| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1melloredAug 23, 2010 11:14:16 | Link |
| #2ranadielAug 23, 2010 11:19:51 | Already a thread on this rehash of minor(lesser?) artifacts. |
| #3Tony_VargasAug 23, 2010 20:18:39 | From the Article:"Second, characters cannot normally create or buy rare items. They are simply too hard to find to show up in the hands of a merchant or trader. You must find them or, at the DM’s option, track down the rare and wondrous reagents needed to create one. You can’t simply stock up on them or buy one for each item slot." This is /exactly/ how all magic items (other than potions and scrolls) worked in 1e. Everyone remember how /wonderfully well-balanced/ magic items were in 1e? How they never caused any trouble? No? Me neither.
There is only a soft "less than half the items found" guideline for uncommon items. More room for the DM to mess up. Common items are basically a slot tax, you need to get those Enhancement bonuses to stay on the 4e treadmill, since the monsters and challenges get harder every level, but you only get better every other level. Flip the damn 'inherent bonuses' switch and be done with it.
The 'feedback' the article says they've been gettting about items starting to overshadow character choices would seem to echo that ancient complaint. Players want their character to be special and defining (in ways they choose), not their character's sword to be special and defining (in ways chosen by the DM).
One of the complaints mentioned in the article was: "Particularly at high levels, a character’s boots, armor, gloves, belt, weapon, and other gear add quite a few powers and abilities that might overshadow other character aspects." So, having too many items dailies was a problem. The solution: scrap the limit on item dailies. ??? Characters will still have multiple item dailies. There'll be less effort to assure that they're balanced and don't overshadow character abilities - that responsibility is being pushed on the DM. Characters will get to use /all/ their item dailies, every day. So, they're not likely sell an item with a daily - it might come in handy, and it's always available.
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| #4ADHadhAug 24, 2010 6:14:08 | It looks like, after all, the rarities are going to be just another keyword to be a guide for building trasure parcels. Just like monster roles are guidelines to build encounters. It's not really that big of a deal, except for amount of errata for Adventurer's Vaults. |
| #5Axiomatic_BadgerAug 24, 2010 10:22:33 | Know what would really help against having characters loaded down with magic items? Having something else you can spend your money on. How about letting characters buy extra class powers, or class features? There's a way to sort magic items and also allow you to design class features that kick in after level 1. Easy. Or how about having a player-handbook version of grandmaster training so that the naughty item powers instead become character powers? Hell, how about putting a price tag on feats? There are more than a few who wouldn't look out of place as rituals, and is there really that big a difference between "Gloves of Thievery +3" and "pay 9000gp to get Skill Focus: Thievery"? To be truthful, I've been wondering about this ever since 4e was released. Maybe I should write an e-mail. Hmmmmm. |
| #6GhostStepperAug 24, 2010 20:19:20 | Common items are basically a slot tax, you need to get those Enhancement bonuses to stay on the 4e treadmill, since the monsters and challenges get harder every level, but you only get better every other level. Flip the damn 'inherent bonuses' switch and be done with it. God, yes. The +X items are a sacred cow that really really needed to die when them made 4E. +X items cause more trouble than they are worth without really adding anything substantial to the game. Just give characters the number they are supposed to have anyway and let magic items be cool because they have interesting abilities, not because they have the number that you need to function at your level. The 'feedback' the article says they've been gettting about items starting to overshadow character choices would seem to echo that ancient complaint. Players want their character to be special and defining (in ways they choose), not their character's sword to be special and defining (in ways chosen by the DM). Thats exactly what i thought when i read the article. I seemed to get from the article that "People told us that they are unhappy that magic items are overshadowing their characters, so we've decided to add more powerful items to the game and get rid of any limits on how many item powers you can use." Er...wtf? Know what would really help against having characters loaded down with magic items? I totally agree. The problem is that most players are going to spend their money on what is the most advantagous. This is exactly why we have problems with items now. Players spend all their cash on things that are giving them the best mechanical advantage (items) instead of other potentially cool stuff. Frankly, id rather the PCs buy up castles or land or shops or whatever instead of tying their wealthy up in a +5 sword. It seems kinda ridiculous. How about letting characters buy extra class powers, or class features? There's a way to sort magic items and also allow you to design class features that kick in after level 1. Easy. I kinda agree. The upside to this is that players can actually get the abilities that they want, which adds a layer of transparency to the whole song and dance that is the Item Wishlist and Enchant Magic Item Ritual. More than ever before, items have become just another way to customize your character and so letting players just pick the powers they want would make a lot of players happy. On the other hand, letting you buy powers and feats at the expense of magic items not only adds a possibly obscene level of min-maxing brokeness but it also exacerbates the problem of PCs amassing more wealth than a kingdom only to spend it on the ability to knock people down on a charge (an epic feart). |
| #7j0nny_5Aug 24, 2010 20:42:12 | When players start new characters for whatever reason, they're "rewarded" a complete item makeover. Though the lower items may be cheap, things like Acrobatic Boots more than make up for it. That said, especially if you kill characters a lot or they like to change all the time, it's imperative you allow the other characters to choose their own items, at least once per tier. In my current campaign, one of their first quests after hitting paragon tier was ambushing a rogue weapons dealer, dealing arms to the opposing forces. Naturally they killed him and took his stuff. Their reward was recreating their character at their current level. Nothing changed for a couple people, but the others had a hay day. A good reward for sticking with a character... and not dying. |
| #8jaden1Aug 24, 2010 23:13:44 | I have an idea... |
| #9GazraAug 25, 2010 0:20:55 |
That might mean something if WoW didn't owe its entire existence to D&D and Wizards of the Coast hadn't been using the common/uncommon/rare system since 10 years before WoW existed. |
| #10CaericAug 25, 2010 2:20:17 | There's a hard guideline for giving out rare items - 1 per character per tier. That's not a bad guideline. It's still a guideline, though, leaving the DM plenty of room to screw up by giving too many or too-powerful rare items out. I don't see how you have any room to screw up. It's like the "don't feed them after midnight" rule. The only way people screw up is to deliberately go against it knowingly. It's not like rare items are going to be subtle; they're character-defining. If your PCs have them, you'll know it. Any half-decent DM will also ask, and make sure they keep themselves up to date. Since they're the ones handing out these items, it is not a major task. I know that this rule involves a risk of human error, but it's really, really simple. One item per character per tier. One item. Per character. Per tier. And, afterall, part of the point of rare items is that they won't be carefully balanced, they'll be quite potent for their 'level.' Rare items probably are still carefully balanced, because they still can't utterly break the game in any mainstream character builds (and ideally, not even any niche ones). They're just awesome because you get to use them all the time. If I had to categorize one existing item as a potential Rare, it's the Boots of Teleportation. At-will teleportation up to your speed is most definately character-defining and crazy-powered. |
| #11ThomsonAug 25, 2010 3:37:58 | I don't see how you have any room to screw up. There is always room to screw up ;) |
| #12JohnLynchAug 25, 2010 4:48:43 | Frankly, id rather the PCs buy up castles or land or shops or whatever instead of tying their wealthy up in a +5 sword. It seems kinda ridiculous. It would help if there were guidelines on what such things cost. As it is, I have to make an arbitrary number, or go to different editions for the info. |
| #13Style75Aug 25, 2010 5:16:41 |
Jaden1 has made 20 posts so far and all of them have been slamming Essentials. Many of them compare WoTC to Blizzard and 4e to WoW. Axe to grind? Or simply out to stir up trouble? |
| #14Tony_VargasAug 25, 2010 5:21:29 | And, afterall, part of the point of rare items is that they won't be carefully balanced, they'll be quite potent for their 'level.' What makes you think they won't have some game-breaking potential? The article came right out and said they're counting on the rarity of these, and uncomon, items to make brokenness less of a problem. When they knew full well that potential brokeness was a very real potential problem, because players could make/buy anything, they went ahead and gave us bloodclaw weapons and veteran's armor. Maybe I'm cynical - OK, acutally, I am definitely cynical - but I don't find the possiblity that WotC could publish some broken items, and DMs could handle out more of 'em than they should at all remote. Actually, I think Murphy's Law can be expected to aply to both. |
| #15visanidethdmAug 25, 2010 5:29:32 | And, afterall, part of the point of rare items is that they won't be carefully balanced, they'll be quite potent for their 'level.' I don't know how familiar you are with the CharOp boards, but the "every item is accessible as long as the player pays" system was leading to an optimization model where characters were pushing 300 damage per round, 40 of which due to class abilities and such, 20 to exploiting a feat or power, and 240 based on magic-items-on-demand. The new system simply puts the control back into the DM's hands, and allows WotC not to spend the vast majority of their errata time fixing magic items and double checking every single printed magic item with every single other magic item and power. Sure, DMs always had the power to say "no", but when the system tells you that you're supposedly entitled to have whatever item you want, it's as arbitrary as saying that you won't get a class level when you're supposed to. |
| #16Damon_TorAug 25, 2010 5:49:43 | A critical problem with the "1 per character per tier" model. DM: You find a glowing staff, and upon study, it's a staff of Uberpwn! It's just what you've always wanted, wizard! Wizard: I like my architect's staff for roleplay reasons. Besides, the Uberpwn property won't work with magic missile, wall of fire... Sorcerer: I'll take it! DM: No, you already have a... Wizard: He can have it. DM: He already has a rare item. Sorcerer: Is there a reason, in game, my sorcerer couldn't pick up this staff? DM: ... The staff vanishes. It was an illusion or something! Sorcerer: ... or... DM:... as your final breath leaves your, body, you sail into the waiting arms of Corellon. Wizard: Alright, rolling up a new char. Toss me my laptop. Sorcerer: Dibs on his staff of Uberpwn. DM: You can't take that staff, you already had a rare item this tier. Sorcerer: Is there a reason... DM: The wizard's body vanishes. The wizard was an illusion! Wizard: No I wasn't... DM: You are dead! You cannot talk! Anyway, it breaks down into, "how do you actually limit these items to their intended player?" What if the player hates the weapon you give him, and wanted rare armor? He'll have to wait till the next tier to get it? |
| #17Style75Aug 25, 2010 6:46:33 | A critical problem with the "1 per character per tier" model. You don't limit them to one player. Give it to the party and let them do with it as they please. But, as a DM I'd give the party one rare item per person per tier. If they chose not to use it and let their buddy have two... Oh well, that's too bad for them. Life in D&D is supposed to be hard, a challenge just to stay alive. I HATE the Santa's wishlist/"buy what I want when I want it" rules originally put forward by 4e. Putting control back in the hands of the DM is long overdue. It fixes a lot of problems with regard to power creep and unfun min/max game breakers. |
| #18Axiomatic_BadgerAug 25, 2010 6:47:44 | ninjad |
| #19Tony_VargasAug 25, 2010 6:48:16 | I don't know how familiar you are with the CharOp boards, More familiar than I'd like, less so than a lot of other people. but the "every item is accessible as long as the player pays" system was leading to an optimization model where characters were pushing 300 damage per round, 40 of which due to class abilities and such, 20 to exploiting a feat or power, and 240 based on magic-items-on-demand No, broken items were leading to that model. 3.x and 4e use cost as a way of gauging and balancing magic items. 4e's aproach was even more extreme than 3.x's, making items above you level impossibly expensive, and those more than a little below outrageously cheap. That meant any item below about 25th level needed to be balanced even if many copies of it could be obtained. If an item's broken, yes, WotC should fix it. If they don't want to waste effort fixing broken items, they should try not to make so many broken ones. If they don't have the resources to do /that/, maybe they could just take a break and not publish an AV3 for a while. There are already plenty of items. Instead, they're nixing a good mechanic - item dailies @ milestones, which encourages multi-encounter days - keeping the problematic mechanic, and taping over it with an arbitrary, new mechanic, that simply pushes the responsibility for broken items on the DM. This isn't the first time a game company has decided to put out bad rules and sell them as 'empowering.' WWGS had a very successful product called 'Storyteller' that got away with that for a decade. But, I'm a cynical old gamer, and I've been wise to that particular flash of mirror and puff of smoke for a long time. Sure, DMs always had the power to say "no", but when the system tells you that you're supposedly entitled to have whatever item you want, it's as arbitrary as saying that you won't get a class level when you're supposed to. BTW, the best way I've ever seen of handling magic items was in the Hero System. Items your character had were simply part of his build. If you wanted a character with few or many or no items, you could do it and still be perfectly effective. If you wanted to keep a found item, you scraped together character points and added it to your build. 4e could have gone that route, eschewing money as a balancing factor, and making items a feature tied to build and player choices. |
| #20Axiomatic_BadgerAug 25, 2010 6:51:30 | The point of the wishlist is quite simple. PC: "I am Almanthorax, Sword-Wizard of The Ice Tower! Behold as my enemies crumble before my many varied and cruel Ice Powers! Beware, for Winter IS UPON YOU!" *PC Picks up sword" DM: "Now you can alter your powers so they do Fire Damage." PC: "Why do you hate me?" |
| #21visanidethdmAug 25, 2010 8:50:27 | No, broken items were leading to that model. 3.x and 4e use cost as a way of gauging and balancing magic items. 4e's aproach was even more extreme than 3.x's, making items above you level impossibly expensive, and those more than a little below outrageously cheap. That meant any item below about 25th level needed to be balanced even if many copies of it could be obtained. If an item's broken, yes, WotC should fix it. If they don't want to waste effort fixing broken items, they should try not to make so many broken ones. If they don't have the resources to do /that/, maybe they could just take a break and not publish an AV3 for a while. There are already plenty of items. You state that you're a very experienced player, so you should know that power creep and unwanted synergies are inevitable in a system so complex and so alive as D&D is. If the alternative to running the risk of creating exploitable items or powers is delaying or stopping the release of new material, such alternative is gonna be unwanted for both the gamers and the company. Ultimately, magic items and min maxing and exploits and char opping and synergies should be left to the wisdom of people to handle; WotC should try to fix all mistakes it can, but at the end of the day, the power scale of a group depends on how the group wants to play. There may be groups that have loads of fun using the most abusive but still legal and acceptable combination of abilities and items and groups who take a simulationist approach and roleplay their paladin clinging to a +3 longsword because it's a family memento. The difference in performance between an optimized and unoptimized group can be massive and honestly any attempt to railroad gamers in either direction will result in disaster. Yes, broken items should be kept to minimum and fixed asap; however, a system where magic items are an on-demand luxury is unbalanced because not only it forces the group to follow its most min-maxing player, but also because it can create severe issues when some classes have access to still unfixed "exploits" and others don't. Now, the problem with daily uses is another thing; I didn't mind the old system, but I understand it was a severe problem for variety and design. Some powers were so much better than others that you ended never using anything but your best item powers over and over and over. And a single overpowered ability was worth stacking identical items for. The new system isn't perfect, but it fixes the issue by removing the availability of the most powerful items from the pure realm of player's decisions (thus forbidding players from stacking the best "daily power" items) and allows us to use those quirkier, less powerful but still fun powers without worrying about being unable to trigger our SuperMcGuffinOfExtraAttacks later on. |
| #22Tony_VargasAug 25, 2010 10:09:45 | You state that you're a very experienced player, so you should know that power creep and unwanted synergies are inevitable in a system so complex and so alive as D&D is. 'Experienced?' Meh, 'Old & Cynical.' Power inflation is common in certain types of games. D&D is one of them. It's not a function of complexity. It's a matter of the game's fundamental mechanical aproach. D&D has always added new material by adding new mechanics. It's "list based." You have a list of classes, list of spells, list of 'powers.' They're mechanics. Adding a new class or spell or power or whatever adds new mechanics. Each time you add a new mechanic to the list, it could be broken, or it could break something else, or it could be combined with something else in some broken way. It's not because the game /is/ complex or because it still has new material being published. It's because you can't publish new material for it without adding mechanics, making it more complex, and, ultimately, ruining it. Power inflation is only part of that. You can have power inflation that's simple and intentional - and avoidable. But, when you add to a list-based system, the unintended synergies that don't quite actually break everything, do add new options that allow slightly more powerful exploits to be created. That kind of power inflation is inevitable as long as you add to the game. It's only the symptom, though. As you add to a list-based game, any balance it may have had becomes more and more fragile, and prone to breaking more dramatically when it does break. Eventually, it becomes all but unplayable. One reason D&D has gone through so many versions (and it's significnatly more than 4), is that it /needs/ to be re-set periodically, to undo the self-inflicted damage. 4e showed some promise on several levels, one of them was that the use of keywords could have made the game less dependent on introducing new mechanics. Unfortunately, 'exception based design,' was the other side of that coin. If the alternative to running the risk of creating exploitable items or powers is delaying or stopping the release of new material, such alternative is gonna be unwanted for both the gamers and the company. Well, it's unwanted for the company, certainly, if they have a corporate parent breathing down their knecks for revenue growth. I think many gamers would be happy getting less material of better quality over a longer time horizon. Afterall, how long does it take to play a campaign from 1-30? There were enough builds in the PH (~18) for a typical group to play two 1-30 campaigns, without anyone playing a character that was too similar to one from the first. If you bought the 3 core books when they came out, and started a campaign, playing once a week, every week, 3 encounters per session, you'd be about mid-Epic today. a system where magic items are an on-demand luxury is unbalanced because not only it forces the group to follow its most min-maxing player, but also because it can create severe issues when some classes have access to still unfixed "exploits" and others don't. There are several things going on here. You have a make/buy system for acquiring magic items, a rapid pace of release for new material, broken stuff, and fixes for it that don't quite keep up. Restricting make/buy partially masks the other problems. Now, the problem with daily uses is another thing; I didn't mind the old system, but I understand it was a severe problem for variety and design. I don't see it. The 4e system accomplished three things with one mechanics: it encouraged players to press on instead of resting after reaching a milestone, limitted the potential for items to overshadow PC abilities, and limitted the abuse of multiple daily items. The old AD&D system that Essentials harkens back to did none of those things. It encouraged the party to cut a 'day' short so their items, as well as spells, could re-charage. It made possessing some powerful/distinctive item(s) the defining trait of many characters. It made seeking powerful items a major focus of the game (and metagame). The new system isn't perfect, but it fixes the issue by removing the availability of the most powerful items from the pure realm of player's decisions (thus forbidding players from stacking the best "daily power" items) and allows us to use those quirkier, less powerful but still fun powers without worrying about being unable to trigger our SuperMcGuffinOfExtraAttacks later on. If a designer or DM wants a quirky/fun/less-powerful item to see use, just don't make it a daily. That's not difficult. And, while the old-school aproach of some items being 'normally' unobtainable, was meant to restrict access to items that were otherwise overly powerful, in practice, players who wanted such items either managed to get them, or made the DMs task all the harder with their constant chasing after items, rumors of items, legend lore results for items, key components for items, etc, etc.... And, of course, that aproach was only as good at preventing an overpowered item from wrecking things as the DM was good at predicting such eventualities. In short, it's a proven failure. |
| #23Tony_VargasAug 25, 2010 10:52:08 | Goddamnit WotC fix your server farms. Re typing every post is getting old. Speaking of stupid retro tricks, you could compose your posts in a text editor. You won't have to re-type, just copy-paste. |
| #24visanidethdmAug 25, 2010 12:36:57 | Tony_Vargas; In short, it's a proven failure. I have an hard time picturing myself as part of the "it doesn't matter what they change, I love it" crowd. I'm usually a loud complainer. I admit I'm often defending WotC over this Essentials issue because the reaction of the "omg chaaaaaaaaange it's x.5!!!" crowd is absolutely hysterical. I promise you, as do fundamentally all the sources who actually saw the Essentials in action, that this thing will become the biggest bubble in RPG history. Essentials are nowhere near what people is making them out to be. I find them a fundamentally uninteresting product (but WotC knows and stuffed them with so much cool stuff that you end up wanting them for the props and stuff) for veteran players, and they will leave the game fundamentally unchanged. You wanna know what Essentials are? Unearthed Arcana, the third edition version. A bunch of fundamentally optional things that are too different from the core material (but still compatible) to be put in direct numerical continuity. What happened here is that Essentials forced WotC to sit down and re-evaluate all mechanics of the game. A natural consequence is that Essentials will be partnered by a particularly heavy wave of erratas, but that's to be expected when you try to design a fundamentally different game that is still compatible with your core product. |
| #25Tony_VargasAug 26, 2010 17:31:46 | Tony_Vargas; In short, it's a proven failure. Essentials has been giving us a lot of Jeckle/Hyde make-overs, I think. ;) I'm usually pretty sanguine about new editions. 2e was a decent cleanup of 1e, even if it was way behind the curve, I was happy to switch to it at the time. 3e was great. 3.5 was fine - it fixed some things, broke others, whatever - the only mistake there was obsoleting so much 'new' material so soon. 4e was great - I never thought D&D could be modernized and balanced to such an extent without completely ceasing to be D&D (OK, 4e is much less D&Dish than prior eds, but it still looks and feels a lot more like D&D than I thought possible). I generally evaluate rule changes in terms of balance and impact on campaigns. The previews of Essentials really don't look too promising in that regard. And, the combination of recent updates and previews of the promised massive update in October, make it look like it's going to be many more changes along the same lines - that is, badly balanced rule changes to restore the retro feel. So that puts me on the Reactionary side of these discussions more than I'd like. You wanna know what Essentials are? Unearthed Arcana, the third edition version. A bunch of fundamentally optional things that are too different from the core material (but still compatible) to be put in direct numerical continuity. See, this is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if people aren't being flat-out uncritical apologists. On the one hand you're saying that Essentials is basically a bunch of new options that are perfectly compatible. On the other hand, that optional, compatible, stuff 'naturally' means that all the mechanics of the game need to be re-evaluated and then heavly updated, to match the 'new direction.' That makes no sense. I could see: "There's some new, optional stuff coming out, it's cool and different and lets you play the game in a whole new way, if you want - but it's compatible with everything that's already out, so there's no need to make major changes to existing material, you can keep on playing as-is if you don't use the new options." Or: "There's a new revision of the game coming out, but don't worry, nothing's going to be obsolete, because we're issuing errata that will bring all existing 4e material up-to-date - that's why we've been calling them 'updates' all this time, they're not just errata, they're updates." I don't have to like optional material or a new revision, but at least either of those announcements would have made sense. |
| #26Neutronium_DragonAug 27, 2010 1:59:55 | How many of those mechanics re-evaluations would have occurred regardless? We've seen enough debate about many of the points being addressed that many of them probably would have been in the offing at some point, and Essentials may have just presented a convenient place to package them all together along with the new material that Essentials was meant to introduce. |
| #27vzzrrkktiberias7Aug 27, 2010 7:50:39 | We tried an experiment. Was pretty fun. We used only classes from the phb1 and fought 5 levels (3-7) of play against MM2 monsters. The MM2 saw a lowering of the defenses and hit points but increasing damage output. We had a terrific time against them and lost 2 characters. We then used classes only from the phb2 against the mm2 monsters. It was insightful to see how much better the phb2 classes faired compared to the phb1. We never lost a character and they mowed the monsters down! Warden and Avenger are evil (but so very fun). Power creep- yep. Do I care- nope. It all washes out in the end. |
| #28Cyber-DaveAug 27, 2010 12:54:43 | Ok, so, on the topic of rare items: I like the new rules, but I wish they were being introduced as an optional set of new rules instead of a wholesale errata replacement. The reason why is because I don't think the new rules work best for all types of games. For example, when running Eberron I plan to allow any character with a House Cannith dragonmark to continue to make common and uncommon items, and I plan to allow characters buying items from house Cannith to buy uncommon items with ease. In light of this, I plan to continue to use the restriction on uses of daily magic items. When running Dark Sun, the new magic item rules work great. Now, I can house rule things as I see fit, and I will. But it would be nice if both the older 4e magic item rules, and thew essential magic item rules, became options that a DM can choose from (instead of the game "offically" supporting one set of rules). Because, lets be honest, this change does not "fix" the game. Nothing was broken with the old mechanics. Rather, this change caters to a group of players that didn't like the old (4e) way. But, some players did like the old (4e) way. As such, it would be nice if the game explicilty stated, "we support both ways, choose wich way works best for your group." |
| #29Tony_VargasAug 27, 2010 17:01:10 | How many of those mechanics re-evaluations would have occurred regardless? We've seen enough debate about many of the points being addressed that many of them probably would have been in the offing at some point, and Essentials may have just presented a convenient place to package them all together along with the new material that Essentials was meant to introduce. It doesn't matter if there's a boatload of bad rule changes coming into port with 'Essentials' written on the bow, or with 'Updates' on the bow, they're still full of bad rule changes, and the shore batteries need to start firing on them. |