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The Vorpal Tribble
2010-04-15, 01:28 AM
Ok, this has been a complaint of mine for a long while. To get anywhere at higher levels it's expected you have some incredible equipment.

What if the character has absolutely no reason to have it though? Many ways of advancing yourself without having actually raided a dragon's lair or beaten up a mage for his lunch trinkets.

At this point it's basically Role playing vs. roll playing. Story vs. power. There any official alternative rulings for instead of having an item, having maybe a boost to stats, an extra feat, etc?

senrath
2010-04-15, 01:38 AM
I don't think there are any official rulings on the subject for 3.5. I do know that 4e has a set of variant rules that grant inherent bonuses as characters level, instead of giving them magic items.

But for 3.5 I think you'll have to go homebrew. I could be wrong, though.

Trekkin
2010-04-15, 01:39 AM
There exists no official ruling of which I'm aware, but you could always apply VoP up to that point, make the bonuses untyped and the feats unexalted, kick out the specific, obviously exalted effects like Sustenance and True Seeing, and keep the encounters slightly easier to make up for the inevitable difference in power.

DueceEsMachine
2010-04-15, 01:46 AM
About the closest thing I can think of would be the Forsaker class, from 3.0, but I might have misunderstood your meaning.

I do agree that the game seems to be an ever-increasing arms race of who can have the bigger enchanted sword, to the point that at higher levels, if you've got less than a +5 vorpal whatever, you are going to get your rear handed to you.

GoodbyeSoberDay
2010-04-15, 01:58 AM
Spellcasters can generally get away with having only what is required for them to cast spells; it knocks them down a peg, but that's not the end of the world when the items you're losing mostly replicate what you could do anyway.

Riffington
2010-04-15, 05:20 AM
Do you want to do this as a group or as one guy in the group?
Because without equipment, you'll be a bit weak against some foes and extremely weak against others. If you're the only one, that's sorta-fine... VoP or the like could help balance you, and the other team members can plan for your occasional weaknesses.
If it's the whole group, you have to ignore CR (it makes all kinds of assumptions about equipment), but you can play just fine.

Amphetryon
2010-04-15, 05:33 AM
Vow of Poverty attempted to address this in 3.X. It is widely seen as a huge TRAP.

Chrono22
2010-04-15, 05:35 AM
Vow of Poverty is a... unoptimized solution. But certainly it is less work.
I'm using it on my gestalt druid/monk to good effect.

Myou
2010-04-15, 05:40 AM
Heh heh, this comes up so often. :smallsmile

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/innate_magic.htm is what you want, I adpated it slightly and made it part of my houserules - it's perfect, for my group at least.

Runestar
2010-04-15, 07:27 AM
None that I am aware of. You just have to suck it up.

I don't see why there should be some form of compensation. I mean, your character has opted not to wield a magical weapon due to his backstory. All other things equal, he should be inferior to another npc of similar stats who happens to have superior gear.

Telonius
2010-04-15, 09:59 AM
So basically we're talking about a person who's gotten all of his XP through RP encounters, is that about it? A person like that would be famous locally, either as a Wise Old Man/Woman or as an advisor. Basically their power is in their connections, not necessarily their possessions. The best way I can think of modeling this in the standard ruleset is by giving them a whopping leadership score and tons of followers.

The thing is, because this character is likely to be famous and powerful locally, they're likely to have some amount of money given to them. The king rewards him handsomely for brokering peace between princes; the chief gives him 2% of the turnip crop; whatever. It's perfectly reasonable for that sort of a character to have a bunch of magic gizmos, even though he didn't loot it himself. (Ever wonder what Ye Olde Magic Shoppe does with the stuff you sell to it?)

aivanther
2010-04-15, 10:08 AM
The thing is, because this character is likely to be famous and powerful locally, they're likely to have some amount of money given to them. The king rewards him handsomely for brokering peace between princes; the chief gives him 2% of the turnip crop; whatever. It's perfectly reasonable for that sort of a character to have a bunch of magic gizmos, even though he didn't loot it himself. (Ever wonder what Ye Olde Magic Shoppe does with the stuff you sell to it?)

This. Thing is, some NPCs actually have craft X and use it to good profit. Plus, when you unload your loot for golds the trader/shopkeeper isn't buying it out of charity but to sell it for a profit to some guy with even more golds. There's stuff to be had if you know where to look, and if you rip off the right people you don't even have to buy it!

I once had a bard that went most of a campaign RP and ended up with more gold and better gear than the dungeon crawling party he got separated from. It's amazing what good Bluff and Diplomacy checks can do with the right crime lords and local barons and army generals.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-04-15, 10:59 AM
That would probably be my main complaint with D&D. The fact that you have to 'suck it up' as has been mentioned.



So basically we're talking about a person who's gotten all of his XP through RP encounters, is that about it? etc.
No, there are many adventures and challenges and battles that have very little in way of financial reward.

Let's take my favorite character of all time, an epic level psion (seer)/horizon walker. The man is very elderly, but he has visited nearly every place in the world. He was raised very humbly, and basically his main ability is to 'see where the paths will lead him'. He's had to face many challenges, and defend against many creatures. However, he is a very simple fellow.

Not only would he look ridiculous with all sorts of baubles hanging off of him, but its not even in his spirit to hang on to such things. He's not a vow of poverty type, but would be weighed down by it all.

Freedom is his goal in life, and he fights for it, but by tying himself to all sorts of material things that he'd miss he'd not be free at all.

Beorn080
2010-04-15, 11:27 AM
Well, you could refluff the appearence of certain items. Perhaps paying more for unslotted, so you could perhaps, instead of a ring a three wishes, a monkey's paw of three wishes that you kept as a reminder of the battle of 3 monkey's. Not flashy, gaudy items, but mementos of your deeds that have absorbed power. Small brick taken from the tower of the archwizard you faced, which acts as a pearl of power, that sort of thing.

Glimbur
2010-04-15, 12:05 PM
My answer is lies and abstraction. Specifically, you can have special powers that happen to work identically to items. These powers are "priced" identically to items and are assumed to be acquired off camera. You have standard WBL worth of special powers. DM's can award either actual money which magically turns in to powers off camera, or award meta-money which is turned into powers without character knowledge.

The major problem with this idea is also its greatest strength: it's the same mechanically. It might feel odd to, for example, have a built-in wand of fireball. Stat and save boosters would be the most natural as they're passive anyway and just increase abstract numbers. Even armor and weapons can be hand waved pretty easily, if you're willing. But why can you pull out that Feather Token Boat, for example?

Abd al-Azrad
2010-04-15, 12:31 PM
Your main complaint with D&D is that it's too materialistic? Man, there are so many other things wrong with it!

Anyways, I suppose the thing to fix this would be to work out, with your DM, what sort of effects you would otherwise want from gear, and the approximate value of those effects in wealth. Then, stat up a quick WBL guide to figure out what you could have afforded, and make those effects become a bonus added onto your build as you level. Like, extra class abilities. Basically make up a Vow of Poverty-style chart specific to your character.

Oh, crap, Glimbur just wrote this exact thing, I can see it below my post as I'm typing. At least I saw this ninja coming. :smalltongue:

Telonius
2010-04-15, 12:43 PM
That sounds similar to a houserule I use for Monks. They're allowed to enchant their bodies as though they were a weapon or suit of armor. (Monk's level stands in for Caster Level for purposes of determining maximum bonus, and when they would be able to cast spells associated with special weapon/armor abilities). Certain things like Throwing or Dancing don't make sense, but otherwise it usually works.

Velden
2010-04-15, 03:45 PM
How about using gestalt characters with the limitation of using at least one generic class?

- The generic classes donīt have any class features.This way every character would still fill a role according to their non-generic class.

- All the items needed to survive against that powerfull monster can be replaced by more feats, skills points, hp and better saves.

-Spells and magical effects would be easier to overcome because itīs easier to come up with a gestalt build with no "poor" saves, also the bonus feats could be used to improve them even more.

Of course, this is just an idea. I wouldnīt be surprised of how unbalanced this could result in an actual game. Magic items could be harder to find without making them "essential" to overcome a particular high level monster.

Godskook
2010-04-15, 03:55 PM
Easiest way to do it would be VoP + Gestalt Incarnum. VoP takes care of the basics, and Incarnum gives you the rest, with a built in "No, I don't want items" kind of attitude.

Runestar
2010-04-15, 04:23 PM
et's take my favorite character of all time, an epic level psion (seer)/horizon walker. The man is very elderly, but he has visited nearly every place in the world. He was raised very humbly, and basically his main ability is to 'see where the paths will lead him'. He's had to face many challenges, and defend against many creatures. However, he is a very simple fellow.

In game terms, he would probably be represented simply has having more class lvs than the norm. You could say that he learns more because he is not hobbled by all his magic gear, so he has to work harder than the typical adventurer in getting things done (meaning he learns more in the process).

So you may want to work with the DM to let your eq-less PC stay a few lvs ahead of the party or something.

Prime32
2010-04-15, 04:41 PM
I'm going to second "refluff items as innate powers". If you do this, you might also want to get rid of body slot affinities. Let a PC "wear" three "helmets" for instance, as long as he doesn't have more items than he could normally wear. And rather than having a +5 longsword, you have the ability to treat any longsword you wield as a +5 weapon.

JonestheSpy
2010-04-15, 05:04 PM
I don't think it's that hard. No, there are no rules, but what it just amounts to is figuring out appropriate encounters for your players without depending on the CR labels. It takes some work at first, then gets easier - like everything else.

One of the reasons I enjoy low-magic games is that orcs are a threat for so much longer.