It's something I really don't enjoy. I'm just not big on magic items dominating the game. But I also don't want martial characters to be screwed? Any suggestions?
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Not really; there are rules for characters "auto-advancing" the big items (stat bumps, enhancement bonuses, deflection, resistance, etc); but honestly these are complex and hard to build around. PFS assumes these items as tiers go up; otherwise you have to adjust monsters extensively down. And let's be honest; most players like physical magic item rewards and like to see their advancement.
In short, you can do it; but ask if the nuance of eliminating these items is really "worth it" when you either need to downplay CRs or give the characters "virtual" magic items anyway.
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Introduce a spell that does one point of damage to everyone in a radius per 1000gp worth of magic items they are carrying... basically turns the magical aura of the items into a damaging field. You have a few magic items, no big deal... won't do any more damage than a normal attack spell. Christmas tree decorations? You go up in a mushroom cloud. Alternatively, you could have it create a feedback effect which causes magic items to save or explode, but that's getting really nasty.
OR just don't give out as many magic items and change the rules on crafting so it is impossible or much more difficult.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well the short answer is ban the 'christmas tree' but what does that do to the campaign?
As others mentionm the current CR system assumes that those items exist. At lower levels, it won't make a difference, but at higher levels it will.
To use an extreme example, at 20th level (if not before) Tomes and stat boosters will increase to hit, damage, saves, etc by +5 at least. To use the Pit Fiend (cr 20) as an example, with an AC of 38, a 23 strength figher is going to be looking at (eyeballing here) a +35 w/o those items (figure 22 str, 20 BAB +5 weapon, weapon training) vs a +40. On a full attack, the last two attacks are likely to miss, where on the 'regular' fighter at least the third is likely to hit.
Likewise, a wizards DC on saves will likely be (18+ spell level) (10 + stat (assuming 22/23) + spell focus, +GSF). So a ninth level spell with a 27 dc the fiend resists 55% of the time on a will save, 90% of the time on fortitude. That +5 makes a difference.
Also if you get rid of cloaks of resistance, the saves become more difficult too. That Pit Fiend's mass hold person is a 27 save. If it's the poor save, you're looking at a +5 cloak making a difference (6 + wis vs 11 + wis), and how many poor will save classes have high wisdom?
So you'll need to 'tweak' the CRs, most likely. OTOH, it means high level critters are truely terrifying.
Remove magic from the game. Make em play naked. The characters, I mean, not the real people.
This really kills martial characters, who are far more gear dependent than the casters.
Just assume
Magic weapon/rod for caster
Cloak of protection
Ring of deflection
Magic armor/shield
Amulet of natural armor
of an appropriate level and include the bonuses in the character.
Yes, I have a system in place that I started with my current campaign my solution to the christmas tree effect.
The players get additional abilities and bonuses as they level up, some of which give direct 'big six' like abilities, and others that COULD be like that or could be different depending on the Archetype chosen (archetypes from the 3pp super genius games), to allow for at least some of the differentiation that magic items do. The 2 combined elements heroic distinctions and archetypes are meant to replace the majority of character wealth in magic items, and with it I remove the ability to craft items that arent potions, wands or scrolls. Thus separating wealth from power in game. I still have some magic items, but they can be sprinkled in, and be something that becomes a signature item for a character instead of something that the characters need to perform their respective tasks, and will be replaced in a few levels with a better item.
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Remove magic from the game. Make em play naked. The characters, I mean, not the real people.This really kills martial characters, who are far more gear dependent than the casters.
Just assume
Magic weapon/rod for caster
Cloak of protection
Ring of deflection
Magic armor/shield
Amulet of natural armorof an appropriate level and include the bonuses in the character.
you forgot stat boosting belts and headbands. just to be safe, i would assume physical perfection and mental perfection. (the tri stat ones)
Don't hand out as many magic items, or at least, as many stat boosters. Force lots of encounters per day, to keep casters from overcasting.
Scale down what monsters you throw at them. Instead of a Balor, use a Nalfeshnee. Make the dragon a little younger, or an easier color.
Etc. I don't think you need much in the way of rules tweaking per se, it's mostly in adventure design.
I don't buy that the game is less fun with the PC's getting fewer magic items generally or stat boosters in particular.
There is certainly fun in magical items, but for me alot of that gets lost in the +x items that dominate the statistical side of the game.
Certainly you can scale down adventures and enemies but that gets very complicated as you get to higher levels. In some cases just using a lower CR isn't good enough.
Certainly you can scale down adventures and enemies but that gets very complicated as you get to higher levels. In some cases just using a lower CR isn't good enough.Agree, but at higher levels, CR gets wonky anyway, especially if you've got a bunch of splatbooks in play that lead to a bunch of twinked combos not possible when the monster was initially CR'd.
GM gets instant feedback if his encounters are getting too hard. Just start dialing them back if the PC's are getting wiped out by what are intended to be warm-up encounters.
True enough, and it can work, I just prefer replacing the expected abilities with internal ones, and removing the reliance on magic items, without having to rework the whole CR system.
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To the OP: An alternate method would be CR tiered reduction in creature stats.
You can do this one of two ways. Reduced the stat values - and thus all the secondary values: AC, to hit, damage bonus, save DCs, extra hp.
This will bring creatures down to a more manageable non-magic/reduced magic stat range. The reductions would have to scale depending on the creature. The higher CR the more the stats would have to be reduced. This would be a re-write of the Bestiary basically. You tone down the base stats and the seconadry values will follow - plenty of work.
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Another faster approach would be to flat reduction to bonuses based off of CR. So a fast and dirty method would have a CR 7 creature get a -1 on all it's book listed saves and stat bonuses (not stats), without dropping them into the negative. Everything goes down by 1. There would need to be a quick recalculation of hp, but you basically have a low-magic appropriate creature (with some tweaks).
CE Large magical beast
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, scent;
Perception +10
Defense
AC 17, touch 9, flat-footed 17 (+8 natural, –1 size)
hp 76 (9d10+27)
Fort +8, Ref +6, Will +5
Offense
Speed 30 ft., fly 50 ft. (poor)
Melee bite +11 (2d6+3), bite +11 (1d8+3), gore +11 (1d8+3), 2 claws +11(1d6+3)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks breath weapon
Statistics
Str 19, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 4, Wis 13, Cha 10
Base Atk +9; CMB +13; CMD 23 (27 vs. trip)
Feats Hover, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Skill Focus (Perception), Toughness
Special Abilities
Breath Weapon (Su) A chimera’s breath weapon depends on the color of its dragon head, as summarized on the
table below. Regardless of its type, a chimera’s breath weapon is usable once every 1d4 rounds, deals 5d8 points of damage, and allows a DC16 Reflex save for half damage. The save DC is Constitution-based. To determine a chimera’s head color and breath weapon randomly, roll 1d10 and consult the table below.
(I would also consider reducing the damage die fore each attack down a stage, i.e. - 1d8+3 becomes 1d6+3, and so on)
CR 10 -2, CR 13 -3, etc. I haven't done the math on this end because I am working on the problem from a different angle, so I offered this up as a "sort of" solution.
So far it has reduced PC and creature HP, which in turn has reduced the requirement for secondary damage values on weapons (flaming, frost, etc). Reducing multiple attacks for high BAB is another way to reduce damage in this new hp environment. I can now run a single foe combats because the incoming damage is not overwhelming, so action economy isn't as big of a deal vs. single foes.
This has also restored evo damage as a viable tactic (with the now reduced hp values for everything).
Actually it has (on the surface) reduced a ton of problems - xmass tree being the most obvious since the stat boosters for saves and increased stats are not really needed to compete. The saving throws scale on their own and there is very little to modify them (stat or feat wise) or the DCs they will get hit with (since outgoing DC mods are now reduced). In fact a Cloak of Resistance +1 for a low or mid level group would be a pretty powerful item since the scale of modifiers and available modifiers have been reduced.
1d8+5 damage (STR and specialization) at 7th level is very viable when your foes have reduced hps.
Just need to rework the feats and eliminate or reduce any damage multipliers (x2,x3, etc) and heavy damage boosters since they would destroy the balance of the changes.
It was a hard sell to my group who has gotten used to 3.5 damage output and values. Then they saw some sample revised creatures and were ok with what I was proposing.
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The last option would be my suggestion to play another game - not being snarky here. 3.5 has its basic mechanics around quickly scaling stat bonuses and requirements. Unless you changed their values or made them inherent you don't really have a lot of other options available to you.
Probably more than you wanted but I haven't seen an easy fix for the 3.5 + based system
I've toyed with masterwork weapons that apply a +1 to +5 bonus to attack and damage rolls, and masterwork armor that applies a +1 to +5 bonus to armor class. This replaces the magical enhancement system. The pricing for masterwork weapons is changed as well to match the magical enhancement system so that a +5 masterwork sword would cost exactly the same as a +5 magic sword. Magic weapons in this system still have to be of masterwork quality but gain other enhancements like keen, bane, flaming etc.; however the +X enhancement is always a masterwork enhancement.
I mostly created this system so I could use pregenerated NPCs easily, which are typically decked out with magic weapons and armor; items they absolutely need in order to be effective at their challenge rating. This way of doing it also keeps to the wealth by level convention with little need to change encounters faced by PCs.
One problem, however, is the effectiveness of dispel magic as a masterwork property cannot be suppressed by the spell. Oh well, casters probably need a reduction in power anyway.
I plan on posting this system in the Hombrew messagboards eventually.
Fair enough. You still end up with a "same-powered" game that way, and presumably in the opinion of the OP, that is "over" powered.
I didnt get that from the OP, he just said he didnt want the game 'dominated by magic items'. I didnt see anything from what he wrote that said he though characters with expected gear were by definition overpowered.
If that is the case I would recommend (within my system) just giving heroic distinctions, which provides considerably less power then wbl magic items, but still keeps pcs statistically compeative in most respects with level appropriate enemies.
Fair enough. You still end up with a "same-powered" game that way, and presumably in the opinion of the OP, that is "over" powered.
I didnt get that from the OP, he just said he didnt want the game 'dominated by magic items'. I didnt see anything from what he wrote that said he though characters with expected gear were by definition overpowered.
If that is the case I would recommend (within my system) just giving heroic distinctions, which provides considerably less power then wbl magic items, but still keeps pcs statistically compeative in most respects with level appropriate enemies.
Yeah, K's got it right. I looked at your system and rather liked it. I think I'll implement it or smething similar and derivative in my games. Thanks a bunch.
Honestly I don't understand the problem. Aren't christmas trees nice and all?
Just make sure that no player is reaping it all and you should be fine.
Else you could always limit the amounts of magic items that can be worn. For instance a Wizard can only wear two magic items while a fighter could wear four.
Because it hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread, I'll mention it: A robust Action Point system can go a long way toward ameliorating the alleged need for magic items. I'm also toying with the idea of adding an exploding dice mechanic, perhaps loosely patterned after what's used by Savage Worlds.
I've toyed with masterwork weapons that apply a +1 to +5 bonus to attack and damage rolls, and masterwork armor that applies a +1 to +5 bonus to armor class.
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I mostly created this system so I could use pregenerated NPCs easily, which are typically decked out with magic weapons and armor; items they absolutely need in order to be effective at their challenge rating. This way of doing it also keeps to the wealth by level convention with little need to change encounters faced by PCs.
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Does that actually change anything at all?
I mean is there really any difference between being decked out in +5 magical gear and in +5 masterwork gear? They cost the same. They do the same. They just don't detect as magic?
It changes very little, and that is the goal. One of the problems with changing the system to accommodate less magic is that the assumption PCs will acquire more and more powerful magic items as they gain levels is built into the system, so messing with magic availability can have disproportionate effects on different character classes. Furthermore, this assumption is reflected in all of the published material.
The advanced masterwork system I propose seeks to change very little so that the DM will have less work to do. It simply requires a change in perception. Instead of requiring a +2 sword to be magical it becomes a finely crafted sword that gives a +2 enhancement; and legendary swords forged using highly advanced techniques developed in the far east have a +5 enhancement instead of simply being magical.
To be sure, I think a system like Kolokotroni's 'heroic distinctions' is a better solution, but systems like that require a fair amount of work on the DM's part, what with adjusting all of those NPCs with class levels found in published material.
In the end I am just proposing re-skinning +X weapons and armor, but that is because a +2 thundering sword is definitely a "magic" weapon whereas there no reason why +2 or +3 sword has to be percieved as a one.
It's something I really don't enjoy. I'm just not big on magic items dominating the game. But I also don't want martial characters to be screwed? Any suggestions?
Play a different game?
Not kidding. Dead serious. PF is heavily dependent on magic items for balance between classes. Playing without magic items will require so many adjustments that you really would be better off using a different rules system.
Maybe you are looking at the problem the wrong way. For example, if you think too many magic items makes them less special, maybe have intelligent multi-function items instead. Ones that can communicate and be interesting NPCs.
Maybe you are looking at the problem the wrong way. For example, if you think too many magic items makes them less special, maybe have intelligent multi-function items instead. Ones that can communicate and be interesting NPCs.
That will work, for a time, but what happens when intelligent, multi-functional items are no longer special.
Power creep is what has brought us to this point.