[4e] Less Magic Items, No Less Neccessary

[Crow]

Playing a couple sessions of this edition, and also experimenting with builds and combats of different levels, I have observed that while there are fewer magic items, and indeed "slots" to fill with them, it still has a feel of being all about your stuff.

As I understand it, this was one of the things that the designers were trying to move away from. But the new system, where a +1 to hit actually is a big deal, actually penalizes characters more if they don't have the best top-of-the-line equipment. Coupled with this is the DMG assertion that the Dm should pretty much give the players what they want as far as treasure is concerned. Truely, this is a bigger problem at higher levels than at lower ones. Characters can play well through Heroic tier without any magic items at all and be fine, assuming they have built competent characters. If not, they will start to have some problems. Once the characters reach Paragon tier, things start getting bad, and at epic tier get downright dangerous.

In the end, I just have this empty feeling once again that my character is some sort of robot that requires all these hardware upgrades simply to function at higher levels. The christmas-tree syndrome is once again in full effect, just with fewer ornaments. Even "magic" classes are hit hard since their implements directly contribute to their ability to effectively use their powers.

So I have two questions;

Has anyone else noticed this so far?

In your opinion, what would have been a better way to make it more "you" rather than "your stuff"?

I have spitballed just giving characters a +1 to hit/damage and defenses for every 5 levels, and taking away the pluses from magic items, leaving just the special effects and abilities.

[Merlin the Tuna]

I have spitballed just giving characters a +1 to hit/damage and defenses for every 5 levels, and taking away the pluses from magic items, leaving just the special effects and abilities.That's a pretty common solution from what I understand.

The dependency on having 30 different Wondrous Items has been noticeably cut back, as has the "You loot the bodies and find 12 +1 swords", but the core of the issue remains pretty well untouched. It does seem to be pretty clear when players are expected to get more pluses to their weapons & armor though, and so you get this sort of fix.

[Yakk]

Note that the impact of a +1 to hit has remained somewhat similar.

The difference is that the end of the mathematics ends around 50% at every level.

Such a balance point existed in 3e -- it was just far harder to arrange, and only lasted a relative handful of levels.

The fact is, 3e Weapon Focus was an effective feat -- but by the time that 3 of your attacks auto-hit, and other feats let you triple our damage output, it got overshadowed.

In 3e, at high levels, you where nearly expected to "auto hit" with a number of attacks as a fighter-type.

...

In short: not having a +1 magic item isn't that much of a problem. It makes a character about 10% worse, but you can deal with that as a player by burning action points, daily powers, etc more often (presuming the DM doesn't throw encounters at the players at the very edge of what they could do).

It is true that at level 30, missing a +6 to hit is really painful.

If you want magic items to still be useful, but not key, you can simply grant the following "awesome" bonus that does not stack with magic items:
Level 11-15: +1 Awesome
Level 16-20: +2 Awesome
Level 21-25: +3 Awesome
Level 26-30: +4 Awesome

This means if you are missing your Awesome weapon, and instead pick up J Random Sword, you are missing a mere +2 to hit. That's enough to hurt, but not cripple.

If you don't have Awesome apply to damage (just to-hit), this also means that players will want to use magic weapons when they can -- but they aren't completely crippled without them, at any level.

Yet another option would be to boost the Awesome bonus to a full +1 every 5 levels, but only apply it to-hit. Then Implement/Weapon bonuses only apply to the damage you do -- which is enough to make you want the magic weapons, but not enough (once again) to make you suck without it.

If you don't like the Awesome mechanic, you can grant a +2 bonus to all stats at level 4, 8, 14, 18, 24, 28. This generates effects that are very similar to enchantment bonuses.

Note one problem with stripping out the advantage of enchanted items is that the benefits of using an implement are reduced significantly. Which hurts, flavor-wise.

[Crow]

Getting a +1 to hit is a lot harder now though because there are a lot fewer ways to get it. Granted this was a problem in 3.x as well because most of the ways you would get that +1 that weren't due to feat or class features were from magic items and stat-boosters.

This is why I say it feels the same. I'd be crazy to say that 3.x was better in this regard. In 3.x it was replace this item with another item to get pluses to-hit.

As for your solutions, I don't see any reason to eliminate the damage bonus if you go with a full +1/per 5 awesome bonus. You hit more reliably, and to more effect. I do like the non-stacking version you posted though. Kind of like a magic threshold for characters. I wonder if the designers looked at anything like that for players?

[Covered In Bees]

There are two ways, fundamentally, to handle this.

1) Challenges are calculated to be appropriate for PCs without any magic items.
Result: "Hey! they took magic items out of the game!" "WTF, my wizard can't make items?" or "wow, magic items sure make these charactes overpowered and able to waltz through challenges!"

2) Challenes are calculated to be appropirate for PCs with magic items.
"Characters are reliant on magic items! It's not the character, it's the gear!" "WTF, I need items?My game world is low-magic!"

4E made doing away with magic items vastly easier. The "+1 to X every five levels" method--say, attack & damage starting at 2, AC starting at 3, defenses starting at 4--is easy to implement. Occasionally give out extra minor powers to cover magic item powers if you feel like it. The game will work fine. It's a matter of "these characters need +X". AC will need somewhat bigger bonuses, to cover the increase in armor quality. It's really easy to do.

3E doesn't work without magic items, on a very fundamental level. A Fighter's AC at level 20, without any magic items, will not be significantly better than his AC at level 4. Items grant characters whole new, necessary capabilities, like flight, and immunities. You can't fix this by giving out flat bonuses--you just can't. Hell, just look at Vow of Poverty and see how much it has to give to compete with treasure.

[ArmorArmadillo]

I have spitballed just giving characters a +1 to hit/damage and defenses for every 5 levels, and taking away the pluses from magic items, leaving just the special effects and abilities.

I think this is a good fix. One of my problems with the magic item economy was always that magic items felt really bland.

If a great warrior finds an enchanted blade, it's supposed to glow with power and strike through deception to the black heart of evil, not make you a measely 5% more likely to hit.

[Covered In Bees]

If a great warrior finds an enchanted blade, it's supposed to glow with power and strike through deception to the black heart of evil, not make you a measely 5% more likely to hit.

In game terms, this means that the character suddenly tears through everything.

[EagleWiz]

Or you could always just give them the magic items already. It makes sence if the level 28 fighter is practicly a god has a really powerfull magiv sword.
Besides finding magic items is fun.
In low magic campaigns you can use the DMG Magic Item Bonus Per Level for monsters and subtract that from thier stats.

Edit: Let me explain that better. In the DMG there is a table showing the assumed bonuses that the monsters get from their magic items. Instead of making the pcs better armored take away the bonus from the monsters. At level 8 most monsters are assumed to have at least a +1 sword and armor and this is reflected in thier stat blocks.

[Prophaniti]

Though it might take more work on the DMs part (especially if he tries to use the CR system, which I learned a long time ago to simply ignore), 3.5 can work without magic items. I've run low-magic settings before that do this. The solution, similar to the suggested fix for 4e, mostly involves simple fluff change. A +1 sword is not magical. The basic magical bonuses on weapons and armor are changed to indicate degrees of craftsmanship. Obviously, more fantastic abilities, such as Flaming Burst or Vorpal, would have to be magical in most cases. That's where actual magic items come in. No, the whole party does not need Fly to survive, even at high levels, unless the DM specifically makes it so. We've fought flying enemies on multiple occasions, dragons and such, with only the wizard being able to fly, and we won the day. Often, it was someone other than the wizard who handed out the most hurt to the flying monster, in one case it was the Deepwood Sniper.

If it is equipment dependancy itself you seek to eliminate, bonuses to specific stats every few levels would work in 3.5 just as well as in 4e. Immunities and magical capabilities (Fly) are only necessary if the DM ensures you will not survive without them, just like in 4e.


I think this is a good fix. One of my problems with the magic item economy was always that magic items felt really bland.

If a great warrior finds an enchanted blade, it's supposed to glow with power and strike through deception to the black heart of evil, not make you a measely 5% more likely to hit.

I feel exactly the same way, which is why I like to use the 'mundane quality' bonus system, and keep the actual magical items for far more powerful things, minimum along the lines of Relics.

[ArmorArmadillo]

In game terms, this means that the character suddenly tears through everything.

No, it means he's slightly more likely to tear through things.

[Tengu_temp]

Idea - vanilla +X items are not magical, just exceptionally made. Only those that do something more are magic.

Of course this doesn't really change anything, mechanics-wise. But I like the idea.

[Starsinger]

Idea - vanilla +X items are not magical, just exceptionally made. Only those that do something more are magic.

That's cheating :smalltongue: But see, I think the difference is, if you just give a 4e character the enhancement bonus to ac, hit, damage and saves, and a 3e character the enhancement bonus to ac, hit, damage and saves, the 4e character will be better off, since item powers are just gravy and not staples.

[Prophaniti]

since item powers are just gravy and not staples.

How so? As I've said, I've used 3.5 to run low magic settings and the party members rarley had magic items with special abilities. Again, the whole party having Fly or dealing elemental damage or having magically enhanced stealth skills is only necessary if the DM makes it so, in ANY edition of ANY rpg.

[Crow]

How so? As I've said, I've used 3.5 to run low magic settings and the party members rarley had magic items with special abilities. Again, the whole party having Fly or dealing elemental damage or having magically enhanced stealth skills is only necessary if the DM makes it so, in ANY edition of ANY rpg.

My experience matches yours. It's not impossible at all to run a campaign like that.

[Swordguy]

How so? As I've said, I've used 3.5 to run low magic settings and the party members rarley had magic items with special abilities. Again, the whole party having Fly or dealing elemental damage or having magically enhanced stealth skills is only necessary if the DM makes it so, in ANY edition of ANY rpg.

We're ignoring mention of "Creature needs a magic weapon of +X or better to be hit" in monster statlines in "any" RPG, right? 'Cause RPG's that include those types of statlines make magic items rather necessary.

That said - I rather like the "awesome" bonus idea, and using Covered in Bee's level progression ("attack & damage starting at 2, AC starting at 3, defenses starting at 4").

[Yakk]

By replacing the to-hit bonus with an "Awesome" bonus, but leaving the to-damage bonus on the weapon, you make the magic bonus less important. It just boosts damage -- so lacking it doesn't make you wiff, it just makes you a bit less effective.

[Skyserpent]

My experience matches yours. It's not impossible at all to run a campaign like that.

not impossible, but definitely not intuitive. By the rules of the system, low magic doesn't work very well. against the already rather silly and confusing CR system.

[Zyrusticae]

Indeed, the +x to defenses, AC, attack and damage pretty much covers the generic stat bonus from magic items and makes characters effectively non-dependent on their bonuses. They give neat stuff but aren't required in such an instance.

I think you can do the same with 3rd edition. For example, +1 to all saves every four levels, +1 deflection bonus, natural armor bonus, and enhancement bonus to AC every four levels, enhancement bonus to attack and damage every four levels... um, come to think of it, a lot of boosts would come about every four levels, huh?

And how would you do the attribute bonuses? +1 every three levels? Something like that...

That still doesn't account for the fact that defense never rises without the aide of magic items in 3e, however.

[Neon Knight]

The "awesome" bonus, as in +X merely representing increasing levels of exceptional craftsmanship instead of magical bonuses, is an idea already known to the Coastal Magi, found in D20 Modern*.

The Wizards had to find a balance somewhere. I suppose they could have tried balancing combat around low-magic equipped adventurers and making magic items less powerful and thus not affecting combat as much, but then of course you would get complaints of magic items being useless trinkets.

And some players do enjoy getting the villain to ponder, "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

*Not implying the above posters did not already know that, but just wanting to inform anyone who didn't. The more you know!

[ghost_warlock]

We're ignoring mention of "Creature needs a magic weapon of +X or better to be hit" in monster statlines in "any" RPG, right? 'Cause RPG's that include those types of statlines make magic items rather necessary.

I think what he's trying to say is that DMs can ignore/not use those types of creatures if they want to. Because the DM determines the challenges, the DM also chooses the type/amount of equipment the characters need to survive.

[Swordguy]

I think what he's trying to say is that DMs can ignore/not use those types of creatures if they want to. Because the DM determines the challenges, the DM also chooses the type/amount of equipment the characters need to survive.

But after a certain CR (or HD rating, really - since we're mainly discussing a 2e concept), the vast, VAST majority of the creature available to be fought start having this attribute. So unless you want to fight just a couple of varieties of critter for an awfully long time...

Also, the DM can choose to disallow ANY broken rule. That doesn't meant the rule isn't broken. The same argument can be made that "wizards aren't powerful, because the DM nerfs them", or "the rules for drowning aren't broken, because the DM houseruled them into some semblance of sanity".

What happens when a DM runs a prepublished adventure? yes - he can change the critters therein...but that means he's not running the prepublished adventure. He's running something similar that is his own creation. Thus, if a DM runs only prepublished stuff, at some point he'll be forced to include those monsters (assuming, granted, he picks an adventure that contains them - unfortunately, the vast majority do).

[Oslecamo]

Hmm, just out of curiosity, but what's the trouble with characters needing powerfull equipment? Most people like shining toys and acessories, from an uber car to fancy clothes.

Doesn't an elite soldier receives better equipment and weapons than a simple grunt? Doesn't the fantasy king carries a golden armor, blessed amulet, relic rings and legendary sword?

Aren't the heroic Space marines fited with obsecenely powerfull equipment while the common guardsmen use paper armor and flashlights?

Doesn't Edward Elric drools over new automails?

Doesn't every magical girl have her upgradeable magic staff and a wardrobe of frilly dresses?

Don't MMORPG players waste days of their life to get the ultimate gear for their characters?

The game is called dungeons and dragons after all. And what do they have in common? Both carry filhty sweet powerfull treasure.

Like someone else said correctly, one of the biggest essence of D&D is to kill your enemies, take their stuff and use it to kill more enemies.

I notice the christmas tree effect. And I honestly like it, just like I liked it in 3e. Each challenge I overcome means there's a chance I'll get a new toy for my character to try. Yes, it may be only +1 to hit and damage, but still it's a reward for my work.

[ArmorArmadillo]

The game is called dungeons and dragons after all. And what do they have in common? Both carry filhty sweet powerfull treasure.

Because it's not sweet, it's bland.

You end up a great warrior with a mighty enchanted blade, and enchanted armor, and an enchanted amulet, and two enchanted rings, and an enchanted headband, and enchanted gloves, and enchanted armbands, and enchanted shoes. And all of them give vanilla bonuses to hit or defense.

The problem is that your enchanted items don't feel significant, they feel like baggage that you have to acquire to remain relevant at a given level. Acquiring them feels like a chore, and a barrier to getting actually cool effects.

Magic items should give cool, interesting effects like flying or the ability to shoot eye-beams, not vanilla enhancement bonuses.

[Crow]

Because it's not sweet, it's bland.

You end up a great warrior with a mighty enchanted blade, and enchanted armor, and an enchanted amulet, and two enchanted rings, and an enchanted headband, and enchanted gloves, and enchanted armbands, and enchanted shoes. And all of them give vanilla bonuses to hit or defense.

The problem is that your enchanted items don't feel significant, they feel like baggage that you have to acquire to remain relevant at a given level. Acquiring them feels like a chore, and a barrier to getting actually cool effects.

Magic items should give cool, interesting effects like flying or the ability to shoot eye-beams, not vanilla enhancement bonuses.

Exactly This.

[RukiTanuki]

There's a "Magic Affinity"* bonus on page 174 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. If you automatically grant this bonus to attack rolls, defenses, and AC to PCs of the appropriate level, they should stay on track relative to the enemies they face without magic items (or with magic items without enhancement bonuses).

For those playing the home game, that bonus is +1 at 6th level and an additional +1 every five levels thereafter.

*Please, just totally, completely, ignore the name of this bonus. It means "portion of monster's attack/defense ratings that directly takes into account the magic items we expect PCs to have at this level." Attempts to visualize this abstract metric as some sort of built-in magic or super-power added to the character will only result in tears.

[Saph]

You end up a great warrior with a mighty enchanted blade, and enchanted armor, and an enchanted amulet, and two enchanted rings, and an enchanted headband, and enchanted gloves, and enchanted armbands, and enchanted shoes. And all of them give vanilla bonuses to hit or defense.

The problem is that your enchanted items don't feel significant, they feel like baggage that you have to acquire to remain relevant at a given level. Acquiring them feels like a chore, and a barrier to getting actually cool effects.

Yeah, this is the problem, all right.

4e's made things a bit better, but a high-level 4e character is still crippled without their magic items - losing that +5 bonus to attack, damage, and defences is a huge handicap. It's like they went halfway to making magic items optional . . . then for some reason changed their mind and made them essential again, because the highly standardised attack and defence levels of 4e mean that a character of any class needs his gear to take on level-appropriate enemies.

Honestly, I'm not really sure what the point of the whole thing was. If they really wanted to make magic items optional, they should have gotten rid of 'vanilla' bonuses altogether.

- Saph

[Kurald Galain]

Yeah, this is the problem, all right.

Indeed.

The preview for this was already highly ironic in pointing out that "we're going to greatly reduce characters' reliance on magical items... henceforth, they will only be able to use fifteen items simultaneously" :smallwink:

[ArmorArmadillo]

Indeed.

The preview for this was already highly ironic in pointing out that "we're going to greatly reduce characters' reliance on magical items... henceforth, they will only be able to use fifteen items simultaneously" :smallwink:

At least it can be fixed with a relatively simple fix.

[Titanium Dragon]

Well, now there are only three necessary slots:

Weapon
Armor
Neck

All the rest are much less important. Those three, however, have a large effect on you.

I don't think this is really too much though; magic items need to retain some significance.

And yes, you can simply rule that all of them increase by +1 at 5th, 10th, ect. (or whatever; I'd personally go with 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, 28th). On the other hand, this means that finding new magic weapons and armor isn't very significant at all.

[ArmorArmadillo]

And yes, you can simply rule that all of them increase by +1 at 5th, 10th, ect. (or whatever; I'd personally go with 3rd, 8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, 28th). On the other hand, this means that finding new magic weapons and armor isn't very significant at all.

Which is the point, they give cool, but ultimately unnecessary bonuses.

But really, the idea would be that you use magic items to get interesting effects rather than flat numerical bonuses.

So, when you get a treasure it's like:
"Cool, an eversmoking bottle, I wonder how we'll be able to use this."
Instead of:
"Huh, a +2 ring of protection. That's better than my +1."

[Yakk]

So, a different approach.

1> Enhancement bonuses are reduced to +0 at Heroic, +1 at Paragon, and +2 at Epic tier.

2> Change stat boosts to:
4th: +2 to two, +1 to third
8th: +2 to three
11th: +2 to two, +1 to rest
14th: +2 to two, +1 to third
18th: +2 to three
21st: +2 to two, +1 to rest
24th: +2 to three
28th: +2 to three

At level 30, compared to level 1, we get:
Before: +8/+8/+2/+2/+2/+2 (+4/+4/+1/+1/+1/+1 mods)
After: +16/+16/+12/+2/+2/+2 (+8/+8/+6/+1/+1/+1 mods)

Justification of 1 and 2:
Attribute bonuses apply to nearly everything that enhancement bonuses apply to, except for heavy armor AC (covered in #3) and a handful of powers. I left the magic tool enhancement at +1 per tier, so you will still want some magic weapons -- but if you don't have them, you aren't completely gimped.

The rest is channeled into increased stats. Over the standard rules, you get +4 additional "roll modifiers" on two stats, +5(!) on a third, and +1 on all of the remaining. This also makes the existing "crap levels" of 4,8,14,18,24,28 less crappy, as you are guaranteed a serious bonus.

3> Heavy Armor:
Heavy Armor gains a +1 AC bonus for every 5 levels of the character, rounded down.
Justification:
Heavy armor doesn't grant attribute bonuses to your AC. So it needed something. I was thinking of having Heavy Armor have a masterwork bonus of +2 every 5 levels, but that just returns things to the existing state.

Instead, you get a bonus from your character power when wearing heavy armor, which means you can kill a guard, put on their plate, and not suck just because you are a heavy armor user.

4> Change page 42 and 61 "difficulty" tables to:


Easy Moderate Hard
1-3: 5 10 15
4-6: 7 13 18
7-9: 9 15 21
10-12: 11 18 24
13-15: 13 20 27
16-18: 15 23 30
19-21: 17 25 33
22-24: 19 28 36
25-27: 21 30 39
28-30: 23 33 42


Justification:

(This takes into account the fact that attribute increases are more common under this system. As an aside, it means that skill DCs are more similar to attack targets... A Hard DC is very similar to the Defense of an opponent of that level.)

(Note that this is based off of the Revised DCs from the Errata, not the original DCs in the DMG)

(Math of this: Your ability to attempt a non-trained skills in an off-stat goes up by level/2 + 2/30 from attributes, or 0.566666 per level, or +17 at level 30 compared to level 1. By boosting easy DCs by +2 every 3 levels, this is very close -- and takes into account that sometimes you will be using non-"off-stats".

In an "on" stat, characters gain +23 over 30 levels. Which lines up really well with +5 every 6 levels.

For "hard", I assumed that the character was getting additional bonuses from somewhere (rerolls, etc), and made it a flat +1 every level.)


5> Change "secondary" stat modifiers on powers and attacks from "add your X stat bonus" to "add 2, plus half of your stat bonus". Naturally, round down.

Similarly, any power that uses your score in a stat now uses 10 plus your stat bonus or penalty.

There are modifiers to d20 rolls that would get seriously out of line. By granting a +2 and half of your stat bonus, level 1 characters with 18 in the stat are no worse off. Those with lower/higher are slightly better/worse off.

By level 30, you could have given +18 (including demigod) instead of +10 (demigod) modifier. 20+18 = 38, or +19 modifier now -- while before you could get 20+10=30, or +10 modifier. 19/2+2 = +11 -- pretty damn close to the old bonus of +10.

Before, your stat could hit 30 -- now, you can get a +19 modifier for about the same amount of effort. 10+19 = 29, pretty close to 30. (This applies to powers like divine regeneration).

I think that is a complete transformation. There are a number of benefits to this version:

1> Skill DCs are closer to Defenses. In a number of cases, you make a Skill roll vs a Defense: under this system, things are less out of whack.

2> Enchanted weapons and Armor still exists, and can make you fight better, but they matter less. At epic tier, not having your Hammer of Awesomeness will hurt, and it will be worthwhile to go quest for it -- but you won't be a wiff-bot without it.

3> Character attributes are closer to Monster attributes at higher levels, if you ever want to do a direct stat-on-stat contest. Your Fighter, starting with 20 strength, ends up with 38 strength under this system (instead of 30).

A level 1 "strong" monster has 18 strength, while a level 30 "strong" monster has 32 strength. So your Epic tier strong-man can arm-wrestle an epic monster and win, instead of having fallen behind.

[Shatteredtower]

If you want magic items to still be useful, but not key, you can simply grant the following "awesome" bonus that does not stack with magic itemsInteresting idea. Would your proposed system be unbalanced if simplified down to +2 Awesome at paragon levels, +4 at epic?

[Knaight]

The problem is how much it is built in to the system. Granted its somewhat easier to take out now, but its still a bit of a pain. Magic items should be really special. The interesting items are wondrous items, an eversmoking bottle, a decanter of endless water, this sort of stuff (http://www.fudgefactor.org/2003/01/01/magic_items_not_mundane.html), or weapons and armor with abilities that are far more interesting than +x. A sword that leaves a trail of light when it is swung seems useless. But there is all sorts of creative stuff that you can do with it. You can make walls glow as you hit them, leave bright spots around to blind people as they come around sharp corners, use it to make someone show up in the dark before cutting the lights and switching to a different weapon(everyone can see the person in the dark. Said person can't see anybody else).