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Interesting article today.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4wand/20140122

I filled out the questionnaire and the last poll was interesting. It talks about creatures who can only be hit by magic weapons and how you, as the player think of them.

Only 8% of respondents said there should be no such thing in the game.
41% said there should always be another weakness to compensate.
20% said they suck for fighters/rogues with no magic weapons but are good for magic-users
29% said they are fine.

I think that its great that WOTC is making magic item aquisition once again a DM/campaign decision. Expected items by level needed to die a long time ago.

Yeah, I prefer it to a decision overall, though to be honest, 6-8 items per person sounds about right what we've been doing all these years. Generally pre 3x, by level 5 we'd each have about:

-A +1 magic weapon
-A +1 suit of armor(if applicable), sometimes the fighter, cleric or paladin would have a +1 shield by now as well
-A misc. item(wizards would often have their first wand or so by now in addition)
-Some temporary ones scattered about(healing potions, scrolls), though not an excessive amount of them.

Then the amount we'd have wouldn't shoot up a ton, but we'd get better versions and maybe an extra misc item.

But the high levels? We'd have about 6-8 each. (A couple weapons, whatever armor, a shield if applicable, a couple misc. items each, and then some again temporary ones which we'd dole out.)

Some games we'd have more or less, but more often the 6-8 each felt about right in the high levels. It was enough that we felt like we earned some stuff, but not so much we were drowning in them. (We played Middle to Higher Magic worlds generally.)

A side note: Created items were not counted toward these-should a spellcaster wanted to create stuff, we'd end up with a couple more, but permanent items were more of a pain in the ass to make in those days so this didn't happen often.

Though interesting thing in regards to 'Magic by Level'-in the Rules Cyclopedia(or, well, old-style D&D) they have the chapter about 'Starting at higher levels', and actually gave guidelines for about how much magic someone might have in a typical, garden-variety campaign. The old formula was receiving as many gold pieces as the character did XP for whatever level they started at; they then gave a chart for rough costs of the items, and then the players got to pick. Another method was being allowed a number of items equal to half of a player's level of experience, and half of those are permanent. They made a point to mention that a high-level fighter often had a suit of magical armor, a magical shield, a couple permanent weapons, a few temporary ones like arrows, and a couple misc. items and some temporary stuff like potions.

However, the big difference here was the uses of words like 'often' and 'typical'-in other words, the GM was free to adjust these things as much as they wanted and it was much less written in stone-they only gave guidelines for rough estimates for starting at a higher level. It was a very useful chart to have, I'll say that, but I didn't feel like I was throwing the game off too much if I raised or lowered it by a bit.

I voted one category higher than the majority.  But I think that's because I play AD&D more than any other edition, and the modules were pretty full of magic items.

I am strongly against expected magic items per level like in 3e however.  Let that be up to the individual gaming group.

Also, I am favorable of monsters needing magical weapons to hit.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;725494I think that its great that WOTC is making magic item aquisition once again a DM/campaign decision. Expected items by level needed to die a long time ago.

+10.  Seriously.  Fuck the entitlement mentality, fuck it in many unsavory and illicit ways.

Quote from: Ravenswing;725518+10.  Seriously.  Fuck the entitlement mentality, fuck it in many unsavory and illicit ways.

I've heard a lot of folks harp about how you have to have expected items per level because of balance, because otherwise there's no way you could balance monster level 10 without knowing what stats the PCs all have, and since most stats are impacted by magic items, there you go.

I really don't agree with that at all. These are the type of people who like to say the game is broken because a level 20 Class X has a DPS of 0.002 less than that of Class Y.  The game doesn't need anywhere near that level of balance to be fun.  Never has.  It's a made up problem by the OCD crowd.

I had voted for the 'I like when monsters need magic, but give more than one choice' option. That's more or less where I like it to be, so I can open up what monsters I use a bit more. I think they should exist, though.

I voted 2nd to lowest number of magic items throughout pretty much, well except for low magic in wich case I voted lowest. Also voted positive to monsters requiring magic to hit (allthough it was a toss-up between that and silver - pre-3e silver mind you, not 3.5e golfbag silver; not taking the risk I chose the more restrictive option).

In my old group's pre-3e days magic items were always very rare and that's what I'm most comfortable with.

Of course it depends on the rest of the ruleset used, and the characters. A 1e, B/X or BECMI fighter really needs that sword+3. A 2e fighter with 18/* strength, weapon specialization (or mastery...:eek:!), and dual wielding doesn't really.

QuoteA 2e fighter with 18/* strength, weapon specialization (or mastery...!), and dual wielding doesn't really.

There's roughly, if I recall, about as many monsters that need magic to hit them in 2e, though. I'd say anyone at a decent level-unless the DM cuts them out-might want to have something to be able to hit them with(since 2e still ran off the 'If you don't have this weapon, you do nothing', instead of 3x's DR where if you hit it HARD enough you could possibly sneak through. Of course, if a table rarely uses those monsters or puts them in much later than yeah, he can get by without until then.

I always saw magic weapons as less about damage bonuses and more about a mix of +to hit(which was harder to come by than damage as it was), and the ability to actually do anything to the monster. 2e fighters could get more damage bonuses naturally, though, yes(UA gave fighters some more damage options in 1e, however.)

Quote from: Ravenswing;725518+10.  Seriously.  Fuck the entitlement mentality, fuck it in many unsavory and illicit ways.

And your response isn't entitlement?

WotC D&D has expectations built into the systems.  When the Dm refuses to follow those expectations the game suffers.

Quote from: Sommerjon;725535WotC D&D has expectations built into the systems.

And those were foolish expectations in 3e and 4e, ill-suited to the improvisational strengths of tabletop rpgs. I say this as someone who enjoyed both editions.

Of course a magic weapon will give you an unfair advantage against a lot of monsters, that's the point! That's why it's thrilling! If it's all perfectly scaled by level and expected monster encounters then awarding stat boost magic items is a waste of time.

(Of course I could argue that in many game formats levels themselves are a waste of time, but good luck prying your players away from that psychological crutch...)

Quote from: Azzy;725529There's roughly, if I recall, about as many monsters that need magic to hit them in 2e, though. I'd say anyone at a decent level-unless the DM cuts them out-might want to have something to be able to hit them with(since 2e still ran off the 'If you don't have this weapon, you do nothing', instead of 3x's DR where if you hit it HARD enough you could possibly sneak through. Of course, if a table rarely uses those monsters or puts them in much later than yeah, he can get by without until then.

I always saw magic weapons as less about damage bonuses and more about a mix of +to hit(which was harder to come by than damage as it was), and the ability to actually do anything to the monster. 2e fighters could get more damage bonuses naturally, though, yes(UA gave fighters some more damage options in 1e, however.)

Oh absolutely!
I can absolutely see giving said fighter a Magic weapon, or rather letting him find one, at some point. It'd probably be +1 or +2 though, maybe one of those "+1, +3 vs this or that foe" kinda weapons. Letting said fighter get his hands on something like a Vorpal Blade or similar would just be asking for trouble...well okay if armies of devils or something similarily insane like a mass Migration of evil Dragons is something that can be expected to show up, I guess it's fair for the fighter to have that kind of gear.

So in the end it'd depend on the campaign.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;725540And those were foolish expectations in 3e and 4e, ill-suited to the improvisational strengths of tabletop rpgs. I say this as someone who enjoyed both editions.

Of course a magic weapon will give you an unfair advantage against a lot of monsters, that's the point! That's why it's thrilling! If it's all perfectly scaled by level and expected monster encounters then awarding stat boost magic items is a waste of time.

(Of course I could argue that in many game formats levels themselves are a waste of time, but good luck prying your players away from that psychological crutch...)

If D&D didn't want players to have magic items, then there shouldn't be thousands of them in the books.

That cat's out of the bag, trying to stuff it back in.... not going to work.
It wont take long after Next is out when you will start seeing the posts about it.

Yeah, the Vorpal was a pretty special weapon for us as well. (We didn't use Mastery in 2e, FWIW-we used regular ol' specialization.) Holy Swords were rare too, but then again, paladins were rare in our games. The Sun Sword was a cool Holy Sword backup.

I actually really liked the +1/2, +X vs Y typed weapons myself-they were generally pretty tame but could come out with a surprise against the right varmit. I also liked Flametongues/Icebrands and things which weren't usually +5(I think the Flametongue was +1 or +2, the Frost brand +3.)

Generally, +1 or +2 was enough to get past a lot of the resistances in the game, +3 or greater came later enough on(giving a quick glance through my MM here, anyway). The cool thing about dragons was that they didn't have any resistances like this. I was a bit more likely to dole out higher bonused armor first.

Thinking back to this stuff, I admit I'm a big fan of those sorta more detailed swords rather than '+2' or whatever, though the basics have their place as well. (Note: with a lot of the above, I was referring to 1e/2e.)

Quote from: Sommerjon;725535And your response isn't entitlement?

WotC D&D has expectations built into the systems.  When the Dm refuses to follow those expectations the game suffers.

The game belongs to the participants, NOT the rules. Any expectations should be set by the ones playing the game.

When a rulebook tries to run a game played by human beings, the game suffers more.

I'm a bit ambivalent about monsters needing magic to be hit... I'd sort of prefer to handle it like how 3.x handled troll regeneration-- only magic weapons do lethal damage, but you can at least beat down an opponent slowly with any old weapon. 6-8 over a 20-level career sounds slightly low to me, but only because I sort of figure a player might end up trading up for a better weapon or armor a few times, or swapping out their wand as it runs out of charges, etc.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;725654The game belongs to the participants, NOT the rules. Any expectations should be set by the ones playing the game.

When a rulebook tries to run a game played by human beings, the game suffers more.

There is an expectation of play for any rules system.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;725522I've heard a lot of folks harp about how you have to have expected items per level because of balance, because otherwise there's no way you could balance monster level 10 without knowing what stats the PCs all have, and since most stats are impacted by magic items, there you go.

I really don't agree with that at all. These are the type of people who like to say the game is broken because a level 20 Class X has a DPS of 0.002 less than that of Class Y.  The game doesn't need anywhere near that level of balance to be fun.  Never has.  It's a made up problem by the OCD crowd.

Followed by ...

Quote from: Sommerjon;725535WotC D&D has expectations built into the systems.  When the Dm refuses to follow those expectations the game suffers.

And here I'd figured I'd have to go searching through saved posts and TBP in order to prove my point.

Whether 3.0 and successors were so tightly and ruthlessly designed that DMs were "forced" to give out X heaps of goodies to PCs of Y level has been a point hotly debated for a number of years now.  But those many, many threads over many forums has proven beyond the demurrals of anyone who is paying the least degree of attention that a whole whopping lot of D&D players believe it to be true.

Me, I think it's wargaming bullshit.  GMs figured out for decades, without charts or guidelines telling them how they were supposed to be doing it, what their parties could handle for opposition.  Gaming circles decided for themselves, without an idiotic one-WotC-size-fits-all, how fast their groups ought to rocket through the XP tables.  Those gamers didn't all suddenly turn into morons in 2000.

Plainly, though, a lot of groups believe today that they're supposed to obey the Challenge ratings, and a bunch of them like things that way.  Pretending that they're only a lunatic fringe is stupid.  They're not doing it that way because they're "OCD."  They're doing it that way because they think those are the rules of the game.

Quote from: Ravenswing;725706Plainly, though, a lot of groups believe today that they're supposed to obey the Challenge ratings, and a bunch of them like things that way.  Pretending that they're only a lunatic fringe is stupid.  They're not doing it that way because they're "OCD."  They're doing it that way because they think those are the rules of the game.[/COLOR]

My post didn't mean to imply that anyone following the rules was OCD, but rather that people who sat there calculating DPR to the thousandths place and saying the game is broken if their builds didn't balance out exactly are OCD.  There's really two discussions there, only somewhat related, with quite a bit of middle ground in between.  I.e., players who followed the magic item gp value guildeline because they thought it was a hard and fast rule, and those that thought following the guideline was critical because of how it integrated into the DPR values and therefore MUST be followed to figure out DPR.  The second group can't conceive of optional rules because that throws off their DPR calculations.  If that makes sense.

Quote from: Sommerjon;725700There is an expectation of play for any rules system.

A game should have well defined objectives of play. The expectations of the participants should compliment those objectives or a different game should be played.

Monsters that can only be hit with magic weapons are one of the things that make magic weapons special. However, I'm okay with making them vulnerable to non-weapon threats as well (fire, falling, sunlight, water).

Quote from: Ravenswing;725706Followed by ...



And here I'd figured I'd have to go searching through saved posts and TBP in order to prove my point.

Whether 3.0 and successors were so tightly and ruthlessly designed that DMs were "forced" to give out X heaps of goodies to PCs of Y level has been a point hotly debated for a number of years now.  But those many, many threads over many forums has proven beyond the demurrals of anyone who is paying the least degree of attention that a whole whopping lot of D&D players believe it to be true.

Me, I think it's wargaming bullshit.  GMs figured out for decades, without charts or guidelines telling them how they were supposed to be doing it, what their parties could handle for opposition.  Gaming circles decided for themselves, without an idiotic one-WotC-size-fits-all, how fast their groups ought to rocket through the XP tables.  Those gamers didn't all suddenly turn into morons in 2000.

Plainly, though, a lot of groups believe today that they're supposed to obey the Challenge ratings, and a bunch of them like things that way.  Pretending that they're only a lunatic fringe is stupid.  They're not doing it that way because they're "OCD."  They're doing it that way because they think those are the rules of the game.

I always love it when morons point back to one system saying, "See if you could do it there, you can do it in another system as well."

Quote from: Sommerjon;725793I always love it when morons point back to one system saying, "See if you could do it there, you can do it in another system as well."

Yup. When D&D stops being D&D its pretty hard to translate basic concepts such as retreat.

Quote from: RavenswingBut those many, many threads over many forums has proven beyond the demurrals of anyone who is paying the least degree of attention that a whole whopping lot of D&D players believe it to be true.

A majority of respondents right now to the WOTC poll (51%) say 6-8 magic items by 20th level, or less.  That's roughly 1 every 3 levels, or less.

Of the remaining respondents, 10% have no expectations at all, making it less that 40% who think it should be higher.

So it seems like a good majority think the quantity of magic items should be reduced from 3e/4e, and do not have expectations of 3e/4e quantities of magic items.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;725861Yup. When D&D stops being D&D its pretty hard to translate basic concepts such as retreat.

Except retreat in TSR D&D was up to the DM.

Quote from: Mistwell;725962A majority of respondents right now to the WOTC poll (51%) say 6-8 magic items by 20th level, or less.  That's roughly 1 every 3 levels, or less.

Of the remaining respondents, 10% have no expectations at all, making it less that 40% who think it should be higher.

So it seems like a good majority think the quantity of magic items should be reduced from 3e/4e, and do not have expectations of 3e/4e quantities of magic items.

A leading poll.

Quote from: Sommerjon;726184Except retreat in TSR D&D was up to the DM.

The players don't have morale scores. It is up to them to decide to retreat. The retreat of monsters and some NPC allies is determined by the DM but there are morale rules that apply based on the nature of the creature and the current circumstances.