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Zerilan posted:Naturally this doesn't apply to "save for half" spell effects because I'm not being sarcastic - that's really the answer. Because magic.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:45
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I owe you a beer for this. Just finished it, haven't laughed this hard in a long time.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:55
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akasnowmaaan posted:I owe you a beer for this. Just finished it, haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Watching it again I just realised SKR is in it which in and of itself is pretty hilarious.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:00
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Yeah people talk about Disassociated Mechanics, shortened to DS apparently for some reason, and how DoaM aka Damage on a Miss is a DS mechanic and is unrealistic and how unrealistic things need to be removed. Never thinking that if we followed that we would have no spellcasters, no non-natural enemies certainly nothing like a giant that breaks physics, that people would die in one hit, etc. Some people in the DoaM threads, though really 99% of them are threads that really have nothing to do with DoaM or GWF but certain individuals make any thread they post in about that, are willing to say that they want more options for GWF than just the current, but then you get people who are adamant that it should be stricken from the books and not even an option and if someone half a country/world away have the option for the current GWF then they won't be buying the books. It is crazy, and they don't seem to understand how crazy that sounds.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:03
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The "damage on a miss" conniption people have is doubly stupid because back when I first got into roleplaying and started poking around online on various discussion boards one of the very first D&Disms I was ever exposed to was the concept that a "miss" in D&D didn't necessarily mean that you failed to connect, just that your blow didn't strike a vulnerable spot or something. That's why wearing better armor improved your AC, it's not that plate armor turned you into a sword-dodging maniac, it simply meant that your armor was better at turning sword strikes into glancing blows. This was back in 2nd Edition/AD&D time too, so it's not like "When you miss you don't necessarily miss" is some newfangled interpretation of the text.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:04
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akasnowmaaan posted:I owe you a beer for this. Just finished it, haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Kai Tave posted:The "damage on a miss" conniption people have is doubly stupid because back when I first got into roleplaying and started poking around online on various discussion boards one of the very first D&Disms I was ever exposed to was the concept that a "miss" in D&D didn't necessarily mean that you failed to connect, just that your blow didn't strike a vulnerable spot or something. That's why wearing better armor improved your AC, it's not that plate armor turned you into a sword-dodging maniac, it simply meant that your armor was better at turning sword strikes into glancing blows. This was back in 2nd Edition/AD&D time too, so it's not like "When you miss you don't necessarily miss" is some newfangled interpretation of the text.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:03
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I do wonder what percentage of people who hate fighters doing damage on a miss coincides with the people who constantly create overly elaborate house rule systems to turn AC into damage reduction. It's likely that the groups have significant overlap, because they're both based on "making things realistic" while having no idea what a realistic armored sword fight looks like. Opponents that are competent enough that a D&D depiction requires more than the GM saying "you stab him and move on" aren't waving swords around in your general direction and just missing, ever. If they don't hurt you with an attack (not a feint or counter, an attack), it's because you blocked, parried, dodged, or got a piece of armor into the way. Also, armor is a defense you have to actively use. Nobody's going to slash away at your breastplate while you laugh at their ineptitude. Competent opponents aren't attacking your armor, they're attacking you through weak or unarmored spots. (e: or they know they can penetrate your armor and are going to do so the first time you fail to parry). All of this could probably be simulated, it just wouldn't be any fun. Gary loving Gygax realised this so we got HP and AC instead. e: For real realism, you'd have to separate damage that hurts from damage that wounds. You'd have to track damage to armor and shields. You'd have to have feints, dodges, blocks, parries, and counters. You'd need to differentiate thrust, cut, chop, bash, etc and left/right and high/low, and so on and so on and so on. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 04:01 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 03:44
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dwarf74 posted:Well, because magic, obviously. The funniest part is, magic isn't even some special thing in D&D. Anyone can learn it, they just have to find a spellbook and take a wizard level. We aren't dealing with something where the wizards are all secretly demigods or something, yet you constantly hear 'But ANYONE can learn a martial power! It's not even magic!'
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Jan 14, 2014 03:46
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Spoilers Below posted:"Hit points must represent physical damage inflicted on the actual person of the target being hit. If someone still takes damage on a miss, it is in effect saying that hit points are in fact an abstract designation incorporating luck, positioning, and tiredness in addition to actual pain and injury, which, despite being what Gygax said in the 1st edition of AD&D.. HP can't be luck or divine favor. Only divine casters can restore HP with It's not a contradiction, it's just the way things are. You know, traditionally.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:57
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AlphaDog posted:HP can't be luck or divine favor. I mean what are you going to do, have people be healed by yelling at them?
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Jan 14, 2014 04:03
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AlphaDog posted:e: For real realism, you'd have to separate damage that hurts from damage that wounds. You'd have to track damage to armor and shields. You'd have to have feints, dodges, blocks, parries, and counters. You'd need to differentiate thrust, cut, chop, bash, etc and left/right and high/low, and so on and so on and so on. That's how Dwarf Fortress combat works (minus armor/shield damage). And trying to imagine tabletop rules for DF combat would give me nightmares.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:14
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Maybe it's just me but I'm missing how a sword that also does fire damage or a ring of feather fall is in any way a "garbage item." If you can't get creative with a sword that lights fire, that seems more like a personal failing. I mean, at the very least - at the very, very least - it now acts as both sword and torch.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:15
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ProfessorCirno posted:Maybe it's just me but I'm missing how a sword that also does fire damage or a ring of feather fall is in any way a "garbage item." If you can't get creative with a sword that lights fire, that seems more like a personal failing. I mean, at the very least - at the very, very least - it now acts as both sword and torch. Maybe it was on this forum but I remember a few years back reading a huge post on how something as simple as a Light spell made permanent would have changed civilization, considering a source of light without needing fuel would indeed have been a huge boon to have. But no. Garbage. All of it.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:21
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crime fighting hog posted:Maybe it was on this forum but I remember a few years back reading a huge post on how something as simple as a Light spell made permanent would have changed civilization, considering a source of light without needing fuel would indeed have been a huge boon to have. It's the example that's used semi-frequently on this forum about how D&D settings try to be bronze age civilization + magic without bothering to take into account how magic would change things.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:23
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Zerilan posted:It's the example that's used semi-frequently on this forum about how D&D settings try to be bronze age civilization + magic without bothering to take into account how magic would change things. Isn't that the reason Eberron exists? To operate within a world that attempts to take into consideration how that would change things?
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Jan 14, 2014 04:25
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crime fighting hog posted:Maybe it was on this forum but I remember a few years back reading a huge post on how something as simple as a Light spell made permanent would have changed civilization, considering a source of light without needing fuel would indeed have been a huge boon to have. I think garbage is defined as not improving a character in combat which, honestly, is what most DnD games revolve around while also providing a feature the wizard can already do at whim. Basically we return back to a huge core problem in DnD problem where the wizard does so goddamn much she invalidates what should be cool things like weapons which provide light only to the wielder with her bevy of at wills. Death to DnD wizards. kingcom posted:Isn't that the reason Eberron exists? To operate with a world that attempts to take into consideration how that would change a world? Eberron is good but even it doesn't go anywhere in depth to reflect just how incredibly incomprehensibly different a world with DnD magic would be from ours. Like, Magic Missile in and of itself would result in a world of such paranoid and insane rulership and bizzare interaction methods that it would make modern internet shut ins look positively outgoing. Barudak fucked around with this message at 04:29 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 04:25
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Barudak posted:Eberron is good but even it doesn't go anywhere in depth to reflect just how incredibly incomprehensibly different a world with DnD magic would be from ours. A setting where people are constantly being patted down by wands of detect magic before being teleported to their destination style? Seems like it would tend to look just like a sci fi setting.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:28
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Barudak posted:Eberron is good but even it doesn't go anywhere in depth to reflect just how incredibly incomprehensibly different a world with DnD magic would be from ours. True, but acknowledging that magic changes day to day life at all is better than most settings.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:28
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kingcom posted:A setting where people are constantly being patted down by wands of detect magic before being teleported to their destination style? Seems like it would tend to look just like a sci fi setting. Economically none of that would happen though. Like, its not just "our universe with magical equivalents" the rules behind those magical equivalents and the spells they can cast would be tremendous. The economics of such a world aren't just broken, they're completely and irreversible hosed in favor of a small, powerful birth determined group of individuals who can literally create whatever they want on a whim. I mean, its a world where a single patron could provide unlimited food supplies for her people conjured from nothing while at the same time easily destroying any crops they try to grow without her. A world where mining for any raw material other than gold is a completely pointless endeavor and where the vast majority of labor would be done by a single wizard or mindless golems they create for their needs. Its a world where other people are functionally unneeded for a small portion of individuals. Barudak fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 04:31
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Fire is civilization! So, this is getting a bummer so let's go back to talking about food. My family used to have a secret recipie, which tasted great and prepared fast, and I was very proud of it. Then it turned up in the back of a manga. It turns out it's not very secret at all? But it's delicious and filling and can be made out of whatever meat you have in the fridge. Peanut Butter Noodles (It's Chinese apparently) A box of Spaghetti One heaping blob of peanutbutter, like a quarter of the jar. 2-3 tablespoons of soy sauce A jug of vegetable oil you mostly won't use. Sesame oil ideal. A squirt of sriracha left over from before the law told them to stop macing people Some meat Cook the meat. Mix the soy sauce with the peanutbutter in a bowl. Then slowly add oil, mixing busilly until the consistancy changes from thick and peanutbuttery and into a smooth sauce. Squirt in the hotsauce, maybe a little pepper. Feel free to toss in a squirt of lemon or some diced chives. Cook some noodles. Mix the meat bits, the peanut butter sauce, and the noodles in a pot with like a spoon or something. Leave the pot on the stove and it'll keep for hours.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:36
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Barudak posted:Economically none of that would happen though. Like, its not just "our universe with magical equivalents" the rules behind those magical equivalents and the spells they can cast would be tremendous. The economics of such a world aren't just broken, they're completely and irreversible hosed in favor of a small, powerful birth determined group of individuals who can literally create whatever they want on a whim. I choose to believe your describing Krypton. I personally prefer the world where you get undead to do your dirty work so families wait for their loved ones to die off then use them for labor for the next 100 years. Alternatively the countries of the world are just people who have taken Leadership as a feat and decided to just plant everyone down. EDIT:Another good reason is that the entire logic of the universe is defined by a handful of wizards who hit that level where building their own plane of existence is just a thing they can do. The only reason the world is farming and being all dark ages is because your particular world's wizard is a grog. kingcom fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 04:36
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ProfessorCirno posted:Maybe it's just me but I'm missing how a sword that also does fire damage or a ring of feather fall is in any way a "garbage item." If you can't get creative with a sword that lights fire, that seems more like a personal failing. I mean, at the very least - at the very, very least - it now acts as both sword and torch. The short of it is that you only get a certain number of magic item 'slots' (and by this I don't mean body parts where magic items can go but the cap on the amount of items you can acquire for X gold). You *can* get creative with a sword that lights things on fire...but, and this is the big catch, why do you need a magic item to set things on fire? You can do it through mundane tools. It also doesn't help you win the combat minigame, which is the only part of the game where 'not being up to par' has, as a default consequence, 'you die'. Since you're attached to your character, losing him is a no-go, which means picking items that improve your combat skills first and foremost to continue roleplaying as him. Rarely, you can fill out your magic item slots (this time the real ones that take up bits of your body) and start taking utility items. In these situations, you still wouldn't want a sword that lights poo poo on fire, because you can do it anytime with some oil and a torch. A ring of feather fall that makes it so you don't die if you fall a long distance (or my favorite version of the same idea, the Window of Escape that makes it so you take no damage no matter how long a distance you fall so long as you fall through the window...and yes, this means you can become a living dive-bomb that wrecks everything by falling down on something from low earth orbit and striking the Iron Man pose) is much more useful, though. It's not the item I'd take in any situation at all if I had a choice, since I'd rather have the ability to know without failure, if someone is telling me the truth or a flying airship or unlimited water, but at least it's something you cannot achieve with preparation and mundane effort most of the time. So, to sum up: A magic item is garbage when it just does something you could do with a bit of time, effort, and perhaps monetary expenditure. A magic item is a meh choice when it does something you couldn't do with the aforementioned recipe, but is minor. A magic item is a priority pick when it does something unique that you cannot do with just your wits, money and effort and provides a major advantage. A magic item is critical when it helps your character not die and allows you to keep having fun, somehow. Items that grant useful abilities in combat are thus critical in a fantasy game.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:38
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kingcom posted:I choose to believe your describing Krypton. I personally prefer the world where you get undead to do your dirty work so families wait for their loved ones to die off then use them for labor for the next 100 years. Alternatively the countries of the world are just people who have taken Leadership as a feat and decided to just plant everyone down. Yeah, I mean if we take it to its logical conclusion since Gods can be defeated but a sufficiently powerful wizard can't they're the creation of your universe's wizard. If your universe has gods of evil and you need to farm for food your Wizard is a total jerk. If you don't want to play a DnD campaign where the party goal is for the players martial classes want to gain enough power to find their creator and file a formal complaint against her I don't want to know you.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:43
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Night10194 posted:The funniest part is, magic isn't even some special thing in D&D. Anyone can learn it, they just have to find a spellbook and take a wizard level. We aren't dealing with something where the wizards are all secretly demigods or something, yet you constantly hear 'But ANYONE can learn a martial power! It's not even magic!' Fighters must be horrible. That is the whole of the law. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 04:47
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If you want a really interesting explanation of why mages don't rule everything, and some extrapolations relevant to current thread discussion, read the short story "The Magic Goes Away", by Larry Niven. Magic is a non-renewable resource.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:51
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Barudak posted:Yeah, I mean if we take it to its logical conclusion since Gods can be defeated but a sufficiently powerful wizard can't they're the creation of your universe's wizard. If your universe has gods of evil and you need to farm for food your Wizard is a total jerk. I'm suddenly reminded of Surface Detail now. Mimir posted:If you want a really interesting explanation of why mages don't rule everything, and some extrapolations relevant to current thread discussion, read the short story "The Magic Goes Away", by Larry Niven. Magic is a non-renewable resource. Didn't he do an entire book on that? Plus 'The Magic May Return' from incoming meteorites or something? Edit: Now that I think of it I can remember there's several settings that make magic use so fundamentally detrimental to the world that it ends up being really rare due to it being a Bad Thing. Though I'm pretty sure that doesn't quite jibe with human nature. Free power, and the only cost is the world explodes in three hundred years? Sign me up! Daetrin fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 05:00
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The thing to remember with Eberron is that the very first assumption in the setting is that PCs are special. Your group's wizard is one of the only people with the "wizard" class in the game. Your cleric is unique - everyone else is a non-magical priest.Transient People posted:The short of it is that you only get a certain number of magic item 'slots' (and by this I don't mean body parts where magic items can go but the cap on the amount of items you can acquire for X gold). You *can* get creative with a sword that lights things on fire...but, and this is the big catch, why do you need a magic item to set things on fire? You can do it through mundane tools. It also doesn't help you win the combat minigame, which is the only part of the game where 'not being up to par' has, as a default consequence, 'you die'. Since you're attached to your character, losing him is a no-go, which means picking items that improve your combat skills first and foremost to continue roleplaying as him. Rarely, you can fill out your magic item slots (this time the real ones that take up bits of your body) and start taking utility items. In these situations, you still wouldn't want a sword that lights poo poo on fire, because you can do it anytime with some oil and a torch. A ring of feather fall that makes it so you don't die if you fall a long distance (or my favorite version of the same idea, the Window of Escape that makes it so you take no damage no matter how long a distance you fall so long as you fall through the window...and yes, this means you can become a living dive-bomb that wrecks everything by falling down on something from low earth orbit and striking the Iron Man pose) is much more useful, though. It's not the item I'd take in any situation at all if I had a choice, since I'd rather have the ability to know without failure, if someone is telling me the truth or a flying airship or unlimited water, but at least it's something you cannot achieve with preparation and mundane effort most of the time. You're running on the assumption that the +x items still exist. I'm pretty sure I rather soundly established that those, if anything, are the real garbage items and need to be thrown out. You're ALSO running on the assumption that there's still some kinda "magic mart" to pick and choose your items from. You can indeed replicate the fire sword - with time, materials, and a second pair of hands. But if you're facing a troll, a fire sword is going to matter quite a bit in combat. If you're in a dark cavern, the fire sword is going to matter a whole lot because you (assumably) only have two hands. If you have beasties afraid of fire, that fire sword is going to make a difference. Need a distraction? Boom, fire in your loving hands, lighting anything else you want! Remember, I'm running on two assumptions, one established for Next, one not. The first that Next has flatly stated is that there is no magic mart and no chart of must have items. The second, that I'm proposing, is that you remove the lovely +x to y items. Finding a magic sword should be "Cool, it's enchanted with fire!" Not "Cool, time to adjust my character's numbers and calculations!" And lastly, I do not get your last sentence. Seriously, I don't get it. The idea that items must grant useful combat abilities in order for it to be a fantasy game? You're going to need to unwrap that logic, because it's far, far beyond me.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:21
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Mystic Mongol posted:Fire is civilization! I'm not quite sure how I feel about the idea of mixing peanut butter with even more oil. That seems like it could get nasty fast.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:26
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Kai Tave posted:I'm not quite sure how I feel about the idea of mixing peanut butter with even more oil. That seems like it could get nasty fast. Give it a shot, you'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:41
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ProfessorCirno posted:The thing to remember with Eberron is that the very first assumption in the setting is that PCs are special. Your group's wizard is one of the only people with the "wizard" class in the game. Your cleric is unique - everyone else is a non-magical priest. You need to focus on the preceding sentences, the one that talk about how not-dying is the most important thing and how items that keep your character alive are thus the ones you most want. In a fantasy game that translates to items that make combat less risky, for the most part. You want to be able to bulldoze through anything that could threaten to make your character no longer playable. That's your primary goal, then everything else comes second, so pick items accordingly.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:49
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Transient People posted:You need to focus on the preceding sentences, the one that talk about how not-dying is the most important thing and how items that keep your character alive are thus the ones you most want. In a fantasy game that translates to items that make combat less risky, for the most part. You want to be able to bulldoze through anything that could threaten to make your character no longer playable. That's your primary goal, then everything else comes second, so pick items accordingly. Again, no magic mart. Also god, that sounds boring as poo poo. Any system that makes you choose between interesting and effective needs to die.
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Jan 14, 2014 05:53
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ProfessorCirno posted:Again, no magic mart. If the player can't pick items, why the gently caress are you wasting manuals and manuals' worth of pages on them? gently caress that. If I'm going to HAVE to keep a record of random-rear end bullshit, I get to pick it. Else, let me trade all that dogshit in for something cooler, like being so badass I cleave mountains or walk on air. I don't need a variety of stupid geegaws that the GM found funny and wished he could have in his other game.
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Jan 14, 2014 06:36
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Transient People posted:If the player can't pick items, why the gently caress are you wasting manuals and manuals' worth of pages on them? gently caress that. If I'm going to HAVE to keep a record of random-rear end bullshit, I get to pick it. Else, let me trade all that dogshit in for something cooler, like being so badass I cleave mountains or walk on air. I don't need a variety of stupid geegaws that the GM found funny and wished he could have in his other game. I just don't understand the line of thought here. But that might just be because I rather loathe the 3e/4e D&D implementation of GP as a secondary point-buy track for magic-item power-ups. Frankly, I think fiddling around and shopping for a billion magic items to find exactly the right helm for a charge-barian is even worse than fiddling around with a billion feats. Further, for my money, the Inherent Bonus system from Dark Sun 4e is a godsend that improves D&D substantially. (Not as much as fixing the math so I didn't need it in the first place would, but it's the next best thing.) It alleviates tracking treasure down to the GP (both the parceling out and the player-side tracking), hours of book labor by my players in finding just the right gadget, and just generally a shitload of overhead. Maybe I've fixated on my time spent running and playing BX/BECMI and AD&D, but I think finding cool-rear end magic items is one of the best parts of D&D and one of the main things that draws me to the game. It might not be precisely the puzzle piece which lets me optimize my frostcheeser, but gently caress it - variety's fun. Finding magic poo poo is integral to the "exploration" side of D&D for me, and it's one of the only areas where I think Next is doing pretty okay. Okay-ish, anyway, and a step above both 3e and 4e for once.
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Jan 14, 2014 07:22
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ProfessorCirno posted:You're running on the assumption that the +x items still exist. I'm pretty sure I rather soundly established that those, if anything, are the real garbage items and need to be thrown out. Players love those items, though. They like getting treasure that makes them objectively better at their number one activity in game, killing monsters. And when they're looking for an item or through a list or hoping to get something from a patron, nine times outta ten they're going to ask for a better weapon to kill things better with. The tenth time they'll ask to fly.
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Jan 14, 2014 07:32
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dwarf74 posted:Maybe I've fixated on my time spent running and playing BX/BECMI and AD&D, but I think finding cool-rear end magic items is one of the best parts of D&D and one of the main things that draws me to the game. It might not be precisely the puzzle piece which lets me optimize my frostcheeser, but gently caress it - variety's fun. Finding magic poo poo is integral to the "exploration" side of D&D for me, and it's one of the only areas where I think Next is doing pretty okay. Okay-ish, anyway, and a step above both 3e and 4e for once. Yeah, a big part of D&D for me is having things happen to my character and integrating them into my (mechanical? except this includes only semi-mechanical utility things, too) concept. It's more fun for me to have my character be a mix of planned and emergent traits than to just write my build out at level one and follow the script from there.
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Jan 14, 2014 07:42
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Mystic Mongol posted:Players love those items, though. They like getting treasure that makes them objectively better at their number one activity in game, killing monsters. And when they're looking for an item or through a list or hoping to get something from a patron, nine times outta ten they're going to ask for a better weapon to kill things better with. The tenth time they'll ask to fly. Maybe I'm playing in the wrong groups then, because nobody I've played with has ever - ever - gotten excited over a single +x to kill things. poo poo, except me, and that's in one occasion (4e game) where I was building a character based entirely and only around killing things. And even then it was situationally fire damage. I've seen players pay more attention to looting the furniture in a dungeon so they can pimp out their manor before noting a magical ring. I'm not against items effecting combat, I just don't think they should give bland +MATHS. A mace that dispels all magic it touches is far more interesting then a mace of +3d6 damage vs spellcasters, even if the latter is better at killing wizards. The Rod of Lordly Might was cool not because it was +x, but because it was a swiss army knife of weapons. The thing I remember most about the Celestial Heavens katana from Baldur's Gate 2 was that it struck like thunder, and the description stated that it always begins to rain when you draw it. Boots of jumping are the most bland non-combat based item I an think of and I will always - ALWAYS - find them more interesting then Horned Helm of Charging. At least you can do things involving jumping. All the helmet does is give +MATHS when using the one combat activity that you're already going to do every time. It's the +MATHS TO KILL I'm against. Check it: Leveling up increases your maths to kill Attributes increase your maths to kill Feats increase your maths to kill Magic items increase your maths to kill Class powers/spells increase your maths to kill Situational benefits increase your maths to kill gently caress that. At least half of those could be changed or clipped out.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:08
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The most interesting Pathfinder campaign I've ever ran, according to my players, was the one where the players were forced by circumstances into spending their money wisely on above-level magic items for heist purposes. For a while there, at its peak, it was D&D mixed with Shadowrun's gear fetishism. Like, why wouldn't you buy a Scroll of Teleport Circle at low levels if you could, to keep in reserve in case poo poo Goes Down? Making them spend their dough on the cool wondrous items keeps them off balance, extends their capabilities, and makes them squeeze out every last cent of their wealth by level. I put inverted underhanging apartment complexes in a hanging mountain-city so that the players had to find ways to fly at level three. They'll be so busy trying to buy access to obscure spells and brewing back-up potions they'll hardly be able to afford proper armor and weapons, even though that's obviously what they really want. That's where you layer on the real tension. My only regret is that the premature end of that campaign kept me from doing "Die Hard in a Castle", or throwing the Tarrasque at them with an army at their side for a finale at around level 13. (Why? Because I believed my players could figure something out.) If you're going to make gear matter, make it actually matter. If you're going to make magic a tool instead of making it magical, make it a tool and make them use that tool in creative ways. Magic Marts are fun. Reading through a Magic item catalogues is fun. Resource management? Complex decisions? Saving everyone's life with that one wondrous item you bought on the off-chance? That's really fun. If you run Pathfinder, I highly encourage you to make your next 3.5/Pathfinder game about abusing the magic item system on a teeny tiny low-level budget.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:52
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Where 4e really poo poo the bed was not siloing off combat and non-combat stuff. Case in point, the best utility power at-level for any ranger regardless of build is Invigorating Stride. Never mind that dumb bullshit where you give an ally you WIS mod as a bonus to a skill check. Also, Linguist feat. Items have exactly the same problem. And themes. Seriously, split it up so there is a very clearly defined line between what adds to Kill Stuff Maths and what doesn't; don't have it so everything does both.
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Jan 14, 2014 08:54
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Mystic Mongol posted:Players love those items, though. They like getting treasure that makes them objectively better at their number one activity in game, killing monsters. And when they're looking for an item or through a list or hoping to get something from a patron, nine times outta ten they're going to ask for a better weapon to kill things better with. The tenth time they'll ask to fly. But that's only because the maths works out that way. I've done exactly what you describe in my last 4e game, and hated it at the time - I recall actually asking for 'just a straight +x, the other bonuses are crap and it eats up less of the magic budget'. There was nothing magical about it, it was an exercise in accounting optimisation. If you remove the option of 'more swordey', then you can have magical items that do something more interesting than 'sword better'.
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Jan 14, 2014 09:44
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dwarf74 posted:I just don't understand the line of thought here. But that might just be because I rather loathe the 3e/4e D&D implementation of GP as a secondary point-buy track for magic-item power-ups. Frankly, I think fiddling around and shopping for a billion magic items to find exactly the right helm for a charge-barian is even worse than fiddling around with a billion feats. When you have to specialize to be effective, getting something off-spec sucks. A fighter who is only competitive with the rest of the party because he sinks every resource into being Great With Greatswords is naturally going to be disappointed when the random treasure roll comes up with a handaxe, even if it's a handaxe that glows in the dark.
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Jan 14, 2014 10:11
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