So I was part of a great session last Wednesday except for the heated fight over treasure parcels. Essentially the table breaks down into two groups with half the players thinking that asking for your own magic gear is great and the other half considering to be deeply lame.
Both sides, of course, have their points. In fact we could probably ad a little half paragraph top the end of the different types of players list in the DMG that covers whether or not players of that type want to pick out their own loot or would rather find unique loot. I bet explorers want to be surprised while planners want to know in advance whats coming.
In any case what got me really interested was one of the justifications for picking ones own loot. Essentially the argument goes that 4E is designed for wish lists and if the DM were to devise some kind of a random system then the characters would soon be underpowered for their level.
I'm curious as to what extent the posters here agree or disagree with this.
I actually find the idea they get to select their own treasure a little troubling but in the games I am playing or was playing in we were asked what magical items we'd like at certain levels sort of for 1st through to 5th, I replied I didn't mind what item but mentioned magical armour, sword, etc.
In the game I'm running I pretty much used the eberron dragonshards as a means of letting them decide by simply saying they functioned as residium which could be fixed to armour, weapons, equipment and gave them limited abilities which could be enhanced by gathering more.
Of course I still included magical items I selected or thought would work well such as a mirror that functions like a bag of holding based on a story I read about a Tapestry that works the same except if it was take down and moved anyone inside was kept in stasis until it was put up again.
Anyway maybe you should ask them what kind of magic they'd like to find at these levels and then perhaps give them the opportunity to find them whether as a result of completing a mission say a wizard crafts the item as a reward for example.
What have they been asking for by the way?
One of my players run a game where he asks the players for a wish-list and he then places them in the adventures, but I find it too cheesy and prefer to give the characters the items I want them to have. Maybe it sounds to Monty Haul to me to just give them what they want. Sure if they quest for a specific item, that's one thing, but to just pick stuff off their list, that sounds lame.
I asked my players for wishlists, but either never got them or the players forgot what they requested. Rather than worry too much about it, I just tried to make certain the parcels I put in appealed to the characters. It's actually the most time consuming part of my prep time, but still desn't take too much. And it's had the side benefit of forcing me to keep better track of what I'm handing out. Something I was fairly lax about in 3.x.
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I'm with "lame". It's like asking Santa and makes little "in game world sense". "Oh look a +5 sword of turning things blue that I suddenly decided I needed last Tuesday. Funny I would find one of those at the bottom of this disused sock mine...". Only time I would allow "asking" is if they visited a sage to find a loctaion/myth/legend about the item and I developed a story/adventure that was specifically to find item X.
S.
I kind of like them because it allows players a chance to develop the direction of their characters. Their characters aren't deciding on the magic item, the players are. One of 4e's philosophies is to allow players more of a chance to develop the story along with the DM.
I don't think it breaks "suspension of disbelief". In fact, I don't know if I've ever read a novel in which characters find useless magic items that they end up selling for 20%. I find bartering magic items to be unrealistic.
However, I've only used the concept of "wish lists" once and it didn't seem to go very well. My players were kind of pissy about it. I don't know why - they were getting a chance to make their own choice of equipment. Anyway, I don't know if I'd do it again unless I had a group that wanted me to.
Roughly 1/3rd of the tresuare I give out is what the players asked for, 1/3 is stuff they havent asked for but stuff I think would be cool for them, and the final 1/3 is just random magic items.
I actually find the idea they get to select their own treasure a little troubling but in the games I am playing or was playing in we were asked what magical items we'd like at certain levels sort of for 1st through to 5th, I replied I didn't mind what item but mentioned magical armour, sword, etc.
In the game I'm running I pretty much used the eberron dragonshards as a means of letting them decide by simply saying they functioned as residium which could be fixed to armour, weapons, equipment and gave them limited abilities which could be enhanced by gathering more.
Of course I still included magical items I selected or thought would work well such as a mirror that functions like a bag of holding based on a story I read about a Tapestry that works the same except if it was take down and moved anyone inside was kept in stasis until it was put up again.
Anyway maybe you should ask them what kind of magic they'd like to find at these levels and then perhaps give them the opportunity to find them whether as a result of completing a mission say a wizard crafts the item as a reward for example.
What have they been asking for by the way?
I'm one of the players not the DM.
I don't see this as an either/or sort of thing. You can include items from PC wishlists alongside items you want to see in the game.
I do have some issues with the idea that it is somehow badwrongfun to allow your players to make suggestions. D&D is a collaborative game. The players each control a character. Every player no doubt has a direction they want to take their character in. Magical treasure exists, when it comes down to it, solely for the benefit of the PCs. If I include an item in an adventure, I anticipate that my players will use it. If I wanted to give them something I expect they will never use, I wouldn't bother picking out a magic item; they'd just get wealth items. With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense to ask the players what their characters might want. It saves the DM time, fulfills players' wishes, and the only conceivable downside is that you have to be able to recognize that the player and the character are not the same, and that picking the items that you want your character to have is no different from a world-cohesiveness point of view from the DM picking the items he wants your character to have. Either way, someone is purposefully selecting items to add to the world, and even with a wishlist the DM has the authority over actually including the item and placing it.
If your group is split down the middle, how about suggesting to the DM that he let you guys play how you want? Those players who want to be able to submit wishlists can do so, and those players who do not like wishlists don't have to submit them, and can get whatever the DM hands them instead.
One potential in-game compromise that might be acceptable to a divided group would be to increase the amount of residuum you can 'harvest' from unwanted magic items (while still retaining the 'sell them for 20%' rule). It would allow players to choose items below their level (provided they can create items, of course) but make do with what they get for a few levels.
No doubt it has a whole bunch of unintended consequences you might need to think through. But if opinions are divided and strongly held it might be a 'fix' which everyone can live with.
If there is a magic item the players want, they have the group Cleric (who has the appropriate Arcana skill) make the items for them, they are only limited by the fact that the items have to be of the same level or lower. The items I give in adventures are of higher level per the treasure parcel rules. I don't just assign random items, I tailor the drops for the group and give them what I think they might like. I've never had a DM do a wish-list, I've always liked getting the items that I never would have picked for myself.
As a DM, I would gladly accept player's wishlists with the understanding that such things may or may not show up 'randomly' and that if they really want something, they should consult a sage, bard, or similar repository of knowledge. Most magic items, IMHO, should be unique and unpredictable.
For all the crap 4E gets about unspectacular magic, I find it's one of the better systems in which to introduce unique artifacts and such since the math is so transparent. I really prefer the alternate "+1 magic item bonus to attacks and all defenses every five levels" concept to cut down on the NEED (not desire!) for magical gear, thus making each magical find more exciting. I'm also very fond of stuff that grants you more power as you increase in level, rather than swapping out the old +1 sword for a +2. When it's time to find treasure, and the players don't have levelling gear, I tend to resort to the LFR "you find a flaming weapon" and let the player determine the type.
I don't accept wish lists from characters, period. I'm running Age or Worms in 4E and I try to mimic the treasure in the adventures with the treasure parcels I hand out because I like the uniqueness of the treasure caches.
For example, in the whispering cairn the PC's found the statuettes. 3 broken and 3 intact. I simply assigned the intact ones gp values based on 3 monetary treasure parcels.
What I did not expect was the group's druid using a ritual to repair the other statuettes!!! That was a great idea though so I let them do it and they got a small bonus to their cash.
I'm with "lame". It's like asking Santa and makes little "in game world sense". "Oh look a +5 sword of turning things blue that I suddenly decided I needed last Tuesday. Funny I would find one of those at the bottom of this disused sock mine...". Only time I would allow "asking" is if they visited a sage to find a loctaion/myth/legend about the item and I developed a story/adventure that was specifically to find item X.
S.
Sock Mine!
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Sock Mine!I'm with "lame". It's like asking Santa and makes little "in game world sense". "Oh look a +5 sword of turning things blue that I suddenly decided I needed last Tuesday. Funny I would find one of those at the bottom of this disused sock mine...". Only time I would allow "asking" is if they visited a sage to find a loctaion/myth/legend about the item and I developed a story/adventure that was specifically to find item X.
S.
Where else do you think socks come from?
Where else do you think socks come from?Sock Mine!I'm with "lame". It's like asking Santa and makes little "in game world sense". "Oh look a +5 sword of turning things blue that I suddenly decided I needed last Tuesday. Funny I would find one of those at the bottom of this disused sock mine...". Only time I would allow "asking" is if they visited a sage to find a loctaion/myth/legend about the item and I developed a story/adventure that was specifically to find item X.
S.
Socks are the physical manifestation of extra-dimensional creatures into our world. Occasionally something disrupts the extra-dimensional projection field causing half of this physical manifestation to wink out of existence...
Back on topic, in the game I run I have asked the players to let me know if there are any particular items they are interested in obtaining, but none of them have taken me up on this offer. So up until now, I have been selecting items I think they will find useful or interesting, but it would be nice to get some suggestions from them...
So have anyone that hands out treasure ever found that the players have just sold it.
Ultimately the half of the table that wanted wish lists used the argument that without wish lists the party would be underpowered. I ccan ertainly see this as a problem cropping up if the players are selling their magic items. That 20% of the take means that selling even a minority of the magic items will very quickly set the party back in terms of power.
If the DM is just picking out items to insure that the players never want to sell them this resolves the issue but barely - your still dealing with a world where Duex Ex Machina seems baked in at its core.
So how does a DM that wants to go with more organic treasure placement deal with the power balance shifting off when the players sell the magic loot?
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I think it comes down to the DM. Some have a world the players are part of, others have a world that is for the players. Wishlists fit the second and go hand in hand with the idea that PCs can travel the world and never encounter something more challenging than they can handle. The former I think suits a more organic world where PCs can find themselves in big troule if at 3rd level they ignore the "Here be Dragons" sign...
I think it comes down to the DM. Some have a world the players are part of, others have a world that is for the players. Wishlists fit the second and go hand in hand with the idea that PCs can travel the world and never encounter something more challenging than they can handle. The former I think suits a more organic world where PCs can find themselves in big troule if at 3rd level they ignore the "Here be Dragons" sign...
OK - but this does not really answer the question.
Lets assume the players are playing in adventure modules designed for characters of their level. If they are getting organic treasure and sometimes selling it then it seems probable that they can no longer handle adventures of their level since they are now too weak. The tough encounter at the end of the average AP adventure would presumably kill them - through no fault of their own nor really of the DM.
Is the answer that DMs that use organic treasure must now consign themselves to never using any published material? Seems like a high price to pay.
Lets assume the players are playing in adventure modules designed for characters of their level. If they are getting organic treasure and sometimes selling it then it seems probable that they can no longer handle adventures of their level since they are now too weak. The tough encounter at the end of the average AP adventure would presumably kill them - through no fault of their own nor really of the DM.
Is the answer that DMs that use organic treasure must now consign themselves to never using any published material? Seems like a high price to pay.
I see your point, but your conclusions seem a little extreme. One can also change out the treasure of a published adventure, or add treasure if the players are losing too much due to sales of items. A lot of magic items can be useful for anyone. And magic items are only a part of the treasure found.
While magic items are useful, I don't know how essential they are for survival in 4e. Most of their powers can only be used once a day and only one magic item per encounter. As far as modifiers, I would argue that one can still get away with lesser magic items. For example, a +1 weapon is 360 gp, 20% of the cost of a +2 weapon at 1800 gp. There really isn't a great difference in the two as far as overall power of a character. Sure it can make a difference here and there, but I'm not convinced one cannot survive with the lvl 1 modifier (+1) as opposed to the lvl 6 modifier (+2).
In the end, one has to decide what's best for your party. But don't throw out the published adventure baby with the treasure parcel bathwater.
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One can also change out the treasure of a published adventure, or add treasure if the players are losing too much due to sales of items. A lot of magic items can be useful for anyone. And magic items are only a part of the treasure found.
As above. But I will say this really, really, really depends on magic in YOUR campaign. No adventure can have exactly the right amount of magic without actually stating exactly which item each class should have at each level (i.e. reduce choice to zero). I personally don't agree with the route that 3e/4e has taken of making magic items so common, but we have what we have. Now I am not saying that I haven't included item for players, just that I would not let players present me with a shopping list.
S.
One can also change out the treasure of a published adventure, or add treasure if the players are losing too much due to sales of items. A lot of magic items can be useful for anyone. And magic items are only a part of the treasure found.As above. But I will say this really, really, really depends on magic in YOUR campaign. No adventure can have exactly the right amount of magic without actually stating exactly which item each class should have at each level (i.e. reduce choice to zero). I personally don't agree with the route that 3e/4e has taken of making magic items so common, but we have what we have. Now I am not saying that I haven't included item for players, just that I would not let players present me with a shopping list.
S.
If magic items everywhere isn't your thing, take a look at the new excerpt from the DMG2 - Adventures and Rewards. It outlines alternative rewards, which are essentially ways of providing the PCs with thematic boons that last five levels without throwing magic items their way. Examples include a deity granting you power, receiving power from accomplishing some heroic or legendary deed, or undergoing intense training under a grandmaster.
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If magic items everywhere isn't your thing, take a look at the new excerpt from the DMG2 - Adventures and Rewards. It outlines alternative rewards, which are essentially ways of providing the PCs with thematic boons that last five levels without throwing magic items their way. Examples include a deity granting you power, receiving power from accomplishing some heroic or legendary deed, or undergoing intense training under a grandmaster.One can also change out the treasure of a published adventure, or add treasure if the players are losing too much due to sales of items. A lot of magic items can be useful for anyone. And magic items are only a part of the treasure found.As above. But I will say this really, really, really depends on magic in YOUR campaign. No adventure can have exactly the right amount of magic without actually stating exactly which item each class should have at each level (i.e. reduce choice to zero). I personally don't agree with the route that 3e/4e has taken of making magic items so common, but we have what we have. Now I am not saying that I haven't included item for players, just that I would not let players present me with a shopping list.
S.
That sounds just the thing, much more "my style". I really like this idea rather than keying the potential of characters always to magic item hording (aka 3e).
Thanks for the heads up,
S.
If magic items everywhere isn't your thing, take a look at the new excerpt from the DMG2 - Adventures and Rewards. It outlines alternative rewards, which are essentially ways of providing the PCs with thematic boons that last five levels without throwing magic items their way. Examples include a deity granting you power, receiving power from accomplishing some heroic or legendary deed, or undergoing intense training under a grandmaster.
Wow. I must have missed that excerpt. DMG2 is looking pretty spectacular now!
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So I was part of a great session last Wednesday except for the heated fight over treasure parcels. Essentially the table breaks down into two groups with half the players thinking that asking for your own magic gear is great and the other half considering to be deeply lame.
Okay - brace for sermon ....
I'm from Reno, NV. Legal prostitution in the next county over, 24 hours of booze, dancing, gambling ... One of the things we always commented on growing up is that really our town wasn't any different from any other town, except all of our "dirt" is out in the open instead of happening in the shadows.
I consider wish lists in 4E the exact same thing. I mean, who hasn't bemoaned wanting to find a Holy Avenger for their paladin to the DM? In truth, the only thing that 4E did for us is admit to the practice. I think each and every one of us can admit to "Boy, I'd sure like to get a XXXXX."
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So I was part of a great session last Wednesday except for the heated fight over treasure parcels. Essentially the table breaks down into two groups with half the players thinking that asking for your own magic gear is great and the other half considering to be deeply lame.Okay - brace for sermon ....
I'm from Reno, NV. Legal prostitution in the next county over, 24 hours of booze, dancing, gambling ... One of the things we always commented on growing up is that really our town wasn't any different from any other town, except all of our "dirt" is out in the open instead of happening in the shadows.
I consider wish lists in 4E the exact same thing. I mean, who hasn't bemoaned wanting to find a Holy Avenger for their paladin to the DM? In truth, the only thing that 4E did for us is admit to the practice. I think each and every one of us can admit to "Boy, I'd sure like to get a XXXXX."
And like any Government department (local or national) as DM I really don't care what my "people" actually want... :)
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Wow. I must have missed that excerpt. DMG2 is looking pretty spectacular now!
If magic items everywhere isn't your thing, take a look at the new excerpt from the DMG2 - Adventures and Rewards. It outlines alternative rewards, which are essentially ways of providing the PCs with thematic boons that last five levels without throwing magic items their way. Examples include a deity granting you power, receiving power from accomplishing some heroic or legendary deed, or undergoing intense training under a grandmaster.
The more I read DMG 1, and the previews for DMG2 the more I realize that these are two of the best books about RPGing GMing that have come out in a long long while, and that they really should be read by new and seasoned DMs regardless of the rules. They are just really thoughtful, well constructed books that transcend the meat of the rules and can improve any GMs game (game meant both ways, the game they are running, and their "game" as a substitute for their GM skill.)
I know that sounds uber fanboi'ish, but I run a PFRPG game, and do stuff like delves on the side with 4e. I've been in probably half a dozen to a dozen game systems since the early 90's, and these are the first books to really set me back on my heels and challenge my assumptions of how I gm.
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So I was part of a great session last Wednesday except for the heated fight over treasure parcels. Essentially the table breaks down into two groups with half the players thinking that asking for your own magic gear is great and the other half considering to be deeply lame.Okay - brace for sermon ....
I'm from Reno, NV. Legal prostitution in the next county over, 24 hours of booze, dancing, gambling ... One of the things we always commented on growing up is that really our town wasn't any different from any other town, except all of our "dirt" is out in the open instead of happening in the shadows.
I consider wish lists in 4E the exact same thing. I mean, who hasn't bemoaned wanting to find a Holy Avenger for their paladin to the DM? In truth, the only thing that 4E did for us is admit to the practice. I think each and every one of us can admit to "Boy, I'd sure like to get a XXXXX."
I think, especially in the case of the Holy Avenger, you always had the chance to create a special adventure just for such items like the Holy Avenger, (which for a paladin is practically an artifact or at least was in the 2e era.)
So by the time the Holy Avenger becomes relevant, and if the player has begun actively seeking it, you send them off on a little side quest into the demon overun, catacombs beneath a temple that vanished a century ago to recover the from the clutches of evil the Holy Sword of Sir Tristan Lightwarden, III of the Order Of Asskickery.
So I was part of a great session last Wednesday except for the heated fight over treasure parcels. Essentially the table breaks down into two groups with half the players thinking that asking for your own magic gear is great and the other half considering to be deeply lame.Okay - brace for sermon ....
I'm from Reno, NV. Legal prostitution in the next county over, 24 hours of booze, dancing, gambling ... One of the things we always commented on growing up is that really our town wasn't any different from any other town, except all of our "dirt" is out in the open instead of happening in the shadows.
I consider wish lists in 4E the exact same thing. I mean, who hasn't bemoaned wanting to find a Holy Avenger for their paladin to the DM? In truth, the only thing that 4E did for us is admit to the practice. I think each and every one of us can admit to "Boy, I'd sure like to get a XXXXX."
Hmmm...honestly I still think this is just another option.
While I'm taking time off from DMing I've DMed for more then 20 years now and run a lot of games, I've certainly had my share of Paladins in my campaigns and I can honestly say that in all my years of gaming I have not once handed out a Holy Avenger +5. Its never happened - thats not to say it can never happen but, it seems to me that your arguing that in the end the 4E system has simply brought into the open what was always happening behind the scenes in any case. That is not my experience.
I've certainly handed out some cool loot at one time or another - even, once, a Copper Dragon's egg, but my personal experience does not jive with yours. Characters are going to find cool loot in a D&D campaign but, prior to wish lists anyway, there was no guarantee that the Paladin was going to get a +5 Holy Avenger.
I see your point, but your conclusions seem a little extreme. One can also change out the treasure of a published adventure, or add treasure if the players are losing too much due to sales of items. A lot of magic items can be useful for anyone. And magic items are only a part of the treasure found.While magic items are useful, I don't know how essential they are for survival in 4e. Most of their powers can only be used once a day and only one magic item per encounter. As far as modifiers, I would argue that one can still get away with lesser magic items. For example, a +1 weapon is 360 gp, 20% of the cost of a +2 weapon at 1800 gp. There really isn't a great difference in the two as far as overall power of a character. Sure it can make a difference here and there, but I'm not convinced one cannot survive with the lvl 1 modifier (+1) as opposed to the lvl 6 modifier (+2).
In the end, one has to decide what's best for your party. But don't throw out the published adventure baby with the treasure parcel bathwater.
Yeah - I'm leaning toward this answer as well, but I'm biased. I'd really love to know just what the effects are of organic treasure dropping versus wish lists are but maybe I need to ask that question again in a few years when there has been more time to evaluate the differences.
That said I definitely have some fears regarding character power level in 4E adventures. Essentially I feel that 4E has actually made magic loot more important then 3.5 as opposed to less important.
I understand that this should seem odd because one of the design objectives of 4E was to reduce the importance of magic gear. However I've begun to feel that this essentially clashed with other 4E design objectives and this element 'lost'.
What it really comes down to is how a PC party losses a fight in 3.5 versus how the same thing occurs in 4E. I'll emphasize here that I mean 'in a close fight' not the players slaughtering some easy monsters or the DM jumping them with something way out of their league.
I killed about 8 or 9 characters in 3.5 and generally speaking there was a theme to when this took place. I either got very lucky and critted against low level players killing them outright or, at higher levels, I hit the players with a curve ball they never saw coming. So a player died at 7th when they, for the very first time, encountered a creature with a save or die death effect. That trick worked exactly once, after that the players always had magic gear that would give out an extra save or nerf a death effect once per day. This is a constant theme as well - I killed a player that got sloppy and, when wounded simply retreated to a place where they would have cover presuming that the monsters would (as had always been the case before) switch targets to easier to hit PCs - in this case the monster had a feat that eliminated the cover penalty and I slaughtered the PC. After that my players would not make that mistake again. I could go on but you get the idea - if my players saw it coming it simply did not work - they took counter measures. I got them only through surprise and they had to die this round from my trickery or they would find a way to save their endangered comrade (note that saving their comrade was, by far, the most common result of a close encounter).
In 4E this has changed. Players simply don't loose fights because of some trick that hits them out of the blue. Basically speaking that does not happen. Instead what happens is that the players go toe to toe with the bad guys and, over the course of many rounds, they are drained out of their resources. First the healers run out of healing abilities they can give the other players and then the players rally back and fire off all their daily's, magic item abilities etc.. After that the players, getting desperate, crack open their 'use only once' stuff and start dunking back potions of healing etc. Finally they run out of even this and after all of that they come to the conclusion that the math just does not work in their favour - with two players down for the count, everyone down to just their at wills and the rest of the party running on fumes they simply don't have what it takes to win this encounter. Maybe they can find a way to save their downed comrades and maybe not but ultimately its time to give up the contest and try and run away.
Hence 3.5 is swingy and lethal - on any given round the players could loose to something coming out of the blue and killing a player outright. But if the players don't die outright then they'll almost certainly have a counter measure. Combat, by the mid levels and beyond anyway, is about both the PCs and the monsters having aces up their sleeves. Each side pulls out their aces and hopes that this dramatically swings the combat in their favour. One way or another combat is usually short (in terms of number of combat rounds) and not usually about attrition - the cleric or mage will save your ass unless your stone cold dead before they can take any action to help you.
4E is a war of attrition - in the end there is a lot of math underlying the results of the combat because there are going to be a lot of rolls made. Averages matter a lot because - with so many rolls, ultimately averages are going to probably dictate the end results. Sure a combat could go flucky with either the players or the DM rolling 20 after 20 but thats rare and its especially rare for that to come up in one of the comparatively few fights where the PCs have a strong possibility of loosing. This is where that extra +1 comes into play - when averages matter then its a big deal to loose that extra 5% to hit. Over the course of a long drawn out fight thats meaningful - especially if it applies to all the players and especially if we are talking about 10% and not 5%. One useless item is - I agree - no big deal, but if the players have sold a lot and the DM is not tracking that and adding extra loot into subsequent adventures the odds are slowly being pushed to the point where the players have the deck stacked against them whenever they hit those Level +3 or +4 encounters.
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Hmmm...honestly I still think this is just another option.While I'm taking time off from DMing I've DMed for more then 20 years now and run a lot of games, I've certainly had my share of Paladins in my campaigns and I can honestly say that in all my years of gaming I have not once handed out a Holy Avenger +5. Its never happened - thats not to say it can never happen but, it seems to me that your arguing that in the end the 4E system has simply brought into the open what was always happening behind the scenes in any case. That is not my experience.
I've certainly handed out some cool loot at one time or another - even, once, a Copper Dragon's egg, but my personal experience does not jive with yours. Characters are going to find cool loot in a D&D campaign but, prior to wish lists anyway, there was no guarantee that the Paladin was going to get a +5 Holy Avenger.
I absolutely 100% agree that it is an option.
And perhaps I haven't made my stance completely clear.
Basically, having a "wish list" and actually getting said items from the wish list are, of course, two different animals. I'm not saying that I actually adhere to the wish list, but having one allows me to tailor my games to the players' expectations. And, knowing that they want X item allows me to craft cool stories around them. Still, there are times when I just don't care what item is in the loot pile, and having a list makes it easy, as well.
As with all tools, each one is handy in its specific spot. However, just because I've been making cabinets and using a hammer doesn't mean that is the tool of choice when installing window panes.