So recently I was toying around with the notion of merging Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2e together to create a homebrew system, and I have run into a rut with the concept of item levels.
Do you feel as if they should be implemented into a campaign? From personal experience, they are really handy when it comes to calculating craft DCs, durations of effects and DCs to break/influence things, but are really bad for immersion (Item level tying directly into actual character level means that low level people will never be able to meaningfully harm even a naked high level character, also how a level 20 wizard who has never gotten into a fistfight in his life is just as hard to tumble past as a level 20 fighter who might not have specialized in such maneuvers but still spent his life fighting) and always wind up serving to do little more than pad out lists of near identical statistics.
Essentially, I want to combine the best parts of both worlds into a single system. How would you accomplish this?
Well, you start with a relatively narrow thing (item levels), then talk about how, in your opinion, adding level to proficiency makes the system bad for immersion (I don't get what item levels have to do about it, since your example is about a naked wizard), and finally ask about how to build an entirely new game system.
I doubt you can get much insight on that last question, at best people will share their own, clashing ideas.
About item levels, I think that they are indeed useful for the reasons you stated; if you believe that it's unrealistic to tie them to character level, you can keep levels as a guideline and just ignore them in regard to access (be it looting, buying or crafting).
Talking about adding level to proficiency, well, PF1 had that too for BaB (but it was either full, 2/3 or 1/2 level) and consequently maneuvers, and for saves. That means that at lowish levels, the most important difference between a fighter and a wizard trying to stop someone tumbling past them would be their ability scores; at higher levels instead, the BaB difference would be too much for any wizard to be comparable to a fighter on that, even if they tried to specialize in that regard. By the way, I don't think that you can become a level 20 wizard without getting involved in a lot of fights.
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The implementation of item levels in PF2 is fantastic. It's not hard-coded, it's just a set of guidelines for the GM to consider when sorting through what loot to give. Gone are the days of: "oh, this thing looks like a cool thing to have drop. Oh, wait, it's worth more than the entire party's gear, they're definitely going to just sell it. Nevermind."
Now it's "Okay, what gear should I give them in their level range? This looks fun."
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I think the idea is for adventuring wizards to actually be adventurous and not the person that hides all the way in the back and uses spells to solve all their problems.
Even if the wizard is able to mostly do that, dodging traps, getting ambushed, fighting a dragon,... they should have decent reflexes to have lived to lvl 20.
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There are only 2 things I don't really appreciate about the current item level system, and both concerning items with a DC. (...)
This is a very annoying issue, and very nice points made about it. My table currently uses a houserule that you can opt to Invest any permanent item, and permanent items you Invest have their DCs set to your Spell or Class DC. Has made our games significantly better as far as loot diversity and fun with items go.
That's a nice idea.
Have you found out any "op stuff" or similar that needed some adjustments so far? Or the progression went smooth regardless the items?
Haven't run into any issues so far, and we've been using this for... probably almost a year? The thing is, items that don't have DCs are already useful 1-20, so if cheap permanent items being useful at high levels were an issue, it would already be one with the current arrangement. The only thing this does is equalizing them and making items with DCs... not suck?
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The biggest issue I personally have with item levels is for items that use a 'counter' check that is way under-leveled.
For example the Marvelous Medicines (Greater) is a level 18 item, but the neutralize poison, / remove disease spell effect is only level 6, which means you'd need a critical success to remove a poison / disease that is actually at your level when you get the item and it will quickly lose all practical use.
This is part of a trend over the last couple of editions to eliminate the cheap/low-level counters (Neutralize Poison went from 'automatic' to 'caster level check required' to 'counter-check required, so I hope you prepared it in a top-level spell slot'), so it's not entirely about 'item levels' but offering under-leveled spells isn't particularly useful in a lot of cases...
So what tips do you have, specifically, on combining/fixing the systems?
Specifically, I think skills works pretty well as-is in 1e, but it is the gear that confounds me. Like reconciling the antitoxin/antiplague scaling, for example in 1e the level 20 antiplague in 2e, converting economies, would be completely overshadowed by some permanent magic item or staff or wand that does everything it does and is usable far more times.
Flagged to move to Homebrew Forum
Done.
Anyway, what I was referring to was something like"Did you find out that there are specific items which, given the progression, are way more efficient than others?"
So, if you happened to find your players to invest on a specific item, now that it scales with level ( maybe something overall better than other stuff ).
Not quite. But my group is also far from the greatest optimizers / power players you'll see, so take it with a grain of salt. I haven't found anything that becomes too good by looking at the item lists and theorycrafting either.
What I did see being bough a lot more than in other games without this rule were items that cast offensive spells like Demon Mask and spell-like things like Ring of the Ram. Probably because these items are pretty cool but normally not the best options.
So recently I was toying around with the notion of merging Pathfinder and Pathfinder 2e together to create a homebrew system, and I have run into a rut with the concept of item levels.
Do you feel as if they should be implemented into a campaign?
Yes.
but are really bad for immersion (Item level tying directly into actual character level
Characters can find, use, and purchase higher level items. It just breaks the wealth by level curve so you shouldn't do it much.
means that low level people will never be able to meaningfully harm even a naked high level character,
That has very little to do with items, which usually only give up to +3 bonuses, and much more with proficiency which gives up to +28.
also how a level 20 wizard who has never gotten into a fistfight in his life is just as hard to tumble past as a level 20 fighter who might not have specialized in such maneuvers but still spent his life fighting)
Also nothing to do with item levels, and incorrect. Fighters get master reflex/evasion and wizards don't, so wizards will be easier to tumble past. On top of that, the real reason you don't want to tumble past a fighter is because they have Attack of Opportunity. In PF2 tumbling through still provokes.