item. Or a weapon / implement with a useful Daily. The possibilities for abuse are there.

I know, I know: it's "common sense" that no one would ever do this.

Yeah.

Right.

That's basically the exact reason why  you should say "you can't buy uncommon or rare items".  If each circlet takes a found item slot, then you're shooting yourself for your trick, and no one cares.

Now, if the campaign goes that route, I'd like more control over my found item slots, and thus I'd like to have a base slot option of "any uncommon or common, your level or below"... (really, "Any common your level +2 or below" and "any Uncommon, your level or below" feels more accurate)

Sep 14, 2010 -- 1:35PM, kilpatds wrote:

Vicious.  That's common, and popular.

Common, yes, but popular?  It was more popular back when everyone was a RRoT using Cleric of Tempus.  But I think the commonality of vicious weapons had more to do with the fact that it happened to be a bundle choice in a mod that gave early access to a +2 weapon.  (although to be fair it was written before the campaign rule change that allowed you to pick magic items higher than your level + 4)  And still is, so some poeple just go back and play through that mod with yet another character to get another +2 weapon early.

I mean, Vicious is okay, but it's not that great an enchantment.

What about reagents and ammunition?

The VERY small potion list indicates that consumables are not exempt from this mess. My wizard spends 1/2 his gold on reagents!

-S 

Sep 13, 2010 -- 2:15AM, Madfox11 wrote:

I am feeling a bit like a broken record, but the greater admin control is in regards to story and how we organize the campaign. WotC still has the same amount of control when it comes to other things, not to mention that 'greater' does not mean 'full'. I sincerely doubt we can move away from the core rules.

We are looking at these rules as we speak, although to be honest, the rules as presented in the Rules Compendium leave to be desired since we do not know what exactly is common, uncommon, let alone rare. I am assuming the DMs kit goes into more details. We are likely to hash out a couple of arguments and proposals and then discuss them here with you all. Regardless, the whole treasure thing is and always has been a pain for a world wide campaign...

Thank you for letting us know what is possible and what is not possible.
Reading the "A New Direction for LFR" blog post from June once more,
I am still unclear about what the admins are being allowed to change.

Change of Power: WotC is turning the campaign over to the community...

If this is story only, and we still have to abide by all of the rulebooks,
then this was not clear to me. I imagine the admins as the "DM" for
our campaign, and the DM can decide the rules for their campaign.

Do you have the power to change any of the following?

• add/remove player character races (e.g. ban Gnolls)
• add/remove legal magic items (e.g. ban Dragonshards)
• add/remove feats (e.g. ban Vampiric Heritage feats)
• add/remove content sources (e.g. the Eberron books)
• add/remove other (e.g. everyone gets free Expertise)
• use older versions of rules (e.g. older Weapon Focus)

Perhaps a new blog post would help to clarify this.
Then we will not be asking you for the impossible.

The easiest way to think of things is this: WotC has turned the story development over to the community, so they no longer have to okay every storyline and the campaign is no longer canon.  However, it's still WotC's baby and still one their major marketing platforms.  They want you to buy their product and be able to use it, so don't expect the sandbox quality of the campaign to go away.

Here's a thought, based on the following:

1) The new "common" items are supposed to be all over the place, as compared to the uncommons.  That's why the economy for them is completely different.
2) People often play mods just because of the found items.  In H1, that's usually a vanilla (or vicious) +2.  In H3, it's often a vanilla +3 (though a +3 item at H3 should be more common than a +2 at H1).  This means that certain mods get played a lot, and others only rarely.
3) For many, many reasons, pretty much every mod needs to have its bundles revised with the new rules.  Most of them needed it anyway (they gave away junk, and newer material was underrepresented), but now it's all but mandatory.

So the suggestion: make "A common item of level X or lower from any player resource" a bundle in every single mod.  There's no real reason not to, and it'll spread the love around a little more.  Level 6 (maybe level 7) should be attainable at H1-high, and level 11 at H3-low.

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

3) For many, many reasons, pretty much every mod needs to have its bundles revised with the new rules.

Considering the difficulty in getting mods out as is (havin some we're still waiting on a year later)... that'd be a recipe for disaster.

Sep 15, 2010 -- 8:39PM, Dragon9 wrote:

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

3) For many, many reasons, pretty much every mod needs to have its bundles revised with the new rules.

Considering the difficulty in getting mods out as is (havin some we're still waiting on a year later)... that'd be a recipe for disaster.

Well, instead of manually going into each and every mod to edit the bundles, you could just put a general, "ignore the old bundles" clause in the CCG along with a new table that explains how wealth is distributed now. That's probably the easiest way to change things if it's really desired.

Sep 15, 2010 -- 8:39PM, Dragon9 wrote:

Considering the difficulty in getting mods out as is (havin some we're still waiting on a year later)... that'd be a recipe for disaster.

In all fairness, most of the delays are due to problems that require a lot more work then a simple search and replace, and adding a standard new bundle to each adventure. Mind you, it would still not be a task I am looking forward to, and I am also worried about getting the adventures uploaded (I hope we get that file option available soon for these groups).

@efutch: That is one option, but not optimal considering how many people actually have read the CCG, and that it is easier to have it ready available in the adventure.

@all: Yes, we are looking at an update to the treasure system. There are simply way too many magic items and PC build possibilities available right now for the system to work. The Essential line is just one more reason to do so. We are working on some options, and we are planning to inform you for your opinion.

Why not have an abbreviated CCG in the back of every mod? Just listing the absolute essentials of the CCG, have a link in the acrobat document to the real CCG, and put it on one page. That would be relatively straightforward to do and that way every DM at some point sees what the real rules are.

That would make it a lot easier to distribute the CCG to every group. 

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

So the suggestion: make "A common item of level X or lower from any player resource" a bundle in every single mod.  There's no real reason not to, and it'll spread the love around a little more.  Level 6 (maybe level 7) should be attainable at H1-high, and level 11 at H3-low.

Your level +1 is a lot better way to go about that than setting the level to the module. 1st level characters playing an H1 high don't need to find +2 magic weapons. As it is, regardless of common or uncommon I actually think there should be no +2s in H1 and no +3s in H3, with the full gamut of options in H2 and P1. Otherwise you just taint the treasure pool selection.

Though I think there should be tons of high level options for other slots. Just not the big 3. 

I think the rewards should be something like:

• Some item(s) from the adventure itself
• A Common Item of your level + 2
• An Uncommon Item of your level
• Consumable
• More gold

Maybe the Common's (level + 2) should be (level +3), and perhaps change the Uncommon's (level) to (level -1), depending on how the magic item economy should be set up.  The items from the adventure would be the only things that provide an item in the (level +4) range.

Please don't make us have to rebuild all our characters to fit in with the new rarity systems, having to mess about with 10+ characters and all their items just sounds like such a pain in the arse...

Just ban unique items apart from those you get from mods and have done with it. Stopping us from buying items apart from common in the future would be REALLY annoying...

I could really see something like this putting me of playing LFR altogether.

Daniel. 

Sep 14, 2010 -- 9:25PM, kilpatds wrote:

That's basically the exact reason why  you should say "you can't buy uncommon or rare items".

Good point.

OK, off to search for Common items that can be abused in multiples.

I think the only way they'd make an abusive common is via a consumable... and even then, in comparison to levels of abuse possible it's pretty low.

(That's just one of those things where you make a chart of frost whetstone every encounter vs three sets of dice vs _one_ opal ring...)

Sep 16, 2010 -- 7:04AM, Atras wrote:

I think the rewards should be something like:

• Some item(s) from the adventure itself
• A Common Item of your level + 2
• An Uncommon Item of your level
• Consumable
• More gold

[...]The items from the adventure would be the only things that provide an item in the (level +4) range.

Sorry for the full quote just to say "I agree", but that's exactly how I think it should be set up... modulo tuning of the "level +2" and "level" parts.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 7:09AM, The1Darklord wrote:

Please don't make us have to rebuild all our characters to fit in with the new rarity systems

Agreed there too.  A simple rule to say "not more than 2 non-consumable items with the same name, and no duplicate rare items" (I'm assuming that Dice will get changed to Rare here) should be all the retrofitting required.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 7:09AM, The1Darklord wrote:

Stopping us from buying items apart from common in the future would be REALLY annoying...

Even if you could find whatever uncommon item you wanted in any adventure, once you got high enough level?

Sep 16, 2010 -- 10:34AM, kilpatds wrote:

Even if you could find whatever uncommon item you wanted in any adventure, once you got high enough level?

Yes.  I think you're underestimating how many low-level uncommon items a high-level PC might end up picking up.  Certainly more than your number of found item slots.

I think this is even more true in LFR than in the core rules.  In a home game, your DM knows what abilities you have and can either tailor challenges for them or make available the means to overcome them.  Moreover, in a home game, there are many challenges that only one PC needs to have an item or ability to solve.  Neither is the case in LFR.

After a bad troll experience, I just had another one of my PCs pick up a +1 flaming weapon, which certainly isn't worth spending a found item slot at 14th level.  In a home game, you only need one PC with a fire/acid at-will or item, and if no one has one, the DM would either not use those types of creatures or there would be some means of overcoming the obstacle in some other way (braziers in the room, or the chance to buy a flaming weapon).

A good number of my purchased items are situational utility items, e.g., reading spectacles (for when the module throws an old book written in Netherese at you), +1 flaming weapon (for creatures that need to be killed with acid/fire), +2 magic longbow (for modules with ranged 20 solo flying artillery), opal carp (for underwater modules), fochlucan bandore (because you need a magical instrument to perform bard rituals), prison of Salzacas (because you never know when you need to get something from a high shelf), bag of holding (so I can walk while carrying all of this around), etc.

Even at five found items per five levels, three (or maybe four) of those slots are taken up by your weapon/armor/neck item, leaving not too many opportunities for your head/waist/arms/hands/ring^2/feet/tattoo/wondrous items, if all of those require spending found item slots.

Under the proposals I'm seeing here:

* Either every current PC will need to drastically edit their characters, or they will need to be grandfathered in, giving them a significant advantage vs. new PCs (and indeed, there are very few methods of editing that are both fair and don't disadvantage new PCs).

* The ability to plan ahead and pick precisely the right found items to use your precious item slots on will become an important part of the game.  It will be very easy for new players to make a few early mistakes that affect their character for their entire career.

* Magic items that do not directly and meaningfully affect a PC's combat capabilities will be ignored.  Magic items that deal with situations that might only come up once every ten adventures will not even be considered, leading to an incredible amount of (somewhat justified) whining when adventures contain those types of situations.

The book hasn't even been fully released yet, and you already have designers saying that they ignore the concept of not being able to buy uncommon items.  Drastically changing the campaign to strictly adhere to standards even the designers don't privately use is a very bad idea.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:05AM, bgibbons wrote:

Yes.  I think you're underestimating how many low-level uncommon items a high-level PC might end up picking up.

I think it's more accurate to say that I'm assuming that more common items will be added later.  (Reading Spectacles added to my list of "things that should be common", where Bags of Holding already resided)

But I have no evidence to back up that assumption, beside the incrediably low number of common items.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:05AM, bgibbons wrote:

* Either every current PC will need to drastically edit their characters, or they will need to be grandfathered in, giving them a significant advantage vs. new PCs

I don't yet agree that it will be significant, but I see your point

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:05AM, bgibbons wrote:

* Magic items that do not directly and meaningfully affect a PC's combat capabilities will be ignored.  Magic items that deal with situations that might only come up once every ten adventures will not even be considered, leading to an incredible amount of (somewhat justified) whining when adventures contain those types of situations.

I think the existing system is already tight enough that those situations should be avoided, or have alternate approaches suggested in the module. (NPC has right item, silver candelabra near the werecritters, and text in the module explaining the use to the DM, terrain powers to help w/ flying solos...)

But again, I see your point.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:05AM, bgibbons wrote:

The book hasn't even been fully released yet, and you already have designers saying that they ignore the concept of not being able to buy uncommon items.

That's not quite what he said.  He said he provides one or two uncommons in any given magic shop.  As in, he filters availability...That's far different (and more along the design intent of the system) than "you can buy any uncommon item you want, however many you want"

Sep 16, 2010 -- 6:01AM, Keithric wrote:

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

So the suggestion: make "A common item of level X or lower from any player resource" a bundle in every single mod.  There's no real reason not to, and it'll spread the love around a little more.  Level 6 (maybe level 7) should be attainable at H1-high, and level 11 at H3-low.

Your level +1 is a lot better way to go about that than setting the level to the module.

If this was a reboot, I'd agree with you.  But if that becomes the new rule, we have a grandfathering problem.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:05AM, bgibbons wrote:

Even at five found items per five levels, three (or maybe four) of those slots are taken up by your weapon/armor/neck item, leaving not too many opportunities for your head/waist/arms/hands/ring^2/feet/tattoo/wondrous items, if all of those require spending found item slots.

Especially if you can't even upgrade them. That's potentially 18/30 slots just for the big 3

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:24AM, MindWandererB wrote:

Sep 16, 2010 -- 6:01AM, Keithric wrote:

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

So the suggestion: make "A common item of level X or lower from any player resource" a bundle in every single mod.  There's no real reason not to, and it'll spread the love around a little more.  Level 6 (maybe level 7) should be attainable at H1-high, and level 11 at H3-low.

Your level +1 is a lot better way to go about that than setting the level to the module.

If this was a reboot, I'd agree with you.  But if that becomes the new rule, we have a grandfathering problem.

Not really. 2nd level characters with +2 Magic weapons may have happened in the past, but they're not 2nd level for long so if there are never any more again, the campaign is just better for it.

We're moving towards modules that cover entire tiers, anyways, so they'll almost have to have some generic solutions going forward. I can tell you right now I definitely like the 'your level +2' style of reward from more recent modules over the 7th/9th/11th style rewards of ADCP1-1.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:24AM, MindWandererB wrote:

Sep 16, 2010 -- 6:01AM, Keithric wrote:

Sep 15, 2010 -- 7:58PM, MindWandererB wrote:

So the suggestion: make "A common item of level X or lower from any player resource" a bundle in every single mod.  There's no real reason not to, and it'll spread the love around a little more.  Level 6 (maybe level 7) should be attainable at H1-high, and level 11 at H3-low.

Your level +1 is a lot better way to go about that than setting the level to the module.

If this was a reboot, I'd agree with you.  But if that becomes the new rule, we have a grandfathering problem.

No.
No its not. 4th level characters should be finding 8th level items, not 5th. The entire H3 band should offer minimum +3 bundles. High end H2s should be tossing out Magic +3's.
What really needs to be added are Bundles that give an upgrade. Once I get an item I like, I hate that I usually have to wait until its 4-5 levels obsolete to upgrade it or switch to an item I dont like as much to get the proper bonuses.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:20AM, kilpatds wrote:

I think it's more accurate to say that I'm assuming that more common items will be added later.

The cynical side of me would describe the item rarity situation as "Most of your items are supposed to be common, though barely any of the items we've already released are common. ...Hey, did I mention we have a new book of magic items coming out?"

Sep 16, 2010 -- 11:20AM, kilpatds wrote:

That's not quite what he said.  He said he provides one or two uncommons in any given magic shop.  As in, he filters availability...That's far different (and more along the design intent of the system) than "you can buy any uncommon item you want, however many you want"

Sure, my point is more that it's not a strict "you can't buy any uncommon items" system.

4e started with "You can buy anything you want".  E4e has changed it to "You have to ask your DM before buying most magic items".  I think that LFR adding "... and your DM always says 'No' when you ask" is not the intention.

Unfortunately, that leaves us back facing the issue that rules that assume a lot of hands-on DM decision-making mesh badly with a shared-world campaign where that's not possible.

My preferred list of changes would be:
* Rare items can only be found, not purchased.  When we see the list of Rares, perhaps there will be a need for "You can only find one Rare per tier" as well.
* You cannot possess more than one of any Uncommon/Rare magic item with a non-at-will power.
* You can otherwise purchase any Common or Uncommon items, with the exception (though I doubt campaign staff would do this) that you can not purchase or find any items on a list of restricted items.
* These rules are retroactive: you can sell any rare or duplicate items back for 100% market price or refund of the found item slot.

That's it.

I don't think the "Purchase vs. Find" issue for Uncommon items is that meaningful in terms of helping balance.  All it does is make sure that, if you can only have a limited number of Uncommon items, you better get the best ones.

One of the issues that needs to be addressed is that WOTC R&D is essentially punting on magic item balance.  The essence of the rarity system strikes me as R&D saying, "You know, you're right.  There are a lot of items that are unbalanced.  We just don't have the staff, time or interest to make sure that there aren't any items in Dragon Magazine that are going to ruin your game.  So, we're going to put it on your shoulders.  Don't like frostcheese? Just don't give your PCs frost weapons.  If you let someone find dice of conspicuous cheese, well, that's your own damn fault and you don't get to complain to us about it later."

To be honest, I'm more concerned with Uncommon/Rare items from the upcoming book than I am about current ones.  At least the past items were created under a system that claimed the items were all balanced.  New items will not only have the usual issues of power creep, but will be designed with the assumption that the item can only be used by a PC after their DM has personally decided the item fits the power-level of the campaign.  That strikes me as very problematic for a campaign like LFR.

My preferred list of changes would be:
* Rare items can only be found, not purchased.  When we see the list of Rares, perhaps there will be a need for "You can only find one Rare per tier" as well.
* You cannot possess more than one of any Uncommon/Rare magic item with a non-at-will power.
* You can otherwise purchase any Common or Uncommon items, with the exception (though I doubt campaign staff would do this) that you can not purchase or find any items on a list of restricted items.
* These rules are retroactive: you can sell any rare or duplicate items back for 100% market price or refund of the found item slot.

You are still making the mistake of drastically overvaluing Rare. As much as the marketing department want you to believe that Rares are worth being restricted to 1/tier the evidence is conclusively the opposite.

PCs have two ring slots
All Rings are Rare
2/3 of any PCs Rare items will be Rings....Huh?

Sep 16, 2010 -- 4:06PM, Marshall wrote:

No.
No its not. 4th level characters should be finding 8th level items, not 5th.

Actually, that's really not how treasure works in 4e... a party of five characters, over the course of leveling from 4th to 5th, and an entire level (so, 2.5 LFR adventures) should find a single 8th level item to share amongst themselves. They also find find a 7th, 6th, and 5th, and 2 4ths worth of gold. Any items that the party chooses not to use will in turn get to be sold for 20%, effectively converting to an item 5 levels lower.

The average actually works out to a single level + 2 (6th) item per PC. That you get at some point before leveling to 5th, when it becomes merely level + 1. That time period averages it out to Level + 1.5 - heck of a difference from +4s all the time, eh?

Because of the way that treasure works in LFR, on the other hand, the best treasures may be taken by every single member of the group. Which is why I've seen multiple entire groups of 3rd level characters using +2 Vicious Weapons with +2 Amulets of Protection.

It's even worse in the LFR scheme because once you have a +X item, other +Xs - even with really interesting or exciting enchantments - are not terribly interesting. So, getting a Magic a tier early makes it far less likely that you'll take anything in that slot in the entire next tier. Bad news - hence the suggestion that H3 should have all kinds of level 8-14 items that aren't +3s. 7th level characters really have no need of +3 Magic weapons, anyways - just makes things too easy.

I'd love to see more people taking all sorts of wondrous items or whatever because they're level +3 or level +4 and a reasonable choice, rather than the next best thing to optimize a character because that is also offered at level +4 and cha-ching. Don't see it happening, but hey, sentiment still stands

I'm expecting going forward we're roughly just going to get pretty close to choose your own level +2 items and move along. Gets the job done.

Being able to find any uncommon item after an adventure would certainly help.

I do support unique items being banned (apart from when taken from mods) and I could handle rare items being restricted. (providing all my rings don't become rare and have to be sold or some silliness like that)

I would hate to be stuck with a big wad of cash though and not be able to spend it on anything but common items. If there's nothing common I want all the money that's burning a hole in my pocket becomes useless. 

In LFR at the moment you can buy/upgrade however you want. (within level restriction) I'm quite happy with this, anything that restricts my options massively would cut into my fun.

I really enjoy just looking at upgrade possibilities. I spend hours on it sometimes! (sad I know) 

Daniel.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 6:41PM, Keithric wrote:

Any items that the party chooses not to use will in turn get to be sold for 20%, effectively converting to an item 5 levels lower.

The DM should not be handing out items that no one in the party will want. The DMG specifically councils against this.

The trickiest part of awarding treasure is determining what magic items to give out. Tailor these items to your party of characters. Remember that these are supposed to be items that excite the characters, items they want to use rather than sell or disenchant. If none of the characters in your 6th-level party uses a longbow,don’t put a 10th-level longbow in your dungeon as treasure. 

I do want to point out, that the Rarity rules are Suggested guidlines, not actual "RULES"  I have the Essentials Book and reading it, From what i get is that this system is a suggestion to allow the DM to have more of a control on items.  so if that is the case, i consider the LFR admins "our DM" as a campaign wide, and if they choose to they can even ignore the uncommon ranking making them all common except rare, in wich case we would just continue playing as normal. 

when it comes to creating uncommon and rare items the book doesnt say that you CANT, it just suggests not to allow players to do so unless they 1- go on a quest to aquire the special materials needed, ect.  so it says that characters can create uncommon and even rare items (as well as enchant them and everything we are used to before hand) it ust lists suggestions to be used by the dm as ways to make "creating" an uncommon and a "rare" item harder to do. 


With all of this said, its the Global admins call how to treat them,  One thing i kinda like in the description is having the players go on quests to find the regeants for making/enchanting uncommon items.  i think it would be cool that every maybe 1 out of ever 4 lfr mods will have a creature like a rust monster than when it is slayed (it must be slayed not knocked unconsious)  it gives the player a story award  that states you have Aquired a magical regeant that can be used to construct an uncommon item from a common item (with paying the normal costs to upgrade items ect)   and maybe make these story award  if unused  redeemable to aquire a Rare item in the next mod instead of common/uncommon  but this might cost 4 of these story awards.  (the awards would be signed by a dm and crossed off when used maybe)

just another bit of my 2 cents.

Sep 16, 2010 -- 6:41PM, Keithric wrote:

Sep 16, 2010 -- 4:06PM, Marshall wrote:

No.
No its not. 4th level characters should be finding 8th level items, not 5th.

Actually, that's really not how treasure works in 4e... a party of five characters, over the course of leveling from 4th to 5th, and an entire level (so, 2.5 LFR adventures) should find a single 8th level item to share amongst themselves. They also find find a 7th, 6th, and 5th, and 2 4ths worth of gold. Any items that the party chooses not to use will in turn get to be sold for 20%, effectively converting to an item 5 levels lower.

Actually, thats exactly how it works in LFR. Item bundles restrict the number of high level items a party can have to 1 +4 per party member. The difference between a +4 and +3(or +2...)is ONLY meaningful at the 1 and 6 levels. The plethora of useless-at-any-level items spread thru EVERY level makes any differentiation finer than tier level only meaningful for cost reasons. IOW, what makes Hewards Handy Haversack 5 levels more powerful than a Bag of Holding?

The average actually works out to a single level + 2 (6th) item per PC. That you get at some point before leveling to 5th, when it becomes merely level + 1. That time period averages it out to Level + 1.5 - heck of a difference from +4s all the time, eh?

No, not really. A 4th level party with all 6th levels is the same power as a 4th level party with all 8th levels. WotC has set it up so that the difference between a 6th level item and a 10th level is mostly fluff.

Because of the way that treasure works in LFR, on the other hand, the best treasures may be taken by every single member of the group. Which is why I've seen multiple entire groups of 3rd level characters using +2 Vicious Weapons with +2 Amulets of Protection.

And? Thats because of 4e's pricing structure. No one with the least bit of optimization sense is going to spend a Bundle on an item you can buy with spare change next level. So they Horde their bundles until they can get meaningful boosts.

It's even worse in the LFR scheme because once you have a +X item, other +Xs - even with really interesting or exciting enchantments - are not terribly interesting. So, getting a Magic a tier early makes it far less likely that you'll take anything in that slot in the entire next tier. Bad news - hence the suggestion that H3 should have all kinds of level 8-14 items that aren't +3s. 7th level characters really have no need of +3 Magic weapons, anyways - just makes things too easy.

Hence the reason those H3's should be offering bundles that upgrade +'s. If I've got a cool enhancement, I dont want to have to give it up just to get a +3 Foozle.

I'd love to see more people taking all sorts of wondrous items or whatever because they're level +3 or level +4 and a reasonable choice, rather than the next best thing to optimize a character because that is also offered at level +4 and cha-ching. Don't see it happening, but hey, sentiment still stands

I'm expecting going forward we're roughly just going to get pretty close to choose your own level +2 items and move along. Gets the job done.

I'd love to see cool high level wondrous items, also.
They need to be offered in the bundles at meaningful levels(an 8th level in a H3 isnt meaningful)
'Course WotC needs to actually publish some first.

Sep 17, 2010 -- 1:20AM, The1Darklord wrote:

The DM should not be handing out items that no one in the party will want. The DMG specifically councils against this.

Well, after a couple of levels PCs want to sell their lower level stuff.

Also, sometimes people want _very_ specific gear. At least in the past, it was pretty common for a party to get something that's okay - let's say a +4 Flanking Rapier for the party rogue, and go 'Yeah, I really want to do Frost so I can go crazy with feats and other stuff, so let's disenchant that and turn the residuum into a +3 Frost Rapier'. But, I didn't track that at all in the example above. Everyone getting a +1.5 (or maybe +1.6 depending how you average the adventures) was actually the real average.

LFR using the method (DMG2 was it?) where everyone gets their L+2 at some point in the level actually makes a lot of sense.

Looking at it, the only concrete issue that needs a remedy is the removal of the limit on daily item uses. With that resolved, there isn't really a need for any other change at all. I like simple limit on duplicate items, perhaps with the additional limit of using one power per item slot to eliminate swapping to different daily power items once used. These two simple rules result in the game functioning essentially the same as it did with the daily item limits.

Since the rarity levels clearly do not represent different levels of power (As most uncommon/rare daily item power items are still practically worthless), more or less ignoring it won't have any impact on the state of the game. The rarity system was introduced as an alternate limit to daily item abuse, simple as that. It just doesn't work at all for a shared world living campaign, and should be ignored.

I do think that the item bundle system should be re-evaluated though. I like the idea of all mods offering an any item of level+2 option combined with some mod specific items that are above that level. The specific bundles should not include any of the big 3 slots though, because then they would still gain more play then otherwise. Specials or major quest conclusions could offer any item of level+4 or similar, to give the occasional much higher level reward.

Sep 17, 2010 -- 4:55AM, sehmerus wrote:

I do want to point out, that the Rarity rules are Suggested guidlines, not actual "RULES"  I have the Essentials Book and reading it, From what i get is that this system is a suggestion to allow the DM to have more of a control on items.  so if that is the case, i consider the LFR admins "our DM" as a campaign wide, and if they choose to they can even ignore the uncommon ranking making them all common except rare, in wich case we would just continue playing as normal. 

Sep 17, 2010 -- 9:15AM, Jay_Ibero_911 wrote:

Looking at it, the only concrete issue that needs a remedy is the removal of the limit on daily item uses. With that resolved, there isn't really a need for any other change at all. I like simple limit on duplicate items, perhaps with the additional limit of using one power per item slot to eliminate swapping to different daily power items once used. These two simple rules result in the game functioning essentially the same as it did with the daily item limits.

We certainly can't re-impose the daily item use limit--it's not in Essentials, so new players won't know it or understand it.

Banning duplicate items is one solution, but it only stops the most egregious issues.  It's still a good idea for players to stock up on items that are low in level but have good dailies.  That's really the problem with the old, low-level items, I think: they often have very good daily powers, but they're only situationally useful, or aren't quite as good as the dailies of higher levels.  In most cases, I'd much rather have three daily powers from level 1-5 items than one daily power from a level 6-10 item, the major exception being powers on weapons or implements where the power augments an attack made by that weapon or implement.

Sep 17, 2010 -- 11:58AM, MindWandererB wrote:

Sep 17, 2010 -- 4:55AM, sehmerus wrote:

I do want to point out, that the Rarity rules are Suggested guidlines, not actual "RULES"  I have the Essentials Book and reading it, From what i get is that this system is a suggestion to allow the DM to have more of a control on items.  so if that is the case, i consider the LFR admins "our DM" as a campaign wide, and if they choose to they can even ignore the uncommon ranking making them all common except rare, in wich case we would just continue playing as normal. 

Sep 17, 2010 -- 9:15AM, Jay_Ibero_911 wrote:

Looking at it, the only concrete issue that needs a remedy is the removal of the limit on daily item uses. With that resolved, there isn't really a need for any other change at all. I like simple limit on duplicate items, perhaps with the additional limit of using one power per item slot to eliminate swapping to different daily power items once used. These two simple rules result in the game functioning essentially the same as it did with the daily item limits.

We certainly can't re-impose the daily item use limit--it's not in Essentials, so new players won't know it or understand it.

Banning duplicate items is one solution, but it only stops the most egregious issues.  It's still a good idea for players to stock up on items that are low in level but have good dailies.  That's really the problem with the old, low-level items, I think: they often have very good daily powers, but they're only situationally useful, or aren't quite as good as the dailies of higher levels.  In most cases, I'd much rather have three daily powers from level 1-5 items than one daily power from a level 6-10 item, the major exception being powers on weapons or implements where the power augments an attack made by that weapon or implement.

Why can't they just continue using the original daily power limit? LFR is already houseruled to allow unlimited retraining at each level, something that new players wouldn't know without reading the CCG. Just add the daily item power limit in the CCG as well and problem solved. It's not a rules change that would impair WotC product sales, as it is not restricting available content, it is simply making a required adjustment due to the nature of a shared world living campaign and the incompatibility of the item rarity system with such a campaign.

And I did provide an additional rules suggestion to stop the issue you pointed out: Restrict duplicates AND limit powers to one daily power per slot per day. This prevents stocking up on a random collection of items to use. It's also much more complicated than the original 1/day per tier, +1 per milestone. Though since no matter what, the campaign admins are going to be houseruling in this situation, I might suggest a slight increase to 2/3/4 base uses +1 per milestone. This would still allow increased item use without permitting spamming of dailies

Sep 19, 2010 -- 2:59PM, Jay_Ibero_911 wrote:

Why can't they just continue using the original daily power limit? LFR is already houseruled to allow unlimited retraining at each level, something that new players wouldn't know without reading the CCG. Just add the daily item power limit in the CCG as well and problem solved. It's not a rules change that would impair WotC product sales, as it is not restricting available content, it is simply making a required adjustment due to the nature of a shared world living campaign and the incompatibility of the item rarity system with such a campaign.

My objection to that would be: The retraining "house rule" affects character leveling, which takes place between sessions.  It also cannot produce a character that couldn't have gotten there legally through normal rules.  Placing a daily item limit affects game play at the table, and does so dramatically.  I believe that's a much more significant departure from the "core" ruleset, in both magnitude and importance, than the retraining rules.

Sep 21, 2010 -- 1:05AM, MindWandererB wrote:

It also cannot produce a character that couldn't have gotten there legally through normal rules.

Not true, LFR rules allow you to retrain any rules etc including class features that you couldn't normally retrain.

This means if a rules supplement came out offering new builds you normally would not be able to retrain to take advantage of them. You could also have a high level paragon character with all powers from a new book just days after it's release, this via normal retrain rules would not be possible.

Daniel. 

Sep 21, 2010 -- 1:23AM, The1Darklord wrote:

Not true, LFR rules allow you to retrain any rules etc including class features that you couldn't normally retrain. 

LFR allows you to retrain things you cannot official retrain. The end result after the retrain though still needs to be fully legal by the core rules. So for example, you cannot retrain all your heroic feats for paragon feats in one go once you reach level 11. It was to the end result after the retraining that MindWandererB is referring. He is absolutely correct that we are very unlikely to keep the daily item usage limit since it has been removed from the core rules in the Essential line.

Sep 21, 2010 -- 6:51AM, Madfox11 wrote:

So for example, you cannot retrain all your heroic feats for paragon feats in one go once you reach level 11.

Of course with Essentials there aren't going to be "Paragon feats" any more, just feats with pre-reqs. So if you meet the pre-reqs then I guess you could retrain all feats at 11th level. We'll see.

Sep 21, 2010 -- 6:57AM, Joshua_Randall wrote:

Of course with Essentials there aren't going to be "Paragon feats" any more, just feats with pre-reqs. So if you meet the pre-reqs then I guess you could retrain all feats at 11th level. We'll see.

Except that if the prereq is 11th level or higher, then you can still not make that switch. Fallen Kingdoms does not contain any feats with such prerequisites, but the selection is rather limited, so who knows...

Sep 21, 2010 -- 6:57AM, Joshua_Randall wrote:

Of course with Essentials there aren't going to be "Paragon feats" any more, just feats with pre-reqs. So if you meet the pre-reqs then I guess you could retrain all feats at 11th level. We'll see.

There won't be any new paragon feats, but feats from earlier sources retain their prerequisites.  You still can't have more than 2 feats with an 11th-level prereq at 11th.

Speaking of which, the CCG does still allow slightly illegal builds.  For instance, if you start with a 14 Con and don't increase it at 4th or 8th level, you could gain Armor Prof (Plate), Armor Spec (Plate), and Devastating Critical all at level 11 (since one of those is a heroic-tier feat).

Sep 21, 2010 -- 3:34PM, MindWandererB wrote:

Speaking of which, the CCG does still allow slightly illegal builds.  For instance, if you start with a 14 Con and don't increase it at 4th or 8th level, you could gain Armor Prof (Plate), Armor Spec (Plate), and Devastating Critical all at level 11 (since one of those is a heroic-tier feat).

Why do you think this is allowed?

"Please note that you must still follow the general rules for retraining."  (CCG, p. 8)

Not being able to have more than two paragon feats at 11th level is just one example given of how you can't break the rules.  The example you just gave is pretty clearly another one.

The real question is, how are you going to implement changes, without screwing over people that have been playing a character for 1 year, saving coin, foregoing bundles for that one item that they needed for their concept character. It sounds to me, that this is exactly what the plan is.

Personally, the constant errata, and HUGE game changes on a monthly basis is not only irritating but turning me away from LFR / 4e in general. I own 4e books, I know, silly me. The books have been errata'd so much in the last year that I've owed them that my only hope for them is to find a sucker on Ebay. Can't we have some constants in this game? Does the whole bundle / loot / item concept have to be rehauled?

Can we all agree. People can't play the game if they don't know the rules. Changing the basic Core rules on a daily basis is not in anyone's best interests. And changing the core rules / principles which every character is built upon, and many people have been using for years successfully, is a horrible idea.

I'm guessing the next change over at Wotc will be... completely changing the damage system. They'll elimate hps all together. The only thing that will matter are healing surges, all attack powers will be errata'd to remove healing surges instead of dealing damage. Sound like a good idea? 

If Wotc can't give us any rules consistancy, can we at least have some in LFR?

LFR is the Organized Play campaign for WOTC, we are required to use their rules. When we don't we have to justify it to them and it generally has to have soemthing to do with the unusual Organized Play environment (which is in many ways different from a home campaign). I definately share your pain (as the person who has to update the CCG and thus deal with these changes in some way), but we believe that the large number of changes we've made over the last few months and that we will make over the next few, will make the campaign and should generally be the end of major changes for the foreseeable future.

I get it, Wotc is instituting item rarity and LFR has to implement it too. But since there are already LFR rules governing how items are acquired. Can't that be the instrument for how to obtain "uncommon" items? Since this is all up to DM's discretion in homegames, can't LFR's house rules be - 1 found item per level from a bundle, common / uncommon / rare / whatever. And going forward you can only buy common items with perhaps an uncommon item being able to be purchased once every couple levels or so.

Prior to this period the DM, ie LFR rules,  was more lenient with purchased items. It just seems counter-inuitive to me to implement some formula that crushes everyone's existing item(s) into some different item(s) that is more aligned with a "rarity" classification, especially when it would appear that most items are not going to be "common". LFR has been doing this rarity system longer than anyone else, you want an item, you have to play this one module, or save up to purchase it when you are an appropiate level.

I'm not saying what we are or are not implementing at this time. No announcement has been made, so all the different ideas in this thread are merely conjucture or suggestions made by players.

The one thing we are not likely to do is nothing. The treasure system was broken before the rarity change and we had plans to alter it before WOTC announced this change. It is simply too hard to get some basic items your PC needs by playing random adventures without knowing the treasure that's in them. In a home game your DM would make sure you eventually got the weapon/armor/implement/neck or whatever slot you needed. The other big issue is the change to item daily powers. We must at least somehow address those PCs who have 10 rare items, all of which they can now use in the same day, vs. the PC that avoided all but one or two rare items because they assumed they would never get to use them.

There have been plenty of good suggestions from the players and we will be discussing this further in an upcoming blog post. Also, like always, and possible rules changes to the CCG will be open to the player base for a rules discussion period where the campaign staff might make some adjustments based on that commentary.

Sep 24, 2010 -- 11:18AM, Skerrit wrote:

It is simply too hard to get some basic items your PC needs by playing random adventures without knowing the treasure that's in them.

I'm glad to hear this.  It suggests that, if your build is dependent on a particular item, there will continue to be a way to get it, without using LFRspoilers, even if it's an uncommon (maybe not a rare, though).

Skerrit, any idea on how close you are to a decision?  Should we just wait for the October CCG, or shall I continue to check this group daily?

Without insider knowledge, I will suggest that it's optimistic to expect a finalized rule before the end of this year.

They need something, fast, or else LFR is in limbo.  Fortunately, the HotFL update document doesn't include the item rarity rules (just a list) nor the removal of the daily magic item limit.  But the old rules are a lame duck, not to mention the hold on allowing Heroes of X options.  Besides, we were promised CCG 2.0, which would include Essentials, in October.

I had a thought for an idea for a fix.  Dunno if the admins are past this stage of brainstorming, but here it is anyway.

• The totals a character should have seem pretty clear: total "found" items should not exceed one per character level, uncommon items should not exceed 1/2 their total slots, used or not (round up here, so level 1 characters aren't screwed), and rare items should not exceed 1 per tier.  As before, sold items count; as before, saving up your slots means a penalty now in exchange for a reward later.
• Starting at level 3, each character gets 3 "floating" item slots, one each of no higher than your level +1, your level, and your level -1.  These can be commons or uncommons from any player resource, and they count against your found items.  However, you can "retrain" them every level.  You don't have to use all 3, and can use actual found items instead.  This would mean that any character who has a total of found items greater than their level -3 gets fewer than 3 floating items.  If you gain a found item when you're already at your cap, you can dump a floater to make room for it.
• Characters starting at above level 1 follow the current rules.  They gain the floaters once they have gained two levels, again subject to their found item cap.
• Grandfathering characters into the new system: This one's a toughie, and I'm less confident about this proposal.  Characters that already meet the new restrictions need no change.  Here are some options for options for dealing with excess found uncommons (bought ones should just be refunded):
  
  1. Trade them for commons of their level +1 or lower (subject to the level +4 limit).
  2. Temporarily convert them into floaters.  This could allow a character to exceed the cap for their current level, but they'd be obligated to retrain them into legal options when they level up.
  3. Refund the found item slot and give them an amount of GP equal to the "more gold" option for the mod in which they found it.  Players should have a record of which mod they found it in, so this just needs a shot table.  SPEC, QUES, ADCP, etc. may be a bit muddy.

Thoughts?

Sep 24, 2010 -- 2:28PM, MindWandererB wrote:

Thoughts?

Good way to see half the local LFR group and almost all* the organizing DMs quit the campaign.

Not exaggerating / kidding either.

LFR has custom treasure and has gone on too long for a reset button that doesn't get people to quit the campaign. We are heading into epic and we'd be telling people to rebuild their characters just before that?

LFR needs a custom solution that doesn't involve junking the current player base.


*I'll do a poll this weekend, but every DM I spoke too so far had this opinion. 

Dealing with floating slots and what not is far to complicated for what is not that complicated of a situation.  Using the common/uncommon split to establish a better balanced wealth level is actually a really good idea - party wealth in LFR is well above the execpted level, and as the partie inclreases in level the situation gets exponentially worse.

My recommendation is to establish a guideline of expected wealth that roughly scales with level.
Require characters to meet that guideline evertime they level, and be done with it.  Keep the LFR bundles as they are, add a limited option to buy uncommon items, and allow full purchasing of commons and consumables.  A system that is simple to understand and be compliant with is very important. 

My recommendation is an uncommon cap equal to Level/3 +1 per tier.  Level/2 results in slightly higher wealth, but also is easy enough to follow at all levels.  Don't get into any issues regarding what items were picked up when or anything like that, just require characters at any given level to be within the cap, how they got there is irrelevent so long as they are legal in the here an now.

For purchasing uncommons, add a quest reward to those adventures which offer Major Quest rewards.  For those characters who earn the quest reward, they are allowed to purchase any uncommon of their level (this represents the idea that characters quested for the components or what not like they would in a normal campaign).   This also has the nice side benefit of encourage characters to play in quest arcs.

I really don't see how establishing a reasonable wealth guideline and expecting characters to be withing the boundaries of said guideline will resort in the destruction of half of the LFR playgroups.
 

Sep 24, 2010 -- 2:40PM, fugacityD wrote:

LFR has custom treasure and has gone on too long for a reset button that doesn't get people to quit the campaign. We are heading into epic and we'd be telling people to rebuild their characters just before that?

I said nothing about rebuilding characters, just their loot.  If Essentials doesn't work with too many uncommons, then we have two choices: rewrite the D&D play rules, or rewrite the LFR item acquisition rules.  The former is an unacceptable option.  If the LFR item acquisitions change, then older characters either gain a benefit by being grandfathered in, or they need to rebuild their loot.  Again, the former option is unacceptable.

@MorganD: One of Keithric's concerns was in finding build-essential items by playing random adventures (which is the assumption).  The floaters solve that problem.  Major Quests are too unreliable, although the New LFR story arcs will make that easier.  Your proposal doesn't allow any way for a character participating in rando adventures to get even a single build-critical uncommon except by sheer luck.

It doesn't really matter what the exact mechanics of the uncommon/rare caps are, just that there are caps that come close to the expectations.  That's the easy part.  The hard parts are dealing with uncommons, and simulating an item wish list.  A complete solution must do both.

Sep 24, 2010 -- 4:47PM, MindWandererB wrote:

Sep 24, 2010 -- 2:40PM, fugacityD wrote:

LFR has custom treasure and has gone on too long for a reset button that doesn't get people to quit the campaign. We are heading into epic and we'd be telling people to rebuild their characters just before that?

I said nothing about rebuilding characters, just their loot.  If Essentials doesn't work with too many uncommons, then we have two choices: rewrite the D&D play rules, or rewrite the LFR item acquisition rules.  The former is an unacceptable option.  If the LFR item acquisitions change, then older characters either gain a benefit by being grandfathered in, or they need to rebuild their loot.  Again, the former option is unacceptable.

@MorganD: One of Keithric's concerns was in finding build-essential items by playing random adventures (which is the assumption).  The floaters solve that problem.  Major Quests are too unreliable, although the New LFR story arcs will make that easier.  Your proposal doesn't allow any way for a character participating in rando adventures to get even a single build-critical uncommon except by sheer luck.

It doesn't really matter what the exact mechanics of the uncommon/rare caps are, just that there are caps that come close to the expectations.  That's the easy part.  The hard parts are dealing with uncommons, and simulating an item wish list.  A complete solution must do both.

Well for most items, you can acquire them through the normal bundle system.  All of the adventures that are 'any Implement +3', Any Weapon/Neck/Armor +3 etc. should foot the bill for most of the
'build defining items'.  The things that need to be bought are off the off items - Dragonshards, Gauntlets of Blood, Sandals of Light stepping, Handband of Intellect etc.  The point being that you don't buy those very often, certainly only ever few levels.

I suppose another solution would be allow people to buy whatever uncommon's they want  of equal level and just apply bought items to whatever the level cap is - that would work just as well in the end. 

Keep in mind that "grandfathering" here is only a temporary measure.  In 4 levels, most of the excess items will be junk and the character will be in compliance with the new rules without any need for a major rebuild. 
    Our low paragon PC is happy with his +3 items, but soon those +4s will be available.  So he can only get them according to the new rules, which means that at least some of them have to be commons.  And it is not too long before the character effectively only has the same number of uncommons as the PC who started after the new rules.  And if there still is a noticeable difference, it will be much easier to eliminate it.
    We also have the advantage of avoiding all the stress of any conversion.  No players steamed over losing the item they worked so hard to get...  The Globals also gain this advantage.  They don't have to work to find the perfect way to do something than likely has no perfect way. 
    So grandfathering has considerable advantages and at less cost.  Given we are trying something whose advantages are dubious, it is best to do it in the least stressful way.  

I've been unable to find a list of which items are common, uncommon, and rate.  I did update the Character Builder and it shows for each item what it is.  Not having tried to look at every magic item in the program, I have so far found only common and uncommon items, so I have no idea what items are rate.

I recently tried to build a character above 1st level and discovered there is a problem trying to choose the 3 free common magic items for the characters.  For many levels I have only been able, at best to find one item of that level that was common.  By one item I mean among all the weapons, armor, hand, feet, head, neck, etc categories, I found one item that was common.  Sometimes it was a neck item, sometimes a leg item, but many categories do not have any common items at particular levels.  The armor, neck, and weapons are good for levels 1, 6, 11, etc for vanilla items, and vicious weapons are available at levels 2, 7, 12, etc.  However the between levels like 3-5, 8-10, etc do not seem to have any or at most one item from all categories combined.

They should either have one common magic item at each level in each category, or allow characters created at the higher levels (5, 8, 11) to select up to 3 uncommon items.  They are already limited in found item slots compared to characters started at 1st.  Those characters could have as many as 11 uncommon items at 11th level, while allowing the higher level created characters to have up to 4 uncommon would not make them too powerful.

Oct 17, 2010 -- 9:22PM, DavidArgall wrote:

    Our low paragon PC is happy with his +3 items, but soon those +4s will be available.  So he can only get them according to the new rules, which means that at least some of them have to be commons.  And it is not too long before the character effectively only has the same number of uncommons as the PC who started after the new rules.  And if there still is a noticeable difference, it will be much easier to eliminate it.  

Hm?  Why do any of them 'have to be' common?

You go up a level, you get a new slot and your allowed quota of uncommons goes up.  You can always fill every single slot with uncommons - and now an uncommon of your level is always an option.

And if, as suggested, you are replacing an item (replacing a +3 with a +4) then you are actually endup with an additional net uncommon slot once you sell off the old one.  Which means you can both upgrade to a new +4 uncommon item (once you reach the right level) and you can pick up a wondrous item, a consumeable or other usefull uncommon item.  This, of course, assumes that he doesn't just want to upgrade his weapon to +4 since he apparently now upgrade a weapon when he is still four levels lower than the items new level.  I.e. if you can afford it, you can take an item (with your uncommon pick) at, say L12 for a L12 item and then when you get to L13 upgrade it all the way up to the L17 version.  Note - Ithis is a change from the old rules.  Is this what they really intended to say?

So you may choose to take an common if you want the extra plus more than you do any of the available uncommons.  But the choice there is between the +4 at L16 or any of the uncommon +3s from L11 to L14 (i.e. most of them).

Carl

Oct 25, 2010 -- 7:33PM, CarlT wrote:

Oct 17, 2010 -- 9:22PM, DavidArgall wrote:

    Our low paragon PC is happy with his +3 items, but soon those +4s will be available.  So he can only get them according to the new rules, which means that at least some of them have to be commons.  And it is not too long before the character effectively only has the same number of uncommons as the PC who started after the new rules.  And if there still is a noticeable difference, it will be much easier to eliminate it.  

Hm?  Why do any of them 'have to be' common?

    You are overlooking the date.  At the time this was posted, it was expected that the PC would have 4 uncommon slots per tier, and our 13th level PC would have about 5-6, and would have maybe 18 uncommon items according to some reports, certainly well above 5.  So over the next 5 levels he would get only 2 uncommon items, but would certainly want the big three and likely some other magic as well, meaning he would have to be taking several commons.
    Fortunately the system was revised to allow uncommons at every level, but still with a limit of one per level.  So our 13th level with 18 uncommons would still be forced to take common items unless he first sells 5 of his uncommons.  A number of these items will be junk, so grandfathering will not be as necessary.  It is still probably a good idea since the excess items will still 'wear out', but it won't hurt as bad now.

Oct 25, 2010 -- 7:33PM, CarlT wrote:

You go up a level, you get a new slot and your allowed quota of uncommons goes up.  You can always fill every single slot with uncommons - and now an uncommon of your level is always an option.

    But it may not be a good option.  We will have to wait and see what the treasure bundles look like.  If you have your choice of any weapon of table level+2 [=6 for our example],  you might want something more than a generic+2, but if the reward is a Battlecrazed axe and you use a bow, that generic+2 bow is going to look great.  And if none of the treasures are appealing, you can get a 6th level generic anything instead of a 4th level uncommon.  So we won't be sure whether uncommons are actually a good idea until the new adventures start coming out.

Oct 25, 2010 -- 7:33PM, CarlT wrote:

And if, as suggested, you are replacing an item (replacing a +3 with a +4) then you are actually endup with an additional net uncommon slot once you sell off the old one.  Which means you can both upgrade to a new +4 uncommon item (once you reach the right level) and you can pick up a wondrous item, a consumeable or other usefull uncommon item.  This, of course, assumes that he doesn't just want to upgrade his weapon to +4 since he apparently now upgrade a weapon when he is still four levels lower than the items new level.  I.e. if you can afford it, you can take an item (with your uncommon pick) at, say L12 for a L12 item and then when you get to L13 upgrade it all the way up to the L17 version.  Note - Ithis is a change from the old rules.  Is this what they really intended to say?

    Technically.  But a 12th level item is 13,000.  So you need to scrap up 52,000 to upgrade it to 17th level.  There seems to be no way you can raise that sum before you are about 16th level.