Any way to decrease magic items?

[NecroDancer]

So coming from 5e there is an expectation that magic items are a lot rarer to get. I like this idea because it makes magic items feel more “magical” and was wondering if I could somehow implement it into 3.5?

The players would still get/find objects but the items would be stronger but they would be a lot harder to find. You couldn’t just buy them at “ye olde magic shoppe”.

Would this work in 3.5 or would it serverely underbalance the party? I would like to know if this is possible and balanced before attempting to implement the rule.

[Sian]

As long as you're aware that it'll disproportionally weaken non-casters, and scale down the strength of the opponents, it's perfectly possible

[Deophaun]

It's clunky. There are things that the game basically assumes you have and adventures that will result in a TPK if you don't. Save or Die effects, for example, are little more than "roll a d20 to lose game" if you are not given the opportunity to prepare a counter for them, which magic items provide for every class of character.


You couldn’t just buy them at “ye olde magic shoppe”.
This conception of how magic items are actually being bought/sold needs to die.

There is no store.

There are lower level adventuring parties happy to delve into ruins for your desired artifact.
There are nobles on hard times looking to trade family heirlooms for gold.
There are rumors of places of power that you can fund expeditions to.
There are brokers to arrange trades between other treasure seekers.

All of this is abstracted so that you don't have to spend entire sessions just to get a fighter a new sword.

There is no store.

[Zaq]

It doesn't work very well, to be honest.

First, a lot of the game's math expects that you'll have some degree of magic item progression, especially with regard to AC. You'll notice, for instance, that to-hit bonuses automatically scale with level/HD while AC bonuses do not, so without a robust source of AC from magic items, PCs who rely on AC to not get hit will basically find themselves defenseless after a certain point. Monster AC is semi-random (much of it just comes through arbitrary natural armor and deflection bonuses that don't have much of a "source"), though, so it won't just be a situation where everyone hits everything all the time unless you're only ever going up against humanoids built with PC classes.

If you get past the basic numerical hurdles, though (AC is just one of them, and it shouldn't be taken as the only problem), you get into the fact that the system expects that PCs will have a certain degree of magicalness by midway through the level progression. Monsters/encounters that expect that PCs will have flight or other 3D tactical movement, magical vision modes, immunities to various attack patterns (e.g., fear, poison, etc.), and so on become increasingly common. Casters can be okay if they have a robust selection of spells that they know how to deploy well, but non-casters become even more reliant upon support from friendly casters (and, of course, said support becomes slightly harder to provide). Since 3.5 is already heavily imbalanced in favor of "casters rule, mundanes drool" in the first place, making this imbalance worse is very troubling indeed.

I agree with you that 3.5's item system is pretty awful. I honestly think it's my least favorite part of making a character. However, I also recognize that it's a big problem, and problems of that size rarely have one-sentence (or even one-paragraph) solutions that don't break something else even worse. Searching for homebrew solutions will turn up no shortage of results. I've never personally playtested any of them, though just from reading them, some look quite nice and some look too simplistic to address the real problem.

I have discovered that the problem is significantly less noticeable in E6, so if you like the E6 dynamic (which, I'll be the first to tell you, absolutely does have both pros and cons), that might be fun for you.

[EldritchWeaver]

Use the Automatic Bonus Progression rules from Pathfinder.

[Darth Ultron]

You can do it no problem. The big idea that 3E games ''must" have tons of magic items is a bit of a myth.

The rules never say a character ''must have item X at level Y", it's just the average greedy player that wants lots of magic items sees that in the rules. And even if it did say that, there are like 25 magic items each character ''needs", and it's a bit hard to get them all in a ''normal" game.

A lot of the idea that everyone needs a load of magic items comes from the idea that each character must be a demi god like Superman. Like when someone says a character ''must" have a way to fly. Like the character must be able to fly and fight flying monsters...but what if they don't fly...oh, well they just hang out and wait. And it's not so bad to just sit and wait...but some players hate it, so they whine and complain.

Also a decrease in magic items does nicely weaken spellcasters....always a good thing.

Lastly, the game rule are very much written by....well...very un optimizing, dull, boring, roll players that play at a ''below novice" setting level. At best. Remember, they are the people that think thing like ''A +1 bonus" is equal to ''you can sunder the moon in half".

After all, 1E and 2E had less magic items too.

[Pleh]

Have a look at how Grod Chops Down the Christmas Tree. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules)

In one of my games, I nuked all permanent magic items in an E6 game, so magic items are just scrolls, potions, and wands.

Then I supplemented the loss by substituting them with Incarnum rules. Basically, everyone gets Meldshaping, Essentia, and Chakras opened as if they gestalted with Totemist (no other portions gestalted). Now it's detached from wealth, can be swapped out daily, and just about can't be lost or separated from the hero.

[Minion #6]

Almost every part of this is incorrect.


You can do it no problem. The big idea that 3E games ''must" have tons of magic items is a bit of a myth.

The rules never say a character ''must have item X at level Y", it's just the average greedy player that wants lots of magic items sees that in the rules. And even if it did say that, there are like 25 magic items each character ''needs", and it's a bit hard to get them all in a ''normal" game.

The rules don't explicitly say that, no, but things like monster AC/HP/save DCs/saves all scale with the expectation that you do have them. So the rules do implicitly say that.


A lot of the idea that everyone needs a load of magic items comes from the idea that each character must be a demi god like Superman. Like when someone says a character ''must" have a way to fly. Like the character must be able to fly and fight flying monsters...but what if they don't fly...oh, well they just hang out and wait. And it's not so bad to just sit and wait...but some players hate it, so they whine and complain.

Of course people are going to complain if they have to sit and wait while other people at the table are allowed to have fun. It's one thing to not be able to do much, it's another thing to not be able to participate at all.


Also a decrease in magic items does nicely weaken spellcasters....always a good thing.

[Citation needed]. It weakens the weakest strategies for spellcasters - those that allow save DCs. Buffs, summons, and noBFC are just as good as they ever were. It weakens the only strategies for martials, which is hitting things until they fall over dead. Having your worst strategies weakened only means that you'll go for more powerful ones.


Lastly, the game rule are very much written by....well...very un optimizing, dull, boring, roll players that play at a ''below novice" setting level. At best. Remember, they are the people that think thing like ''A +1 bonus" is equal to ''you can sunder the moon in half".

Literally made up nonsense. Nobody thinks that about +1 bonuses, and you have no idea how the people who wrote the rules play the game either.


After all, 1E and 2E had less magic items too.

And fundamentally different underlying mathematical structures, class mechanics, and economies to boot. Apples and oranges.

[JNAProductions]

Have a look at how Grod Chops Down the Christmas Tree. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?357810-Chopping-Down-the-Christmas-Tree-Low-Magic-Item-Rules)

In one of my games, I nuked all permanent magic items in an E6 game, so magic items are just scrolls, potions, and wands.

Then I supplemented the loss by substituting them with Incarnum rules. Basically, everyone gets Meldshaping, Essentia, and Chakras opened as if they gestalted with Totemist (no other portions gestalted). Now it's detached from wealth, can be swapped out daily, and just about can't be lost or separated from the hero.

Seconding this. Grod does good work.

[Selion]

Use the Automatic Bonus Progression rules from Pathfinder.

+1, it can be copy-pasted to 3.5 edition without a sweat. There are even rules to balance a game with no magic items at all (it's not that balanced, but better than nothing)

[King of Nowhere]

I join the chorus of "you need to give goodies to non-casters to make it work". Have your fighters being unable to hurt enemies because they lack magic items, or make them fall dead half the time they are targeted by a death effect because they have no saving throw boosts, those are not the things you want to happen.

Some things can be worked around - it may not be as good as dust of appearence, but flour should work decently to spot invisible creatures, for example. And a gripphon mount may compensate for lack of direct flight.

I think you could give your martials benefits close to those of the vow of poverty to compensate for the lack of items they are expected to have.




This conception of how magic items are actually being bought/sold needs to die.

There is no store.

There are lower level adventuring parties happy to delve into ruins for your desired artifact.
There are nobles on hard times looking to trade family heirlooms for gold.
There are rumors of places of power that you can fund expeditions to.
There are brokers to arrange trades between other treasure seekers.

All of this is abstracted so that you don't have to spend entire sessions just to get a fighter a new sword.

There is no store.

that depends. On a high magic setting, there probably is a magic store. In a low magic setting, a large city will have some specialized merchants with low level magic items, though high level stuff may be unavailable. You describe well the case for most low-magic settings.

[Fizban]

Nothing in the 3.5 DMG really guarantees "magic mart," just the random treasure rolls you get from monsters and gear you take off NPCs. Perfectly curated lists of custom items are an artificial construct that the DM is under no obligation to allow. 3.0 was originally quite playable without hardly any items, thanks to the hour/level durations of the stat buff spells and faster progression on Greater Magic Weapon, but those spells were nerfed so make magic items more important (not necessarily a bad idea).

The most important thing you need to do if you want to make magic items important, is sit down and take the time to make them important. Instead of giving out piles of gold and trash items, make sure every item has a purpose and intended recipient. Know when you're going to have a major boss, what you want the party to have before then, and then hand out the pieces on the way from A to B (which can include treasure drops, quest rewards, people willing to sell them, etc). Then once you have the items planned out, you can go making up backstory lore for them and combining "smaller" items into larger items with more effects. Plan your encounters so that if the PCs haven't got a certain item yet they won't be overwhelmed, make encounters obviously "require" items they find later, etc. In short, if you want magic items to be important and interesting, you have to put in just as much work as you do for everything else you want to be important and interesting.

Dunno what stuff will make your players happy? Ask for wish lists, and when things are vague take the liberty to come up with unexepected solutions.

[RoboEmperor]

MiC directly says if a player points to an item in the book and asks "can I buy this?" the DM should almost always say yes. So those who say 3.5 isn't magic item heavy is wrong. Really, really wrong.

To address the OP's issue, all you can do is play E6. Low magic item with high level spells is dumb because your mundanes will be standing around asking themselves why they didn't play a caster because spellcasters are creating minions that are superior to them in every way possible.

[Troacctid]

Nothing in the 3.5 DMG really guarantees "magic mart," just the random treasure rolls you get from monsters and gear you take off NPCs. Perfectly curated lists of custom items are an artificial construct that the DM is under no obligation to allow.
Maybe not in the DMG, but MIC pretty clearly supports it.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/467192850862571522/508719637391867926/unknown.png

[gkathellar]

You need an alternate system to support the math end of things, especially as the levels go up, and especially on the defense side of things, where magic bonuses end up comprising a huge portion of your numbers.

PF's variant rule solution has been mentioned, and Grod's is likewise pretty good.

A friend of mine takes a similar approach in which she basically gives the character half their WBL as "bonus points," which can be spent on the standard "make the numbers go up" type bonuses at standard prices (ability scores, deflection and natural armor, resistance for saves, attack/damage, armor and shield bonuses, etc) but not on special properties or wondrous item things (those are saved for actual magic gear the players find).

[Darth Ultron]

[Citation needed]. It weakens the weakest strategies for spellcasters - those that allow save DCs. Buffs, summons, and noBFC are just as good as they ever were. It weakens the only strategies for martials, which is hitting things until they fall over dead. Having your worst strategies weakened only means that you'll go for more powerful ones.

Spellcasters rely a lot on magic items to be ''super awesome". Take away the magic items, and all they have are spells. You are not thinking big enough as the spellcasters loose their protection items and items that buff their intelligence. So even if the character ''somehow"(wink wink) got an 18 in an ability...well they won't be finding any cheap +6 item to boost that. Remember: wands, potions and scrolls all count as magic items. So you would decrease them too.



Literally made up nonsense. Nobody thinks that about +1 bonuses, and you have no idea how the people who wrote the rules play the game either.

Well, yes I do: they have told us and shared game play transcripts. And the crazy love of giving martials super low bonuses is very clear in the rules. Just compare 'weapon focus' to 'school focus', for example. Wow the fighter gets a +1 with one weapon...and the spellcaster gets a +2 for a whole school of spells.





And fundamentally different underlying mathematical structures, class mechanics, and economies to boot. Apples and oranges.

Yes, but sweet candy apples...yum.

[Tvtyrant]

There a couple basic ways I can think of:

1. Have everyone play a full caster. Yes classes have to be that flexible to not use magic items.

3. Prune the game by a ton. Cut out incorporeal undead, creatures that drain stats (magically or via poison), reduce the hit bonus of everything, cut out magical flying and removed ranged attacks from most flying monsters, remove no-save spells that require magic to get out of (forcecage is kind of weak with anklets of translocation everywhere and broken without teleport items.)

Even then D&D's skill system is awful and most of what makes a class good is avoiding it. Wildshape instantly makes you tier 3 because you can avoid having to make durdly climb checks, swim checks, and lets you fly over obstacles or hide. Having to figure out they nightmare of fixing the skills without access to magic items that bypass it would be a a ton of effort.

[JNAProductions]

Spellcasters rely a lot on magic items to be ''super awesome". Take away the magic items, and all they have are spells. You are not thinking big enough as the spellcasters loose their protection items and items that buff their intelligence. So even if the character ''somehow"(wink wink) got an 18 in an ability...well they won't be finding any cheap +6 item to boost that. Remember: wands, potions and scrolls all count as magic items. So you would decrease them too.

Spells are absolutely insane in the terms of power they give.

And all you need to be on track to cast all your spells is a 15 to start.

19 at level 16.
18 at level 12.
17 at level 8.
16 at level 4.
15 at level 1.

If you can't manage a 15 in your highest stat, you have absolutely god-awful rolls AND your DM is either intentionally running a very low-power game, or hates you.

And honestly-even if you don't manage 9ths till level 20 (meaning you start with a 14, and don't actually get 8ths till level 16, not 15) you can STILL be incredibly powerful.

[Fizban]

Maybe not in the DMG, but MIC pretty clearly supports it.
Sure. But when considering whether a change to magic item distribution is going to make the game unplayable, it should be noted that Magic Item Compendium was printed years after the original playability was set- years of increase in "player-first" mentality due to shifts in RPG audiences and internet forum mongering. In fact, the DMG is far more concerned with the possibility that DMs would give out too many magic items, so the MiC pulling a 180 in tone is pretty amusing.*

Let's be clear. MiC is full of items drastically, ludicrously underpriced for what they do, because they just started making things up. Some items have cost cuts to 2/3 or 1/2 their original price, and are fine because that does get them closer to where you'd want to use them. And others are completely arbitrary because *someone* thought infinite daily healing or swift action teleports should be cheap based on nothing whatsoever (heck, I wouldn't be surprised if that was more "stealth 4e testing"). "The game" is not balanced based on the assumption of any of the MiC items, and while the higher powered monster manuals should clearly be avoided if your PCs don't have very good gear (or a bad party makeup, or low system mastery, or. . .), the fact that power creep was met with power creep isn't exactly a fine argument for anything regarding playability or "balance" of any sort.

The line itself can also just be nitpicked to death. The answer to "whether they can buy it" should "usually" be yes. If the DM is handing out items instead of piles of cash, they can't buy until they sell, which means they get half as much stuff, which means they're probably shorting themselves and whatever they could buy will be out of date anyway. Usually is a vague term with no percentage attached. The goal which matches the DMG is "constraints should be reasonable and shouldn't prevent players from equipping their characters fairly," but if the DM has already equipped the characters fairly then they have no need to provide magic item sales at all. Successfully making magic items rare and important already absolutely hinges on the requirement that the DM's choice of items is equipping the characters fairly (or even perfectly) for what they will face, selling one to buy a cheaper one should already be objectively a bad idea in that world.

The MiC's assertion that "even the most thoughtfully constructed series of treasure hoards almost certainly fails," goes on to the next page and reveals the true intent of the new text, "almost certainly fails to provide all your players the items they want to maximize their enjoyment." It is a ruling nakedly written from the direction that if players aren't allowed to have exactly the items they want, they won't have fun. For a certain type of player this is true, but it has nothing to do with playability or game balance or how the edition was initially designed. The DMG makes it clear that the DM has the job of making sure the players get enough items to deal with challenges. MiC assumes that players won't have fun unless they have access to anything in the book. One is totally cool with the idea that a skilled DM can hand pick items instead of relying on the fallback of players buying them, the other apparently thinks this is just too improbable to happen.

*And it still isn't a disagreement, because the random treasure in the DMG has a large percentage of cash- the PCs are guaranteed cash, which means they should be able to buy what they need. Sure, a "treasure hoard" where much of the hoard is still cash obviously can't provide all the items the PCs need, because a bunch of it isn't items, so they should be able to buy stuff. Duh. MiC says you should be able to buy what you want, and put flat bonuses on what you want, but none of that negates the fact that you have to obey the rest of the rules. MiC does not "clearly support" perfectly curated lists of custom magic items like char-op assumes: it supports the idea that if the DM gives you cash, you should be able to convert it into magic items. Selling a magic item to buy something else reduces your total value in exchange for that customization, a cost for a benefit. That's about it.


PF automatic bonus progression
My problem is automatic bonus progressions for 3.5 is that even though PF may have re-tuned all their monsters for a specific bonus progression, 3.5 doesn't have one. There is very clearly a certain amount of expected bonuses, but monsters are not universally designed for an exact number. So an automatic bonus progression will make some weaker and some stronger. Additionally they have the same problem that MiC thinks will happen, except worse, in that the automatic bonuses will inevitably disappoint some players who would have preferred to short themselves this or that bonus in favor of something else. The more menu-like you try to make a magic item patch-out system, the more it will grow to look like the magic item system itself, to the point that it's just faster and easier to flat out have the players select their bonuses based on a virtual WBL that can be used to buy anything on the list of things you're not reserving for actual magic items.

Another thing you can do is just ignore the CR system. "Most people" seem to think it's all bunk anyway, so why bother making a slapshod patch to cover the slapshod patch of WBL which itself is used to widen the gap between mortals and monsters and cover the cracks between party compositions and player skill? Use exactly as many magic items of exactly whatever caliber you want, and use the effort saved to check your encounters manually instead of relying on CR to do the whole job for you. It doesn't matter if Shadows are CR 3, you don't use them until the party can fight them. It doesn't matter if some monster has a save or die with a high DC, you don't use it until the party can resist it. Etc.

And yet another thing you can do is roll some of the standard bonuses together into non-magical items and replace others with consumables. Enhanced weapons aren't magical, they're just made by better smiths out of better materials. Same for enhanced armor and shields. Deflection, natural armor, and maybe even resistance bonuses are shifted to those weapons and armor (the types could be ignored, as long as you account for it by changing other spells and abilities that grant deflection/natural armor/resistance bonuses). Instead of constant ability enhancing items, you bring cases of alchemical elixers that boost your stats for enough hours to get the job done. Or you can make arms and armor just attack/AC, and make resistance and ability enhancement an innate progression (this leads to characters being even more obviously reliant on weapons and armor with level, while magic resistance goes up automatically).


Ultimately the answer to the question of how to do the job depends entirely on how much you actually want to decrease items and what sort of items you want to use. There is no question that it can be made to work in a variety of ways, but without more direction all we can do is throw every one of them at the wall.

(First proper day off I've had in months so let's write a dnd essay!)

[Aetis]

So coming from 5e there is an expectation that magic items are a lot rarer to get. I like this idea because it makes magic items feel more “magical” and was wondering if I could somehow implement it into 3.5?

The players would still get/find objects but the items would be stronger but they would be a lot harder to find. You couldn’t just buy them at “ye olde magic shoppe”.

Would this work in 3.5 or would it serverely underbalance the party? I would like to know if this is possible and balanced before attempting to implement the rule.

I did it once and it worked out ok. I noticed that players were definitely weaker than they should be for their level, and I lowered the monster stats accordingly compensate.

[DeTess]

In short: yes, it can work, but you should be very careful in encounter design. 3.5's CR system assumes PC's have appropriate items, so a party without items will be weaker than the CR system assumes. Higher level creatures also start assuming players will have access to things like flight or seeing invisibility. If you use threats like flying or invisible creatures sparingly, and take into account that the party will be weaker than the CR-system assumes, you'll be fine

[Tvtyrant]

Although the CR system is so borked it can sometimes work in your favor.

Ala Clockwork Horror shooting them with a dramatically too early disjunction :p

"I have destroyed your precious items and worthless enchantments! You will all die!"

"The heck are those?"

[OgresAreCute]

Although the CR system is so borked it can sometimes work in your favor.

Ala Clockwork Horror shooting them with a dramatically too early disjunction :p

"I have destroyed your precious items and worthless enchantments! You will all die!"

"The heck are those?"

"The dog sized beetle robot strolls up to you. All your buffs are disabled and your magic items are ruined permanently. Then, it shoots a pew-pew beam at you. You die. You can't be raised."

[Deophaun]

that depends. On a high magic setting, there probably is a magic store. In a low magic setting, a large city will have some specialized merchants with low level magic items, though high level stuff may be unavailable. You describe well the case for most low-magic settings.
Naturally, if you want to do Tippy-verse, it makes sense. But in any setting where it makes sense to send the party after the BBEG to save the world instead of the security department of the local Mages-R-Us, not so much.

I mean, Mages-R-Us presumably would count the continued existence of it's current plane of residence as a part of its interests to be protected: there are customers there, after all.

[Tvtyrant]

"The dog sized beetle robot strolls up to you. All your buffs are disabled and your magic items are ruined permanently. Then, it shoots a pew-pew beam at you. You die. You can't be raised."

"Any wizard of level 10 or higher who cannot defeat an Adamantium Clockwork Horror will be demoted to a Duskblade."

Lord Magicus the Exacting

[OgresAreCute]

"Any wizard of level 10 or higher who cannot defeat an Adamantium Clockwork Horror will be demoted to a Duskblade."

Lord Magicus the Exacting

Sure, but the Adamantine Horror is CR 9. If it's a boss encounter (and it should be) you'll probably be level 7 going by the (terribly mismatched) CR, not 10+.

[Tvtyrant]

Sure, but the Adamantine Horror is CR 9. If it's a boss encounter (and it should be) you'll probably be level 7 going by the (terribly mismatched) CR, not 10+.

"Any troops who outnumber an opponent by four to one and still lose will have their ashes raised as ghosts and the ghost will then be demoted to soulknives."

Lord Magicus the Extremely Exacting

[Deophaun]

"Any troops who outnumber an opponent by four to one and still lose will have their ashes raised as ghosts and the ghost will then be demoted to soulknives."

Lord Magicus the Extremely Exacting
It's a reasonably intelligent opponent that has telepathic contact with its underlings. It's not going to be 4:1, unless you're putting numbers on the side of the clockwork horrors.

[Selion]

Did anyone miss that a 5th level wizard with fly and wind wall is an hard-counter to almost every martial character in the game?
It would sound strange in any fantasy setting that there are plenty of wizards in the reign able to fly, but no one found a way to make their king fly.

[Troacctid]

Did anyone miss that a 5th level wizard with fly and wind wall is an hard-counter to almost every martial character in the game?
It would sound strange in any fantasy setting that there are plenty of wizards in the reign able to fly, but no one found a way to make their king fly.
What kind of monarch wants to shout through a wind wall every time they hold court? Especially given that a would-be assassin could just...walk through it.

[Tvtyrant]

It's a reasonably intelligent opponent that has telepathic contact with its underlings. It's not going to be 4:1, unless you're putting numbers on the side of the clockwork horrors.

Then it isn't going to be up against level 7 characters, because the CR of the encounter is going to go up :P

At this point my joke about disjunction not working if there are no magic items to disjunction has leapt off the might rails so I'm dropping it.

[the_david]

You could try scaling magic items. It just seems weird to me that magic items get stronger the more you use them, but it might work for your group.
Alternatively, the sword that slayed the dragon is now a dragonbane sword. It explains why magic items (sometimes) get better, and it makes them a bit cooler.

Do you really need all those item slots? Crazy thought: Instead of needing armor, a shield, a ring, and an amulet, you now only need one magic item for AC boosts. (And maybe saves, spell resistance, DR...)

One downside is that your players will be the ones carrying all the magic loot. Opponents won't have magic items, unless the party needs the loot.

[Tvtyrant]

You could try scaling magic items. It just seems weird to me that magic items get stronger the more you use them, but it might work for your group.
Alternatively, the sword that slayed the dragon is now a dragonbane sword. It explains why magic items (sometimes) get better, and it makes them a bit cooler.

Do you really need all those item slots? Crazy thought: Instead of needing armor, a shield, a ring, and an amulet, you now only need one magic item for AC boosts. (And maybe saves, spell resistance, DR...)

One downside is that your players will be the ones carrying all the magic loot. Opponents won't have magic items, unless the party needs the loot.

That is pretty easy to justify. "The weapon draws its magic from the lifeforce of the user. A weaker individual would be unable to tap into its full potential."

[Saintheart]

That is pretty easy to justify. "The weapon draws its magic from the lifeforce of the user. A weaker individual would be unable to tap into its full potential."

Also known as "What the Weapons of Legacy book was aiming at, and which the Ever Wise, Thoughtful, And Balanced Makers Of The Game utterly borked."

[Deophaun]

Then it isn't going to be up against level 7 characters, because the CR of the encounter is going to go up :P
That is entirely fair. It shouldn't be a solo boss encounter; if it is, you're doing the creature wrong. But that also means that it should have a lot of information about the party and form tactics accordingly.

[ericgrau]

So coming from 5e there is an expectation that magic items are a lot rarer to get. I like this idea because it makes magic items feel more “magical” and was wondering if I could somehow implement it into 3.5?

The players would still get/find objects but the items would be stronger but they would be a lot harder to find. You couldn’t just buy them at “ye olde magic shoppe”.

Would this work in 3.5 or would it serverely underbalance the party? I would like to know if this is possible and balanced before attempting to implement the rule.

That's a hard NOPE. Basic game balances expect players to have a slew of magic items, and a large number of weaker ones rather than a small number of strong ones.

But what you can do is provide the items in other ways. For example reduce treasure by X% and instead give X% WBL in points so at level up players can spend those on abilities instead. This is especially good for dull stuff like enhancement to ability scores. Call them innate (Su) abilities from leveling and become heroic or whatever. The total of gold + points should be more than WBL (maybe 25% more) because (a) the points can only be spent on dull stuff and (b) because you can't trade back and forth between gold and points so that reduces what you can accomplish. This will also reduce the total number of items a player has because over 1/2 the slotted items tend to be dull stat bonuses. They'll still need a good number of items though and you'll never truly make magic gear uncommon without making a mess. You'll only make it more interesting and more manageable, but still a lot of dull book keeping.

Other solutions given in this thread that do the same as what magic items did also work.

Another way are to play at low levels when items aren't as critical. You can try 50 things to make it work at higher levels. Making up for it, avoiding certain monsters, adjusting CR, etc. x 47. But it isn't easy and you'll probably make a dozen mistakes. Or you can play a different rpg. Seriously. This is one of the most common ways to ruin a 3.5 campaign. Be careful and don't take it lightly.

[Florian]

So coming from 5e there is an expectation that magic items are a lot rarer to get. I like this idea because it makes magic items feel more “magical” and was wondering if I could somehow implement it into 3.5?

The players would still get/find objects but the items would be stronger but they would be a lot harder to find. You couldn’t just buy them at “ye olde magic shoppe”.

Would this work in 3.5 or would it serverely underbalance the party? I would like to know if this is possible and balanced before attempting to implement the rule.

Pathfinder uses a variant rule called Automatic Bonus Progression.

Basically, 3.5E and PF have an underlying math when it comes to character growths, with one part of it being handled by the class table, the other half of it more or less by the WBL table. For example, unless you're a Monk, your AC will not scale with your level, you've got to invest in the various bonus types (armor, deflection, natural...) and scale it yourself, using money for that.

Now the aforementioned ABP puts the chainsaw to the x-mass tree by removing all the flat function items from the game, moving that part of character growth from the WBL table to the class table again.

As a result, that reduced the amount of WBL by 50%, which are to be split up between interesting/cool items and consumables.

It´s actually fun to use because you can throw in more unique items and don't have to deal with some of the cookie cutter overly item-depended builds some players come up with.

[Mordaedil]

The way I've always viewed it and had it work in my games (not that they got that far) was that magic shops had a few every day, cheaper magic items for sale, since most people in the setting can't really afford anything as expensive as a +1 longsword, but you could request any item be made in these shops and they'd have them ready for you as long as you fronted the crafting cost (including compensation for xp and time spent) and paid the rest of the cost on delivery (or organized a different agreement)

That said, they also would proudly display some of their more expensive merchandise just to emphasize that they aren't messing around (as well as some level-appropriate goods)

[the_david]

The way I've always viewed it and had it work in my games (not that they got that far) was that magic shops had a few every day, cheaper magic items for sale, since most people in the setting can't really afford anything as expensive as a +1 longsword, but you could request any item be made in these shops and they'd have them ready for you as long as you fronted the crafting cost (including compensation for xp and time spent) and paid the rest of the cost on delivery (or organized a different agreement)

That said, they also would proudly display some of their more expensive merchandise just to emphasize that they aren't messing around (as well as some level-appropriate goods)This is my favorite way to deal with magic shops. Gnando the gnome tailor will make you any article of clothing you want. So if you ask for a Cloak of Elvenkind he'll custom make a hot pink Cloak of Elvenkind with polka dots just for you.

Yes, that's what you get for not specifying what color you want. It's called roleplaying. At least you'll get a +2 on diplomacy checks with nobles for wearing haute couture.

[Silly Name]

As others have pointed out, in 3.5 magic items are a large part of the game balance, and many high-CR monsters are built around the assumption that PCs have a way to deal with certain special qualities and abilities of the monster.

Now, most of the time, we like to deal with these issues with magic items. Let's take the classic flying enemy: martials need to fly as well if they want to contribute with the fight, and this is usually achieved with Boots of Flying or some other item... But it could also be done by the party's Wizard casting Flight on the martial.

By removing magic items (or making them rarer), you'll change not just game balance, but resource management as well. You'll have to be a bit more careful with encounter design, and you'll want to encourage your players to research and scout ahead, so that they can prepare for enemies, as well as encouraging casters to share their spells with the party. At their core, many magic items serve to replicate what casters can do natively - a bunch of Wizards can cast Magic Weapon, but a Fighter who doesn't want to rely on their Wizard buddy will buy a +1 magic sword.

[Jack_Simth]

Did anyone miss that a 5th level wizard with fly and wind wall is an hard-counter to almost every martial character in the game?Not everyone uses arrows and crossbow bolts.

Per Wind Wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/windWall.htm):

An invisible vertical curtain of wind appears. It is 2 feet thick and of considerable strength. It is a roaring blast sufficient to blow away any bird smaller than an eagle, or tear papers and similar materials from unsuspecting hands. (A Reflex save allows a creature to maintain its grasp on an object.) Tiny and Small flying creatures cannot pass through the barrier. Loose materials and cloth garments fly upward when caught in a wind wall. Arrows and bolts are deflected upward and miss, while any other normal ranged weapon passing through the wall has a 30% miss chance. (A giant-thrown boulder, a siege engine projectile, and other massive ranged weapons are not affected.) Gases, most gaseous breath weapons, and creatures in gaseous form cannot pass through the wall (although it is no barrier to incorporeal creatures).

While the wall must be vertical, you can shape it in any continuous path along the ground that you like. It is possible to create cylindrical or square wind walls to enclose specific points. (Emphasis added)

So darts, sling stones, thrown daggers, javelins, thrown clubs, thrown spears, throwing axes, throwing hammers, tridents, thrown sai, bolas, shuriken, or nets don't get a "hard counter", and still have some chance of working. Also, that's probably close to all said 5th level Wizard is doing that day, and those two spells have a pretty short duration.

[ericgrau]

Did anyone miss that a 5th level wizard with fly and wind wall is an hard-counter to almost every martial character in the game?
It would sound strange in any fantasy setting that there are plenty of wizards in the reign able to fly, but no one found a way to make their king fly.
Yeah those are a soft counter. Takes way too long to cast both, duration too short, too easy to get around, and too many other situations to also prep for. Certain other situations with and certain other situations without martial characters. Jack Smith's examples and 101 others. TO wizard needs at least a dozen spells more. Limited magic items isn't a problem at all at level 5, even with casters. Fly+wind wall will work as planned roughly 2% of the time.

Level 8+ is a small issue, and level 12+ is a big issue.

[Selion]

Not everyone uses arrows and crossbow bolts.

Per Wind Wall (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/windWall.htm):
(Emphasis added)

So darts, sling stones, thrown daggers, javelins, thrown clubs, thrown spears, throwing axes, throwing hammers, tridents, thrown sai, bolas, shuriken, or nets don't get a "hard counter", and still have some chance of working. Also, that's probably close to all said 5th level Wizard is doing that day, and those two spells have a pretty short duration.

Yeah, you are right, even a pegasus would do the job. What i wanted to point out is that without magic items spellcasters have a lot of options compared to mundane builds, and that if there is someone able to cast a spell i think it would be reasonable that the effect could be applied permanently to an item (magic item may be rare depending on setting, but i think that if wizards are allowed so should magic items).
I think that the issue with magic items is just the numerical bonuses they have to add to a character sheet to make it functional.
I'm a big fan of automatic bonus progression and similar rules, giving a character a pair of boots with a flashy effect won't break the atmosphere, giving him a bunch of rings, amulets and bracers just to write a "+1" somewhere may break it.

[bean illus]

You could try scaling magic items. It just seems weird to me that magic items get stronger the more you use them, but it might work for your group..

You might mix several techniques.

Give level bonus as your favorite example.
Allow masterwork bonuses to +3
Call 1st level potions ... elixirs?
Some sort of 'legacy' powers on some items.
End campaigns around level 9-13
Give all martials an animal companion
Screen the monsters you throw at them

[Tvtyrant]

I have gone the "potions and oils are now alchemy" route before and it worked pretty well. Expect the chugging of health potions to replace the wand of cure light wounds though.

[Psyren]

@OP: An alternate itemization system like Automatic Bonus Progression (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/unchained-rules/automatic-bonus-progression/) from PF, or Grod's, will give you a lot more freedom to make magic items and treasure rarer without having to nerf every encounter through the floor.



There is no store.


Let me just say that I agree with you conceptually, but in practice, a lot of campaign settings (notably FR) do disagree, there are actually stores everywhere :smallbiggrin:

I definitely prefer your sources of magic items though.

[Quertus]

So, short and easy answer - are you playing a Combat as Sport style, where the burden is on the GM to provide "sporting" challenges, or a Combat as War style, where there are no such guarantees?

If CaS, then test your encounters against a sample party to make sure that they are "sporting". It's a good idea to do this anyway. And provide whoever most needs it (probably the muggles) with some really cool items.

If CaW, then, eh, encourage the party to go after lower level threats, and either a) be aware that characters will level more slowly, or b) use a narrative "you gain a level every 4 sessions / every boss fight / whatever" method of dealing with XP.

And Grod's bonuses aren't horrible, either.

[Deophaun]

Let me just say that I agree with you conceptually, but in practice, a lot of campaign settings (notably FR) do disagree, there are actually stores everywhere :smallbiggrin:
Well, FR is the setting that is perhaps the most guilty of "the world is ending but all the Epic level spellcasters you normally see at the grocery store are too busy with their bridge game to stop it, so it falls to the stable boy."

But yeah, my remarks can be directed at those official sources as well. Once you have magic item shops, you have a lot of questions and if you have a sticky-fingered PCs it quickly escalate the campaign to Tippy-verse levels. That is to say, you reach....

...a Tippy point.

:cool:

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, you are right, even a pegasus would do the job. What i wanted to point out is that without magic items spellcasters have a lot of options compared to mundane builds,
This is true, but part of the point of D&D is that you're in a party, and the point of the thread is to cut down on magic items. If you can, say, tweak the solution to the point where the Wizard and Cleric both need the party Fighter and Rogue to stick around from 1-20 (except, perhaps, at the far end of optimization that few folks actually play), and everyone has fun, then the OP has "won" insofar as winning is possible.

and that if there is someone able to cast a spell i think it would be reasonable that the effect could be applied permanently to an item (magic item may be rare depending on setting, but i think that if wizards are allowed so should magic items).
Given that the point of the thread is decreasing the number of magic items, I'm going to have to disagree with this assertion within the bounds of this thread. For the OP's purposes, it's entirely unreasonable that such short-duration spells can be made into permanent magic items.

[Arbane]

You can do it no problem. The big idea that 3E games ''must" have tons of magic items is a bit of a myth.

Yeah, it's not like PCs ever have to deal with places that can be gotten to via flying, magic darkness, environmental hazards, intangible enemies, enemies vulnerable to magic weapons....


A lot of the idea that everyone needs a load of magic items comes from the idea that each character must be a demi god like Superman. Like when someone says a character ''must" have a way to fly. Like the character must be able to fly and fight flying monsters...but what if they don't fly...oh, well they just hang out and wait. And it's not so bad to just sit and wait...but some players hate it, so they whine and complain.

First off, if a level 15+ character ISN'T a superhero, UR DOIN IT WRONG. At that point, the wizard is building a summer home in a pocket universe, and the cleric has been bringing the dead back to life for six levels already. Arguably, the tipping point is around level 9, when the wizard is flying all day.
I have to wonder - what Knights of the Dinner Table rejects did you play with that traumatized you so badly that you think making a bunch of characters useless is 'good roleplaying'?



Also a decrease in magic items does nicely weaken spellcasters....always a good thing.


Nowhere nearly as much as it cripples the non-casters.



Lastly, the game rule are very much written by....well...very un optimizing, dull, boring, roll players that play at a ''below novice" setting level. At best. Remember, they are the people that think thing like ''A +1 bonus" is equal to ''you can sunder the moon in half".

After all, 1E and 2E had less magic items too.

citation needed on that first one.

As for the second one, I've played and read AD&D modules. For all Gygax's balloonjuice about rationing out magic items, most modules had a LOT of them for the PCs to find or take off their enemies' corpses.

BTW, AD&D fighty characters were MORE dependent on magic weapons - "+1 or better weapon to hit" doesn't allow for power-attacking to beat DR.




Almost every part of this is incorrect.

Well, yeah.

[Mordaedil]

I have to wonder - what Knights of the Dinner Table rejects did you play with that traumatized you so badly that you think making a bunch of characters useless is 'good roleplaying'

The dude has a history of posting really player-hostile advice in nearly every thread and he considers railroading the default way of playing the game and everything else random garbage that doesn't make sense. Specifically he hates the idea that they players have any say in what they are doing next, only what he sets before them is what they are doing. Player agency is a myth to him.

[Psyren]

That is to say, you reach....

:cool:

...a Tippy point.

ftfy.

(YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH)


So, short and easy answer - are you playing a Combat as Sport style, where the burden is on the GM to provide "sporting" challenges, or a Combat as War style, where there are no such guarantees?

If CaS, then test your encounters against a sample party to make sure that they are "sporting". It's a good idea to do this anyway. And provide whoever most needs it (probably the muggles) with some really cool items.

If CaW, then, eh, encourage the party to go after lower level threats, and either a) be aware that characters will level more slowly, or b) use a narrative "you gain a level every 4 sessions / every boss fight / whatever" method of dealing with XP.

And Grod's bonuses aren't horrible, either.

And in both cases, find out what alternatives to magic (like alchemical items and technology) are available.

[weckar]

There is no store.
There can be. In Ptolus at least two are built centrally into the setting.

[Menzath]

Spellcasters rely a lot on magic items to be ''super awesome". Take away the magic items, and all they have are spells. You are not thinking big enough as the spellcasters loose their protection items and items that buff their intelligence. So even if the character ''somehow"(wink wink) got an 18 in an ability...well they won't be finding any cheap +6 item to boost that. Remember: wands, potions and scrolls all count as magic items. So you would decrease them too.

I was reading this, at the first sentence I thought it was a joke, the second sarcasm, and when I finished I was confused.

But I second using alternative means of earning abilities. I remember there being a page for classless leveling method in hombrew(turns out there are a few), using something similar on top of normal leveling may help get the players class features that could be extremely useful without using magic marts or an excess of items.

In this case maybe the class AC bonus put up in unearthed arcanna might be useful.
And to give mundane a bit of love, maybe also use the rules for physical armor giving some Dr/-.

[Jack_Simth]

And to give mundane a bit of love, maybe also use the rules for physical armor giving some Dr/-.
Curiously, the standard Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) rules actually make it worse for melee folks (at least, on the defensive side), because DR/- is not as valuable as AC when Power Attack exists.

Consider:

A (for AC): Warrior in full plate using normal rules (AC 18, 0 DR/-)
vs:
D (for DR): Warrior in full plate using Armor as DR rules (AC 14, 4 DR/-)

The two are otherwise identical: 4th level, have power attack, a +1 greatsword, weapon focus(Greatsword), and a Strength of 14 (+2)
Normal attack bonus (for either) is +8.
D hits A on an 10, for 2d6+4
A hits D on a 6, for 2d6+4 (-4 DR)
Suppose A power attacks away the excess attack bonus, to match the 55% hit chance: A now hits on a 10, for 2d6+4+8 (-4 DR).
So now both have a 55% chance of hitting... but A deals 2d6+8 (after DR) while D deals 2d6+4 (after DR).

In a one-on-one fight, warrior A is better off by using power attack, by 4 points per hit (which works out to 2.2 damage per attack). It's also just about the most common feat for a melee character.

Suppose, instead, we remove power attack from the equation, and just look at the average damage.
D hits A on an 10, for 2d6+4 (55%), for an average of 11 per hit, and thus 6.05 damage per attack.
A hits D on a 6, for 2d6+4 (-4 DR) (75%), for an average of 7 per hit, and thus 5.25 damage per attack.
D is slightly ahead, but not by much.

Given that most melee type opponents have power attack... this is a net loss for D overall. And it gets worse at higher levels, when iteratives and extra attacks come into play.

[Menzath]

Curiously, the standard Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) rules actually make it worse for melee folks (at least, on the defensive side), because DR/- is not as valuable as AC when Power Attack exists.



Sorry I should have clarified, I meant on top of armor functioning normally, give them Dr/-.
And power attack is just high burst, not much you can do about that.

[Fizban]

I was reading this, at the first sentence I thought it was a joke, the second sarcasm, and when I finished I was confused.
He's not wrong though. A ton of the power of a high-op spellcaster comes from magic items and other assumed WBL use. Metamagic rods for lol free metamagic, stat boosters for DCs and bonus slots, scrolls to cover everything you don't have prepared, being allowed to buy whatever spells you want for your spellbook, and every single item that gives a movement, vision, or defensive ability that you no longer have to waste a spell slot on because you have an item for that.

Try statting out the perfect wizard with nothing but the base 2 spells known per level and no magic items. Rather different. Darth Ultron may only speak in hyperbolic absolutes (as is befitting a Sith lord), but there's plenty of truth for anyone willing to see it.

[Pleh]

Curiously, the standard Armor as Damage Reduction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) rules actually make it worse for melee folks (at least, on the defensive side), because DR/- is not as valuable as AC when Power Attack exists.

The variant rules cover armor providing AC *and* DR.

But I can't remember the last time I had a monster use PA. A lot of monsters rely on SLAs or Su abilities (which more commonly employ BFC than target AC or HP). I think it's a misrepresentation of the value of Armor as DR to look only at monsters who have PA. It just isn't a very General solution.

[gkathellar]

Try statting out the perfect wizard with nothing but the base 2 spells known per level and no magic items.

(a) Wizards and archivists are the only spellcasting classes meaningfully affected by this, so to say "casting" is meaningfully nerfed by loss of magic items is pretty unsupportable. Even in that case, it's easy enough too grab a bunch of conjuration, transmutation, and the odd abjuration spell and pretty much call it a night.
(b) The loss of rods and junk hurts, for sure. But mundanes are still affected to a far greater degree, if only because when their numbers fall behind the curve, everything they do stops working. What's especially funny is that gish types, melee clerics, and druids barely even notice the loss, since they can fake pretty much all of the "numbers go up" items with spells and/or wild shape anyway. It cuts into their spellcasting power a bit, but not nearly to the degree it does for a non-caster.

[AnimeTheCat]

Something i've done in the past is make my game more akin to Game of Thrones. It takes a TON of work on the DM's part, but what you get is a world that isn't driven by the christmas tree effect.

When I say make the game more akin to Game of Thrones, I mean that the vast majority of the enemies that the group faces are corporeal humanoid in nature. That doesn't mean I exclude magic, but it makes flight, DR, etc far less likely to influence non-spellcaster characters. Because of this, I usually create a world (using Azagarr's Fantasy World Generator, check it out here (https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/)) and then populate it with kingdoms, cultures, places, landmarks, etc. It's all very fun for me to do, but I recognize it's a ton of work that some are not willing to do.

I usually represent races equally or in appropriate proportions for the world I'm building. This also gives me the liberty to document any major changes I'm making to races, or even come up with simple regional bonuses (based off of existing ones, or simply assigning existing ones to the regions I've created). Then I build armies, govenrments, and cities (I just quickly use the DMG tables and leave it at that). Since I've done this quite a bit, I have pretty much all of the NPC stat blocks already created and it's easy enough for me to just get the numbers and reference those stat blocks.

It takes time, like I said, but the payoff is the ability to fluidly and easily account for higher magic or lower magic depending on the party composition.

Just my 2 cp.

[Jack_Simth]

The variant rules cover armor providing AC *and* DR.
Yes. It reduces the AC granted by the armor by 1/2 (round down), and grants that value as DR. So a Dex-10 Warrior with Full Plate using Armor as DR would have an AC of 14 and DR 4. The Standard Rules are here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm):

For armors not covered on Table: Armor and Damage Reduction, you can determine the new armor values and damage reduction based on the standard armor bonus. To determine the armor’s damage reduction, divide the armor’s normal armor bonus by 2 (rounding down). To determine the armor’s new armor bonus, subtract the DR from the normal armor bonus. For example, studded leather has a normal armor bonus of +3. That gives it a DR of 1/- (half of 3, rounded down) and a new armor bonus of +2 (3 minus 1).
The standard armors are on the table, and full plate is there.


But I can't remember the last time I had a monster use PA. A lot of monsters rely on SLAs or Su abilities (which more commonly employ BFC than target AC or HP). I think it's a misrepresentation of the value of Armor as DR to look only at monsters who have PA. It just isn't a very General solution.
Most of the time, critters relying on SLA's or Su abilities aren't targeting full AC and are entirely unaffected by Armor as DR anyway.

[gkathellar]

Just off the top of my head, several of the Yugoloths in the MM3 are Power Attacking for -3 in their statblock. I think it shows up a fair bit in that book and in MM4 and 5. It goes to how much more careful the monster design got as the game wore on, and the degree to which the designers understood the tools available to them.

[Fizban]

(a) Wizards and archivists are the only spellcasting classes meaningfully affected by this, so to say "casting" is meaningfully nerfed by loss of magic items is pretty unsupportable. Even in that case, it's easy enough too grab a bunch of conjuration, transmutation, and the odd abjuration spell and pretty much call it a night.
Well it is usually a Wizard, but you can do the same excercise with any of them. Try making a Cleric and marvel at how few "active" spells they really have. Try making a Druid and realize just how how much of their list is control with little or no bite, hence why people go to Wild Shape (a non-spellcasting problem) for offense.

(b) The loss of rods and junk hurts, for sure. But mundanes are still affected to a far greater degree, if only because when their numbers fall behind the curve, everything they do stops working.
Only when you've changed the expectations of the game. It's actually much easier to see in 3.0 before they cut the duration/power on stat boost/GMW/GMV (though oddly Resist Energy increased), that the magic items weren't designed to be quite so necessary in the first place: you could easily get away with a few items missing or outdated, because spellcasters could cover it for the people that need it. The game was not designed under the common expectation that all characters stand independently, that spellcasters get to make themselves immune to monster abilities and covered in attack bonuses but the rest of the party is SOL. That is and always has been a problem with group expectations.

What's especially funny is that gish types, melee clerics, and druids barely even notice the loss, since they can fake pretty much all of the "numbers go up" items with spells and/or wild shape anyway. It cuts into their spellcasting power a bit, but not nearly to the degree it does for a non-caster.
It cuts "a bit," does it? Count up all the buffs (and healing) you're quietly assuming just happen and compare them to spells per day, see how few spells you actually have left for being an awesome auto-winning spellcaster. Then cast half those buffs again because the DM didn't conveniently put all the encounters right next to each other, or heaven forbid, actually hit you with a Dispel, and don't forget to factor in some extra hits due to turns wasted buffing. Characters below 20th level very much do have to worry about spell slots, and the number of buffs usually assumed is quite hefty.

Going zero magic items could actually be a great way to attempt balancing out parties with excess spellcasters. The game expects one Cleric and one Arcane Something so parties that want a bunch of gishes and "melee clerics" instead of the expected fighter and rogue types have too much magic anyway.

*And yes, I know I just said buffs use a lot of slots and it hurts at the same time as I'm saying you're supposed to use buffs. The catch is that you're not supposed to put your attack buffs on sub-par attackers, and that all-offense nova casters were never part of the equation.

Just off the top of my head, several of the Yugoloths in the MM3 are Power Attacking for -3 in their statblock. I think it shows up a fair bit in that book and in MM4 and 5. It goes to how much more careful the monster design got as the game wore on, and the degree to which the designers understood the tools available to them.
"Careful" in the sense that they reduced the Nycaloth's CR by 3 while at the same time adding 3 Outsider hit dice and arming it with a +2 weapon- oh and Power Attack wasn't on the original either. It's more powerful than basically any other CR 10 monster in the game by miles, I've checked.

[Eldariel]

This is true, but part of the point of D&D is that you're in a party, and the point of the thread is to cut down on magic items. If you can, say, tweak the solution to the point where the Wizard and Cleric both need the party Fighter and Rogue to stick around from 1-20 (except, perhaps, at the far end of optimization that few folks actually play), and everyone has fun, then the OP has "won" insofar as winning is possible.

They don't really need 'em at all even normally. Well, Trapfinding in certain kinds of campaigns, maybe, but even basic Core 1-20 with any amount of magic items, Fighter is never as good an addition to a party on any level as a Cleric/Druid. It's just not happening because divine casters fill the same niche almost as well or better on all levels WHILE STILL DOING THEIR OWN THING. Fighters are strictly suboptimal and it's kinda silly to pick the class for anything bur challenge in any 3.X derivative.

Why not just play a party of spellcasters that are fine with no items?

[Jack_Simth]

They don't really need 'em at all even normally.
This is true... sort of. A rather lot depends on the optimization levels of the party, and the campaign. However, when you're tweaking anyway, you may as well adjust multiple things.

Well, Trapfinding in certain kinds of campaigns, maybe, but even basic Core 1-20 with any amount of magic items, Fighter is never as good an addition to a party on any level as a Cleric/Druid. It's just not happening because divine casters fill the same niche almost as well or better on all levels WHILE STILL DOING THEIR OWN THING. Fighters are strictly suboptimal and it's kinda silly to pick the class for anything bur challenge in any 3.X derivative.
I'm mostly using "fighter" as a stand-in for "mundane melee-based class". Regardless...

This is partially true. If the DM controls sources, makes humanoid HP healing extra-easy, has fun with dispel effects, and arranges for a lot of encounters between rests, then the Cleric doesn't have quite so many all-day buffs available and runs out of useful spells before the day is over, while the fighter can keep on swinging. Sort of like how the rogue (or other skillfull character) is useful if there's a lot of things that require skill checks when simply bashing through things isn't a viable option (e.g., you need to keep the noise down, but there's a lot of locked doors).

Why not just play a party of spellcasters that are fine with no items?
This is of course a possibility, but I don't think it's the intent of the thread.

[Elkad]

Did anyone miss that a 5th level wizard with fly and wind wall is an hard-counter to almost every martial character in the game?
It would sound strange in any fantasy setting that there are plenty of wizards in the reign able to fly, but no one found a way to make their king fly.

A 5th level wizard who uses 2 of his 1base+1int+1specialization 3rd level slots on those spells isn't going to win.

Wind wall gives a 30% miss chance. Not that terrible. (100% for the idiots, but I don't count them.)
In 30 seconds the miss chance drops to zero.
In 50 minutes, he's landing.
And if I have a friend, he can't be on both sides of the wall at once. Or I just move fast and swap sides + fire on my turn. (possibly he could place it horizontally and stay close to it).

He's got maybe one more 3rd level slot, and some lower level stuff to manage to kill me.

[Eldariel]

A 5th level wizard who uses 2 of his 1base+1int+1specialization 3rd level slots on those spells isn't going to win.

Wind wall gives a 30% miss chance. Not that terrible. (100% for the idiots, but I don't count them.)
In 30 seconds the miss chance drops to zero.
In 50 minutes, he's landing.
And if I have a friend, he can't be on both sides of the wall at once. Or I just move fast and swap sides + fire on my turn. (possibly he could place it horizontally and stay close.)

Bleh. True, those spells don't make for the most optimal level 5 setup. But that doesn't change the fact that Elite Array warriors are even worse off. Compared to summons, animal companions and the like, many are just looking at the same stats while casters get access to same things. So an entire (already comparatively absurd) subsection of caster powers is supercharged if everyone's stats are nuked.

Also, thrown weapons and such may only have 30% miss chance but they also have shorter increments thus suffering penalties. Most non-ranged specialists have bad enough Hit bonus that they are likely enough to just miss against meager ranged AC.

[AnimeTheCat]

Bleh. True, those spells don't make for the most optimal level 5 setup. But that doesn't change the fact that Elite Array warriors are even worse off. Compared to summons, animal companions and the like, many are just looking at the same stats while casters get access to same things. So an entire (already comparatively absurd) subsection of caster powers is supercharged if everyone's stats are nuked.

Also, thrown weapons and such may only have 30% miss chance but they also have shorter increments thus suffering penalties. Most non-ranged specialists have bad enough Hit bonus that they are likely enough to just miss against meager ranged AC.

Warriors should be getting the non-elite array, while npcs with PC class levels should be getting the elite array or an equivalent number of points to spend as the PCs. It's for this reason I do 25 PB in many of my games. Elite array is easy to work with and is 25 pb

[Eldariel]

Warriors should be getting the non-elite array, while npcs with PC class levels should be getting the elite array or an equivalent number of points to spend as the PCs. It's for this reason I do 25 PB in many of my games. Elite array is easy to work with and is 25 pb

I use the lower case term "warrior" to refer to all the PC classes that do grunt work and nothing useful.

[AnimeTheCat]

I use the lower case term "warrior" to refer to all the PC classes that do grunt work and nothing useful.

Oh, my mistake.

[Elkad]

Bleh. True, those spells don't make for the most optimal level 5 setup. But that doesn't change the fact that Elite Array warriors are even worse off. Compared to summons, animal companions and the like, many are just looking at the same stats while casters get access to same things. So an entire (already comparatively absurd) subsection of caster powers is supercharged if everyone's stats are nuked.

Also, thrown weapons and such may only have 30% miss chance but they also have shorter increments thus suffering penalties. Most non-ranged specialists have bad enough Hit bonus that they are likely enough to just miss against meager ranged AC.

Assuming the Wizard is staying within his own medium range (150'), it's only one more -2 penalty compared to a bow. Hardly world-ending.

I'm not suggesting the Fighter wins, but if the Wizard comes with those spells, the Wizard will likely be running away.

[Eldariel]

Assuming the Wizard is staying within his own medium range (150'), it's only one more -2 penalty compared to a bow. Hardly world-ending.

I'm not suggesting the Fighter wins, but if the Wizard comes with those spells, the Wizard will likely be running away.

Depends on the weapon. Javelin has 30' range increment so that's looking at -8 for instance, and it's a pretty common backup