A new paradigm for wealth by level

[Draco_Argentum]

How should I know? Why one of the rare few magic swords in your game would be a flavourless +2 item in the first place beats me.

[Username17]

1089852625[/unixtime]]How should I know? Why one of the rare few magic swords in your game would be a flavourless +2 item in the first place beats me.

And yet, the usual attempt to make things "low magic" is to decrease the number and power of magic items. This creates a double standard, where monsters and characters still have high magic and create light and fire with a snap of their fingers - and magic items are weirdly small and rare.

You just can't get excited over a +2 sword by the time your Cleric can cat plane shift. You just can't. If you want to make things low magic, you have to restructure all the character classes, and all the monsters, and the spell system, and then revamp the magic item system.

In short, D&D is locked into a high magic setting and does not function when you try to make it a low magic setting. Fundamentally, you take less than 6 seconds to cast a light spell and it's better and more reliable than a light bulb - and that's simply not low magic.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1089902735[/unixtime]]
You just can't get excited over a +2 sword by the time your Cleric can cat plane shift. You just can't.

Sure you can. A +10% to hit is a +10% to hit. If it's better than what you had before, you can certainly get excited about it. The ability for your allies to teleport to other planes doesn't really influence your ability to fight, and remember under this system you'd have lots more class abilities as a fighter.

You'd fight as well as you do now with +4 gear when you're using only masterwork, just because of your added class abilities, so having a +2 sword would be like having a +6 sword under the current system, and yeah... that is something to get excited about.

But of course, magic items would likely have some other abilities too. Some non-combat stuff, shedding light, maybe some limited forms of teleportation or divination, since you'd want magic items to feel special.

But for combat items you really can't compare them wtih non-combat abilities like plane shift. I mean you're going to think a +2 is weak, but a +5 is any good? How are you making that comparison?

You basically set the save progression so cloaks of resistance are already built in. Granted you'd have to nerf a few spells, but not many really.

As for stuff like shadows and other creatures only hurt by magical weapons, I have no problem with wizards and clerics fighting this stuff off. It's cool when you've got some creatures that you need a caster for, it encourages teamwork. However, the problem is we need more creatures you need a fighter to beat.

And basically, I'm not even advocating that we make all worlds low swag. I'm just saying that low swag should be the starting point for game balance. Otherwise you have a huge power gap between an NPC and a PC by default. A PC with PC items can't be the same CR as the same character with NPC items. It just can't. Similarly when you start having PCs as monster races, you have to add stuff like LA to compensate for the newly added magical equipment. A minotaur decked out in magical gear is a hell of a lot more of a threat, even if it doesn't have any class levels. That has to stop.

Monsters by default are balanced without magical gear, NPCs and PCs should be the same way. Mages are balanced without magical items, right now fighters are not. So long as a cleric can walk around with nothing but spell slots and suddenly have a +5 weapon, armor and shield, the system is horribly flawed. Magical gear shouldn't be mandatory crap, it should be something you find that's special and extra. That's how magical items are for clerics, and that's how they should be for fighters too.

[Username17]

A PC with PC items can't be the same CR as the same character with NPC items.

Actually it can, because in the basic system an NPC is expected to blast through charges on their equipment like there's no tomorrow, and items with charges for no good god damned reason cost less towards character wealth than items which are also going to count against your wealth at the end of the encounter. That's how the current system tries to balance it, and sometimes it even works - so it's not like it can't be done.

---

Regardless, my system actually can sustain equivalent items for PCs and NPCs for level items, because you don't get anything in the long or short run by finding a +3 sword if you already have a +3 sword. So NPCs can jolly well have equivalent gear to the PCs and the game doesn't even notice.

As for stuff like shadows and other creatures only hurt by magical weapons, I have no problem with wizards and clerics fighting this stuff off.

Then any protestations of game balance are gone. The monster manual is set up to require magic to fight nearly all of it. If the Fighter, by default, cannot compete in that arena there's no reason for him to even come to class.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I don't think that statement is entirely accurate as long as monsters who are only vulnrable to a particular class feature aren't too common, and as long as the class features required to beat them are different between them. A few incoporeal undead that must be defeated by a cleric with turning attempts and so forth is alright, as long as the next monster is immune to magic and has to be beat down by the melee monkeys, and so on.

-Desdan

[RandomCasualty]

1089928550[/unixtime]]I don't think that statement is entirely accurate as long as monsters who are only vulnrable to a particular class feature aren't too common, and as long as the class features required to beat them are different between them. A few incoporeal undead that must be defeated by a cleric with turning attempts and so forth is alright, as long as the next monster is immune to magic and has to be beat down by the melee monkeys, and so on.

Right. The real problem isn't so much the presence of stuff that requires magic to beat, but the absence of true magic defeating monsters.

[User3]

1089928550[/unixtime]]A few incoporeal undead that must be defeated by a cleric with turning attempts and so forth is alright, as long as the next monster is immune to magic and has to be beat down by the melee monkeys, and so on.

-Desdan

Except the best "melee monkeys" happens to be the "cleric with turning attempts."

[Draco_Argentum]

1089922705[/unixtime]]Sure you can. A +10% to hit is a +10% to hit. If it's better than what you had before, you can certainly get excited about it. The ability for your allies to teleport to other planes doesn't really influence your ability to fight, and remember under this system you'd have lots more class abilities as a fighter.

No you can't. Plane shift is interesting and neat. You can boast about being able to do it and pick up hot maidens. You can't even discuss +2 to hit in character properly. Sure you can say you weild a magical sword. But I could do that with or without the +2 to hit.

[Username17]

A few incoporeal undead that must be defeated by a cleric with turning attempts and so forth is alright, as long as the next monster is immune to magic and has to be beat down by the melee monkeys, and so on.

No it isn't. Having a cleric in the party is not a requirement in D&D. If this was a video game and the Cleric was scripted in, that would be fine. But as is the party healer could be a Druid, or a Bard, or even a Ranger or Paladin with god sticks in his pants.

Having a monster that can only be beaten by turning attempts is straight up bullshit - and a death sentence to many many entire parties. It would be like having a monster that can only be defeated by Bardic Song, or Woodland Stride - why the fvck would you do that?

The game must include ways for any particular party to overcome any particular CR 3 monster. So unless you rewrite the Allip so that it can be affected by non-magical weaponry, magical weaponry must be expectable equipment for low level warrior characters.

It's an entirely viable party to have a Paladin, a Ranger, and two Rogues, and if your proposal for revamping items makes such a party automatically TPKed by any of the CR 3 monsters in the monster manual, you simply aren't playing D&D anymore.

You are free to write a new game system that works with low magic and non-standardized access to magic swords, but D&D does not and can't. Get over it.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1089938550[/unixtime]]
No it isn't. Having a cleric in the party is not a requirement in D&D. If this was a video game and the Cleric was scripted in, that would be fine. But as is the party healer could be a Druid, or a Bard, or even a Ranger or Paladin with god sticks in his pants.

Having a monster that can only be beaten by turning attempts is straight up bullshit - and a death sentence to many many entire parties. It would be like having a monster that can only be defeated by Bardic Song, or Woodland Stride - why the fvck would you do that?

Well, lets see.. how about just doing the standard thing against something you can't beat, running away, sneaking past it, negotiating, etc. Just because you can't hack it up with your sword is no reason to cry. So often PCs just don't realize nowadays that there's more ways to deal with something than simply attacking it, and the DM isn't being unfair if he presents you with an encounter that you can't win through combat.

And if the DM is presenting combat as the only choice, the DM just doesn't have the party encounter the creature until they're ready. It's the same premise as not having a group of 1st level characters encounter a great wyrm. You don't force your party to combat stuff you know they can't beat. End of story.

The game must include ways for any particular party to overcome any particular CR 3 monster.

Why? Monsters tend to have achilles heels, they aren't as well balanced as a PC. It's possible they may have strengths making them invulnerable against certain PCs or classes that aren't properly equipped. But the DM handles this. If the DM hasn't given you a magic sword yet, then obviously he isn't going to put you against something that requires one, unless he wants you to retreat.

I fail to see the problem here... at all.

As of right now, encoutnering a 7th level wizard with improved invis, fly and a wand of lightning bolts is a death sentence for a party of fighters. CR is already relative.

[Username17]

As of right now, encoutnering a 7th level wizard with improved invis, fly and a wand of lightning bolts is a death sentence for a party of fighters. CR is already relative.

Statements like this make us take away your D&D license. Lightning Bolt? The spell that when cast from the air hits one or two of the Fighters for 17.5 points of damage (Reflex for half, DC 14), and reveals your position when used?



Seriously, Invisibility is just a 50% miss chance if they know what square you are in, and archers can ready actions for you to activate the wand. So, um, four fighters get a single ranged attack with a +1 Composite Bow, and one or two of them hit each round. Each bow hit strikes for d8 + 1 + Strength Mod damage. So um... the Fighters hit the Wizard for nearly as much damage as the Wizard inflicts each round, and have more hit points not just collectively, but individually.

So it's a toss up whether this Wizard ambush would take out any of the Fighters before they took him down.

BFD.

Wizards can be in a situation where they auto-kill fighters, but not like that. Try something a bit more involved like Planar Bindig cheeze or silent dominates from invis.

-Username17

[canamrock]

A flying invisible wizard would be far more dangerous using illusions and summoning spells to harry a party, anyhow, since they don't make invisibility fail.

[User3]

1088538168[/unixtime]]You could change the way things worked so that adventures took place a long time apart, and assume that characters are adventuring, exploring, and otherwise accomplishing things between times even while not being followed by the camera.

I think this is a really neat idea: breaking the campaign up into a lot of different episodes that each stand alone (like Conan) instead of one long contining quest (like Lord of the Rings).

This would be a good way to play if you want to have the characters go through low, medium, and high levels, but don't have the time to commit going all the way from 1-20. You could start out at levels 1-2, then skip ahead to level 6 when the characters are becoming heros of the land, and then when that adventure is through the next episode starts the characters at level 12, when they are seizing control of the kingdom.

How crazy would it get if start mixing up the chronology of the episodes?