| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's mostly meant for the GM. With the combination of resonance, which limits the number of items you can actually make use of, and item levels, which make sure you don't get items with way more power than you should, it's easier for GMs to decide what loot they will give, as they don't have to track character wealth (including consumables etc.) as precisely. They can just give any item that is of appropriate level and be aware that if they decide to give something of a higher level, it should be a big, rewarding power boost. They have to give very precise limits upon character creation, especially for the playtest, to avoid characters coming in with basically every item that could possibly ever be useful, but once a game has started, I think the gm can have fun giving whatever they want, so long as they don't give too little.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think it's mostly meant for the GM.
I hope not, because it does not address my concerns about items as a GM.
I have experienced two attitudes of players toward items and I have read about the big six.
1) Most of my players prefer that their success comes from character's class, ancestry, and background abilities. Their main interest in non-mundane items is to handle special cases that abilities can't handle, such as magic weapons to hit incorporeal creatures. They also like items, such as Hats of Disguise, for when they are on a new adventure that they had not trained for and need magic to boost a neglected area. Special note: if such a PC is a crafter, the player considers items crafted personally by the character to be part of the character's abilities.
2) I have some players who believe in being powerful enough to handle everything in combat, such as wanting Winged Boots in case they encounter flying opponents. Since abilities don't cover everything, they want to buy items to make up the difference. Usually, they run out of money before they buy items to cover every single possible attack.
3) The classic Big Six argument is that the standard challenges assume some standard abilities on the characters, such as sufficiently high AC, sufficiently high attack bonus, sufficiently high saving throws, and availability of magic healing. These numbers are very difficult to reach without stat-boosting or roll-boosting magic items; hence, the characters must buy those magic items. The Pathfinder 2nd Edition developers did explicitly mention this problem and their plan was to reduce to Big Six down to Big Three.
For the characters who like character abilities to dominate, I design challenges where party teamwork and abilities do dominate. For the characters who want to handle everything, I given them challenges that let them play with their newest toy. For characters who worry about needing the Big Six, my other players teach them how to handle combat without the Big Six. As a GM, I see items as part of the setting rather than as part of the characters.
I am an experienced GM, but I don't see how putting levels on items will help the less experienced GM handle the player expectations about items.
And if the items don't meet the PC's desires, then they sell them off, so the selling price become the most important feature on the item.
In the Playtest documents, items have levels. It's not entirely clear to me why.
When I first saw levelled items, I thought they would act like the Scaling Items in Unchained. This doesn't appear to be the case.
The only time I've really had to look at them is during character creation, when I had to choose items of a certain level. Which I found increasingly restrictive.
In Pathfinder, magic items are largely restricted by three factors: their cost, their slots, and the prohibition of spending more than 25% of your good on a single item during character creation (replaced by Fame restrictions in PFS).
Magic Items in the Playtest seems to have been restricted by cost, slots, resonance, rarity and level.
What are we gaining from these increased restrictions?
Having the level of an item interact with the level of character would be an interesting mechanic. But I haven't seen it in the playtest.
I think that levels on items was a way for the developers to track which items go with which characters, so that they could design standard characters for their own theorycrafting and office playtests. They probably thought that since the feature was useful to them, it would be useful to GMs and players, too.
In addition, I suspect they thought that their system of Treasure for New Characters on page 348, such as a newly created 7th-level character receiving one 6th-level item, two 5th-level items, one 4th-level item, two 3rd-level items, and 125 gp cash to spend on more items, would be easier than giving wealth-by-level in cash to spend on items and restricting the character to not spending more than 25% of it on a single item. In practice, it is harder because the player has to focus on what is available at each item level rather than on the best affordable items that the character wants.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the effect of item level I think is most important is the effect on crafting, since you cannot make an item with level above your own it means your level 1 smith can make a great many swords, but plate mail is beyond them until they level up. Effectively this lets us limit access to higher level consumables by something other than "high level consumables are very expensive."
It's also pretty handy for the "creating new characters" chart letting you equip your 8th level person without having to invoke the monetary cost of stuff, and is an aid to the GM when seeding loot piles.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think the effect of item level I think is most important is the effect on crafting, since you cannot make an item with level above your own it means your level 1 smith can make a great many swords, but plate mail is beyond them until they level up. Effectively this lets us limit access to higher level consumables by something other than "high level consumables are very expensive."
Didn't the previews state that players were using lots of low-level items instead of a few high-level items and they wanted to change that? This appears to have the opposite effect to that stated goal.
Plus, the limits sound weird in roleplaying conversations.
"Welcome to Amazo's Potion Shop. If you can't spot anything on the selves, just as me. I am an 15th-level alchemist, legendary in my alchemy proficiecy, and should be able to brew it up. What do you wish to purchase?"
"We have heard tales of you, Doctor Amazo, so we traveled far for your wares. We would like four true healing potions, suitable for a 16th-level party like us. We hear they cost 1,200 gold pieces each."
"Sorry, that is a 16th-level item. I can't make it."
It's also pretty handy for the "creating new characters" chart letting you equip your 8th level person without having to invoke the monetary cost of stuff, and is an aid to the GM when seeding loot piles.
PossibleCabbage, has it been handy in the playtest? My own player dislike equipping a new character in the playtest and it takes hours. In contrast, the arithmetic of summing up prices is something they practice every week at the grocery store, so they have no difficulty with it.
I have not had to seed loot piles in the playtest. But in my PF1 campaigns the level-appropriateness of an item is a minor consideration compared to the resale price of an item. I do have to consider the level-appropriateness of an item when I give it to an opponent to use, but for loot lying around in a chest, it would be below the level of the opponent because otherwise with would be in his hands being used against the party.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
The issue with monetary values is they do very little to point you towards what items you should be considering at this level. Like, if you know you want a +2 weapon and +2 ring of protection then simply adding their respective costs together is easy enough. But you need to have a pretty deep understanding of the system to know which items you can afford and which items the system expects you to have. I think if you hand 30,000 gold to a newer player they will feel completely lost.
The item level divided treasure tables (and assignment for building higher level characters) is much easier coming in from nothing, once you grasp you want to prioritize weapons/armor/bracers. You really just look at what weapons/armor/bracers are in your level band and then see what you have left from there. The fact that it differentiates between permanent items and silver you can use for consumables is also helpful.
I think what problems exist for the system are mostly lack of content-- some classes don't have many appealing choices at certain levels.
The issue with monetary values is they do very little to point you towards what items you should be considering at this level. Like, if you know you want a +2 weapon and +2 ring of protection then simply adding their respective costs together is easy enough. But you need to have a pretty deep understanding of the system to know which items you can afford and which items the system expects you to have. I think if you hand 30,000 gold to a newer player they will feel completely lost.
The item level divided treasure tables (and assignment for building higher level characters) is much easier coming in from nothing, once you grasp you want to prioritize weapons/armor/bracers. You really just look at what weapons/armor/bracers are in your level band and then see what you have left from there. The fact that it differentiates between permanent items and silver you can use for consumables is also helpful.
I think what problems exist for the system are mostly lack of content-- some classes don't have many appealing choices at certain levels.
Does "coming in from nothing" mean no previous experience? I don't have a playtester with no experience. The closest my playtesters come to that state is a friend from church who had not played since AD&D. She adapted to Pathfinder Playtest pretty quickly.
I read aloud the statment, "some classes don't have many appealing choices at certain levels," to my wife and her response was, "No kidding!" The concept of "level band" needs to be elaborated. For example, my wife's 7th-level elf noble bard for Affair at Sombrefell Hall wanted a 6th-level weapon, preferably a rapier, but the highest level she could find outside unsuitable specialized weapons, such as Bloodletting kukri (level 6, uncommon), was 4th. If players knew to look in a band of 4 levels--for example, levels 3-6 for a 7th level character--then finding a weapon 3 levels below the character level won't feel so disappointing.
My wife decided on a +1 cold-iron rapier and I performed the work of making that possible. First, go to TABLE 6–19: ITEM QUALITY on page 190 to look up the cost of an expert-quality weapon (35 gp, level 2). Go to the Cold Iron section on page 355 to find the additional cost (60 gp, no level adjustment) for cold iron. And finally page 371 for a +1 weapon potency rune (65 gp, level 4), which she gets for free as her 4th-level item. Playing build-a-weapon requires paying the cost for the expert-quality weapon out of pocket from the 125 gold pieces for lower-level items rather than getting it free as part of taking a +1 magic weapon as her 4th-level item. Instead, I fudged and let her use her 5th-item slot for the entire +1 cold-iron weapon, even though it was a 4th-level item.
Suppose a character wanted to add a property rune to her +1 magic weapon? The 4th-level property runes are ghost-touch (melee weapon), returning (thrown weapon), and slick (armor). However, if the character level gains only one 4th-level item, then that would be the +1 magic weapon, so she would be penalized in having to spend her 5th-level slot for a 4th-level item if she wanted a +1 ghost-touch weapon.
The 5th-level property runes are disrupting (melee weapon), glamered (armor), shadow (light or medium nonmetalic armor), and shifting (melee weapon). The 6th-level property rune is wounding (piercing or slashing melee weapon). There are no property runes of 3rd level or lower. The details in parentheses are not in the treasure-by-level table; instead, I had to look up the runes individually, but that is a flaw in the rulebook layout rather than in the system. One of the clerics in my party did add a glamored rune to his +2 armor (the chapter said that one character could get a 7th-level item and he was a player who wanted magic items that handle everything).
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
A problem I have with those treasure tables is that if you just pick interesting-sounding things, assuming that if they are given as choices they should be reasonable, you will be sorry. This is not beginner-friendly, and continues the unpleasant theme in many parts of the rules of having a lot of very poor options and a small number of decent ones.
This could be remedied by more reasonable tables, plus some advice: we had to figure out the hard way that almost every character should go for magic weapon, then magic armor, and only then start thinking about personalization.
As a way of getting rid of the Big Six, well, I would much prefer the one from Iron Heroes or the one from Unchained, where the bonuses are transferred to the character. We have been using a system of that type for several years now and I really like it. The PF2 system strikes me as being headed for "You need a magic weapon, magic armor, and skill-backers on your key skills" which is hardly an improvement.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And if you roleplay shopping, in what world do you drop meta terms of level and proficiency and standardized costs instead of using abstracts in a manner similar to what I did above?
Perhaps I read too much Order of the Stick, where the adventuring characters use technical terms such as +5 sword: Sword Speak. Nah, I was doing it long before. When my players want to buy a +5 undead-bane greatsword, I need for them to state the technical details so that I can make the availability check to see whether anyone in the city can sell one. They recite those details right in the middle of the conversation with the swordsmith. We can handwave that the player CHARACTER said something more appropriate, but the player him- or herself is not going explain the desired sword again while inventing non-technical jargon that a medieval fantasy swordsmith would recognize.
I create markets and shopkeepers and put a lot of work into them. For example, I once expanded a half-page settlement description of The Tarnished Halls, Numeria's biggest black market, into a full setting, so that the PCs could visit the place and have an adventure there. And it was such a pain getting them there, because the one player who would talk to NPCs was out sick, the other player who could manage it was playing a nerd without social skills and did not want to step out of character, so two players who could not roleplay asking someone for the time of day had to roleplay finding the secret location of the Tarnished Halls. They failed, so I let them make a Diplomacy check for Gather Information instead.
Now imaging those players trying to buy something from an eloquent Doctor Amazo.
AMAZO: Welcome to Amazo's Potion Shop. If you can't spot anything on the selves, just ask me. I am a well-renowned Alchemist, a master of my craft, although not perfect at it, and can create a great many different items. What do you wish to purchase?
BOB: We want to buy four True Healing Potions.
AMAZO: Ah, the True healing potion. An elusive brew. Please forgive me, but such is just out of reach of even my skills. I have spent time trying to research and practice the recipe but it yet eludes my abilities, a truly tricky beast of alchemical work it is.
BOB: The GM said we could get potions of our level.
AMAZO: I can create only what my skills allow. I would be more than willing to help you find an Alchemist superior to myself who could provide what you need. I still keep in touch with my old teacher, the only alchemist I know with greater skills than my own. Though it wouldn't be cheap. Even if he can make them, a formula of such difficulty would likely cost easily upwards of 1,000 gold pieces for a single draught.
BOB: We got the money. Where is the shop of your teacher?
AMAZO: He retired to Absalom, Aroden's island in the Inner Sea.
BOB: Where?
GUY: That's another country, too far away. Who's the best in the city here?
AMAZO: I had briefly mentioned that I was renowed, in case you sought me by reputation. The city, and indeed the crown and country, have honored me with the title of Greatest Alchemist in Galt.
To return to the original topic: I had Doctor Amazo establish his credentials as "legendary" to point out that not even a crafter with legendary proficiency can break the level-based crafting barrier. (Page 148 under Craft action: To Craft an item, you must meet the following requirements: • The item is your level or lower....) Fifteenth-level characters are rare. Sixteenth-level characters are even rarer. Requiring a 16th-level NPC to create a 16th-level item makes them very hard to find. For a durable item, such as a sword, I could claim that it had been forged two centuries ago and the PCs are buying it from the estate of a collector. But for a consumable, such as a True Healing Potion, that story becomes hard to justify. For a lower-level alchemical item, I could claim that Doctor Amazo exports all throughout Galt, so that the PCs can find 12th-level potions in any city. But if the best alchemist in Galt cannot make it, then it will have to be imported from Absalom.
For PCs motivated with a deadline before the villain enacts his evil plan, any delay in shopping means that they cannot buy the item.
Putting levels on items seems convenient to me. It helps me understand who might own such things. On the other hand, adding rules that restrict items by level puts "level" front and center and in the way. Some styles of roleplaying prefer that such mechanics stay out of sight. My own style of roleplaying does not mind them in sight, but we don't want the fantasy society built around the mechanics. We want to pretend the roleplaying story occurs in a realistic fantasy world, and our game-mechanic rolls and jargon are only an approximation of that world.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hm, I am ignoring the detail that NPCs can override the rules for PCs, so that I could claim that a 15th-level alchemist does have the ability to make 16th-level potions due to a NPC-only ability. Saying that would leave a very sour taste in my mouth.
Am I the only GM here that created customized lists of magic items for each player when they created characters for the playtest after part one? They simply chose what they wanted from my list and that was that. There was zero hassle doing it this way, plus I was able to make sure they had the option to take items I thought might be necessary or at least very useful for the adventure ahead.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Two, a little logistics thing. If the players are going to this renowned Alchemist and you know full well they are coming for True Healing Potions, a 16th level item, why would you not have the Alchemist be 16th level? Or if you don't know beforehand what the party is aiming to buy then why have him be a predefined level at all if not to put a cap on the level of item the players can buy?
Indeed. I don't see the issue here. If a 16th level item isn't readily available, you made that decision by not having a good enough crafter. This is no different from having the item fall outside the base value of a PF1 settlement-- and a 12,000 coin potion would fall outside of this in all but Metropolis class settlements. If you set the base value of a settlement at 11,000 sp, you can't really complain when people fail to find stuff costing 12,00 sp.
We don't actually know how PF2 settlement rules will work yet, but I imagine there will still be something for generating a small selection of items above the normal cap that merchants have acquired through trade. It level also allows for a more nuanced way of defining markets because it can take into consideration the lower cost of single consumables versus permanent items.
Your also specifically talking about an item that is not only hard to make, it is hard to justify in narrative. If 16th level characters are rare, where is the market for these potions? It costs 1200 gold and heals about 70 HP. Even if the cost wasn't prohibitive, most NPCs don't even have that much HP. So it makes sense that a merchant MIGHT have one stashed away in the back, but they might not be regularly pumping them out.
Heck, even setting aside market value, PF1 still had character level based crafting restrictions, like the actual craft/spellcraft check to make an item. No shop keep is going to regularly produce an items whose craft check was beyond their ability to take 10 and succeed on-- they'd lost too much money failing checks. Then you had minimum caster levels or needing to be able to cast specific spells.
So the 15th level alchemist situation is analogous to saying a weapon enchanting NPC can't apply a vorpal enchantment because he doesn't know Circle of Death. Yeah, that's true by the rules, but you chose for them to not know that spell.
Two, a little logistics thing. If the players are going to this renowned Alchemist and you know full well they are coming for True Healing Potions, a 16th level item, why would you not have the Alchemist be 16th level? Or if you don't know beforehand what the party is aiming to buy then why have him be a predefined level at all if not to put a cap on the level of item the players can buy? I may just be missing something there. It just seems like a bit of an odd situation and the scenario presented seems more a point against any case of "We need this item and quick but it's beyond the skill of anyone we have access to" rather than a specific level cap to item situation.
Doctor Amazo was created as a quick example for an awkward conversation. I made him 15th level because that is the lowest level for legendary proficiency and any lesser proficiency rank would not have the same impact in the argument.
However, this does reflect how settings are created. The module writer or the GM throws together a town that seems plausible. Then the players happen to cre about matters that the creator had put little thought into and whose plausibility is tissue-paper thin. In this case, I had not expected Doctor Amazo to be thrown back at me as a counterexample. I guess he was a better example than I thought since he can be used to disprove my point, too. (Someone else disproving a mathematician's conjecture is considered a victory to us mathematicians, because we have a surprising new proof.)
Perhaps in my imaginary game I created Doctor Amazo's shop when the party was at 10th level and I made him 15th level for the legendary proficiency even though I would have preferred a 12th-level alchemist. Remember, a 15th-level character gains +15 to all his proficiencies, so he would be able to finish their quest for them, and why is he sitting on the sidelines? If the PCs actually became interesting in True Healing Potions at 16th level, they would arrive at Doctor Amazo's shop to learn that just last month he had mastered 16th-level potions and had brewed up four True Healing Potions to prove it was not a fluke, and he was glad that he had a market for those potions and yes, because they are his favorite customers he will sell them at a 10% discount, no, not a 20% discount. The NPCs are the GM's playthings, but if I strain plausibility too much, then other parts of my setting will become paper thin, too.
I recommend that further discussion of items available in a setting should be in Captain Morgan's thread, Let's talk speculate wildly about building shops and settlements. I am writing a comment for that, but it keeps growing longer.
For a durable item, such as a sword, I could claim that it had been forged two centuries ago and the PCs are buying it from the estate of a collector. But for a consumable, such as a True Healing Potion, that story becomes hard to justify.Potions don't go off, why not have them be centuries old as well?
AMAZO: "Ah, I do have something you might like. This potion was brewed by the great Artokus Kirranas himself as a gift to the Duke of Verduran on the birth of his heir, but misfortune forced the Duke to sell twenty years ago. It is said to heal literally any injury, but as it is irreplaceable I couldn't let it go for less than 1,200 gold."
I said the availability of the potion is hard to justify, not impossible to justify. That is a very good story about why a potion was left over.
A sword seldom needs a story that good. It can be used and used again, passed down to heirs or sold for cash when an adventurer retires or found in a dungeon next to a dead body and sold for cash or stolen from a museum and sold by the thief. I once wrote a backstory for a bladebound magus's intelligent black blade that had many stories how it passed from magus to magus over the centuries.
There is also shipping, the PCs don't need to buy things from the people who make them, they can buy things from merchants. Nothing I buy is bought from people who could have made it themselves. The clerk who rings up my coffee maker doesn't know how to make it, the infrastructure that made my laptop is mostly on another continent. The salesman who recommends a television to me doesn't need to be an engineer, in fact in any sane economy he won't be. The engineer will be spending his more valuable time doing engineering not sales.
That is civilization. I love living in a civilization, but it implies many services that conflict with adventuring. No, the adventurers cannot go into the ancient ruins, because a civilization wants history and archeology rather than loot. (The Europeans looting Egyptian artifacts in the 20th century is considered uncivilized behavior in the 21st century.) Why did Sheriff Hemlock of Sandpoint ask the 1st-level adventurers to run odd jobs defending the town? Because he needed his trained soldiers doing their current jobs protecting the town and they were spread too thin. Sandpoint was on the edge of civilization, so the sheriff had to improvise. The Paizo adventure paths make up a lot of excuses why 1st-level characters have to save someone rather than letting the proper civilized authorities do the job.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I am interested to decouple the crafting cost for things like high level consumables from the purchasing cost of those items. Since, like, there are not very many people who can make 16th level healing potions, and it's likely that they consider their time very valuable, and the market for that sort of thing is pretty small so there won't be many just sitting around in case they sell. So finding someone who can make it for you and convincing them to make it will be much more costly than "making it yourself, if you have the chops."
Regarding alchemy one thing that item level does which I do like is it's part of the mechanical explanation for how Sun Orchid Elixir actually is hard to get your hands on. Since in PF1, even though it was hard to make, PCs can bump skill check modifiers to pretty stratospheric levels if they worked at it, and even if the reagents are hard to get your hands on, people became able to scry, teleport, and fight the scariest things on Golarion well before 20th level. But if you make the elixir a level 20 item, none but the most accomplished alchemist can actually make it, and make the formula rare (or unique) and it is now effectively nigh-impossible to recreate with more backing than "GM fiat."
The way Item Level would work positively would be with a crafting function that allows people to upgrade their item's item level by spending a corresponding amount of material, and calculate the new DC for the active parts based on the new level while at the same time partially advancing to the Greater versions of the items.
Well, I wasn’t talking about Relics, I was talking about, say, a vial of poison.
Do you want to poison someone’s drink? Boy, I really hope it happens to be at one of the few levels where ingestion poison is good.
That’s not a good response.
Question: Does this happen under the current rules?
AMAZO: Welcome to Amazo's Potion Shop. If you can't spot anything on the shelves, just ask me. I am a well-renowned Alchemist, a master of my craft, although not perfect at it, and can create a great many different items. What do you wish to purchase?
BOB: We want to buy four True Healing Potions.
AMAZO: Ah, the True potion. An elusive brew. Fortunately, I recently levelled up, so I can make those now. A very profitable item; they cost 1,200 each. (I forget if that's silver or gold.)
BOB: We have 4,800 on us.
AMAZO: Wait a moment! You people are clearly too low level to buy these potions! Get out, and don't come back until you've killed some more things!
Question: Does this happen under the current rules?
AMAZO: Welcome to Amazo's Potion Shop. If you can't spot anything on the shelves, just ask me. I am a well-renowned Alchemist, a master of my craft, although not perfect at it, and can create a great many different items. What do you wish to purchase?
BOB: We want to buy four True Healing Potions.
AMAZO: Ah, the True potion. An elusive brew. Fortunately, I recently levelled up, so I can make those now. A very profitable item; they cost 1,200 each. (I forget if that's silver or gold.)
BOB: We have 4,800 on us.
AMAZO: Wait a moment! You people are clearly too low level to buy these potions! Get out, and don't come back until you've killed some more things!
No, it does not.
Item level does not affect purchasing. This isn’t Starfinder.
However, item price is fairly closely related to level, and the low-level PCs would likely not have the money to burn on True Healing Potions until they are about the right level.
I am thinking a few thoughts on this. More on item level and DCs later.
No, it does not.Question: Does this happen under the current rules?
AMAZO: Welcome to Amazo's Potion Shop. If you can't spot anything on the shelves, just ask me. I am a well-renowned Alchemist, a master of my craft, although not perfect at it, and can create a great many different items. What do you wish to purchase?
BOB: We want to buy four True Healing Potions.
AMAZO: Ah, the True potion. An elusive brew. Fortunately, I recently levelled up, so I can make those now. A very profitable item; they cost 1,200 each. (I forget if that's silver or gold.)
BOB: We have 4,800 on us.
AMAZO: Wait a moment! You people are clearly too low level to buy these potions! Get out, and don't come back until you've killed some more things!
If your players are buying at level 16 and aren't level 16, then you probably messed up the loot table. Or they sold off stuff you weren't expecting for any number of reasons.
So here’s the thing.
I have a pretty good amount of data on item prices, wealth per level, financial progression and money curves.
I CAN figure out the price difference for item levels upgrade. I CAN use 10.2 to gain the DC increase as a consequence. I CAN formulate a crafting table to make this a reality. And I can easily adapt a few feats for this to work out in the system.
But would it be a houserule people are interested in seeing?
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If item price is so closely tied to level (and price is much more easily justifiable in-game), what is the point of levels for items in the first place?Item level does not affect purchasing. This isn’t Starfinder.
However, item price is fairly closely related to level, and the low-level PCs would likely not have the money to burn on True Healing Potions until they are about the right level.
I am thinking a few thoughts on this. More on item level and DCs later.
Because players can pool money together?
Crafting requirements, and a few numerical benefits tied to spells and effects.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Crafting requirements, and a few numerical benefits tied to spells and effects.
This. Also, it is a useful frame of reference for GMs or people writing their own adventures because it signals when the game expects you to have certain items.* This is especially significant for weapons and armor. If you know a +1 weapon is a 4th level item, and tells you at what point a party should pick up a 4th level item (or how many 4th level items a new PC should have), you know the game's math expects them to have access to that caliber of item.
Theoretically it also makes equipping a high level character easier by directing player's attention to a balance suite of items rather than just giving them a bunch of gold and the entire treasury to leaf through.
*I know, not everyone thinks the game should have expected/required magic items. But if the game is going to have them, I think it shouldn't be controversial to say it should be upfront about that.
One of the best PFS games I ran was solved by the players coming up with a really well thought-out plan and executing it with the help of a hired casting of veil (in tier 5-9). Removing player agency in this regards is not a good thing for an RPG.Indeed. My Chapter 2 DD party pooled to by the Barbarian a +1 Greataxe, which matched their level. If they really tried they could have gone above. In Part 3, one of my players had enough gold to buy a scroll of higher level than him and did so without telling me, leaving me to metaphorically smack him upside the head and swap it for level-apporpriate substitutes when he tried to pull it out in battle because he didn't know "Or didn't want to know XP_ that you aren't supposed to have access to higher level items.Because players can pool money together?If item price is so closely tied to level (and price is much more easily justifiable in-game), what is the point of levels for items in the first place?Item level does not affect purchasing. This isn’t Starfinder.
However, item price is fairly closely related to level, and the low-level PCs would likely not have the money to burn on True Healing Potions until they are about the right level.
I am thinking a few thoughts on this. More on item level and DCs later.
There's been no removal of agency. Contrary to what Rysky and Edge said, I am unaware of any rule that prevents PCs from pooling their money to buy higher level items, or higher level spellcasting. The factors that constrain it are what always have: cost and availability. Not every town has a wizard who can cast veil.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I might very well Have posted this in evey thread I participated in, but mandatory items are bullcrap. However, there is a world of difference between items being mandatory and an item being mandatory.
If players are at a big disadvantage because they’re naked, that’s normal and hey should find some pants quickly. If players are unable to continue the adventure because they bought the wrong item, that’s horrible.
So I am fine with item levels in the way that it tells me which items are appropriate and which are not - less fine with those two or three specific items that in order to truly be upfront should be noted into the class description.
Indeed. My Chapter 2 DD party pooled to by the Barbarian a +1 Greataxe, which matched their level. If they really tried they could have gone above. In Part 3, one of my players had enough gold to buy a scroll of higher level than him and did so without telling me, leaving me to metaphorically smack him upside the head and swap it for level-apporpriate substitutes when he tried to pull it out in battle because he didn't know "Or didn't want to know XP_ that you aren't supposed to have access to higher level items.Because players can pool money together?If item price is so closely tied to level (and price is much more easily justifiable in-game), what is the point of levels for items in the first place?Item level does not affect purchasing. This isn’t Starfinder.
However, item price is fairly closely related to level, and the low-level PCs would likely not have the money to burn on True Healing Potions until they are about the right level.
I am thinking a few thoughts on this. More on item level and DCs later.
There is no such restriction. He was perfectly capable to buy that scroll and you made a mistake in removing it :)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So it doesn't provide a restriction more than any sort of gp pricing does, and causes unnecessary confusion. Why does the subsystem exist?
-easy high level character creation
-power comparison-crafting requirements
-dispelling/countering effects
-saves and checks
-identification DCs
-quick pricing of newly created items
And more.
|
|
So it doesn't provide a restriction more than any sort of gp pricing does, and causes unnecessary confusion. Why does the subsystem exist?-easy high level character creation
-power comparison
-crafting requirements
-dispelling/countering effects
-saves and checks
-identification DCs
-quick pricing of newly created items
And more.
^
Power Comparison will be the most likely used one I believe.
Can your players buy an item 5 levels higher than them in the small starting town? One of your players wanting to buy a thing 3 levels higher than them? Might want to look that over, etc.
This is basically the availability system from previous editions, just far more useful than “Okay a city of this size means everyone has access to any and every item of xx,xxx gold or less unless the GM goes through every book put out and verifies each and every item in existence”.
In b4 the guides show you the best item per tier and that blows the idea of balance based of rank out of the water anyway.
Merlin, I already have the best item per tier depending on class.
It’s how I did my average party wealth tables.
It’s not that hard, really. There’s only a handful of items per level.
Merlin, I already have the best item per tier depending on class.
It’s how I did my average party wealth tables.
It’s not that hard, really. There’s only a handful of items per level.
They're all Tier X, they should have comparable power.
And they.... don't it seems?
Heck I'm waiting to see how the guides deal with some of the items. Yeah they might be a higher rank, but if the math shows you can get away with just spamming a bunch of low tier items(Oh hello reworked Resonance), then Power Comparison can go right out the window. Never mind class and players; an X tier item could go a lot further depending on the class and player than an X+1 tier item in an average player's hands.
This is a problem that will get worse as time goes on when the math is solved and more items get added.
How long till half a tier is ignored because it's not that good leaving said tier functionally X+0.5 or in layman's terms, punching higher than it probably should be.
Potion of Haste is a pretty major outlier, as it is hugely powerful at all levels but costs almost nothing at high levels.
Other items are usually fairly close, however some class benefits from certain ones more - at the same level you might have only one item that’s good for a wizard, at others only one good for fighters. Of course you can grab a Staff of Necromancy as a fighter, but...
I'm not sure what your issue is here? It comes up every time in almost every topic. Yes in any game with maths involved people with find the mathematically optimal things within that system. That is literally impossible to avoid. Even in low maths high narrative systems like WoD people still work out the "strongest" character paths.
The problem isn't the math. I'm fine with the math.
But I've also said this again and again, I'm bothered by the community following the math to the point I'm surprised there's no outright Math God on Golarion.
I'm tried of people going on about options, about balance, about how great the different builds are. And then following the guides to the point of quoting them, obeying the tier list, and having the same Fighter show up to 10 different tables. From 15 different players.
I'm fine with math. I find it annoying, bothersome, and setting breaking when the community seems to continue to treat Pathfinder like it's some sort of Moba or MMO. You HAVE to do it this way or you are playing wrong.
What is inherently wrong about low level items remaining relevant as levels increase?In Pathfinder, Antitoxin is useful at basically all levels.
In the real world, a bottle of water is equally useful as income and wealth increases.
Something people complained about in PF1 was just stockpiling a bunch of weaker items rather than buy something more expensive and possibly stronger. CLW Wands are the mainstay of the complaint but having a trunk of Quick Runner's Shirt wasn't unheard of.
In the real world, a pair of shoes could go for a good amount of money. Or you can buy 2 for maybe half the cost and actually have them last a bit longer than the expensive one.
Now they have tried to show you need to upgrade with some of the items that come in different levels. Cloak of Elvenkind is a decent example, but at the same time I don't like being told to upgrade immediately.
It's a toss up between how far you can push yourself with lower tiered items but not to the point you invalidate the higher ones. In reverse, you need to make the higher tier items better than the lower ones but not make the lower items so weak it's not worth picking up and just saving for the better one.
But to give an in game example; I don't think stockpiling AntiToxin is a problem. A character or two using Bracers of Deflection and swapping out the used one after each fight, that might be more annoying and what people disliked from PF1.
Lots of folks don't touch guides, incidentally. Most of my player's don't. Some folks do. What PF2 does to curb this isn't changing gamer culture, which is what Merlin seems to object to. But it makes it so that someone who reads the guides is much less likely to render someone who doesn't obsolete, or completely blow out the challenge curve for a GM.
This may or may not reduce gaming culture's fixation with optimization. It certainly reduces its impact, and might make people feel less compelled to focus on it. Certainly, if the guy next to me uses an optimization guide and I don't, I now have less pressure to keep up. But optimization focused folks will still exist, and still post about it online. And as long as that's true Merlin probably won't be happy.
Tbh I read guides all the time so I can get tips on how to play the villains as a GM.
Ain't nobody got time to learn to play every single class.
Glad P2 is shifting away from class-based opponents, in a way.