Robespierre wrote:
...As for people complaining about optimization I think you have a hole in your logic. Not only does it cost time and money to make items but also feats and skills. The world around you doesn't just wait for you to finish making your belt. Perhaps your enemies have already won because you wasted so much time making a magic item. They might even be stronger then before. Characters aren't static and neither is their environment.
The bad guys won when you took 4 days off? Every time? Ok... Characters can easily find more than enough time between adventures to make many items and not skip a beat in a campaign, unless you insist on railroading them into not staying put for two weeks. It's been my experience, unless the Players (not their characters, per se) are total fools, A character with very limited magic items are more than a match for 90% of the standard encounters they will experience, especially if you're running an AP with most of the encounters being as written.
Making magic items without considerable risk just leads to uber characters who the smart player has ensured have just the items they need to cover any precieved weaknesses. So it's pretty much out of character play that will lead to IC abuse. Just handwaving and saying the IC are fine merely means you've accepted that this is inevitable, maybe even desirable. If you think magic is a mere tool with no mystery, and is as predicatable as math, maybe that's fine for your game. But it holds little resemblance to traditional ideas in novels, stories, etc. How very bland.
Josh M. wrote:
I think the rules as written are fine. The developers are assuming a generic fantasy baseline; it's IMPOSSIBLE to get it "right" for everyone. So, of course, some DM's are going to complain about items being too common.
Well, why bother with a dice roll then? Just assume they make the items, because the success rate is not far from guaranteed.
