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Quellian-dyrae
2013-12-06, 02:36 AM
The Core Rule

Going for simple here. Tiers measure both power and versatility, which typically comes from powerful spells and unique abilities. Magic items can provide both power and versatility, often by emulating powerful spells or granting unique abilities. So characters gain WBL based on their relative power. For simplicity, I'mma just go with Tier for the breakpoints. No need to be too fancy.

Worth noting though, overall, this is a high-powered system. Weak gets boosted quite a bit more than strong gets nerfed. Also, I don't expect it to really fully balance the classes, but it should do well enough that everyone's at least playing the same game.

Tier 1: Half normal WBL.
Tier 2: Two-thirds normal WBL.
Tier 3: Full normal WBL*.
Tier 4: Twice normal WBL*.
Tier 5: Three times normal WBL.
Tier 6: Four times normal WBL.

*Tiers 3 and 4 actually have a pretty broad range of potential power levels. You may even want to divide this up some, something like:
Strong Tier 3 (Fixed List casters, higher-powered Tier 3 homebrews, etc): Full normal WBL.
Typical Tier 3 (Six-level casters, solid leveled system users): 1.25X normal WBL.
Borderline Tier 3/4 (High powered Tier 4 homebrews, more borderline cases like Warblades and Warlocks, ...maybe charge-optimized barbarians): 1.5X normal WBL.
Typical Tier 4 (Most other Tier 4 classes): Twice normal WBL.

Oh, also, first level base WBL changes from "by class" to "300 gold".

Obvious Glaring Issue #1 - "Wow. Okay. You do realize that wealth actually exists in-game and you can't guarantee its distribution like that, right?"

Using this system, a character's WBL, and thus access to magic items, is entirely divorced from in-game wealth and treasure. While there may be a correlation between the two (that is, the wealth of a life of adventuring being the fluff explanation for a high-level character's access to magical items), magic items certainly do not have set assigned values and a thriving trade in any half-decent civilization characters come to. One cannot simply convert a dragon's hoard (or daily Wall of Iron casting binge, as the case may be) directly into powerful magical tools, or exchange a cartload of +1 Longswords for a +5 Longsword at the nearest wizard's guild.

At each new level, a character can reassign its WBL. At DM discretion, this can also occur with extensive downtime (generally a few weeks to a month). The WBL invested into items that have been lost or stolen in the interim is also refunded (intentionally loaned items must still be deducted from the new total, unless ownership is transferred and the new owner's WBL is deducted accordingly).

WBL invested into perishable items that have been expended does not refresh in this way. Rather, each day, the character can recover an amount of WBL invested into expended perishable items equal to (1.5 * its class level, rounded up) squared. This value is multiplied by tier as normal.

{table="head"]Level|Gold
1|4
2|9
3|25
4|36
5|64
6|81
7|121
8|144
9|196
10|225
11|289
12|324
13|400
14|441
15|529
16|576
17|676
18|729
19|841
20|900[/table]

Characters can only acquire items by their own initiative through their WBL. The DM is welcome to put other magic items in their path for them to acquire and use at its prerogative; the DM may require WBL to be traded out for these items, or may allow them in addition to WBL.

Mundane treasure can generally be spent as, you know, actual money. On frivolous luxuries like lands, buildings, and armies of low-level peon hirelings. Or a nice boat. Whatever.

Obvious Glaring Issue #2 - "Great. You've anywhere from doubled to quadrupled the Christmas Tree effect. That's generally considered a bad thing."

Since magic items are no longer tied to actual in-game wealth, there is no real need for them to be defined as magic items - although they can be. Magic item abilities can be acquired as innate powers, functioning as Supernatural abilities (for constant effects) or Spell-like abilities (for activated effects). Weapon abilities apply to a single weapon wielded at any given time.

Innate powers have the advantage that they cannot be lost or stolen (and, thus, potentially used against the character), and they do not take up item slots. However, they also cannot be lent to allies, and can't be changed by characters with Item Creation feats.

Obvious Glaring Issue #3 - "Oh yeah, good point. What about Item Creation feats? Especially since they're caster feats anyway."

Item Creation feats do not directly impact WBL. Rather, a character with an Item Creation feat can change out WBL for items of the appropriate type. Only WBL invested into magic items (or currently uninvested) can be exchanged, though WBL invested into items that have been lost beyond recovery (but not merely expended perishables) can also be replaced in this way. The crafter may exchange WBL for allies (or as a business, and PCs can potentially hire crafters to exchange their items if none of them have the relevant feats). A crafter can exchange an amount of WBL equal to 10% of its own WBL with eight hours of work.

Crafters can also speed the process of recovering perishable items. Simply possessing a Crafting feat gives you one additional pool of perishable recovery each day, which may only be spent on recovering perishables of that type (for example, a 15th level wizard normally recovers 264 gold of expended perishables per day; since it gets Scribe Scroll free, it gets another 264 per day to recover expended scrolls). By dedicating a day of downtime (at least eight hours of work) to crafting, the character can double its recovery that day. Crafters may also spend their own perishable recovery on ally perishables, if desired.

Item Creation does not cost XP, though normal caster level and spell requirements for the items created still apply.

Obvious Glaring Issue #4 - "So the idea for balancing mundanes is to either cover them with magic or make them magical. I want to play a fighter, not a mage with a sword."

Both magic items and innate powers can be acquired as non-magical capabilities, becoming fully Exceptional with all that entails (ignoring SR, immunity to dispelling and antimagic, etc). Such items are generally exceptionally crafted, alchemically augmented, or technologically advanced. Innate abilities of this nature may be physiological quirks, specialized training, or simple superhuman physical and mental prowess.

Capabilities of this nature are limited. They cannot be explicitly and blatantly magical effects. They can be "reflavored", but this may result in limitations or reduction in utility at DM discretion. That being said, they could quite easily bend or even outright violate the laws of physics.

So for example, something like flight could be due to wings (and thus fail if one is immobilized, unlike a normal Flight spell). Teleportation could be reflavored as bursts of incredible speed (and thus couldn't be used to actually escape bindings, since you have to be able to physically move). Even summons could be defined as access to allies who can be called in when needed (which may take a round or two for them to get into position, or be limited if you travel by means they can't, etc). Of course, simple things like stat bonuses, or even such things as a Wounding or even Speed or Vorpal weapon, could simply work as the character or item is just that good.

Exceptional items do not require Item Creation feats, caster levels, or spells to exchange with the above crafting rules. They do require ranks in a relevant Craft skill at least equal to the required caster level + 3. Additionally, the WBL cost of Exceptional capabilities increases by 10% per spell level the character has access to (including 0-level spells).

Obvious Glaring Issue #5 - "Uh...multiclassing?"

Yeah, yeah, multiclassing. That'll take some eyeballing, but really, there are some fairly solid rules of thumb. Are you a prepared caster with a broad spell list and your highest level spell greater than one-third your ECL rounded up? You're almost certainly Tier 1. Same, but spontaneous caster? Tier 2. Fixed list caster, caster with your highest-level spell greater than something like one-fourth your class level, other leveled subsystem user, or just possessed on a nice breadth of abilities? Probably Tier 3, maybe 4 if your options are sub-par or really limited in utility. Primarily fixed class features, but good at what you do, or access to only low-level spells or leveled features? Probably Tier 4. Possessed of a scattershot of debatably useful or level-inappropriate abilities? Tier 5. And if you have basically no class features of merit, you're Tier 6.

Naturally, if new class levels changes your relative Tier, it'll change your WBL as it refreshes for your new level.

Supplemental Rule #1 - Some Minor Points of Balance

There are certain options in D&D that are, frankly, Just Plain Broken. Particularly glaring math errors that lead to infinite loops, access to capabilities far beyond the intended scope for players (typically by emulating or taking command of some obscure monster), etc. With high-powered magical abilities (or emulations thereof) being more common, it's worth addressing at least some of these. So:

-No character can, by any means other than DM action, acquire access to a spell (or similar ability) with a greater effective spell level (counting all metamagic modifications, including those that are offset or paid for in other ways) than half the character's ECL, rounded up. So no purchasing such spells as magic items, no commanding a summoned or dominated creature to cast such spells for you, no metamagic shenanigans to exceed this spell level cap (though a multiclassed caster could potentially exceed its actual maximum spell level), etc.

-No character can, by any means other than DM action, assume control of or assume the capabilities of a creature or group of creatures with a total EL greater than the character's own ECL - 2. Such creatures can be loosely compelled with appropriate powers, such that they direct their efforts towards a certain goal or don't act in opposition of the controller, but they cannot be actively controlled or forced to take specific actions on the controller's behalf.

-Any capability that grants access to the special abilities of a monster can only ever grant abilities listed in the Special Abilities and Conditions section of the DMG, unless the DM explicitly allows otherwise.

-Infinite loops and nigh-infinite or arbitrarily high stacking causes an overflow error that results in some arbitrarily low negative number. Because :smallannoyed:.

-No character can, by any means, acquire immunity to or specific protection against any effect that it is specifically vulnerable to, that is a limited means of bypassing broad protections (such as DR or Regeneration - and explicitly always including nonlethal damage for a Regenerating character), or that it suffers as a result of using its abilities. Such effects simply ignore such protections. Similarly, any penalty sustained as a cost of using one's abilities cannot be offset during the same encounter it was sustained in (for example, if you take ability damage to activate an ability, you can't heal it until the encounter ends).

-No character can, by any means, Wish for more Wishes. Because seriously it's the first rule of wishing lore, everybody knows it, even Disney, sometimes I don't even arghibhbgbggbjdfhjhgbfdvjzhbdsfkjSkbgvbKJSBdbdvksb kjbvbsb. Ahem. Moving on.

Supplemental Rule #2 - Custom Magic Items

Naturally, for full effect, these rules need to provide good spell access through items, so custom magic item rules are useful. That said, they do have some holes. While I couldn't perfectly balance the system if I tried, there are a couple obvious holes that are worth patching:

-On Command items that cast beneficial spells that last on a duration have the same duration-based cost multiplier as Continuous items (On Command Fly costs 54,000 gold, not 27,000).

-Items that grant a constant or on-command spell that provides a stat bonus are priced as for the stat bonus rather than the spell, if this would be more expensive (Constant Mage Armor costs 16,000 gold, not 2,000, for example).

-On Command items (and, for that matter, the infamous auto-resetting traps) are not strictly unlimited. They are functionally unlimited for purposes of a standard adventuring scenario, but using them truly constantly would still drain them. As a rule of thumb, figure such items have 100 charges and regenerate one-tenth their current charges (rounded up, minimum 1) per day, if a situation comes up where a character really wants to nova its on command items. This rule can be ignored for purely personal effects used by a single character (it's fine to have an item that keeps a rounds/level or minutes/level buff on you all day...but not your whole party).

Supplemental Rule #3 - But What About The Monsters?

This is a high-power variant rule. Although it does aim to cut out some top-level abuses, and does technically weaken the strongest classes, it doesn't really weaken them in such a way that affects the core of their power, and is a fairly substantial boost to lower-powered characters. Most likely, things are going to cluster around closer to Tier 2 in general...possibly even Tier 1 with extensive use of revised crafting rules. So doing something to buff up monsters is helpful.

Generally, I'd say a solid option for games of this general power level is just to work on the assumption that a "challenging" encounter is an EL equal to the party's total EL, rather than equal to the APL. So you don't send a single CR 10 monster at four level 10 characters - you send four CR 10 monsters. NPCs likewise, though this assumes normal NPC disadvantages (lower ability array, lower base WBL). As always, a PC ability array is worth +1 CR, and I'd figure PC WBL would clock in at roughly +2 CR over NPC WBL. This would make a "mirror match" type fight of PC-specced enemies roughly EL + 3 - quite dangerous, but doable with luck, tactics, and/or superior optimization. And yes, NPCs would receive the above WBL modifiers for good or ill.

These numbers...may be somewhat off at the early levels, though.

So. Questions.

So, that's all that. Any comments and critiques are welcome of course, but in particular:

-Does it look like a workable system for balancing the classes, at least to the point that everyone is playing the same game?
-Even assuming it works on its face, are the listed wealth modifiers sufficient, too much, or not enough?
-Are all the Obvious Glaring Issues sufficiently covered?
-Are there any Obvious Glaring Issues that I missed?

Jormengand
2013-12-06, 08:53 AM
Another issue: If your WBL resets every level, this means that a samurai running about with a few dozen necklaces of fireballs (because he gets four times the normal WBL, for some reason) is a far more viable tactic than a samurai running about with a +5 katana or whatever, because the entire point of the NoF is that you run out of them.

And this still won't stop a wizard being better than a fighter. Maybe a rogue (or actually, a samurai who spends a feat to make UMD a class skill) who used copious UMD to cast spells and then got them back later might beat a wizard, but only by being a better wizard.

Chronos
2013-12-06, 12:38 PM
The problem is how you justify this in character. Some of it is easy to do: Just put more magic weapons and belts of giant strength in the treasure pile, and fewer metamagic rods and headbands of intellect. But there are a lot of items that are useful to everyone: How does the party fighter justify to the party wizard that he should be the one to get the ring of protection or the necklace of adaptation? Either one can wear them just as easily.

Quellian-dyrae
2013-12-06, 01:16 PM
Another issue: If your WBL resets every level, this means that a samurai running about with a few dozen necklaces of fireballs (because he gets four times the normal WBL, for some reason) is a far more viable tactic than a samurai running about with a +5 katana or whatever, because the entire point of the NoF is that you run out of them.

Ah, yes, good point. I had been thinking to double the cost of perishable items, but looks like I removed it at some point. Will go put that back in.

Although alternately, maybe I should remove the free perishable refreshes and just leave them as being refreshed by crafting. That's probably somewhat better balanced, since it takes actual time to restore and depends on how much wealth you've sunk into it.


And this still won't stop a wizard being better than a fighter. Maybe a rogue (or actually, a samurai who spends a feat to make UMD a class skill) who used copious UMD to cast spells and then got them back later might beat a wizard, but only by being a better wizard.

Again, I don't really expect this to perfectly balance the classes. The main aim is to close the gap sufficiently that everyone's a contributing party member, and to make sure that everyone has access to the same general tools, although casters may still likely use them better (although of course, there is going to be a specific level of wealth where that is no longer necessarily the case, and tit's not hard to tweak the numbers if it really came down to that). That said, while using devices to emulate being a caster is a perfectly plausible option here (1/day Use Activated item is Spell Level * Caster Level * 400 gold, just saying), I don't think it's the only effective one. A good selection of Constant, On Command, and Per Day effects can let you excel at a chosen role and even have a few off-beat niches. With wealth boosted like this, it's not really infeasible for, say, a barbarian to snag a 1/day Divination innate, fluff it as communing with his ancestors, and suddenly have an actual out of combat role in the information gathering department, for example.


The problem is how you justify this in character. Some of it is easy to do: Just put more magic weapons and belts of giant strength in the treasure pile, and fewer metamagic rods and headbands of intellect. But there are a lot of items that are useful to everyone: How does the party fighter justify to the party wizard that he should be the one to get the ring of protection or the necklace of adaptation? Either one can wear them just as easily.

Yep, that is Obvious Glaring Issue #1. The answer is, WBL is entirely divorced from in-game wealth. While the characters may find magic items in random treasure hoards that anyone can pick up and use, that's purely at DM discretion and would not be the expected state of affairs (after all, thanks to the "items as innate powers" option, NPCs don't actually have to have any real, lootable magic items to have level-appropriate numbers).

Realms of Chaos
2013-12-06, 01:20 PM
The ultimate problem with this system is that it doesn't only allow people to reflavor magic items as innate abilities but it kind of requires you to do so. Otherwise, WBL can get offset by simple looting.

If an enemy samurai is loaded to the gills with potions, armor, weaponry, and other detachable gear, I am probably going to take any material goods it possesses. Or I could steal goods while a creature sleeps. Or I could charm them and compel that the enemies hand over their stuff. Hell, the party wizard could simply inherit all of the items from a fallen party member (or cohort).

Ziegander
2013-12-06, 01:41 PM
The ultimate problem with this system is that it doesn't only allow people to reflavor magic items as innate abilities but it kind of requires you to do so. Otherwise, WBL can get offset by simple looting.

If an enemy samurai is loaded to the gills with potions, armor, weaponry, and other detachable gear, I am probably going to take any material goods it possesses. Or I could steal goods while a creature sleeps. Or I could charm them and compel that the enemies hand over their stuff. Hell, the party wizard could simply inherit all of the items from a fallen party member (or cohort).

Well, I think his answer is actually, no, you can't loot bodies like that if it would bring you over your expected WBL. It seems to be a hard rule that no character may possess more hard magic item wealth than this WBL, period. The obvious issue is, what in-game reason for this is there, if any? And I definitely can't think of any suitable ones.

Quellian-dyrae
2013-12-06, 02:11 PM
The ultimate problem with this system is that it doesn't only allow people to reflavor magic items as innate abilities but it kind of requires you to do so. Otherwise, WBL can get offset by simple looting.

If an enemy samurai is loaded to the gills with potions, armor, weaponry, and other detachable gear, I am probably going to take any material goods it possesses. Or I could steal goods while a creature sleeps. Or I could charm them and compel that the enemies hand over their stuff. Hell, the party wizard could simply inherit all of the items from a fallen party member (or cohort).


Well, I think his answer is actually, no, you can't loot bodies like that if it would bring you over your expected WBL. It seems to be a hard rule that no character may possess more hard magic item wealth than this WBL, period. The obvious issue is, what in-game reason for this is there, if any? And I definitely can't think of any suitable ones.

Almost. It's actually, "no character may possess more hard magic item wealth than this WBL, without the DM explicitly giving them loot."

The most logical way to do that in game, is to go against the default D&D assumption that magic items are particularly common, and just use the innate powers option for most NPCs, with the DM actually placing magic items in the hands of opponents (or treasure hoards or whatever) only when it wants the PCs to be able to acquire them.

If you do want magic items more prevalent, I believe Legend uses the idea of being able to "attune" to a limited number of items. Alternately, magic items might not be self-contained sources of energy, but rather draw ambient energy from their wielders; a given character can only power so many items, and casters and other higher-power classes are burning more of this energy on their spells and class features and such, explaining the discrepancy. Or magic items may require periodic recharging, repairing, and such which is expensive, and WBL is kind of a regular budget that can be dedicated to that (wizards have less because they have to budget obscure tomes and such, priests tithe to their deities, martial adepts pay for specialized training regimens, whatever fluff you want to explain the difference).

Or, you can do the M&M thing and say, "I'm willfully ignoring the idea of looting as a mechanical abstraction for the sake of game balance. I suddenly feel much less stressed." :smalltongue:

Realms of Chaos
2013-12-07, 11:18 AM
The problem here is that limiting spellcasters in magical items is literally impossible. They can use commune or contact other plane to discover from the strongest beings where magic items are, teleport or plane shift to them from any distance, kill the owners, and take the item.

And now for something constructive. Instead of just putting a limit up, I would provide a mechanical means of enforcement. Namely, I would go about magic item restriction in the exact opposite manner. Instead of limiting the frequency of magic items, put a set limit on how many items a creature can use.

Have each individual magic item require 8 hours to attune to (maybe halved for potions and scrolls), make it impossible for players to activate or get benefits from items they aren't attuned to (unless being used by others like riding on a friend's flying carpet), and set the total value of magical items you can be attune to at one time according to your WBL as you have outlined in the first post.

It is even pretty easy to fluff as you can say that spellcasters like wizards and clerics possess so much magic within them that they havee a severely crippled capacity to bound with exterior forms of magic. There would b some abnormalities (healer, truenamer) but it mostly works as an explanation.

This approach allows magic items to exist without making them super rare and even keeps the game relatively balanced if you are in a high-power game with tons of magic items everywhere.

Amechra
2013-12-07, 12:12 PM
Maybe cap the number of magic items, and have spell levels count as magic items towards your limit?

So normally you can attune 10 magic items, say, but if you can cast 3rd level spells, you can only attune 7.

Someone with 9th level spells can attune 1 magic item.

Seerow
2013-12-07, 01:33 PM
Even with an attunement requirement that limits your number of magic items, you're going to run into issues from someone with a bunch of little items vs 1 powerful one. Also if there's anything along the lines of slotless items the point is defeated entirely.


If you want to do item attunements/innate powers, you should probably go along the lines of having different items/abilities being worth different point values, and scaling it that way. Which is pretty similar to what the OP was going for, except with some weird quasi-cap on wealth rather than a hard attunement limit.

Quellian-dyrae
2013-12-07, 01:59 PM
The problem here is that limiting spellcasters in magical items is literally impossible. They can use commune or contact other plane to discover from the strongest beings where magic items are, teleport or plane shift to them from any distance, kill the owners, and take the item.

And now for something constructive. Instead of just putting a limit up, I would provide a mechanical means of enforcement. Namely, I would go about magic item restriction in the exact opposite manner. Instead of limiting the frequency of magic items, put a set limit on how many items a creature can use.

Have each individual magic item require 8 hours to attune to (maybe halved for potions and scrolls), make it impossible for players to activate or get benefits from items they aren't attuned to (unless being used by others like riding on a friend's flying carpet), and set the total value of magical items you can be attune to at one time according to your WBL as you have outlined in the first post.

It is even pretty easy to fluff as you can say that spellcasters like wizards and clerics possess so much magic within them that they havee a severely crippled capacity to bound with exterior forms of magic. There would b some abnormalities (healer, truenamer) but it mostly works as an explanation.

This approach allows magic items to exist without making them super rare and even keeps the game relatively balanced if you are in a high-power game with tons of magic items everywhere.

Yep, attunement rules would be one option for fluffing it.

But it's important to emphasize (since this is seeming to be a sticking point), this is a fluff issue. Using this system, actual in-game magic items are literally relegated to fluff. If you've played M&M, it's basically like that. The core concept of the system is that WBL and the mechanical benefits of magical items have been changed to, functionally, a point-buy system for special abilities. You can choose to describe those abilities as magical items. Or not. But even if you go with that description, you're not getting more abilities on a permanent basis than your points allow, unless the DM explicitly gives them to you. How you fluff the reason for that is up to you.

Basically, it's taking the wealth and magic item rules and subjecting them to the exact same sort of mechanical abstraction as we use for, really, almost every other capability in the game. Realistically, a character could, say, exercise to grow stronger, or read a lot on a subject to learn more about it, or practice a specific fighting move to learn it.

But in game, it doesn't matter how much you exercise, you're not increasing your Strength score until you gain a level that is evenly divisible by 4. No matter how much you read, your Knowledge skills don't go up until you gain a level and put the new skill points into them, or retrain and replace previous skills with the new knowledge. No matter how long you spend practicing with your fighter buddy, you will never learn the Power Attack feat without either trading out an existing feat or earning a level that gives you a new one.

So a core tenet of this system (which I should probably address more clearly in the OP) is that "magic items" (more accurately, the mechanical benefits that under normal D&D rules are conveyed by magic items) are now subject to this same limitation. Really, the issue of "there's no way to enforce WBL" is a problem with the wealth system as a whole, and one of the points of these rules is to explicitly excise that problem (and all the "wizards can break the economy in a dozen ways before breakfast" problems that it creates) by divorcing the magic item system entirely from an actual in-game economy.


Maybe cap the number of magic items, and have spell levels count as magic items towards your limit?

So normally you can attune 10 magic items, say, but if you can cast 3rd level spells, you can only attune 7.

Someone with 9th level spells can attune 1 magic item.

The big point of this system isn't limiting a caster's magic items. A Wizard 20 with 0 WBL is still leaps and bounds ahead of a Fighter 20 with full WBL. The reduction in high-tier WBL is a largely trivial nerf. What it amounts to is that the strongest classes have to spend a bit more of their native resources (that is, spells) on personal defense, and don't have quite as much of a safety net in the form of scrolls, wands, Crafted Contingent spells, whatever.

The main focus of the system is boosting the lower tiers. Limiting a fighter, for example, to ten magic items would be a substantial hindrance to a class that doesn't need it. Limiting a 17th level wizard to one magic item would be a fairly trivial annoyance to a class that can already do everything that magic items can do right out of the box.


Even with an attunement requirement that limits your number of magic items, you're going to run into issues from someone with a bunch of little items vs 1 powerful one. Also if there's anything along the lines of slotless items the point is defeated entirely.

If you want to do item attunements/innate powers, you should probably go along the lines of having different items/abilities being worth different point values, and scaling it that way. Which is pretty similar to what the OP was going for, except with some weird quasi-cap on wealth rather than a hard attunement limit.

It's actually exactly what I was going for, just without specifying a default fluff :smallamused:. If you use attunement as fluff, it would basically be, you have a number of Attunement Points exactly equal to the WBL of a character of your level, multiplied by a number based on your class Tier. Attuning to an item costs a number of Attunement Points exactly equal to the item's Market Price. Attuning to an item requires blah blah blah whatever rules are necessary to make it so everyone doesn't become Item Wizards.

Realms of Chaos
2013-12-07, 11:26 PM
The thing is that I don't think that this shift can be a fluff issue. While the problem seems to be one of fluff, any specific fix (or even combination of fixes) seems to hold crunchy consequences.


If you use superpowers, more than just fluff has changed. Encumbrance, storage, theft, sundering, the ability to actually see items, and the like are all removed. The actual essence of having items carries lots of small but noticeable changes so removing that is troublesome. Further, using super powers carries the implication that pretty much everyone, regardless of race, gains the ability to fly naturally if they become strong enough (which may hurt games not going for a Wuxia feel). On top of that, super powers remove all economic concerns, ignoring the need for communities or the pain of the gp limits they may possess.

If you do use magic items, however, you get into the realm of being able to steal and command the items of others. You can state that an item or two is specifically coded to one wielder and it thus theft-proof but that kind of removes the option of sharing an item with others. Or, you know, traded... for money.

I'm not saying that these changes are bad or that you'd necessarily have problems with them but you seem to be suggesting a combination of several different fixes that each have their own distinct qualities even if intended as refluffed alternatives to each other.