It is known that 3 magic items will be necessary for high level play. Propably magic weapon, magic armor and sth else.
The question I have is why? I kinda get magic weapon, you need it to overcome magical reisstance to damage and to actually deal enough damage to monsters to stay a threat(the increased damage die and all that). Why would need a magic armor though if your ac already increases by your level? Do you need the numbers it gives you or is it sth else?
The propably represent just numbers you will need which is alright, but I am thinking there is a low propability they either are necessary to actually making use of your high level bonuses maybe above +10? or they allow you to use those bonuses in a different way, similarly to legenadry profiencies?
Maybe this an opportunity to solve the fighters and rogues shouldn't be magical but have to compete with wizards problem. Simply allow them to use magic weapon and armor in a power multiplying way, though with legendary proficiency they are already kind magical maybe this is a moot point.
Also obviously classes like the wizard will have different necessary items, sth like staff/wand or bonded item or sth?
What kind of magic items do you think will be necessary and why will they be so?
The classic big six are:
1. Enchanted weapon - Necessary to hit incorporeal undead. Useful for extra damage or extended keen range or weapon alignment.
2. Enchanted armor - Improves AC.
3. Ring of protection - Improves AC.
4. Amulet of natural armor - Improves AC.
5. Stat-enhancing item, either a belt or headband - Necessary to cast higher level spells and qualify for feats. Aids primary attack.
6. Cloak of Resistance - Important to protect weak saves.
I consider two of them necessary and the rest just useful. The stat-enhancing item is not necessary for all classes.
The reason three separate items that improve AC are on the list is that buying three items that each improves AC a little is much cheaper than one item that improves by the same amount. Contraintuitively, an enchanted shield is not on the list because most characters want their second hand free for two-handed weapons, two-weapon fighting, or spellcasting.
For a monk, replace the enchanted armor with bracers of armor, wand of mage armor, or pearl of power (to give to the wizard who casts mage armor on the monk).
"Why would need a magic armor though if your ac already increases by your level?" But AC does not improve with level. Is this something out of Pathfinder Unchained?
A Handy Haversack, Bag of Holding, or Muleback Cords is almost a necessary item, in order to carry survival gear such as tents, bedrolls, rations, rope, grappling hooks, and potions.
A Wand of Cure Light Wounds is the most cost effective healing for a party without a cleric. Some kind of healing is necessary and a Healer's Kit is too useless to make the list.
Many groundbound martials benefit from a way to fly, such as Winged Boots, at levels where flying opponents are common, but a good bow can substitute.
I'd guess magic weapon for overcoming DR and incorporeal foes and then probably some means of flight.
In that case maybe the third one is magic armor. I can't see it being super necessary if it's just a numbers thing since the ultimate values are reduced but if magic armor has some sort of big effect similar to how magic weapons add extra damage die than i could see it being necessary.
"Why would need a magic armor though if your ac already increases by your level?" But AC does not improve with level. Is this something out of Pathfinder Unchained?
They have been pretty cagey about how AC works in second edition. The notion that it progresses with level comes from statements that all proficiencies act the same including armor proficiency and it is known that proficiency scales with level. Some(me) are thinking that AC might scale the same as spell save DC and different armor types are represented in some other way, maybe damage reduction or other abilities.
Example:
Untrained: Lvl -2, DC/AC = 8 + Lvl
Trained: Lvl, , DC/AC = 10 + Lvl
Expert: Lvl +1, DC/AC = 11 + Lvl
Master: Lvl +2, DC/AC = 12 + Lvl
Legendary: Lvl +3, DC/AC = 13 + Lvl
But that's still just wild speculation at this point.
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It is known that 3 magic items will be necessary for high level play.What's the source for this? "It is known" doesn't help me get up to speed here!
I think one of the developers said it but I can't seem to find it now. From what I remember the question was about eliminating the big six and the answer was that they basically reduced it to a "big three" instead.
I don't think I am crazy since the OP seems to have the same memory.
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It is known that 3 magic items will be necessary for high level play.What's the source for this? "It is known" doesn't help me get up to speed here!I think one of the developers said it but I can't seem to find it now. From what I remember the question was about eliminating the big six and the answer was that they basically reduced it to a "big three" instead.
I don't think I am crazy since the OP seems to have the same memory.
It was on the Know Direction Podcast that Bonner mentions necessary Magic items being reduced to three. At the time @CalebTGordan made a round-up thread here.
Well doesn't that kind of defeat the WHOLE purpose of dumping all of the D&D traditions of magic items?
One of the three is something that becomes important later in the game.
"But AC does not improve with level. Is this something out of Pathfinder Unchained?"
There's weapon proficiency and armor proficiency. Based on the former, your AC will scale with level.
Well doesn't that kind of defeat the WHOLE purpose of dumping all of the D&D traditions of magic items?
No. I mean, it defeats half the purpose at most.
Realistically, though, enchanted weapons and armor are genre staples, not just D&D tradition. So we're going from four things that we could ditch to one.
Weapon/armor/something for saves is my guess. Given the new critical system those are probably the most important aspects of survivability now.
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Well doesn't that kind of defeat the WHOLE purpose of dumping all of the D&D traditions of magic items?
I was under the impression that the idea wasn't to dump all the traditions of magic items, but rather to increase the variety of magic items seeing use rather than the same 4-6 items on every character.
Weapons I expect are needed for their damage boost (+1d6 per enhancement boost), it's too much of a boost to just be a free add-on. Cloaks of resistance I believe are confirmed as still existing (can't remember where I got that info though). Magic armor seems a safe bet. Dunno how it'll work though.
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Cloaks of resistance I believe are confirmed as still existing...
I was pretty sure cloaks of resistance were confirmed not to exist. I wonder if the 3rd item is a +stats item (these may still be in the game).
I suspect that there might be weapon-like items for casters to improve their damage cantrip or spell point spenders.
I like the idea of magic armour also providing +saves. Not saying this is in the game, but it would make magic armour very desirable.
In terms of the why, I think that gear should matter. It is fun to have shiny magical loot that makes you better. You could possibly survive without the 3 key items, but you will be far more effective if you have it. Always go to battle with the best weapon and armour you can afford is just a law of combat.
I really like reducing the amount of required gear to 3 items, because it frees you up for more choice. I think that resonance might be a really good way of balancing things and reducing the overhead of charged items. But I will wait for more details.
My money would be on the Starfinder system. You buy new armor every level or two thats 1 AC stronger than the previous armor.
I wasn't familiar with starfnder but after looking it up it is interesting that you would get very similar AC values at each level for a light armor wearer using the example I proposed above. For heavy armor the difference would just be doubling the non level part of the proficiency bonus (Ex: +6 for Legendary instead of +3). Starfinder appears not to have medium armor.
I'm willing to bet that magic armor will also now increase your saves. You can see magic weapons being much more powerful with +X damage dice, but armor doesn't have an equivalent thing to boost. So my guess is that enhancement on your armor (your main defensive item) will also add to your saves (a form of defense).
As for the third item, I have no idea. We've got offense and defense, and we're unlikely to need ability score increases given the way they're doing ability boosts. So we'll just have to wait and see, I guess.
I also am in the camp that armor probably absorbs the cloak of resistance. That would give a "big two" at least, in a way that I find acceptable. I mean, pretty much everyone can be expected to have either weapon and armor, or implement and robes. Even if you pursue literally nothing else, it makes sense to at least improve those if you are a person who finds yourself in combat on a weekly basis.
As for a third item, if there is one... these are probably items that boost your skill ratings. We know skills are more important in PF2, so for a rogue, their "big third" item could be a magic toolkit to improve their lockpicking etc, for a wizard it would be magic ritual tools that improve their ritual casting and item enchanting, for a bard it would be a magic instrument (or magic choker to improve singing, magic sash to improve dancing, etc). That sort of thing!
I guess it could be a stat booster, though I hope not. I actually think they fit the tone and setting of the game but I don't want them to be "mandatory." I would rather hope that such items are "use activated" to get a stat bonus for a short time, rather than being "always on," because the moment they are "always on" they become mandatory.
What I would more hope for even over the skill booster, if this can be called an item category, would be something that could be more unique than the old style: items that improve your class features. So say, improved holy symbols for clerics, implements for wizards, shields for fighters, tattoos for barbarians, etc. Something you'd definitely want to have, but that would have more variety and flavor from character to character. And on thinking about it, these could even fold in the skill bonuses! So it's something more flavorful and broad in effects than "just" a bland numerical bonus to a skill number, but it still has that benefit.
A cheer and a day full of joy if I ever see natural armor gone from the game.
Natural armor and armor are somewhat equivalent; a wolf have its fur, and the PC the same fur made into an armor.
I don't think a cloak of resistance would be necessary with the changes to saving throws.
So its propably one of three things:
a)
weapon for bonus to attacks damage, in wizards case could be a staff or wand for offensive cantrips? Though I think I hear somewhere that cantrips now can't be offensive.
armor for ac and saves, again in wizards case maybe a cloak or sth
the item that's necessary at high levels is about sth else, maybe expanding the pc's proficiencies bonuses to high level applications or even allowing them to actually have proficiences above +10 (mortal level) or what?
b)
weapon the same
armor for ac
sth that grants resistance
c)
weapon the same
armor only for ac
no resistance item, the third item same as a)
Also I wonder how heavy armor will differ from light armor or no armor at all if the ac is your proficiency bonus. Will it just be a small ac bonus of +1-+3 or come with added benefits?
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It Would actually be kind of cool if wands/staff actually enhanced your spell casting somehow.
Hmm which edition had +3 wands?
Oh I did not play 4th. Huh thats odd how did that even work just buffed the saving throw I guess? O wait thats right 4 had that weird special ability mechanic probably rolled to hit for all spell in that one or something odd like that.
+6 wands staff or orb sounds very Diablo (blizzard game) to me.
AH ok I guess that makes sense but yeah that was not what I was thinking with wand enhancing spells. Was thinking more of like a damage bonus in some cases (like fire want + to fire damge spells) I guess thats more like how rods work now.
I don't really like staves working just like big wands and would prefer if they were magic enhancing items of some sort but I find +X items boring
It might be fun if staves enhanced a specific cantrip. Since cantrips are the equivalent of a martials basic strike (maybe). So a rod of frost: You deal 1d6 extra damge with the ray of frost cantrip. It would be useful but less likely to be OP than a flat bonus to all save DCs.
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On the opposite side of this, I hope this get rid of all 'generic' magic items aka +1 sword, +1 armor, generic AC bonus items. Boring 'must have' items that simply add numbers. I know that a +1 sword is the most classic item in D&D, but I think it's time to lay the concept to rest in favor of more interesting items.
After reading the weapon blog it looks like they made the great sword deal 1d12 damage instead of 2d6. I think this makes it easier for standard wording about extra dice on crits and whatnot but it also gave me an idea about magic armor.
What if magic armor reduced the damage of an incoming attack by one die? Ex: instead of 1d8+3 damage my magic armor reduced it to just 3 damage. That could give it matching scale with magic weapons. Ex: a +1 Longsword would deal 2d8+X damage but a +1 armor would reduce that back down to 1d8+X. An interesting way to do damage reduction without needing to actually do any subtraction at the table. Could also work well with enemies if they scale things the same way.
Just a random thought, also I want the armor blog on Friday!
Well doesn't that kind of defeat the WHOLE purpose of dumping all of the D&D traditions of magic items?I was under the impression that the idea wasn't to dump all the traditions of magic items, but rather to increase the variety of magic items seeing use rather than the same 4-6 items on every character.
Hang on I had to get my guess from another thread. Some edits though
-Magic Weapon(Because it's better than mundane still and gets around Resistances)
-Magic Armor(It doesn't take Resonance and might have an effect? You'll get magic armor.)
-Movement Item(Either to get around, through or teleport. Insert your favorite boots or flying item here.)
-Defense Item(Yeah the +1 To saves might be gone but any item that gives you bonuses vs Energy, Sickness, or anything that can be popped to save your butt can work. Example Jingasa of the Fortunate Soldier.)
-Any "Class based item" (Any bonus to Channel for Cleric, Ki for Monk, Tools for Rogue, Brewing gear for Alchemist, etc)
-Racial coverage(Don't have Darkvision? Here you go. Want more speed? Get this. Don't fly/resistance is wanted? Aisle 6.)
-Magic for the Non Mages(Cloak of Hedge wizard comes to mind.)
-Terrain Null(Why cast a spell, just put on your [Swim, Fly, Breathing, Heat, Cold, etc] gear and go.)
Just a few guesses as to the "Average, Standard" picks. Reason we saw the same 4-6 was because of how 'stable' they were and how easily they stacked with other effects. The stacking might be cut down but a new batch of 'most stable' items will crop up I feel.
Hmm which edition had +3 wands?D&D4E.
5th has them too (or something similar). They're just sneakier about it.
In both cases it's a 'we didn't get the math right' band-aid.
As it stands, I think the only one that we know about for sure is weapons.
I suspectthat the remaining two magic items are two AC items: one that raises touch AC and one that raises your AC normally.
I hope that there are two “major armor slots” (like “armor” and “boots”) besides weapon that has generally better effects than items that they compete with in availability and price. That way, everyone can be assumed to have access to two cool “major” magical effects arising from their equipment (e.g. maybe the wizard’s cloak gives him the ability to cast an additional Nth level spell that day while the fighter’s armor allows him to grow wings and fly).
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I consider the portable hole necessary for its endless comedy and problem solving potential.
After reading the weapon blog it looks like they made the great sword deal 1d12 damage instead of 2d6. I think this makes it easier for standard wording about extra dice on crits and whatnot but it also gave me an idea about magic armor.
What if magic armor reduced the damage of an incoming attack by one die? Ex: instead of 1d8+3 damage my magic armor reduced it to just 3 damage. That could give it matching scale with magic weapons. Ex: a +1 Longsword would deal 2d8+X damage but a +1 armor would reduce that back down to 1d8+X. An interesting way to do damage reduction without needing to actually do any subtraction at the table. Could also work well with enemies if they scale things the same way.
Just a random thought, also I want the armor blog on Friday!
That's an interesting idea. Something I've been thinking about is how damage is going to scale with level. It might be neat if raw damage numbers don't actually increase that much, but your odds of getting a critical success or critical failure do. So a 3rd level fireball could stay competitive at higher levels because even though it still does 6d6, level appropriate enemies have a higher chance to critically fail and make it 12d6. Meanwhile, higher level barbarians won't get the same huge scaling on their static damage, but are more likely to score critical hits on level appropriate foes. This would be cool because we have seen that weapon crits are gaining new secondary effects and it would be awesome if those happened a lot.
Meanwhile, magic weapons and magic armor canceling each other out means two equally well equipped opponents won't rocket tag each other as much. Could also distance the game from the whole meat points idea if the same "wounds" can take out a higher level or lower level character.
I dunno how this idea would interact with the higher HP pools we have seen, or the monster creation rules. Doesn't seem likely to happen in practice.
Could be that all magic armor and weaponry are what is in PF1e "unique" magical armor and weaponry. Might be that an early magic sword is a flametongue or frostbrand. A late-campaign one could be a vorpal sword. elven chain provides something similar to the boots and cloak of elvenkind mixed in with an elf variant of a belt of dwarvenkind. Etc.
Magic items are a staple of the genre. Mjolnir, Gungir, Excalibur, sting, the ring of the nibelung, hermes sandals, perseus shield, Harry Potter invisible cloak, flying brooms, Aladin lamp...
Some amount of magic items is necessary.
Conan, Fafhrd, Aragorn, Bannor, and many others don't need any. I don't want Glamdring the Foe Hammer to function adequately.Eh. It's two items. Doing Automatic Bonus Progression for them seems easy enough if you want.
And having magic weapons and armor be common and necessary is fairly accurate to a lot of the fiction around magical stuff. Heck, even Bilbo got that many items.
If you want a low magic setting, ABP is your friend. Just make sure that's what your players want, because most people don't want to be down in the mud.
Conan, Fafhrd, Aragorn, Bannor, and many others don't need any. I don't want Glamdring the Foe Hammer to function adequately.Eh. It's two items. Doing Automatic Bonus Progression for them seems easy enough if you want.
And having magic weapons and armor be common and necessary is fairly accurate to a lot of the fiction around magical stuff. Heck, even Bilbo got that many items.
Aragorn's sword was kind of a big deal, wasn't it? Or an I just confusing things.
Honestly, I don't mind having a couple of items in this camp. The thing is, having them labeled "required" signals to a DM what the pure mathematical expectation is. If the DM doesn't like this for flavor reasons, there are pretty obvious solutions. Reduce enemy AC/DCs/To hit accordingly. Turn it into an automatic bonus progression. I've made these changes myself, and seen them made in games I've played in.
I'd rather have that framework to guide me than not. My understanding of 5e is that the game has loose suggestions about broad categories of items, but lacks specifics. This makes balance tricky.
It is kinda like the grid vs TotM thing. It's a lot easier to have the grid and take it away than adding the grid where it didn't exist.