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View Full Version : Help, my players are too stupid to spend their money.



Verbannon
2016-10-09, 05:18 PM
The title is too mean but its main purpose was to catch attention. Basically, the party I'm running is getting rather gold heavy. But they have no interest in spending the money on consumables or the common and uncommon equipment that they are actually allowed to spend it on. And the game system I'm running is extremely tactical and adversarial, so by refusing to get anything other then what they consider to be the most optimized gear, they have effectively handicapped themselves. Now when they lose or do badly which is almost every encounter they whine and bitch how its because they can't get any good gear. When I tell them they had all kinds of opportunities to get gear and items they whine and bitch about how it all sucked and how there are way higher level and/or rare items that do the same thing but better. I actually have a player, the biggest power gamer who insists healing potions are a waste of money. Her logic is this, "If I am using a healing potion then that means I've done something wrong, plus it a completely ineffecient use of my action economy. Healing potions are useless" And pointing out to her that every time I've given them healing potions as reward they use them all up in a few encounters so they can't be that useless, has no effect.

Now its no fun to reduce the difficulty of the encounters, because if I was going to play a game where I hand held the players and sleep walked through encounters, I would play D&D 5e or 13th age. I'm playing online so its not like there is a social aspect to the game. But its no fun to hear them whining after every game as well. I'm tempted to drop them, but I would rather somehow teach them that a potion of resistance may not be as amazing as the armor of invincibility, but it can be helpful anyway.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-10-09, 05:42 PM
Crush them relentlessly until they learn their lesson or quit.

Optionally, plant sub-optimal gear that would be very helpful against the thing they're going up against next and see if they bite. ****ty armour with cold resistance when they have to go fight a white dragon in the near future, or whatever.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 06:14 PM
Crush them relentlessly until they learn their lesson or quit.

Optionally, plant sub-optimal gear that would be very helpful against the thing they're going up against next and see if they bite. ****ty armour with cold resistance when they have to go fight a white dragon in the near future, or whatever.

Oddly the permission of a total stranger makes the idea of crushing them relentlessly feel a lot better.

theNater
2016-10-09, 06:14 PM
I'd try cutting out the middle man. From now on, each time they get treasure, have the treasure include gear and reduce the cash by however much it would cost to buy the gear. The example with the potions suggests they'll use it, even if they aren't willing to buy it.

jindra34
2016-10-09, 06:20 PM
Optionally, plant sub-optimal gear that would be very helpful against the thing they're going up against next and see if they bite. ****ty armour with cold resistance when they have to go fight a white dragon in the near future, or whatever.

I'd advise this. But put it more than just a little ahead. So that they have time to go back to town and potentially sell it, and they don't realize your planting gear to help them. Because nothing would make the problem WORSE then them thinking that your going to give them what the need. And if they start thinking that... well just start generating random gear in the loot. In either case follow Nater's advice and subtract the value of items from the coinage they would get.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 06:23 PM
I'd try cutting out the middle man. From now on, each time they get treasure, have the treasure include gear and reduce the cash by however much it would cost to buy the gear. The example with the potions suggests they'll use it, even if they aren't willing to buy it.

Healing potions yes. Other items they tend to forget. They got a bag of holding in the first dungeon as its major treasure. I had to remind them of it then it then it turned out none of them even bothered to note it down. They got a booklet with 5 precharged scrolls of devil binding. Instantanous use, renders a devil weakened and immobile. Again turned out no one bothered to note it down. So even though they have faced half a dozen devil encounters, no one thought to use it. I dont think they even note down the healing potions. Just when they need one they are like, "oh yeah we have healing potions! quick someone feed me one!"

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 06:26 PM
I'd advise this. But put it more than just a little ahead. So that they have time to go back to town and potentially sell it, and they don't realize your planting gear to help them. Because nothing would make the problem WORSE then them thinking that your going to give them what the need. And if they start thinking that... well just start generating random gear in the loot. In either case follow Nater's advice and subtract the value of items from the coinage they would get.

Then mock them for their short sightedness. Yes I like it.

jindra34
2016-10-09, 06:33 PM
Then mock them for their short sightedness. Yes I like it.

Your welcome. I do love properly cruel bait and switches. And giving people the chance to sign their own deaths. Also on the not writing down issue... OW.

Winter_Wolf
2016-10-09, 07:10 PM
They ignored a bag of holding. They ignored a bag of holding? What the actual hell is wrong with these people? You know, I'm thinking they probably are a little stupid.

Include useful consumables. And then make the NPCs smart enough to use the stuff when opportunity and need arises. Because damn. I can't get over the whole not bothering with noting that they had a bag of holding. Stop giving coins, make it other stuff: expensive rugs and silks, fine art and objects d'art, things like that.

Jay R
2016-10-09, 07:23 PM
If they won't go shopping, and you want them to have magic items, then the loot should be magic items.

The logic is inescapable.

Reboot
2016-10-09, 07:41 PM
Oddly the permission of a total stranger makes the idea of crushing them relentlessly feel a lot better.

+another total stranger

If you're at the point where you're just sick of them, it's kill or cure time. Besides some of the other suggestions, have a travelling merchant offer them some of the A++ stuff they want... And then have it turn out to be cursed, worse-than-useless and an expensive sidequest to be rid of. Doubly if they've just sold or traded the lower-level-but-useful stuff mentioned above.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 07:59 PM
They ignored a bag of holding. They ignored a bag of holding? What the actual hell is wrong with these people? You know, I'm thinking they probably are a little stupid.

Include useful consumables. And then make the NPCs smart enough to use the stuff when opportunity and need arises. Because damn. I can't get over the whole not bothering with noting that they had a bag of holding. Stop giving coins, make it other stuff: expensive rugs and silks, fine art and objects d'art, things like that.

To enjoy their torture even more as they don't bother noting the art items? I guess in for a penny in for a dollar. :)


If they won't go shopping, and you want them to have magic items, then the loot should be magic items.

The logic is inescapable.

There is still that whole, they don't even bother noting down a magic item unless its on their wish list, which is all rare items and upper tier uncommons.


+another total stranger

If you're at the point where you're just sick of them, it's kill or cure time. Besides some of the other suggestions, have a travelling merchant offer them some of the A++ stuff they want... And then have it turn out to be cursed, worse-than-useless and an expensive sidequest to be rid of. Doubly if they've just sold or traded the lower-level-but-useful stuff mentioned above.

Another good idea. Yes. I can see it now. A travelers staff cursed so when they use it to uturn their shifts into teleports, they are removed from the encounter for a whole turn instead, and come back down some hp because they spent a turn in a torture pit. And it turns out all their teleportation does this now.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 08:12 PM
When I first started I let them buy whatever item they wanted, and as a result by level 10 they had all the items they wanted. They stopped exploring, stopped bothering getting gold. Stopped everything. And although they were unbalanced, as strong as their characters were, in many ways they ended up actually worse. One character was charge laming, and died in just about every encounter in the first two rounds because as soon as he was slowed or immobilized, he just couldn't function anymore. He didn't know how. Though when he did charge he one hit killed anything he hit. The fighter had hybrided as a barbarian and got every single untyped ac boosting item, and took a class feature from the fighter that gave him a +1 shield bonus to ac and reflex as long as he had a hand free. And by his logic he only needed one hand to hold the weapon, two was only when he was using it. The rules lawyer of the group ageed with him so, yeah he seemed to have it all. He one hit killed a dragon. But I threw two encounters in a row that was filled with mass weaker enemies at them and he died in the second one hard and he complained, "You know we only have enough powers to deal with mass enemies in one encounter! How dare you throw two encounters in a row at us!" Though they made me feel guilty for it. And on and on.

Ultimately all they did was make the game unfun for me. I could no longer tempt them into exploring or give them rewards or anything like that. And the actual combat encounters, were either where the monsters I placed got slaughtered hard and I effectively had nothing to do, or a monster would avoid their strengths somehow and I would get yelled at for metaing against them.

But its so hard to find reliable players I know I don't have the option to actually drop them. I think you are right my best bet is to just play hardball and not let their complaints bother me.

Cluedrew
2016-10-09, 08:25 PM
Crush them relentlessly until they learn their lesson or quit.This can work, but I feel the need to say something important: Don't Be Vicious.

Be mean and unyielding, but don't do it out of spite or malice... OK you can have a little bit of fun with it. But still be fair. Setting up a situation where they can look back and see their mistakes can be tricky. And "the GM smote us because he doesn't like our play style" will not work.

On the Health Potion Thing: It is sort of true, but makes the bold assumption that avoiding damage is more optimal than taking some damage and recovering. And it also assumes no human error, also a bold assumption.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 08:38 PM
This can work, but I feel the need to say something important: Don't Be Vicious.

Be mean and unyielding, but don't do it out of spite or malice... OK you can have a little bit of fun with it. But still be fair. Setting up a situation where they can look back and see their mistakes can be tricky. And "the GM smote us because he doesn't like our play style" will not work.

On the Health Potion Thing: It is sort of true, but makes the bold assumption that avoiding damage is more optimal than taking some damage and recovering. And it also assumes no human error, also a bold assumption.

I'll stay within the encounter rules as I normally do. They are already being crushed by the fair fights so I don't need to add any extra malice. At level 1 the rogue tried to go up against a great big monster directly and got predictably killed. The rogue is my power gamer again, the potion hater one. Her logic there was, "My job is to do a lot of damage, if I didn't go up and attack then I wouldn't have been doing my job, it was an impossible encounter."

tensai_oni
2016-10-09, 08:46 PM
This can work, but I feel the need to say something important: Don't Be Vicious.

Be mean and unyielding, but don't do it out of spite or malice...

The fact this thread exists and OP's reactions to people validating him and giving him green light on punishing players shows that we are already past this point.

Frankly OP, it feels like you and your group are a poor match. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone and it hasn't been for you for a while now, so the best course of action I see here is to start looking around for new players.

If you try to punish them for their tactical stupidity, most likely all you'll get back is more whining and complaints. So don't do that. Address the problem directly - tell the players that you find the game frustrating and unfun, and tell them why. If they refuse to change, drop them.

Winter_Wolf
2016-10-09, 08:57 PM
To enjoy their torture even more as they don't bother noting the art items? I guess in for a penny in for a dollar. :).

My thought was, if they only go for coins to get the über items, make it so they can't get the coins unless they actually recognize that the items they are getting can be converted to coins or directly traded. When they get pissy about it, explain that they literally just walked away from a bloody fortune time and again. As an aside, I'd be happy keeping weird treasure items as trophies, but I don't play in your group (or any group really--not enough hours in the day).

Then again, these blokes and lasses seem intent on self destruction and poor decision making. They seem to suffer a bit from video game mentality. I say that because inevitably in say Japanese RPGs you'll blow your cash on the best gear before the next dungeon, and find said gear in some chest somewhere not too far in. And then feel stupid for wasting your money when you reach the next town that has ridiculous powerful stuff but you're flat broke. Lunar: the Silver Star was a repeat offender. I loved the game, but damn. :smallannoyed:

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 09:42 PM
The fact this thread exists and OP's reactions to people validating him and giving him green light on punishing players shows that we are already past this point.

Frankly OP, it feels like you and your group are a poor match. The game is supposed to be fun for everyone and it hasn't been for you for a while now, so the best course of action I see here is to start looking around for new players.

If you try to punish them for their tactical stupidity, most likely all you'll get back is more whining and complaints. So don't do that. Address the problem directly - tell the players that you find the game frustrating and unfun, and tell them why. If they refuse to change, drop them.

I would but I play online and I am just so reluctant to drop players that at least show up every session. If you never played online then you wouldn't know but only 1 out of every 50 players sticks around for more then 2 sessions before vanishing without warning or trace.



My thought was, if they only go for coins to get the über items, make it so they can't get the coins unless they actually recognize that the items they are getting can be converted to coins or directly traded. When they get pissy about it, explain that they literally just walked away from a bloody fortune time and again. As an aside, I'd be happy keeping weird treasure items as trophies, but I don't play in your group (or any group really--not enough hours in the day).

Then again, these blokes and lasses seem intent on self destruction and poor decision making. They seem to suffer a bit from video game mentality. I say that because inevitably in say Japanese RPGs you'll blow your cash on the best gear before the next dungeon, and find said gear in some chest somewhere not too far in. And then feel stupid for wasting your money when you reach the next town that has ridiculous powerful stuff but you're flat broke. Lunar: the Silver Star was a repeat offender. I loved the game, but damn. :smallannoyed:

Maybe, the power gamer is an admitted weaboo and one of the fighters says he isn't a weaboo but has never watched any tv that isn't anime. Not even Lord of the Rings. And they all seem to be Dark Souls Fans. I am not sure what that is but they talk about it a lot, maybe its a jRPG.

Thrudd
2016-10-09, 11:00 PM
It sounds like they don't get the point of a ttrpg. I don't know if edition of the game has anything to do with it: regardless of what edition you're playing you can decide to challenge them or make things easy, make a railroad story or open ended. Based on her comment about rogues, the "power gamer" obviously doesn't understand some basic things.
Maybe you need to go back to square one, write up a campaign guide that explains the basics of what a role playing game is and how you intend to run the game and what roles you expect them to take. Inform them about what is and is not available to their characters (IE, everything in the DMG isn't automatically available for purchase and might never be - they need to make the best of what they find in-game and are presented with. And they shouldn't be perusing the DMG like it's a menu, btw).
They need to know that the game is not a series of one-off battles after which they will be allowed to recover fully. The "power gamer" comment on healing potions belies a misunderstanding on that point, as well. Deciding how to conserve or spend your limited resources is something that will be tested.

They may have been spoiled by the way you treated them earlier in the campaign, so they now have expectations that you are partly responsible for. No way to get around that but to rip the bandaid off. Tell them you made a mistake being so lenient earlier, and now things are going to be different, and read the campaign guide to understand what to expect and what you expect of them. Maybe offer to start the campaign over again and let them make new characters understanding the new way you plan to run things.

Mutazoia
2016-10-09, 11:03 PM
If they won't go shopping, and you want them to have magic items, then the loot should be magic items.

The logic is inescapable.

Sure....why not "Monty Haul" the entire thing. Just say "Okay, you walk into a dungeon and kill everything. Here's a list of all the magic items that all the monsters carry. You walk into the next dungeon...."

That basically sounds like what the players are expecting at this point. If they aren't now, they will once the DM starts doling out magical gear like candy.

Sounds to me like the players are getting (probably have been for a long time before this game) to be a bit self-entitled. The "If I have to use a healing potion, them I'm doing something wrong" comment is a dead giveaway.

Personally I would either cut and run, or just toy with them a while. Like giving them a flaming sword and then throwing Fire elementals and brass golems at them for a while. Give them rings of warmth in the desert.... Hell give them all the crap gear in the DMG. And then design some huge, Rube Goldberg-esk puzzle near the end of the campaign that has a use for every single one of those crappy items and watch them squirm because they A) didn't bother to write the item down or B) sold it off ages ago.

Templarkommando
2016-10-09, 11:11 PM
There are a couple of options that occur to me.

1. Do an out-of-game shopping session. In the campaigns that I've been a part of, shopping tends to be time consuming. So much so that we frequently spend an entire session just hunting down different items that we want. So, to nip this in the bud, get your party on instant message and let them do their shopping then so it doesn't take up so much time in game.

2. Make shopping into a roleplaying experience. Give the shopkeeper a name and physical characteristics, describe and name the shop. Give the whole situation a few quirks and top it off with a funny voice for the shopkeeper so the party will remember them. You might even get an occasion where the party wants to go check on Bizzle the suspicious potion peddler with the high squeaky voice. When you've decided on what the shop looks like, take a couple of notes in your folder that detail things about the town so you can remember what they were the last time you were here. Give the shop a mediocre specialty item that they sell more cheaply than some other place might. If the party asks why the healing potions are so cheap, have the peddler look around and in a high nervous voice say "Umm... it's a sale."

3. Limit available inventory. There is a problem in my mind with assuming that every magic item seller can potentially sell you any magic item in existence with no notice at all. Maybe the magic item the party wants is rare or it's just out of stock today. "I can put it on order for you," or "I can have the master smith start making one for you if you want to make a down payment." Every time the party comes in the door of a shop that you know that they're going to visit, have a pre-written list of that shop's inventory for the week. If you're too lazy to do that (I am most of the time) have a table set out that gives the chances that the item the party is looking for is there that day. If it's a small town shop, you might put a price cap on any items that can be sold here. A small town magic shop might be able to sell you a couple dozen healing potions, but they don't get a lot of call for +5 Vorpal Swords at regular price. Maybe have your prices change a little every week. Maybe the market has been flooded with shovels since last week, so you can get a shovel for a few silver. The hope here is that every week your party will be wondering back hoping to find out what the sale is this week, and what new items are in stock.

4. Give character to the merchandise. That sword in the corner? That was used by Glarrg the Barbarian to vanquish an entire raiding band of gnolls. That Robe of the Good Archmagi? That was used by Serana of Pendon when she took down the conspiracy to usurp the crown. It's a steal at any price. Come on, you've got to have it.

Verbannon
2016-10-09, 11:40 PM
It sounds like they don't get the point of a ttrpg. I don't know if edition of the game has anything to do with it: regardless of what edition you're playing you can decide to challenge them or make things easy, make a railroad story or open ended. Based on her comment about rogues, the "power gamer" obviously doesn't understand some basic things.
Maybe you need to go back to square one, write up a campaign guide that explains the basics of what a role playing game is and how you intend to run the game and what roles you expect them to take. Inform them about what is and is not available to their characters (IE, everything in the DMG isn't automatically available for purchase and might never be - they need to make the best of what they find in-game and are presented with. And they shouldn't be perusing the DMG like it's a menu, btw).
They need to know that the game is not a series of one-off battles after which they will be allowed to recover fully. The "power gamer" comment on healing potions belies a misunderstanding on that point, as well. Deciding how to conserve or spend your limited resources is something that will be tested.

They may have been spoiled by the way you treated them earlier in the campaign, so they now have expectations that you are partly responsible for. No way to get around that but to rip the bandaid off. Tell them you made a mistake being so lenient earlier, and now things are going to be different, and read the campaign guide to understand what to expect and what you expect of them. Maybe offer to start the campaign over again and let them make new characters understanding the new way you plan to run things.

This is a new campaign actually I cancelled the old one, declared I had screwed up with the items, laid out I would now be enforcing the common, uncommon, rarity rules and making commons the only ones generally purchasable with uncommons taking a number of skill checks to find with dcs based on the size of the city and the theme of the item. And they won't even look at the commons really.


Sure....why not "Monty Haul" the entire thing. Just say "Okay, you walk into a dungeon and kill everything. Here's a list of all the magic items that all the monsters carry. You walk into the next dungeon...."

That basically sounds like what the players are expecting at this point. If they aren't now, they will once the DM starts doling out magical gear like candy.

Sounds to me like the players are getting (probably have been for a long time before this game) to be a bit self-entitled. The "If I have to use a healing potion, them I'm doing something wrong" comment is a dead giveaway.

Personally I would either cut and run, or just toy with them a while. Like giving them a flaming sword and then throwing Fire elementals and brass golems at them for a while. Give them rings of warmth in the desert.... Hell give them all the crap gear in the DMG. And then design some huge, Rube Goldberg-esk puzzle near the end of the campaign that has a use for every single one of those crappy items and watch them squirm because they A) didn't bother to write the item down or B) sold it off ages ago.

The Power Gamer plays pathfinder when not playing mine and often compares my game to her pathfinder game. I often suspect she expects this game to be like every other game. When I ask her why she plays my system at all she says its because she wants a challenge sometimes...


There are a couple of options that occur to me.

1. Do an out-of-game shopping session. In the campaigns that I've been a part of, shopping tends to be time consuming. So much so that we frequently spend an entire session just hunting down different items that we want. So, to nip this in the bud, get your party on instant message and let them do their shopping then so it doesn't take up so much time in game.

2. Make shopping into a roleplaying experience. Give the shopkeeper a name and physical characteristics, describe and name the shop. Give the whole situation a few quirks and top it off with a funny voice for the shopkeeper so the party will remember them. You might even get an occasion where the party wants to go check on Bizzle the suspicious potion peddler with the high squeaky voice. When you've decided on what the shop looks like, take a couple of notes in your folder that detail things about the town so you can remember what they were the last time you were here. Give the shop a mediocre specialty item that they sell more cheaply than some other place might. If the party asks why the healing potions are so cheap, have the peddler look around and in a high nervous voice say "Umm... it's a sale."

3. Limit available inventory. There is a problem in my mind with assuming that every magic item seller can potentially sell you any magic item in existence with no notice at all. Maybe the magic item the party wants is rare or it's just out of stock today. "I can put it on order for you," or "I can have the master smith start making one for you if you want to make a down payment." Every time the party comes in the door of a shop that you know that they're going to visit, have a pre-written list of that shop's inventory for the week. If you're too lazy to do that (I am most of the time) have a table set out that gives the chances that the item the party is looking for is there that day. If it's a small town shop, you might put a price cap on any items that can be sold here. A small town magic shop might be able to sell you a couple dozen healing potions, but they don't get a lot of call for +5 Vorpal Swords at regular price. Maybe have your prices change a little every week. Maybe the market has been flooded with shovels since last week, so you can get a shovel for a few silver. The hope here is that every week your party will be wondering back hoping to find out what the sale is this week, and what new items are in stock.

4. Give character to the merchandise. That sword in the corner? That was used by Glarrg the Barbarian to vanquish an entire raiding band of gnolls. That Robe of the Good Archmagi? That was used by Serana of Pendon when she took down the conspiracy to usurp the crown. It's a steal at any price. Come on, you've got to have it.

We've tried organizing out of game shopping and stuff, but only two of the players are ever, ever on and contactable in between sessions.

And here is my latest example to spice up the shopping experience. Note this is a copy paste of an html file. So it normally has much nice and prettier structure. I think this though covers every suggestion you gave. The players glanced at it and said, "Nope, nothing I want"

CommercePessing has what may be called a tourist economy. There is a huge influx of sick from all over the planes that come to this city and spend their money to be healed. The sick were originally drawn to Pessing because Nashush would occasionally grant healing and was known to be able to heal any sort of curse, disease or affliction, even ones cast by Gods. Following these initial sick were healers, both those looking for profit and those intent on charity. As time passed by Nashush's rare gifts of healing took a secondary position next to the assortment of advanced medical services offered in Pessing for luring new money. And people coming to use these services are the primary economic driving force. Because of this common medical services can be obtained in Pessing at a 50% discount, however due to the high demand and price gouging by the guild, uncommon and rare medical services have a 40% mark-up. Physician and healer Hirelings can by hired at a 20% discount.The production and export of medicines is a secondary economy, although the physicians guild regulates its use, most potions have little profitability to the guild in pessing so there is no real guild oversight and regulation of price and production allowing market forces to take control here. All potions that restore hit points, grant saves, and regeneration can be purchased regardless of rarity and come at a 30% discount. Potions that aid in curing diseases are not sold. All their potions common, to uncommon if not sold on the shelf can be made to order within 48 hours. Finding rare potions requires only a hard check.Magical items that restore hit points, grant temporary hitpoints or grant bonuses to saves that include poison or acids or grants saves that include saves against ongoing poisons and acids are easy to find. Common items that do this can be found or made to order without a check and have a 10% discount. Uncommons can be found with an easy DC, magic items that protect against cold, the extreme weather, or are of Eisk make, unseelie make or aid with diseases in some way are also easily found, with commons requiring only an easy dc skill challenge and uncommons a medium. with the standard markup except diseases, those items have a base 50% mark-up The large influx of new people in the city regularly means other kinds of magic items can often be found, with commons requiring only a medium dc skill challenge and uncommons a hard dc skill challenge. _____________________________________________ The city may look poor and a slum but that is due to the lack of able bodied adults to maintain the city, the harsh weather and the poor supply of building materials. About half of the food the city requires is provided during the short growing season by the surrounding villages mostly root produce like potatoes and carrots as well as some of the faster growing varieties of vegetables like tomatoes, and berries are the main fruit grown. Rat meat is the main source of meat. All food here has a 400% markup over the cost elsewhere. But bland soup kitchens are maintained where food can be gotten for free. Eating here though generates a morale penalty of -1 to all saves until something tastier is eaten. ____________________________________________ Ebony Flies are created to order for the Knights of Flies by a Half-Elf Toy Maker named Halgotin and his apprentices. Born and raised a Pessing Native, He was a Knight of the Flies himself for a while after he finished his own apprenticeship. But has returned to the creation of these wondrous figurines. He may know how to make other magical figurines but would be hard pressed to. (Can come to him if you want to try and find a different figurine counting as an auto success on the streetwise) He does however keep a few extra Ebony Flies on hand he sells at only a 10% markup.
Ebony Fly Wondrous Item
This dark wood sculpture of a fly can be used to conjure an enormous fly that you can ride.
AvailabilityUncommon
Level9
Price 4,200 gp
Power (Conjuration) Daily (Standard Action)
Use this figurine to conjure a giant black fly (see below for statistics). As a free action, you can spend a healing surge when activating this item to give the creature temporary hit points equal to your healing surge value. The fly can carry one Medium or Small character weighing no more than 300 pounds. If more than 300 pounds are placed on it, the creature disappears and cannot be conjured again until after an extended rest.
Adventurer's Vault
Ebony Fly
Large natural animate (mount) Level 10 Skirmisher
500 XP
HP14;Bloodied7 Initiative+8
AC18;Fort16;Ref16;Will14 Perception +6
Speed4, Fly 10, Overland Flight 15
Traits
Aerial Agility(Mount)
Effect: An ebony fly’s rider gains a +1 bonus to all defenses while the ebony fly is flying.
Standard Actions
Bite♦ At-Will
Attack: +12 vs AC
Hit: 1d6 + 4 damage
Str: 14 (+7)
Con: 16 (+8) Dex: 17 (+8)
Int: 2 (+1) Wis: 12 (+6)
Cha: 6 (+3)
AlignmentUnaligned
Adventurer's Vault
_____________________________________________ Gray Bags of Tricks are extremely common in Pessing. No one is quite sure who creates them but there are one or two being sold on nearly every streetcorner. The sellers having bought their bags second hand. Always second hand. It is rumored that a rare item, the Bag of Pestilence can be found somewhere in the city, from which a horde of vermin can be released. However as the city is already infested with many hordes of vermin, few people really have interest in acquiring this item. These bags of tricks are sold at a -10% discount.
Bag of Tricks, Gray Wondrous Item
This simple, leather bag produces feral critters that you can send against your enemies.
AvailabilityUncommon
Level8
Price 3,400 gp
Power (Conjuration) Daily (Standard Action)
Use this bag to conjure a Tiny minion (see below for statistics). Roll a d8 to determine which beast is produced and modify its statistics accordingly: 1: Bat; this creature also has a fly speed of 6. 2: Rat; this creature also has darkvision. 3: Cat; this creature also knocks the target prone on a hit. 4: Weasel; this creature does not provoke opportunity attacks for moving. 5: Snake; this creature also deals 2 poison damage on a hit. 6: Badger; this creature gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls. 7: Spider; this creature also has a climb speed of 6. 8: Scorpion; this creature deals ongoing 1 poison damage (save ends) on a hit.
Adventurer's Vault

Conjured Critter (Gray Bag)
Tiny natural beast Level 8 Skirmisher
350 XP
HP1;Bloodied0 Initiative+5
AC18;Fort17;Ref18;Will16 Perception +8
Speed6 low-light vision
Standard Actions
Bite♦ At-Will
Attack: +6 vs AC
Hit: 4 damage
Str: 6 (+2)
Con: 11 (+4) Dex: 12 (+5)
Int: 2 (+0) Wis: 9 (+3)
Cha: 6 (+2)
AlignmentUnaligned
Adventurer's Vault
_____________________________________________ Rat Killer Coats are another item in high demand in Pessing for obvious reasons and consequently in high supply. The primary civilian source of these Coats is a pawn broker named Hizera, her shop is in the far more scarcely populated northern side of the city, and acts as a kind of community hub. She insists that all her rat killer coats are imported, though its well known though unproven that she has a band of hunters which hunt the dire rats of he city to collect the hide necessary to create the rat killer coats.The Rat Killer Coats are sold without price adjustment.
Rat Killers Coat Armour
This fur-trimmed jacket is favored by all who must deal with dangerous vermin.
AvailabilityUncommon
Level2
Price 520 gp
Armor: Cloth or leather
Enhancement: +1
Property
You gain resist 5 against damage from swarms’ attacks. In addition, you can move through a space occupied by a swarm, and your movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks from swarms.
Adventurer's Vault 2
_____________________________________________ The Enclave of Dust, a Cult that worships Aurom, holds a larger than usual following here. Though technically any is larger than usual, here is perhaps one of the largest enclaves.belonging to that cult. The Enclave has no apparent political motivations nor do they preach at all. Mostly they tend to the dead of the city alongside the clergy of the Raven Queen. They often wear these helmets and many rumors place them among ghosts, though the rumors vary as to why they were with ghosts. Occasionally when a member of the Enclave dies his Helm of Ghostly Defense is sold if they have no members currently in need of one.
Helm of Ghostly Defense Item Slot (head)
This misty helmet allows you to resist some necrotic damage and can be activated to turn you insubstantial for a short time.
AvailabilityUncommon
Level22
Price 325,000 gp
Property
Gain resist 10 necrotic.
Power Encounter (Immediate Interrupt)
You can use this power when you are hit by an attack. You become insubstantial until the start of your next turn.
Players Handbook
_____________________________________________ The Gloves of Accuracy are crafted by an eccentric woman of around 30 years old named Nnihnahnuh Jolal, she is a severe hypochondriac and walks with a limp caused by one of her imaginary diseases. She sells these gloves to pay for the constant doctor visits and examinations. How she crafts them however is a mystery as she seems to somehow make them using just scrap cloth found wherever. The the result is a potent and valued magical item. These gloves are sold at a 50% markdown.
Gloves of Accuracy Item Slot (hands)
While wearing these fingerless deerskin gloves, your shots bypass obstacles.
AvailabilityCommon
Level16
Price 45,000 gp
Power*At-Will (Minor Action)
Your ranged attacks ignore concealment and cover (but not total concealment or superior cover) until the end of your turn.
Adventurer's Vault
_____________________________________________ The Hemlock and Scalpel has close connections to the faith of Ioun, although not a religious society, their willingness to prioritize the use of science, technology, magic, research and experimentation to achieve their results rather than blithe reliance on ancient lore and the mercy of the Gods has gained them not only the Blessings of Ioun but a strong friendship and spirit of cooperation. One such fruit of this relationship is that the libraries of the guild are written entirely on these parchments, so that faulty knowledge and techniques can be more quickly updated. Suffice to say many of these have made it to the vendors of odds and ends.And can often be found selling for as low as a hundred gold each.

Ioun's Parchment Wondrous Item
This thin sheet of bronze, the size of a roll of parchment, is embossed with Ioun's symbol in one corner
AvailabilityCommon
Level1
Property
This material can be written on like paper or parchment, and the writing can’t be erased until the parchment’s owner wills it blank. It’s flexible enough to roll. Creating a ritual scroll using this item fills it with text, but takes half the usual time. Once the ritual is performed, the piece of Ioun’s parchment turns blank and can be reused.
Adventurer's Vault 2

_____________________________________


The following are notable available Hirelings.

Hireling Hireling
A dutiful servant attends to the little complications that interfere with your adventures.
AvailabilityUncommon
Level1
Price Lvl 1 15 gp
Price Lvl 2 20 gp
Price Lvl 3 25 gp
Price Lvl 4 30 gp
Price Lvl 5 40 gp
Price Lvl 6 70 gp
Price Lvl 7 100 gp
Price Lvl 8 135 gp
Price Lvl 9 170 gp
Price Lvl 10 200 gp
Price Lvl 11 350 gp
Price Lvl 12 520 gp
Price Lvl 13 680 gp
Price Lvl 14 840 gp
Price Lvl 15 1,000 gp
Price Lvl 16 1,800 gp
Price Lvl 17 2,600 gp
Price Lvl 18 3,400 gp
Price Lvl 19 4,200 gp
Price Lvl 20 5,000 gp
Price Lvl 21 9,000 gp
Price Lvl 22 13,000 gp
Price Lvl 23 17,000 gp
Price Lvl 24 21,000 gp
Price Lvl 25 25,000 gp
Price Lvl 26 45,000 gp
Price Lvl 27 65,000 gp
Price Lvl 28 85,000 gp
Price Lvl 29 105,000 gp
Price Lvl 30 125,000 gp
Property
You gain the service of a hireling. The creature is an ally to you and your allies. The hireling can perform one standard action and one move action each turn. It acts after you on your initiative count. The hireling has no healing surges.
MME Items

Physician
Medium natural humanoid Level 1 Minion
25 XP
HP1 Initiative+0
AC15;Fort12;Ref15;Will12 Perception +4
Speed6
ImmuneDisease, Poison
Traits
Physician's Aura♦ Aura 5
Aura grants +1 to saves and +2 to checks to recover from diseases and injuries.
Cost:
Standard x 3
Leveling
Increase AC, Defenses and attack by 1 every level, add half level to hireling's damage.
Standard Actions
Melee Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Melee 1 (One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
4 damage
Ranged Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Ranged 10(One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
4 damage
Heal♦ Daily
Effect: The Physician makes a heal check with a bonus of 9+half level+1 per tier.
SkillsHeal +9
Str: 11 (+0)
Con: 10 (+0) Dex: 16 (+3)
Int: 16 (+3) Wis: 18 (+4)
Cha: 14 (+2)
AlignmentAny
EquipmentScalpel, Healer's Kit
Custom Items

Blood Brother(Sanguine Sister)
Medium natural humanoid Level 1 Minion Brute
25 XP
HP1 Initiative+0
AC17;Fort14;Ref15;Will13 Perception -1
Speed6
ImmuneFear
Traits
Careless Determination
When hp is brought to 0 the Sanguine Sister will not fall unconsciounce until the end of her next turn. If the Blood Brother takes damage before falling unconsciounce but after his hp is brought to 0, he will die instead of falling unconsciounce.
Leveling
Increase AC, Defenses, Damage and attack by 1 every level.
Standard Actions
Melee Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Melee 1 (One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
5 damage
Ranged Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Ranged 10(One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
5 damage
SkillsAthletics +5
Str: 18 (+4)
Con: 16 (+3) Dex: 16 (+3)
Int: 12 (+1) Wis: 8 (-1)
Cha: 10 (+0)
AlignmentUnaligned
LanguagesCommon
EquipmentGreat Sword, scale mail
Custom Items


Healer
Medium natural humanoid Level 1 Minion
25 XP
HP1 Initiative+0
AC15;Fort12;Ref12;Will15 Perception +4
Speed6
Traits
Healer's Aura♦ Aura 5
Allies within the Aura gain +1 hp whenever they spend a surge. `````````````````````````````````````````````````` ````````````````` Level 15:+2 hp `````````````````````````````````````````````````` ``````````````````` Level 25:+3 hp
Cost
Standard x 3
Leveling
Increase AC, Defenses and attack by 1 every level, add half level to hireling's damage.
Standard Actions
Melee Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Melee 1 (One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
4 damage
Ranged Attack(Weapon) ♦ At-Will (basic attack)
Range: Ranged 10(One Creature)
Attack: +6 vs AC
4 damage
Tend Wound(Healing, Implement) ♦ Can be used twice at level 16.
Range: Close Blast 5 (One Ally in Burst)
Effect:The target can spend a healing surge and regain 3 additional hp. (Level 6: 6 hp, level 11: 9 hp, level 16: 12 hp, level 21: 15 hp, level 26: 18 hp)
SkillsHeal +9
Str: 14 (+2)
Con: 10 (+0) Dex: 12 (+1)
Int: 10 (+0) Wis: 18 (+4)
Cha: 16 (+3)
AlignmentAny
EquipmentHealer's Kit, Implement
Custom Items

Kane0
2016-10-10, 12:30 AM
What system are you playing?
Have you already tried 5e? Its pretty good with the whole magic gear thing.

Verbannon
2016-10-10, 12:38 AM
What system are you playing?
Have you already tried 5e? Its pretty good with the whole magic gear thing.

Yes I've tried 5e, but I would much rather have no combat at all then non-tactical combat. And then I might as well just be forum roleplaying. And I won't tell what system I'm running because I find that people are physically incapable of actually giving advice once they know the system being used.

Kane0
2016-10-10, 01:52 AM
After your last post I think I know the system.

You cant really force your players to play a certain way, not without losing them at least. Best you can do is adjust so that everyone can have fun, and hope they adjust too.

Also as an aside, what makes 5e untactical?

weckar
2016-10-10, 02:40 AM
And they all seem to be Dark Souls Fans. I am not sure what that is but they talk about it a lot, maybe its a jRPG.Hahahahah no.

Dark Souls is a relentless game where the first time through just getting through the first area can take some people days.
It is a game where every tiny upgrade matters.
Frankly, with players that like Dark Souls it surprises me that they do not go for the tiny upgrades you offer them...

Verbannon
2016-10-10, 02:40 AM
After your last post I think I know the system.

You cant really force your players to play a certain way, not without losing them at least. Best you can do is adjust so that everyone can have fun, and hope they adjust too.

Also as an aside, what makes 5e untactical?

Everybody has to have fun should include me as well. And I don't want to get this off topi so I'll pm you the answer to your question.

TeChameleon
2016-10-10, 03:36 AM
If you want to drive things home, there's a relatively simple way to do it.

Take a group of enemies that your PCs can handle easily. Let them mangle those as per the usual.

Take an identical group of enemies and equip them with the consumables and moderate upgrades that the players have been ignoring. Point and laugh as the players get obliterated. Have the enemies leave them alive as a final insult if you don't want to deal with the hassle of them rolling up new characters.

When your players start complaining, tell them exactly what you did, and why. If they have any real desire to optimize, they'll hopefully get your point.

kraftcheese
2016-10-10, 03:42 AM
Hahahahah no.

Dark Souls is a relentless game where the first time through just getting through the first area can take some people days.
It is a game where every tiny upgrade matters.
Frankly, with players that like Dark Souls it surprises me that they do not go for the tiny upgrades you offer them...
I mean it IS technically a JRPG as well, but I completely agree with you about the gist of your post

A massive part of Dark Souls is using single-use items for an advantage, understanding and swapping out armor and weapons for resistance bonuses to damage types, etc. so it is really weird that they refuse to note any items down.

Maybe they'll respond better if they find generic magic items that you've given a little name and story? Most items in Dark Souls have a little single/double sentence blurb saying they were owned by Old King X or forged by Legendary Figure B; but that IS a lot of work and who knows what these players will respond to, honestly.

Verbannon
2016-10-10, 03:42 AM
If you want to drive things home, there's a relatively simple way to do it.

Take a group of enemies that your PCs can handle easily. Let them mangle those as per the usual.

Take an identical group of enemies and equip them with the consumables and moderate upgrades that the players have been ignoring. Point and laugh as the players get obliterated. Have the enemies leave them alive as a final insult if you don't want to deal with the hassle of them rolling up new characters.

When your players start complaining, tell them exactly what you did, and why. If they have any real desire to optimize, they'll hopefully get your point.

Rival Adventuring party equipped with whatever they had previously abandoned?

TeChameleon
2016-10-10, 04:09 AM
Rival Adventuring party equipped with whatever they had previously abandoned?
Eh...

*hand waggle*

Depends. If they can come in behind the party to squish something that killed/captured the PCs, it might get your point across.

Like I said, my approach would be how I said- I'd have them kill a batch of easy' monsters (say, kobolds or hobgoblins), then have a second group of identical critters turn up, pop their buffs in a very obvious fashion- 'the kobold cleric downs a potion that you could swear you recognize', for example, and, RNG willing, the party goes 'squish'.

Verbannon
2016-10-10, 04:42 AM
Editted because it revealed mah edition

Deophaun
2016-10-10, 05:37 AM
Well, you gave away your system. But, here's some advice: just use inherent bonuses and be done with it. That way there's no point waiting around to "save up for them +3s yo."

I actually had the problem that you label in the title: My group all played 3.5 and they had zero-capacity for learning the new magic items. Shopping excursions were meet with blank stares. If they were ever going to get anything, I had to hand it to them, which was exactly what I did not want to do. With inherent bonuses, I could give them random gear and not worry about it.

'Course, there were a couple in my group that didn't even want to learn how to build a character and they suckered me into doing that for them. They played them competently, but that was another avenue for me to make sure they never died for want of some ability.

Edit: And as for ignoring dropped members, I had an early (level 2) adventure that took place in an environment where there was a swarm of passive taints in the background that would manifest to feed when ever something dropped. They learned.

kraftcheese
2016-10-10, 05:37 AM
Are you sure you want to play with this group? Reading that exchange, there seems to be quite a bit of hostility on both sides; but that could just be my interpretation, with the difficulty parsing intent, etc. in text.

Also, the fact that your rules lawyer player doesn't see the value in reviving/healing another player so they can also contribute to (and thus enjoy) an encounter rather than RPing lying on the ground for however long combat takes seems weird to me? Oddly selfish? I mean ive never played the system that was stated so it might just be how it goes, but a lot of your players' arguments about why they do x or y seem weird and not very conducive to actually...uh.....having fun.

But again, opinion, I know different people enjoy different things.

comk59
2016-10-10, 07:34 AM
While I don't agree with your view of 5e, I'll avoid going off topic.

In my opinion, you should have the enemies start to use some of these items as well. I'd like to see how useless healing potions are when enemies start quaffing them and rendering that sneak attack damage null, or canceling out a turn or two of damage from the fighter.

Jay R
2016-10-10, 07:39 AM
Sounds to me like the players are getting (probably have been for a long time before this game) to be a bit self-entitled.

That seems awfully harsh. I think they just don't know how to play this game very well.

------------

To the OP:You cannot decide what to do until you decide what the goal is.

Do you want to punish them for not knowing how to play the game? Then just crush them relentlessly, as some have suggested.

Do you want to humiliate them for not knowing how to play the game? Then give them useless items, as somebody has suggested.

Do you want to provide an enjoyable game for them, while teaching them how to play the game? Then give them some potions, either as treasure or as a tool provided by somebody who hires them.

I repeat, if you want them to have something that they won't buy themselves, then you're going to have to provide it. You are the only source of things they don't buy.

Martin Greywolf
2016-10-10, 07:46 AM
I was about to start giving advice, right up until I read that they don't bother with writing down stuff they get unless it's on their wish list. That right there is just plain disrespectful to the DM. Seriously, you prepared a campaign for them, and they can't be bothered to write down the loot? Nope.

Either talk to them and straight up tell them that they need to change their attitude to this game - not take it super seriously, but at least give some good-faith effort into it and cease the whining. If that doesn't work, or if you don't even want to invest the energy - leave.

While tormenting them in various ways does have its appeal, your time will be better spent finding a group that can actually appreciate the effort you put into the adventures.

Barring that, if you really want to keep gaming with them for some reason, just say that this whole DMing burned you out, and let them DM for a spell.

Segev
2016-10-10, 08:34 AM
Have you talked to them about this out of character? You seem frustrated that they won't buy "junk" but are waiting for "the good stuff." That may be telling you what they DO want.

Make "the good stuff" available. Don't discount it. Let them see what they can afford. Somebody said you gave away your system; I missed you doing so but it sounds like 3.5 (if I'm wrong, my apologies). If you want them to have healing that isn't "wasted," you could sell them Healing Belts from the Magic Item Compendium.

You may already be doing this, but have limited items available but actively hawked by some NPCs. Put some things front-and-center for them to buy. Again, no discounts (though the merchant might claim the price is lower than he normally charges), but having it right there might help them make decisions. Especially if they come across rival parties bidding on things.

When you drop loot, have it be loot the enemies were using against them. That DR-granting adamantine full plate looks a lot more attractive and memorable when they had to hack through it to kill its prior owner.

And, if they aren't writing down treasure, get them to appoint one person the party treasurer whose job it is to write down what they find.


Finally, ask them if they really want to be playing. If they're this disinterested and get upset that they can't win despite not using stuff you give them to make winning feasible, maybe they just don't want to be doing it. Try not to be passive aggressive about it. But do make sure they really want to be playing.

You'll need to really sit down and hash this out with them. Point out your expectations, and listen to theirs. Figure out how to make them mesh.

Verbannon
2016-10-10, 05:13 PM
I have talked with them multiple times, I get a somewhat different response nearly every time.And each says something different. Though most never ever even respond to me out of game, so 'them' is limited to 2 or 3 of the 6. Last time I spoke one said that he just hoards reflexively and doesn't like to use anything, though he never replied when I pointed out that doesn't account for all the stuff not noted down like the bag of holding.

The other at first just declared that healing potions were useless because they healed so little, so the healer should be doing all the healing. And how some classes don't even have the free hands necessary to use consumables and she wants to save up for +3s. Then she switched tunes and said its because I have a habit of not killing them once they are koed, sparing them the effects of aoes.

So yeah I've decided to just try the crushing route. Its likely to disrupt my campaign a bit but maybe if they have characters dying enough they'll start trying harder to survive.

Deophaun
2016-10-10, 05:38 PM
The other at first just declared that healing potions were useless because they healed so little, so the healer should be doing all the healing.
For the system, that player is not wrong. They are your last-ditch option. If you're relying on them and yet you have a healer, the healer either isn't doing his job or the encounter has gone south. The attitude on this item is right. The problem is the party is not Get Gud enough to act on it. Increasing the lethality level will inspire greater efforts on their part to fix that.

Quertus
2016-10-10, 06:45 PM
When I first started I let them buy whatever item they wanted, and as a result by level 10 they had all the items they wanted. They stopped exploring, stopped bothering getting gold. Stopped everything.

I'll stay within the encounter rules as I normally do. They are already being crushed by the fair fights so I don't need to add any extra malice

I was going to say that your players have already indicated the kind of game they want, and so you should pay that type of game. But you say you've already played that game, and didn't enjoy it. And, from the sounds of it, I'm not sure if your players enjoyed it, either.

But

If I read you right, and they're having trouble with average encounters, letting them buy the gear they want sounds like a win win. Randomly dropping crazy loot to bring them up to your expected level may also help.

After that, you should discuss with them what you want out of a game, and what they want out of a game, and see if there is actually any common ground.


But they have no interest in spending the money on consumables or the common and uncommon equipment that they are actually allowed to spend it on. And the game system I'm running is extremely tactical and adversarial

I'll stay within the encounter rules as I normally do. They are already being crushed by the fair fights so I don't need to add any extra malice

I'm not sure what kind of game you're playing, but tying their hands hands behind their backs with equipment limits, then complaining that they can't handle "fair" encounters, shows some clear issues.


And although they were unbalanced, as strong as their characters were, in many ways they ended up actually worse. One character was charge laming, and died in just about every encounter in the first two rounds because as soon as he was slowed or immobilized, he just couldn't function anymore. He didn't know how.

Funny thing, when you throw the wizard in antimagic, he doesn't function any more, either.

Taking away their shtick isn't a good solution.


But I threw two encounters in a row that was filled with mass weaker enemies at them and he died in the second one hard and he complained, "You know we only have enough powers to deal with mass enemies in one encounter! How dare you throw two encounters in a row at us!" Though they made me feel guilty for it. And on and on.

Ultimately all they did was make the game unfun for me. I could no longer tempt them into exploring or give them rewards or anything like that. And the actual combat encounters, were either where the monsters I placed got slaughtered hard and I effectively had nothing to do, or a monster would avoid their strengths somehow and I would get yelled at for metaing against them.

So... you don't know how to build encounters that challenge them without metagaming and negating their strengths, or throwing on nerfs like "common equipment only"? And this lack of ability to create a balanced encounter is making the game unfun? Sounds like you need to work on your encounter building skills.

I'd suggest letting them buy all the stuff they want to with their money, then submitting their builds to the playground. Let us (ok, them - I'm not gonna claim my skills are good enough, either!) build encounters that don't negate their strengths, but are at an appropriate level of challenge for them. Then you can test those encounters out, report back on the results, and let us know if it was more fun, for you and for them.


At level 1 the rogue tried to go up against a great big monster directly and got predictably killed. The rogue is my power gamer again, the potion hater one. Her logic there was, "My job is to do a lot of damage, if I didn't go up and attack then I wouldn't have been doing my job, it was an impossible encounter."


It sounds like they don't get the point of a ttrpg. I don't know if edition of the game has anything to do with it: regardless of what edition you're playing you can decide to challenge them or make things easy, make a railroad story or open ended. Based on her comment about rogues, the "power gamer" obviously doesn't understand some basic things.
Maybe you need to go back to square one, write up a campaign guide that explains the basics of what a role playing game is and how you intend to run the game and what roles you expect them to take.

I'm not sure I understand what you consider to be the point of ttrpgs, myself...

Sounds like the rogue is, in this example, playing a tactical game where everyone has an expected role to play. The OP says he runs a tactical game, and you're suggesting telling them what roles they need to play. Um... sounds like they're already on the right page, according to that logic. So... what are you actually trying to fix?

Knaight
2016-10-10, 08:22 PM
I would but I play online and I am just so reluctant to drop players that at least show up every session. If you never played online then you wouldn't know but only 1 out of every 50 players sticks around for more then 2 sessions before vanishing without warning or trace.

This depends on the GM. You run a borderline adversarial game tightly focused on difficult tactical combat, and there's not that many people who are interested in that (although it is clearly D&D, so that alone does broaden the player pool substantially). It's not a bad style, but it's completely contrary to what a lot of people play RPGs for, so a lot of these people are going to bail.

Thrudd
2016-10-10, 09:20 PM
I'm not sure I understand what you consider to be the point of ttrpgs, myself...

Sounds like the rogue is, in this example, playing a tactical game where everyone has an expected role to play. The OP says he runs a tactical game, and you're suggesting telling them what roles they need to play. Um... sounds like they're already on the right page, according to that logic. So... what are you actually trying to fix?

Well, if she thinks a rogue is supposed to just run up to big things and attack them, she didn't know how a rogue works and had bad tactics at that point. If she's treating it like a video game or a game where position doesn't matter, then she's got some disconnect. Unless her character is suicidal or delusional and she was role playing that - or she didn't understand the rules at that point - what she did does not make sense. She thought "rogues do damage" and not "rogues sneak around and attack from hiding or with surprise"; she misunderstood a basic element of her class.

What I mean by "player roles" is what players are expected to do in the game. As in, "as a player, you are meant to listen to the DM's descriptions of the world and make decisions based on those descriptions as if you were that character in the world." Basic RPG stuff, that gets lost when the tactical game gets focused on too much. I say that because the attitude of the players sounds, to me, like they are treating it like a tactical board game or an MMO where the DM is the computer, and that's it. I could be wrong, but that's my impressions. They don't have any immersion, they ignore what the DM is telling them outside of combat, they don't pay attention, they are focused on numbers and ignoring things that are actually in front of and available to their characters. In other words, this isn't just a battle game. There's other stuff you're supposed to pay attention to, and being immersed should actually make the tactical game better.

Quertus
2016-10-10, 09:33 PM
Well, if she thinks a rogue is supposed to just run up to big things and attack them, she didn't know how a rogue works and had bad tactics at that point. If she's treating it like a video game or a game where position doesn't matter, then she's got some disconnect. Unless her character is suicidal or delusional and she was role playing that - or she didn't understand the rules at that point - what she did does not make sense. She thought "rogues do damage" and not "rogues sneak around and attack from hiding or with surprise"; she misunderstood a basic element of her class.

What I mean by "player roles" is what players are expected to do in the game. As in, "as a player, you are meant to listen to the DM's descriptions of the world and make decisions based on those descriptions as if you were that character in the world." Basic RPG stuff, that gets lost when the tactical game gets focused on too much. I say that because the attitude of the players sounds, to me, like they are treating it like a tactical board game or an MMO where the DM is the computer, and that's it. I could be wrong, but that's my impressions. They don't have any immersion, they ignore what the DM is telling them outside of combat, they don't pay attention, they are focused on numbers and ignoring things that are actually in front of and available to their characters. In other words, this isn't just a battle game. There's other stuff you're supposed to pay attention to, and being immersed should actually make the tactical game better.

Thanks for the explanation. That makes a lot more sense. The only thing I still question is whether "treating it like a tactical board game" isn't actually the correct (and desired!) response in this scenario.

The only disconnect being that the players are only writing down what little loot they intend their characters to directly use, and expecting the DM to just give them the cash value of the rest when they get back to town. While this is a perfectly valid play style, and even one one might expect from a tactical game like the OP described, it obviously isn't what the OP wants, and is decidedly suboptimal, as the party seems immune to noticing.

Talakeal
2016-10-10, 10:24 PM
I was going to say that your players have already indicated the kind of game they want, and so you should pay that type of game. But you say you've already played that game, and didn't enjoy it. And, from the sounds of it, I'm not sure if your players enjoyed it, either.

But

If I read you right, and they're having trouble with average encounters, letting them buy the gear they want sounds like a win win. Randomly dropping crazy loot to bring them up to your expected level may also help.

After that, you should discuss with them what you want out of a game, and what they want out of a game, and see if there is actually any common ground.




I'm not sure what kind of game you're playing, but tying their hands hands behind their backs with equipment limits, then complaining that they can't handle "fair" encounters, shows some clear issues.



Funny thing, when you throw the wizard in antimagic, he doesn't function any more, either.

Taking away their shtick isn't a good solution.



So... you don't know how to build encounters that challenge them without metagaming and negating their strengths, or throwing on nerfs like "common equipment only"? And this lack of ability to create a balanced encounter is making the game unfun? Sounds like you need to work on your encounter building skills.

I'd suggest letting them buy all the stuff they want to with their money, then submitting their builds to the playground. Let us (ok, them - I'm not gonna claim my skills are good enough, either!) build encounters that don't negate their strengths, but are at an appropriate level of challenge for them. Then you can test those encounters out, report back on the results, and let us know if it was more fun, for you and for them.





I'm not sure I understand what you consider to be the point of ttrpgs, myself...

Sounds like the rogue is, in this example, playing a tactical game where everyone has an expected role to play. The OP says he runs a tactical game, and you're suggesting telling them what roles they need to play. Um... sounds like they're already on the right page, according to that logic. So... what are you actually trying to fix?

My impression is that they are saving up all of their gold until they can get the "best" gear and are thus severly unerleveled before they can afford it. I dont think the DM is making it unavailable, its just that the players are not yet at the level where they can buy end game gear.

I ran into a similar problem in an MMO where the raid group would vendor items that were gear upgrades because none of the players would spend their DKP on anything that was an upgrade but not "the best". Because so much good gear was being trashed rather than used the group was underperf Rming, so the raid leaders made DKP expenditures on upgrades manditory.

For those who dont play MMOs, DKP is basically a player made currency which is earned by good attendance and is spent to get priority on loot drops.

icefractal
2016-10-10, 10:56 PM
I'm not sure why you're hiding the system; that just makes it harder to offer accurate advice. Anyway, it seems like it's 4E, so I'll go with that assumption.

So first off, I'll be the devil's advocate on something - healing potions are not fun. They just aren't, they're like a tax on staying alive. "Oh, you got money, you thought you were going to get something cool, something that would give you new capabilities? Haha nope, time to spend it on not dying." And since the DM usually controls the pacing that determines to what extent potions are necessary, it can feel like you're just taking their money away.

Also, a lot of people, and I'm guilty of this myself sometimes, are way too conservative with consumable items. It's always like "Well, this would be useful now, but what if next session I really need it, and I spent it too early like a fool?" I'm not saying that's the smart tactic, it's better to use them when you need them, but it's a habit that's hard to break.

So, give them non-consumable stuff. Doesn't have to be the exact stuff they want, just something that can be used without worrying about depleting it. That should give better odds of them remembering to use it, at least.

Mutazoia
2016-10-11, 02:55 AM
That seems awfully harsh. I think they just don't know how to play this game very well.

It's only harsh if every single player is brand-spanking-new to RPG's. But with everything described about these players, I seriously doubt that they are. The whole "If I need to heal, I'm doing something wrong." comment speaks for itself. This player expects to waltz through every encounter with out a scratch, butchering everything in sight with ease, and then be handed premium gear for what basically ammounts to using a stick of TNT to open a pickle jar, and then complains when that doesn't happen. Pretty self-entitled to me.

Deophaun
2016-10-11, 03:11 AM
The whole "If I need to heal, I'm doing something wrong." comment speaks for itself.
A) That's not what the player said and B) what the player did say is accurate given the system. Potions are a last-resort healing method. Heck, they're that even in 3.5. If you have to drink one, something has gone wrong somewhere (even in 3.5, out of combat you have wands that do the same job cheaper; that limits their economical use to in combat when the healer can't get to you/thinks you haven't tithed enough to his church recently and you're about to bleed out)

Mutazoia
2016-10-11, 05:27 AM
A) That's not what the player said and B) what the player did say is accurate given the system. Potions are a last-resort healing method. Heck, they're that even in 3.5. If you have to drink one, something has gone wrong somewhere (even in 3.5, out of combat you have wands that do the same job cheaper; that limits their economical use to in combat when the healer can't get to you/thinks you haven't tithed enough to his church recently and you're about to bleed out)

A) Paraphrasing.
B) So you don't have a spare tire in your car, because they should only be a last resort if you don't check your air pressure every hour on the hour, get your tires rotated bi-weekly, and the big whisk broom on the front of your car didn't sweep anything sharp out of the way of your car before you drove over it? The player didn't say "something has gone wrong" she said "I've done somthing wrong". Big difference.

The game uses random number generators to determine the outcomes to most actions. If you have to use a healing potion in combat, it's not because you did something wrong, it's because things did not go as planned. You rolled low when you needed to roll high, the DM rolled higher than you did, what ever it is, random chance determined your fate. Nothing more, nothing less. The only "wrong" thing to do is NOT use a potion if you need to. For the cost of one action on your part, your healer has to take an average of 2-3 actions to do what you could have done yourself. If your player thinks that using one action to keep herself in the fight as anything other that a trip hazard is worse than making the healer break off what every they were currently doing, move to her, cast a heal, and then go back to what ever it was they were doing, then yes, she's done something wrong....she planned on not taking a lot of damage in a fight decided in large part, by random chance. That, to me, speaks volumes about how she expects games to go: Largely in her favor.

This "economy of action" gets worse in 3.X, as the cleric, thanks to the wonderful job WoTC did on balance, is a better fighter than the fighter is, and taking him out of combat to slap a bandaid on you is worse than drinking an "ineffecient" potion to keep yourself contributing to the party's DPS output, as you cut it drastically for the time it takes for the cleric to move to you and cast.

But that's a small part of the problem.

The players don't want to buy equipment, because they want to be spoon fed better equipment. So much so, that they are not even keeping track of drops that don't meet what the feel they should have. They simply want the OP to give them the best gear possible, for the low low cost of murdering the previous owner, rather than buy stuff NOW that is just as good, if more expensive, with out a few extra bells and whistles.

Everything I've read about these guys screams (to me at least) self-entitled. What? How dare you give is two mass encounters in a row when we optimized for only one! What? How dare you not hand us gear we could have easily purchased in the last town we were in with all the money we are not spending on anything at all! What do you mean I might need to use a healing potion? I didn't plan to take that much damage in a fight! I'll have you know I have much better things to do than heal myself.

Deophaun
2016-10-11, 11:14 AM
A) Paraphrasing.
A paraphrase needs to be accurate. Otherwise, the term you want is "lie."

B) So you don't have a spare tire in your car, because they should only be a last resort if you don't check your air pressure every hour on the hour, get your tires rotated bi-weekly, and the big whisk broom on the front of your car didn't sweep anything sharp out of the way of your car before you drove over it? The player didn't say "something has gone wrong" she said "I've done somthing wrong". Big difference.
A) In what language does "it's a last resort" translate to "don't carry any?" Is it French? Knew I should have taken French...
B) If something is going wrong frequently enough that you're always drinking healing potions, then yes, you are doing something wrong.

The game uses random number generators to determine the outcomes to most actions. If you have to use a healing potion in combat, it's not because you did something wrong, it's because things did not go as planned. You rolled low when you needed to roll high, the DM rolled higher than you did, what ever it is, random chance determined your fate. Nothing more, nothing less.
Complete BS. You're ignoring risk management. If you have a plan that does not account for low rolls, it's a bad plan. Yes, occasionally, you will get streaks where you are very unlucky, and plans A, B, and C will all fall through and you have to go to plan D (for Drink), but those are rare.

That, to me, speaks volumes about how she expects games to go: Largely in her favor.
Of course they are going to go largely in the players' favor: the system they are playing is not Paranoia. Do you play 3.5 expecting to roll up a new character every other encounter? No? Then you are expecting the game to go largely in your favor.

Besides, the attitude of "I did something wrong" runs completely counter to the notion of entitlement you keep trying to project on them.

This "economy of action" gets worse in 3.X, as the cleric, thanks to the wonderful job WoTC did on balance, is a better fighter than the fighter is, and taking him out of combat to slap a bandaid on you is worse than drinking an "ineffecient" potion to keep yourself contributing to the party's DPS output, as you cut it drastically for the time it takes for the cleric to move to you and cast.
The support cleric's job in 3.5 is to prevent damage. Proactive, not reactive. So, yes: if your party members are stuck drinking potions at the drop of a hat--assuming the players are competent--you're terrible at your job.

The players don't want to buy equipment, because they want to be spoon fed better equipment.
No. They are saving for better equipment. That was what the quote I saved stated: "save up for them +3s yo." They have far time horizons, unfortunately to the complete detriment of the now. They lack balance. And flexibility. And an accountant, 'cause you're saving nothing if you forget the bag of holding. But it's the DM that started complaining about their gear, not the players.

Pauly
2016-10-12, 01:06 AM
If you look at it from the player's perspective:
They want a cinematic game where they are the heroes. They don't want to be glorified shopkeepers playing an inventory management game.
Look at LotR. From a gaming perspective Gandalf and Frodo are The NPC mentor and the NPC character to be escorted. What do the other characters get? A magic weapon and maybe one or two other items by the end of the campaign. Aragon smites orcs, Uruk hai, trolls goblins, wargs eastlings et al with Anduril. He isn't carrying around a golf bag full of swords and and saying "hmm in this encounter I will need, my number 5 sword, caddy could you fetch it from my bag"

I've given up playing campaigns where I have to spend more time looking at my inventory than actually playing the game.

So basically your players want a campaign where you have major items but don't want to waste their fun playing time with boring time looking at their notes about whatever minor item might be handy inn this situation.

What I'd suggest is not to try to force the players into using 'meh' items that clog up their inventory. I'd suggest getting rid of gold as an important resource. Just make the major items available as quest rewards, maybe create situations where if they want item X they have hand over Item Y to get it. Have enemies chase them for their items.

Make it like a movie or a novel where magic items are important to the plot because of their intrinsic value to the characters.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-10-12, 01:24 AM
This is a 3.5 or PF game, isn't it? :smallsigh: nothing more dangerous than someone who's half learned something.

Have you pointed out them that the higher level gear that does the same but better can't help them right now since they can't afford it and won't be all that useful anymore if they're too dead to buy it?

The one who's against healing potions isn't -entirely- wrong, just mostly. It is undeniably true that it is more efficient to take your licks and heal up after the fight but that is predicated on you surviving the freakin' fight. If you can't reasonably expect to bring down foes quickly enough that they don't stand much chance of dropping you in the process, you -do- need to heal during the fight. A healing belt is better than potions but "any port in a storm," ya know.

Bottom line is this; they're being too cheap for their own good. Tell them that in no uncertain terms, then shove their face into the proverbial grinder until it sinks in. Tell them that's what you're doing, if you like. "The EL of that fight was equal to the party's level. You struggled because you're cheap. Buy gear already," rinse and repeat until they get it.

Deophaun
2016-10-12, 10:06 AM
This is a 3.5 or PF game, isn't it?
Nope. In the game they are playing, it is entirely possible that drinking a healing potion will hinder their total healing while adventuring. You really do not want to be using them even for reasons beyond action economy.

Segev
2016-10-12, 10:11 AM
Nope. In the game they are playing, it is entirely possible that drinking a healing potion will hinder their total healing while adventuring. You really do not want to be using them even for reasons beyond action economy.

:smalleek:

:smallconfused:

:smallyuk:

What system IS this, and why would that even make sense?

Sneak Dog
2016-10-12, 11:27 AM
:smalleek:

:smallconfused:

:smallyuk:

What system IS this, and why would that even make sense?

It makes sense in a system where a healing potion heals for a set amount, but costs you not only the potion, but also a portion of your natural healing resources, more than the potion heals for. Like Hit Dice in 5e.

Considering this, using a healing potion is indeed a sign they're already screwed. Otherwise it's better to use the natural healing after combat and spending your actions now to end the combat.

Segev
2016-10-12, 11:31 AM
It makes sense in a system where a healing potion heals for a set amount, but costs you not only the potion, but also a portion of your natural healing resources, more than the potion heals for. Like Hit Dice in 5e.

Considering this, using a healing potion is indeed a sign they're already screwed. Otherwise it's better to use the natural healing after combat and spending your actions now to end the combat.

I'm sorry, I am not sure I'm following. Let me see if I have this right:

1) You have some finite pool of healing, independent of healing magics or potions or the like.
2) Healing potions don't actually heal you, they instead expend MORE of that finite pool than the hp that is restored, as if charging a sales tax or something?

Am I getting that right?

Sneak Dog
2016-10-12, 11:39 AM
I'm sorry, I am not sure I'm following. Let me see if I have this right:

1) You have some finite pool of healing, independent of healing magics or potions or the like.
2) Healing potions don't actually heal you, they instead expend MORE of that finite pool than the hp that is restored, as if charging a sales tax or something?

Am I getting that right?

Spot on. I know at least one system which does it, and another which has healing potions heal for an equivalent amount of hit points that it charges from your natural healing.

Deophaun
2016-10-12, 11:51 AM
2) Healing potions don't actually heal you, they instead expend MORE of that finite pool than the hp that is restored, as if charging a sales tax or something?
In this system, your pool heals relative to your maximum HP, because that's what everything accesses. The pool has to scale for healing abilities to stay relevant. The potions, while spending resource from that pool, heal a fixed amount of HP. Depending on what your maximum HP is, that could be greater than the pool would heal, or less. And the reason for this is that if potions healed that relative amount, then they would either need to be prohibitively expensive at early levels to prevent abuse at later ones, or they would be dirt cheap and you'd be sucking them down at (pulling numbers out of my rear) level 50 and get 1000 HP for 25 gold.

Meanwhile, if you divorced potions from the resource entirely, you'd remove the built-in limiter on healing that the game assumes.

Segev
2016-10-12, 11:52 AM
Spot on. I know at least one system which does it, and another which has healing potions heal for an equivalent amount of hit points that it charges from your natural healing.

I... assume that this is somehow a benefit over just using your "natural healing" directly?

Or is this just some sort of "you can only be healed X hp per day, no matter the source of healing?" If so, it seems a somewhat obnoxious high-lethality mechanic, as it prevents you from "stocking up" as a preparatory move.


In this system, your pool heals relative to your maximum HP, because that's what everything accesses. The pool has to scale for healing abilities to stay relevant. The potions, while spending resource from that pool, heal a fixed amount of HP. Depending on what your maximum HP is, that could be greater than the pool would heal, or less. And the reason for this is that if potions healed that relative amount, then they would either need to be prohibitively expensive at early levels to prevent abuse at later ones, or they would be dirt cheap and you'd be sucking them down at (pulling numbers out of my rear) level 50 and get 1000 HP for 25 gold.

Meanwhile, if you divorced potions from the resource entirely, you'd remove the built-in limiter on healing that the game assumes.

Ah.

That makes some sense, at least. Though I dislike the notion of the "built-in limiter." I could probably justify such a thing in fluff if I wanted to, but it just seems to make healing worse, when it tends to be less than spectacular in systems that lack such things.

Satinavian
2016-10-12, 11:52 AM
There are three Problems :

- the players are bad at tactics : you can't really do much about that one outside of making things easier

- the plaers don't like consumables : matter of taste. Don't try to force it onto them.

- the players save for cool endgame stuff and are reluctant to buy the stuff available and useful now : You can do something about that. Allow them to resell at full value. Then they don't have wasted anything if their items get outclassed later and they are not nearer to their ideal equipment if they safe instead.

Douglas
2016-10-12, 12:12 PM
I... assume that this is somehow a benefit over just using your "natural healing" directly?

Or is this just some sort of "you can only be healed X hp per day, no matter the source of healing?" If so, it seems a somewhat obnoxious high-lethality mechanic, as it prevents you from "stocking up" as a preparatory move.
I'm not certain if this is the actual system in use, but 4E D&D works like this. Characters have a certain number of "healing surges" per day, and the overwhelming majority of healing abilities spend a healing surge (usually from the target), which inherently heals some amount I forget that scales with level. All the good healing abilities also do something extra (the simplest being additional healing on top of the base amount), but if you don't have a healing surge left they don't do anything at all.

And healing surges can't just be spent on their own, you have to use a special ability to do it.

Deophaun
2016-10-12, 12:33 PM
And healing surges can't just be spent on their own, you have to use a special ability to do it.
They actually can be spent on their own in 4e; just not in combat.

Angel Bob
2016-10-12, 05:12 PM
If you're playing D&D 4E, then this is a serious problem. The system math in 4E assumes that all players are equipped with level-appropriate weapons, armor, and amulets, and that they receive enough magic items as treasure to replace them regularly. Without those item bonuses, their attacks and defenses will be too low for them to hit or dodge the monsters, and they'll get walloped in every encounter. In other words, the RAW actually requires the DM to hand out magic items like candy. Check the treasure tables in the DMG if you don't believe me.

Now, I absolutely abhor this feature. It caused similar problems in one of my earlier campaigns. The DM, coming from 3E, assumed magic items were optional and never gave them out unless the plot demanded it. As a result, my warlord's attack bonus ended up lagging a full +2 behind where it should have been, which is quite a lot in a high-numbers game like 4E. There is, thankfully, a solution. Check the "Alternative Rewards" chapter in the DMG2 and look for a sidebar about Inherent Bonuses. Basically, this allows you to remove the magic item dependency by automatically giving every PC the numerical bonuses they need. That way, they will still be numerically able to compete with the monsters, regardless of whether they have magic items or not. (Note that if you use inherent bonuses, you should also remove the bonuses items give to attack/damage/defense, or at least make it so they don't stack. For example, a +1 flameburst shuriken would no longer give a +1 item bonus to attacks to a Level 4 PC, since the PC using it gets an automatic +1 attack bonus at Level 3. Giving them a further bonus would swing in the opposite direction and make them more powerful than the system can handle.)

Also, if you're looking for advice with 4E but don't want to start an edition war, might I suggest using the D&D 4E subforum? You'll find a bunch of 4E enthusiasts who are very knowledgeable about the intricacies of the system, with none of the haters.

TLDR Both you and your players are making mistakes here, because 4E actually requires PCs to be equipped with magic items to function. You should either give out magic items more frequently (which is unlikely to work, since your players are so picky) or switch to using inherent bonuses and automatically giving them the boosts they need. Otherwise, they will continue to lag woefully behind.

druid91
2016-10-12, 05:18 PM
Now its no fun to reduce the difficulty of the encounters, because if I was going to play a game where I hand held the players and sleep walked through encounters, I would play D&D 5e or 13th age.

Considering my first game of 5e was ALSO the one that had the highest PC kill count that I have EVER IN MY ENTIRE TIME GAMING seen. I take offense to that.

My wizard was the only one to actually live from the start of the campaign to the conclusion and that's because I specifically set aside spell slots as "Escape slots" with spells always prepared to get me OUT of danger.

Every other player went through roughly 3-4 PC's.

Mutazoia
2016-10-13, 12:41 AM
It makes sense in a system where a healing potion heals for a set amount, but costs you not only the potion, but also a portion of your natural healing resources, more than the potion heals for. Like Hit Dice in 5e.

Considering this, using a healing potion is indeed a sign they're already screwed. Otherwise it's better to use the natural healing after combat and spending your actions now to end the combat.

Ah...

See...if the OP had not decided to hide what system he was using, we (I) could have avoided a lot of confusion up front. This is why you don't ask for advice and refuse to reveal what game you are playing.

If potions are that crap-tastic, then I can understand why our mystery player is so lothe to use them. It still doesn't excuse refusing to buy better gear to stay at least even with the bell curve, nor not bothering to write down gear they don't feel is up to their standards.

Verbannon
2016-10-13, 03:09 AM
I was going to say that your players have already indicated the kind of game they want, and so you should pay that type of game. But you say you've already played that game, and didn't enjoy it. And, from the sounds of it, I'm not sure if your players enjoyed it, either.

But

If I read you right, and they're having trouble with average encounters, letting them buy the gear they want sounds like a win win. Randomly dropping crazy loot to bring them up to your expected level may also help.

After that, you should discuss with them what you want out of a game, and what they want out of a game, and see if there is actually any common ground.




I'm not sure what kind of game you're playing, but tying their hands hands behind their backs with equipment limits, then complaining that they can't handle "fair" encounters, shows some clear issues.



Funny thing, when you throw the wizard in antimagic, he doesn't function any more, either.

Taking away their shtick isn't a good solution.



So... you don't know how to build encounters that challenge them without metagaming and negating their strengths, or throwing on nerfs like "common equipment only"? And this lack of ability to create a balanced encounter is making the game unfun? Sounds like you need to work on your encounter building skills.

I'd suggest letting them buy all the stuff they want to with their money, then submitting their builds to the playground. Let us (ok, them - I'm not gonna claim my skills are good enough, either!) build encounters that don't negate their strengths, but are at an appropriate level of challenge for them. Then you can test those encounters out, report back on the results, and let us know if it was more fun, for you and for them.





I'm not sure I understand what you consider to be the point of ttrpgs, myself...

Sounds like the rogue is, in this example, playing a tactical game where everyone has an expected role to play. The OP says he runs a tactical game, and you're suggesting telling them what roles they need to play. Um... sounds like they're already on the right page, according to that logic. So... what are you actually trying to fix?

@ Paragragh 1. Im not sure my players know what game they want. In fact they also repeatably insist that just because they bitch a lot doesnt meant they arent having fun. If they didnt have fun they wouldnt stay around. Not sure I believe that because they will complain about an encounter they lost for weeks. One of my players constantly shifts on what he says he likes. At first he said he liked how dangerous and "real" the game was and knowing that a mistake brings death. But now... And as I said they dont want me to fudge or go easy on them, but they get very upset and blame me when they lose. The power gamer tracks enemy hp to make sure I dont fudge anything.

2. Ive done that before, look the game is a tactical game, with tactical combat. Im supposed to allow a mix of encounters they counter and beat easily and encounters that counter them, challenging them to think outside the box to win. And the fact I have an adversial game is and was advtertised before they joined. Optimizing in a minmax, put your eggs in one basket is bad in general. It means that when you get countered, you die. Like a character that does nothing but optimise the charging, if he cant charge then its like he now has no items. But more importantly, I also like having exploration in my games. And if they get everything they want then, I cant reward them, I cant make items and watch them improvise a use for it, I cant it just, stops being a game, and there ceases to be any further point to playing it. I run the game like a game I would want to play in. With tough fights that force me to use every resource at my disposal and then some, where the dragons hoard is the highlight of the adventure, with everyone arguing over who gets the boots of water walking. Not

"eh I need my boots to shift 1 after a charge" "Ditto" "Actually I think Ill sell it for a pair of boots that grant +1 to speed" "eh go ahead"

*DM crushed and cries*

3. I am somewhat offended at what you are suggesting. My encounters are always fair and balanced. But when their weaknesses are "any enemy that can immobilize, cause forced movement, target will, nat 20s the fighter or uses large numbers" and encountering any of these means potential tpk, and not encountering means easy invincibility. Certain results are unavoidable.


This depends on the GM. You run a borderline adversarial game tightly focused on difficult tactical combat, and there's not that many people who are interested in that (although it is clearly D&D, so that alone does broaden the player pool substantially). It's not a bad style, but it's completely contrary to what a lot of people play RPGs for, so a lot of these people are going to bail. I made it very clear what kind of campaign Im running. I even use injuries in place of death so people dont have to worry about truly dying to me.


Ah...

See...if the OP had not decided to hide what system he was using, we (I) could have avoided a lot of confusion up front. This is why you don't ask for advice and refuse to reveal what game you are playing.

If potions are that crap-tastic, then I can understand why our mystery player is so lothe to use them. It still doesn't excuse refusing to buy better gear to stay at least even with the bell curve, nor not bothering to write down gear they don't feel is up to their standards.
Its an edition that triggers the response "Well there is your problem, you are playing a crappy system" So I hide it.

And potions arent craptastic they actually heal better then the alternatives until level 4 where they heal the same. Coincidentally they stop appearing in treasures at level 5. Replaced by a stronger potion. But they remain essential because the party healer tends to only have two healing spells in this system, and its very easy for thise to get used up. Having 2 to 3 characters get koed in round 1 isnt rare. So you need some when something goes wrong which happens a lot.

This question though isnt system specific as its a problem that is even stronger in earlier editions. I know in 2e the treasure you find and knowing how to use it makes or breaks the campaign.

But I got my solution, Stop fudging and being forgiving, halve the treasure amount and give them natural enhancement bonuses as they level instead of relying on magic items.

Verbannon
2016-10-13, 03:21 AM
Let me clarify how confused my players are on what they want. We finished a year long campaign, and all agreed that letting everyone have what they wanted screwed things up. The party also said they didnt want me fudging anymore, that they could take it. So we started a new campaign that lasted 11 sessions and 7 encounters. Each encounter at least one character died. Not koed, but died. They TPKed on the seventh when they decided to just power through a gauntlet of acid jets and extended rest afterwards. There however was some troglodytes resting in an alcove just beyond after they also powered through the acid jets. Both sides started the encounter bloodied, trogs won initiative, party tpked. Now with this new campaign I have gone back to fudging.

Pauly
2016-10-13, 07:38 PM
But I got my solution, Stop fudging and being forgiving, halve the treasure amount and give them natural enhancement bonuses as they level instead of relying on magic items.

Elegant solution. Sounds like something both you and your players will enjoy.

Verbannon
2016-10-13, 07:50 PM
Elegant solution. Sounds like something both you and your players will enjoy.

I sense sarcasm

Pauly
2016-10-13, 08:13 PM
I sense sarcasm

None at all. It makes sense. It delivers the kind of things your players want while making DMing easier for you.

Verbannon
2016-10-13, 09:10 PM
None at all. It makes sense. It delivers the kind of things your players want while making DMing easier for you.
Oh okay, thanks. Sorry, I just thought the way you worded it was unusual.

Pauly
2016-10-13, 10:00 PM
Oh okay, thanks. Sorry, I just thought the way you worded it was unusual.

No problems.

As a player the part of many games I hated was when you hit an encounter and then someone would spend the next 10 minutes going through their inventory rummaging for the right combination of items to use. For me it killed the excitement of the encounter.

Verbannon
2016-10-13, 10:12 PM
No problems.

As a player the part of many games I hated was when you hit an encounter and then someone would spend the next 10 minutes going through their inventory rummaging for the right combination of items to use. For me it killed the excitement of the encounter. Its important to get a hang of pyramid management of resources to avoid that.

Pauly
2016-10-14, 01:02 AM
Its important to get a hang of pyramid management of resources to avoid that.

I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but if I want to play a resource management game I'll play Settlers of Cataan. I want to enjoy the RP part of an RPG. If someone wants to play resource management there are better and more fun ways of doing it than inside an RPG.

Verbannon
2016-10-14, 01:09 AM
I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but if I want to play a resource management game I'll play Settlers of Cataan. I want to enjoy the RP part of an RPG. If someone wants to play resource management there are better and more fun ways of doing it than inside an RPG.

All the D&D editions have resource management about them. Especially 2e and earlier. Your hp is a resource, your weapon is a resource, your class features, spells and magic items are resources. The top down pyramid is just an effective and effecient method for managing and choosing your options. It means you start with your more limited resources, like consumables, spells and once a day features, scanning them to see if any are good fits for the situation, ad move on to less limited options like your basic attack. In this way you can concievably scan and pick out the best options out of dozens in seconds.

Knaight
2016-10-14, 02:01 AM
I'm sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but if I want to play a resource management game I'll play Settlers of Cataan. I want to enjoy the RP part of an RPG. If someone wants to play resource management there are better and more fun ways of doing it than inside an RPG.

Resource management is the D&D focus though, and it's what draws a lot of people to D&D when it isn't just network and founder effects. If you're playing D&D a resource management is kind of expected, and as a DM having players not interested in that can be frustrating.

Dimers
2016-10-14, 08:07 AM
Resource management is the D&D focus though, and it's what draws a lot of people to D&D when it isn't just network and founder effects. If you're playing D&D a resource management is kind of expected, and as a DM having players not interested in that can be frustrating.

I would say "having players not succeeding at that can be frustrating" ... Given how much it kills others' fun, a person literally taking ten minutes to go through the options is as much a failure of resource management as a person who just applies whatever is quick to hand without considering its value. EDIT: Someone can be disinterested and still succeed at it. Sorry, kinda lost my own point while writing that.

Pauly
2016-10-14, 06:11 PM
Resource management is the D&D focus though, and it's what draws a lot of people to D&D when it isn't just network and founder effects. If you're playing D&D a resource management is kind of expected, and as a DM having players not interested in that can be frustrating.

The actual role playing is the main focus of D&D. Resource management is an important factor, but so is tactical battle management and character development (creation and progression).

As soon as one of the secondary focuses starts overtaking the main focus the amount of fun reduces dramatically.

Requiring players to be a like a swiss army knife and having every tool ready at all times to defeat any possible enemy gets tedious. There's simply too many possible combos to keep track of without slowing the game to a crawl.A bit of foreshadowing to let the players know that they need to load for bear is more fun than needing to keep everything prepared for all possibilities.

Verbannon
2016-10-14, 08:27 PM
The actual role playing is the main focus of D&D. Resource management is an important factor, but so is tactical battle management and character development (creation and progression).

As soon as one of the secondary focuses starts overtaking the main focus the amount of fun reduces dramatically.

Requiring players to be a like a swiss army knife and having every tool ready at all times to defeat any possible enemy gets tedious. There's simply too many possible combos to keep track of without slowing the game to a crawl.A bit of foreshadowing to let the players know that they need to load for bear is more fun than needing to keep everything prepared for all possibilities.

A summoner character has an immovable rod, a potion of fire resist, some clay of creation, two healing potions and and some deathmask incense. They are facing a vampire lord surrounded by a number of vampire thralls. With a glance the player dismisses the fire resist, healing potion, immovable rod and deathmask incense. But an insight check informs the player that the vampire lord will be tough. So the player decides to send a summon boosted by the clay of creation. The player only has two summoning spells, neither with obvious potential to counter the vampire, but one has more utility then the other. So the player sends the one with less utility. Summon charges. End turn.

Resources managed, and turn sorted through in less than a minute.

Friv
2016-10-14, 09:21 PM
A summoner character has an immovable rod, a potion of fire resist, some clay of creation, two healing potions and and some deathmask incense. They are facing a vampire lord surrounded by a number of vampire thralls. With a glance the player dismisses the fire resist, healing potion, immovable rod and deathmask incense. But an insight check informs the player that the vampire lord will be tough. So the player decides to send a summon boosted by the clay of creation. The player only has two summoning spells, neither with obvious potential to counter the vampire, but one has more utility then the other. So the player sends the one with less utility. Summon charges. End turn.

Resources managed, and turn sorted through in less than a minute.

Really? Because here's how I look at that list. "Hm, do I have good fire spells? If I give myself the potion of fire resist and go in spraying fire in all directions, I can create an area the vampire thralls won't want to move into while not getting burned. Or, wait, healing potions hurt vampires, don't they? Are those potions strong enough to be better than a spell right now? No, probably not. Immovable rod? I could just run out and bar the door. Hm, I need to make an insight check. How dangerous is this guy? Very dangerous, got it. Deathmask incense? What even is that? Could someone pass me the book? You know what, never mind, I'll try it later. Okay, summoning. I have two summon spells, I want the stronger one. Four creature choices? Okay, maybe fire..."

And so on. And that's with only six things in my bag, instead of sixteen.

Verbannon
2016-10-14, 09:29 PM
Really? Because here's how I look at that list. "Hm, do I have good fire spells? If I give myself the potion of fire resist and go in spraying fire in all directions, I can create an area the vampire thralls won't want to move into while not getting burned. Or, wait, healing potions hurt vampires, don't they? Are those potions strong enough to be better than a spell right now? No, probably not. Immovable rod? I could just run out and bar the door. Hm, I need to make an insight check. How dangerous is this guy? Very dangerous, got it. Deathmask incense? What even is that? Could someone pass me the book? You know what, never mind, I'll try it later. Okay, summoning. I have two summon spells, I want the stronger one. Four creature choices? Okay, maybe fire..."

And so on. And that's with only six things in my bag, instead of sixteen.

We) there is your problem. You are seriously overthinking things.You already know the answer to your questions you are asking there without pondering. And if you want to ponder out some brilliant use of the immovable rod then do it on your turn.

If you are new to tactical thinking, with every item just think, "Does anything jump out at me here as useful?" No, no, maybe, no,no and so on. If I were to be brunt, I would say your thinking process is not only ineffecient, but borders on incompetent.

Mitth'raw'nuruo
2016-10-14, 10:23 PM
This can work, but I feel the need to say something important: Don't Be Vicious.

Be mean and unyielding, but don't do it out of spite or malice... OK you can have a little bit of fun with it. But still be fair. Setting up a situation where they can look back and see their mistakes can be tricky. And "the GM smote us because he doesn't like our play style" will not work.

On the Health Potion Thing: It is sort of true, but makes the bold assumption that avoiding damage is more optimal than taking some damage and recovering. And it also assumes no human error, also a bold assumption.

Some of us played healers in MMOS. You don't get to have errors, only perfection, be it on the field of battle or the raid.

To the OP. Crush them. Also, give them useful, items, but only if they are smart. Crush them. Also, no longer remind them of things. If they don't write it down, they didn't pick it up. Being a friend is one thing, (reminding them once and a while), doing their job is another.

Robe of useful things. Can save their life. A Lot. If I got a ring of three wishes, in a party of three people, my wish would be for a "Greater Robe of useful items".

Most of the things in this thread.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?399328-List-of-Mostly-Useless-Magic-Items

Knaight
2016-10-15, 01:39 AM
The actual role playing is the main focus of D&D. Resource management is an important factor, but so is tactical battle management and character development (creation and progression).

As soon as one of the secondary focuses starts overtaking the main focus the amount of fun reduces dramatically.

I'd argue that role playing is a secondary focus in D&D (it certainly wasn't there in the earliest iterations), and that even a cursory look at what D&D recommends sessions look like and the time that these aspects pan out to supports that. It's workable for roleplaying in a way straight up boardgames aren't, but it's identity is fundamentally resource management. That's both why a lot of people who aren't particularly interested in that aspect (including myself) avoid that family of systems and why people who really value it are drawn to it.

Verbannon
2016-10-15, 01:50 AM
There is also the fundamental fact that most of you misuse the term roleplaying. 2e was built for roleplaying as its focus, but it used resource management and aquisition as its primary mechanic to propel the roleplaying. See roleplaying does not equal story telling.

Like with 2e it was built so you could start as nothing, then over the course of the campaign watch your character grow until she was ruling over her own city.

Satinavian
2016-10-15, 03:10 AM
I run the game like a game I would want to play in. With tough fights that force me to use every resource at my disposal and then some, where the dragons hoard is the highlight of the adventure, with everyone arguing over who gets the boots of water walking. Not

"eh I need my boots to shift 1 after a charge" "Ditto" "Actually I think Ill sell it for a pair of boots that grant +1 to speed" "eh go ahead"

*DM crushed and cries*
So part of the problem is that you want to give them items without any obvious use for any character or build synergy and want them to improvise and come up with ideas of how to make those work in your adventures. And they see an item that is not particularly useful for any of them and might only be used in game if one of them comes up with a brilliant plan just in time ... which usually doesn't happen. In exchange they can't find the stuff that makes their characters better at what they already are good at.

Sorry, this part of your problem simply can't be solved. If your players don't like thinking outside the box and trying alternative solutions all the time, you will not get them there by making their normal approach harder and give them stuff they don't want.

Verbannon
2016-10-15, 03:14 AM
So part of the problem is that you want to give them items without any obvious use for any character or build synergy and want them to improvise and come up with ideas of how to make those work in your adventures. And they see an item that is not particularly useful for any of them and might only be used in game if one of them comes up with a brilliant plan just in time ... which usually doesn't happen. In exchange they can't find the stuff that makes their characters better at what they already are good at.

Sorry, this part of your problem simply can't be solved. If your players don't like thinking outside the box and trying alternative solutions all the time, you will not get them there by making their normal approach harder and give them stuff they don't want.

Boots of water walking are not a hard to use item though. One of the more straightforward and useful items. If you can walk on water and your enemy can't then thats a strong advantage.

Pauly
2016-10-15, 04:20 AM
Boots of water walking are not a hard to use item though. One of the more straightforward and useful items. If you can walk on water and your enemy can't then thats a strong advantage.

Only useful if there's an abundance of deep water close by to many encounters. Lots of city and dungeon environments are essentially water free and not every wilderness encounter will be beside a river or lake.

I'm not sure about your environment, but if I wasn't in a place where water is found frequently then, as a player, I'd rather have an item that I can use every encounter.

It's choosing between putting one of my resource slots into something of very unpredictable value (mostly useless but sometimes game breakingly good) and something that has utility in a broad spectrum of engagements.

Verbannon
2016-10-15, 04:30 AM
Only useful if there's an abundance of deep water close by to many encounters. Lots of city and dungeon environments are essentially water free and not every wilderness encounter will be beside a river or lake.

I'm not sure about your environment, but if I wasn't in a place where water is found frequently then, as a player, I'd rather have an item that I can use every encounter.

It's choosing between putting one of my resource slots into something of very unpredictable value (mostly useless but sometimes game breakingly good) and something that has utility in a broad spectrum of engagements.

Focusing on things good every encounter is a poor strategy even if minmaxing because the return of each item is consequently low, and there is nearly always inevitably diminishing returns.

But ignoring that as it is inevitable that some items are better than others usually be design. The boots of water walking are just, great. Selling them instead of using them is like selling an item that gets you a +3 bonus half the time for a +1 bonus all the time. And in the system I use the map making process generally calls for water to be one of the most common map features. And even shallow water on the maps means the boots are granting an edge. Plus unlike most items they have a huge value out of combat. They are like an automatic success in a ton of skill challenges.

Satinavian
2016-10-15, 06:01 AM
It is a matter of taste. Some players like abilities that really safe the day once in a while but are often useless, other players loathe them (also in your example the PCs seem melee builds who tend go get less out of water walking than characters who want to avoid being near the enemy). Personally i share your preference here, but i know a lot of other players.

It is similar in your other example. A summoner has a immovable rod, 3 potions, an incense and clay of creation ? That is a lot of consumables here. Some players hate consumables because they always feel wasted when used. You always think twice if you really want to burn part of your (important) wealth permanently for this situation. Other players have no problem with that. Personally i am more of the kind who avoids consumables, but again, preference.


The problem is that you try to impose your ideas and preferences on the players by giving as loot and as shop store stuff you want your players to use and restrict stuff they would prefer. That is a bad idea. You have already seen the obvious result : your players ignoring your shop offers (and even part of the loot) desperately trying to find stuff they actually want (which they won't find) and then being in the adventure with only basic stuff and loads of unsused money.

That is not alone a fault of your players. That is you trying to impose a style of play your players either don't like or are bad at. There are better ways for you to get what you want : formost more communication. Trying to discuss why they are not interested in the gear you offer. Maybe discussiong, what kind of gear will be available. Making sure, that the gear you want them to use never competes with the stuff they want to use and everyone knows it.

Sneak Dog
2016-10-15, 07:55 AM
...

Its an edition that triggers the response "Well there is your problem, you are playing a crappy system" So I hide it.

...

But I got my solution, Stop fudging and being forgiving, halve the treasure amount and give them natural enhancement bonuses as they level instead of relying on magic items.

I love 4e. It has upsides and downsides.

But yes, when our group looked at it we pretty swiftly decided to use inherent bonuses and give everyone the versatile expertise feat for free. Otherwise there'd be magic items everywhere and a feat tax on an expertise feat.

Can't really give any more advice though. Your party not even writing down their equipment baffles me to the point of my advice being useless.

Verbannon
2016-10-15, 10:53 PM
It is a matter of taste. Some players like abilities that really safe the day once in a while but are often useless, other players loathe them (also in your example the PCs seem melee builds who tend go get less out of water walking than characters who want to avoid being near the enemy). Personally i share your preference here, but i know a lot of other players.

It is similar in your other example. A summoner has a immovable rod, 3 potions, an incense and clay of creation ? That is a lot of consumables here. Some players hate consumables because they always feel wasted when used. You always think twice if you really want to burn part of your (important) wealth permanently for this situation. Other players have no problem with that. Personally i am more of the kind who avoids consumables, but again, preference.


The problem is that you try to impose your ideas and preferences on the players by giving as loot and as shop store stuff you want your players to use and restrict stuff they would prefer. That is a bad idea. You have already seen the obvious result : your players ignoring your shop offers (and even part of the loot) desperately trying to find stuff they actually want (which they won't find) and then being in the adventure with only basic stuff and loads of unsused money.

That is not alone a fault of your players. That is you trying to impose a style of play your players either don't like or are bad at. There are better ways for you to get what you want : formost more communication. Trying to discuss why they are not interested in the gear you offer. Maybe discussiong, what kind of gear will be available. Making sure, that the gear you want them to use never competes with the stuff they want to use and everyone knows it.

I have already on multiple occasions told them this might not be the right System/DM for them. I have suggested the alternatives to consumables. Namely items like wands, hirelings, rituals and wonderous items. But still zero interest. And its not just a matter of playstyle. The system just isnt built to handle equipment optimization. No more than 3.5 can handle character templates. Well.I guess it could handle it if I reinstated item power restrictions. Let them use one of their item abilities every two encounters. That was the original rule before it was replaced with item rarity restrictions.

Pauly
2016-10-16, 06:32 AM
Focusing on things good every encounter is a poor strategy even if minmaxing because the return of each item is consequently low, and there is nearly always inevitably diminishing returns.

But ignoring that as it is inevitable that some items are better than others usually be design. The boots of water walking are just, great. Selling them instead of using them is like selling an item that gets you a +3 bonus half the time for a +1 bonus all the time. And in the system I use the map making process generally calls for water to be one of the most common map features. And even shallow water on the maps means the boots are granting an edge. Plus unlike most items they have a huge value out of combat. They are like an automatic success in a ton of skill challenges.

So in your environment boots of water walking are a solid option because there is sufficient ambient water.

However, as a player I have seen it happen twice in separate campaigns I was playing where a PC was using the boots of water walking to great effect, only to have an unfortunate encounter with a Great White Shark. As a player I tended to avoid equipment like that simply because I knew that if I started using it too effectively or too often the DM would come up with a nerfbomb designed to crap on that item.

with your example of a permanent +1 or a 50% +3 i would choose the permanent +1. Yes I am behind n average but I am never behind when I need it to make a difference. But I can see plenty of other players choosing otherwise.

Pauly
2016-10-16, 06:42 AM
I have already on multiple occasions told them this might not be the right System/DM for them. I have suggested the alternatives to consumables. Namely items like wands, hirelings, rituals and wonderous items. But still zero interest. And its not just a matter of playstyle. The system just isnt built to handle equipment optimization. No more than 3.5 can handle character templates. Well.I guess it could handle it if I reinstated item power restrictions. Let them use one of their item abilities every two encounters. That was the original rule before it was replaced with item rarity restrictions.

Another way is to up the tempo of the encounters.Make them react faster. The first DM I had gave players there INT + WIS seconds (-10 if engaged in melee, took damage or made a save last turn) to declare their move. He ran the campaign at one or two levels below what was recommended for the character level but because encounters were under a lot of time pressure players made mistakes and it was a lot of fun for me. if players took too long to decide they missed their turn.
in this style of game the players don't want loads of consumables or too many options but they still get to experience challenges because inevitably they are making a lot of sub optimal choices.
Maybe it's something your players would respondto positively.

Verbannon
2016-10-16, 08:07 AM
So in your environment boots of water walking are a solid option because there is sufficient ambient water.

However, as a player I have seen it happen twice in separate campaigns I was playing where a PC was using the boots of water walking to great effect, only to have an unfortunate encounter with a Great White Shark. As a player I tended to avoid equipment like that simply because I knew that if I started using it too effectively or too often the DM would come up with a nerfbomb designed to crap on that item.

with your example of a permanent +1 or a 50% +3 i would choose the permanent +1. Yes I am behind n average but I am never behind when I need it to make a difference. But I can see plenty of other players choosing otherwise.

Thats just bad DMing. I personally use an encounter deck when populating my encounters. So if a great white shows up, it was going to show up regardless. But it really doesnt matter what they prefer as their preference isnt the issue. But regardless if they want to ignore the high level items I give them in favor of weaker items, are more likely no items. Ill just tpk them.

Another way is to up the tempo of the encounters.Make them react faster. The first DM I had gave players there INT + WIS seconds (-10 if engaged in melee, took damage or made a save last turn) to declare their move. He ran the campaign at one or two levels below what was recommended for the character level but because encounters were under a lot of time pressure players made mistakes and it was a lot of fun for me. if players took too long to decide they missed their turn.
in this style of game the players don't want loads of consumables or too many options but they still get to experience challenges because inevitably they are making a lot of sub optimal choices.
Maybe it's something your players would respondto positively.

For unrelated reasons we tried limiting turns to 60 seconds a turn. They rebelled.

icefractal
2016-10-17, 02:32 AM
Boots of water walking are not a hard to use item though. One of the more straightforward and useful items. If you can walk on water and your enemy can't then thats a strong advantage.So first off, water walking is cool. Very cool, and that's why it's an ability I aim to get when possible.

But that said? The number of times water walking has made an important difference, in all the games I've played? I could count on the fingers of one hand.

It's cool, but it's very situational, more situational than it appears at first. If you need to go underwater, it won't help. If you need to get the whole party across the water it may or may not help. Once flight comes into the picture that usually obsoletes it. Especially if you're a melee type, because then even if there is deep enough water (and the enemies can't fly/swim), it's only an escape tactic - since the rest of the party is stuck on land, it's not like you can afford to slowly kite the enemies either.

Significantly less useful than Spider Climb, at the end of the day. And yeah, I might take the boots of "shift 1 after a charge" over it myself - those are going to be coming in handy almost every fight, and sometimes - probably as often as water walking - they might make the crucial difference.

TL;DR - Like immortality, the coolness factor of Water Walking outstrips its actual utility. It should probably be priced less / not in competition with more vital items.

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 04:05 AM
So first off, water walking is cool. Very cool, and that's why it's an ability I aim to get when possible.

But that said? The number of times water walking has made an important difference, in all the games I've played? I could count on the fingers of one hand.

It's cool, but it's very situational, more situational than it appears at first. If you need to go underwater, it won't help. If you need to get the whole party across the water it may or may not help. Once flight comes into the picture that usually obsoletes it. Especially if you're a melee type, because then even if there is deep enough water (and the enemies can't fly/swim), it's only an escape tactic - since the rest of the party is stuck on land, it's not like you can afford to slowly kite the enemies either.

Significantly less useful than Spider Climb, at the end of the day. And yeah, I might take the boots of "shift 1 after a charge" over it myself - those are going to be coming in handy almost every fight, and sometimes - probably as often as water walking - they might make the crucial difference.

TL;DR - Like immortality, the coolness factor of Water Walking outstrips its actual utility. It should probably be priced less / not in competition with more vital items.

Honestly you just need one square of water on the map for it to be a tiny bit useful. Okay your typical encounter is going to include a few soldiers/brutes then either a bunch of skirmishers(or maybe all skirmishers), artillery or a controller or 2. Regardless of what of those three is put in there., the DM of cours is going to put in some liberal mobility reducing terrain to act as ac extra layer of defense for the non soldiers/brutes. Now quite often this will be water, because difficult terrain requires a large amount to be impactful. But water is just as easy to place and more space effecient but gains the same impact. Now the job of the defender is to avoid the enemy brutes/soldiers and lock down the enemy squishies and the job of the rest of the party roles well, every class but defender needs mobility just about every turn. Either way this means that boots of water walking are super useful. Whether for the defender trying to bypass the enemy defensive terrain to get at them. The rest of the roles uses the water as an escape route themselves, or just getting flanking on an enemy with its back to the water.

Whats really great is if you have a stealthly party member. If they are scouting ahead, more often then not they can determine where the water is before the rest of the party gets there, and since the enemy soldiers will never be defending a flank protected by water, positioning everyone with water walking on that flank equals a huge advantage.

Telok
2016-10-17, 04:44 AM
Back when my group was playing 4th we ran across an interesting issue with magic items. Most of them weren't very useful.

The game was designed to emphasize character powers from classes over powers from other sources, and it stuck to that pretty well. So generally most magic items were valued on plusses first, then on their applicability to the character's build or synergy with character powers, and on any actual abilities after that. For example, a druid with lots of pushing powers would value a +3 totem over a +2 totem of foo, and would value a foo totem that added a d6 to damage on pushes over one that let them control an animal once a day. This is because the attack boost is always useful and central to the character's abilities, the extra die of damage is almost always useful and is still central to the functioning of the character, but the animal command may come up all of once in a whole adventure.

So I can see players being reluctant to spend resources on things that might be useful in some circumstances once in a while and be willing to wait to buy items that they know will be useful. That and what qualifies as useful may be very specific to a character's build.

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 04:49 AM
Back when my group was playing 4th we ran across an interesting issue with magic items. Most of them weren't very useful.

The game was designed to emphasize character powers from classes over powers from other sources, and it stuck to that pretty well. So generally most magic items were valued on plusses first, then on their applicability to the character's build or synergy with character powers, and on any actual abilities after that. For example, a druid with lots of pushing powers would value a +3 totem over a +2 totem of foo, and would value a foo totem that added a d6 to damage on pushes over one that let them control an animal once a day. This is because the attack boost is always useful and central to the character's abilities, the extra die of damage is almost always useful and is still central to the functioning of the character, but the animal command may come up all of once in a whole adventure.

So I can see players being reluctant to spend resources on things that might be useful in some circumstances once in a while and be willing to wait to buy items that they know will be useful. That and what qualifies as useful may be very specific to a character's build.
The conversation is now about the items they find in a dungeon. These specifically.


Oceanstrider BootsLevel 14 Uncommon

Water is no obstacle for you in these thigh-high oilskin boots.

Feet Slot 21,000 gp
Property

Gain a +1 item bonus to speed. You can move across and stand on horizontal liquid surfaces as though they were solid ground. You still take damage from hazardous liquid surfaces upon which you stand (such as acid and magma). You can break through the surface of the water as a free action, whether you’re descending or ascending.

Herobizkit
2016-10-17, 05:42 AM
Yeah, the super-secret edition is built around the Big Six items, so let them buy those and then find rando other stuff.

Also, stop giving out coin. Start giving out art, gems, statues, cows, anything that can be bartered. This ensures that they won't always get GP/GP return on stuff.

Consider allowing a 4e-style "Disenchant" that breaks items into residuum (again, at a loss of total value). Let them reform items from the shiny blue (?) pile of magic dust.

Maybe they just don't know WHAT to buy?

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 05:54 AM
If knowing what edition is is is so important, assume its second edition AD&D.

Herobizkit
2016-10-17, 06:21 AM
2e doesn't assume players can buy magic items, so random roll and let 'em get whatever they get. :smallamused:

I mean, don't get me wrong, if you're allowing them to spend gold to get magic items, great... but 2e also assumes that magic is secret and only the DM is supposed to know all the information about magic items. If they don't know what kinds of items exist, how can they know what to buy?

Thirdly, high piles of gold in 2e are assumed to be spent on strongholds and followers and maintenance of such.

I know, I'm assuming a lot :smallbiggrin:, but as I recall, those are the 'standard' assumptions built into 2e.

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 07:02 AM
2e doesn't assume players can buy magic items, so random roll and let 'em get whatever they get. :smallamused:

I mean, don't get me wrong, if you're allowing them to spend gold to get magic items, great... but 2e also assumes that magic is secret and only the DM is supposed to know all the information about magic items. If they don't know what kinds of items exist, how can they know what to buy?

Thirdly, high piles of gold in 2e are assumed to be spent on strongholds and followers and maintenance of such.

I know, I'm assuming a lot :smallbiggrin:, but as I recall, those are the 'standard' assumptions built into 2e.

The rarity system has caused a number of very, very strong parallels. With only common items meant to be purchased, adventurers are expected to spend their gold on consumables, hirelings, castles, bringing people back to life and paying for rituals. And be outfitted by magic items found in dungeons.

So these players are like players saving all their gold just to forge some custom magic items. And forsaking purchasing the followers, healing potions and even the diamond dust needed for the wizard to get more spells.

icefractal
2016-10-17, 01:13 PM
Regardless of what of those three is put in there., the DM of cours is going to put in some liberal mobility reducing terrain to act as ac extra layer of defense for the non soldiers/brutes. Now quite often this will be water, because difficult terrain requires a large amount to be impactful. But water is just as easy to place and more space effecient but gains the same impact.I think the issue that you're running into here is that you like water more than most DMs. Because no, IME, it is not "quite often" water, it's rather rarely water. Canal in the middle of a dungeon room? Nothing wrong with it, but it's just not a common thing.

That raises the issue with using water walking in a fight though - it only works if the water has shallow banks. If the canal is 5' down, then jumping across it (or going around) is going to work better anyway, because even if you can walk across the water, you still have to climb up a slippery edge while being stabbed.

So we're talking about cases where:
1) There are enemies across a body of water that make sense for the boot-wearer to engage.
2) The body of water is too big to jump across and too deep to easily wade through.
3) The water is close enough to ground level so that it's not difficult to climb up the other side.

In most campaigns, that's pretty niche. Although again, I don't disagree at all that water walking is a cool effect, and arranging things to favor it is fine ... but it only helps if the players know it's going to be more useful than normal in your campaign.

Friv
2016-10-17, 02:01 PM
I think the issue that you're running into here is that you like water more than most DMs. Because no, IME, it is not "quite often" water, it's rather rarely water. Canal in the middle of a dungeon room? Nothing wrong with it, but it's just not a common thing.

I think that, if you really think about it, you'll realize that DMs not using water is just bad DMing, and the players should be aware of that.

Knaight
2016-10-17, 02:24 PM
I think that, if you really think about it, you'll realize that DMs not using water is just bad DMing, and the players should be aware of that.

Or it's a setting thing. A game set in a desert is going to see a whole lot less in the way of water than one that seems to be made up largely of archipelagos comprised of marshes, salt marshes, and elaborate river networks*. Some places are just a lot drier than others.

*All of which are terrains that I personally highly like, so water walking is likely to be vastly more useful than average in my games as well.

Quertus
2016-10-17, 07:52 PM
So, I was gonna say, if this is 4e, good job hiding the edition, and getting various editions' PoV on the problem. I, for one, never would have read this thread in a 4e forum.

I was gonna add that I feel your pain, and that the underlying concepts of "game balance" that later editions have heralded have necessitated the ability for characters to purchase magic items, which in turn has taken the magic out of magic items. And that this trend has turned "cool magic item, to try to use later" into "thing to be sold to get desired item".

I was, therefore, going to suggest a return to 2e D&D. Or, at least, to the 2e mentality of no magic item shops. But then you said, assume it's 2e D&D. :smallconfused:

Now I'm just waiting for someone to pop out and say, surprise, this thread is really about how people's answers change as you change the edition out from under them.

No matter which edition it is, the idea you've accepted, of granting certain bonuses automatically as you level, is a good idea, and sounds like it will move the game in the direction you want. Understand, I'ma totally steal that idea.

However, another thing I don't understand is how, on the one hand, you can claim that min maxing is bad, as it makes your performance very "swingy" in some encounters, while on the other hand advocating items like boots of water walking, which are a niche item at best, and far more "swingy" than the charging builds you decry as a terrible idea.

Actually, those boots are a great example. I've only ever seen then put to good effect twice. Once was in a video game, where my brother used it to cheese a timer, and cakewalk what should have been a total disaster. The other time, the DM had a portal drop the entire party in the middle of the ocean, and was disgusted when not a single person got wet.

So, yeah, not something I, personally, think of as being especially useful or cool. But I totally get where your coming from, and often take cool, useless items as my character's share of the treasure.

Which leads me to another huge difference in editions, namely the base set of assumptions. In 2e and older, it was all about player skill. Building a stronger character, like building a stronger Magic (the Gathering) deck, was considered being a better player. Luck could also be involved in both, be it the roll of the dice for stats, or which cards were in your packs. But building a weaker character / deck "for fun" was still completely possible.

But, in 3e, building a PO, or, heaven forbid, a TO character is total munchkin behavior, and building a "Tier 6" character "for fun" means that the group is upset for having to carry you.

Heaven forbid we get into 4e, which runs by video game logic, and if you aren't the most optimized build possible, played in the most optional way possible, the raid fails, and it's a TPK.

Or, at least, that's my experience with the various editions of D&D.

Personally, I prefer the streamlined rules and vast array of choices in 3e, and the general feel of 2e - random adventurers of random skill with random items & no magic shops who gain levels slowly and die often (with no resurrection). Lots of cool random magic items which may sometimes be useful for unexpected cool effects, but everybody can be played sub-optimally and still have a good time.

I say this to help facilitate the discussion with your players, about what you each want out of the game. It seems obvious one of your players wants (wanted?) a game in which you don't fudge things. You want a game in which players will utilize random treasure. Etc.

Which gets into a playstyle issue. D&D is a resource management game. I, personally, have little problem with that (although I enjoy items like bow of endless arrows so that's one less thing I have to track). However, I prefer a casual style, where I don't have to use every McGuffin optimally in order to prevent a TPK, let alone pull the McGuffin from the dross of other random magical junk.

So I think you would benefit from some introspection about exactly what you want, and why, and then having a discussion with your players, to see if y'all can get on the same page.

In other news, in 2e, the fighter a) has great saves, will or otherwise; b) had a hard time not being a well suited to any encounter, even if min maxed, because b1) they got the most & most varied weapon proficiencies, allowing them to utilize all the random magical weapons, and b2) were str-based, and so could carry the rope, 10' pole, marbles, bag of flour, etc etc.

Lastly, if you say that some of your encounters are a cakewalk, some are challenging, and some are a TPK barring a miracle, I'm not going to fault you for that - that's the way I run the game myself. But if you try to call that style "balanced" encounters, understand, that's not what most people mean by that word. :smalltongue:

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 07:55 PM
Or it's a setting thing. A game set in a desert is going to see a whole lot less in the way of water than one that seems to be made up largely of archipelagos comprised of marshes, salt marshes, and elaborate river networks*. Some places are just a lot drier than others.

*All of which are terrains that I personally highly like, so water walking is likely to be vastly more useful than average in my games as well.

The assumption is a temperate climate. Looking back at at 2e and 3.5, the dungeon creation tables both favor water. And this is just talking about in combat. Boots of water walking are also a useful in pack item. Even with no one actively wearing them. They are such a useful option for non combat encounters. Got a moat to cross? Have the rogue slap on the boots and lower the drawbridge. Enemy fleeing in a ship? Have the wizard slap them on, run up and explosive rune out the bottom of the hull. Doing an overland chase? Slap them on and well you get the idea.

How many times do they have to be useful to be worth keeping instead of selling? The typical imagined party keeps a pack full of situational wonderous items, Thats what makes a bag of holding valuable. It lets the party keep an armory of options on hand.

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 08:31 PM
So, I was gonna say, if this is 4e, good job hiding the edition, and getting various editions' PoV on the problem. I, for one, never would have read this thread in a 4e forum.

I was gonna add that I feel your pain, and that the underlying concepts of "game balance" that later editions have heralded have necessitated the ability for characters to purchase magic items, which in turn has taken the magic out of magic items. And that this trend has turned "cool magic item, to try to use later" into "thing to be sold to get desired item".

I was, therefore, going to suggest a return to 2e D&D. Or, at least, to the 2e mentality of no magic item shops. But then you said, assume it's 2e D&D. :smallconfused:

Now I'm just waiting for someone to pop out and say, surprise, this thread is really about how people's answers change as you change the edition out from under them.

No matter which edition it is, the idea you've accepted, of granting certain bonuses automatically as you level, is a good idea, and sounds like it will move the game in the direction you want. Understand, I'ma totally steal that idea.

However, another thing I don't understand is how, on the one hand, you can claim that min maxing is bad, as it makes your performance very "swingy" in some encounters, while on the other hand advocating items like boots of water walking, which are a niche item at best, and far more "swingy" than the charging builds you decry as a terrible idea.

Actually, those boots are a great example. I've only ever seen then put to good effect twice. Once was in a video game, where my brother used it to cheese a timer, and cakewalk what should have been a total disaster. The other time, the DM had a portal drop the entire party in the middle of the ocean, and was disgusted when not a single person got wet.

So, yeah, not something I, personally, think of as being especially useful or cool. But I totally get where your coming from, and often take cool, useless items as my character's share of the treasure.

Which leads me to another huge difference in editions, namely the base set of assumptions. In 2e and older, it was all about player skill. Building a stronger character, like building a stronger Magic (the Gathering) deck, was considered being a better player. Luck could also be involved in both, be it the roll of the dice for stats, or which cards were in your packs. But building a weaker character / deck "for fun" was still completely possible.

But, in 3e, building a PO, or, heaven forbid, a TO character is total munchkin behavior, and building a "Tier 6" character "for fun" means that the group is upset for having to carry you.

Heaven forbid we get into 4e, which runs by video game logic, and if you aren't the most optimized build possible, played in the most optional way possible, the raid fails, and it's a TPK.

Or, at least, that's my experience with the various editions of D&D.

Personally, I prefer the streamlined rules and vast array of choices in 3e, and the general feel of 2e - random adventurers of random skill with random items & no magic shops who gain levels slowly and die often (with no resurrection). Lots of cool random magic items which may sometimes be useful for unexpected cool effects, but everybody can be played sub-optimally and still have a good time.

I say this to help facilitate the discussion with your players, about what you each want out of the game. It seems obvious one of your players wants (wanted?) a game in which you don't fudge things. You want a game in which players will utilize random treasure. Etc.

Which gets into a playstyle issue. D&D is a resource management game. I, personally, have little problem with that (although I enjoy items like bow of endless arrows so that's one less thing I have to track). However, I prefer a casual style, where I don't have to use every McGuffin optimally in order to prevent a TPK, let alone pull the McGuffin from the dross of other random magical junk.

So I think you would benefit from some introspection about exactly what you want, and why, and then having a discussion with your players, to see if y'all can get on the same page.

In other news, in 2e, the fighter a) has great saves, will or otherwise; b) had a hard time not being a well suited to any encounter, even if min maxed, because b1) they got the most & most varied weapon proficiencies, allowing them to utilize all the random magical weapons, and b2) were str-based, and so could carry the rope, 10' pole, marbles, bag of flour, etc etc.

Lastly, if you say that some of your encounters are a cakewalk, some are challenging, and some are a TPK barring a miracle, I'm not going to fault you for that - that's the way I run the game myself. But if you try to call that style "balanced" encounters, understand, that's not what most people mean by that word. :smalltongue:

To your first question, my problem with the swing is that it wasnt caused by tactical brilliancy or gaining a situational advantage. It was caused by maxing out certain attributes to the point that tactics and strategy were rendered irrelevant. The fighter for example got every piece of equipment that boosted his ac and every class feature that did the same. Most of these boosts were one time things save for two pieces of equipment that boosted his defenses a lot until he was damaged. The effect of this was that unless his will was the target of an attack or he suffered a critical hit, he could not be hit. Very few attacks rolled high enough to hit his ac without a crit and those that did he blocked by expending some of those one time defense boosts from his items and class. But once he was crit, his defenses vanished and he would go down like a sack of potatoes. In short many encounters hinged entirely on whether or not he suffered a crit in the encounter. With no tactics mattering or influencing this. And thats just not fun for me. I want to be able to make choices, use tactics and actually play. Or I might as well play a system where combat is just, compare stats, make 2 rolls and end.

And boots of water walking can swing things, but its a tactical swing. And thats fun for me.

Actually I think that answers the rest of your post as well.

Dragonexx
2016-10-17, 09:04 PM
If were talking about getting bonus automatically as one levels up, this system here's a good example. (It's for 3e, but if your using 4e like you say, then it could be a jumping off point)

https://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/New_Level-Dependent_Benefits_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 09:20 PM
I should probably point out that it wasnt the swinginess that was the core problem. It would have been just as unfun if they were consistently overpowered or consistently underpowered.

It was swingy because I wasnt enforcing the item rules. Now that I am enforcing the rules The players dont want to spend money on the consumables or keep track of the magic items they find in the dungeons that give them the margin of error needed to survive.

I have a solution for that now thanks to this thread which I will implement as soon as I finish creating my new campaign.

Quertus
2016-10-17, 11:00 PM
Actually I think that answers the rest of your post as well.

Hmmm... Let me address something I didn't spell out (because I didn't consciously see it at the time): your goals may be working against each other.

I don't know your players, but I, for one, would be more likely to play around with "riskier" tactics, caring about and utilizing random items, in a lower-stakes game.

If you have to choose, would you rather have a challenging tactical game, or a game where the players care about and utilize random items?

Verbannon
2016-10-17, 11:03 PM
Hmmm... Let me address something I didn't spell out (because I didn't consciously see it at the time): your goals may be working against each other.

I don't know your players, but I, for one, would be more likely to play around with "riskier" tactics, caring about and utilizing random items, in a lower-stakes game.

If you have to choose, would you rather have a challenging tactical game, or a game where the players care about and utilize random items?

Ive already replaced death with optional injury rules. Now death only occurs if the enemies coup de grace or something similar. Or from like mummy rot.

And of course the occassional TPK can be absorbed by failing forward. Emphasis on occassional.

And they arent choosing safe options. They are just being incompetent and needlessly handicapping themselves.

Knaight
2016-10-18, 03:54 AM
The assumption is a temperate climate. Looking back at at 2e and 3.5, the dungeon creation tables both favor water. And this is just talking about in combat. Boots of water walking are also a useful in pack item. Even with no one actively wearing them. They are such a useful option for non combat encounters. Got a moat to cross? Have the rogue slap on the boots and lower the drawbridge. Enemy fleeing in a ship? Have the wizard slap them on, run up and explosive rune out the bottom of the hull. Doing an overland chase? Slap them on and well you get the idea.

This is still terrain dependent, and "temperate" is a fairly vague term that more typically describes rainfall and temperature than amount of standing water. The moat example only really works if the water is the significant obstacle (as opposed to the probable wall behind it) where moats are a typical part of defensive fortifications, the boat example assumes some amount of lakes, big rivers, seas, and/or oceans - none of which are necessarily highly prevalent in some temperate terrains. Again, in my games that item is likely to be disproportionately useful, and it's precisely my position from a GM who has multiple settings where the item would be spectacular which makes the setting dependence of it's utility so obvious.

This is without getting into how what I was responding to calling the item being not particularly useful bad DMing. Desert settings may not be standard, but having a desert setting hardly constitutes being a bad GM.

Verbannon
2016-10-18, 04:48 AM
This is still terrain dependent, and "temperate" is a fairly vague term that more typically describes rainfall and temperature than amount of standing water. The moat example only really works if the water is the significant obstacle (as opposed to the probable wall behind it) where moats are a typical part of defensive fortifications, the boat example assumes some amount of lakes, big rivers, seas, and/or oceans - none of which are necessarily highly prevalent in some temperate terrains. Again, in my games that item is likely to be disproportionately useful, and it's precisely my position from a GM who has multiple settings where the item would be spectacular which makes the setting dependence of it's utility so obvious.

This is without getting into how what I was responding to calling the item being not particularly useful bad DMing. Desert settings may not be standard, but having a desert setting hardly constitutes being a bad GM.

Birthday Fallacy. Each individual possible event may be unlikely on its own. But taken as a collective the odds of its value in a typical campaign with an average spread of terrain. Its already very useful. Without the campaign needing to be centered on a boat.

Knaight
2016-10-18, 05:32 AM
Birthday Fallacy. Each individual possible event may be unlikely on its own. But taken as a collective the odds of its value in a typical campaign with an average spread of terrain. Its already very useful. Without the campaign needing to be centered on a boat.

:smallsigh:

Changing the odds of each individual event still makes it campaign dependent, and my entire point is that a given campaign can't be assumed to be a typical campaign with an average spread of terrain. On an unrelated note, that's not even slightly what the birthday fallacy is. Had I claimed that the boots were never useful over even extremely long campaigns if the chance was low then that would apply. That wasn't my claim though, my claim was that utility varied and that would be measured by the probability of an event happening in a given session times the benefit gained in a given session divided by the number of sessions. Also for fun, here's some quick probability graphs depicting the probability of this being useful even in one or two sessions out of a whole campaign. The 1-50 or 2-50 axis is number of sessions, the 0-25 axis the percent probability that the item is useful in a given session. This should be shown as a bunch of discrete bars, but it's really not worth the time it takes to find out how to do that.

Useful at least in one session
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/ProbSurf1.jpg (http://s387.photobucket.com/user/Knaighte/media/ProbSurf1.jpg.html)

Useful at least in two sessions
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/ProbSurf2.jpg (http://s387.photobucket.com/user/Knaighte/media/ProbSurf2.jpg.html)

Notice on both graphs that while there's a region for higher probabilities and session numbers where everything is basically equal to 1 (guaranteed) there's also a substantial region where the item is either never useful or useful only once. Notice how variable that is with regard to the individual session probability. That sounds like campaign dependence to me.

Mutazoia
2016-10-18, 05:40 AM
Ive already replaced death with optional injury rules. Now death only occurs if the enemies coup de grace or something similar. Or from like mummy rot.

And of course the occassional TPK can be absorbed by failing forward. Emphasis on occassional.

And they arent choosing safe options. They are just being incompetent and needlessly handicapping themselves.

Personally, I wouldn't have replaced death. Death is the consequence of habitual incompentence. The old saw "If you kill him, he won't learn anything." only applies in real life. Players have to learn, some times the ultimate hard way, that they need to use their brains for things besides keeping their heads from whistling in a stiff breeze.

I get that they think they are "planning ahead" to buy awesome gear later, by not buying good gear now. What they may not (read most probably are not) considering is the fact that the loot tables for most systems will be giving them adequate monitary treasure to be able to afford the better gear as their level increases. The gear they are wanting NOW would almost be game breaking at lower levels. By they time they can use said gear with out breaking the game, they should be getting enough cash-equivalent treasure to afford those "+3's yo."

If they insist on handicapping themselves on purpose, you can either make things easier for them and have the game get less challenging (read boring), or let them suffer the full effects of their boneheadedness until they learn their lesson. Going "dutch" and letting them have the best of both worlds just puts more stress on you, and greatly reduces the fun YOU have with the game. At that point you might as well just give them the gear they want and watch them slaughter everything in sight.

Verbannon
2016-10-18, 01:40 PM
:smallsigh:

Changing the odds of each individual event still makes it campaign dependent, and my entire point is that a given campaign can't be assumed to be a typical campaign with an average spread of terrain. On an unrelated note, that's not even slightly what the birthday fallacy is. Had I claimed that the boots were never useful over even extremely long campaigns if the chance was low then that would apply. That wasn't my claim though, my claim was that utility varied and that would be measured by the probability of an event happening in a given session times the benefit gained in a given session divided by the number of sessions. Also for fun, here's some quick probability graphs depicting the probability of this being useful even in one or two sessions out of a whole campaign. The 1-50 or 2-50 axis is number of sessions, the 0-25 axis the percent probability that the item is useful in a given session. This should be shown as a bunch of discrete bars, but it's really not worth the time it takes to find out how to do that.

Useful at least in one session
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/ProbSurf1.jpg (http://s387.photobucket.com/user/Knaighte/media/ProbSurf1.jpg.html)

Useful at least in two sessions
http://i387.photobucket.com/albums/oo316/Knaighte/ProbSurf2.jpg (http://s387.photobucket.com/user/Knaighte/media/ProbSurf2.jpg.html)

Notice on both graphs that while there's a region for higher probabilities and session numbers where everything is basically equal to 1 (guaranteed) there's also a substantial region where the item is either never useful or useful only once. Notice how variable that is with regard to the individual session probability. That sounds like campaign dependence to me.

The graph wouldn't look much different with a potion of lightning resist. And we aren't talking about any specific campaign now, we are talking about the average of 'all' potential campaigns. That means you need to know its average value in the average campaign, not the average value in a specific campaign. Also as a potential pack item, not necessarily an item that needs to be worn continuously to enjoy its benefits, its value is determined by the number of times you'll use it over the course of a campaign not over the course of a session. Add into this the fact that items like the boots of water walking have a disproportionate high impact when used, its value is easily measured high. And you can talk about 'it depends on the campaign' all you want, I am just going to continue ignoring that, because its irrelevant since we aren't using a specific campaign, we are talking about its value on average. An item that grants +10 ac, technically is 'campaign specific' if the campaign is filled with nothing but enemies that target fortitude. And of course you'll say something like, "Thats highly unlikely to occur" which is my point, we aren't talking about specific campaigns, we are talking about the odds of an item being useful in any given campaign. And its more likely over the course of an average campaign for the boots of water walking to be worth more then their value in gold then not.

Verbannon
2016-10-18, 01:44 PM
Personally, I wouldn't have replaced death. Death is the consequence of habitual incompentence. The old saw "If you kill him, he won't learn anything." only applies in real life. Players have to learn, some times the ultimate hard way, that they need to use their brains for things besides keeping their heads from whistling in a stiff breeze.

I get that they think they are "planning ahead" to buy awesome gear later, by not buying good gear now. What they may not (read most probably are not) considering is the fact that the loot tables for most systems will be giving them adequate monitary treasure to be able to afford the better gear as their level increases. The gear they are wanting NOW would almost be game breaking at lower levels. By they time they can use said gear with out breaking the game, they should be getting enough cash-equivalent treasure to afford those "+3's yo."

If they insist on handicapping themselves on purpose, you can either make things easier for them and have the game get less challenging (read boring), or let them suffer the full effects of their boneheadedness until they learn their lesson. Going "dutch" and letting them have the best of both worlds just puts more stress on you, and greatly reduces the fun YOU have with the game. At that point you might as well just give them the gear they want and watch them slaughter everything in sight.

I think I'll see what happens with the just not fudging, static bonus and half gold first. Returning death is a pretty extreme thing because even if they were properly equipped, I am far, far, far better at the game then them. And even with a by the book properly balanced encounter, they are still likely to have at least one person koed and bleeding out because my tactical ability just exceeds them by such a great margin.

SethoMarkus
2016-10-18, 02:20 PM
I think I'll see what happens with the just not fudging, static bonus and half gold first. Returning death is a pretty extreme thing because even if they were properly equipped, I am far, far, far better at the game then them. And even with a by the book properly balanced encounter, they are still likely to have at least one person koed and bleeding out because my tactical ability just exceeds them by such a great margin.

This certainly sounds like you have a very "Players vs DM" approach to gaming. That's fine, but I wonder if your players want that?

Also, if you are so vastly superior to them in tactical ability it shouldn't be that difficult to hold it back some to allow and engage in a more even playing field. (Actually, I'm of the view point that the DM should never bring the full brunt of their tactical ability against the Players, because the DM is in control of the world and essentially has unlimited resources, even without "cheating". The DM controls the pacing and could very easily throw encounter after encounter against the PCs in a gauntlet until they TPK, but what would that prove? Anyway, just my 2cp.)

Verbannon
2016-10-18, 09:20 PM
This certainly sounds like you have a very "Players vs DM" approach to gaming. That's fine, but I wonder if your players want that?

Also, if you are so vastly superior to them in tactical ability it shouldn't be that difficult to hold it back some to allow and engage in a more even playing field. (Actually, I'm of the view point that the DM should never bring the full brunt of their tactical ability against the Players, because the DM is in control of the world and essentially has unlimited resources, even without "cheating". The DM controls the pacing and could very easily throw encounter after encounter against the PCs in a gauntlet until they TPK, but what would that prove? Anyway, just my 2cp.)

There are rules against that happening. And Ive tried reducing the difficulty level of the encounters by throwing out less monsters or weaker monsters but my players see that as obvious fudging. Also I think you are getting the words "tactical" and "strategic" mixed up.