I'd personally love to see the economy change so that WBL isn't really much of a thing anymore. Magic items as clearly priced commodities really kills the fantasy for me.
And instantly makes every human in the game so unbelievable that I can't even play it. People are willing to put a price on everything, and anything that can be made by humans is going to have a market value.
$100 = 1gp doesn't actually work that badly for a pseudo-medieval economy. The unskilled laborer on the equivalent of $10 a day (which isn't far off the median global individual income in our world) can't afford a fancy belt pouch; he lives like a peasant, where a change of clothes is a luxury. His pay is just enough to feed a couple of people. He uses candles only when strictly necessary.
A doctor earns $100 a day and can live in basic comfort. That's a little low by our standards, but in a world with magical clerics, doctor's aren't at the top of their profession.
A sage can earn big money from donations; if a guru providing guidance to rich celebrities was earning $400,000 a year I wouldn't find that shocking.
A caster/crafter has the theoretic potential to earn fantastic amounts of money, equivalent to a top-rated basketball player in our world. But most of them probably have trouble finding enough customers, so real earnings would be far smaller (as any player who's attempted to break WBL has discovered).
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The rules are all over the place. A doctor earns 1gp/day. A sage 15gp/day. A 3rd level wizard with a crafting feat turns 1,000gp of materials into 2,000gp of items *every day* generating insane wealth.Yeah, I remember in one of our games we freed a high-level wizard who had been imprisoned. So he had nothing. There was talk if we should maybe give him some money to start out, but it was quickly realized that he could get insane amounts of wealth very quickly. One contract casting of teleport and he's back in the high-life again.
But the economy breaking effects of magic are another thing entirely. Why buy a ship that takes weeks to get to it's destination, requires a big crew and is vulnerable to monsters, pirates and storms? Instead get a couple of permanent teleport circles and you're raking in the money. The initial costs are much higher, but would probably be payed for in weeks with a profitable trade good. And requires much less in upkeep costs. And then the price of the trade good collapses. But every major city would likely have a two way portal to Absalom. They'd probably take a lot of precautions to protect these, so nobody just marches an army through. But imagine the fees they could charge merchants to ship instantly to or from the biggest market on the planet?
My understanding is that Golarion society has reached peaks like that where powerful wizards have reshaped how the world works around their magic, but it tends to end in one of them triggering an Earth Fall scenario leading to all of it being wiped out and society starting over. It works better if you think about Golarion as trapped in cycles of Apocalypse and progression, with our current adventures set in at a low point on the progression scale. There may be no living 20th level wizards right now to set those teleportation circles back up. It also explains why all the best magical items are super old artifacts.
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It's not high on my priority list, but I'd be interested in seeing the economy in 2nd edition tweaked to allow for the broke hero archetype. Red Sonya, for example, is obviously a high-level character but a large portion of her adventures start with her broke and hungry. The sheer volume of treasure expected in 1st edition Pathfinder games makes that look pretty hard to pull off in-game.
I have always hated 3.5 and pathfinder economy doesn’t make much sense.
How much money is in the world? If a peasant can survive one year with 10-100 gold one single magical item of 1000gp is enough to sustain him for 10 years or 10 people 1 year.
Now mid level character selling all his stuff can possible sustain a town (28.000gp can sustain 280 people for one year).
Once you start to notice how brokenly rich your character is then you start to think who else has enough money to buy and sell the entire live hood of a town on a single whim, can really a merchant have in stock magical items that are as expensive as a town or a warship, a single warship cost up to 25,000).
At one point it doesn’t make any sense the economy of the world, it‘s broken by magic, and you need to scrap it and start again.
But that’s maybe just me because I like economical studies in general.
(By that extent I prefer to play with low magical setting with Automatic Bonus Progression)
Here's a wild idea.
What if, in non-Society, no prices were given for items outside of mundane non-magical ones? This would open up the opportunity for more negotiations and role play, and since there are no hard prices placed on items, it removes "requirements" for sale prices. This also would allow for flavorful and cool (but not necessarily optimal) items to be sprinkled into an adventure.
For magic items, the requirements (time, and materials) for creation can be included, but ultimately the price left up to GM.
The Society Guide can include pricing for society for items, which obviously can be used if chosen to, but logic can out.
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I'd actually love to go back to a system where money didn't directly turn into magic items and adventuring power. I fondly recall AD&D1e and 2e days when the party would celebrate their dragon hoard, then realize that the best thing they could spend it on was real estate. No one in 3.X or PF1e buys a castle because that's money that could be magic items. I fondly recall an AD&D2e game where the PC party decided that wanted not only a castle, but a flying castle. Took them adventuring from about level 11 to 13 to make that a reality with 2e's magic crafting system. "The keystone of the castle must be carved from a rock that has never touched the ground" and other such fun ingredients.
Also a fan of not being able to invest the cash on the big 6. I realize WBL can be pretty important, so changing this would have huge implications. I may be in favor of removing magic shops, but items still need a price or you end up with an issue AD&D had.
"This module is intended for a group of 4-6 characters of levels 8-10. Each should have 2 relevant magic items". Which was jank and I can't translate it to "modern" terms at all.
WBL is good for equipment! I think pure cash should be irrelevant to that system. Maybe like "Magic Item budget" by level so the GM can balance the drops.
Would the materials in "time and materials" actually be a full detailed list of materials or the current "X GP worth of stuff"?
The first is unworkable, the second just sets up a price list.
Beyond that, what's the point? What does it buy you in terms of actual game play, not in worries about the (non-existent) economic system of the game.
You could sprinkle cool items into adventures, but now how would module writers begin to balance monetary treasure they put in? With no idea at all what characters would be able to buy in any particular GM's game, where would you even start?
It doesn't have to be unworkable because it doesn't have to be exact. I get what you're saying "Recipe for +1 sword = 1 Masterword Sword, 2 Eyes of Newt, 2 gryphon feathers, 5 days crafting and 500 GP"
Instead if would be: "1 Masterwork sword (known cost), 24 hours of work, 2 claws from a magical beast, one fang from a magical beast"
Specific, but vague. So again, the GM has the ability to negotiate if they try to buy the materials, or make the monsters with them common or not.
Module writers can easily alter things by basing them on the party. Instead of the party finding a +2 greataxe (if the party has a greataxe wielder, this item is worth twice as much as if not currently more or less) just have it say "the treasure horde includes 1000 gp and a +2 weapon a member of the party specializes in" or "a +2 weapon a member of the party doesn't specialize in" I'm guessing many GMs do this on the fly already.
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a significant chunk of your power comes from gear. You'd have to completely break that paradigm.Good. That's a paradigm I purge from my campaigns.
If someone wants wealth to be their power (say Ironman for example, yes his genius plays a huge role but let's set that aside for this discussion) they can, but in general characters have to earn their wealth and either blow it on luxuries or invest it into appreciating assets.
Ascetic or generous characters are easy because money doesn't translate to power by default.
As I said, I like that approach, but it's a huge break with D&D/PF tradition and not one we're likely to see.
Part of the problem is that if you want loot to be an in-game motivator, there has to be a reason for both characters and players to be motivated by it. Players are rarely motivated by in character luxuries, since they don't actually get to enjoy the luxuries. Investing it is kind of pointless, unless there's some actual return on the investment that translates into something that benefits the player.
More cool toys to boost character power does work, cause people like that kind of thing.Some players do enjoy building up the side businesses and things like that. Or can be sufficiently motivated by strictly in character blowing of cash.
Fairly rare, in my experience. Less common than players who can be easily motivated by things other than loot.
Three of the four players in my current campaign are that fairly rare type that does not care about the wealth paradigm. For example, at the end of Fires of Creation, the 1st module of Iron Gods, several of them donated the cash reward from the town council to Emelia Otterbie, who was collecting to raise Gerrol Sonder, a dead NPC who was a backstory friend of two PCs. And then they gave all their alien technology from their adventure to the town, except for two pieces that looked useful, before heading off the the location of the next module. For free.
My players mastered the art of teamwork: battlefield control, group tactics, complementary abilities, and good planning--so the party functions two levels above their true level. Passing up the expensive gear drops their effectiveness by only one level. Therefore, I increase the difficulty of their challenges by only one level.
Power is useful only if the PC can do something with the power. Since I adjust the CR to their power level, having more power does not effect the difficulty of encounters. Defeating an advanced red dragon due to one's store-bought magic sword is less epic than defeating a normal red dragon with the sword inherited from one's father.
To those player, their motivation is to create the story and earn glory through their characters' individual choices. For example, the Iron Gods AP has robots with hardness 10, which is like DR 10/adamantine but harder to bypass. The PCs found adamantine using their own knowledge and abilities, forged adamantine weapons with their own skills, and enchanted them with their own feats. Forging the adamantine weapons rather than buying adamantine weapons defined the relationship between the characters and the environment. Their weapons were part of the story they created.
They also own three businesses in the town of Torch: Silverdisk Hall converted to a dance hall after the death of its original shady owner, B&B Alchemical Smelting as a cover for their illegal adamantine smelter based on alien technology, and the Waterfall Workshop as their own private workshop for crafting.
It's all about narrative.
As for the fourth player, the newbie, he likes power in his PC. He wants his PC to be able to do everything, so he searches for advantages, such as overpowered feats or versatility through multiclassing. Better gear is an obvious advantage, and he loves buying or crafting such gear. At early levels, the party spent communal wealth by need, such as buying a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, but that meant that they vetoed many of the fourth player's requests for unnecessary (in their eyes) better gear. He complained about tight purse strings, so we switched to dividing loot into even shares. The fourth player then found he could not buy as much gear as he had requested on just an individual share; therefore, he learned to budget.
Three of the four players in my current campaign are that fairly rare type that does not care about the wealth paradigm. For example, at the end of Fires of Creation, the 1st module of Iron Gods, several of them donated the cash reward from the town council to Emelia Otterbie, who was collecting to raise Gerrol Sonder, a dead NPC who was a backstory friend of two PCs. And then they gave all their alien technology from their adventure to the town, except for two pieces that looked useful, before heading off the the location of the next...a significant chunk of your power comes from gear. You'd have to completely break that paradigm.Good. That's a paradigm I purge from my campaigns.
If someone wants wealth to be their power (say Ironman for example, yes his genius plays a huge role but let's set that aside for this discussion) they can, but in general characters have to earn their wealth and either blow it on luxuries or invest it into appreciating assets.
Ascetic or generous characters are easy because money doesn't translate to power by default.
As I said, I like that approach, but it's a huge break with D&D/PF tradition and not one we're likely to see.
Part of the problem is that if you want loot to be an in-game motivator, there has to be a reason for both characters and players to be motivated by it. Players are rarely motivated by in character luxuries, since they don't actually get to enjoy the luxuries. Investing it is kind of pointless, unless there's some actual return on the investment that translates into something that benefits the player.
More cool toys to boost character power does work, cause people like that kind of thing.Some players do enjoy building up the side businesses and things like that. Or can be sufficiently motivated by strictly in character blowing of cash.
Fairly rare, in my experience. Less common than players who can be easily motivated by things other than loot.
Sounds like you have a pretty amazing group. Good for you! I wish it always worked out that well.
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Here's a wild idea.
What if, in non-Society, no prices were given for items outside of mundane non-magical ones? This would open up the opportunity for more negotiations and role play, and since there are no hard prices placed on items, it removes "requirements" for sale prices. This also would allow for flavorful and cool (but not necessarily optimal) items to be sprinkled into an adventure.
For magic items, the requirements (time, and materials) for creation can be included, but ultimately the price left up to GM.
The Society Guide can include pricing for society for items, which obviously can be used if chosen to, but logic can out.
Would the materials in "time and materials" actually be a full detailed list of materials or the current "X GP worth of stuff"?
The first is unworkable, the second just sets up a price list.
I implemented a time-and-materials crafting system in my Jade Regent campaign, but I used the price list from regular magic item crafting.
The 3rd module, The Hungry Storm, is about a caravan journey over the northern ice cap, a continent in its own right called Crown of the World. Two players realized they had potential downtime during the travel time, so the sorcerer learned Craft Wondrous Items and purchased a Ring of Sustenance and the magus learned Craft Magic Arms and Armor and purchased a Ring of Sustenance, too. I liked their foresight so much that the NPC oracle learned Craft Wand and purchased a Ring of Sustenance.
But how would they find materials to craft those magic items while out on barren ice? I asked in the Advice forum, Raw Materials for Crafting Magic Items, and followed a suggestion by bfobar, "If you want, you could also allow PCs to forage using knowledge, survival, or spellcraft checks, either from the wilderness or off of dead magical monsters."
The players could scavenge "magic reagents" from the magical monsters they killed, such as Bullettes and Winter Wolves. The amount was roughly proportional to the XP of the monster, with heavily magical monsters yielding more reagents, but I made up the amount on the spot rather than creating a formula. I had to make magical reagents a trade good, with purchase price equal to selling price, to keep the math coherent, because spending reagents that could sell for 500 gp to pay the 1000-gp material cost of a magic item would have made it unclear whether they had 500 gp of reagents or 1000 gp of reagents.
The players loved it. It let them craft their magic items while feeling that they were living off the land in a harsh enviroment.
I repeated a variant of the system in Iron Gods. Robots yielded "robot parts" that could be spent in crafting technological items.
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Sounds like you have a pretty amazing group. Good for you! I wish it always worked out that well.
To a large extent the GM sets the tone and moulds the table.
Many of hose same players with a different GM would happily dive into kick in the door hack and slash all for the levels and gear upgrades.
It was several pretty amazing groups. Some were weekly games open to all at The Family Game Store in Savage, Maryland. Another was a game among my college friends that met thrice a year after we moved to other states. Upon my unexpected retirement due to medical problems, my wife and I merged households with two friends in the same predicament, so our current campaign is among housemates.
The common factor is my wife, a cute gamer girl I married 33 years ago. Her characters act like people with real concerns, I adjust the adventure path to accommodate her character-driven plot twists, and the other players are inspired by the result.
And Paizo adventure paths set a good tone even before the players add their mark on the narrative.
I'd actually love to go back to a system where money didn't directly turn into magic items and adventuring power. I fondly recall AD&D1e and 2e days when the party would celebrate their dragon hoard, then realize that the best thing they could spend it on was real estate. No one in 3.X or PF1e buys a castle because that's money that could be magic items. I fondly recall an AD&D2e game where the PC party decided that wanted not only a castle, but a flying castle. Took them adventuring from about level 11 to 13 to make that a reality with 2e's magic crafting system. "The keystone of the castle must be carved from a rock that has never touched the ground" and other such fun ingredients.
That doesn't work in a lot of games; if I'm running something that is constant go go go the PCs can't take off two levels to build a flying castle. Also, like every AP.
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That doesn't work in a lot of games; if I'm running something that is constant go go go the PCs can't take off two levels to build a flying castle. Also, like every AP.
Why run constant go go go?
High priority threats are great used sparingly but I would hate a campaign driven by it. Too much stress and too little agency for my tastes.
That is a weakness with the Paizo adventure paths. They present an entire country of possibilities before the party, because well-developed settings are interesting, but want the party to go in one particular direction for the next module. High priority threats are one way to motivate the party to go in that direction without railroading. Half the time the gap between modules can serve as downtime, but the other half of the time the end of one module revealed the urgent hook to the next module. Less frequently, a module might have two parts with a break inbetween. Thus, that is only about 3 periods of downtime during an adventure path.
I find that a home base is handy the PCs developing an interest in friends, business, and real estate during their downtime. Rise of the Runelords set up the town of Sandpoint as a home base, but also offered Fort Rannick as an alternative. Iron Gods did not offer a home base, but since the background of a few PCs was tied to the town of Torch, they established that as their home between outings. Jade Regent was a journey, so the PCs did not establish a home base until they took over the fortress Seinaru Heikiko at the beginning of the 5th module. In a Greyhawk D&D campaign, the DM had the local baroness tell us, "That keep where you cleared out the trolls would be a fine outpost on our border. You can have the property and I will provide troops if you will run it as an outpost." Most of the party's treasure went into improving that keep.
A home base becomes a town where everyone is willing to support the adventuring party. The RotR party once killed a dragon attacking Sandpoint, and the local merchants offered to butcher and sell the body for exotic parts and split the profit 50-50 with the party with no effort on the party's side. The town of Torch helps keep the Iron Gods' party's adventuring outings secret from the oppresive Technic League. The personnel of Seinaru Heikiko ran the ground support of the party's plan to claim the throne of Minkai.
And it gives the players and their characters a sense of accomplishment: "This town was doomed before we arrived. Because of us, now it is prospering."
Maybe the Leadership feat should be about adopting a town instead of a cohort. Though it is fun to roleplay it without a feat.
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The RotR party once killed a dragon attacking Sandpoint, and the local merchants offered to butcher and sell the body for exotic parts and split the profit 50-50 with the party with no effort on the party's side.
A tangent, but this is something my group has been chuckling over for a while now. Eating sentient races is considered evil. Wearing their skin is at least taboo and icky if not outright evil. And carving them up for parts is just plain wrong. Unless it's a dragon, then it's not just ok, special rules for it have been part of the game since the beginning. I think Gygax and crew just didn't really think of the moral implications of eating something smarter than most of the PCs, or turning their hide into armor. Red-dragon hide is very fashionable. But you wear /one/ pair of elf-leather boots and people have a fit.
That is a weakness with the Paizo adventure paths. They present an entire country of possibilities before the party, because well-developed settings are interesting, but want the party to go in one particular direction for the next module. High priority threats are one way to motivate the party to go in that direction without railroading. Half the time the gap between modules can serve as downtime, but the other half of the time the end of one module revealed the urgent hook to the next module. Less frequently, a module might have two parts with a break inbetween. Thus, that is only about 3 periods of downtime during an adventure path.
Yeah, it is a problem that APs basically keep you on the go without much time to catch your breath or craft or such. And I know my group for one /loves/ to have a home base. We like owning real estate (although the player who was just bonkers for owning property left a while back) as well as building and developing it. But even without ownership, it is nice to feel a connection to a place. It helps add motivation.
I'd actually love to go back to a system where money didn't directly turn into magic items and adventuring power. I fondly recall AD&D1e and 2e days when the party would celebrate their dragon hoard, then realize that the best thing they could spend it on was real estate. No one in 3.X or PF1e buys a castle because that's money that could be magic items. I fondly recall an AD&D2e game where the PC party decided that wanted not only a castle, but a flying castle. Took them adventuring from about level 11 to 13 to make that a reality with 2e's magic crafting system. "The keystone of the castle must be carved from a rock that has never touched the ground" and other such fun ingredients.
you really didn't need as many magic items in those editions because most of those items were intentionally designed to replace a bad score rather than boost a high one through the stratosphere and most 1e, 2e and BECMI groups i played with either used 2e point buy or extremely generous 2e stat generation methods that made pursuing most of the big 6 pointless. a belt of giant strength only gave you an 18 strength and there were a mountain of other possibly more permanent ways to gain an 18 strength. ring/cloak of protection didn't stack with each other or with armor and there was no amulet of natural armor.
plus, depending on the table, everybody including humans could divide their experience among multiple classes and humans with no level caps could be the highest leveled single classed or multiclassed characters because most races couldn't go above 8th level in the classes they were meant to be good at and capped at scores of 16, maybe 17 in their good stats. so an orcish fighter could never reach the strength cap of a human one.
A tangent, but this is something my group has been chuckling over for a while now. Eating sentient races is considered evil. Wearing their skin is at least taboo and icky if not outright evil. And carving them up for parts is just plain wrong. Unless it's a dragon, then it's not just ok, special rules for it have been part of the game since the beginning. I think Gygax and crew just didn't really think of the moral implications of eating something smarter than most of the PCs, or turning their hide into armor. Red-dragon hide is very fashionable. But you wear /one/ pair of elf-leather boots and people have a fit.
The RotR party once killed a dragon attacking Sandpoint, and the local merchants offered to butcher and sell the body for exotic parts and split the profit 50-50 with the party with no effort on the party's side.
Actually, eating sentient creatures isn't Evil. Not by the rules. Look at Lizard Men, they eat people who they kill and are Neutral. It's every bit as icky as wearing their skin, but it isn't evil.
Now, using magic to gain power from it is Evil, and murdering someone to eat them is super Evil, but eating a dead body? Not usually an Evil act.
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I will just say to those who hate WBL and want magic items to be unpriced that that was the default for 1st and 2nd ed AD&D. There is a good reason why it was changed. Sure, it creates a situation where you need to kinda gloss over some of the logical fall out, but it gives everyone the tools to set the expectations of what level you can expect to get certain items. It makes designing adventures and GMing much easier.
I have played and GM's games where there was not enough loot, and those where there was too much. Neither was as fun as those I've had in 3.x. WBL and priced magic items is a very useful tool and one that will need a practical replacement that fills the same role if you do away with it.
Some of us don't hate WBL as a guideline to make sure player characters are powerful enough within the wealth is direct personal power (rather than the less tangible power that wealth represents irl) paradigm...
... We simply hate that paradigm as a whole.
I've had characters go to level 20 without a single piece of nonconsumable 'superior' (magical alchemical technological) gear. Just some heirlooms and consumables (and more mundane consumables than Superior.)
In full disclosure my game is HEAVILY houseruled to support this style.
I'm aware - not all of us feel the need to house rule so extensively.
I have to ask why play a game that you feel the need to change to such an extent that in at least a few regards it doesn't feel like the same game any more. It sometimes feels like you'd be better off either searching for a game that has those qualities you are looking for or just build from scratch so you don't have to deal with all those niggling things that bug you. Some of the things I have seen you disparage are the very things I play this game for, so it can be a bit jarring at times.
Some of us don't hate WBL as a guideline to make sure player characters are powerful enough within the wealth is direct personal power (rather than the less tangible power that wealth represents irl) paradigm...
... We simply hate that paradigm as a whole.
I've had characters go to level 20 without a single piece of nonconsumable 'superior' (magical alchemical technological) gear. Just some heirlooms and consumables (and more mundane consumables than Superior.)
In full disclosure my game is HEAVILY houseruled to support this style.
Though I am kinda in your camp, I have nothing against magical items existing. Just that you can get them in exchange for wealth very easily. Hell, I don't mind being able to buy some if there's some story thing behind it that makes it special, like some one-time auction or stores having 1-2 random ones.
My higher level parties (which aren't that high) may have cool items, but all of them have some story besides "I walked into Sandpoint with 3000g and bought it offscreen".
As far as balance goes, I'd think DR and other mechanics hard-coded to require X items are the thing that messes balance, not the reduced "to-hit" and "damage" numbers that result from low-magic.
you really didn't need as many magic items in those editions because most of those items were intentionally designed to replace a bad score rather than boost a high one through the stratosphere and most 1e, 2e and BECMI groups i played with either used 2e point buy or extremely generous 2e stat generation methods that made pursuing most of the big 6 pointless. a belt of giant strength only gave you an 18 strength and there were a mountain of other possibly more permanent ways to gain an 18 strength. ring/cloak of protection didn't stack with each other or with armor and there was no amulet of natural armor.Just for the record, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength got you a 18(00) and Girdles of Giant Strength could go up to 24.
Not a lot of other stat booster items though.
Armor (or cloak/ring) and weapons were standard though. And without what we now think of as the Big Six available, we made more use of the other cooler items. Which I find more fun, but doesn't really mean you don't need magic items.
there was an 18 stat booster item for every prime requisite attribute. there were also rules for permanently increasing attributes through wishes, training and rare consumables. Prime Requisites were Strength for Fighters, Dexterity for Thieves, Intelligence for Wizards and Wisdom For Clerics. i'm not sure if there was one for constitution or charisma.
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there was an 18 stat booster item for every prime requisite attribute. there were also rules for permanently increasing attributes through wishes, training and rare consumables. Prime Requisites were Strength for Fighters, Dexterity for Thieves, Intelligence for Wizards and Wisdom For Clerics. i'm not sure if there was one for constitution or charisma.you really didn't need as many magic items in those editions because most of those items were intentionally designed to replace a bad score rather than boost a high one through the stratosphere and most 1e, 2e and BECMI groups i played with either used 2e point buy or extremely generous 2e stat generation methods that made pursuing most of the big 6 pointless. a belt of giant strength only gave you an 18 strength and there were a mountain of other possibly more permanent ways to gain an 18 strength. ring/cloak of protection didn't stack with each other or with armor and there was no amulet of natural armor.Just for the record, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength got you a 18(00) and Girdles of Giant Strength could go up to 24.
Not a lot of other stat booster items though.
Armor (or cloak/ring) and weapons were standard though. And without what we now think of as the Big Six available, we made more use of the other cooler items. Which I find more fun, but doesn't really mean you don't need magic items.
It was very, very unlikely to ever get anything above about a 19 though. It took 10 wishes to raise a stat above 16, most items just set your stat to 18, and manuals and the like were super rare. Of course, stats above 18 really gave you superhuman stuff in addition to just a bigger modifier.
there was an 18 stat booster item for every prime requisite attribute. there were also rules for permanently increasing attributes through wishes, training and rare consumables. Prime Requisites were Strength for Fighters, Dexterity for Thieves, Intelligence for Wizards and Wisdom For Clerics. i'm not sure if there was one for constitution or charisma.you really didn't need as many magic items in those editions because most of those items were intentionally designed to replace a bad score rather than boost a high one through the stratosphere and most 1e, 2e and BECMI groups i played with either used 2e point buy or extremely generous 2e stat generation methods that made pursuing most of the big 6 pointless. a belt of giant strength only gave you an 18 strength and there were a mountain of other possibly more permanent ways to gain an 18 strength. ring/cloak of protection didn't stack with each other or with armor and there was no amulet of natural armor.Just for the record, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength got you a 18(00) and Girdles of Giant Strength could go up to 24.
Not a lot of other stat booster items though.
Armor (or cloak/ring) and weapons were standard though. And without what we now think of as the Big Six available, we made more use of the other cooler items. Which I find more fun, but doesn't really mean you don't need magic items.
Maybe later additions?
I'm sure about the strength items - though there might be some I'm missing. Gauntlets of Dexterity boosted Dex by 1 if it was 14+ (more if it was lower). A Pearl of Wisdom boosts Wisdom by one (after a month!)
That's all I know of. Might be something I missed, but I know it wasn't a general rule. Wishes worked and there were some magic items that permanently boosted stats - Manuals and the like.That was in 2E. 1E was similar. Maybe BECMI was different?
I read AD&D and BECMI adventure modules as a hobby. They are surprisingly generous with permanent ability boosts as rewards for some puzzles. Granted they also do it for perma stat loss.
Gaining a +1 in Intelligence from training with some Wizard is completely unheard of since 3e.
Some of you guys would hate playing in my current game. Whenever we had a free side quest, as in a side quest that we could choose ourselves, we would almost always go slay a dragon and then sell the meat. We reached level ten last week and I haven't been spending my gold all that much due to downtime constraints. It built up to 400k.
Whenever I did spend the gold, it was on something that would help my character survive or was really fun. Upgrading her armor helped her survive. Getting her mount Wings of Flying was really fun. (Said mount is a boar. I made a flying pig.) My fellow players also bought things to survive or things that were fun. One, who's a fighter, bought this enormous hammer that's bigger than he is because he enjoyed hitting dragons with it.