Yikes, I hadn't even considered saving throw assumptions.
As for Iron Kingdoms, I'm not so keen on replacing magic items with superpowers.
I think you mean Iron Heroes. Iron kingdoms is steampunk. The magic is a bit more like technology, which by itself, is a bit more limited than standard D&D.
Personally, I don't find the expanded feats or class abilities of Iron Heroes to be superpowers. Most class abilities and feats are limited by token pools (essentially, a character's actions can generate a pool of points that can be used to activate class abilities or feats), but to each his own.
As to the OP, at one time I considered running a game using power components (rare magical ingerdients) as a means of paying the XP cost. This would be the only way to make magical items other than scrolls or potions. It would largely remove magic item shops and have the added benefit of creating an adventure source.
The downside of my idea was that I would have to make sure any magical items found would be useful to the party, as selling such items would not be common place.
Great points.
In my low magic home brew, silver weapons are considered the equivalent of magic weapons for beating DR/Magic when fighting creatures.
This simple substitution has worked very well for us. Every PC ends up paying for an alchemical silver weapon, and the party always has a chance to defeat any kind of monster. It may seem like a simplistic approach, but it works surprisingly well as long as the DM keeps this in mind when designing tactics for the bad guys.
I did something similar back in 2e. A old issue of Dragon had low-power magical items. One example were weapons made of a greyish silver metal that counted as a silver, cold-iron, and a "+0" magical weapon.
I recently reintroduced a variant of the material in my games as greysteel (it counts as silver and cold-iron (but not magic).
A more radical solution is to drop or cap DR. If you limit it to DR5 then the PCs will never be entirely useless even if they don't have the right weapons.
If you find yourself introducing workarounds so that the PCs will always have what they need to overcome DR, which is what the silver+cold iron weapon seems like to me, it's easier just not to have it at all.
Another possibility is for DR to halve damage, not reduce it by a constant. Then the PCs are always able to hurt the monster, but it's still very painful not to have the right weapon.
I capped DR at 5 for our RotRL game because I was totally sick, after SCAP, of the way that many-small-attacks PCs were totally dominated by few-big-attacks PCs. It doesn't do a lot of harm. You can add some hit points or another advantage to compensate if you like.
I still think that saves are a bigger issue. If you don't have save-backers, enemy spellcasters--even human ones, you don't need monsters--will tend to cut through the PCs like a hot knife through butter. A 9th level human wizard will very reasonably, with no items at all, have DC 21 for his favorite 5th level spell. A 9th level human fighter has about +3 Will saves by then. Owww. Not good. I've noticed that people who don't use save-backer items also don't have spellcasting foes much; this is why....
I ran for years with very few items, too; but those games were permanently low level. Unless you abandon 3.5's advancement rules as well, no campaign of reasonable length will be low level. And at higher level it is quite tricky to do without items, unless the GM is willing to do without a lot of foes, including vanilla human casters with effective spell choices. (Dominate Person, for example.)
I'd love to see a revision of D&D that was not so item-reliant. Way back when I wrote some house rules for 1st Ed and ended up rewriting, literally, the entire system one rule at a time. I'm reluctant to do it again; it was a ton of work and I don't have that kind of time anymore. Unfortunately I think that's what it would take.
Mary
For the record, I started using Greysteel in my games because I got sick of Holy Avengers being cold-iron weapons. The weapon become nearly worthless against devils.
I actually find the alignment based DRs more of a hinderance than the magic and material based DRs.
Didn't read this whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but you may want to consider moving to True20, either now, or in the near future.
Its a great system that does not rely on magic items at all. I'm running a savage tide campaign in D&D 3.5 and the group is at the tail end of City of Broken Idols and I cannot believe how much their magic items have replaced many of the class derived abilities.
Swim skill checks? Not necessary anymore as every PC has a magic item that gives them a swim speed. Poison saving throws? 3/4 of the group is immune to poison now so why bother? Spellcasting villain? Dead meat unless he's good in melee too, as the group habitually casts a spell every day that lasts 15 minutes now and boosts everybody's saving throws by +4.
So far Khala has been the group's biggest challenge and that is based solely on the fact that he can cast Greater Dispel Magic on them every round, and has SR 28.
For the record, I started using Greysteel in my games because I got sick of Holy Avengers being cold-iron weapons. The weapon become nearly worthless against devils.
Of course, by the time a character has a holy avenger, investing in a couple vials of silversheen is not a big hardship... Not to dismiss your argument, but in games where the players frequently face foes with substance-based DR, I've noticed that silversheen is a common purchase and the primary weapon is either cold iron or adamantine.
One of the big changes in 3.5 from 3.0 was using substance-based DR instead of just magical bonus DR. This prevented the "one weapon syndrome," where PCs would only need one weapon for every encounter. It also helped lycanthropes and other monsters gain more mystique. You needed a weapon made of the correct substance (not just a +1 magical one) to damage them easily.
I still think that saves are a bigger issue.
Talents/Feats that inprove saves (and being able to take them more than once), maybe along with a quickened feat progression should take care of that.
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My group and I generally like magic items. They love coming across an item that really makes a difference and like gathering cool toys.
In the campaign I ran last year, however, I trtied an experiment to get rid of the items the game 'assumed' you have and thus became boring. So I dropped a lot of specific stat-boosting items only and instead implemented some character boosts at various levels to compensate. It was still a mess. It threw off the encounters I tried using and took it to odd directions.
So for Pathfinder I took that back a LOT. I only get rid of rings, cloaks, and bracers or anything "of protection" to AC. Every NPC nearly has one or another anyway. I use the dodge bonus to AC chart per class from the Green Ronin Advanced Game Master's Manual to suppliment this and so far it's working just fine.
But then again, like I said, my group otherwise likes magic toys.
-DM Jeff
Of course, by the time a character has a holy avenger, investing in a couple vials of silversheen is not a big hardship... Not to dismiss your argument, but in games where the players frequently face foes with substance-based DR, I've noticed that silversheen is a common purchase and the primary weapon is either cold iron or adamantine.
One of the big changes in 3.5 from 3.0 was using substance-based DR instead of just magical bonus DR. This prevented the "one weapon syndrome," where PCs would only need one weapon for every encounter. It also helped lycanthropes and other monsters gain more mystique. You needed a weapon made of the correct substance (not just a +1 magical one) to damage them easily.
Agreed. The players in my AoW campaign have a few vials of silversheen.
My complaint about the holy avenger is that I like the idea of a paladin wielding a weapon that is good against both demons and devils. It is an iconic weapon for a paladin and I don't like limiting its usefulness to just demons. Someone who plays a paladin and finds a holy avenger show be a champion of good against any form of evil.
Honestly, I would have been fine if they would have left it as a normal longsword and made it a holy, evil outsider bane longsword.
Hmm...I may have to use that version next time someone plays a paladin in my games.
Of course, by the time a character has a holy avenger, investing in a couple vials of silversheen is not a big hardship... Not to dismiss your argument, but in games where the players frequently face foes with substance-based DR, I've noticed that silversheen is a common purchase and the primary weapon is either cold iron or adamantine.
One of the big changes in 3.5 from 3.0 was using substance-based DR instead of just magical bonus DR. This prevented the "one weapon syndrome," where PCs would only need one weapon for every encounter. It also helped lycanthropes and other monsters gain more mystique. You needed a weapon made of the correct substance (not just a +1 magical one) to damage them easily.
Agreed. The players in my AoW campaign have a few vials of silversheen.
My complaint about the holy avenger is that I like the idea of a paladin wielding a weapon that is good against both demons and devils. It is an iconic weapon for a paladin and I don't like limiting its usefulness to just demons. Someone who plays a paladin and finds a holy avenger show be a champion of good against any form of evil.
Honestly, I would have been fine if they would have left it as a normal longsword and made it a holy, evil outsider bane longsword.
Hmm...I may have to use that version next time someone plays a paladin in my games.
Most demons have DR vs. cold iron OR good and most devils have DR vs. good OR silver, so there are only a few cases where it's an issue. These tend to be the balor/pit fiend or arch-fiend type encounters, where the need for a holy weapon of a specific substance would make sense.
If you want, you can always make a bane (evil outsiders) holy alchemical silver longsword for a devil-slayer character. Such a weapon would probably have a significant history and could possibly serve as the focus of an adventure (or adventure arc).
I like the notion that you can't always use the same weapon against all opponents for full effect. It provides more incentive for players to invest in back-up weapons, instead of just concentrating on their primary. The more versatile each PC is, the better off the whole party is.
Dude, you're a madman! How do you find time to convert everything? ... Spellcasting systems doesn't translate into Hero very well, in my opinion.
So far I have not had to convert anything. Goblins are in the Hero System Bestiary along with most of your major monsters. If something is not in there, I can just reuse something that is close and file off the serial number.
I have never had any problem with spell casting systems, but then I am not a fan of Vancian magic. Hero allows me the flexibility to create whatever system I want.
Don't play D&D? Are you some kinda heretic? I bet you jaywalk and spit on the sidewalk.
Yes, as is anyone who should suggest there is more than one true way. But we all fear that which is different.
The review on the Pathfinder books from a "converting to Fantasy Hero" angle is a good idea.
Most demons have DR vs. cold iron OR good and most devils have DR vs. good OR silver, so there are only a few cases where it's an issue. These tend to be the balor/pit fiend or arch-fiend type encounters, where the need for a holy weapon of a specific substance would make sense.
If you want, you can always make a bane (evil outsiders) holy alchemical silver longsword for a devil-slayer character. Such a weapon would probably have a significant history and could possibly serve as the focus of an adventure (or adventure arc).
I like the notion that you can't...
The downside to the method is that players are sometimes forced carry a variety of weapons to deal with threats, thus reducing the effectiveness of thier combat abilities.
In most D&D games this is not a problem. PCs tend to encounter one theme of creatures for most of a campaign (such as undead in AoW, demons in STAP, and giants in RotRL). However, when I ran my planescape game, I had characters carrying three or four versions of their primary weapon because of what they could run into. The rogue/gatecrasher had three spiked chains for dealing with different opponents. The same applied to the warforged barbarian, changeling ranger (who had the easiest time as an archer) and the githzerai fighter/monk.
Now, despite this complaint, I do like the material DRs. The whole thing with the Holy Avenger is a matter of personal taste for me.