I thought we were past this.

[Ravingdork]

Gone were the days of the Christmas Tree shopping in which you needed to deck out your character in the Big Six (must have items).

Or so I thought.

My players each had about 1,000gp to spend in a recent downtime segment. So what did they get? Bar none, they all got resilience runes on their armor and boots of bounding.

So I guess there are still must haves, and the days of meaningful flavorful item variety have not yet arrived (at least not in the minds of my players).

[Kasoh]

Ravingdork wrote:

Gone were the days of the Christmas Tree shopping in which you needed to deck out your character in the Big Six (must have items).

Or so I thought.

My players each had about 1,000gp to spend in a recent downtime segment. So what did they get? Bar none, they all got resilience runes on their armor and boots of bounding.

So I guess there are still must haves, and the days of meaningful flavorful item variety have not yet arrived (at least not in the minds of my players).

In the playtest, there was overwhelming support for Magical equipment still being an essential component of the game. This is how it is manifested in 2e. If you think it was implemented poorly, well you'll have to take that up with the Design Team.

The number of items needed is lower. Resilience Runes and Tohit and Striking Upgrades for the swords cover the mechanical essentials, if I recall.

You might also find that if every person is after the same items, then its a reaction to the game itself. If everyone is getting hit or failing saves, then they'll search out items to increase those stats.

Though, its not like there's any great flavor items anyway. People always say they want 'flavorful' magic items, but the ones that are in the game are ultra-niche or low DC one/day activated items. Once on a character sheet, they are forgotten until well after one might want to use them. Unless it has a passive use bonus, most players will forget the item even exists.

[WWHsmackdown]

Optimizers gonna optimize and in a list of multiple things something is always gonna be optimal even if by the slimest of margins and based on general assumptions. Your players are just going through their regular motions. Slightly different for pf2 regarding weapon and armor stuff though as that's required. I just use ABP for my players and adjust the gold they get.

[SuperBidi]

A big issue with magic items is their number (and the sheer number of useless ones). Most players only know 10% of the list, so they always buy the same ones.
I've shown great magic items to my players. But before I gave them a Decanter of Endless Water, I don't think any of them would have ever thought of buying one. The problem of flavourful items is that they take a lot of time to process. It's far easier to check all the +X to whatever items.

Also, you said that you gave 1000 gps to your players. But the Resilient Rune is part of the ABP, so you just allowed them to get back to an optimal level of efficiency. Give them another 1000 gps and forbid them to buy items over their level and you'll see that they won't buy the same items (but I expect many of them to just not buy anything because they don't care about flavorful items).

[gesalt]

Let's check the must have items
Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

[Ravingdork]

gesalt wrote:

Let's check the must have items

Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

Especially when the game expects you to only have a handful of magical items at any given level (per Table 10-10: Character Wealth).

[gesalt]

Ravingdork wrote:

gesalt wrote:

Let's check the must have items

Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

Especially when the game expects you to only have a handful of magical items at any given level (per Table 10-10: Character Wealth).

The trick there is realizing that you're mostly supposed to be carrying around out of date items for the tertiary stuff. Your weapon and armor take the 2 biggest spots, the lower ones start taking math items and your lump sum grabs cheaper math items. And then the gm fills in flavor stuff themselves. Since they probably don't touch math and have a mediocre effect, they're effectively worthless so you can almost just hand them out and then short change players that try to sell them back for more math items.

[aobst128]

Automatic Bonus Progression. I've been using it in my group and it's pretty handy not needing to worry about optimizing gear so much and it cleans up the treasure tables a bit.

[breithauptclan]

If you are using equipment to replicate the effects of Automatic Bonus Progression, then there are definitely going to be some mandatory equipment purchases. Why is this surprising to anyone?

[Temperans]

Yeah Paizo decided that the big 6 being really nice to have but not needed was bad; So, they removed all those items and all the related items. But then they added in items that are absolutely necessary or else you straight up have a bad time.

Part of the blame does lie on the playtest. There they told Paizo that magic items should be effective, not just an after thought. So they made the big 3 mandatory given how much they do.

But the real problem is that all the other items didn't get made to also be as effective. It's why there is such a huge issue with sturdy shields vs all other shield. Or why they actively made it so you could not enchant named/unique magic items. Same thing with trinkets and alchemical items either being difficult to use, or only really useable in nice situations.

[Unicore]

As a player in this campaign, I think it relevant to point out that we are level 9, and there are only 3 PCs in the party. Our last encounter was against a higher level caster who flat out killed one of the party due to failed saving throws. Of course everyone was going to focus on getting the resilient rune, we were already a level behind on the need and it feels like that played a significant role in a character death.

My character went with the boots of bounding because he is a fighter with sudden leap and athletics as a primary skill. It really is the item most inline with his overall build. I think the wizard going boots of bounding is mostly about the speed, since he really likes casting fly. There are not I that items that boost speed. I think having players buy the same items in a campaign is often more of a sign of the campaign making it clear that there is a serious need that the party needs to fill in that game, more so than the game itself always requiring them. The last major round of purchasing saw everyone buy gloves of healing, but that was because our two party healer's left the game and we were down to three players with no magical healing. I doubt every player in every party feels the need for those gloves.

[SuperBidi]

gesalt wrote:

Let's check the must have items

Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

From this list, only the weapon and armor runes are really important. Skill items are extremely expensive for a ridiculous +1. Boots of Bounding are nice (speed is always important) but that's just 2 items over your carreer. And the Goggles of Night are only important for Darkvision so a lot of characters can safely ignore them until they become cheap low level items (and you don't need much to get the higher level ones).

[siegfriedliner]

Unicore wrote:

As a player in this campaign, I think it relevant to point out that we are level 9, and there are only 3 PCs in the party. Our last encounter was against a higher level caster who flat out killed one of the party due to failed saving throws. Of course everyone was going to focus on getting the resilient rune, we were already a level behind on the need and it feels like that played a significant role in a character death.

My character went with the boots of bounding because he is a fighter with sudden leap and athletics as a primary skill. It really is the item most inline with his overall build. I think the wizard going boots of bounding is mostly about the speed, since he really likes casting fly. There are not I that items that boost speed. I think having players buy the same items in a campaign is often more of a sign of the campaign making it clear that there is a serious need that the party needs to fill in that game, more so than the game itself always requiring them. The last major round of purchasing saw everyone buy gloves of healing, but that was because our two party healer's left the game and we were down to three players with no magical healing. I doubt every player in every party feels the need for those gloves.

Every party I have ever played in had 2 character pick up the healers gloves, if there was no one who could pick up the staff of a healer.

[Unicore]

siegfriedliner wrote:

Unicore wrote:

As a player in this campaign, I think it relevant to point out that we are level 9, and there are only 3 PCs in the party. Our last encounter was against a higher level caster who flat out killed one of the party due to failed saving throws. Of course everyone was going to focus on getting the resilient rune, we were already a level behind on the need and it feels like that played a significant role in a character death.

My character went with the boots of bounding because he is a fighter with sudden leap and athletics as a primary skill. It really is the item most inline with his overall build. I think the wizard going boots of bounding is mostly about the speed, since he really likes casting fly. There are not I that items that boost speed. I think having players buy the same items in a campaign is often more of a sign of the campaign making it clear that there is a serious need that the party needs to fill in that game, more so than the game itself always requiring them. The last major round of purchasing saw everyone buy gloves of healing, but that was because our two party healer's left the game and we were down to three players with no magical healing. I doubt every player in every party feels the need for those gloves.

Every party I have ever played in had 2 character pick up the healers gloves, if there was no one who could pick up the staff of a healer.

I see one player pick them up pretty often, and it is an item rarely sold as loot. But I guess it is a fairly popular and easy to figure out item to get a lot of use. Compared to something like Primeval Mistletoe, which is a really cool and interesting item, but only probably usable by at most one player in a party and even then, many parties won't find a use for it.

But I think players generally get enough wealth that other things get purchased too. Like in this instance, RD pointed out 2 items that the 2 surviving characters bought, but that was only 2/3rds of the total wealth given at that point. There was still enough left over for a fair bit of other purchases.

[The Raven Black]

gesalt wrote:

Let's check the must have items

Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

Weapon, Armor, Doubling rings for specific builds are the Must Have.

Others are Nice to have.

[Unicore]

Magic items that get used in every encounter, or even better, get used multiple times in an encounter, or even every single time you move, attack or get attacked, are always going to feel more needed than ones that can only be used once a day, even if those effects are really cool.

I think the fun of having a bunch of different things, and not all of it perfectly balanced is more fun with items then it is with feats or other core character building choices. Items are something that you can change out relatively easily and can find higher level items than party level for really cool moments, without completely tipping the scales. This is much more true in PF2 than it was in PF1, where there were a lot of items you really had to be careful about letting your PCs find them too early.

[roquepo]

We started using ABP not that long ago and I don't think I can go back now.

[Ravingdork]

siegfriedliner wrote:

Unicore wrote:

The last major round of purchasing saw everyone buy gloves of healing, but that was because our two party healer's left the game and we were down to three players with no magical healing. I doubt every player in every party feels the need for those gloves.

Every party I have ever played in had 2 character pick up the healers gloves, if there was no one who could pick up the staff of a healer.

I've seen a lot of gloves of healing myself, and not just in this party, but others as well. Having multiple pairs is not uncommon.

[roquepo]

The Raven Black wrote:

gesalt wrote:

Let's check the must have items

Weapon runes (math requirement)
Armor runes (math requirement)
Skill item 1 (math)
Skill item 2 (math)
Skill item 3 (maaaaaaaaaath)
Boots of bounding (speed)
Darkvision goggles (perception math/vision)

Maybe a couple others like
Bag of holding (bulk)
Flight items (flight)
Doubling rings (dual-wield tax)

Point is there isn't much room for flavor when you have more than a few near-mandatory purchases first

Weapon, Armor, Doubling rings for specific builds are the Must Have.

Others are Nice to have.

I would say it is a Must vs Should have situation for me. Potions are nice to have, mobility boosts (both status and item bonuses to speed and extra movement options), up to level staffs or sturdy shields are something more important than that. Can you play the game without them and math will hold up? For sure. Are they an important part of the item system that all players should have access to? I think so too.

[Cyouni]

Healer's Gloves are definitely good, but our party only has one (on the dhampir wizard medic).

Boots of Bounding are definitely good, but not a must-take. My Swashbuckler is using Daredevil Softpaws, the Rogue is using Slippers of Spider Climbing, and the Druid probably wouldn't use them as much - he casts polymorph spells or uses animal companion mount decently often.

Resilient rune, by level 9, is very understandable. I'd be more surprised if they weren't trying to catch up on it at that level.

Edit: I should note my Swashbuckler took Incredible Investiture to have more items, neither of which were Healer's Gloves.

[The Raven Black]

Oil of potency on armor is great.

[gesalt]

It's extremely common to have at least 1 set of healer's gloves in a party because medicine is mandatory and the gloves boost it by +1 (maaaaaaaaaath). Unfortunately, being a level 4 item means you aren't getting it at level 4 unless the gm has given it or your weapon upgrades to you for free (loot or abp) or your local casters forgo their weapons/staves to get it. And if you get it later, the heal effect has fallen off a bit.

As for skill math items being must haves or not, I admit that's more personal bias. In "tight" systems like pf2e I always go with the assumption that if I haven't built with higher difficulty in mind I've made a mistake. In this case, it'd be assuming every skill check that matters will get the very hard +5 and needing every +1/+2 I can get.

[Squiggit]

The medicine skill is another good example. They turned proficiency into a class mechanic because it was too mandatory but now I think I've only played in one game where no one invested in medicine and that was a game where they players intentionally decided as a group to not use the medicine skill and heavily invested in replacements for it (and still suffered for not having it).

WWHsmackdown wrote:

something is always gonna be optimal even if by the slimest of margins

It's not a slim margin though. The items are massively important and the game breaks down without them. Despite being sold as this being a compromise between ABP and PF1's magic item system, in many respects the items in PF2 are more important than they've ever been.

[Perpdepog]

Kasoh wrote:

Though, its not like there's any great flavor items anyway. People always say they want 'flavorful' magic items, but the ones that are in the game are ultra-niche or low DC one/day activated items. Once on a character sheet, they are forgotten until well after one might want to use them. Unless it has a passive use bonus, most players will forget the item even exists.

This has happened in games I'm in so many times it's almost not funny. So often people will look at their character sheets and realize the module or GM actually gave them/us an item that would have been a great tool or resource in the encounter they/we just had, but wasn't used because the party brute forced their way forward instead.

[siegfriedliner]

When it comes to marital in pathfinder 2e at higher levels 60% of you damage comes from items at higher levels.

[Salamileg]

aobst128 wrote:

Automatic Bonus Progression. I've been using it in my group and it's pretty handy not needing to worry about optimizing gear so much and it cleans up the treasure tables a bit.

I can highly recommend a variant of ABP I use where it only gives armor/weapon potency, striking, and resilient runes for free, while skill boosters still exist in items. Strikes a nice balance when you want to give out magic items but don't want to worry about what they are.

[The Raven Black]

Squiggit wrote:

The medicine skill is another good example. They turned proficiency into a class mechanic because it was too mandatory but now I think I've only played in one game where no one invested in medicine and that was a game where they players intentionally decided as a group to not use the medicine skill and heavily invested in replacements for it (and still suffered for not having it).

WWHsmackdown wrote:

something is always gonna be optimal even if by the slimest of margins

It's not a slim margin though. The items are massively important and the game breaks down without them. Despite being sold as this being a compromise between ABP and PF1's magic item system, in many respects the items in PF2 are more important than they've ever been.

IIRC the skill items allow you to improve your chance of success at your level's DC (hard for example). They are not required just to maintain it.

[WWHsmackdown]

Salamileg wrote:

aobst128 wrote:

Automatic Bonus Progression. I've been using it in my group and it's pretty handy not needing to worry about optimizing gear so much and it cleans up the treasure tables a bit.

I can highly recommend a variant of ABP I use where it only gives armor/weapon potency, striking, and resilient runes for free, while skill boosters still exist in items. Strikes a nice balance when you want to give out magic items but don't want to worry about what they are.

That's my method too. Finegaling the right amount of loot and gold compared to normal ABP is harder but it feels like the best way to play. The less mandatory boosters the better.

[Cyouni]

Perpdepog wrote:

Kasoh wrote:

Though, its not like there's any great flavor items anyway. People always say they want 'flavorful' magic items, but the ones that are in the game are ultra-niche or low DC one/day activated items. Once on a character sheet, they are forgotten until well after one might want to use them. Unless it has a passive use bonus, most players will forget the item even exists.

This has happened in games I'm in so many times it's almost not funny. So often people will look at their character sheets and realize the module or GM actually gave them/us an item that would have been a great tool or resource in the encounter they/we just had, but wasn't used because the party brute forced their way forward instead.

Speaking of brute forcing things, guess who's constantly forgotten they have a pearly white spindle aeon stone because of the medic wizard?

[Lightning Raven]

aobst128 wrote:

Automatic Bonus Progression. I've been using it in my group and it's pretty handy not needing to worry about optimizing gear so much and it cleans up the treasure tables a bit.

Except when you have a player like mine that doesn't think anything is good if it's not a damage bonus. It's very frustrating because her character doesn't do anything with their third action, which would've been a great opportunity to buy items to shore up that weakness.

[Deriven Firelion]

Those are my player high value items too. Saves and movement hugely valuable.

[Lucas Yew]

I'll most likely never understand those "majority" in that awful poll, who thought crippling martial (or any PF2 character) performance in general by making their expected math dependent on external equipment so badly was a good thing, for the rest of my life (especially when your on-level NPC adversaries blatantly enjoy those expected bonuses as essentially ABP for free)...

[Deriven Firelion]

Lucas Yew wrote:

I'll most likely never understand those "majority" in that awful poll, who thought crippling martial (or any PF2 character) performance in general by making their expected math dependent on external equipment so badly was a good thing, for the rest of my life (especially when your on-level NPC adversaries blatantly enjoy those expected bonuses as essentially ABP for free)...

I understand it. Magic items needed to be necessary and meaningful. Only way to make them necessary and meaningful is make them part of the leveling upgrades. My players would have not bothered with magic items if there wasn't a substantial and necessary feel to them. It's one of the major reasons we quit 5E was magic items weren't a built in part of the game.

[Unicore]

The biggest advantage of having item bonuses separate from general character leveling is that it gives player rewards at off points in time than all the other things you get when you level up. XP is a pretty nebulous reward for players and the difference between having 1 xp and 999 is pretty meaningless for players. But getting a magic weapon or an interesting item can feel like a reward for PCs that disambiguates "getting better" from just leveling up, which can create a kind of a plateau feeling in some adventures.

I think that that alone isn't always such a big deal, but from an adventure design perspective it can be nice to have an extra place within adventures to give PCs tangible boosts not tied to leveling up.

[Temperans]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

Lucas Yew wrote:

I'll most likely never understand those "majority" in that awful poll, who thought crippling martial (or any PF2 character) performance in general by making their expected math dependent on external equipment so badly was a good thing, for the rest of my life (especially when your on-level NPC adversaries blatantly enjoy those expected bonuses as essentially ABP for free)...

I understand it. Magic items needed to be necessary and meaningful. Only way to make them necessary and meaningful is make them part of the leveling upgrades. My players would have not bothered with magic items if there wasn't a substantial and necessary feel to them. It's one of the major reasons we quit 5E was magic items weren't a built in part of the game.

This is what happened in the playtest. The items were so meh that people didn't care and proficiency didn't help. It also didn't help that the playtest had a bunch of weird jumbled up rules due to the whole resonance system being tested: Which 100% colored the responses of the playtest.

Also note that people didn't ask for items to be mandatory, they asked for items to be more relevant. Since at the time they felt like an afterthought, much like they are in 5e.

* P.S. Yeah Unicore, its all about that feeling of reward when you go into a dungeon and find that cool magic item. Or when you manage to save up to finally get that one item you have been wanting for 5 levels.

[PossibleCabbage]

I think it's good when there are items that players find useful and thus desire. The problem when everybody is buying the same boots is that there are not enough of them, I figure.

[Temperans]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think it's good when there are items that players find useful and thus desire. The problem when everybody is buying the same boots is that there are not enough of them, I figure.

Yep, people want more cool items, and will buy the same for as long as that is the only real choice. *Points again at sturdy shield being stupid*

[Charlie Brooks]

I feel like any game that offers a magic item market is going to wind up having items that players tend to see as essential.

On the other hand, if the issue is simply an issue with players selecting the "plus" weapons too often, the automatic bonus progression rules forestall that easily.

[siegfriedliner]

The reason people are buying the same items is the same reason in 4e everyone took the expertise and improved defences because they are necessary for the numbers in the game to be where they are meant to be. If you didn't have them you noticed your struggled to hit, got hit a lot or struggled to make those clutch saves.

Its also the reason why I personally feel you need that that starting 18 in your main attack stat because its very easy to miss in p2 and even a +1 or minus 1 makes a huge difference.

[siegfriedliner]

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I feel like any game that offers a magic item market is going to wind up having items that players tend to see as essential.

On the other hand, if the issue is simply an issue with players selecting the "plus" weapons too often, the automatic bonus progression rules forestall that easily.

Magic items could be changed so that none of them gave numbered effects, flight, endless beer, smoke bottles, invisible light (hand of glory style) and other none numbered effects could still make items great but not necessary.

[Cyouni]

siegfriedliner wrote:

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I feel like any game that offers a magic item market is going to wind up having items that players tend to see as essential.

On the other hand, if the issue is simply an issue with players selecting the "plus" weapons too often, the automatic bonus progression rules forestall that easily.

Magic items could be changed so that none of them gave numbered effects, flight, endless beer, smoke bottles, invisible light (hand of glory style) and other none numbered effects could still make items great but not necessary.

Then you'll still have items that people deem necessary.

That's how a metagame works.

See: people taking Healer's Gloves even with no Medicine investment.

[Cyouni]

Temperans wrote:

Also note that people didn't ask for items to be mandatory, they asked for items to be more relevant. Since at the time they felt like an afterthought, much like they are in 5e.

You are aware that magic weapons in the playtest were up to +5, and handled both attack and damage dice, right? The same was true of armour and skill items.

Mandatory items were deemphasized from the playtest.

[Golurkcanfly]

Cyouni wrote:

siegfriedliner wrote:

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I feel like any game that offers a magic item market is going to wind up having items that players tend to see as essential.

On the other hand, if the issue is simply an issue with players selecting the "plus" weapons too often, the automatic bonus progression rules forestall that easily.

Magic items could be changed so that none of them gave numbered effects, flight, endless beer, smoke bottles, invisible light (hand of glory style) and other none numbered effects could still make items great but not necessary.

Then you'll still have items that people deem necessary.

That's how a metagame works.

See: people taking Healer's Gloves even with no Medicine investment.

There's a fair bit of difference between "mathematically necessary" and "makes life easier"

The former also has the issue in that +X weapons just aren't interesting.

[Squiggit]

Lucas Yew wrote:

I'll most likely never understand those "majority" in that awful poll, who thought crippling martial (or any PF2 character) performance in general by making their expected math dependent on external equipment so badly was a good thing, for the rest of my life (especially when your on-level NPC adversaries blatantly enjoy those expected bonuses as essentially ABP for free)...

From my recollection the poll questions were more vague than that. It was more like "do you think magic items should matter" not "do you think high level characters should be functionally helpless without magic weapons"

The developers took what they wanted from that.

[Unicore]

Golurkcanfly wrote:

Cyouni wrote:

siegfriedliner wrote:

Charlie Brooks wrote:

I feel like any game that offers a magic item market is going to wind up having items that players tend to see as essential.

On the other hand, if the issue is simply an issue with players selecting the "plus" weapons too often, the automatic bonus progression rules forestall that easily.

Magic items could be changed so that none of them gave numbered effects, flight, endless beer, smoke bottles, invisible light (hand of glory style) and other none numbered effects could still make items great but not necessary.

Then you'll still have items that people deem necessary.

That's how a metagame works.

See: people taking Healer's Gloves even with no Medicine investment.

There's a fair bit of difference between "mathematically necessary" and "makes life easier"

The former also has the issue in that +X weapons just aren't interesting.

Do people really find +x weapons flatly uninteresting? I feel like the first couple of ones you find in any adventure is pretty exciting and fun and then they become a meaningless thing as the game continues, but that is pretty much like everything else in the game: Monsters are brutal when you first encounter them at a higher level than you, but eventually become fodder against you. Many spells at their initial level are the same way. Items fit pretty well right now in the same space, certain items are cool and interesting at certain levels and then stop being so later.

[Deriven Firelion]

I'm glad PF2 is somewhere between magic items being not even worked into the game math like 5E and PF1 where you need the magic item Christmas Tree to keep up with everyone focused on Fortified Armor, Maxed out weapon with best additions, ring of protection, cloak of resistance, full array of stat enhancing items, flight item, ring of freedom of movement, and stat enhancing tomes.

Now it's you must have a nice magic weapon which most martial players like anyway. And really that's all you have to have, while saving throw, movement items, skill enhancing items, armor potency, and the like are desirable but not necessary.

[Ravingdork]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think it's good when there are items that players find useful and thus desire. The problem when everybody is buying the same boots is that there are not enough of them, I figure.

And I think that's the real crux of the issue. When you silo items into discreet levels of power, particularly when it doesn't scale, you end up with lots of items, but very few real choices for whatever silo you're in. As Paizo releases more and more items, the silos should begin to fill with more options, but it is unlikely to have anything resembling even distribution. That means there will always be a time where it seems like everyone is buying the same boots.

[Temperans]

Cyouni wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Also note that people didn't ask for items to be mandatory, they asked for items to be more relevant. Since at the time they felt like an afterthought, much like they are in 5e.

You are aware that magic weapons in the playtest were up to +5, and handled both attack and damage dice, right? The same was true of armour and skill items.

Mandatory items were deemphasized from the playtest.

It went from having 4-5 tiers of weapon increases to having 6 with the lower tiers being more expensive. Needing to buy more weapon enhancements to keep up puts more emphasis on the math, not less. Same goes for all the items where they force you to buy more to keep up with the game. The final rules fixed the afterthought feeling.

Also, in the playtest there was a literal mass of thread asking to remove damage from weapons. Everything from making it intrinsic to the character to gating it by proficiency. People voted against that in the surveys in that they wanted items to matter as Squiggit quote.

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* P.S. Going from "you can get 6 items that don't need to be max to keep up" to "you need 3 mandatory magic items that need to be maxed to keep up" are entirely different things. Blame the tight math and monster design for that one.

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* P.S.S. Afterthought does not mean that something is weak. It means that it was added in as something secondary to the main thing. The main thing being the 3-action economy.

[Deriven Firelion]

Ravingdork wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I think it's good when there are items that players find useful and thus desire. The problem when everybody is buying the same boots is that there are not enough of them, I figure.

And I think that's the real crux of the issue. When you silo items into discreet levels of power, particularly when it doesn't scale, you end up with lots of items, but very few real choices for whatever silo you're in. As Paizo releases more and more items, the silos should begin to fill with more options, but it is unlikely to have anything resembling even distribution. That means there will always be a time where it seems like everyone is buying the same boots.

The boots are optional, not necessary. But movement is so valuable in this game that any way to get faster makes that a high value ability.

[SuperBidi]

In my opinion, there's no way to get away from the "big 6" without a massive rethinking of magic items.
As Deriven points out, either items are useless and it's sad or they are strong and you'll end up with a "big X".

In my opinion, items need to be strong. But they must not compete with class features, they must be a completely distinct part of your character.
For example, if instead of giving skill feats every 2 levels the game was giving an item to invest every 2 levels and items would give the same kind of advantages/bonuses skill feat gives: Boots of Quick Jump, Gloves of Battle Medicine, Eyes of Intimidating Glare, Glad Hand of the Mage, etc...

This is just an example, but it would make items not mandatory and super desirable. Magic items need to be a part of character building, but a part completely separated from the core part of your character.