In article <d65b13dft1abj94r6ebem3iv2k6v3i855d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Erol K. Bayburt <ErolB1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>You have a point, but it seems to me that a +1 can be meaningful as a
>token. Either as something to say "this effect is real, and not just a
>fraud composed of lying flavor text" (e.g. "This is the good-luck
>charm my mother gave me." - if it's really a +1 item of protection or
>resistance, then it really is a good-luck charm. But if it doesn't
>give any game-effect at all, then it's an annoying piece of ignorant
>superstition.)
Luck bonuses are particularly iffy for me, because I have had some
bad experiences with characters whose shtick (in a variety of
systems) was "I'm unusually lucky" but whose dice-rolling belied
it. In particular, if you model Luck as a reroll where you're
required to take the rerolled result (a common mechanic in many
systems) the subjective experience of the group can easily be
"Boy, this guy is really *un* lucky. He rerolls and it gets
worse!"
A +1 lucky charm can easily be owned by a character who seems
markedly unlucky, the variance of d20 being what it is. And then
it still feels like a bit of a fraud. Folkloric good-luck
charms, if they work, do make you lucky, not just statistically
prone to being luckier than the next guy.
>Or as something to say "this is a token of greater things to come."
>(e.g. "This is the masterwork greatsword my grandfather gave me when I
>came of age. And I'm going to do him proud: By the time I'm finished
>it's gonna be a +5 holy greatsword of fire and frost.")
I like that, and it's something I wish happened more in our games.
In practice the character is more likely to abandon it because he
has found something better, or stick to it and suffer with
regard to more pragmatic characters.
>>Things like Tillie's ring of See Invisible, which are not externally
>>flashy, are definitely flashy to the PC--the wide-eyed look of
>>alarm when Tillie sees something that no one else can see is an
>>im****tant bit of character byplay. I'd like more of that and less
>>+1 protection/resistance/etc.
>I don't disagree with you, but there also seems to be an implication
>in your posts of "I'd like to get rid of +1 protection/resistance/etc.
>entirely, at least if that's what it takes to keep them from being
>annoyingly common." I'm not sure I'd want to go that far.
At the moment they are annoying me so severely--not the items
themselves so much as the fact that all high-level play is
balanced against having bucketfuls of them--that I would just
get rid of them. But I haven't playtested the results, and
maybe I would change my mind.
>The other interesting thing about Tillie's ring is that it's only
>useful against opponents who use magic. *That's* something I'd like to
>see more of.
And against ghosts, which I hadn't expected: a strange side
effect of the mechanics!
It's fairly specialized, and such items are often not chosen because
a more general item is a better bet. (We don't see much
fire/acid/etc resistance, because there is too high a chance that it
will be the wrong kind for a given situation. If the PCs have
forewarning, they cast or use potions to get the appropriate kind.)
But Invisibility is so devastatingly powerful that the ring still
pays off, and is a signature item for Tillie, despite it not doing
anything else. (Around 6th level the party hit a major hoard,
and practically all of it went for Tillie's two rings, invis and detect
invis; a huge investment but they've never regretted it.)
The whole specialized/generalized thing is a major tension in
game design, even more so in point-cost systems: it's hard to
price highly specialized abilities so that they're cost-efficient
without making them overpowering in their limited circumstances.
Try pricing Speak with Ravens in any point-build system and I think
you quickly learn that Speak with Everything is better. In D&D
this shows up as a tension between interesting specialized
defenses (which are really hard to use well) and the standard
AC/DR/SR/saves defenses, which are good against almost everything
and usually a better investment.
Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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