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So, with all the talk on resonance and the big 6 I have been giving some thought to magic items.
I've been playing a loooong time, same as many here, and way back in 1e and 2e before the big 6 were a thing, when it came time to split the treasure the forerunners of the big 6 were always the first to be snapped up. One of the reasons is reliability. You want your magic items to matter as much as possible, you didn't always get many. I lost track of the number of magic items we carried, but simply did not use because the chance of it not working was just too high, or it didn't do enough even if it took effect.
3.x made the mistake of not only codifying the big 6 so encounters assumed you had them (or maybe it developed that wat because people sought out the big 6 so encounter design had to adapt?), but they did nothing to make other items any more desirable, many of them are an incredible investment with very little in the way of reliable returns.
PF did nothing significant to redress that, and even released FAQs that made some non big 6 items even less useful (hat of disguise durations - I'm looking at you).
So should one of the aims for PF2 include redressing the balance. Cost magic items according to effect? and make the DCs relevant?
Should use activated items be active until shut off and thus actually useful? What else would be relevant to make all magic items worth the investment?
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So, with all the talk on resonance and the big 6 I have been giving some thought to magic items.
I've been playing a loooong time, same as many here, and way back in 1e and 2e before the big 6 were a thing, when it came time to split the treasure the forerunners of the big 6 were always the first to be snapped up. One of the reasons is reliability. You want your magic items to matter as much as possible, you didn't always get many. I lost track of the number of magic items we carried, but simply did not use because the chance of it not working was just too high, or it didn't do enough even if it took effect.
3.x made the mistake of not only codifying the big 6 so encounters assumed you had them (or maybe it developed that wat because people sought out the big 6 so encounter design had to adapt?), but they did nothing to make other items any more desirable, many of them are an incredible investment with very little in the way of reliable returns.
PF did nothing significant to redress that, and even released FAQs that made some non big 6 items even less useful (hat of disguise durations - I'm looking at you).
So should one of the aims for PF2 include redressing the balance. Cost magic items according to effect? and make the DCs relevant?
Should use activated items be active until shut off and thus actually useful? What else would be relevant to make all magic items worth the investment?
3E was not developed assuming you had them the players just went that way as it became apparent they were the go to items to get.New players do not really get that and I think its a problem.
Its a side effect of giving players easy access to magic items. That is the real culprit and it could die in a fire IMHO. Towards the end of 3.5 we banned the item creation feats and the ability to buy what you wanted and I thought the game ran better. A +3 flaming sword looks a lot better when you can sell it and buy or make what you want.
Resonance is a band aid patch for a bad late 90's idea during 3.0's development. Giving player easy access to magic items lead to this and things like wands of CLW.
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People are kvetching about wands of cure light wounds? *snicker*
People are kvetching about wands of cure light wounds? *snicker*
They are a bit to efficient/cheap. Prefer the D&Ds without them being a thing.
People are kvetching about wands of cure light wounds? *snicker*They are a bit to efficient/cheap. Prefer the D&Ds without them being a thing.
y'see I see it as higher level wands are too inefficient/expensive - 'tis a matter of perspective.
On your initial point, making magic items more easily available was a step in the right direction IMO. I played far too many games with either too little magic or nothing appropriate that you might as well have had nothing.
Edit: anecdote time. In what turned out to be a particularly high magic game I once played a fighter in 1e started out with a 2 handed sword in defiance of convention (longsword was by far the best weapon and yeah I optimised from the start). I had a clear picture of him in my head wielding this greatsword. by the time he got to 10th level I had collected more than 15 magic weapons including a frost brand - not one single greatsword. It was very miserable when I had such a clear mental picture of him.
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@Dragonhunterq
See in my mind, a proper DM would have given you a greatsword. DMs should work with players to see what they want and then how to properly get them the items they want at... peak form? Final build? Or just "This is kinda what I see or would like to see my character using".
Within reason of course. If someone asks for a Shotgun and chainsaw hand, they better be playing Starfinder or Iron Gods.
^Thing is that 1st Edition AD&D already had tables that determined what kind of treasure was available, down to the type of weapon. So your proper DM would have to step away from the tables. Instead, we have the "% Liar" problem (triggered by a typo in the Monster Manual) . . . .
Random loot generation has a lot to answer for.
I think wealth by level and the strange pricing of magic items has caused a lot of problems also.
I think getting spell casting right is essential for the success of PFe2, and so far I am very positive about this. I think magic items are another essential. I think we have not seen as much information to date, but what I have seen is definitely a step in the right direction.
Magic items should be interesting utility things, or powerful cool things that you remember long after playing. They should not be solely a mathematical increase in your character's power (one that you are forced to get, assuming you are trying to optimise your character).
So, I am very postitive about the end of the Big 6. I am happy with the Big 2, i.e. weapon and armour. I am especially happy that they are separating runes of power from runes of cool.
I also wonder what the third important item alluded to will be. I hope it will encourage interesting or creative mechanics.
People are kvetching about wands of cure light wounds? *snicker*They are a bit to efficient/cheap. Prefer the D&Ds without them being a thing.y'see I see it as higher level wands are too inefficient/expensive - 'tis a matter of perspective.
On your initial point, making magic items more easily available was a step in the right direction IMO. I played far too many games with either too little magic or nothing appropriate that you might as well have had nothing.
Edit: anecdote time. In what turned out to be a particularly high magic game I once played a fighter in 1e started out with a 2 handed sword in defiance of convention (longsword was by far the best weapon and yeah I optimised from the start). I had a clear picture of him in my head wielding this greatsword. by the time he got to 10th level I had collected more than 15 magic weapons including a frost brand - not one single greatsword. It was very miserable when I had such a clear mental picture of him.
Its an easy fix just tweak the priuce of the higher level wands. I prefer that magic items not be for sale because I don't think they will price every item correctly. Its an art form not a science.
Even if they made it optional, for example have the prices listed a'la 3.X but just make it clear its DMs discretion if you can find the items you require.
As I said one of my last 3.X games was low magic, AD&D style magic items, item creation feats were banned you used what you could find. Item creation feats were replaced with the 2E Spells and Magic item creation rules.
Probably want to move away from specializing in specific weapons but more towards styles like 5E (2E as well in Fighters Handbook)and a crit weapon build for example would apply to any weapon you use (like the 5E fighter).
That way if you don't get the exact weapon you like its still useful at least vs 50% price of selling it (eg. +3 flaming short sword vs longsword).
You can still get the fun parts (the customisation) but without stuff like weapon focus +1 to hit specific weapon which was a holdover from the old AD&D rules where they converted a few WP directly to feat. The problem there was fighters at level 1 used to get 4 WP which could be used for feat like things and we used the optional rule of high intelligence fighter got bonuses WP or NWP instead of just NWP.
Some of this works OK in AD&D but parts of it date from or are influenced by 1989's Fighters Handbook and they converted it verbatim to 3E such as the TWF feat tree was 3 WP in 2E. Difference being a high intelligence fighter could get a bonus 7 WP (feats in effect) at level 1 on top of the 4 they start with so you could specialize in a longsword for example and the various combat styles with it (sword and board, TWF, longsword in 2 hands).
They also over buffed TWF from 2E t 3E they more or less fixed them by making them deal 1s12/2d6 damage (1d10 and slow in 2E) but added the 50% strength modifer thing and then tweaked Power Attack in 3.5 which PF kind of picked up on.
That is why two handed weapons are so good in PF, TWF rules for example dates from 1989 and they over compensated 20 years ago designing 3.0. And Pathfinder inherited that. Ironically 2E actually runs better than 3.X these days if you go back and play it, it just doesn't have unified mechanics and THAC0 is a pain. We don't use THAC0 anyway.
At the time the intention was good (fix two handed weapons) but they over did it and Pathfinder ran with it. Then you combine things like that with easy to get keen weapons or whatever or X2 and X3 crits (which 2E lacked) and here we are in 2018. The original 3.0 implementation was flawed. Kind of ties back to the magic item thing and yeah sure PCs can do that but then NPCs crit one shot a PC or sunder a PC weapons and players do not like it.
With the way Healing works with the new Heal spell, I'm not sure Wands of the spell are even possible due to its action cost requirement being so flexible.
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I'm certainly not the first to bring this up, but I'd like to see, in addition to or in place of a WBL table, a list of what abilities the party is expected to have available to it at what level. Knowing the party should have at least occasional access to flight and ~2 characters able to deal with incorporeal targets at level 7 is more useful, especially for a newer GM or group, than knowing they should have Xty thousand GP in magic items. Then if no one is of a class that can just do that, the GM knows the party should get magic items to make up the difference.
3E was not developed assuming you had them the players just went that way as it became apparent they were the go to items to get.New players do not really get that and I think its a problem.So, with all the talk on resonance and the big 6 I have been giving some thought to magic items.
I've been playing a loooong time, same as many here, and way back in 1e and 2e before the big 6 were a thing, when it came time to split the treasure the forerunners of the big 6 were always the first to be snapped up. One of the reasons is reliability. You want your magic items to matter as much as possible, you didn't always get many. I lost track of the number of magic items we carried, but simply did not use because the chance of it not working was just too high, or it didn't do enough even if it took effect.
3.x made the mistake of not only codifying the big 6 so encounters assumed you had them (or maybe it developed that wat because people sought out the big 6 so encounter design had to adapt?), but they did nothing to make other items any more desirable, many of them are an incredible investment with very little in the way of reliable returns.
PF did nothing significant to redress that, and even released FAQs that made some non big 6 items even less useful (hat of disguise durations - I'm looking at you).
So should one of the aims for PF2 include redressing the balance. Cost magic items according to effect? and make the DCs relevant?
Should use activated items be active until shut off and thus actually useful? What else would be relevant to make all magic items worth the investment?
I think even if 3E wasn't developed with that in mind, Pathfinder seems to have been. At least one of the Paizo team has referred to the big 6 as "items for keeping up with the Joneses" and "items you needed to make the game's math work." I imagine at some point, be it during 3E, 3.5, or Pathfinder, it became apparent that so many people were getting these items that you had to factor it into the game's CR system.
I think even if 3E wasn't developed with that in mind, Pathfinder seems to have been. At least one of the Paizo team has referred to the big 6 as "items for keeping up with the Joneses" and "items you needed to make the game's math work." I imagine at some point, be it during 3E, 3.5, or Pathfinder, it became apparent that so many people were getting these...
+1 to this post. At levels 1 through 6 or so, it's not that evident; however, try playing a Level 12 character with no ability-score-boosting items, and maybe a Cloak of Resistance +1, trying to make a save against a CR13 Red Dragon's Breath or a Dread Wraith's draining touch, and you start to see how much of Wealth by Level is tied up in just getting your chance to succeed at or above 50% -- and it only slides upward from there. It's even worse when you consider the AC/Attack bonus comparison. If you're level 12 and tooling around with an AC of 22 or 23, unless you're invisible, displaced, or have 300 hit points, you won't be tooling around for long. The "Big Six" were very much assumed, even from the mid- to late-days of D&D 3.5.
Anecdotally, I'll also add that I'm running an AP with almost no magic mart and lots of found loot, and there have been a lot of big 6 items found in the first book alone.
^Thing is that 1st Edition AD&D already had tables that determined what kind of treasure was available, down to the type of weapon. So your proper DM would have to step away from the tables. Instead, we have the "% Liar" problem (triggered by a typo in the Monster Manual) . . . .
I see no problem in a GM saying a Long Sword of Frost is actually a Battle Axe of Frost if no one on the team uses Longswords but your Fighter does want a Battle Axe
Dunno what the % Liar is
I think even if 3E wasn't developed with that in mind, Pathfinder seems to have been. At least one of the Paizo team has referred to the big 6 as "items for keeping up with the Joneses" and "items you needed to make the game's math work." I imagine at some point, be it during 3E, 3.5, or Pathfinder, it became apparent that so many people were getting these...3E was not developed assuming you had them the players just went that way as it became apparent they were the go to items to get.New players do not really get that and I think its a problem.So, with all the talk on resonance and the big 6 I have been giving some thought to magic items.
I've been playing a loooong time, same as many here, and way back in 1e and 2e before the big 6 were a thing, when it came time to split the treasure the forerunners of the big 6 were always the first to be snapped up. One of the reasons is reliability. You want your magic items to matter as much as possible, you didn't always get many. I lost track of the number of magic items we carried, but simply did not use because the chance of it not working was just too high, or it didn't do enough even if it took effect.
3.x made the mistake of not only codifying the big 6 so encounters assumed you had them (or maybe it developed that wat because people sought out the big 6 so encounter design had to adapt?), but they did nothing to make other items any more desirable, many of them are an incredible investment with very little in the way of reliable returns.
PF did nothing significant to redress that, and even released FAQs that made some non big 6 items even less useful (hat of disguise durations - I'm looking at you).
So should one of the aims for PF2 include redressing the balance. Cost magic items according to effect? and make the DCs relevant?
Should use activated items be active until shut off and thus actually useful? What else would be relevant to make all magic items worth the investment?
Sort of. Just before the Magic item compendium came out I think there was online article on WoTC about the magic items being the big 6. This is part of the thinking that lead to 4E I think.
However IMHO there was also a divergence between how the power gamers/forum users were playing the game and how the average D&D played 3.5. My group did know the online tricks of the trade and did not use most of them (well the big 6 we did) but more other things like the cleric power builds we ignored (saw them in 3.0).
Apparently when they tested 3.0 they did not play above level 10 and played it like 2E AD&D. You have a WBL guide of course but they did not abuse it that much so they missed things like improved crit+keen weapons and critting on 12+ on the d20. Wands of CLW were a custom item IIRC. They thought buying a +3 flaming sword was a great idea but missed the Greater Magic Weapon spell which in AD&D was level 4 and only granted a +1 bonus while the 3E one was level 3 and scaled up to +5 by level 15 (20 ion 3.5/PF).
In 5E they did a big survey about how people played the game. 4E was designed to fix problems with 3.5 that were mostly theory craft online and the power gaming gaming groups and players who are a small minority. Pathfinder exists because of 4E lets face it. The fundamental problems of 3.X are basically 20 years old some of it has its origins in 1989 perhaps earlier. THis is basically why TWF still sucks in PF for the most part (I assume there is some splat material somewhere for TWF). This is why they are looking at resonance and why 5E has attunement and magic items under DM control again.
Basically the assumptions of the 3E design and the way the early forum users and power gamers abused the rules were not RAI. 2E had some arbitrary restrictions here and there (why can't you buy magic items, why can't Dwarves be wizards, why can't clerics use S and P weapons) and they thought throwing out the restrictions was a good idea. In some ways it was but in other ways they were not. They did not even really think through the consequences of having wizards level up at the same rate as rogues.
I suppose it depends if you think 3.X is the pinnacle of game design you probably like it, if you think Pathfinder is good but mostly picked it up because of 4E the world has changed a bit in the last 10 years. Or you might have picked up PF and skipped 3.5 and 4E entirely IDK. Indie games and kickstarter have become a thing, we had the rise of the OSR movement as a reaction against 3.X and 4E, 5E is taking over the world (comparable to D&D in the 80's perhaps).
The easy way to fix some of the problems and still have a D&D/PF game I think would be to look hard at some of the AD&D-3.0 fixes you can tweak rather than write bad rules to patch another bad rule (eg spring attack feat tree).
^Thing is that 1st Edition AD&D already had tables that determined what kind of treasure was available, down to the type of weapon. So your proper DM would have to step away from the tables. Instead, we have the "% Liar" problem (triggered by a typo in the Monster Manual) . . . .
I see no problem in a GM saying a Long Sword of Frost is actually a Battle Axe of Frost if no one on the team uses Longswords but your Fighter does want a Battle Axe
Dunno what the % Liar is
In the 1st Edition AD&D Monster Manual, one of the lines in a monster's stat block was "% in Lair", which often got shortened to "% Lair", for the DM to roll a chance that the monster would be in its lair if you found the lair first. Well, in at least one of the printings of the Monster Manual (it may have been fixed in a later printing), at least one of the Dragon entries had this mistyped as "% Liar", and apparently some DMs were adamant about taking this to mean that this was meant to specify how likely this Dragon was to attempt to deceive the party . . . .
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People are kvetching about wands of cure light wounds? *snicker*
you know it's the damndest thing, Got myself a new book last night, about a large group of adventurers hired to explore a mysterious crypt full of undead. And the first thing they do is hit the markets looking for cheap Healing Wands ("but nothing under half charges"). Probably the only time I've read a story where the group considers having a bunch of healing wands an important part of preparing for the quest.
(Book in question is Overlord Vol. 7; Invaiders of the Great Tomb)