In article <8P1Ph.18791$j7.369391@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Russell Wallace <russell.no.spam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>Yeah, I remember D&D magic items followed an exponential curve, so that
>for every good item that had tactical interest and sup****ted the fantasy
>theme, there'd be an immense pile of junk that just cluttered up the
game.
One difference between games and novels is that in novels the main
characters don't usually spend a lot of time looting those they fight,
whereas this is (quite naturally) common in RPGs. If you win a lot of
fights, you are going to end up with enormously more gear than the
average combatant. This is hard to prevent. (The only campaigns I've
seen which were fairly free from it had the bad guys using magic
items the good guys simply would not use. But it's hard to justify this
for the penny-ante items.)
>A partial solution I came up with, back when I ran D&D, was to emphasize
>consumable items where at all possible, especially for the lower-level
>stuff.
This can work, and v3.5 does push somewhat in this direction. It can slow
the game down, though, because a dozen different potions and scrolls
take more brainpower to use than a single flaming sword of the same gp
value.
Early on in our SCAP campaign I was using one-shot items very heavily, but
it's gotten more and more difficult to manage the complexity, and I'd
much rather have a few larger things.
Jon's _Worms_ characters have made a lot of wands, and their prepped armor
class is 8 points higher than unprepped due to all those wands. But it
makes the results of dispel magic really time-consuming to adjucate. We
are getting to the point where a significant part of every combat is
likely to be spent (a) setting up those wand-charge spells, and (b) taking
them down again when dispel magic strikes. I find myself wi****ng he would
use permanent items instead....
>There's also the solution video games tend to adopt: have magic item
>shops, and encourage players to sell their piles of junk to save up for
>something good.
The problem I have with this as a player is that I find using something
taken from a defeated enemy more intrinsically interesting than ca****ng
it in and "going shopping" to pick out the best things in the DMG.
The shopping method tends, naturally but disappointingly, to focus
attention on the few best items in the list.
I think, given my druthers, I'd get rid of a lot of the small items
altogether. There's an arms race where meaningful opponents are expected
to have +x to hit and +x to armor class, and you need items to get
either of those; but you could tone down both and not have, or need,
items of +1 to hit or +1 armor class. These little things are not,
in my experience, very interesting or evocative. I'd rather focus
attention on the occasional flamebrand or crown of splendor (the two
most spectacular things in my current party) and not bookkeep so much
small stuff.
The idea behind the small items was presumably so that low-level parties
could have some magic items. But you could do more with the non-magic
equipment, and with interesting, flavorful oneshots: it doesn't have to
be "+1 ring of protection." (We had so many of those, Fritz was giving
them away as party favors.)
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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