Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Turin 02-17-08, 07:18 PM	I've been inspired by some of what I've been reading about 4.0 to change the way I hand out magic items in my current campaign. The essence of the idea is that I want to make changes to the characters over time rather than their gear. This has some extra beneficial effects for my particular campaign, which will be taking place almost-if-not completely away from civilization. Before continuing on below, please realize that I recognize that not everyone will agree with this as a model for doing things. There's already discussions going on about that on the 4.0 boards and over on General here. Please stay on-topic! What I'd like to do specifically is as follows. Keep the magic weapons and armor, because these are fun and everyone likes a new shiny sword. I want to keep scrolls, potions, and other expendable magic. And I especially want to keep "oddball" items in play, like a ring of spell-storing or figurines of wondrous power. What I really want to get rid of are the following: ability adjustment items, miscellaneous AC boosting items, and save boosting items. Whether or not we like it, 3.5 is designed to have these and assumes they will be present. So I'm planning on introducing non-item methods of obtaining these "required bonuses" throughout the campaign. A natural spring trickling over magical crystals that gives a permanent +2 enhancement bonus to Intelligence, and the like. Cheesy? Well, I think my players will like it. Here's the trouble. How do I figure out how much of these sorts of items I need to put in the game? The PC Wealth By Level chart doesn't help me much. There used to be a "sample PCs" section in the old DMG 3.0 that had sample equipment, but I sold mine a while back. When does the game "expect" that a PC will have enhancement bonuses to their ability scores? Or maybe, what percentage of a character's total wealth should consist of items of this type? Any suggestions?
Jackmojo 02-17-08, 10:49 PM	Well If you'd rather purchase a professionally designed d20 book that aims at the same goal Monte Cook's Iron Heroes (http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_IL) is almost the gold standard for 3.5. A few other also take shots at it, in particular I like Midnight (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/midnight.html) as well, it actually includes some open game content for this that you can find with a bit of googling. If you'd rather house rule something up, it boils down to is needing to give out save, AC and Stat boosts more frequently then the core rules do. Depending on your starting point buy and preferred power level you'll need to add more or less of course. I would start with a moderately generous point buy (no less then 28 points likely more) and then give bonuses along the lines +1 to two stats every even level, flat 1/4 levels to all saves, and a defence bonus equal to the strong save progression (but perhaps not kicking in the AC till level 5, or they might be too tough at level 1). Personally I'd also throw in extra feats, cause feats are fun, maybe as many as 1 every level, but perhaps with some restrictions on what they can take them from (say the odd level ones need to be general feats, and the even can be from sub catagories; i.e. metamagic, divine, etc...). Addtionally to adding flat powers to the PCs, you'll need to make sure not to send certain types of encounters at them as certain monsters will be much tougher then normal for their CR (some of course will be much weaker, say the beholder, as his antimagic cone just got nerfed). Jack
StruckingFuggle 02-18-08, 12:49 AM	I don't really have much in the way of thoughts on this matter (yet), but I did want to say this: Well If you'd rather purchase a professionally designed d20 book that aims at the same goal Mone Cook's Iron Heroes (http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_IL) is almost the gold standard for 3.5. A few other also take shots at it, in particular I like Midnight (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/midnight.html) as well, it actually includes some open game content for this that you can find with a bit of googling. THIS. Is how you recommend using a third party product or established resource to do something instead of doing it on your own. Thank you, Jackmojo, that was well said. (It comes down, I think, to the "if". "If you want to".) *cookie*
Quoward 02-18-08, 01:10 AM	If you have book of exalted deeds, you could look up vow of poverty and grant the progressions from that only for abilities no longer available from magic items. Remove ability score boosting items, then grant the ability score boosting stuff from vow of poverty for free for all characters. Only grant the parts players can no longer get. Should work. As a note, vow of poverty and the magic items you are removing are supernatural effects, so an anti-magic field turns them off temporarily, so an issue with just giving stuff like ability score bonuses as character improvement would be how it weakens anti-magic fields. though one could say if gotten via a magic spring, then it'd be a super natural effect too, avoiding this issue.
Nathreet 02-18-08, 01:23 AM	http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=992322 I figured out everything done for you, based on several days of min-maxing that I did a long time ago. Go to 3rd post. Those bonuses are all the bonuses that a well made martial PC would get from magic items. Sorry, I don't have anything for casters, monks, etc. You'll have to work on that yourself. I could generate bonuses for a monk (or other odd class) that focused purely on combat, but anyone who plays a monk to excel in simple toe-to-toe combat isn't that bright.
Jackmojo 02-18-08, 01:36 AM	THIS. Is how you recommend using a third party product or established resource to do something instead of doing it on your own. Thank you, Jackmojo, that was well said. (It comes down, I think, to the "if". "If you want to".) *cookie* Well Thanks :tiphat: *Sets aside :cookie: so as not to spoil dinner.* Jack
Turin 02-18-08, 07:37 AM	Well If you'd rather purchase a professionally designed d20 book that aims at the same goal Mone Cook's Iron Heroes (http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_IL) is almost the gold standard for 3.5. A few other also take shots at it, in particular I like Midnight (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/midnight.html) as well, it actually includes some open game content for this that you can find with a bit of googling. I appreciate the useful advice on this source (and I agree with StruckingFuggle...I hate getting advice like "Get ERJTHB" with no explanation), but right now I'm not really looking to add to my collection of books. I would start with a moderately generous point buy (no less then 28 points likely more) and then give bonuses along the lines +1 to two stats every even level, flat 1/4 levels to all saves, and a defence bonus equal to the strong save progression (but perhaps not kicking in the AC till level 5, or they might be too tough at level 1). Personally I'd also throw in extra feats, cause feats are fun, maybe as many as 1 every level, but perhaps with some restrictions on what they can take them from (say the odd level ones need to be general feats, and the even can be from sub catagories; i.e. metamagic, divine, etc...). Well, the game is already well underway when I thought of this, and I have a standing personal rule about avoiding tweaking the rules in the middle of the game. So I'll be looking to make minimal changes by giving everyone flat bonuses at certain stages of the game where I can introduce the magical sources of their power. The method you describe here, which is similar to Quoward's VoP suggestion, would work great in a just-starting-out campaign, however. Addtionally to adding flat powers to the PCs, you'll need to make sure not to send certain types of encounters at them as certain monsters will be much tougher then normal for their CR (some of course will be much weaker, say the beholder, as his antimagic cone just got nerfed). See, I'm not sure that's really the case. Those flat bonuses make up a significant portion of a typical character's wealth, so if the PCs still have access to those bonuses, I can't see how the monsters would be more difficult as long as the value of those bonuses is still similar (which brings me back to my original question). http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=992322 I figured out everything done for you, based on several days of min-maxing that I did a long time ago. Go to 3rd post. Those bonuses are all the bonuses that a well made martial PC would get from magic items. Sorry, I don't have anything for casters, monks, etc. You'll have to work on that yourself. I could generate bonuses for a monk (or other odd class) that focused purely on combat, but anyone who plays a monk to excel in simple toe-to-toe combat isn't that bright. Hm, now we're getting somewhere! This is definitely helpful. But I've been looking through example PCs provided in various sourcebooks and discovered a couple of issues with applying this generally. It seems that there is a big discrepancy between the Big 4 Roles in how WotC seems to expect their money to be spent. This is an important factor -- WotC's assumptions about CR aren't really based on the "super optimized" PC. So I did a little analysis myself last night, breaking down each character's gear into Armory (weapon, shield, armor), Boosts (ability, resistance, deflection, natural armor), and Other (miscellaneous, expendables, etc). Each "role" showed themselves to be all over the map. But what I discovered was rather interesting was what happened when I average the roles together, the percentage of Armory vs Boosts vs Other held to within 5% of common values. This pattern held reasonably well (for rough-and-ready DMs) up to the point where I stopped my analysis at 15th. Effectively, these results showed that a party's loot should be about 30% Armory, 30% Boosts, and 60% Other. Obviously the Armory-type items are going to go more to the fighters and clerics (who end up with something like 90% of their gear in this category), while the Boosts end up going more towards the rogues and wizards. It's much easier to calculate awards when you do it "by party," because you can assume that as long as you keep an eye on making sure each PC gets a chance at the cool items, that any slightly uneven distribution by the PCs will balance out.
mvincent 02-18-08, 08:05 PM	Any suggestions?I generally figure PC's have the following items (with a bonus equal to about 1/4th their level): 1) Magic weapon 2) Magic armor 3) Cloak of resistance 4) Ring of protection and/or amulet of natural armor 5) Primary stat enhancer
Turin 02-18-08, 08:36 PM	One of the other elements I'll probably use is "unlocking" items that improve over time. I've been thinking up an Archer's Bracer for the fighter, for example, that starts out as the equivalent of lesser bracers of archery, but then gives a couple bonuses as he goes up until maybe they transform into greater bracers of archery, and so on. And I've got another item I'm cooking up for the wizard. The fun part of these is that they'll be graft-like items, as the PCs are heading into the depths of Khyber (Eberron game), and that will be flavorful for the game too.
Tedronai 02-18-08, 09:01 PM	One of the other elements I'll probably use is "unlocking" items that improve over time. I've been thinking up an Archer's Bracer for the fighter, for example, that starts out as the equivalent of lesser bracers of archery, but then gives a couple bonuses as he goes up until maybe they transform into greater bracers of archery, and so on. And I've got another item I'm cooking up for the wizard. The fun part of these is that they'll be graft-like items, as the PCs are heading into the depths of Khyber (Eberron game), and that will be flavorful for the game too. I've had such 'graft-type items' introduced in past campaigns, and it didn't turn out well. Mind you, I attribute that more to execution than base concept, but you'll have to be very careful. Things to look out for: Don't make the items take up common slots unless they also perform the function of the common items in those slots, or you'll be forcing the players to make a choice between this custom item, or the on they'd normally have. Make sure you don't give the players items with abilities they won't (or even worse - CAN'T use). This might take some cooperation between you and the players on a one-to-one basis, figuring out what they consider to be useful, but the results will be worth it (and more importantly, the lack of detrimental results will also be worth it).
Turin 02-18-08, 09:52 PM	I've had such 'graft-type items' introduced in past campaigns, and it didn't turn out well. Mind you, I attribute that more to execution than base concept, but you'll have to be very careful. Things to look out for: Don't make the items take up common slots unless they also perform the function of the common items in those slots, or you'll be forcing the players to make a choice between this custom item, or the on they'd normally have. Make sure you don't give the players items with abilities they won't (or even worse - CAN'T use). This might take some cooperation between you and the players on a one-to-one basis, figuring out what they consider to be useful, but the results will be worth it (and more importantly, the lack of detrimental results will also be worth it). That's a good caution. In this case, of course, the whole point of this exercise is that a lot of the slot-consuming normal items they'd want (ability score enhancement, for example) will be superfluous. So slotting shouldn't be a problem, although it's a good thing to keep an eye on.