Magic Items & Me: The Conundrum

[Project_Cobalt]

After re-reading a lot of the 3.5 and Pathfinder material I've got laying around the house, I realized what it was that I loved about the systems, and want to play them again. It also made me realize why I switched systems away from them in the first place: the dependence on magical items during progression.

Can anybody give me a hand with suggesting a system that still has levels and classes and all of that 3.5/Pathfinder/D&D sort of goodness, but without needing to have a certain amount of GP per level worth of magic items to be able to fight the monsters in the given game's bestiary?

Or, filling that, can someone provide me with some kind of link or tutorial on just how they handle magic items? I tend to prefer a less ad-hoc, magical wal-mart style of magical item creation and distribution, which makes D&D a slightly less viable setup as a result (in my experience, mind you).

I really prefer having the fighter not change up his magical arms and armor every couple of levels, or what-have-you. Something which captures a feeling of magical items being rare and powerful, while still allowing me to throw Beholders et. all at my party if I chose to. But, that something has, and continues to, avoid me.

All in all, I just find the magical item rules to be a little impenetrable (not because they are bad, don't mistake me, but because I just can't seem to wrap my head around them) and I wish I could handle them with the efficiency and understanding that other DMs and players I've observed seem to. Is this just a problem I have, or is there something I'm missing?

[Sudain]

Maybe change dnd some armors and weapons evolve over time.

Inspiration: Magic Knight Rayerth

[tbarrie]

Can anybody give me a hand with suggesting a system that still has levels and classes and all of that 3.5/Pathfinder/D&D sort of goodness, but without needing to have a certain amount of GP per level worth of magic items to be able to fight the monsters in the given game's bestiary?


Fourth Edition D&D with the Inherent Bonuses option?

[Manateee]

TSR D&D or Fantasy Craft (for a more d20-type approach) sound like what you're looking for.

[Blackfang108]

Fourth Edition D&D with the Inherent Bonuses option?

I second this, though it's not overly difficult to adapt the IB system to 3.x

+1 at levels 4, 8, 12, 16, & 20 (as 3.x only has +5 as max enhancement bonus before epic.)

[Mystify]

Legend (www.ruleofcool.com) is very similar to D&D, but fixes a lot of the issues. Among which is the dependence on magic items. They have a clear magic item progression that is independent of your wealth, and there are simple rules for how to make a character who doesn't use many magic items. Even characters with a full magic item progression are not nearly as dependant on their items as D&D characters are.
As an added bonus, it fixes the magic/mundane discrepancy.

[Dsurion]

Well, Iron Heroes is a d20 class-based game more focused on action and stunts with less magic.

[NikitaDarkstar]

As Dsurion said Iron Heroes. It's focused on melee and ranged combat with little to no magic (there is an arcanist class, but magic is wild, untamed and generally not trusted at all.). Best you'll ever be able to buy is masterwork quality, you might get extremely lucky and find some artifact magic weapon. (Which would be standard item stuff on normal D&D) The setting is generic and familiar to anyone who has played D&D 3.X and monsters can easily be ported as long as they're not magical. Battle is handled a bit differently though, but if you read through it you'll find that most things are fairly familiar.

There's four books, the Bestiary, Players Handbook, Mastering Iron Heroes and a Players Companion. There's also a revised Handbook out there, but it seems to mainly have fixed a few typos and such. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Heroes

[nedz]

E6
Its 3.5 but characters only advance to level 6, after that each 5000 xp buys them a feat. There are some extra feats to fill in the holes and this is all available on a search engine of your choice.
At this level of play magic items are special, not required.

[Zeta Kai]

Yeah, either E6 D&D or Legend is likely what you are looking for. They both solve a number of problems with the standard D20 rule-set, magic item dependency being one of them.

[Vilyathas]

I did something similar with house rules.

All characters gain Vow of Poverty-like abilities when they levelup. Magic items, while still readily available, have their market prices increased 10x. The most powerful magical items top out at 15'000gp, coincidentally the limit of which an item is Wish-able. Anything costing more than 15'000gp are considered minor artifacts and are typically the centerpiece of a deep, dangerous dungeon, or a dragon's hoard.

[graymagiker]

I concur with others: Legand seems to be what you are looking for.

Levels and classes: Yes
Characters need magic items: No (especially see Full-buy in option)
Understandable system to tell what monsters pose a challenge: Yes

It is different from 3.5 D&D and Pathfinder. However IMHO it solves problems that could not be solved keeping many of the things from 3.5/Pathfinder.

[Dsurion]

As Dsurion said Iron Heroes. It's focused on melee and ranged combat with little to no magic (there is an arcanist class, but magic is wild, untamed and generally not trusted at all.). Best you'll ever be able to buy is masterwork quality, you might get extremely lucky and find some artifact magic weapon. (Which would be standard item stuff on normal D&D) The setting is generic and familiar to anyone who has played D&D 3.X and monsters can easily be ported as long as they're not magical. Battle is handled a bit differently though, but if you read through it you'll find that most things are fairly familiar.I didn't want to go too in depth, but all of that is pretty much how it is. If you do take a look at the Arcanist class, ignore it. It doesn't work (before errata IIRC), doesn't fit with the game, and shouldn't have been there in the first place.

On monsters, though, basically anything that causes a condition that magic is assumed to fix in D&D, should be toned down to be less powerful and/or semi-permanent: as in, Medusa's gaze lasts until approximately the end of the fight and maybe a while after that (possibly with a short quest to fix it), but not forever.

Also, I can't believe I forgot to plug Conan d20. It's out of print, if I recall correctly, but it's great for a game of non-magical warriors.