| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Chiming in again, one thing I like about Automatic Bonus Progression is the fact that it actually gives strength to the hero. In the normal rules, most heroes would be laughable without their gear, which isn't particularly interesting. Cu Chulainn, Arthur, Siegfried, and the like are all very powerful without their magical gear. They are simply bolstered by their (usually scant few) magical items.
The way I see it, ABP opens up lots of doors and closes none. You can now play an ascetic and not suck terribly. Characters can be stripped of their gear and not be useless. There are a lot of new options opened with ABP.
It doesn't have to be this way.
The DM sets difficulty by choosing quantity and quality of monsters.
The DM decides treasure/loot acquired after fighting said monsters.
Ergo if the DM places a smaller number of better items they can adjust the encounters to take this into account.
Magic items do not NEED to be hardwired into the math of the game. You just need to control magic mart and put more effort into the placing of treasure and encounters. Consulting with players to understand the direction they want their character to go helps.
Automatic Bonus Progression is also not essential, particularly playing with experienced players. In fact it can make power creep worse!
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Another vote for ABP here.
The ubiquity of having to have the same stuff just to survive is dull. Merlin the Wizard 10 and Conan the Barbarian 10 both have to wear identical Cloaks of Resistance +2. An individual party can give a reason for these uniform accessories, but isn't it more interesting to have these bonuses baked in, opening the slot for something interesting or nothing at all? Conan can now wear something like an Eagle Cape which is much more exciting in game, it allows him to transform into an eagle once per day. Without ABP he can't wear it, not if he wants to live long enough to see the benefits, it's beyond even being a roleplaying choice.
Getting rid of so many of the standard items (and/or having scalable items, also in Unchained) also means we can mostly eliminate one of the oddest elements of a fantasy city - ye olde magic item shoppe. I know everyone hand waves it as an abstract because the logistics of such a thing are very odd but this allows the town item rules to be used more sensibly.
ABP, scaling and fewer but more interesting items keep the PC on the same power but gives the more options. Friend Conan here doesn't have to cart literal tons of magical vendor trash back to Absolom every few days. He cherishes things like his Eagle Cape, his Helm of the Mammoth Lord and his (scaling) greataxe, the same heirloom weapon his father gave him as he came of age etc. etc.
|
|
It doesn't have to be this way.
The DM sets difficulty by choosing quantity and quality of monsters.
The DM decides treasure/loot acquired after fighting said monsters.
Ergo if the DM places a smaller number of better items they can adjust the encounters to take this into account.
Magic items do not NEED to be hardwired into the math of the game. You just need to control magic mart and put more effort into the placing of treasure and encounters. Consulting with players to understand the direction they want their character to go helps.
Automatic Bonus Progression is also not essential, particularly playing with experienced players. In fact it can make power creep worse!
Higher level monsters assume PCs have items to deal with them. DR is a major thing. They'll throw spells with a +20 Will DC, the PCs need resistance bonuses. These are built into the game, open a random page of a bestiary and look at the assumptions of what damages and resistances the PCs need.
Lowering the power levels is an answer and as GM if you are willing to adjust every encounter and CR, go ahead. ABP and scaling items mean you can use monsters as written for the most part (except of course for having a bunch of useless but lucrative magic junk in their treasure hoards)
It doesn't have to be this way.
The DM sets difficulty by choosing quantity and quality of monsters.
The DM decides treasure/loot acquired after fighting said monsters.
Ergo if the DM places a smaller number of better items they can adjust the encounters to take this into account.
Magic items do not NEED to be hardwired into the math of the game. You just need to control magic mart and put more effort into the placing of treasure and encounters. Consulting with players to understand the direction they want their character to go helps.
Automatic Bonus Progression is also not essential, particularly playing with experienced players. In fact it can make power creep worse!
On the other hand, I think it needs to be said that there be dragons down this path.
Unless you know you have the experience and patience to test it out, the improvisation game design as GM on the fly can be very hazardous. Players lose the grasp of the difficulty if challenge fluctuates too much without reason as one tries to find the perfect difficulty level between encounters and you might end up playing it too safe, making things too easy or too risky, going straight into unexpected player deaths.
It doesn't have to be this way.
The DM sets difficulty by choosing quantity and quality of monsters.
The DM decides treasure/loot acquired after fighting said monsters.
Ergo if the DM places a smaller number of better items they can adjust the encounters to take this into account.
Magic items do not NEED to be hardwired into the math of the game. You just need to control magic mart and put more effort into the placing of treasure and encounters. Consulting with players to understand the direction they want their character to go helps.
Automatic Bonus Progression is also not essential, particularly playing with experienced players. In fact it can make power creep worse!
On the other hand, I think it needs to be said that there be dragons down this path.
Unless you know you have the experience and patience to test it out, the improvisation game design as GM on the fly can be very hazardous. Players lose the grasp of the difficulty if challenge fluctuates too much without reason as one tries to find the perfect difficulty level between encounters and you might end up playing it too safe, making things too easy or too risky, going straight into unexpected player deaths.
As opposed to published adventures that are almost always too easy and require beefing up? Common sense is still used. Don't put your party up against enemies that they don't stand a chance against - or ensure they invest feats and ability points in defence as well as damage output.
As opposed to published adventures that are almost always too easy and require beefing up? Common sense is still used. Don't put your party up against enemies that they don't stand a chance against - or ensure they invest feats and ability points in defence as well as damage output.
Well I'm just saying on experience that bad homebrew is a player killer.
Especially bad homebrew made in order to "spice up" the game by making it harder.You can tinker your game to your group to work eventually, but it is not universal solution, especially if players/GM are inexperienced.
I see the point that the OP to trying to make, but there is quite a bit that is not being taken to account. Which is to say that I agree, but not to te same degree.
If we are comparing a level 1 fighter and a level 20 fighter, you're not including the mountain of feats, any of the class features, 20 times the skill points, expensive non-magical equipment (strength bow, MW bonuses, special materials), or any other advantages gained through adventuring (such as a castle, an army, or a dragon the fighter might be riding around on). If the fighter worked through a few feat chains and has made some good choices, the benefits should be meaningful.
I'd actually like something in between status quo and Automatic Bonus Progression: Magic items exist approximately as in status quo, but +Stat items cannot qualify you for feats or ability to cast higher level spells or get you bonus spells, and do not give you more skill ranks -- only permanent increases in your actual ability scores can do these things. However, they make you better at these things as advertised.
I'm starting to wonder if magic items are actually too weak to be honest. At least, from my perspective, if items had the same relative strength as a class feature at the level it becomes feasible to purchase that item, then inequity in class design would have a lesser impact than it currently does.