I think part of the reason magic items (particularly magic weapons) have become the way they are ultimately has a ton to do with players wanting/needing to have control over character concept. . . I'm talking about stuff like a character wanting to specialize in throwing axes . . .
That's kind of my point. WHY does the system do this? At what point did magic items become so necessary they are expected parts of the mechanics;
This is an excellent point, and one of the main reasons I loved the third edition magic item creation rules when they first came out.
I've played enough AD&D 1st and AD&D 2nd edition games to have known the frustration of random (or planned in a book adventure) loot which is not customizable. I remember people refusing to accept magic item "picks" because they wanted to save up for when certain items became available, and other strange metagame constructs. In many games, once the party got to a high enough level that it was really annoying, the DM would include some sort of mystical magic mart that felt as contrived as it was.
I'd love to see a change to Pathfinder in a later edition that tries to make a balance between the need for large numbers of boring +X items we currently have, and the old inflexible way. I made my own setting-specific home-brew system once to fix this, and it worked quite well.
Clarifications:
1. 1st ed had DR, it was just all or nothing. If you didn't have a +2 weapon, you didn't go anywhere near an Elemental, no matter your level.
2. A look at the pregens for most tournament modules from 1st ed is revealing. A lot of the lower level PCs had better magic or a lot better stats than the higher level PCs they adventured with.
From 2, one could imagine a PC-Power tracking system, using Magic & Level to determine power (with perhaps Stats/build-points another factor, and maybe extra Feats/fewer Feats too)
For DMs getting wonky with 'too much' imbalance, a set of adjustments could be encouraged.
"For Magic weak PCs, shift DR of opponents down by 5 pts. For Magic strong PCs shift DR up by one type or by 5 pts."
Of course, it'd be nice if it were more scalable, but we're just brainstorming for now. Such a thing could cover other key abilities people find need adjusting (like Saves, mentioned often above)
Also, I think the WBL shift in 3.0 had more to do with the OGL aspect.
The designers were trying to make a transparent system, one very user-friendly for developers (DMs & other companies).
This is my main attraction to 3.x, the ability to build anything I want within a game-designer-approved framework.
Yes, it had the ramifications of tying in magic, which lead to the mundane nature of magic now, and the near uselessness of treasure except to cycle back into magic. But mundane-magic can be extricated with CR shifts until all but the highest/strangest power levels.
And I do remember a 1st ed module where we found about 5 or 6 +1 Short Swords (some being used/some just treasure) in a single building. Even the DM was like "WTF?" when he realized how many we were accumulating.
I think the real difficulty is balancing PCs. I like the balance of classes right now, but fewer magic items does hinder those that don't have magic more than those that do (whether spells or other abilities).
I like some of the suggestions above, such as lower level plusses not being magical and tying in basic increases (stats/saves/AC/more?) into character growth, perhaps with options for which to build first.
Anyway, it's such a touchy subject for Paizo to touch, we may have to work out such a system ourselves. (Monte got a LOT of negative feedback for his article. And some strong approval too. As I said, 'touchy subject', but I agree with every sentiment, even if I reason that the mechanics of such change shall be awkward, at best.)
JMK
There is also the economic question to consider. I realize it may or not be a concern for a lot of games, but I'd like to play in a world that doesn't use +1 swords as the real currency of note. Because treasure was used as the balancing factor to control magic item access, through either purchase or the creation rules, the vast majority of wealth seems to have to go through adventurer hands and leads to all kinds of weirdness.
Decoupling magic items from advancement is one way to solve that problem.
The question then becomes, is it worth the trouble of having to individually balance encounters around magic item access that can vary from player to player across the same level? The answer depends entirely on how complicated the math behind encounter dynamics is. If it's fairly predictable 4E stuff, that's more doable (and is arguably already accomplished by the inherent bonus system). PF is a whole other bucket of snakes, and it's impossible to say with some unknown future system.
Frankly, I'd prefer to keep the benefits of both setups. If you figure the assumed bonuses from items ala 4E, then you can either ignore them, or hand them out for free alongside the other facets of items. That is, any magic sword you find has the appropriate bonus for your level, but is magical primarily because it glows in the presence of orcs or what have you. That still leaves you with some problems surrounding utility and wondrous items, but at least it offers several different ways to handle the most mathematically significant items.
I've got a more elaborate idea for trying to fuse the two systems and fix the economy problem in one fell swoop, but it's lengthy and off-topic enough that I'll spoiler it.
really like this direction, but it has a few problems that come to mind immediately. If you're still using magic items as a reward system, players will still run into rings of invisibility, even if they need to spend a different "attunement" resource to use them. While that new resource system can be used as a balancing mechanism in place of monetary value, why shouldn't the ring still be valuable? If anyone with an appropriate attunement pool can use it, then there's going to be demand for it among those people.
The other option is to obviously make magic items entirely crafted by the players within some defined limits, which has all sorts of potential to aggravate the christmas tree effect and lead to ever more precisely optimized characters. Those problems aside though, the real issue is that you lose the "treasure as reward" feel, the excitement of running across new and diverse magic items, often with unexpected powers, and you lose out on one major motivation for characters to go adventuring in the first place.
I think the first option is still better. My solution would be to simply play up the limited market for magical gear. How many adventurers are there who actually can use rings of invisibility? If that number isn't very large, how likely are shops that specialize in what is a really a tiny niche of the economy? If those shops don't exist, then your only option for trading out treasure is actually finding other adventuring parties.
To prevent characters from feeling cheated by worthless gear and to avoid the Fellowship of the Ring problem (never stopping anywhere even vaguely civilized to buy or sell your items), you could offer some sort of repurposing method for magical gear. Say, some sort of ritual that allowed players to change one kind of magical ability into something of a similar power level? You could then limit the list of what these transmutations could accomplish to still make questing for items beyond the basic lists (or finding them randomly) more exciting and compelling.
Or, you could use them as a justification for consumable items. You can break the underlying enchantment down to make potions or scrolls. I like the idea of making limited amounts of consumable items as a basic class feature of the caster classes, while using a different limited resource than gold. Something like a very limited form of alchemist extracts perhaps; each caster can prepare X amount of spell-levels worth of potions or scroll at any one time. Breaking down extraneous magic items would allow them to expand on those limits temporarily.
You could do away with strict item creation rules pretty easily under this sort of system, and go back to storyline/quest based creation systems. The 5 great swords of Sargon were each crafted from the bones of the different dragons he slew and then enchanted by consecration in the five streams that flow between the planes, that sort of thing. Then players who want specific items can either go for the historical route and track down such a sword via myth and legend and slaying ancient tomb guardians, or get to dragon killing and extraplanar stream bathing to make their own.
Either way, the limitation on character power remains consistent and magic items can live comfortably outside of the spellcasting and economic systems and have a strict basis in the rules. Magic item creation becomes the purview of questing and storytelling, offering plot hooks without seriously disenfranchising players (not to mention shifting that power away from spellcasters).
Even better, this totally allows for magic item fluff to vary easily between various genres of fantasy. If it's high magic these rituals can be pretty easy. For worlds with strong gods, maybe a blessing by a priest is all you need. For dark and gritty worlds, maybe nothing will do but human(oid) sacrifice.
You could then reflavor magic item abilities to exist independent of items as talents characters possess, sort of like flexible class abilities. Your fighter is just so damn tough he doesn't need to sleep more than a few hours a night or eat for weeks on end instead of wearing a ring of sustenance. You could capture a sort of Iron Heroes feel that way, or do something along the lines of 4E style boons.
Now that I consider it, this would be a totally awesome economic excuse to set up adventurer conventions, specific adventuring guilds and towns/institutions that specifically cater to and attract adventurers. You'd have crazy businessmen chasing huge profits by going to the most dangerous parts of the world to set up temporary outposts as hundreds of insane adventurers stumbled through, most of them getting eaten. Totally interesting world-building fodder there.
I like your 'spoiler', Pedantic.
More food for the discussion:
One thing to remember from 1st ed:
Treasure was your main source of XP. 1 g.p.=1 XP.
Kill 50 Orcs at 1st level?
Keep chugging along, you're getting closer to 2nd.
Kill 1 Orc with an expensive tiara? Woo-hoo! Roll me some h.p.
So while killing helped, your main focus was treasure so, yeah, people treasured getting it. It had immediate worth before being converted into power items.
Magic gave XP too (either a base amount or a higher amount if you immediately sold it for gold)
Which is to say, the old dynamics had their own issues too.
Does that 4th Level Fighter who worked so hard for the +3 Sword keep it (and chance losing it to thieves/bad luck/rust monsters/oozes)? Or does he sell it and level up faster?
Mind you, in Gygaxian settings it was often easy to lose items forever. One's magic stock was less stable there. Feast or famine. Most of our critters that target items come from him.
He wrote how he'd placed only 3 Vorpal Swords in all of his campaigns and 2 of them were found by one player who proceeded to dual-wield them to brutal effect.
Major headache. Well...until that player challenged a major demon who grabbed one in each hand and crushed them. Gygax said it was a relief, and a natural consequence, not engineered, but that it also made the player (his adult son, I believe) very distraught.
I kind of prefer the "Get to Point C"=+1 level method. Then the PCs can use any tactics they wish to accomplish their story goals without worrying about XP, and a wandering monster/"extra trouble they stir up" doesn't prematurely level them. (Leaving treasure behind's still an issue though, but PFS specifically has a caption saying to shift the positioning of the reward so ingenious players still get awarded.)
I also remember a good Planescape adventure where a 17th or so level fighter used a brightly glowing, legendary sword everybody wanted.
It was +1. He had very little other gear.
(He pretended to suck and that the sword was essentially giving him most of his BAB. Rescued by the PCs, he's supposed to make a major impact (without significant magic) on Sigil's factions. Would that even be possible in 3.x/PF?)
Also, I do think Rogues can steal to break WBL.
(Though I dislike side adventuring, leaving other players idle.)
If the DM is awarding g.p./encounter at standard rates, the PCs will make more than enough to hit WBL. IMO, the only time a DM should adjust treasure for WBL is if he's throwing Rust Monsters and Sundering Giants at them.
If somebody's frugal with their disposables, they shouldn't be punished.
If somebody wants to play a greedy PC, let the PC try for wealth without some invisible cap on his success that just happens to keep him as wealthy as the other PCs.
(This isn't to say there shouldn't be story repercussions...)
Until next time,
JMK