this being said the only magic items we have gotten so far are the sword our cleric uses a magic +1 bow for the ranger and a +1 dagger for our rogue other wise we have jack squat as far as items go. would i be justified in walking into a magic store and just stealing ervery thing and fireballing any one who gets in my way? just looking for some oipinions on how i should handle our lack of gear.
i should mention this is a 3.5 game
I'd suggest catching your DM alone, and having a conversation which starts pretty much as this post did. "I want you to know, I respect you as a DM, you know your stuff, and I usually have a great time in your games. However, I thought you should know that I've got a lot of frustration with the current game. My character's level 7, and doesn't own a single magic item. When we even get close to having enough gold for me to get something I'd really like, you take it away from us, without even giving us a chance to save it. It's taking away from my fun to be this frustrated, what can we do?"
Be open, be honest, understand he might have decided that this was going to be a low-magic campaign (although he SHOULD have explained that at the outset), listen as much as you talk, and see if you can work things out.
Ask the DM if this is purposefully a low magic game that wasn't advertised as such.
Now of course other DMs will come in here and say hit him with a hammer or other such nonsense.
It's his campaign. But apparently, he wants it low magic / zero to little treasure.
If he won't hear you out, and won't work with you, bail, or offer to run a game with lots of magic for the rest of the group.
A wizard would never find nor could by spells.
Other casters were always pricks (usually the BBEG)
No to little magic (told us this from the biggening)
Took everything away from the PCs about 2 or 3 times before we even leveled up (with this i lost many mwk weapons)
He allowed everyone to start with a mwk weapon or armor but took it way on the first session
The group came across a powerfull atifact (a dagger) that causes people around it to become paranoid (think the ring in LotR). Because of this almost the whole group died.
Almost no encounter was design to actualy be faught. It seemed as if every encounter was salved by running away, cercomvent, or diplomacy.
When ever there was a fight it always seemed like it was a TPK.
Everyone was eliterate unless the were a cleric, wizard, or bard.
We played 3.5 and the DM new almost no 3.5 rules (he was a 2ed purist)
He used 3 edition adventures but didn't convert some monsters to their 3.5 equivilant
I eventually left the group for some of the reasons listed above because I decided enough was enough. Talk with yuor dm and if there can't be and understanding nor compromise then you may need to find a new group so that you can have more enjoyment within your games.
thanks for the advice i think i will talk to him about it just a little frustrating is all hes a hard core 2nd edition player where magic items were a little harder to cvome by or so i hear so it may just be he hasnt adapted his play style. thanks for the responses though.
This.
Magic in AD&D was "rare and precious", and it wasn't unusual for the most powerful magic item in a party of Level 7 PCs to be a +1 longsword. He's stuck in the past, and may not understand that the mechanical underpinnings of D&D 3.5 (and 4.0) assume level-appropriate equipment within the guidelines given in the DMG.
Not following those guidelines is fine, but he'll need to tweak the difficulty of your encounters to compensate. He may already be doing this without your knowledge.
The best solution here is to run your concerns past the DM outside of game time. Is the game fun even without all the magic items? Do enemies use a lot of magic against you? Heck you have 2 sorcerors a cleric and a healer...who the heck needs any more magic in a party.
this being said the only magic items we have gotten so far are the sword our cleric uses a magic +1 bow for the ranger and a +1 dagger for our rogue other wise we have jack squat as far as items go. would i be justified in walking into a magic store and just stealing ervery thing and fireballing any one who gets in my way? just looking for some oipinions on how i should handle our lack of gear.
...
...Wow, no seriously, wow.
I have heard of low magic, but that is pretty LOW.
You definitely need to have a conversation with the DM as others have said. A group I played with once decided on a low magic campaign in 3.5 and we made a bunch of changes to the rules. 1 bonus feat to start, and one feat every even level, an ability increase every 3 levels, and followed the GOOD save and GOOD base attack bonus progression. It was kind different, but it was fun. And my Rogue was EPIC, without actually being epic.
And we STILL had much more magic than what you describe.
I would say avoid tanking it out of frustration in the game. And despite the rage, do not resort to violence. Just let him know that this style isn't quite what you had in mind, and see if there is a way he could make it more appealing to you and some of the other players. If he is unwilling, then... dude, you need to find a new group.
Good luck, with it. :D
its true we have a ton of spell casters and yea the game has been really fun so far but the hardest thing we have fought so far was a cr8 demon when we were all lvl 5 and had to be saved by an npc other wise its been a strict diet of gnolls, zombies and worgs...
I hate it when the DM's favorite NPCs come to the rescue. Hello? If the session was balanced in the first place you don't have to send in your NPCs to the rescue.
As far as fighting only gnolls, zombies and worgs... can you say, boring?
I hope he is at least giving them class levels to keep in interesting.
Don't get me wrong, I think a low magic campaign can be done right, with flavor and panache. But the group has to make adjustments in order to make it competitive and fair.
Have fun! :D
I have been DMing/Playing steady for the past 10-15 years, and I usually run low to mid magic campaigns like Ravenloft and Greyhawk. With 4e, I decided to break that trend, do my own homebrew world, and go "by the book". The DMGs treasure parcels give out about four magic items per level.
As a DM I'm not a big fan of find a (magic) necklace here, find a +2 sword here, buy magic armor in the shop there, come upon a belt here.
Instead if my players say want a special item like a +2 axe of fire. They can let me know as a DM, and I can have them go to the "Volcanoes of Doom" or what have you, where it was last heard of. Now while they are in there they might come across a few more magic items, but certainly not at the rate I had been doing it.
That said, I have told my players of this ahead of time so they can decide on what they want to do. I don't want to just do this and have them wondering four sessions down the road why they aren't finding anything UBERZ. I'm not going to be as stingy with magic and only have a magic item or two at 7th level, but they may go a level or two without finding magical armors and weapons on occasion. I just don't want them laying in every dungeon or have the party loaded down with them. That said a trinket or two here and there isn't so bad. Also BBEGs tend to leave good stuff lying around.
I think if you go explicitly by the DMG a 7th level party should have roughly 28 magical items. In my future games it'd probably be cut back to 10-12 at that level. I'll be making some adjustments to monsters and challenges but I won't be bringing them down evenly to the T. But my homebrew is meant to be a little tougher, and gritter. Be that as it may, the encounters won't be impossible of course but a bit tougher the PCs may have to be more sparing when they take rests and heal and stuff and stretch it out a little further than they may be normally comfortable with.
Check this out, if hes "old school" this may reflect that:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=412772
Under Rewards:
8g: Rewards
For their efforts players usually deserve something in return; for some players they are the draw of the game. As was discussed previously the average XP for a longish session is expected to be 3-5, which means that XP is a reward that is given out only for dealing with the larger and more complicated hooks. Thus XP is not the standard reward. Money, and things that can be sold for money, is. Now this is not to say that every hook should, up front, have a cash value associated with it (although some might). In most cases the money is a byproduct of dealing with the hook (for example, the bandits probably have money and equipment that can be sold). Don’t worry about the players having too much money – after they have bought the best gear there is not much they can do with it, and mages need a constant income. (Although it is important not to give them so much that their army of paid help can deal with every problem for them, at least not until later in the game when you are ready to throw “large scale” problems at them.) Finally, magical items should never be given out as a reward. Every magic item is unique and has a long history, and thus are too significant to simply fall into the players’ hands by chance. The only way that they players should come to own a magical item is by explicitly searching for it (if it is lost) or explicitly setting out to take it from its current owner.
Also this:
http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_63/3019000/3019374/1/print/3019374.pdf
These may help you see where you DM is coming from as well.
As a DM I'm not a big fan of find a (magic) necklace here, find a +2 sword here, buy magic armor in the shop there, come upon a belt here.
As I player, I also think this method of delivering magic to a party is silly. When did fantasy worlds turn into hodge podge collections of hobos walking around wearing mismatched socks, plaid leather vests and helmets that are too big?
That is not what most of the fantasy art I look at reflects.
Players should be responsible for outfitting themselves and searching for what they need, but DMs need to be responsive.
ME: :D I need another Wand. "Hey, Bart the Bard, is there a town near here?"
BART: "Um... I dunno, why?"
ME: "I want to buy a new wand, and get my other one charged up."
BART: DM? Is there a town with a decent magic shop or powerful Wiz nearby?
DM: Roll your Bardic Knowledge.
BART: Rolls... 37 (not really but those checks always seem high)
DM: The town of Sutter's Gate lies through the forest to the east about a days travel. Even though it is a humble little hamlet, there is a powerful Wizard that resides there who is known to explore the old mines, and conduct research on the species that live within.
BART: To me: What he said.
ME: To Party: "Lets go stock up, relax, spend some money. Do they have a smithy?"
BART: DM?
DM: Yes.
BART: "Yup, while we are at it we can get our armor repaired. Sounds good."
ME: "Maybe the Wizard can take some time to enchant my Rapier some more? I do have some extra gold from our last dungeon."
As far as big magic items go, I agree quests should always be the way to go. If you have a +1 Rapier and you want it to be +3, quest, make money, and pay a Wizard to do it for you. If you want a Keen +5 Rapier of Wounding,
, then you should have to research where such a weapon may have been heard of, and then go get it. 
this being said the only magic items we have gotten so far are the sword our cleric uses a magic +1 bow for the ranger and a +1 dagger for our rogue other wise we have jack squat as far as items go. would i be justified in walking into a magic store and just stealing ervery thing and fireballing any one who gets in my way? just looking for some oipinions on how i should handle our lack of gear.
1) So, other than you wanting items, have you actually needed them?
2) If your adventures aren't yielding much magical loot (or even $), why do you think that you'll be able to find "a magic store"??? Hasn't it struck you that had the DM wanted to see you decked out you'd have more $/magic by now?
As for wether you'd be justified in looting & fireballing such a place (should it exist), are you evil? Or merely poor (in your opinion).
And are you prepared for the consequences of such action?
3) Has it occured to you that the DM likely has a completely different idea about loot than you do? Perhaps you're playing in a lower-magic campaign.
im a srocerer with an ac of 12
Really? 7th level. 3.5 campaign. Ac of 12? Wow. Now that IS low magic.
But, CCS makes a good point, if you haven't needed any magic items yet, maybe the DM has made the low magic campaign adjustments appropriately and he just didn't tell you about it. You need to talk to him and find out, what it is he has in mind.
Let him know your concerns, and that you were hoping for a campaign with a little more magic.
Good Luck.:D
cause we did find a magic store that was in the town we sailed too in the smugglers boat that was carrying all of our cash that ended up burning in the river with all of our money on board. as far as needing magical items im a srocerer with an ac of 12 a bracer of defense couldnt hurt now could it?
Could you post your character, maybe we can see what you got (mundane too) and stats.
why do DM's feel the need to host a low magic campaign, is it that more fun, surely it doesn't equal more fun for the players, it's just about the DM controling the players, players needed to run from equal CR enemies because of the lack of descent magic items and what about the disparity between classes who need magic loot (fighter types, wizards, ...) more than others (druid, sorcerer, monk, ...)
I think it CAN be run well but that doesn't always mean that it IS run well. In our campaign that was low magic, the monsters and NPCs were all in the same boat as the players so it was pretty balanced, and like I said the feat, skill, and attribute progression was greater.
It was actually pretty fun. :D
I wouldn't want to play every game like that, but there is nothing wrong with variety.
But if the magic is out there and you DM is foiling you at every turn, then you should make the focus of the characters to seek out the booty and go get it. Say 'Sure, we'll save the kingdom, but, Mr Kingy, first you must either outfit us, or allow us to go off and find some suitable kindom-saving kit first.'