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So, I'm trying to do a series of threads discussing some issues I've found with the game as a whole. This is the one for issues with magic items specifically. So here are some problems:
#1: Skill Items seem absolutely essential to have for a variety of skills, but are currently all Invested, making being a skill-based character prohibitively expensive in terms of Resonance (and quite possibly gold as well). In a related note, +5 skill items for some skills do not seem to exist, nor do items for Lore skills just in general (well, there's a +5 one, but not lower options).
#2: The Bracers of Armor and Handwraps of Mighty Fists are both Invested, while neither armor nor weapons are the same. This harshly penalizes Monks in general in a very non-fun way (they just get -2 Resonance compared to other people), and serves no useful mechanical purpose I can fathom.
Other issues will be added to this thread as I find them.
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I can't decide how I feel about the balance between the Ring of Wizardry and Staff of (Anything). The Ring of Wizardry generally gives you more free slots (but not as high as the equivalent staff) at lower resonance cost (you don't pay to cast your extra spells). The staffs really give you very little in terms of bonus spells (and each costs you resonance), but act instead as a (level heightening limited) page of Spell Knowledge allowing you more flexibility with your spells known/prepared, again, though, at the cost of resonance.
I feel like this more or less probably works right now, but if they change the resonance rules one or the other will pull ahead without serious adjustments.
#1: Skill Items seem absolutely essential to have for a variety of skills, but are currently all Invested, making being a skill-based character prohibitively expensive in terms of Resonance (and quite possibly gold as well). In a related note, +5 skill items for some skills do not seem to exist, nor do items for Lore skills just in general (well, there's a +5 one, but not lower options).#2: The Bracers of Armor and Handwraps of Mighty Fists are both Invested, while neither armor nor weapons are the same. This harshly penalizes Monks in general in a very non-fun way (they just get -2 Resonance compared to other people), and serves no useful mechanical purpose I can fathom.
1 is definitely something I noticed. It'd be fine if there were pricing / level guidelines for making your own ad hoc items, since I don't really expect a spread of items for each skill at each tier in the CRB, but there aren't.
2... Maybe I missed something but I thought armor was invested generally? Or is that only armor with special fx? If basic +X armor isn't invested, then bracers shouldn't be either.
As for the handwraps, well, they do apply to all of your various unarmed attacks, even bites and claw strikes and different attacks granted by stances / rage / etc. I guess 1 RP isn't much of a cost to pay compared to PF1 where mighty fists was 3x more expensive in money than an actual weapon.
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2... Maybe I missed something but I thought armor was invested generally? Or is that only armor with special fx? If basic +X armor isn't invested, then bracers shouldn't be either.
That's correct, there's a generic "Magic Armor" item on page 397, and it is invested. So are the unique magic armors.
So, I'm trying to do a series of threads discussing some issues I've found with the game as a whole. This is the one for issues with magic items specifically. So here are some problems:
#1: Skill Items seem absolutely essential to have for a variety of skills, but are currently all Invested, making being a skill-based character prohibitively expensive in terms of Resonance (and quite possibly gold as well). In a related note, +5 skill items for some skills do not seem to exist, nor do items for Lore skills just in general (well, there's a +5 one, but not lower options).
This gets into the "why don't Pit Fiends and Demigods wear stat boosting items" problem in PF1. For monsters with high intelligence, a sophisticated society, and a treasure budget you'd expect them to wear power/survival enhancing stuff just like PCs, but if they do it becomes part of the Christmas tree problem (with hits to treasure diversity) and requires baseline adjustment of CR.
I agree that monsters should have their max skill set at the level of PCs without items, but then you should expect monsters with Grab routines like Pit Fiends to invest heavily in a +5 Athletics item. That introduces its own problems. And if these monsters get that bonus without the item, you still need a good reason for them not to be using an item.
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It takes resonance to put something into or take something out of a bag of holding with an activate action. There's no bulk discount, either.
This would seem to work against the trope of the brave adventurers using a bag of holding to cart off the dozens of magic items and thousands of copper pieces in a dragon's hoard...
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Re: Monster magic items
Yep, late 3.x went askew when it started having monsters buying battle gear w/ their treasure allotments. It made for at least one pitiful dragon horde because the beast had bought two expensive items to wear so had no bed of coins, at most a pillow.
Even in early 3.x a creature w/ a PC class could justify it, turning into a monstrosity for just 1 CR. (I'm talking to you Ice Devils wearing armor! Oh, wait that was me that did that...oopsies.)
There are many mechanical or roleplaying solutions, the ones of which I can think of come across as metagamey though. But yes, it might make for nice future-proofing if Paizo explicitly stated that:
A. Monsters have item bonuses factored in.
B. Further item bonuses should equal +1 at most, and perhaps then only if the creature has a level appropriate item.
C. Further armor bonuses should equal +1 at most for light/medium & +2 for heavy. (as per barding) And TAC?
This would have to address CR bumps too, as well as weapons.
Does a Red Cap that picks up a magic scythe still do 2d10 base because its "I'm CR 6" bonus die of damage doesn't stack or does the scythe bump damage to 3d10 (and thus out of the Redcap's CR range)?
Does the Redcap get a bonus die w/ all weapons (as it appears to get that w/ its boots too)? Heck, is it proficient w/ them? Would it have the same attack bonus?
This isn't just a matter of a GM reequipping monsters. Weapons do get picked up or stolen. What happens if a Redcap picks up a dropped +2 Katana or Spiked Chain? (I can actually imagine Redcaps loving Spiked Chains.)
As for A., I'd actually rather they didn't unless that skill was specifically tied to the monster's shtick. A Legendary PC shouldn't need an item to catch up to what's normal for ALL his foes.
Monsters should typically cap at Expert equivalency unless specifically affiliated w/ that skill.
And I understand much of this thinking is "base zero to build X" when most monsters are just "build at X", yet since "X" then serves as a base for further building... Or maybe that should be discouraged, and GMs advised to "build at X" when possible?
Hmm...
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1) Is the reason they seem essential because of how they stack up to monsters? IE, is this an extension of your other thread? Or are there other concerns you have here?
2) So yeah, Bracers of Armor are invested the same as magic armor, but the monks gotta pay for the hand wraps. I guess there's a question of whether they have advantages to make up for that. Off the top of my head, they can't be disarmed, don't need to be drawn in combat, leave both hands free for various shenanigans like climbing or grappling or grabbing ledges, and can potentially switch damage types on demand with Stances. I dunno if that makes up for losing a point of Resonance, but they are all things. (That said, I'm already a little concerned about how the monk looks for skills. They don't get Stealth as a Signature skill, are trained in too few things, and still feel a little MAD to be investing in INT or CHA.)
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That's correct, there's a generic "Magic Armor" item on page 397, and it is invested. So are the unique magic armors.
2... Maybe I missed something but I thought armor was invested generally? Or is that only armor with special fx? If basic +X armor isn't invested, then bracers shouldn't be either.
Ah! So it is. That makes that complaint a bit less dire (though the Handwraps remain an issue). I was looking around for where that was listed and didn't find it under Potency Runes or anywhere else. Clearly I should've looked more thoroughly.
This gets into the "why don't Pit Fiends and Demigods wear stat boosting items" problem in PF1. For monsters with high intelligence, a sophisticated society, and a treasure budget you'd expect them to wear power/survival enhancing stuff just like PCs, but if they do it becomes part of the Christmas tree problem (with hits to treasure diversity) and requires baseline adjustment of CR.
I agree that monsters should have their max skill set at the level of PCs without items, but then you should expect monsters with Grab routines like Pit Fiends to invest heavily in a +5 Athletics item. That introduces its own problems. And if these monsters get that bonus without the item, you still need a good reason for them not to be using an item.
I'm fine with monsters having a skill or two at 'PC with items' levels, but skills at that level seem way more common than that on many monsters (there are Level 13s with seven of them, as I mentioned in my other thread). Which is what gets into weirdness and unpleasantness with PCs needing a lot of high end items to compete.
As for good reason not to use items, it'd be fairly trivial to list some skills with an (I) after them, reflecting the monster getting an inherent Item Bonus (possibly, in the same way that the Grim Reaper gets to count their scythe as magic, from a non-magical item of some sort). Since Item Bonuses don't stack, this would alleviate that particular problem almost completely.
It takes resonance to put something into or take something out of a bag of holding with an activate action. There's no bulk discount, either.
This would seem to work against the trope of the brave adventurers using a bag of holding to cart off the dozens of magic items and thousands of copper pieces in a dragon's hoard...
The Bag of Holding is definitely a huge issue. I agree entirely that it needs to be changed.
1) Is the reason they seem essential because of how they stack up to monsters? IE, is this an extension of your other thread? Or are there other concerns you have here?
It's mostly the monsters. Though Hazards and other level-appropriate challenges also seem to assume absolutely maxed skills.
2) So yeah, Bracers of Armor are invested the same as magic armor, but the monks gotta pay for the hand wraps. I guess there's a question of whether they have advantages to make up for that. Off the top of my head, they can't be disarmed, don't need to be drawn in combat, leave both hands free for various shenanigans like climbing or grappling or grabbing ledges, and can potentially switch damage types on demand with Stances. I dunno if that makes up for losing a point of Resonance, but they are all things. (That said, I'm already a little concerned about how the monk looks for skills. They don't get Stealth as a Signature skill, are trained in too few things, and still feel a little MAD to be investing in INT or CHA.)
I'm worried about Monk skills, but must admit that this thread isn't really about that worry. Charging extra Resonance to a usually low-Resonance Class just feels punitive.
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I am still struggling to full grasp how the magic items work, but it seems like skill items getting a +5 bonus is too much, especially if the math is structured around assuming that characters will have that item if they are specialized in the skill. I would rather see skill items get a much smaller bonus, like +1 or +2, and then have the math built around the assumption that characters don't have those items so the bonus actually feels like a bonus. I think most of these items could have a use power that lets a character use the legendary assurance in that skill by spending a resonance point and then things like boots of jumping would still give the ability to use those skill items to do amazing things, but not be required for basic competence.
You can get up to a +3 item bonus without magic. An expert item gives a +1, a master item gives a +2, an a legendary one gives a +3. Unfortunately they only included a couple of expert items. The only master and legendary items are weapons and armor, though it is implied that there are those levels of tools for all skills.
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You can get up to a +3 item bonus without magic. An expert item gives a +1, a master item gives a +2, an a legendary one gives a +3. Unfortunately they only included a couple of expert items. The only master and legendary items are weapons and armor, though it is implied that there are those levels of tools for all skills.
This is implied, but such items are not actually available in any way for the vast majority of skills...so it's still a problem. Especially since those shown have no consistent pricing of any sort.
Onto other problems I've discovered:
-Bracers of Armor being a level higher than other armor is actually really punitive to Monks and other unarmored people. Painfully so at the levels it applies (it makes Monks actively worse at Saves than other people at many levels, for example).
-Shields don't seem to make a lot of sense. The lowest level magic heavy shield is a level 5 item to the level 2 of a light shield. The Hardness is higher but this really hamstrings people who have Feats based on having a Heavy Shield (like Fighters), and the higher Hardness is not reflected in mundane shields (which is weird). Something needs to be cleaned up here, whether it be giving mundane Heavy Shields higher Hardness than light ones (a valid option) or reducing the distinction among magic items.
how did they change the bag of holding?
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how did they change the bag of holding?
It no longer needs resonance at all.
Page 382—In the bag of holding item, remove the Activation entry. At the end of the first paragraph, add “You can use Interact actions to retrieve or stow items from a bag of holding just like using any other sack.”
how did they change the bag of holding?It no longer needs resonance at all.
Page 382—In the bag of holding item, remove the Activation entry. At the end of the first paragraph, add “You can use Interact actions to retrieve or stow items from a bag of holding just like using any other sack.”
Does that include the investment resonance?
It doesn't have the invested trait, so no.
Cool.
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It takes resonance to put something into or take something out of a bag of holding with an activate action. There's no bulk discount, either.
This would seem to work against the trope of the brave adventurers using a bag of holding to cart off the dozens of magic items and thousands of copper pieces in a dragon's hoard...
I can see why a balor demon wouldn't use magic items. I imagine they're innate magical defenses are created by them or others and would be the equivalent of a magical item, might even take Investment. Not to mention they are generally proud and might find our petty magics a disgrace.
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Staff of Minor Healing
For chapter 2 of Doomsday dawn, the druid was deciding between a Staff of Minor Healing and Hide Armor +1 as her level 3 magic item. She liked the fact that she could substitute slots for charges, since it meant you didn't have to memorize heal spells. Then she noticed that using it with either charges or slots still cost resonance.
Her response: "You mean I have to invest a point of resonance and it still costs resonance to use? Screw that, I'll just use a wand of heal instead." (She used a word a bit stronger than "screw".)
She did convince the barbarian to use one of his level 2 items for a backup wand.
If keeping up with monster numbers are the problem, they could have given high-level monsters some racial features stating they have innate item bonuses added to stuff they care about as racial features, or something similar. That way it seems so much fairer than before.
