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Ok, so the title is a bit of an overstatement, but here goes:
In going through these forums there seems to be a decent number of people (or a very vocal few) who don't like characters gaining power through magic items. They like to feel that their character's inherent abilities should be solely responsible for their power and that magic items somehow diminish their triumphs.
Obviously, this is an opinion, and a fine one to hold. However, in the interest of providing more perspective, consider this (in my opinion) excellent article that talks about how dependent humans are on tool use. You don't have to read the article, but it basically proposes that tool use has influenced our very evolution. More colloquially, one doesn't have to look far to see how dependent we are on tools in everyday life. From combat to transportation to medicine, we are extremely dependent on tools.
In short, I don't really have a problem with my character using tools to defeat monsters. My tools are a part of me and I don't think that using them diminishes my victories. Being able to create and use tools judiciously and creatively is one of humanity's great advantages over threats, and I for one like that this is part of the game. What do you guys think?
What this post did NOT argue: That magic items should necessarily be common/easily accessible, that people who don't like characters gaining power through magic items are wrong, etc.
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My observation is not that many, or really any, forum regulars "hate" magic items, what they express concern over is the "Christmas tree" effect which tends to create a near standard "required list" of items for classes in the majority of magic item slots. The complaint is that this essentially makes the magic items a "tax" that must be paid for the character to be effective. Most of the comments I've seen are of the opinion (an opinion that I share) that this reduces character creation flexibility and creativity and fosters a cookie-cutter approach to character building. If these slots were not dedicated to those "required" items then magic items that promoted variability in character creation would be more common and the end result would be a more interesting and fun character to play.
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I have to agree with AD on the Christmas Tree effect. Having magic items is a lot less fun when most of them are just there to keep you on par mechanically with the challenges you face. Most of your magic items wind up being generic number-boosters, because that's what you need to stay relevant.
I like Martials.
I don't like Magic.
So how do my Martials compete with Magic?
By using Magic, of course.
You can see why someone like myself would dislike this, I hope.
Pretty much the first thing that is recommended for "low-magic" campaigns is to replace the "standard" +X by level magic items with a character-based +X to maintain balance.
If that doesn't clearly demonstrate the problem with "required" magic items reducing character flexibility and creativity, nothing will.
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Yeah, some of us don’t like the all but required “Christmas Tree” array.
But most of the whinging comes from two groups:
People who don’t play D&D (and, who gives a rodent’s-rear-end about their opinion here?)
Control-phreak DM’s who don’t have the chops or skills to handle their players going “off the tracks”. They run "low magic" and "E6" games.
I am not a fan of “Ye Olde Magik Shoppe” but I love giving and getting cool unique and powerful magic items.
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If I had my way magic items, including weapons and armor, would be things that gave very specific, very limited special qualities or abilities to the owner, but that did not significantly alter the overall normal abilities of the character if they did not have the item.
Magical items that give a numerical boost to an attribute are, imho, the absolute worst sorts of magic items imaginable. They add nothing to the game since it is assumed the character will obtain one and then the difficulty of the opposition is boosted to compensate. They add nothing to the character since all they do is maintain that character's fundamental capability in comparison to their peers. They add nothing to the character's abilities since they essentially do nothing but take up space.
In effect they are a complete and utter waste.
A magical item that provides some ability that is limited in use, but situationally powerful is the sort of thing I like. Those become a challenge to utilize in a tactically meaningful way, and outside of that limited situation, they don't overbalance the character.
If I were designing the game myself a +1 sword would be an artifact and other magic swords would have a specific ability they provided, but would not otherwise boost a character's combat expertise or effectiveness. This would mean that a martial character could pick up just about any sword in the game and be effective with it. Just like they tend to do in literature.
I like having a magic item. If I'm King Arthur, I have Excalibur. If I'm Green Lantern, I have my ring. If I'm Thor, I have Mjolnir. Some characters have multiple magic items, and the feel of the adventurer who slowly acquires a small arsenal is cool sometimes.
But I also like the idea of always using what you started out with. The Gunslinger who's determined to kill the man that killed his family, with his father's old gun. The Barbarian whose axe is very significant to his personal history, etc etc. And the feeling that you have to replace it just doesn't gel with me.
Plus, some people do like to make minimalist heroes, who get by only on their own skill. Superman doesn't use any gear, he just gets better as time goes on, and so on.
I think that what you have is bleed over from many/most MMOs where you have a "best in slot" item that gives the optimum stat bonus for a given class.
I much prefer a system similar to what AD described. I like my magic items to have history and character and unique effects beyond plus X to stat Y.
So much of what I see on here is IMHO due to DMs who don't establish guidelines with players or are afraid to say no.
I personally want to play in a world where the +1 dagger isn't replaced by a +2...+3..ect for many levels but might also have a unique ability...ie grants freedom of movement.
I also kind of like the idea from one of the dragon mags about leveling weapons or weapons of legacy....
Anyway as always there is no wrong way to D&D ....just differences in opinion.
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Making loot meaningful is a very large part of the reason the magic item Christmas Tree Effect exists, as well as why magic shops tend to carry lots of magic items.
In part this is the result of a lack of imagination on the part of the game designers. It's pretty dang easy to come up with the idea of a "+1 sword" and from there a "+2 sword" seems pretty obvious, all the way up until the designers say "well a +Q sword makes perfect sense of course but a +(Q+1) sword is obviously all kinds of broken!"
It may be hard for some people to believe, and while I find the magic item system of 4e to be as fundamentally flawed and broken (for some of the same reasons and for some different reasons) as Pathfinder's, one thing 4e got right was the creation of truly unique and interesting standard magic items that could be tied to a character's concept. I greatly enjoyed utilizing a lot of 4e magic items to improve my character's concept.
Many good points, and I also like magic to be 'special', 'rare', 'valuable', etc.
Why? Because my games are stories, and if there is the magic shop element, there is less of a story behind these things. I'd much rather they 'earned' it adventuring and it had significance.
There is no reason the existence of a magic shop should mean there is less of a story behind things. I hear this a lot, and I simply don't find it to be true. I have magic shops in my games but I also have unique and special magic items that provide the "special, rare, valuable" element that makes the magic items special. Sure you can buy a +1 sword in a detestable magic shop if you want, but most players hang onto the magic weapon they win through a quest that grows with them.
One does not preclude the other. They are not mutually exclusive concepts.
There have been magic shops since the early days. The difference is that they had limited inventory. Part of the excitement of visiting a big city was finding them and checking out what they might have for sale. Which, besides consumables and +1 items was usually only a few items.
The point is, having a Belt of Giant strength in AD&D meant something, defined the character. Now, it’s EXPECTED you’ll have a +X item in your prime stat by level Y, etc.
True, we had a lot of really cool items. More than todays. BUT, they weren’t Min-maxed to suit. I had a bard (true he was a old school bard, but still) with a Belt of STORM! Giant str for instance, while my high level fighter “only” had Gauntlets of Ogre Power (which added very little).
It’s NOT the magic items. It’s the selling of whatever your PC doesn’t need to fill in that Xmas tree to fill that gap. For example, we found (in 3.5) a Battleaxe+3 Frost & cleaving (with a name, background, and so forth). Well, the fighter already a greatsword almost as good and was a specialist. The rogue was a light weapon duelist type. Etc. So, the party wanted to SELL this really “cool” weapon…. Just so that each could add another +1 to one Xmas tree. sad.
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Being able to create and use tools judiciously and creatively is one of humanity's great advantages over threats, and I for one like that this is part of the game. What do you guys think?
I would like it more, I think if I actually could use my magic items judiciously and creatively, instead of just smashing my bigger pluses against the bad guys.
Tool use is a cool part of being human, and I can feel like a hero using tools well. The problem comes when the tool itself is more important than how I use it. Picking up a +5 sword gives me +5 hit and damage, whether I'm level 1 or 20, whether I'm a Fighter or a farmer. At that point, my magic sword is just a math delivery device.
Magic items in my game are important--they're rare and every one of them has history and significance--most are MacGuffins. To compensate, however, I often find other ways to grant boons to the PCs--cool abilities they get from other sources.
In the game I'll be running soon, the PCs will be interacting with totem spirits of different animals and concepts, and each one will be able to teach them something interesting or give them a blessing, etc.
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But I also like the idea of always using what you started out with. The Gunslinger who's determined to kill the man that killed his family, with his father's old gun. The Barbarian whose axe is very significant to his personal history, etc etc. And the feeling that you have to replace it just doesn't gel with me.
It’s NOT the magic items. It’s the selling of whatever your PC doesn’t need to fill in that Xmas tree to fill that gap. For example, we found (in 3.5) a Battleaxe+3 Frost & cleaving (with a name, background, and so forth). Well, the fighter already a greatsword almost as good and was a specialist. The rogue was a light weapon duelist type. Etc. So, the party wanted to SELL this really “cool” weapon…. Just so that each could add another +1 to one Xmas tree. sad.
Situations like these are why I like being able to upgrade magic items or transfer enchantments from one to another. For example, my druid had a +1 Keen Scythe which had sentimental value when she drew the Key from a Deck of Many Things, gaining a major magic weapon. The GM let me add a random major enhancement to the Scythe rather than get a new item that was much stronger but had no history.
Reforging a found magic item to better fit weapon specialization is also a good option for when the fighter really likes that cool battleaxe with a history, but has invested three feats into greatswords.
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In my game, I don't have magic shops with an inventory, where customers can go in and by things "off the rack." I have brokers (or fences, or often both) who will sometimes have storefronts where they have "antiquities and curios" on hand, which perhaps will include some potions, maybe an old Wand of Cure Light Wounds, and sometimes a +1 Longsword that was made for a major military campaign a few decades ago and found it's was into the market.
And not every +1 sword has a special, legendary, unique history, but, if they look into it, the characters will be able to tell that, say, it bears markings that show it was produced for the Rangers of Ostrovan about 250 years ago to fight the sudden influx of Hobgoblins from D'Chau that eventually escalated into the Black Markat Invasion.
The only "magic shops" for characters to buy magic items is through these brokers, who know the market and mostly work by doing the leg-work of finding out who has what item available that they are willing to part with, and for what price or trade. Or they will find or know of a spellcaster who makes items for commission.
Trade and barter is more common than an actual exchange of currency, and there is no guarantee that what a character is looking for will be available. I control what magic items come into my game. If someone opened a book and assumed they could just buy any specific magic item they wanted because it was in the book, I would first laugh, and then ask them how their character even knew such an item existed in the first place. Fortunately, my players know better than to try something like that. I think the presence of fully stocked, open-ended magical Wal-Marts is severely detrimental to maintaining any sense of wonder for magic.
However, regarding stat-boosting items and other magic items beyond basic weapons and armor, I look at it this way: Vikings and knights and other ancient warriors tended to be very superstitious, and would carry all kinds of "magical" trinkets; colorful stones attached to their weapons by leather thongs, inscriptions carved on their weapons, amulets, bracelets, even slips of paper with "magical" invocations written on them, you name it, because they thought they aided them in battle, or protected them from disease, or warded off evil spirits, or for any other of a host of reasons.
Maybe they didn't actually really do anything, (or maybe they did!) but the wearers BELIEVED they did, so they carried them. Regardless, they were "walking Christmas trees of magic items" in real-world history. Even now, real life warriors and soldiers carry lots of equipment, not to mention trinkets and good luck charms. So, I don't have a problem with characters in my game doing it, because warriors and adventurers did it (and continue to do it) in real life.
I think perhaps the people the poster is talking about just want a different type of game. If you want a game that is more super-hero or anime in feel then most abilities/powers should be inborn. However, with the exception of 4e that is not the way most D&D has gone. Nothing wrong with it but not what pathfinder currently is about.
A good example of a low magic high inborn power type of game I would like would be one set in the classic age of heros. Herecles, Achilles, Perseus. Some of these guys had special weapons (looking at you Perseus) but most classic hero types were just born that way or gifted by the gods.
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Thing is with the right subsystem support in a book like Ultimate Combat or Ultimate Campaign, characters powered inherently rather than through gear are perfectly workable in the game.
I would jump for joy if something like this was given an official treatment.
That is Iron Heroes.
I don't like Agile because it seems dumb that you need a magic weapon to do it (that, or use a scimitar or dueling sword and get a feat/PrC).
Suddenly without your magic weapon or in an antimagic field, you are incapable of the fighting style you're most comfortable with. It rots.
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I've always had a soft spot for a Swashbuckler style of play; hero gets captured and his gear taken, he picks the lock on his handcuffs, beats the guard on the back of the head and takes the guard's sabre. And then proceeds to rescue people.
Yes, he's using tools; I don't object to that. But he's not dependent on having his own tools - he can pick up whatever he finds and be just as effective.
Now contrast to PF: your own magic weapons are so far superior to random weapons taken from a guard, that losing equipment is on the level of ability drain. And feats like Weapon Focus/Specialization lock you in to certain weapons.
Also, monks, druids; classes that are supposed to be nonmaterialist, that don't need to clutter their lives with possessions; but can you really ask them to ignore that vast power?
So I guess I'm gonna do some reading on that ascetic PF article and on Iron Heroes :)
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I'm hoping for an opportunity to try the following:
1) there are no ability-enhancing items.
2) in general, there won't be a lot of magic items, and rarely for sale.
3) consumable magic items not changed.
4) every level you gain a number of build points with which to increase your abilities; 1-3 points per level. After level 1, it's possible to increase stats above 18; racial bonuses are not included when counting the cost to increase.
Things I like about this:
- Really speeds up generating NPC gear; instead of worrying about lots of equipment, just give him more ability points.
- Powerful NPCs when looted no longer explode the party's WBL, if they were powerful due having had more points to spend.
- Less Christmas tree effect
- Doesn't require lots of different measures for each class
- Favors MAD classes a little bit because spending wide is more cost-effective than spending narrow
Somewhat off topic, but by comparison are 3.5 monsters "easier" or harder than PF?
And if easier would running them in a slightly lower magic setting help balance out?
(I don't have the bestiary yet for comparison)
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Ok, so the title is a bit of an overstatement, but here goes:
In going through these forums there seems to be a decent number of people (or a very vocal few) who don't like characters gaining power through magic items.
There is a very vocal minority who don't like anybody gaining power, by any means.
There is also a very vocal minority that actively seeks to nerf non-martial classes while simultaneously screaming martial classes are under powered.
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I see the dislike of magic items for DMs who want to control everything with a iron fist at the table. Then forget all the money that players find as treasure. What exactly are players supposed to do with all that coin. One can't carry too much coin or one becomes encumbered. As well I'm all for enjoying a the story at the table. I also want a reward as well. And no I'm not going to give it all away to the poor because the DMs refuses to give me access to at least the bare minimum in terms of magic items. Not to mention almost every fantasy rpg I have played assumes players are going to spend money on treasure.
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I see that this thread is fairly overrun by people who have a problem with the Christmas tree effect. Since I don't... well... I'll just say that I guess. It does not bother me.
Even putting aside the general extreme dependency on many and various minor tools shared by nearly all people (as noted in the OP), myths from the real world are full of the Christmas tree effect, a tree that grows taller with every allusion and reference a myth accrues in later stories. Does the fact that Hector in the Iliad treats his sword as little more than an anonymous sidearm mean that it held no power beyond an ordinary sword? Not according to Orlando Furioso.
And so on. If the heroes of a Pathfinder campaign are high enough level to have a genuine Christmas tree of items, then it doesn't bother me at all that they might treat mighty magic items - powerful enough to play pivotal roles in lower level tales - as if they were trinkets. Like Durendal, according to its later tales the sharpest blade in the whole of existence, being used by mythic badass Hector as a mere backup weapon for when a spear or throwing a random boulder failed.
Hector, as well as Achilles, Sigurd, Odin, Jesus and the saints, and a whole bunch of other heroic figures in myth and religion all had a bunch of stuff that was merely random minor crap to the figures in question despite being ascribed with great significance, magical power, etc by those who came after.
So, if my 15th fighter's cloak, that might someday be prized by some lesser successor as the legendary +4 cloak of resistance that once belonged to Einar Sigurdsson, gets little thought from me, Einar's player... then I am in fact roleplaying out an accurate parallel to the development of real-world myth and legend, therefore being a better roleplayer than the guy who can't wrap his head around having a magic item unless his character treats it as a unique special snowflake.
;)
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I don't hate magic items, but I do dislike boring magic items that feel essential. I don't like having most of my wealth tied up in equipment that just provides plusses.
This is for two reasons:
First, I want to have more money available for interesting effects, for plugging gaps, for letting my fighter fly or teleport or do something other than hit creatures really hard with swords. Granted some of this problem is due to feeling I need a bigger attack bonus, better saves, more hit points... often feeling like I need much more than the game's assumptions actually call for. That's a matter of what encounters I face; in most games I'm in, the party faces one encounter a day, and so that encounter is heavily beefed up from the normal CR expectations, to be a threat to optimized characters who have all their resources, and often are also heavily buffed for the fight.
Secondly, I dislike how much of my combat effectiveness comes from the magical equipment. If I'm a great warrior, I want to feel that I'm a great warrior, not that I'm an ok warrior made great by his excellent equipment. If I walked into an anti-magic field or took off my equipment, I'd be hard-pressed to handle opponents who ceased being threats normally 5 or more levels ago.
Finding the balance is non-trivial, of course. On the one hand, I'm a bigger fan of the stories where the heroes are awesome in of themselves, not because their sword is amazing, than of the ones where the heroes are great because of their special equipment. On the other hand, treasure makes the world go round, gives constant power boosts to make us feel like we're making progress even when we don't level, and all that jazz.
I've played characters with custom-created magic items. It actually can drive me nuts; sometimes the DM doesn't have a good feel for what I want, other times it over-emphasizes the equipment. My 19th level 3.5 fighter type is carrying a custom blade of supplication, which is a +3 keen defending wounding speed bane of infidels weapon. (Bane of Infidels is bane against... almost every intelligent opponent we face. It's ridiculously good, even if I never use the defending property and half the stuff we fight is immune to crits and Con damage. But compare:
With the blade of supplication: +33/+33/+28/+23/+18, 1d10+18 + 1 Con (regularly add +2 to hit and +2d6+2 damage to that).
With my next best weapon,I lose +2 to hit & damage, the Con damage, access to the bane property, and the extra attack. That's without losing feats. Against the sort of foes we regularly face, this literally halves my damage potential on a full attack. (We were without an arcane caster for quite some time, and even when we had one he often didn't want to cast haste.) And put that character in an anti-magic field and watch a quarter or so of the attack bonus (as well as the bonus attack) disappear.
If I lost that weapon I'd feel crippled. In fact, when a similar weapon wielded by the party rogue got sundered, it brought the game to a standstill and ended up with a retcon of most of the session.
I think a lot of people, in designing settings, have not considered the number of powerful magical items that exist, and the world the PCs will live in after a few levels, when they construct all the villages that want to burn the sorcerer. (I especially loved the Complete Arcane warlock, who often disguised himself as a sorcerer lest he be burned for being a warlock... how did these people tell them apart? Was it the sign he carried saying "I am a warlock, please burn me"?) I find the tons of key magical equipment less jarring if the setting presupposes magical items are all over from the beginning.
Thing is with the right subsystem support in a book like Ultimate Combat or Ultimate Campaign, characters powered inherently rather than through gear are perfectly workable in the game.
I would jump for joy if something like this was given an official treatment.
that's really, really cool.
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The problem with getting rid of magical items is figuring out how to handle stat bonuses and AC increases. Weapons, imho, is less of a big deal, though you could certainly get rid of the +X to hit on them or modify it and up everyone's attack bonus a bit.
However, this is far from a trivial thing. Different classes need multiple stats to different degrees. Some are great with one good stat. Some are great with one, and benefit from another being boosted. Some really need two. Some honestly could use three to varying degrees. Armor Class is even harder since there are so many sources of it.
It's hard to make a really elegant system for handling this. Most things I see really just shuffle things around a bit so you're getting magic items, but at a fixed rate and they are inherent to your body or something. Like personal crafting points you can only use on yourself.
I ran a campaign a few years ago in a homebrew setting that was very "dark ages" rather than the typical "high fantasy".
This is the most elegant system I was able to come up with.
- Magic items are rare.
Most magic items are objects of legend, tied to the stories of heroes, villains, kings, and kingdoms. With the exception of potions and certain other consumables, they are never sold on the open market. - Treasure is divided into two categories:
Loot - Gold, silver, jewels, commodities, mundane objects, etc. The characters can do whatever they want with this wealth, buy mundane equipment, live a life of luxury, pay bribes, acquire property. . .
Magic Allotment - Every player gets a budget equal to their expected wealth by level. This budget can be spent on improving or creating magical gear as they choose. This operates as a metagame construct, just like experience points, leveling up, and increasing class abilities. - Few is better than many.
There is no penalty for stacking abilities on a single magic item. Instead, there is a 20% discount on the cost of every ability on an item except the most expensive one. - Tell a story!
All new magic items and major enhancements to magic items require a story element. The GM can think them up, or come up with your own.
Each character had 1-3 magic items, each with a history. Should an item be taken away, it was imperative to retrieve it. For the player who loved ancestry and wanted to fulfill his family destiny, his heirloom charm brought him power (rogue). For the player who liked crafting, he made his own staff of power (sorcerer). For the player who loved finding stuff (barbarian) I planted "abilities" in the monsters she defeated so that she could add them to her arsenal.
I could give out as much real wealth as I felt like, and take away wealth when appropriate, without effecting game balance! That was kinda awesome for me, as a GM. When they robbed an army's pay box, they had an enormous amount of gold and silver, which they used to flatter (bribe, gift, whatever) the village chiefs and elders in the area, and to arm the locals, creating a resistance movement against the encroaching empire. Thousands of gold spend on the story rather than on buying magic items for themselves? That's almost unheard of!
There was no churning of low-level or unusable magic items back to town for sale. "Oh look, three more Ring of Protection +1, and a +2 Vicious Flambard of Shocking Burst. How much will those sell for?"
There were no odd trips to the nearest large city for upgrades. "Guys, we've got to get somewhere for me to buy some Metamagic Rods, and Jimmy really should have a +2 weapon by now."
There were no stupid items. I'm playing a campaign in which my Mwangi Barbarian is wearing two rings, a magic shirt, and a Jingasa. Seriously? I have a nice looking miniature, and I imagine my character looking more like the mini than the rules say he should. If it didn't give me an AC bonus in my face slot, why would I wear a funny Japanese hat?
Perhaps best of all depending on your play group, there was no loot-distribution phase of the battle. The game moved significantly faster, and people stayed in character more.
GM: "You have defeated the Guardians of Doom! Will you rush into the Chamber of Death and rescue the . . ."
Player 1: "We loot the bodies."
Player 2: "I check for magic."
Player 1: "Tom, are you writing all of this down?"
Player 3: "Yep, I got it. Was that a Flaming or Flaming Burst?"
Player 1: "I want the Amulet of Natural Armor."
GM: *sigh* My heroes.
Some GMs might worry about the 20% discount, but I don't think it's an issue. It doesn't apply to the most expensive abilities, so it's probably only a 10% increase in WBL. Also, because wealth comes in very smoothly with this system, the group is never accidentally way ahead or behind, and their power level is more predictable. Also, everyone is at the same WBL, and I think in-party balance is much more important than monster/party balance, since I can easily make fights a bit more challenging.
Our barbarian kept souvenirs from all of her kills. She hung these on her furs as fetishes, for boasting and good luck. Since they were all on her torso, we called it a leather "breastplate", and it got enhanced to +1. Later it also acted as a Cloak of Resistance +1, and slowly accumulated all of her defensive magic abilities. Her bronze sword was sundered in two while fighting a brigand, and she kept his fine blade after defeating him with her bare hands. (a masterwork greatsword) This became a +1 sword when appropriate, and carried all of her offensive abilities, like a strength bonus. After defeating a fire elemental, it added flaming to its properties. She only ever had three magic items: Raggar's Sword, Raggar's Cloak, and a pair of boots she made out of the hide of a cave bear (movement abilities).
Our sorcerer started the game with a staff he had made himself from the wood of a sacred tree near his home village. Each evening around the campfire he could be seen carefully carving arcane symbols into it's surface. He invested all of his WBL into a this single item. The Staff of Dragons was a truly terrifying artifact!
Our rogue wanted to be able to use whatever weapon came to hand, so he never put any abilities into a weapon. He did have a fine pair of gloves, however, which bestowed game mechanics on whatever weapon he wielded at the time. (He paid separately for ranged and melee abilities. Also, he was a spring-attacker, so we never needed to address TWF.)
I like Blueluck's idea a lot, actually. Just divorcing magical equipment from the regular treasure helps a bunch, at least freeing up treasure for things other than more gear.
It also is solid at keeping the party at appropriate WBL for their magical gear. I do wonder, when the party defeated an enemy who had magical equipment, what happened to that?
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If they're giving you headaches, toss the wealth by level guidelines out the window, you don't need them, and recognize that CR is nothing more than a VERY rough guide, and just eyeball what monsters you think your players and characters can defeat based on what you know of their abilities. It's what I do, after finding CR to be all-but useless and the WBL rules nothing but straitjacketing.
I don't do "4 encounters per day that each use up 25% of the party's resources", instead the characters just fight whenever they encounter hostile creatures, my characters have nowhere near the WBL amount of magic items, and they routinely fight things 4 CRs above their level. And win, without any fudging on my part. I tried running a strictly by-the-book game when I first started 3E/Pathfinder, and it was a horrible mess, with nothing working. The best advice I've ever received regarding GMing was when my brother (who is one of my players) told me to ignore the CRs and WBL, use my own judgement instead, and just wing it. Just like we did back in First Edition. And as soon as I started doing that, the game became awesome for everyone involved.
I haven't had a death yet (very close, but that's what it's all about, winning by the skin of your teeth) and I barely ever need to fudge the dice, and not only have I not had any complaints, my players have given me special GM experience the last two sessions because they're loving the game so much.
I'm not saying the rules are useless; what I am saying is that you can alter or even throw out parts that are causing you problems or you don't like, and still run a very, very good and enjoyable game.
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I like Blueluck's idea a lot, actually. Just divorcing magical equipment from the regular treasure helps a bunch, at least freeing up treasure for things other than more gear.
It also is solid at keeping the party at appropriate WBL for their magical gear. I do wonder, when the party defeated an enemy who had magical equipment, what happened to that?
They rarely encountered enemies with magic gear. Few monsters have magic items, and those that have something simple in their stat block, like +1 weapons, I just ignore it. (The monster keeps the stats, it was just "+1 stronger" rather than having a "+1 sword".)
Low level NPCs simply don't have magic items. (That's part of what makes magic items special!)
For powerful NPCs, I used the same system as the players, but since friendly NPC's gear never becomes treasure, it doesn't really have to be detailed out. If it's a powerful, tool-wielding enemy, I would give them a single magic item which radiated a palpable sense of evil. (Basically, an evil artifact to destroy.)
Occasionally, I would toss in an interesting magic item for fun. A Lyre of Building, Horn of Valhalla, or Bottle of Air is fun to find! The overall system also meant that "cool but not powerful" items got kept, not sold off.
Never read it, but I know it's a thematic option I'd dearly love to see in Pathfinder.
I would hate and despise it in Pathfinder. As was pointed out, Iron Heroes is a solid super-low magic system for D20. It’s out there, available and supported. No reason for a PF version.
Never read it, but I know it's a thematic option I'd dearly love to see in Pathfinder.I would hate and despise it in Pathfinder. As was pointed out, Iron Heroes is a solid super-low magic system for D20. It’s out there, available and supported. No reason for a PF version.
There is a great reason: People wanting it in Pathfinder.
Now, if you don't, then hey, you don't need to use it. It would be like how they made guns an optional, non-essential part of their world.
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This would mean that a martial character could pick up just about any sword in the game and be effective with it. Just like they tend to do in literature.
The opposite situation is not only existent, it is iconic in myth and legend. For one very famous example, Turnus who grabbed another's sword rather than his own by mistake:
They say that in his first wild dash to battle,
when mounting on his chariot, he had left
his father's sword behind and, rushing, snatched
the weapon of his charioteer, Metiscus;
so long as routed Trojans turned their backs,
that sword had served him well, but when it met
the armor that the God of Fire had forged,
the mortal blade, like brittle ice, had splintered;
the fragments glittered on the yellow sand.
In the Iliad there is a parallel situation, where Achilles' massive rampage is fueled by superior arms and armor, while Hector's trust in lesser gear leads directly to his death.
Beowulf attempted to battle Grendel's mother with Hrunting, already a weapon far superior to every other, but was totally ineffective until he was provided with the yet more powerful giant-forged blade equal to the task.
Decades later he would not be so lucky when inferior gear again betrayed him and he broke his sword Naegling attempting to strike the dragon:
the war blade had failed, naked at need, as it ought not to have done
and his shield also proved unequal to his foe. It was left to Wiglaf, a total noob with an heirloom blade, to wound it.
Odysseus's specific bow plays a great role in the Odyssey, of course. Another example of one bow not measuring up to another would be Einarr's and Olaf's bows.
Sigmund with Gram in hand invincibly slaughtered his way through massive armies. Deprived of his powerful blade, he went down fast and hard. His son Sigurd wouldn't have just any old blade - if it broke when he tried to cleave an anvil in two, then he wouldn't go to battle with it - and so he had Gram reforged as the only weapon worthy of bearing against Fafnir.
Going East, Rostam's mace was a feared weapon as well:
"Can't you see that he [Rostam] has come here with Sam's mace?
And there are so many more examples of heroes whose prowess is linked to the potency of their specific arms. King Arthur and Excalibur. Roland and Durendal. Ninurta and Sharur. Fergus and Caladbolg. Thor and Mjolnir.
Even in the oldest literature of all, Gilgamesh and Enkidu make custom arms and armor (the exceptional badassitude of which is emphasized in the text) for their battle with Humbaba, they don't just set off with any old sword.
Not that there aren't also Samsons w/ jawbone kicking around in world literature, but there are countless legends where the quality of weapon or armor is key.