I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?
All it would do is encourage spellcasters to find ways to get those metamagic effects in other ways, at the very worst they'd have to take the feat they want and try to get a trait that reduces the effective level change. You'd likely end up with more incentive to play Sorcerers as they have some interesting bloodline abilities to work metamagic.
Likewise, spellcasters would likely opt to purchase scrolls that have been made by spellcasters with the metamagic feats already, and then use those.
I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?
It's still not enough to remove the caster martial disparity, if that's your goal. The general problem of martial characters (in PF1) is they are typically limited to physics and reality, which just makes them weaker in ways that aren't outright easy to express. Like martials are often a bigger direct threat in combat. But the wizard can simply get his whole party to not even be physical there to fight, if they need to escape. The wizard can make his own personal demiplane. Magic itself (in PF1) is broken and leads to the disparity.
Likewise, spellcasters would likely opt to purchase scrolls that have been made by spellcasters with the metamagic feats already, and then use those.
I assume that for all intents are purposes metamagic simply doesn't exist in the OP's idea. There's no items that exist that include them.
IMO it would be a slight downgrade to casters. I would think the difference between an experienced vs inexperienced casters player would be bigger.
IMO, banning metamagic rods would just push experienced players more toward the arcanist (and exploiter wizard leaving unprepared spell slots) class for the Metamixing exploit.
The caster-martial disparity is such that metamagic rods don't really move the needle that much.
The biggest issue that causes the caster-martial disparity is that, with the proper spells (and possibly some multiclass/prestige class levels), a caster can do everything a martial does and still have other spells to act as a caster.
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A bit of a tangent, but even with a high degree of system mastery tastes, play-style, and even mood influence the choice of character concept and class for a given adventure/campaign.
Yes, casters are "optimal" in PF1. However, optimization is not the be-all and end-all of RPGs.
I'm honestly less worried about optimization and such, and more about making sure that the players feel like their PCs meaningfully contribute--which can mean different things to different players, but gimp a PC enough, and it becomes clear.
In some cases, this could backfire and make spell casters more efficient. Meta-magic rods are expensive and can only be used a limited number of times per day. If the rods are not available, the spell casters will be able to use the gold they would have invested in rods for other items. Instead of rods the spell caster will have access to more rods, wands and things like pearls of power or pages of spell knowledge. Even consumables like scrolls and wands will become more common.
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So we play the AP's, with 4 party members, and we really haven't seen a huge advantage that casters have over martials - if anything it's just the opposite. Archers, gunslingers, and fighters, can quite often have the majority of situations dealt with before it's even the spell casters turn.
the only caveat I will grant, is that it's way to easy to have a huge over abundance of healing available to a party, which makes many encounters way less of a threat.
Which raises the question of why everyone doesn’t universally choose a full caster who can also martial. The disparity between classes also coincides with degrees of system mastery.
I mean, it is pretty challenging to make a full caster that can use weapons as well as a martial and keep that up for a full adventuring day.
While casters can imitate it on a limited basis, they usually lack the feats and other supporting bits to be on par with dedicated martials at doing martial things.
But they can do like 80% of what a martial does for a limited time.
I suppose the reason why I don't ever do that is because the Inquisitor exists.
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I mean, it is pretty challenging to make a full caster that can use weapons as well as a martial and keep that up for a full adventuring day.
While casters can imitate it on a limited basis, they usually lack the feats and other supporting bits to be on par with dedicated martials at doing martial things.
Doing it in new and fun ways is the current challenge. There are forum pages full of ways to take a 1/2 BAB class and have it hit like a 3/2 class across the adventuring day, so anyone borrowing from those ideas can make their new character from those builds.
Short of Opportune Parry and Riposte, there aren't many martial abilities that can't be replicated by a spell or feat combo. And even that one is granted at Swashbuckler lvl 1.
One way that might reduce the martial-caster disparity would be to adjust the cost of some magic items and services. A +1 longsword costs 2,315 gp, a 1st level wand of magic missile cost 2,250 gp. The +1 longsword gives the martial a small boost to hit and damage, but more importantly allows him to overcome some DR. The wand of magic missile allows the wizard to cast magic missile 50 times without expending any of his other resources. A +3 longsword cost 18,315 gp, a staff of fire costs 18,950 gp. The +3 sword gives a decent bonus to hit and damage and allows the martial to overcome more types of DR. The staff of fire gives the wizard 3 spells he can cast that he does not have to memorize or using any personal resources. If the wizard could get up to 10 extra burning hands or 5 fireballs cast as if he had cast them.
When using offensive spells casters rarely need to worry about DR but do have to deal with energy resistance. DR is a lot more common than energy resistance and very few creatures have high levels of all energy resistance. The spell caster can often reduce the impact of energy resistance by having spells that do different types of energy damage. DR that can easily be overcome by a using a different weapon is even more uncommon.
This shows that the magic items the martials rely on are less efficient than those of the caster. If we reduce the cost of magic weapons and armor by 25% and increase the cost of all caster specific magic items by 25% it changes the balance of the game in favor of the martial. The martial will be getting more powerful weapons and armor earlier and the caster will be delayed in gaining extra power from the items. The increase should also apply to prepared arcane caster purchasing spells for other casters.
Using this system the +1 longsword costs 1,736.25 gp compared to the 2,812.5 gp of the 1st level wand of magic missile. A +3 sword would go for 13,736.25 gp and the staff of fire would now be 23,687.5 gp. The martial will probably be getting the +3 sword by around 7th level where the earliest the caster will get the staff of fire would be around 9th.
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Maybe just ban certain metamagics instead of blanket ban on metamagic rods.
Persistent, Dazing, Toppling, and maybe Quicken would be top choices for a lot of GMs. Depending on your campaign you might also want to take out the HP damage boosters that blaster casters love as well. Empower, Maximize, and the like.
A lot of the other metamagics either help the entire group or are best for characters that aren't entirely spell-focused. Extend and Encouraging, for example, are often used on buff spells that affect the martials. Furious is mostly a help to bloodragers.
Yeah, starting by simply removing outright offending kinds of metamgaic options is probably a good starting point.
Quicken (along with anything that would let you cast a spell at a reduced action cost), Dazing, Persistent should all be gone. Toppling spell is good, but I might still allow it as it's less problematic than the others.
Getting rid of the overly effective metamagic options would be a start toward in combat parity.
However, you'll never really overcome the out of combat disparity when casters can still create pocket demiplanes and the like.
If you really want to start down that road...it ends up looking something like the spellcasting in PF2.
Yeah, starting by simply removing outright offending kinds of metamgaic options is probably a good starting point.
Quicken (along with anything that would let you cast a spell at a reduced action cost), Dazing, Persistent should all be gone. Toppling spell is good, but I might still allow it as it's less problematic than the others.
Getting rid of the overly effective metamagic options would be a start toward in combat parity.
However, you'll never really overcome the out of combat disparity when casters can still create pocket demiplanes and the like.
If you really want to start down that road...it ends up looking something like the spellcasting in PF2.
Metamagic (using feats, not rods), consumes an enormous amount of resources for a caster. A feat slot each, increased casting time, and a higher spell slot. For that level of investment, they deserve to be potent (IMO they aren't worth it, but I digress). If you make it so that the caster cannot rest as often as he chooses, then as he uses these increased costs, he will wind up with lesser returns. Quickened, as one of the mentioned culprits, cannot be used on anything over a 5th level spell, and 5th level and upwards slots tend to be wasted when casting quickened fireballs, etc. especially when compared to the spells that you could be casting instead.
The problem is that something like a persistent dazing anything is almost always an encounter ender.
They should have never existed. Those are the two worst offenders, especially when combined.
Banning quickened spell just stops the overall possible spell throughput per round.
seems like banning metamagic rods is done.
the thread has moved onto discussing metamagics and their utility.
It might circle back to repricing the rods in review of their utility.
Maybe. I don't see a need to ban rods. I see a need to ban certain kinds of metamagic from the game.
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I could have been clearer. I meant banning certain metamagics in rod form but still allowing the feat to be taken by players. Instead of banning all metamagic rods.
Like others have said, the rods bypass the built-in limitations of the feats. With a metamagic feat you must still have gained the higher-level spell slots. You can't cast Empowered fireball until you have 5th-level slots. (Yes, trait shenanigans exist.) Or you can spend 9,000 gp for a lesser Empower rod, which is easily obtainable by 6th or 7th level. And; without the rod you have to spend one of your precious feats on the metamagic! The only limitation rods don't bypass is the increased casting time.
I mostly stand by my list of spells that you might choose not to be available in rod form. I had some bad GM experiences with Toppling, so I might dislike that one more than it deserves. And I'm torn on Quicken. Normally its impossible to quicken a 6th-level or above spell no matter what your level is (barring some limited class abilities), and even casting a 1st-level spell eats up a 5th-level slot, so the rods are hugely helpful. But the Quicken rods are so expensive.
Also its worth deciding if you want to make any metamagic available in rod form or only those that have explicitly published rods. I think someone mentioned Brisk above. A Brisk rod was never published. And many others.
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HomeBrew...
∙ only one metamagic rod can affect a cast spell. . .
That's not a house rule, it's in the description of metamagic rods.
A caster may only use one metamagic rod on any given spell, but it is permissible to combine a rod with metamagic feats possessed by the rod’s wielder. In this case, only the feats possessed by the wielder adjust the spell slot of the spell being cast.
Also note the word "wielder" in those sentences. If you are wearing a light shield and want to cast a spell with somatic components, you can't wield a rod. Even if you don't hold a weapon or shield (other than a buckler) you still need actions to retrieve and stow the rod if you plan to do anything else with a hand (including using a different rod).
You want to really change how metamagic works?
Get rid of anything that reduces the spell slot cost of metamagic.
But again, I think the real issue is specific metamagics, not all metamagic in general.
Widen spell and reach spell are not issue.
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I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?
Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?
In my experience, these rods just aren't seen that often due to the following issues:
Price: These things really aren't that cheap (lesser empower is half your expected wealth at 6-7th level).
Obsolescence: Lower level offensive spell slots become fairly obsolete as you level up, so an item that only buffs lower level slots also fades in power fairly quickly (by the time you can likely purchase a lesser empowered rod, 3rd level spell slots are for use in trash fights).
Weight: For a lot of casters, 5lbs is a lot.
Unwieldiness: Spontaneous casters still have the increased casting time when using a rod, so they generally need to have it in hand before their round begins.
My caster characters typically get multiple lesser extend rods for those sweet low level buffs, but I don't think I've ever purchased any of the others: My Wrath of the Righteous Oracle found a Normal Quickened rod which was very nice (Quickened Breath of Life + Heal got our deceased Paladin back in the fight immediately), but I doubt I would have actually paid 75.5k gold for one.
Overall, Casters were 'overpowered' long before these rods were introduced, and removing them probably won't shift the dial in any meaningful way.
I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?
Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
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Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?
In many cases, the use of metamagic rods isn't because they are "too important as part of a build," but rather a way of circumventing the limited number of feats. Essentially, the "build" is spending money for use of metamagic because other feats don't have an easy way of duplicating their benefits ("I want feats A and B, but I also want to cast using metamagic feats X and Y."). Since rods can only be used 3 times per day each, they may not be as "important" to the build as you think; they are icing on the cake.
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
There are multiple ways to allow players to customize their characters' magic items that don't involve "the magic mart." TBF, "the magic mart" is really just an exaggeration and a shortcut of many GMs that don't want to deal with down time. The biggest issue with limiting the ability of players to customize their characters' magic items is that some characters can be hamstrung by not finding level-appropriate gear suitable for them (armor type, weapon type, class-specific items, etc.).
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I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.
The possible negative effect I see is lowering the amount of party buffs that get passed out to the martials. I love playing characters whose primary (or at least secondary) purpose is buffing. Like Taja I buy tons of Extend rods. I think my last PFS inquisitor had 3 lesser Extend rods by 11th level (and used them up every day).
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
Another option besides a curated list of allowed rods might be to allow all rods, but only rods the party crafts themselves that they actually possess the metamagic feat for. That would be essentially trading gold and a feat (Craft Rod) for the ability to use lower-level spell slots sometimes. But it only works if you do ban ways of swapping metamagic feats around. No going wild with retraining, no greater metamagic knowledge for arcanists, etc.
Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them.
The reason I would lean towards only banning certain metamagic rods is that, in some cases, metamagic rods allow the party to overcome a challenge by having the right tool on hand. And clever, unexpected solutions tend to be fun for everyone. No one is going to take the Steam Spell metamagic feat unless your campaign heavily revolves around underwater combat. But having a lesser Steam Spell rod on hand when the dungeon suddenly floods lets the fireball caster say "A-ha! Totally worth the 1,500 I spent!"
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Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
The point of the 'magic mart' is to allow players to build a character that isn't completely dependent on the authors of published adventures, the benevolence of the GM, or the party spending the feats and downtime for crafting when gearing up: Playing any sort of 'equipment-specialized' character is difficult if you aren't assured of reasonable access to the appropriate gear of the appropriate size.
This was a bit of a fundamental change with D&D3.0: Before this edition, characters generally didn't specialize that much outside of fighters and certain class kits, so you generally just used whatever magic weapons you happened to find. Now, you can build a character that is focused on a specific weapon and generally be assured you won't be crippled by availability.
One thing I learned back in the early 90s was playing a D&D2.0 Thief kinda sucked when the campaign just had no lootable invisibility items...
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The point of the 'magic mart' is to allow players to build a character that isn't completely dependent on the authors of published adventures, the benevolence of the GM, or the party spending the feats and downtime for crafting when gearing up....
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
A bitter taste remains still from when I bit my tongue hearing my GM explain the AP expects all PCs should be medium sized, so not finding any small sized armor and weapons is the price I should expect to pay for playing a Halfling.
A bitter taste remains still from when I bit my tongue hearing my GM explain the AP expects all PCs should be medium sized, so not finding any small sized armor and weapons is the price I should expect to pay for playing a Halfling.The point of the 'magic mart' is to allow players to build a character that isn't completely dependent on the authors of published adventures, the benevolence of the GM, or the party spending the feats and downtime for crafting when gearing up....
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
Yeah, I'd never do that to a player. If they've got a halfling, there will be Small magic gear found as treasure.
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Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?
Like I said, metamagic rods aren't really that common in actual battle (in my experience, at least) and banning them won't really impact game play at all.
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
Keep in mind that the 'Magic Mart' is generally limited to items of a certain value or less, so you literally need to go to a metropolis to have a 75% chance of finding a lesser empowered rod to purchase:
Community Size: Base Value
Thorp (<=20 people): 50 gp
Hamlet (21-60 people): 200 gp
Village (61-200 people): 500 gp
Small town (201-2,000 people): 1,000 gp
Large town (2,001-5,000 people): 2,000 gp
Small city (5,001-10,000 people): 4,000 gp
Large city (10,001-25,000 people): 8,000 gp
Metropolis (25,001+ people): 16,000 gp
I've been thinking about using PF1 in an OSR way. And that led me to wonder: what happens to the martial-caster disparity if metamagic rods just don't exist? What if you can't find them, can't buy them, can't make them?Is this idea coming from 'personal experience' with these rods, or just from seeing them on the item lists?Two things, mainly. First, every build for a caster I see involves a time of "just add metamagic rods," and that regularly suggests to me that they're too important as part of a build, and thus improving diversity in the space involves banning them. I wanted to be sure there wouldn't be some unforeseen effect from doing so.
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls). However, I'm aware how Wealth By Level expects the ability to convert gold into magic items without issue.
Honestly, that impacts martial characters way worse than it impact casters. Not being able to get the magic items the player wants for a character is usually much more crippling to a martial than a caster. Because casters can spend their spell slot to get the magical effects, and martials are just screwed. The difference is that in a high magic item access game, casters might edge out slightly higher bonuses for a limited time but they're spending limited slots to do so. In a low magic item access game casters spend a significant amount of resources of self-buffing, but are just miles ahead of martials.
As for why you see every build say "add metamgic rods" it's because after a certain point casters don't have a lot to spend gold on, and metamagic rods are an effective way to get a more potent effect in combat. Every caster can make use of them in some capacity.
If you're going to remove "magic mart" from the game, you also kind of need to implement Automatic Bonus Progression rules. Which honestly are very good for martials, and not great for casters.
Because everybody loses half their wealth by level (if I recall the rules correctly) in exchange for the granted bonuses. But most casters don't care about weapons at all (but they're getting "free" weapon enhancement) nor do they care about armor (they're generally using mage armor) so they kind of get stiffed compared to martials. So if you're worried about the caster martial disparity, running ABP raw will probably do more to limit casters than outright banning metamagic rods.
ABP is indeed fairly martial friendly.
ABP is indeed fairly martial friendly.
Overly friendly. we tried it for 1 adventure path and discovered that it built far more powerful characters than any of the other Wealth/magic systems we have tried.
Overly friendly. we tried it for 1 adventure path and discovered that it built far more powerful characters than any of the other Wealth/magic systems we have tried.ABP is indeed fairly martial friendly.
Really, how so?
For most martial characters I've played it simply worked out to being how I would build/buy my character assuming easily accessible items for the big six anyways.
If anything, I had slightly less flexibility because 50% of the wealth I might have spent was now stuck with the big six items to meet the game system math. If I had class provided methods, I might have spent that money to purchase other things.
My experience is that ABP was slightly worse for martials than completely free magic item access (if you assume you had WBL at each level and basically were resetting/rebuying everything at that point).
Of course if you were starving PCs for money or didn't allow essentially unrestricted access to magic items than it would feel like a huge upgrade. But such systems heavily favor casters, in a game where casters are already stronger without any help like that.
Do you have those slots available then for other magic items? There are a lot of utility items for martials that require giving up the belt slot.
With ABP you do have those items slots available when you wouldn't otherwise.
And while that does enable some nice items you wouldn't normally have room for, I'm not sure they're enough.
Of course, at this point it's been years since I've played PF1 so I could be forgetting something.
Overly friendly. we tried it for 1 adventure path and discovered that it built far more powerful characters than any of the other Wealth/magic systems we have tried.ABP is indeed fairly martial friendly.
Really, how so?
For most martial characters I've played it simply worked out to being how I would build/buy my character assuming easily accessible items for the big six anyways.
Because before, you maxed out at around +4 for most of your weapon and armor bonuses, and you seldom had the stat bonus items at +4, much less giving bonus to all 3.
with ABP, not only do you get +5 and more to your armor and weapons, you get a full +6 to at least one stat. It then freed up plenty of cash to spend on other magic items that just compounded the power level of the characters.
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The other half of this is also playing the expectations game. It isn’t a one off situation with one class or a glitch that casters grow exponentially powerful. That was baked in from 3.5 from 2nd and from 1st edition.
By the common rules then, you got to play a full caster if that was what the die gave you during character creation, not a choice to outshine the martials of your character didn’t die before hitting the higher levels.
But also, who at each session has a problem with the party balance? Do we not like GMing games with unbalanced classes or once the PCs have the power to control more of the story?
Do players not get along at that point, do some players not have the same chances to play casters at all or the space and time to learn how to play a caster?
Solving these on a table by table basis would move the needle more precisely.
I'm happy with the discussion. It's covering the effects and what might need changing.
Overly friendly. we tried it for 1 adventure path and discovered that it built far more powerful characters than any of the other Wealth/magic systems we have tried.ABP is indeed fairly martial friendly.
Really, how so?
For most martial characters I've played it simply worked out to being how I would build/buy my character assuming easily accessible items for the big six anyways.
Because before, you maxed out at around +4 for most of your weapon and armor bonuses, and you seldom had the stat bonus items at +4, much less giving bonus to all 3.
with ABP, not only do you get +5 and more to your armor and weapons, you get a full +6 to at least one stat. It then freed up plenty of cash to spend on other magic items that just compounded the power level of the characters.
Hmmmm.....my only response to that is to say...not in the games I played in.
ABP progression is level dependent. For example you should get +5 armor at level 17, and a +5 weapon at 17 as well. Reasonably speaking you could get all the defensive bonuses that ABP would give you and stat bonuses and like +1 less on your weapon at the same time ABP would give you all that stuff.
But my group gave on actually tracking items dropped or restricting access to magical items (certain items were banned) and at every level up we essentially said "You have wealth by level, subtract the value of everything on your character that you intend to keep." Because no one wanted to role play haggling or spend time shopping (because it wastes actual people's time when they want to adventure) and we really didn't want to keep track of loot and what had been sold etc because later the GM would look at our character sheets and try to determine how close or far we were from WBL. So perhaps what I was used to, is just very different from what you were used to.
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I am the one usually running and I prefer using the ABP. My experiences are similar to Claxon.
Another way the ABP helps reduce the caster-martial disparity is that all characters get bonus to mental stats. Almost all martial classes have slow will saves and other than that have little incentive to invest in boosting mental stats. This means that getting the headband of wisdom is usually a lower priority for them. APB gives all characters bonuses to mental stats, so the most martial characters usually put the mental boost into Wisdom. The paladin about the only martial that does not, but they have good will saves and since they get CHA to all saves still end up boosting their will save. Being able to resist the attacks of the enemy is just as important as being able to attack. The fighter who fails his save vs hold person is not contributing to the party.
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ABP in general is something that I would never play without. There are some cases where you should adjust things (most prominently natural attack builds, a solution for which could be that starting at +2 ABP weapon bonus the player gets the apply the bonus 1 lower to all their NAs), but by and large it's a huge improvement to the game. It forces more rounded out characters - martials can's skip the headband, for example. And since caster need fewer big 6 items, this reduces the free money for casters more than for martials, which is good for martial/caster balance.
Second, I greatly dislike the magic mart and will not allow the simple purchase of magic items (except for some low-level potions and scrolls).
I have done the same in the current campaign I'm GMing, and it works great. As long as you use ABP, the characters have the expected power, and you can 100% control who gets which item. not only does this prevent overly min-maxed characters, you can also shift in-party balance however you like (by giving the weaker characters better items). My favourite thing is that you can give players flavorful weapons that they can use for a long time without having to worry about the legendary named sword of awesome flavorful stuff +2 being obsolete by the time they find mass produced +3 weapons.
Since the PCs don't have that many magic items thanks to ABP, and the ones they have tend to be more flashy than a numeric bonus, this has the nice effect of making magic items something special. As mentioned, there aren't any magic item shops; in my setting items are created for use and not for sale. You want a mithral breastplate, you have to find someone who has one and doesn't use it any more - say a local lord who's too old to go to war himself anymore. You don't need to do all that, of course, even on it's own ABP is awesome.
*) Well, I used a divine vision to impart a command word, and used a Familiar when its player couldn't figure out a fairly obvious method of activation. Other command words might be found written on the item, if you look closely enough and maybe succeed on a linguisitics check.
Do you have those slots available then for other magic items? There are a lot of utility items for martials that require giving up the belt slot.
Yes, it's great for items like Muleback Chords and Blinkback Belt.
I haven't really explored using ABP simply due to the lack of rules regarding how to treat animal companions, eidolons, and other companion creatures that are normally outfitted with the character's wealth to spend on them. There is simply too much table variation on how to go about it that it wasn't worth the investment.